De jure means it is the *official* or 'stated' standard (by law).
De facto means it is the standard by the *fact* that it is most widely used or recognized.
An example: if, in your company, the IT dept. has a 'standard' browser (IE) and refuse to support others, it can be said to be the standard 'de jure'. If, otoh, most users download and use another browser instead (Mozilla), that can be said to be the 'de facto' standard.
So, on the one hand, you have OSS stuff that works *great* but takes *forever* to make and isn't exactly what people (think they) want at any given moment.
On the other hand, you have salespeople feeding people crapware produced over the course of a few months to satisfy the latest buzzword-driven market-craze.
And, suprise suprise, the buzzword-laden focus-group-created crapware wins in the marketplace? This doesn't sound like anything new to capitalism, or anything unique to the computer industry for that matter. It sounds like a *much* larger problem.
I don't care, because it's the path of least resistance and just an interim step on the way to full support. At this point, I'm *much* more likely to reboot my machine to play a game than I am to spend the 12+ hours required to put unstable video drivers and XFree86 versions on my *Debian* machine. Plus, if I can pop the CD in at work or at a friend's house and just play without hassle, that's an added bonus.
A PC costs a lot of money, it makes no sense to get one if it's just going to be a glorified game console.
Consoles cost a lot of money. It makes no sense to get one if I already have a PC.
Okay, I get to play 'Devil's Advocate' here for Mr. McVoy. That's okay, I'm not too shabby at it:)
First of all, *read* the entire (linked) thread. It doesn't have to do with this case specifically, just these issues generally. I just picked some juicy pieces.
If you read Linus' *entire* post (which I didn't quote) you'll see that he makes no distinction between "modifying the kernel" and not. His distinction in the thread is, as I quoted, that "derived" works are those which show some knowledge of kernel internals *or* interfaces which are specific to Linux, regardless of whether they are *in* the kernel or outside of it. Depending upon who you believe (and on what day), the line between "in" the kernel and "out" lies somewhere between statically-linked drivers and end-user programs that utilize kernel function-calls.
The problem is, Linus also says that user-space programs cannot possibly be considered derived, even though some (like the example above) clearly were written with Linux in mind.
Larry is just pointing out that this is somewhat of an inconsistent interpretation.
Now, that's not to say that there is anything *preventing* Linus from taking this interpretation and putting it into action. In fact, as the gp shows, Linus does clearly explain the legal methods he is using to achieve his desired results and the level(s) of protection that they assure to anyone wanting to license Linux for uses such as these. They range anywhere from 'technically, you have no protection if a work can be considered derived' to 'I have said before that X is acceptable so estoppel should prevent me from changing my mind at a later date'.
Wow. That's a doozie. It would only stand up as long as company Y didn't do any mucking around with the ROM from company X or actually *copy* any GPL'd code in their manufacturing process.
It's doable, I guess. Of course, it hasn't happened, yet. But, it's doable.
The questions are: Can company X *prohibit* company Y from distributing the source through a contract agreement?
and: Will it be good or bad when a company offers a modified Linux distro on a chip?
This thread on KernelTrap is the best discussion I have come across so far wrt GPL/binary/static/module issues like the ones in this case.
Here's some snippets:
Kendall Bennett:
I have heard many people reference the fact that the although the Linux
Kernel is under the GNU GPL license, that the code is licensed with an exception clause that says binary loadable modules do not have to be under the GPL.
Linus:
Nope. No such exception exists....
Basically:
- anything that was written with Linux in mind (whether it then _also_
works on other operating systems or not) is clearly partially a derived
work.
- anything that has knowledge of and plays with fundamental internal
Linux behaviour is clearly a derived work. If you need to muck around
with core code, you're derived, no question about it.
Zwane Mwaikambo:
What about software which utilises Linux specific kernel services, such as
say some cd writing software?
Erik Andersen:
An ordinary program that uses normal system calls?
linux/COPYING says: This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Larry Mcvoy:
Yeah, and the GPL specificly invalidates that statement. We're on thin
ice here. Linus is making up the rules, which is cool (since I tend to like his rules) but the reality is that the GPL doesn't allow you to extend the GPL. It's the GPL or nothing....
But given that, neither Linus (nor any of you) get to say "well, that's fine for userland but drivers are derived works".
I've said this over and over and I'll say it again. If you want the protection of the law you have to live with the law's rules. You DO NOT get to say "user programs are a boundary across which the GPL does not apply but drivers are a boundary across which the GPL does apply". It doesn't, and can't, work that way. Either userland is GPL and drivers are GPL or neither are GPLed. Take your pick.
They can't be selling very well at all, and I'll tell you why (because I tried to buy four PC's and a laptop from them last October):
1) They are *more* expensive than the XP machines. 2) They only come on certain models (the *more* expensive ones) 3) They don't offer Linux on their machines at Best Buy, etc. 4) Their salespeople are either clueless or anti-Linux or both.
I'm kind of being an ass and this is just my opinion, but realistically this is more of a *free publicity* move than anything else. I gave HP the benefit of the doubt wrt getting Linux (I don't even use Mandrake; I just want a warranty and *no* Windows) on a few boxes and they really weren't *pushing* Linux like they claim to be.
1) Given a sufficient amount of resources/programmers, any Windows game can be made to run under Wine.
2) Many games run *more* quickly under Wine than they do under Windows.
3) Linux has a lot of free games that don't run under Windows.
4) Transgaming has access to proprietary software and partnerships that give them near-monopolistic control over the Windows-games-on-Linux market.
3) Programmers seem to be somewhat underemployed these days.
Why is it that Transgaming has yet to fill this niche? Is there not enough capital? Go public. Is there not enough income? Get WineX to run on more games; more income will follow (at an exponential rate, even). Not every IPO is a scam. There really are quite a few software companies that are poised on the brink of a huge market, without the capital to, um err, capitalize on it:)
I'll tell you, but you probably already know: you will run into that sort of problem on *any* OS, even Windows. The difference with Linux (and the reason that I use and recommend it) is that when you find something that doesn't work the way you'd like it to, you have several avenues available to fix them. Most of the time, though, little problems will get fixed without you having to do anything.
As an example: Just a few months ago I was cursing RH9 for lacking a few features, sharing Mozilla profiles being one of them. I chomped my teeth and wrote a little script to get around it. Now that I've upgraded to Fedora, lo! that feature is there along with several other improvements.
The moral: Linux isn't perfect. It's getting better at an amazing rate, though. More importantly, stupid little things that annoy you also annoy the developers who use Linux and can fix them. And, with open source, you have access to the latest fixes (and sometimes, bugs) and are free to choose, not only among several different programs that do the same task, but also among several *versions* of the same program according to the amount of features/bugs you need.
I think the *point* wasn't that Windows apps ran, but that they *stopped* running and there weren't any viable replacements. Linux is considerably more immune to that sort of scenario.
The States made it as a profit center by charging for extra stesting and stickers.
That had nothing to do with "black smoke" or manufacturers. Cops can just as easily (more easily?) pull you over if they see a cloud of black smoke than if they see a little expired sticker. Your auto manufacturer isn't the one who gets fined, either.
That just had to do with the States making a profit center out of harrassing people. I, for one, am glad it is coming to an end.
It's as if the material starts to become transparent to the field the faster it oscillates because it just cant keep up with the field.
Is this like saying something to the effect of "the material cannot change polarity fast enough" or "the faster you want the material to change polarity, the harder it is"?
I'm just spouting-off, because I can't pretend to comprehend this article quite yet. The way I'm seeing it, though, is that, normally you have a bunch of atoms in a material all resonating at some (low) frequency. The atoms resist moving at a higher frequency maybe because they are closely packed or strongly-bonded to their neighbors or whatever. These researchers have essentially cut out parts of the material in order to give the molecules room to resonate. It's nanotech; it's not like they made a *new* material, more like modified an existing one.
Feel free to correct any of this that sounds stupid.
Kids do all sorts of anti-social stuff, but, even when they're mostly minding their own business, they get pissed on. I love it how everyone expects *teenagers* to spend their free time caring for puppies and the homeless.
Here in a decent-sized city in the (yay) midwest, the evening activities available to those under eighteen are: bowling, cruising, wandering the streets aimlessly, and, ummm, well that's pretty much it.
Everything in town closes at 9:00. *Public* parks close. There's a constant crackdown on 'cruising' for some reason. There's an 11:00 curfew for everyone under-18.
So, the choices for a kid growing up around here are: 'sit in your room all evening with your computer' or 'break some sort of law'. Apparently, now our fearless leaders have found a way to make 'sitting in your room' against the law as if they would rather these kids be roaming the streets vandalizing cars and buildings. Great.
At least, this way, they are actually learning some things about computers and causing *very* little damage in the process. I think we all need to be a little more realistic: kids cost money and destroy things. The fact that *the internet* isn't a little more kid-proof should be of more concern to everyone than the slightly-less-than-moral decisions made by a bunch of teenagers.
Like I said, they fire all the useless salespeople and ad execs and sell the bandwidth for a reasonable profit that the market will bear. If only for the reliability that wired access affords, they still have a product that people will purchase. I don't know what their debt structure looks like, but there's no need for anyone to go bankrupt, maybe just lose most of their stock value.
Of course, it's probably *much* more stressful than life in the US. After writing that, I looked it up and their population density is really 10x that of the US. All I'm saying is that, if Americans had that kind constant human contact, we'd be killing *each other* instead of ourselves.
If VoIP became mainstream, how many telephone companies would go bankrupt?
*None* of them. They all make insane amounts of money doing little more than advertising and selling, and they'd continue to make money, albeit less, by selling the physical 'pipes'. Why should a *monopoly* need superbowl ads and an army of salespeople, anyways?
As I watched that movie, I realized that there are probably other cultures, the Japanese being one of them, that do a *much* better job of utilizing technology than Americans do. Even though they have a population density that is something like 5x ours, they seem to do a decent job (better than we would) of dealing with stress and finding "alone time" for themselves. I think that technology, when properly integrated into our lives, can help us deal with the hectic schedules and stresses of dealing with other people instead of adding to it.
Americans tend to use new technologies as a plaything rather than as a real tool. Segways, computers, and all those handheld things make great examples. Consider that paper usage went *up* as computers and printers began to be adopted in US businesses and you'll see what I'm talking about. Most businesses I deal with are more interested in tracking their employees goof-off time on the internet than increasing their productivity with new ways of doing things. It's the American way: If we can't understand it, we use it for Solitaire.
Some things I'm thinking about that "Lost in Translation" specifically reminded me of:
cars: these cause more stress than they solve, and health problems to boot.
swimming pools: these help people deal with stress. The problem is, those who can afford them *don't* need them by definition. In the US, you don't own a pool unless you're retired. Even then, you can only use it for goofing-off since it's outdoors.
home automation: In the US, home automation is to impress your friends. I'm sure elsewhere, it's to help you live your life more comfortably.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they could just sell the software and some enterprising hacker could put together the rest of the (necessary) parts?
I wonder if Sony would mind enough not to DMCA them into oblivion?
Maybe the courts should consider non-lawyer judges. I know a few out-of-work slashdotters who might fit the bill :)
That description in the gp is somewhat confusing.
De jure means it is the *official* or 'stated' standard (by law).
De facto means it is the standard by the *fact* that it is most widely used or recognized.
An example: if, in your company, the IT dept. has a 'standard' browser (IE) and refuse to support others, it can be said to be the standard 'de jure'. If, otoh, most users download and use another browser instead (Mozilla), that can be said to be the 'de facto' standard.
So, on the one hand, you have OSS stuff that works *great* but takes *forever* to make and isn't exactly what people (think they) want at any given moment.
On the other hand, you have salespeople feeding people crapware produced over the course of a few months to satisfy the latest buzzword-driven market-craze.
And, suprise suprise, the buzzword-laden focus-group-created crapware wins in the marketplace? This doesn't sound like anything new to capitalism, or anything unique to the computer industry for that matter. It sounds like a *much* larger problem.
we're the pickiest of users, mostly because each of us thinks we can do it better.
Yes, but, apparently, according to the article, we can.
but it turns the PC into a game console
I don't care, because it's the path of least resistance and just an interim step on the way to full support. At this point, I'm *much* more likely to reboot my machine to play a game than I am to spend the 12+ hours required to put unstable video drivers and XFree86 versions on my *Debian* machine. Plus, if I can pop the CD in at work or at a friend's house and just play without hassle, that's an added bonus.
A PC costs a lot of money, it makes no sense to get one if it's just going to be a glorified game console.
Consoles cost a lot of money. It makes no sense to get one if I already have a PC.
Okay, I get to play 'Devil's Advocate' here for Mr. McVoy. That's okay, I'm not too shabby at it :)
First of all, *read* the entire (linked) thread. It doesn't have to do with this case specifically, just these issues generally. I just picked some juicy pieces.
If you read Linus' *entire* post (which I didn't quote) you'll see that he makes no distinction between "modifying the kernel" and not. His distinction in the thread is, as I quoted, that "derived" works are those which show some knowledge of kernel internals *or* interfaces which are specific to Linux, regardless of whether they are *in* the kernel or outside of it. Depending upon who you believe (and on what day), the line between "in" the kernel and "out" lies somewhere between statically-linked drivers and end-user programs that utilize kernel function-calls.
The problem is, Linus also says that user-space programs cannot possibly be considered derived, even though some (like the example above) clearly were written with Linux in mind.
Larry is just pointing out that this is somewhat of an inconsistent interpretation.
Now, that's not to say that there is anything *preventing* Linus from taking this interpretation and putting it into action. In fact, as the gp shows, Linus does clearly explain the legal methods he is using to achieve his desired results and the level(s) of protection that they assure to anyone wanting to license Linux for uses such as these. They range anywhere from 'technically, you have no protection if a work can be considered derived' to 'I have said before that X is acceptable so estoppel should prevent me from changing my mind at a later date'.
Wow. That's a doozie. It would only stand up as long as company Y didn't do any mucking around with the ROM from company X or actually *copy* any GPL'd code in their manufacturing process.
It's doable, I guess. Of course, it hasn't happened, yet. But, it's doable.
The questions are: Can company X *prohibit* company Y from distributing the source through a contract agreement?
and: Will it be good or bad when a company offers a modified Linux distro on a chip?
Here's some snippets:
Kendall Bennett:
Linus:
Zwane Mwaikambo:
Erik Andersen:
Larry Mcvoy:
They can't be selling very well at all, and I'll tell you why (because I tried to buy four PC's and a laptop from them last October):
1) They are *more* expensive than the XP machines.
2) They only come on certain models (the *more* expensive ones)
3) They don't offer Linux on their machines at Best Buy, etc.
4) Their salespeople are either clueless or anti-Linux or both.
I'm kind of being an ass and this is just my opinion, but realistically this is more of a *free publicity* move than anything else. I gave HP the benefit of the doubt wrt getting Linux (I don't even use Mandrake; I just want a warranty and *no* Windows) on a few boxes and they really weren't *pushing* Linux like they claim to be.
Whereas:
:)
1) Given a sufficient amount of resources/programmers, any Windows game can be made to run under Wine.
2) Many games run *more* quickly under Wine than they do under Windows.
3) Linux has a lot of free games that don't run under Windows.
4) Transgaming has access to proprietary software and partnerships that give them near-monopolistic control over the Windows-games-on-Linux market.
3) Programmers seem to be somewhat underemployed these days.
Why is it that Transgaming has yet to fill this niche? Is there not enough capital? Go public. Is there not enough income? Get WineX to run on more games; more income will follow (at an exponential rate, even). Not every IPO is a scam. There really are quite a few software companies that are poised on the brink of a huge market, without the capital to, um err, capitalize on it
I'll tell you, but you probably already know: you will run into that sort of problem on *any* OS, even Windows. The difference with Linux (and the reason that I use and recommend it) is that when you find something that doesn't work the way you'd like it to, you have several avenues available to fix them. Most of the time, though, little problems will get fixed without you having to do anything.
As an example: Just a few months ago I was cursing RH9 for lacking a few features, sharing Mozilla profiles being one of them. I chomped my teeth and wrote a little script to get around it. Now that I've upgraded to Fedora, lo! that feature is there along with several other improvements.
The moral: Linux isn't perfect. It's getting better at an amazing rate, though. More importantly, stupid little things that annoy you also annoy the developers who use Linux and can fix them. And, with open source, you have access to the latest fixes (and sometimes, bugs) and are free to choose, not only among several different programs that do the same task, but also among several *versions* of the same program according to the amount of features/bugs you need.
I think the *point* wasn't that Windows apps ran, but that they *stopped* running and there weren't any viable replacements. Linux is considerably more immune to that sort of scenario.
now we know that chlorine will alter
I think that was choline. Don't feed anyone chlorine, even if it's just a little bit.
There isn't much you can't power with this type of setup.
Am I the only one who is wondering what a "business license" is and whether it really exists?
The States made it as a profit center by charging for extra stesting and stickers.
That had nothing to do with "black smoke" or manufacturers. Cops can just as easily (more easily?) pull you over if they see a cloud of black smoke than if they see a little expired sticker. Your auto manufacturer isn't the one who gets fined, either.
That just had to do with the States making a profit center out of harrassing people. I, for one, am glad it is coming to an end.
Is this like saying something to the effect of "the material cannot change polarity fast enough" or "the faster you want the material to change polarity, the harder it is"?
I'm just spouting-off, because I can't pretend to comprehend this article quite yet. The way I'm seeing it, though, is that, normally you have a bunch of atoms in a material all resonating at some (low) frequency. The atoms resist moving at a higher frequency maybe because they are closely packed or strongly-bonded to their neighbors or whatever. These researchers have essentially cut out parts of the material in order to give the molecules room to resonate. It's nanotech; it's not like they made a *new* material, more like modified an existing one.
Feel free to correct any of this that sounds stupid.
Kids do all sorts of anti-social stuff, but, even when they're mostly minding their own business, they get pissed on. I love it how everyone expects *teenagers* to spend their free time caring for puppies and the homeless.
Here in a decent-sized city in the (yay) midwest, the evening activities available to those under eighteen are: bowling, cruising, wandering the streets aimlessly, and, ummm, well that's pretty much it.
Everything in town closes at 9:00. *Public* parks close. There's a constant crackdown on 'cruising' for some reason. There's an 11:00 curfew for everyone under-18.
So, the choices for a kid growing up around here are: 'sit in your room all evening with your computer' or 'break some sort of law'. Apparently, now our fearless leaders have found a way to make 'sitting in your room' against the law as if they would rather these kids be roaming the streets vandalizing cars and buildings. Great.
At least, this way, they are actually learning some things about computers and causing *very* little damage in the process. I think we all need to be a little more realistic: kids cost money and destroy things. The fact that *the internet* isn't a little more kid-proof should be of more concern to everyone than the slightly-less-than-moral decisions made by a bunch of teenagers.
Like I said, they fire all the useless salespeople and ad execs and sell the bandwidth for a reasonable profit that the market will bear. If only for the reliability that wired access affords, they still have a product that people will purchase. I don't know what their debt structure looks like, but there's no need for anyone to go bankrupt, maybe just lose most of their stock value.
Of course, it's probably *much* more stressful than life in the US. After writing that, I looked it up and their population density is really 10x that of the US. All I'm saying is that, if Americans had that kind constant human contact, we'd be killing *each other* instead of ourselves.
- they are focused on groups, not individuals
There is no 'focusing' on groups. An individual is just a group of one. Designing for groups is the more generalized solution.
I am much more aghast at the number of solutions that *don't* include support for groups.
*None* of them. They all make insane amounts of money doing little more than advertising and selling, and they'd continue to make money, albeit less, by selling the physical 'pipes'. Why should a *monopoly* need superbowl ads and an army of salespeople, anyways?
As I watched that movie, I realized that there are probably other cultures, the Japanese being one of them, that do a *much* better job of utilizing technology than Americans do. Even though they have a population density that is something like 5x ours, they seem to do a decent job (better than we would) of dealing with stress and finding "alone time" for themselves. I think that technology, when properly integrated into our lives, can help us deal with the hectic schedules and stresses of dealing with other people instead of adding to it.
Americans tend to use new technologies as a plaything rather than as a real tool. Segways, computers, and all those handheld things make great examples. Consider that paper usage went *up* as computers and printers began to be adopted in US businesses and you'll see what I'm talking about. Most businesses I deal with are more interested in tracking their employees goof-off time on the internet than increasing their productivity with new ways of doing things. It's the American way: If we can't understand it, we use it for Solitaire.
Some things I'm thinking about that "Lost in Translation" specifically reminded me of:
cars: these cause more stress than they solve, and health problems to boot.
swimming pools: these help people deal with stress. The problem is, those who can afford them *don't* need them by definition. In the US, you don't own a pool unless you're retired. Even then, you can only use it for goofing-off since it's outdoors.
home automation: In the US, home automation is to impress your friends. I'm sure elsewhere, it's to help you live your life more comfortably.