"Ease of use" (also "user-friendliness") should not be confused with "short learning curve" or "newbie-friendliness". FreeBSD is extremely easy for me to use, as an experienced user, and that is currently FreeBSD's largest target audience. Moreso for OpenBSD, which gets many "too hard to install" and similar complaints. It is easy to install when you know what you're doing. Making it more intuitive to newcomers to Unix-like OSes is not a priority for them, because it is written for and by hackers/professionals, and a very large userbase would overwhelm the small development team anyhow.
Your other two points do seem to be true. Linux in my experience has in general been reliable for a long time, and a wider variety of hardware (especially niche hardware like particular laptop support, etc). It should be noted that although FreeBSD's security team only publically commits to a year's worth of updates, older versions than this are normally updated when they are affected. It is also relatively simple to upgrade FreeBSD. This definitely does not compare with the commitment of support for other commercial Unix OSes (Solaris, AIX, etc) however.
Solaris source code is already widely available, just not legally for most people. You can bet that anyone with serious interest in exploiting flaws in Solaris already has the source.
The typical introverted geek usually keeps few close friends and is not highly social, and avoids unnecessary physical conflict. This same nature extends to choice of sport. Seclusive sports such as rock climbing, kayaking, bicycling are easy choices for people with this sort of personality, as they can be practiced alone, or with a close friend or two. When done together, these are often cooperative sports rather than competitive.
This is not to say that all geeks are this way, or that geeks that are are afraid of other sports, but that a noticable number of geeks find solitary sports more comfortable.
That sounds like a problem with your company's snotty IT people, not "IT people" in general. It's not like we're gathering each month in Fred's basement with hoods and cloaks donned, ready to present our new IT strategies for defeating the users. I've never met your IT people; don't toss us all in the same basket of jerks.
At our (very large) company we have a single username for each employee, used for virtually every access point requiring authentication. We have about 3 levels of security: a short, user-chosen password for light security on some web apps (shared with all of them); a monthly-changing password for desktop computer access, email, desktop apps, etc; SecurID for remote system authentication.
That's pretty much it. Any other apps using other passwords are usually the fault of a developer who either thought their app was special enough to make users memorize more crap, or was unaware of how to tie it into the existing systems. That is usually taken care of when the app gets popular enough for users to complain.
When my passphrase gets out and can be downloaded free for public exploitation on the internet, I can change it to something else. When my fingerprint data is freely downloadable, I am fucked, and that bit of biometric security becomes permanently useless.
Biometric security has some benefits for physical access to secure areas (and even there has many obvious weaknesses), but is not a good solution for remote access, such as reading your email or logging in to a system.
We are the Clear Channel Shufflin' Crew Shufflin' 5 songs, doin' it for you We're so bad we think it's good Blowin' your mind like we knew we would You know we're not repeatin' for fun Recyclin' our stuff for everyone 'Cause we're not here to play good music We're makin' money, get used to it
In a program with multiple contributors, there are multiple copyright holders, unless they have legally signed their contributions over to another party.
You're right that we don't have to worry about Free/Net/Open/Dragonfly BSD suddenly turning evil and closing their source.
But just remember that the FSF, Richard Stallman, Gnu Developers, and Linus Torvalds don't even have the option of suddenly turning evil and closing their source.
Everyone mentioned above has the same option of closing their source. You can't take away the previously-existing software in either case. The difference is that anyone can closed-source-distribute the BSD-licensed software, while only the original copyright holder can closed-source-distribute the GPL-licensed software.
Haha. That's absurd. Making up a loose analogy to fit your world view doesn't make it true.
BSD-licensed code is still free, and its liberty is preserved. If someone takes the code and builds their own private codebase upon it, they haven't removed the original code, they've simply expanded upon it and chosen not to share their modifications for whatever reason. This is their choice, they are not obligated to give back; and the contributor of the original code agrees that this is OK, hence the choice of license. The same third party can also contribute improvements back. That's freedom!
Choosing a GPL license because you believe your contribution for others' benefit warrants reciprocation is not the opposite of the above, it is simply another manifestation of freedom. You choose to use your license, the user of your code chooses to accept it. No natives, no woods, no silly open-ended analogies.
Slashdot Mirror
"Ease of use" (also "user-friendliness") should not be confused with "short learning curve" or "newbie-friendliness". FreeBSD is extremely easy for me to use, as an experienced user, and that is currently FreeBSD's largest target audience. Moreso for OpenBSD, which gets many "too hard to install" and similar complaints. It is easy to install when you know what you're doing. Making it more intuitive to newcomers to Unix-like OSes is not a priority for them, because it is written for and by hackers/professionals, and a very large userbase would overwhelm the small development team anyhow.
Your other two points do seem to be true. Linux in my experience has in general been reliable for a long time, and a wider variety of hardware (especially niche hardware like particular laptop support, etc). It should be noted that although FreeBSD's security team only publically commits to a year's worth of updates, older versions than this are normally updated when they are affected. It is also relatively simple to upgrade FreeBSD. This definitely does not compare with the commitment of support for other commercial Unix OSes (Solaris, AIX, etc) however.
Solaris source code is already widely available, just not legally for most people. You can bet that anyone with serious interest in exploiting flaws in Solaris already has the source.
The FSF has been covering their/our asses on this kind of stuff for years.
I would'a double-bagged it.
They're pressed against the bottom of the line for your viewing pleasure.
The typical introverted geek usually keeps few close friends and is not highly social, and avoids unnecessary physical conflict. This same nature extends to choice of sport. Seclusive sports such as rock climbing, kayaking, bicycling are easy choices for people with this sort of personality, as they can be practiced alone, or with a close friend or two. When done together, these are often cooperative sports rather than competitive.
This is not to say that all geeks are this way, or that geeks that are are afraid of other sports, but that a noticable number of geeks find solitary sports more comfortable.
It's not. Sun didn't GPL all of Solaris. Jonathan Schwartz mused, "Maybe we'll GPL it." Then it got posted on Slashdot.
Let's face it, computers are for sissies. Electrical engineering is where it is at.
Off to console him.
I had to read that 3 times before I could get it to mean "comfort" and not "root tty". Time for a break...
That sounds like a problem with your company's snotty IT people, not "IT people" in general. It's not like we're gathering each month in Fred's basement with hoods and cloaks donned, ready to present our new IT strategies for defeating the users. I've never met your IT people; don't toss us all in the same basket of jerks.
At our (very large) company we have a single username for each employee, used for virtually every access point requiring authentication. We have about 3 levels of security: a short, user-chosen password for light security on some web apps (shared with all of them); a monthly-changing password for desktop computer access, email, desktop apps, etc; SecurID for remote system authentication.
That's pretty much it. Any other apps using other passwords are usually the fault of a developer who either thought their app was special enough to make users memorize more crap, or was unaware of how to tie it into the existing systems. That is usually taken care of when the app gets popular enough for users to complain.
When my passphrase gets out and can be downloaded free for public exploitation on the internet, I can change it to something else. When my fingerprint data is freely downloadable, I am fucked, and that bit of biometric security becomes permanently useless.
Biometric security has some benefits for physical access to secure areas (and even there has many obvious weaknesses), but is not a good solution for remote access, such as reading your email or logging in to a system.
God, it's like one of those never-ending levels in Super Mario Bros. Maybe there's some cosmic pipe we can squat down into to get out.
We are the Clear Channel Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' 5 songs, doin' it for you
We're so bad we think it's good
Blowin' your mind like we knew we would
You know we're not repeatin' for fun
Recyclin' our stuff for everyone
'Cause we're not here to play good music
We're makin' money, get used to it
I said the original copyright holder. :)
In a program with multiple contributors, there are multiple copyright holders, unless they have legally signed their contributions over to another party.
You're right that we don't have to worry about Free/Net/Open/Dragonfly BSD suddenly turning evil and closing their source.
But just remember that the FSF, Richard Stallman, Gnu Developers, and Linus Torvalds don't even have the option of suddenly turning evil and closing their source.
Everyone mentioned above has the same option of closing their source. You can't take away the previously-existing software in either case. The difference is that anyone can closed-source-distribute the BSD-licensed software, while only the original copyright holder can closed-source-distribute the GPL-licensed software.
No, no, this is entirely different. Microsoft is using <code> tags.
Accusations of Taint are undoubtedly going to spring up from this
Yeah. I got a 4-inch taint.
(Fuck yeah that wide!)
Seems like it would be easier to just say what happened instead of recursively complicating the analogy.
Pigeons. Pigeons. Don't drink and post, folks.
And what happens when the Martian pidgeons poo on the chart? What then? Remove it with the poo arm?
Haha. That's absurd. Making up a loose analogy to fit your world view doesn't make it true.
BSD-licensed code is still free, and its liberty is preserved. If someone takes the code and builds their own private codebase upon it, they haven't removed the original code, they've simply expanded upon it and chosen not to share their modifications for whatever reason. This is their choice, they are not obligated to give back; and the contributor of the original code agrees that this is OK, hence the choice of license. The same third party can also contribute improvements back. That's freedom!
Choosing a GPL license because you believe your contribution for others' benefit warrants reciprocation is not the opposite of the above, it is simply another manifestation of freedom. You choose to use your license, the user of your code chooses to accept it. No natives, no woods, no silly open-ended analogies.
BSD is free like this.
GPL is free like this.
It's MySQL.
That's a lie. Thanks to the Internet I see tits all the time.
Microsoft could crush Linux forever tomorrow... If they released Windows complete with source under the GPL. Won't ever happen.
Eh... maybe on the desktop. Not in the server arena. Certainly not in the Unix world.
That's silly. Who's they? People who worry about TCO have admins for their systems.