Perhaps that *is* the main goal. Perhaps they aren't getting quite the results they expect and they're putting all this hoopla up about suing some "Major Software House"(and you know who you are-wink-nudge) to light a fire under their ass. The fact that it's posted to/. gets all the GPL zealots busy sharpening their scimitars (jihad!jihad!) and this unnamed software house realizes that the bad press alone would be worth moving into compliance.
Excellent point. I don't mean to dis the FSF's actions, merely the reactions of several Slashdotters.
The GUI will need to be able to configure everything. I mean everything, else it will be only half done. However you will still need to be able to edit the files manually.
Quite right. Guess what? Mac OS X does this. Most system configuration is stored in XML files, which are parsed by shell scripts when the system boots. XML files are plain text, not difficult to edit. The configuration can also be changed via standard GUI Mac-like control panels, or by a GUI XML editor.
Unfortunately I haven't had much chance to play with Mac OS X yet, but in theory this sounds better than anything Linux currently has to offer.
The only one being used right now is.arpa, but they've proposed.firm,.mail,.shop and others.
.arpa is used for reverse DNS lookups based on an IP address. The IP address flipped backwards and converted into a.in-addr.arpa domain, then queried to get the domain name associated with that IP.
I'm only talking about the legal issues here. As for ethics, well, Napster's management team listens to pirated MP3s; the RIAA got ahold of their playlists.
I don't mean to defend Napster on an ethical basis, but I think it's important that they win their lawsuit on strictly legal grounds. The implications are staggering.
If the root nameservers became world-writeable, how long before some l33t skr1pt k1dd13 comes along and writes a Perl script to automatically register every possible alphanumeric domain name between two to 25 characters that hasn't already been registered? I'd give it, what, half an hour maybe?
So long as there are BSD, PAL, public domain, and similar licences, they couldn't give a damn whether or not large applications are "embraced and extended" into the proprietary domain.
Just to nitpick, public domain isn't a license, it's the absense of copyright.
As for the horse, I prefer women, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
I find it amusing that many of the same people who try to justify Napster get all up in arms over the idea that the GPL might not get held up. It's OK to send Lars' music around the net, but even hint that Microsoft might be able to repackage the vast amount of GPLed code out there and profit from it without releasing changes to the community and everyone flips out. Not so funny when it's happening to you, is it?
No, it's not OK to send Lars' music around the 'Net - but it's OK for Napster to facilitate it. Napster's not the one trading Metallica MP3s, Napster's users are - and without Napster's (official) knowledge or approval. Napster's copyright policy is here.
I think the important issue is that the author of the GPL'ed software always owns the copyright to her work (unless she gives the copyright away or dies). The GPL is a means by which the author of the software effectively relaxes the copyright on her code and gives up some of her statutory rights to the software. So although redistributing GPL'ed code under a non-GPL license doesn't seem to constitute a breach of contract, it is more than likely a breach of copyright.
I believe you're entirely correct here. If you want to distribute modified/unmodified/derivitive/whatever GPL'd code, you must agree to the license, simply because nothing else grants you the right to distribute the code - it's a copyright issue. If you disregard the GPL, you can't distribute anything, because normal copyright still applies: it's somebody else's work.
Umm, my understanding is that the Kerberos issue isn't one of copyright, but rather of patent or trademark or something. Microsoft's broken implementation of Kerberos probably doesn't use any GPL'd Kerberos code; they probably wrote it themselves. Or bought it from somebody, or something.
However, Microsoft is using the name Kerberos, so there could be a trademark issue, and I believe there's a patent on the technology as well. IANAL and I haven't really been following this issue.
I MEAN the maintainer's of the GPL'd code could change the code significantly enough to break the commercial product!
Yeah, it's Monday, but that doesn't mean the company has to keep up with the latest version of the GPL'd code they're stealing. If Microsoft wanted to release a new compression tool based on code from gzip, and a new version of gzip was released, Microsoft would just keep using the old version of gzip. Of course, it would be illegal unless they released their new compression thingie under the GPL, and they couldn't say it was part of Windows unless they released the rest of Windows under the GPL, and Microsoft's legal department isn't stupid.
Umm, they already have an opponent; they're just not saying who it is.
Shouldn't the main goal here be to make the unnamed software house adhere to the GPL, rather than just suing somebody solely for the sake of testing the GPL in court?
My understanding is the BSD allows derivative works to be copyrighted and distributed as closed source in binary only.
While the GPL requires it to remain open and be provided with source. You can charge to distribute it on physical media(CD, DVD, floppy, etc), but it must be available for download.
Aside from the downloading part, this is correct. One example of a company that is affected by this restriction is Apple: they'd love to include gnutar as part of Mac OS X, but if it's released as part of the operating system (as opposed to just being bundled as an extra utility), they'd have to release the whole OS as GPL, which they don't want to do. So, Apple Legal says no GNU code in the main OS, because of the GPL.
The only way I could see the GPL being threatened is if someone argues that it infringes on the rights of the user / developer of derivative works
The key here is that nothing but the GPL grants me the right to distribute a derivative work. If the original code was written by someone else and released under the GPL, that GPL is the only reason I can release a derivative work at all - otherwise, according to standard copyright, I couldn't do that. If I want to distribute it, I have to accept the license. If I don't like the license, I can find another way to do what I want.
Of these the first one "Court is avoided. Life returns to normal." is the worst.
Umm, lawsuits suck. How is settling out of court a bad thing? The GPL isn't in limbo; it works fine, and if there's another problem, that will be cleared up later. In the mean time, why feed the lawyers?
Yeah, and reprint your gazillion business cards, fliers, brochures, hunt down every link on your Web page, spam everyone you know with your new e-mail address, and on top of that learn how to connect with new software. Is it any surprise that so many people still use AOL?
She really is evil and the thought of a school allowing kids to use AOL IM is just ridiculous.
I believe AIM has its own Terms Of Service which requires that you be 18 or older to use the service. Of course, they don't enforce it, but the policy is there.
Except that I can't find the policy on their Web site. *sigh*
Uhh I have edited my/etc/resolv.conf manually in SuSE many times and I get another file called resolv.conf.SuSEconfig if I then use YaST to configure something (this being the file it thinks/etc/resolv.conf should look like but it has never overwritten my changes in resolv.conf)
So then you have to look to see where you have *.SuSEconfig files scattered around/etc and manually merge them back into the real config files? That doesn't sound much fun.
I've seen a couple that didn't boot properly the first time after the install...
Why would you call that an advantage? SysV init scripts are much less of a pain when you need to add some service automatically...
I know where everything is, and I can comment/uncomment what I need to in the appropriate scripts, or just add my own scripts (like rc.firewall to set up IP Masquerading).
No distribution has that - you can just take Red Hat, Debian, or whatever and compile stuff from source. All you lose when doing that without doing it properly is dependency checking for other packages that depend on the stuff you installed from source.
Um, I was under the impression that if you installed a library from source, then tried to install another package that depends on that library, RPM wouldn't work and you'd have to do everything from source. This is a pain. If I know I've got a library installed properly, I should just be able to use it, and if I install an app on top of it, it should work. Slackware lets me do this.
When I can't run *BSD (i.e. need vmware at work) I run Slackware!
I tried running the demo of vmware. The installer hated Slackware with a passion. Have they fixed the installer, or did you have to do some major hacking? I hacked with it for 20 minutes getting it to install, then when it refused to run I gave up and hacked with it for another 15 minutes getting it to go away. Not a pleasant experience.
Slashdot Mirror
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Umm, has it occurred to anyone else that "red" means "network" in Spanish?
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Excellent point. I don't mean to dis the FSF's actions, merely the reactions of several Slashdotters.
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Quite right. Guess what? Mac OS X does this. Most system configuration is stored in XML files, which are parsed by shell scripts when the system boots. XML files are plain text, not difficult to edit. The configuration can also be changed via standard GUI Mac-like control panels, or by a GUI XML editor.
Unfortunately I haven't had much chance to play with Mac OS X yet, but in theory this sounds better than anything Linux currently has to offer.
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.arpa is used for reverse DNS lookups based on an IP address. The IP address flipped backwards and converted into a
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I don't mean to defend Napster on an ethical basis, but I think it's important that they win their lawsuit on strictly legal grounds. The implications are staggering.
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Somebody would do it. You know they would.
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No.
If the root nameservers became world-writeable, how long before some l33t skr1pt k1dd13 comes along and writes a Perl script to automatically register every possible alphanumeric domain name between two to 25 characters that hasn't already been registered? I'd give it, what, half an hour maybe?
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Just to nitpick, public domain isn't a license, it's the absense of copyright.
As for the horse, I prefer women, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
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No, it's not OK to send Lars' music around the 'Net - but it's OK for Napster to facilitate it. Napster's not the one trading Metallica MP3s, Napster's users are - and without Napster's (official) knowledge or approval. Napster's copyright policy is here.
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I believe you're entirely correct here. If you want to distribute modified/unmodified/derivitive/whatever GPL'd code, you must agree to the license, simply because nothing else grants you the right to distribute the code - it's a copyright issue. If you disregard the GPL, you can't distribute anything, because normal copyright still applies: it's somebody else's work.
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However, Microsoft is using the name Kerberos, so there could be a trademark issue, and I believe there's a patent on the technology as well. IANAL and I haven't really been following this issue.
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Yeah, it's Monday, but that doesn't mean the company has to keep up with the latest version of the GPL'd code they're stealing. If Microsoft wanted to release a new compression tool based on code from gzip, and a new version of gzip was released, Microsoft would just keep using the old version of gzip. Of course, it would be illegal unless they released their new compression thingie under the GPL, and they couldn't say it was part of Windows unless they released the rest of Windows under the GPL, and Microsoft's legal department isn't stupid.
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Are you on crack ?
Yeah, everyone knows it was Al Gore.
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Shouldn't the main goal here be to make the unnamed software house adhere to the GPL, rather than just suing somebody solely for the sake of testing the GPL in court?
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While the GPL requires it to remain open and be provided with source. You can charge to distribute it on physical media(CD, DVD, floppy, etc), but it must be available for download.
Aside from the downloading part, this is correct. One example of a company that is affected by this restriction is Apple: they'd love to include gnutar as part of Mac OS X, but if it's released as part of the operating system (as opposed to just being bundled as an extra utility), they'd have to release the whole OS as GPL, which they don't want to do. So, Apple Legal says no GNU code in the main OS, because of the GPL.
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The key here is that nothing but the GPL grants me the right to distribute a derivative work. If the original code was written by someone else and released under the GPL, that GPL is the only reason I can release a derivative work at all - otherwise, according to standard copyright, I couldn't do that. If I want to distribute it, I have to accept the license. If I don't like the license, I can find another way to do what I want.
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Umm, lawsuits suck. How is settling out of court a bad thing? The GPL isn't in limbo; it works fine, and if there's another problem, that will be cleared up later. In the mean time, why feed the lawyers?
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I believe AIM has its own Terms Of Service which requires that you be 18 or older to use the service. Of course, they don't enforce it, but the policy is there.
Except that I can't find the policy on their Web site. *sigh*
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So then you have to look to see where you have *.SuSEconfig files scattered around
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I've seen a couple that didn't boot properly the first time after the install...
Why would you call that an advantage? SysV init scripts are much less of a pain when you need to add some service automatically...
I know where everything is, and I can comment/uncomment what I need to in the appropriate scripts, or just add my own scripts (like rc.firewall to set up IP Masquerading).
No distribution has that - you can just take Red Hat, Debian, or whatever and compile stuff from source. All you lose when doing that without doing it properly is dependency checking for other packages that depend on the stuff you installed from source.
Um, I was under the impression that if you installed a library from source, then tried to install another package that depends on that library, RPM wouldn't work and you'd have to do everything from source. This is a pain. If I know I've got a library installed properly, I should just be able to use it, and if I install an app on top of it, it should work. Slackware lets me do this.
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I tried running the demo of vmware. The installer hated Slackware with a passion. Have they fixed the installer, or did you have to do some major hacking? I hacked with it for 20 minutes getting it to install, then when it refused to run I gave up and hacked with it for another 15 minutes getting it to go away. Not a pleasant experience.
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