After all, who's to say GPLv4 won't say "you must release any changes back to the community whether you distribute or not" ?
Copyright law is what gives the GPL teeth. Copyright law says that you can't distribute at all without permission. The GPL says you can distribute as long as you meet certain criteria.
Now do you understand why the GPL can't place requirements on people who don't distribute?
really now how long is sony going to hang on to the dual shock disgn
Sony managed to design a great controller early on. Why change it if they can't improve on it?
In my opinion, it's the best controller design out there. It's comfortable to hold, none of the buttons are awkward to hit, and I can play it for hours without getting cramps or stiffness in my hands. I can't say that about any other controller (especially the 360 controller...something about it makes my left hand hurt after an hour or so of play).
Did this happen in the last 10 years or so? A little over 10 years ago I met a fellow from Egypt who was in his early 20s and had (or so he claimed) three wives and was looking for a fourth.
Talk to the people who make and enforce the corporate desktop standard. Show them why you prefer Firefox and, if support is their issue, explain how you won't be burdening their support infrastructure with Firefox issues since you're perfectly capable of supporting Firefox yourself (even if that's not true, the internet community is more than capable of supporting you if you make the effort).
If you can do it without coming across as an asshole, it's possible they'll give you some consideration. Best case is that they'll solicit your opinion next time they adjust the desktop configuration.
If the original author's agenda comes into conflict with the desires of the community, then forking of the project by someone sympathetic to the desires of the community is the appropriate response.
There's nothing unethical about it.
But it's considered leeching and impolite if the original author did the majority of the work and you did nothing but you wanted to be a glory seeker and start up your own project based on the work of someone else. Just because a license gives you the option it does not necessarily make it ethical.
Regardless of the motivations of the forking devlopers, if the fork doesn't offer anything to the community, then it is ignored and no harm is done. If it does offer value to the community, then the community will shift to the fork or the original project will include ideas from the fork.
That's the way it's supposed to work.
Whether or not the forking developers are assholes about it has nothing to do with ethics, that's etiquette.
Legally, I suppose it would be within your right to create a fork under GPL2 but ethically and morally it would be stealing since the original copyright holder (Michael R Sweet) was the main contributor and any other patch contributors assigned rights to him before they were included in the repository. You would basically be carrying out a coupe and violating the spirit of the license if not the letter of it by taking something none of you owned and creating a fork of it.
Bullshit. Taking the GPL2 codebase and forking it (still under the GPL2 since only the copyright owner can change the licensing) wouldn't be stealing at all. When CUPS was licensed under the GPL, the owner was declaring to the world that anyone is allowed to take the code and, within the rights granted by the GPL, do whatever they want with it. This includes forking.
Seriously, if the project hadn't been GPL'd in the first place, do you think it would have received such broad support from the community and gotten where it is today functionality-wise?
The guidelines are pretty simple, but highly subjective.
Here are your options: A. flat file B. key-indexed (berkley db, dbm, gdbm) C. feature/config light db (sqlite) D. feature/config heavy db (postgrsql, oracle)
* Use A for configuration * Use A if you have a small amount of data and can slurp it all into memory. * Use B if you only access data via a known unique value and never compare records. * Never use either A or B if the data is shared between processes unless file locking is okay.
For anything else, use C or D. If you've got a lot of familiarity with D, sometimes it's easier to use D than C, even if D seems like overkill. My recommendation is to get familiar with C and then worry about D once you understand the limitations of C. It'll help you appreciate what D gives you when you're ready for it.
However, even for languages that have an unfortunate amount of code overhead, 132 columns should be the limit (the number of columns you get when printing landscape). Anything more than that, and you can't print a usable hard copy without shrinking the font.
It's still a good idea to limit code to 72 columns.
If you ever need to print it, adding line numbers to the hard copy won't cause ugly wrapping (most important if you're printing landscape with 2 columns (i.e. enscript -CGr2 -E source.foo)).
Pray tell, what arcane config files are you required to hand-edit during installation?
The only arcane config files I can think of are xorg.conf (no longer required unless you're doing something strange or require multiple monitors) and sendmail.conf (not required for a desktop).
Uh, would you believe that in the 13 years since that book was written, many of its complaints have been addressed?
Many of the complaints that remain are philosophical differences between the UNIX way of doing things and the big iron way of doing things. Hardly applicable to the desktop.
Or is it the goal of the Internet as a whole to give me gray hair before 30?
You're confusing internet Linux speculation with having children.
That said, 2007 was the first year that I saw both Windows and OSX users switch to Linux. Will people switch in droves in 2008? Probably not, but Linux will continue to make conversions.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess it depends on how much money they were paid to sign the agreement. Was that ever made public?
After all, who's to say GPLv4 won't say "you must release any changes back to the community whether you distribute or not" ?
Copyright law is what gives the GPL teeth. Copyright law says that you can't distribute at all without permission. The GPL says you can distribute as long as you meet certain criteria.
Now do you understand why the GPL can't place requirements on people who don't distribute?
really now how long is sony going to hang on to the dual shock disgn
Sony managed to design a great controller early on. Why change it if they can't improve on it?
In my opinion, it's the best controller design out there. It's comfortable to hold, none of the buttons are awkward to hit, and I can play it for hours without getting cramps or stiffness in my hands. I can't say that about any other controller (especially the 360 controller...something about it makes my left hand hurt after an hour or so of play).
Polygamy has vanished in Egypt
Did this happen in the last 10 years or so? A little over 10 years ago I met a fellow from Egypt who was in his early 20s and had (or so he claimed) three wives and was looking for a fourth.
That's fine with me. As long as my client and their server can play nicely, I don't care what their server is.
If they don't tell me what to use, I won't tell them what to use.
Talk to the people who make and enforce the corporate desktop standard. Show them why you prefer Firefox and, if support is their issue, explain how you won't be burdening their support infrastructure with Firefox issues since you're perfectly capable of supporting Firefox yourself (even if that's not true, the internet community is more than capable of supporting you if you make the effort).
If you can do it without coming across as an asshole, it's possible they'll give you some consideration. Best case is that they'll solicit your opinion next time they adjust the desktop configuration.
If the original author's agenda comes into conflict with the desires of the community, then forking of the project by someone sympathetic to the desires of the community is the appropriate response.
There's nothing unethical about it.
But it's considered leeching and impolite if the original author did the majority of the work and you did nothing but you wanted to be a glory seeker and start up your own project based on the work of someone else. Just because a license gives you the option it does not necessarily make it ethical.
Regardless of the motivations of the forking devlopers, if the fork doesn't offer anything to the community, then it is ignored and no harm is done. If it does offer value to the community, then the community will shift to the fork or the original project will include ideas from the fork.
That's the way it's supposed to work.
Whether or not the forking developers are assholes about it has nothing to do with ethics, that's etiquette.
Legally, I suppose it would be within your right to create a fork under GPL2 but ethically and morally it would be stealing since the original copyright holder (Michael R Sweet) was the main contributor and any other patch contributors assigned rights to him before they were included in the repository. You would basically be carrying out a coupe and violating the spirit of the license if not the letter of it by taking something none of you owned and creating a fork of it.
Bullshit. Taking the GPL2 codebase and forking it (still under the GPL2 since only the copyright owner can change the licensing) wouldn't be stealing at all. When CUPS was licensed under the GPL, the owner was declaring to the world that anyone is allowed to take the code and, within the rights granted by the GPL, do whatever they want with it. This includes forking.
Seriously, if the project hadn't been GPL'd in the first place, do you think it would have received such broad support from the community and gotten where it is today functionality-wise?
I think you may be confusing confidence with arrogance.
It is a fine line to draw.
The guidelines are pretty simple, but highly subjective.
Here are your options:
A. flat file
B. key-indexed (berkley db, dbm, gdbm)
C. feature/config light db (sqlite)
D. feature/config heavy db (postgrsql, oracle)
* Use A for configuration
* Use A if you have a small amount of data and can slurp it all into memory.
* Use B if you only access data via a known unique value and never compare records.
* Never use either A or B if the data is shared between processes unless file locking is okay.
For anything else, use C or D. If you've got a lot of familiarity with D, sometimes it's easier to use D than C, even if D seems like overkill. My recommendation is to get familiar with C and then worry about D once you understand the limitations of C. It'll help you appreciate what D gives you when you're ready for it.
Don't look now, but you just did it too.
What did they break?
Unless I missed something, everything they added is an optional replacement to what was already there. Don't use the new stuff if you don't want it.
Sure, but how many of those 0.001% of the Linux users that this matters to actually read Slashdot? Probably more than you realize.
I, for one, haven't used a distro kernel (discounting LiveCDs) for 4+ years now. I love the discussion on Slashdot whenever a new kernel is released.
Now I'm intrigued. From the perspective of someone who writes LISP code, what are the faults of the modern *nix platform?
I'm curious how your language preference would make a difference on how you evaluate the system.
Sounds like you should take a look at Knuth's CWEB.
It's a cross between coding and writing a LaTeX document.
Perhaps the issue is with those languages then.
However, even for languages that have an unfortunate amount of code overhead,
132 columns should be the limit (the number of columns you get when printing
landscape). Anything more than that, and you can't print a usable hard copy
without shrinking the font.
It's still a good idea to limit code to 72 columns.
If you ever need to print it, adding line numbers to the hard copy
won't cause ugly wrapping (most important if you're printing landscape
with 2 columns (i.e. enscript -CGr2 -E source.foo)).
If certain distros get bloated, just switch to something like Debian or Gentoo where you have complete control over the bloat.
No need to leave Linux entirely unless you actually want to.
Pray tell, what arcane config files are you required to hand-edit during installation?
The only arcane config files I can think of are xorg.conf (no longer required unless you're doing something strange or require multiple monitors) and sendmail.conf (not required for a desktop).
So, does anyone have numbers on how the Dell Ubuntu systems are selling?
Uh, would you believe that in the 13 years since that book was written, many of its complaints have been addressed?
Many of the complaints that remain are philosophical differences between the UNIX way of doing things and the big iron way of doing things. Hardly applicable to the desktop.
Or is it the goal of the Internet as a whole to give me gray hair before 30?
You're confusing internet Linux speculation with having children.
That said, 2007 was the first year that I saw both Windows and OSX users switch to Linux. Will people switch in droves in 2008? Probably not, but Linux will continue to make conversions.
When did IBM stop showing their Linux ads?
How recently have you tried Linux?
Things have improved dramatically in the last couple of years.
Doesn't it backup automatically when you sync it with iTunes?