The reason they have all that money is that they're not in the habit of handing it out to slobs like you and me.
According to Forbes, IBM made $1 billion on Linux servers in 2003. Hewlett Packard made $2.5 billion. That's billion with a "b".
$1 billion is a lot of money. Is it going to Free Software developers? I dunno. I keep seeing Free Software projects hustling for nickels and dimes from you and me. Developers like Tom Lord have to go begging for cash to pay their phone bills while the
Of course, IBM and other big players don't have to pay back the community making the software they're making billions off of with money. They could kick in some code instead. OS/2 would be a welcome piece of Open Source software; the Lotus Office Suite would help too. IBM has a whole hell of a lot of software that would help out a lot.
I dunno. I guess I'm not all that thrilled to see Fortune 500 companies make tons of cash off of Free Software while the developers of that software go begging. It just seems a little backwards.
Considering that the Mozilla org is being quite stingy with the Firefox trademark -- you're not supposed to use the icons or name except for the "official" builds -- this is actually really useful.
It's come up as an issue with the Debian package for Firefox.
It's a matter of choices. Is anybody going to drop out of school just so they don't have to use Office documents? That's pretty absurd, really. But they could, is my point.
It's just like anything you do because you believe in it: what are you willing to tradeoff for your beliefs?
You're never chained down to use non-free software. You just have to figure out what level of effort you're willing to make to break your chains.
Deal with the less-than-perfect conversion of OpenOffice documents into and out of Microsoft Office form. This is, at the moment, pretty darn good -- comparable to if not better than proprietary non-Microsoft office suites.
Talk your professors into accepting open-format documents.
Talk your professors into giving out open-format documents.
Get your department to make a policy allowing open-format documents for any assignment.
Get your department to make a policy requiring open-format documents from professors.
Get your university to do the same.
Transfer to another university.
OK, that last one is pretty extreme, but it's not like you don't have any choices. The first one is relatively easier, and each successive one makes things easier for more and more other students, too.
What I'm wondering is: why aren't computer programmers organizing their programming shops to have some more collective bargaining power to prevent offshoring? Sure, we should have done it during the dot-com boom, but it's not too late.
The guy on the auto factory assembly line who sprays the new car smell on the upholstery has a better chance of keeping his job stateside than a C++ programmer with 20 years of experience. Why is that? Unions. Why don't we have one?
Is it some kind of private fork of GCJ? Or does it work like Kaffe? I'm confused.
I guess you could reverse-engineer kissme or SableVM, if you had to... but why bother making or using a proprietary JVM, when there are so many good (and improving!) free ones?
I don't think a proprietary plugin for a W3C standard is really a good answer for this problem. Mozilla has the XML and display infrastructure to make SVG work. It just needs to be diddled a bit to work with free desktop libraries.
I was hoping from the article name that this was going to be about a great Open Content digital photo archive, like PDPhoto, OpenPhoto, or all the great stuff at the Internet Archive or Common Content.
Instead it's about somebody else's photos I can't use. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
It's really time for people to be using and promoting Open Hardware. With projects like Open Hardware and Open Cores available, why would anyone ever use hardware that works against their own best interest?
OpenCores has a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) called the OpenRisc 1200 that runs Linux and uClinux. It was demoed in December at the Freedom Technology Center.
So, 2004 isn't the year of Linux. 1996 was the year of Linux. It's been just refinement ever since.
I'm completely bamboozled as to why this matters at all. Macromedia is _finally_ jumping on the Linux bandwagon? Gosh, BOLD MOVE THERE. Takes a real VISIONARY COMPANY to start thinking about porting their stuff to Linux in 2004. That's FORWARD THINKING for you.
Why should we care if anyone ports their stupid proprietary software to Linux, anyways? They invariably mess it up. And it's not Free. And it's just stupid Flash, anyways.
Much more interesting would be to see good SVG and SMIL support -- both of which are W3 recs, not proprietary hoohaw -- built into Mozilla. We've already got great SVG tools like Sodipodi -- a good SMIL editor would put us over the top.
So, in conclusion: proprietary software developer is cautiously considering doing an inept unsupported port of their closed platform to Linux. No big whup.
I actually liked one of the points that the guy brought up, namely: there's a pattern of exploitation that happens in modern (2004) Free Software.
There's a lot of companies using Free Software, making money from Free Software, who aren't contributing proportionally back to the movement. Apple is a great example, IBM, Sun... all folks who are happy to encourage Free Software if it's coming in their way, but not so crazy about releasing their own stuff (or patents, or whatever) as Free Software.
So we've got an economy that's supported on the backs of 15- to 25-year-olds, making older and richer people richer yet again.
I mean, we keep hearing about investments in Free Software, but where is that money? In Oracle advertisements? IBM spray-paint campaigns? How about supporting some Free Software writers instead?
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the ideals and ideas behind Free Software. Sharing and freedom are important -- more important than money. But some of the folks who are rakin' in the bucks based on teenagers' unpaid work, without paying anything forward... they should be ashamed of themselves.
The URL for cscvs, for those who are wondering, is http://wiki.gnuarch.org/moin.cgi/cscvs . You need to have GNU arch access to download the source code.
However, if I were in his shoes, I'd prefer being the civil rights hero we're making him, rather than an anonymous "Russian hacker" "taken down" by the ever-alert FBI, with the help of concerned citizen Adobe Systems, Inc.
The chances of his being released from custody as a "cyberterrorist" (or whatever they'd brand him) are practically nil. As a hero, he at least has a fighting chance.
Slashdot Mirror
ITYM "more-expensive-THAN-...", not "more-expensive-THEN-...".
The reason they have all that money is that they're not in the habit of handing it out to slobs like you and me.
According to Forbes, IBM made $1 billion on Linux servers in 2003. Hewlett Packard made $2.5 billion. That's billion with a "b".
$1 billion is a lot of money. Is it going to Free Software developers? I dunno. I keep seeing Free Software projects hustling for nickels and dimes from you and me. Developers like Tom Lord have to go begging for cash to pay their phone bills while the
Of course, IBM and other big players don't have to pay back the community making the software they're making billions off of with money. They could kick in some code instead. OS/2 would be a welcome piece of Open Source software; the Lotus Office Suite would help too. IBM has a whole hell of a lot of software that would help out a lot.
I dunno. I guess I'm not all that thrilled to see Fortune 500 companies make tons of cash off of Free Software while the developers of that software go begging. It just seems a little backwards.
Considering that the Mozilla org is being quite stingy with the Firefox trademark -- you're not supposed to use the icons or name except for the "official" builds -- this is actually really useful.
It's come up as an issue with the Debian package for Firefox.
It's a matter of choices. Is anybody going to drop out of school just so they don't have to use Office documents? That's pretty absurd, really. But they could, is my point.
It's just like anything you do because you believe in it: what are you willing to tradeoff for your beliefs?
OK, that last one is pretty extreme, but it's not like you don't have any choices. The first one is relatively easier, and each successive one makes things easier for more and more other students, too.
What I'm wondering is: why aren't computer programmers organizing their programming shops to have some more collective bargaining power to prevent offshoring? Sure, we should have done it during the dot-com boom, but it's not too late.
The guy on the auto factory assembly line who sprays the new car smell on the upholstery has a better chance of keeping his job stateside than a C++ programmer with 20 years of experience. Why is that? Unions. Why don't we have one?
Is it some kind of private fork of GCJ? Or does it work like Kaffe?
I'm confused.
I guess you could reverse-engineer kissme or SableVM, if you had to... but why bother making or using a proprietary JVM, when there are so many good (and improving!) free ones?
I don't think a proprietary plugin for a W3C standard is really a good answer for this problem. Mozilla has the XML and display infrastructure to make SVG work. It just needs to be diddled a bit to work with free desktop libraries.
So, one bummer about SVG is that you can't have it enabled in Mozilla and, say, Gnome at the same time.
Mozilla uses a hacked-up libsvg that interferes with other programs. So, SVG is turned off in Debian Mozilla packages, for instance.
You may also know me from such interviews as the Solex vs. the Pigdog and GNUisance.
I'm here to talk to you about three special letters: DEE. ENN. AY.
Yeah, except it's an exact copy of a Pigdog Journal article by yours truly.
I mean, we've got the OpenBIOS project, Linux BIOS, and FreeBIOS.
Isn't it time to cut out the last bits of non-free software in the computer?
I was hoping from the article name that this was going to be about a great Open Content digital photo archive, like PDPhoto, OpenPhoto, or all the great stuff at the Internet Archive or Common Content.
Instead it's about somebody else's photos I can't use. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
It's really time for people to be using and promoting Open Hardware. With projects like Open Hardware and Open Cores available, why would anyone ever use hardware that works against their own best interest?
OpenCores has a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) called the OpenRisc 1200 that runs Linux and uClinux. It was demoed in December at the Freedom Technology Center.
The Calculus book at Wikibooks is another Free (as in freedom) calculus book. It's well-written, if incomplete.
The TastyWiki is a Wiki recipe site.
So, 2004 isn't the year of Linux. 1996 was the year of Linux. It's been just refinement ever since.
I'm completely bamboozled as to why this matters at all. Macromedia is _finally_ jumping on the Linux bandwagon? Gosh, BOLD MOVE THERE. Takes a real VISIONARY COMPANY to start thinking about porting their stuff to Linux in 2004. That's FORWARD THINKING for you.
Why should we care if anyone ports their stupid proprietary software to Linux, anyways? They invariably mess it up. And it's not Free. And it's just stupid Flash, anyways.
Much more interesting would be to see good SVG and SMIL support -- both of which are W3 recs, not proprietary hoohaw -- built into Mozilla. We've already got great SVG tools like Sodipodi -- a good SMIL editor would put us over the top.
So, in conclusion: proprietary software developer is cautiously considering doing an inept unsupported port of their closed platform to Linux. No big whup.
~Mr. Bad
I actually liked one of the points that the guy brought up, namely: there's a pattern of exploitation that happens in modern (2004) Free Software.
There's a lot of companies using Free Software, making money from Free Software, who aren't contributing proportionally back to the movement. Apple is a great example, IBM, Sun... all folks who are happy to encourage Free Software if it's coming in their way, but not so crazy about releasing their own stuff (or patents, or whatever) as Free Software.
So we've got an economy that's supported on the backs of 15- to 25-year-olds, making older and richer people richer yet again.
I mean, we keep hearing about investments in Free Software, but where is that money? In Oracle advertisements? IBM spray-paint campaigns? How about supporting some Free Software writers instead?
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the ideals and ideas behind Free Software. Sharing and freedom are important -- more important than money. But some of the folks who are rakin' in the bucks based on teenagers' unpaid work, without paying anything forward... they should be ashamed of themselves.
The URL for cscvs, for those who are wondering, is http://wiki.gnuarch.org/moin.cgi/cscvs . You need to have GNU arch access to download the source code.
It would probably be nice to change the title of this article to use the correct spelling of Seth's last name ("Schoen", not "Shoen").
Hmm. Maybe your dict works differently than mine. Mine gives several definitions for orientate.
That said, "Free Software-oriented projects" is probably the best spelling.
Thanks, cap. I appreciate your support.
"sites", not "sights".
"Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's." So, the title should say "DeCSS's", not "DeCSS'".
Also, unless this is about a misplaced variable declaration, it should probably be in the "hanging-in-the-balance" department.
I doubt he feels really good about it.
However, if I were in his shoes, I'd prefer being the civil rights hero we're making him, rather than an anonymous "Russian hacker" "taken down" by the ever-alert FBI, with the help of concerned citizen Adobe Systems, Inc.
The chances of his being released from custody as a "cyberterrorist" (or whatever they'd brand him) are practically nil. As a hero, he at least has a fighting chance.