Automatix (the software to install programs - right?)
Automatix is absolutely not the "software to install programs" on Ubuntu. The software to install programs on Ubuntu systems is called Synaptic. Automatix is a third party tool that corrupts Ubuntu systems so they won't upgrade properly.
Not until: 1. Hardware vendors support it. 2. Software vendors develop for it, AND support it! 3. Documentation becomes centralized.
Linux will become ready for your desktop the minute you accept what is rather than demanding things that aren't needed.
Hardware that works perfectly with Linux is widely available.
Software to accomplish the majority of relevant tasks is available and mature. If your job consists of operating a specific computer program you may have trouble with this, but if your goal is to accomplish some externally meaningful goal ("design a web page" or "prepare your taxes") rather than ("run Autocad v.3.2.71") then you can accomplish that goal using existing software under Linux.
As for "documentation becomes centralized", that's utterly beside the point. Microsoft, as a single company that controls an OS and most of the associated software stack, happens to organize their documentation in a specific way. The documentation for a software stack that is developed in a decentralized fashion happens to be organized differently. In practice, this isn't a problem. There's no need to invent problems for yourself just because you can.
That's a somewhat more difficult goal, and not one that I'm really interested in attempting here. We'd have to get into references and all kinds of other stuff that really isn't worth it for a Slashdot flamewar.
They got a huge amount of credit, for the work they did. They just didn't get their name in lights... because they refused to do the work required for that. Then they complained and wanted more recognition than anyone else got who'd done the same amount of work as they had (like Perl or Xorg etc.)... this created a "slight" backlash by people who actually know what happened.
The only credit that they didn't get is the specific credit they claim they deserved: The use of their name for the operating system they wrote. People argue three positions on this:
The GNU System is an OS developed by the GNU project, therefore it would be polite to refer to it by its name. (the RMS position)
The GNU System is an OS developed by the GNU project, but people who redistribute it can call it whatever they want. (the jerk position)
The idea of "the GNU system" is foolish. The GNU project just wrote some tools. Operating System is just another word for Kernel anyway. (the Linus position)
My question to you is this: Are you arguing position #2 or position #3?
Position #2 is 100% valid (but RMS gets to keep complaining that you're being a jerk). Position #3 is worthy of argument, but position #2 is not an argument in support of it.
Up to this day, on the other hand, my laptop won't wake up after being suspended under Ubuntu and must be rebooted.
Like the sticker says, your laptop was Designed for Microsoft Windows. The fact that Ubuntu boots on it is neat, and potentially even useful, but you can't expect the same level of hardware support that you get with the operating system that your hardware was designed for.
No operating system will *ever* be able to support every piece of hardware in the world perfectly. If you were evaluating Solaris, Mac OS X, or QNX you wouldn't even consider installing it on some random computer to test it. There are hardware platforms designed to run Ubuntu - that's where Ubuntu should be evaluated. If (as in the case of this article) one of those hardware platforms itself has issues, they should be reported as bugs - and the comment should be "I tested a Dell Ubuntu laptop, and Dell hadn't properly installed the hardware support utilities" or whatever.
Windows doesn't include a touchpad configuration tool by default either. For a pre-installed computer, the OEM is expected to install hardware drivers and utilities. This is a configuration issue with Dell's laptop - blaming it on Ubuntu is absurd.
His issue was that the touch pad was sensitive, and Ubuntu gave him no way to adjust it. A windows install would have provided a fairly intuitive way for the end user to adjust touchpad sensitivity/function.
Oh, really?
I've had mixed results on that in practice. Some OEMs install special touchpad drivers. Others don't. Some touchpad drivers involve a tray icon. Others hide themselves some random place among the various control panels.
This is really a Dell configuration issue - they should have included a touchpad sensitivity tool in the System--Preferences menu. They didn't think of it. If someone reports the bug to them, they'll likely fix it in their next install image. But let's not confuse OEM configuration with OS flaws.
The GNU/Linux thing was kind of retarded given that Linux distributions feature code from a lot of different licenses, and GNU is the only one that's mentioned?
Let's at least get RMS's position right: The GNU project was founded in 1984 to create a free operating system. In 1991, they were almost completely finished - they had written every essential component of a Unix-like operating system except for a kernel. Linus came along, wrote the Linux kernel, combined it with the almost-complete GNU system, and called the whole thing Linux. The GNU people were rightly upset that they were getting no credit for their work (to build a complete Unix-like OS).
The counter argument from Linus is that the term "Operating System" means "kernel", and that anything outside the kernel is just "userspace tools". That's a difficult position to defend - the simplest counter argument being that operating systems run programs and that Linux can't even run "Hello World" without GNU System components like GNU Libc.
Why do you dismiss someone's opinion out of hand in favor of someone who is a lawyer?
Because we're not going to have a productive debate about the law among non-lawyers on Slashdot. Especially not on a flamebait topic like this one. Normally I'd be 100% for a rational debate of the topic on its actual merits - but I've been reading Slashdot long enough to predict that that's not going to happen here.
Believe it or not, yes. That's how it works in languages like C, C++, and Java.
Sure, "Hello World" still works. But not any application that has to interface with anything interesting.
There are probably some examples of C applications for Solaris or AIX from the early 90's that still work perfectly, but that's an exceptional case. Hardware platforms change. New interfaces are introduced, and even if the old interfaces aren't dropped they're still susceptible to code rot.
At best, a very stable language based on a custom runtime system (say Java or Erlang) might be able to run a program that's 15 years old (Java isn't actually that old yet, but there might be Erlang programs or maybe some odd LISP dialect). Even then it's wildly unlikely because the environment the program has to interact with has changed so radically.
Not that any of this really matters - any non-trivial program that gets used for anything relevant will have to be constantly maintained to fix bugs anyway.
So if you don't like what someone has to say you tell them "STFU"?
No. I say that when people make comments that cannot possibly help a debate. Legal opinions from non-lawyers about flamebait topics on Slashdot absolutely fall into that category.
That's the high quality of your debate, Chandon Seldon (43083)?
I'm not a lawyer either, so any opinion I might post would also fall into the same category (legal opinion, from a non lawyer, about a flamebait topic, on Slashdot). I'm pretty sure that what I posted was more productive than that could possibly be.
Sounds like an ad hominem personal attack on your part.
If a productive debate were possible, that would be a great comeback.
Let's just say that they were vetted by a lawyer...
So... who is this lawyer who approved your plan to paraphrase his comments as legal advice on Slashdot?
Again, IANAL. If the answer matters, discuss the concerns with a *real* and *unbiased* attourney. I am not a *real* attourney, and I do not believe mr Moglen is *unbiased* so I would rather people take both opinions with appropriate shipments of salt.
That's a better response than I expected, and your conclusion (quoted above) is excellent.
I don't necessarily agree that the SFLC is so biased as to be wrong, but there's no reason for anyone who really needs accurate advice on this issue to risk it.
It's funny how you indite yourself with your signature line. Asking someone to "STFU" is an act of censorship, Mr. Censor!!!
Censorship occurs when someone (or some organization) in a position of authority prevents or removes someone else's speech.
I'm simply responding from a position of no authority. That can *never* be censorship, regardless of what I say. My opinion happens to be that the original poster's comment didn't need to be posted - but that in no way means that I would support someone using force to *prevent* him from stating his worthless opinion.
I'm glad there's a limit on it; that means excessive users will have to pay for the strain they put on the network, so that those of us who use it normally can get better bandwidth at the same cost.
If there was a specific disclosed limit and users could exceed it for a reasonable charge then no-one would be complaining. The problem is that they keep the limit secret and then just immediately disconnect accounts that exceed it. To put it more simply: they're abusing their government granted monopoly by refusing to provide the service that the town or city has contracted them to provide.
Such limitations on copyright, if applied to works from all countries, would violate international copyright treaties.
That strongly implies that we need to pull out of the treaties then. It should be pretty obvious that the intent of copyright is not to allow artistic works to vanish/become useless in less than a decade while preventing anyone from trying to restore them for more than a century.
BTW, I agree with Theo on his interpretation of the BSD License as one which does not allow sublicensing. I think that Mr Moglen and others are factually wrong as to the nature of the license. But IANAL.
So... we have established that you are not a lawyer. The next question is this: Do you have any BSD code that has been relicensed under the GPL?
If not, then why the hell would anyone care about your non-lawyerly opinion on this legal topic?
Irrespective of the legal niceties, taking credit for someone else's work is unacceptable, and shouldn't be condoned by anyone in the community.
I haven't seen anywhere where Eben Moglen (or anyone else for that matter) has condoned misattribution. In this case what I have seen is 1.) loud people threatening legal action and 2.) Eben Moglen, a lawyer, shutting up in response while continuing to try to resolve any actual problems that are present. That's how things should be.
Are you a lawyer? If not, why are you providing legal advice?
If you have some BSD-licenced code that someone has relicenced under the GPL, feel free to sue them for slander of title or whatever so as to prove that your legal theory is correct. If you aren't a lawyer and haven't written any code then STFU. Seriously.
Mr Moglen is on record saying that he thinks that the BSD license allows for this sort of sublicensing, and I disagree.
Why is your legal opinion on the issue even slightly relevant?
Eben Moglen is a lawyer who has been asked for legal advice on this issue by programmers to whom it directly matters and has provided an informed legal opinion. I haven't seen that opinion, so I don't know if you're characterizing it correctly - but that doesn't matter to my comment here. In contrast to Moglen, you are some guy one Slashdot who admits to not being a lawyer and probably isn't even involved in this particular dispute.
On the other hand... who's the idiot who came up with the idea to teach our kids that seeing something will traumatize them?
This is actually more important and basic than that. The question is this: What sort of idiot parent would *ever* let their kid be told that they should be mentally traumatized over anything? I don't care if your kid just stepped on a land mine and lost his leg - you tell him "you'll be fine" and smile at him as you apply the tourniquet. Hysteria or "omg that's so horrible" will just create mental damage on top of the physical damage.
Well it's currently enough for what I do, but if companies start eating away at my 35GB, then no, it won't be enough. And I'm sure I won't be able to send them the bill for each extra 10$/GB over my 35GB limit.
If you don't change what you do, then your usage won't go up. Period. If you start using different methods to acquire data, you may use more or less bandwidth. This isn't the fault of "companies" - you're the one who choses what services you use and what applications you run.
You're assuming there is even a choice in my area, but there isn't. I only chose to have high-speed internet access, and there's only one provider. As for their business plan, they do require a business license. Not to mention that it's a lot more expensive than the residential plans.
If this is really true for you, then you have an amazing entrepreneurial opportunity to provide a completing broadband service. If that's not legally feasible, then you have a social responsibility to take political action. If that's obviously pointless, then you should move and let that community sink into the communication dark ages without you.
For most people, in most places, there are options. Getting a "business" level internet connection usually works very well - DSL providers in the USA generally start their business services at about $10 more than their residential services and the idea of being self-employed or telecommuting without personally having a business license is very common. Even if they did require a business license, getting one here requires filling out a single online form (and then a quarterly tax form, but filling in zeros is easy).
I guess my point is this: Your demand for bandwidth should naturally be increasing as more useful applications and services that use bandwidth become available. Your ISP is already way behind. You should be demanding that your ISP get with the picture and give you cheap bandwidth like the rest of the world, not trying to defend their lack of infrastructure by trying to force poor engineering choices on third parties.
Malum in se --> Bad in and of itself. These are true crimes. Anyone who has them done against them will object to these... they have victims that can always be identified. These crimes can always be identified as the initiation of force against a victim of some sort. Even the dumping of chemicals into the water supply has human victims.
Not all crimes that, as crimes, appear to meet the criteria for this category are crimes in themselves. Consider a law against fat guys going shirtless at the beach. If the law becomes culturally integrated, people will flip out when they see a shirtless fat guy and claim to be horribly victimized - but there's no real harm caused by fat people not wearing shirts. Further, if it became culturally accepted that seeing shirtless fat guys traumatized children then there would be actual cases of children being horribly traumatized by it - simply because of the social feedback from the people around them that they are expected to act that way.
Are you just expected to keep on fiddling with your code for the rest of your life, whenever a new dot-release of python comes out?
What? You thought you could just write software and then it would work forever?
It'd be great if the world worked like that, but it never does. People are always making incompatible changes somewhere (even if they're just obvious bug fixes), and so software always needs to be maintained to keep up with the platform it's written for. This is one of the key practical advantages of "open source" software - the person who keeps a program up to date can be different from the person who initially wrote it.
I'm sorry, but even if I send data to a neighbor I get that transfer charged on my 35GB monthly allowance. And that's 35GB for the upload+download total, too.
35 gigs/month is horrible. You know that, because you're complaining about it. You're the one who chose your internet service plan - you an always chose a different one. And yes - there are different ones. If that's the maximum residential plan in your area, look into "business" plans.
Companies using P2P to distribute THEIR files (i.e. WoW being a perfect example) are cutting into MY 35GB for the month. And if you try to block them out, you get ridiculously slow downloads, around 0.1KB/sec.
Thinking about it in terms of files doesn't work so well in practice. Think about it in terms of applications. Skype costs X kbytes/sec. WoW costs 1 gig to update. Torrenting a 1CD movie costs 1400 megs. Etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Automatix is absolutely not the "software to install programs" on Ubuntu. The software to install programs on Ubuntu systems is called Synaptic. Automatix is a third party tool that corrupts Ubuntu systems so they won't upgrade properly.
Linux will become ready for your desktop the minute you accept what is rather than demanding things that aren't needed.
Hardware that works perfectly with Linux is widely available.
Software to accomplish the majority of relevant tasks is available and mature. If your job consists of operating a specific computer program you may have trouble with this, but if your goal is to accomplish some externally meaningful goal ("design a web page" or "prepare your taxes") rather than ("run Autocad v.3.2.71") then you can accomplish that goal using existing software under Linux.
As for "documentation becomes centralized", that's utterly beside the point. Microsoft, as a single company that controls an OS and most of the associated software stack, happens to organize their documentation in a specific way. The documentation for a software stack that is developed in a decentralized fashion happens to be organized differently. In practice, this isn't a problem. There's no need to invent problems for yourself just because you can.
That's a somewhat more difficult goal, and not one that I'm really interested in attempting here. We'd have to get into references and all kinds of other stuff that really isn't worth it for a Slashdot flamewar.
The only credit that they didn't get is the specific credit they claim they deserved: The use of their name for the operating system they wrote. People argue three positions on this:
My question to you is this: Are you arguing position #2 or position #3?
Position #2 is 100% valid (but RMS gets to keep complaining that you're being a jerk). Position #3 is worthy of argument, but position #2 is not an argument in support of it.
Like the sticker says, your laptop was Designed for Microsoft Windows. The fact that Ubuntu boots on it is neat, and potentially even useful, but you can't expect the same level of hardware support that you get with the operating system that your hardware was designed for.
No operating system will *ever* be able to support every piece of hardware in the world perfectly. If you were evaluating Solaris, Mac OS X, or QNX you wouldn't even consider installing it on some random computer to test it. There are hardware platforms designed to run Ubuntu - that's where Ubuntu should be evaluated. If (as in the case of this article) one of those hardware platforms itself has issues, they should be reported as bugs - and the comment should be "I tested a Dell Ubuntu laptop, and Dell hadn't properly installed the hardware support utilities" or whatever.
Windows doesn't include a touchpad configuration tool by default either. For a pre-installed computer, the OEM is expected to install hardware drivers and utilities. This is a configuration issue with Dell's laptop - blaming it on Ubuntu is absurd.
Oh, really?
I've had mixed results on that in practice. Some OEMs install special touchpad drivers. Others don't. Some touchpad drivers involve a tray icon. Others hide themselves some random place among the various control panels.
This is really a Dell configuration issue - they should have included a touchpad sensitivity tool in the System--Preferences menu. They didn't think of it. If someone reports the bug to them, they'll likely fix it in their next install image. But let's not confuse OEM configuration with OS flaws.
Let's at least get RMS's position right: The GNU project was founded in 1984 to create a free operating system. In 1991, they were almost completely finished - they had written every essential component of a Unix-like operating system except for a kernel. Linus came along, wrote the Linux kernel, combined it with the almost-complete GNU system, and called the whole thing Linux. The GNU people were rightly upset that they were getting no credit for their work (to build a complete Unix-like OS).
The counter argument from Linus is that the term "Operating System" means "kernel", and that anything outside the kernel is just "userspace tools". That's a difficult position to defend - the simplest counter argument being that operating systems run programs and that Linux can't even run "Hello World" without GNU System components like GNU Libc.
Reference?
Because we're not going to have a productive debate about the law among non-lawyers on Slashdot. Especially not on a flamebait topic like this one. Normally I'd be 100% for a rational debate of the topic on its actual merits - but I've been reading Slashdot long enough to predict that that's not going to happen here.
Sure, "Hello World" still works. But not any application that has to interface with anything interesting.
There are probably some examples of C applications for Solaris or AIX from the early 90's that still work perfectly, but that's an exceptional case. Hardware platforms change. New interfaces are introduced, and even if the old interfaces aren't dropped they're still susceptible to code rot.
At best, a very stable language based on a custom runtime system (say Java or Erlang) might be able to run a program that's 15 years old (Java isn't actually that old yet, but there might be Erlang programs or maybe some odd LISP dialect). Even then it's wildly unlikely because the environment the program has to interact with has changed so radically.
Not that any of this really matters - any non-trivial program that gets used for anything relevant will have to be constantly maintained to fix bugs anyway.
No. I say that when people make comments that cannot possibly help a debate. Legal opinions from non-lawyers about flamebait topics on Slashdot absolutely fall into that category.
I'm not a lawyer either, so any opinion I might post would also fall into the same category (legal opinion, from a non lawyer, about a flamebait topic, on Slashdot). I'm pretty sure that what I posted was more productive than that could possibly be.
If a productive debate were possible, that would be a great comeback.
So... who is this lawyer who approved your plan to paraphrase his comments as legal advice on Slashdot?
That's a better response than I expected, and your conclusion (quoted above) is excellent.
I don't necessarily agree that the SFLC is so biased as to be wrong, but there's no reason for anyone who really needs accurate advice on this issue to risk it.
Censorship occurs when someone (or some organization) in a position of authority prevents or removes someone else's speech.
I'm simply responding from a position of no authority. That can *never* be censorship, regardless of what I say. My opinion happens to be that the original poster's comment didn't need to be posted - but that in no way means that I would support someone using force to *prevent* him from stating his worthless opinion.
That's why we have standard S.I. prefixes. They're allowing around 400 microLOC per fortnight.
If there was a specific disclosed limit and users could exceed it for a reasonable charge then no-one would be complaining. The problem is that they keep the limit secret and then just immediately disconnect accounts that exceed it. To put it more simply: they're abusing their government granted monopoly by refusing to provide the service that the town or city has contracted them to provide.
That strongly implies that we need to pull out of the treaties then. It should be pretty obvious that the intent of copyright is not to allow artistic works to vanish/become useless in less than a decade while preventing anyone from trying to restore them for more than a century.
So... we have established that you are not a lawyer. The next question is this: Do you have any BSD code that has been relicensed under the GPL?
If not, then why the hell would anyone care about your non-lawyerly opinion on this legal topic?
I haven't seen anywhere where Eben Moglen (or anyone else for that matter) has condoned misattribution. In this case what I have seen is 1.) loud people threatening legal action and 2.) Eben Moglen, a lawyer, shutting up in response while continuing to try to resolve any actual problems that are present. That's how things should be.
That's an interesting legal opinion.
Are you a lawyer? If not, why are you providing legal advice?
If you have some BSD-licenced code that someone has relicenced under the GPL, feel free to sue them for slander of title or whatever so as to prove that your legal theory is correct. If you aren't a lawyer and haven't written any code then STFU. Seriously.
Why is your legal opinion on the issue even slightly relevant?
Eben Moglen is a lawyer who has been asked for legal advice on this issue by programmers to whom it directly matters and has provided an informed legal opinion. I haven't seen that opinion, so I don't know if you're characterizing it correctly - but that doesn't matter to my comment here. In contrast to Moglen, you are some guy one Slashdot who admits to not being a lawyer and probably isn't even involved in this particular dispute.
Why are you providing legal advice on this issue?
This is actually more important and basic than that. The question is this: What sort of idiot parent would *ever* let their kid be told that they should be mentally traumatized over anything? I don't care if your kid just stepped on a land mine and lost his leg - you tell him "you'll be fine" and smile at him as you apply the tourniquet. Hysteria or "omg that's so horrible" will just create mental damage on top of the physical damage.
If you don't change what you do, then your usage won't go up. Period. If you start using different methods to acquire data, you may use more or less bandwidth. This isn't the fault of "companies" - you're the one who choses what services you use and what applications you run.
If this is really true for you, then you have an amazing entrepreneurial opportunity to provide a completing broadband service. If that's not legally feasible, then you have a social responsibility to take political action. If that's obviously pointless, then you should move and let that community sink into the communication dark ages without you.
For most people, in most places, there are options. Getting a "business" level internet connection usually works very well - DSL providers in the USA generally start their business services at about $10 more than their residential services and the idea of being self-employed or telecommuting without personally having a business license is very common. Even if they did require a business license, getting one here requires filling out a single online form (and then a quarterly tax form, but filling in zeros is easy).
I guess my point is this: Your demand for bandwidth should naturally be increasing as more useful applications and services that use bandwidth become available. Your ISP is already way behind. You should be demanding that your ISP get with the picture and give you cheap bandwidth like the rest of the world, not trying to defend their lack of infrastructure by trying to force poor engineering choices on third parties.
Not all crimes that, as crimes, appear to meet the criteria for this category are crimes in themselves. Consider a law against fat guys going shirtless at the beach. If the law becomes culturally integrated, people will flip out when they see a shirtless fat guy and claim to be horribly victimized - but there's no real harm caused by fat people not wearing shirts. Further, if it became culturally accepted that seeing shirtless fat guys traumatized children then there would be actual cases of children being horribly traumatized by it - simply because of the social feedback from the people around them that they are expected to act that way.
What? You thought you could just write software and then it would work forever?
It'd be great if the world worked like that, but it never does. People are always making incompatible changes somewhere (even if they're just obvious bug fixes), and so software always needs to be maintained to keep up with the platform it's written for. This is one of the key practical advantages of "open source" software - the person who keeps a program up to date can be different from the person who initially wrote it.
35 gigs/month is horrible. You know that, because you're complaining about it. You're the one who chose your internet service plan - you an always chose a different one. And yes - there are different ones. If that's the maximum residential plan in your area, look into "business" plans.
Thinking about it in terms of files doesn't work so well in practice. Think about it in terms of applications. Skype costs X kbytes/sec. WoW costs 1 gig to update. Torrenting a 1CD movie costs 1400 megs. Etc.