Unless the word "May" really means "Doesn't", then you are criminally infringing copyright.
The word "may" really means "does," and therefore it does not infringe.
It's a bundle, just like a Linux distribution. Open source libraries are built with licenses that are designed to prevent them from being included in non-free software. Proprietary libraries are built with licenses that are designed to prevent them from being used by people who have not paid license fees. Those are the only two scenarios. If an Apache-licensed library is bundled with a GPL software package, but is still considered a bundle (as opposed to an integral part of the package), then it maintains its own autonomy, and therefore continues to carry its own license.
Think of it this way: "This GPL-licensed program requires this Apache-licensed library; we are conveniently providing a copy of it for you here in the tarball."
Things are definitely getting better as a result of the global communications revolution.
And yet, the folksy local spirit of old-style BBS's doesn't exist in places like Yahoo Groups (or even Slashdot, which although it is basically a BBS, is way too big for that "get to know the regulars" type of community a BBS fosters).
Nope... to revel in the spirit of a BBS environment, you have to log in to a real BBS. There are still plenty of them out there (such as this one), and they're on the Internet now so you don't have to worry about the phone bill anymore. I would encourage everyone to go visit some BBS's on the Internet -- find a few that you like, that fit your personality, and get to know the people there. You'll find it's so much more folksy and social than a big faceless mega-forum-site could ever be.
Richard Stallman aims to 'lower barriers that today prevent the mixing of software covered by the GPL and other licenses.
This isn't as big a problem as Stallman makes it out to be. Combining open source licenses is not difficult. All you have to do is keep the pieces reasonably distinct. I have a project, for example, with a copyright notice that reads like this:
xxx is (c)2005 by blah blah and distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
May include yyy which is (c)2005 by blah blah and distributed under the terms of the Apache License 2.0.
May include zzz which is (c)2005 and distributed under the terms of the MIT License.
Proprietary software developers do this all the time, and despite what Stallman may imply, there's nothing stopping you from doing this too.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned XAML yet. Doesn't anyone remember hearing Miguel de Icaza ranting and raving about how XAML was going to spell the end of cross-browser, cross-platform web applications as we knew them, because everyone would be writing stuff that requires a browser that has the entire.NET API embedded inside it?
It's becoming very clear that AJAX is going to stop XAML dead in its tracks. Microsoft was pushing this whole "rich vs. reach" thing, but with AJAX you really can have it all. No need to restrict your user base to Windows XP or Vista in order to get rich controls in your web apps.
I think that's the more interesting story here. The monopolistic Windows desktop isn't going to disappear overnight, but the continued existence, improvement, and increasing pervasiveness of web applications will continue to make the non-Windows desktop more viable and widespread. (Click on the link in the previous paragraph to read a longer piece on why this is the more interesting story.)
Assuming that this technology can be refined to a point where it's more efficient and less expensive, there are quite a few practical applications for it.
For example, how about a stove that uses electricity, but still creates a real flame on the burners like a gas stove? Anyone who cooks will tell you that there's no substitute for a gas stove: electric takes too long to heat up and to cool down, resulting in bad cooking. In homes like mine where there is no gas utility available, we have to resort to a propane tank in the backyard to provide fuel for the gas stove. But with this technology, we could run it all on electric!
I really don't see an opportunity for objectivity here. Who decides whether a particular open source package is worthy?
For example, I maintain a project that often competes directly with software produced by Carnegie Mellon University. How could it possibly get a good rating?
Ok, ok, RTFA and you'll see that everyone contributes, you say. Yes, but then you have the groupthink effect. Slashdot is the perfect example of this, where the level of groupthink and popularity contests are surpassed only by high schools. How can a high quality but relatively unknown software project possibly survive that kind of intellect-free non-scrutiny?
Since you folks are our friends now, would you mind documenting and publishing -- unencumbered, of course -- the parts of MAPI that will allow Outlook to connect to third-party groupware servers? The rest of the world is getting a little tired of trying to reverse-engineer it.
For business desktops, anyway, this is just one reason in a very long list, to get rid of the PC entirely and move back to terminals. Quiet, stateless, and maintenance-free. Today's terminals can even connect to legacy PC apps if you have a Citrix (or similar) server.
Corporate America's insistence on clinging to WinTel desktops is a pretty good example of massive industry-wide stupidity.
It would be good for Apple to get this done, as quickly as possible. We know that Billgatus of Borg is not sleeping at the wheel this time around, so if Apple doesn't dazzle the world with a video product very soon, the future of video distribution will fall victim to Microsoft DRM and platform lock-in.
Linux will be consolidated enough when you can grab the installer for the "Linux version" of a piece of software, plop it onto your machine, and have it install properly. Package formats, dependencies, library versions, etc. cannot get in the way. We've made great strides in these areas but we're not quite there yet.
(Note: major sarcasm here, put the flamethrowers down please.)
If we'd just let Microsoft control everything, this kind of problem would never happen. Someone who wanted to publish their Intellectual Property on the web would be able to assert full Digital Rights Management over all of it, and when they revoked access to it, this "Internet Archive" (thieving little brats that they are... they're probably running that commie "open source" software too) would be left with nothing more than a bunch of useless encrypted bits.
I work at a facility where iris scanners are in use as security to the data center. We've had all the usual discussions about gouging out someone's eyeball and using it as a "key" to enter the secure facility. Contrary to myth, this will not work.
Once the eye has been separated from its owner, the blood and other fluids inside immediately begin to alter their state due to lack of oxygen, damaging the appearance of the iris enough to make it unrecognizable to the scanner within just a few minutes.
If you're going to use someone else's iris, you're better off holding a gun to their head to let you in.
This is stupid. Both the GPL and BSD licenses are open source. They're both valid approaches. One prevents proprietary forks from coming into existence, the other doesn't. Which license you choose depends solely on whether you, as a developer or software publisher, are ok with that. That's all. Nothing else.
I'm happy to see this. It's a big piece of the technology market that is going to be occupied by someone other than Microsoft. Can you imagine if every DVD player in the future had Windows and.NET in it? It would take less than a year for Microsoft to begin forcing all DVD player owners to become XBox owners.
You're free to have your rant against WMV, but it works perfectly fine with mplayerplug-in.
That's not the point. Having to work around Microsoft proprietary formats puts us at a distinct disadvantage, especially when you have to work around a software patent minefield to get it working, and when Microsoft is free to change their proprietary format whenever they want to.
Content needs to be in a truly open format that Linux can play right out of the box.
It appears that one of the ways they cut costs enough to make their video "free" was to remove some of the formats. They used to give you a choice of several players; now it seems to require Windows Media Monopolizer. As far as I'm concerned, they just lost a viewer. I'll head over to BBC where open source codecs are all the rage...
Who do you buy mainframes from today? That's right, it's IBM, still the mainframe monopoly after all these years. But we're well past the period of "all computing is done on mainframes." How many of you have a 3270 on your desk?
Similarly, even if Microsoft's desktop monopoly is never dislodged, the market will move on anyway. We're all starting to see it; applications are leaving the desktop and being absorbed back into the network. A network whose components are most certainly not monopolized by Microsoft. You can be sure that the Dark Lord of Redmond knows this quite well; that's why he wants to push XAML as the future of web based apps -- to keep a nice monopo-lock on things. Fortunately, the geniuses at Google have been showing us that you don't need a.NET/XML runtime embedded in your browser to do rich, functional web apps. And that means we get to continue on our merry way, towards a network-dominated future where if any operating system has an advantage, it's the one that serves well as an infrastructure component. You guessed it: Linux.
all the people I know who use Linux do so because they want a functional Unix-like OS, not because they hate Microsoft.
I use Linux, and I hate Microsoft. Why do I hate Microsoft? Probably for the same reason most of us do: because Microsoft wants to destroy the technology I love and force me to use their crap.
All in all I'd say the hatred exists for a reason.
We've got an OpenPOWER 720 in our data center as part of IBM's push to get everyone to try it out, and let me tell you, this architecture is fast. Blazingly fast. From the zippy CPU's to the efficient bus design, it just crunches through the most demanding data tasks effortlessly.
There are some caveats, though. One is that it does run hot. I wouldn't recommend keeping this type of machine running anywhere other than an air conditioned data center. You can feel the hot air blasting out the front of the chassis. The other thing is that because it's designed for virtualization, getting it booted up can be somewhat cumbersome. It actually requires a separate computer (an ordinary PC, as shipped) to run the software that configures partitions and manages the boot process.
Other than that, though, this is a great way to get a smaller version of what "big iron" can deliver, at a decent price.
I work in the hosting business and I can tell you, there's definitely something happening. Back in 2001 when the bubble burst, we lost 40% of our customers in a six month period, and then business was downright anemic for a long time. Gradually we've been building up new business by signing more customers whose revenue didn't depend on "dot com" type business. This year, though, it seems that there's another ramp-up happening. Our cabinets are filling up again -- not at the irrationally exhuberant rate that they did in 1999-2000, but at a more careful pace. And customers are being careful with their spending this time; they're only buying the services they need. Lots of colocation this time around instead of more expensive managed hosting, for example. But it's definitely happening.
Let's hope that this time around, the "Internet economy" can get firmly on its feet.
Honestly, why does this justify a front page Slashdot story? Why does JWZ's opinion matter more than anyone else's? Time after time he's shown himself to be a whiny prima donna who is past his prime. His now-famous "nomo zilla" rant probably set the Mozilla project back by a year or more, and why? Because it wasn't his Netscape anymore. Now he's doing the same thing with an entire operating system. To JWZ I say: good riddance. What the open source community needs is constructive criticism, not whining.
We complain about people like John Dvorak all the time, but are we any better if we give the spotlight to the likes of JWZ?
If all (or even most) gaming moves to consoles, then that's one less thing that Windows has that Linux doesn't. This makes Linux even more attractive as a desktop operating system. From my point of view, it's best to use a computer for computing tasks and a game system for gaming anyway. I truly hope gaming moves almost exclusively to dedicated gaming consoles.
This was bound to happen. The "average computer user" is running email, web, maybe some office automation apps, etc. and therefore can't tell the difference. He/she is going to go with whatever can be manufactured (and therefore purchased) cheaply. With the cost of disposal of old CRT's rising, and with the manufacturing cost of LCD's dropping, and with the power consumption difference significant... that means Joe Sixpak will be using LCD's for the foreseeable future.
A good quality CRT still beats an LCD, though. For example, you have to look at an LCD at just the right angle, otherwise the gamma is all screwed up -- not exactly something a graphics designer or video editor wants to contend with.
And finally, the big one: LCD is end-to-end digital, CRT is not. Which do you think the DRM-happy MPAA/RIAA/Microsoft people are going to prefer, and therefore push hard?
Not to worry, they'll sneak it in later. It'll be watered down, and anyone who fights it will be made to look like a lunatic because the next one is "much more reasonable."
Slashdot Mirror
Unless the word "May" really means "Doesn't", then you are criminally infringing copyright.
The word "may" really means "does," and therefore it does not infringe.
It's a bundle, just like a Linux distribution. Open source libraries are built with licenses that are designed to prevent them from being included in non-free software. Proprietary libraries are built with licenses that are designed to prevent them from being used by people who have not paid license fees. Those are the only two scenarios. If an Apache-licensed library is bundled with a GPL software package, but is still considered a bundle (as opposed to an integral part of the package), then it maintains its own autonomy, and therefore continues to carry its own license.
Think of it this way: "This GPL-licensed program requires this Apache-licensed library; we are conveniently providing a copy of it for you here in the tarball."
Things are definitely getting better as a result of the global communications revolution.
And yet, the folksy local spirit of old-style BBS's doesn't exist in places like Yahoo Groups (or even Slashdot, which although it is basically a BBS, is way too big for that "get to know the regulars" type of community a BBS fosters).
Nope... to revel in the spirit of a BBS environment, you have to log in to a real BBS. There are still plenty of them out there (such as this one), and they're on the Internet now so you don't have to worry about the phone bill anymore. I would encourage everyone to go visit some BBS's on the Internet -- find a few that you like, that fit your personality, and get to know the people there. You'll find it's so much more folksy and social than a big faceless mega-forum-site could ever be.
Richard Stallman aims to 'lower barriers that today prevent the mixing of software covered by the GPL and other licenses.
This isn't as big a problem as Stallman makes it out to be. Combining open source licenses is not difficult. All you have to do is keep the pieces reasonably distinct. I have a project, for example, with a copyright notice that reads like this:
xxx is (c)2005 by blah blah and distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
May include yyy which is (c)2005 by blah blah and distributed under the terms of the Apache License 2.0.
May include zzz which is (c)2005 and distributed under the terms of the MIT License.
Proprietary software developers do this all the time, and despite what Stallman may imply, there's nothing stopping you from doing this too.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned XAML yet. Doesn't anyone remember hearing Miguel de Icaza ranting and raving about how XAML was going to spell the end of cross-browser, cross-platform web applications as we knew them, because everyone would be writing stuff that requires a browser that has the entire .NET API embedded inside it?
It's becoming very clear that AJAX is going to stop XAML dead in its tracks. Microsoft was pushing this whole "rich vs. reach" thing, but with AJAX you really can have it all. No need to restrict your user base to Windows XP or Vista in order to get rich controls in your web apps.
I think that's the more interesting story here. The monopolistic Windows desktop isn't going to disappear overnight, but the continued existence, improvement, and increasing pervasiveness of web applications will continue to make the non-Windows desktop more viable and widespread. (Click on the link in the previous paragraph to read a longer piece on why this is the more interesting story.)
Assuming that this technology can be refined to a point where it's more efficient and less expensive, there are quite a few practical applications for it.
For example, how about a stove that uses electricity, but still creates a real flame on the burners like a gas stove? Anyone who cooks will tell you that there's no substitute for a gas stove: electric takes too long to heat up and to cool down, resulting in bad cooking. In homes like mine where there is no gas utility available, we have to resort to a propane tank in the backyard to provide fuel for the gas stove. But with this technology, we could run it all on electric!
I really don't see an opportunity for objectivity here. Who decides whether a particular open source package is worthy?
For example, I maintain a project that often competes directly with software produced by Carnegie Mellon University. How could it possibly get a good rating?
Ok, ok, RTFA and you'll see that everyone contributes, you say. Yes, but then you have the groupthink effect. Slashdot is the perfect example of this, where the level of groupthink and popularity contests are surpassed only by high schools. How can a high quality but relatively unknown software project possibly survive that kind of intellect-free non-scrutiny?
Since you folks are our friends now, would you mind documenting and publishing -- unencumbered, of course -- the parts of MAPI that will allow Outlook to connect to third-party groupware servers? The rest of the world is getting a little tired of trying to reverse-engineer it.
Sincerely,
random members of the open source community
For business desktops, anyway, this is just one reason in a very long list, to get rid of the PC entirely and move back to terminals. Quiet, stateless, and maintenance-free. Today's terminals can even connect to legacy PC apps if you have a Citrix (or similar) server.
Corporate America's insistence on clinging to WinTel desktops is a pretty good example of massive industry-wide stupidity.
It would be good for Apple to get this done, as quickly as possible. We know that Billgatus of Borg is not sleeping at the wheel this time around, so if Apple doesn't dazzle the world with a video product very soon, the future of video distribution will fall victim to Microsoft DRM and platform lock-in.
Linux will be consolidated enough when you can grab the installer for the "Linux version" of a piece of software, plop it onto your machine, and have it install properly. Package formats, dependencies, library versions, etc. cannot get in the way. We've made great strides in these areas but we're not quite there yet.
(Note: major sarcasm here, put the flamethrowers down please.)
If we'd just let Microsoft control everything, this kind of problem would never happen. Someone who wanted to publish their Intellectual Property on the web would be able to assert full Digital Rights Management over all of it, and when they revoked access to it, this "Internet Archive" (thieving little brats that they are... they're probably running that commie "open source" software too) would be left with nothing more than a bunch of useless encrypted bits.
I work at a facility where iris scanners are in use as security to the data center. We've had all the usual discussions about gouging out someone's eyeball and using it as a "key" to enter the secure facility. Contrary to myth, this will not work.
Once the eye has been separated from its owner, the blood and other fluids inside immediately begin to alter their state due to lack of oxygen, damaging the appearance of the iris enough to make it unrecognizable to the scanner within just a few minutes.
If you're going to use someone else's iris, you're better off holding a gun to their head to let you in.
This is stupid. Both the GPL and BSD licenses are open source. They're both valid approaches. One prevents proprietary forks from coming into existence, the other doesn't. Which license you choose depends solely on whether you, as a developer or software publisher, are ok with that. That's all. Nothing else.
I'm happy to see this. It's a big piece of the technology market that is going to be occupied by someone other than Microsoft. Can you imagine if every DVD player in the future had Windows and .NET in it? It would take less than a year for Microsoft to begin forcing all DVD player owners to become XBox owners.
You're free to have your rant against WMV, but it works perfectly fine with mplayerplug-in.
That's not the point. Having to work around Microsoft proprietary formats puts us at a distinct disadvantage, especially when you have to work around a software patent minefield to get it working, and when Microsoft is free to change their proprietary format whenever they want to.
Content needs to be in a truly open format that Linux can play right out of the box.
It appears that one of the ways they cut costs enough to make their video "free" was to remove some of the formats. They used to give you a choice of several players; now it seems to require Windows Media Monopolizer. As far as I'm concerned, they just lost a viewer. I'll head over to BBC where open source codecs are all the rage...
Who do you buy mainframes from today? That's right, it's IBM, still the mainframe monopoly after all these years. But we're well past the period of "all computing is done on mainframes." How many of you have a 3270 on your desk?
.NET/XML runtime embedded in your browser to do rich, functional web apps. And that means we get to continue on our merry way, towards a network-dominated future where if any operating system has an advantage, it's the one that serves well as an infrastructure component. You guessed it: Linux.
Similarly, even if Microsoft's desktop monopoly is never dislodged, the market will move on anyway. We're all starting to see it; applications are leaving the desktop and being absorbed back into the network. A network whose components are most certainly not monopolized by Microsoft. You can be sure that the Dark Lord of Redmond knows this quite well; that's why he wants to push XAML as the future of web based apps -- to keep a nice monopo-lock on things. Fortunately, the geniuses at Google have been showing us that you don't need a
all the people I know who use Linux do so because they want a functional Unix-like OS, not because they hate Microsoft.
I use Linux, and I hate Microsoft. Why do I hate Microsoft? Probably for the same reason most of us do: because Microsoft wants to destroy the technology I love and force me to use their crap.
All in all I'd say the hatred exists for a reason.
We've got an OpenPOWER 720 in our data center as part of IBM's push to get everyone to try it out, and let me tell you, this architecture is fast. Blazingly fast. From the zippy CPU's to the efficient bus design, it just crunches through the most demanding data tasks effortlessly.
There are some caveats, though. One is that it does run hot. I wouldn't recommend keeping this type of machine running anywhere other than an air conditioned data center. You can feel the hot air blasting out the front of the chassis. The other thing is that because it's designed for virtualization, getting it booted up can be somewhat cumbersome. It actually requires a separate computer (an ordinary PC, as shipped) to run the software that configures partitions and manages the boot process.
Other than that, though, this is a great way to get a smaller version of what "big iron" can deliver, at a decent price.
I work in the hosting business and I can tell you, there's definitely something happening. Back in 2001 when the bubble burst, we lost 40% of our customers in a six month period, and then business was downright anemic for a long time. Gradually we've been building up new business by signing more customers whose revenue didn't depend on "dot com" type business. This year, though, it seems that there's another ramp-up happening. Our cabinets are filling up again -- not at the irrationally exhuberant rate that they did in 1999-2000, but at a more careful pace. And customers are being careful with their spending this time; they're only buying the services they need. Lots of colocation this time around instead of more expensive managed hosting, for example. But it's definitely happening.
Let's hope that this time around, the "Internet economy" can get firmly on its feet.
Honestly, why does this justify a front page Slashdot story? Why does JWZ's opinion matter more than anyone else's? Time after time he's shown himself to be a whiny prima donna who is past his prime. His now-famous "nomo zilla" rant probably set the Mozilla project back by a year or more, and why? Because it wasn't his Netscape anymore. Now he's doing the same thing with an entire operating system. To JWZ I say: good riddance. What the open source community needs is constructive criticism, not whining.
We complain about people like John Dvorak all the time, but are we any better if we give the spotlight to the likes of JWZ?
(No, this is not a troll.)
If all (or even most) gaming moves to consoles, then that's one less thing that Windows has that Linux doesn't. This makes Linux even more attractive as a desktop operating system. From my point of view, it's best to use a computer for computing tasks and a game system for gaming anyway. I truly hope gaming moves almost exclusively to dedicated gaming consoles.
I just put a new site online. About 4 or 5 days after submitting it to google, it was the number one hit when searching for the title of the site.
:)
So you're the one who came up with "DISCREET ONLINE PHARMACY" ??
Seriously though, if there aren't a lot of other sites containing your title, that's easy. If you're one among a dozen or so, not so easy.
This was bound to happen. The "average computer user" is running email, web, maybe some office automation apps, etc. and therefore can't tell the difference. He/she is going to go with whatever can be manufactured (and therefore purchased) cheaply. With the cost of disposal of old CRT's rising, and with the manufacturing cost of LCD's dropping, and with the power consumption difference significant... that means Joe Sixpak will be using LCD's for the foreseeable future.
A good quality CRT still beats an LCD, though. For example, you have to look at an LCD at just the right angle, otherwise the gamma is all screwed up -- not exactly something a graphics designer or video editor wants to contend with.
And finally, the big one: LCD is end-to-end digital, CRT is not. Which do you think the DRM-happy MPAA/RIAA/Microsoft people are going to prefer, and therefore push hard?
Not to worry, they'll sneak it in later. It'll be watered down, and anyone who fights it will be made to look like a lunatic because the next one is "much more reasonable."