I agree with you that the views in the parent message seem libertarian, and that is the problem I have. I believe the notion of pure freedom, in which nobody forces anyone else to behave in a way they do not want to behave, is a fantasy. This is different from the example that the ideal world is a democracy; anyone who thinks about it can see your points. Democcracy leads to some incredibly stupid things, but at the same time, it's the best thing we've got so far.
As for protecting freedom with a software license, any situation in which some people feel oppressed by others is changed through law, whether through the enforcement of it, the refusal to enforce it, the creation of new law through peaceful or violent means, or the repeal of law.
In this specific topic, you are correct; the GPL cannot undo bad laws. Under US copyright law, however, it can protect your freedom. This is one reason why I believe that no advocate of more restrictive software licenses has tried to challenge the validity of the GPL. A successful challenge to its validity would challenge the validity of all software licenses, and possibly the basis on which they rest: you rcopyright allows you to dictate terms of use.
The GPL, with no context, does not protect the freedoms it tries to address. But it does protect those freedoms through US copyright law.
The English version of Solaris was translated from French. Does anyone know if French is the original language of the novel, or is the English version a twice-removed translation? I know that Lem writes in Polish and German.
My ideal world is one where there is a wide mix of software and software licenses...
Congratulations, you have your ideal world, and you didn't have to do any work to achieve it! Your ideal world, in which there is a mix of MIT, BSD licenses, the GPL, and the licenses of Microsoft, Sun, Sony, and so on, is the world we live in now.
The proponents and owners of the "fascist" licenses are now trying to enlist the governments of the world to help them maintain a stranglehold on the market and people's freedoms to use computers to their full potential. The DMCA is a product of your ideal world.
Your freedom (as in, your freedom to think what you want, read what you want, spend your money as you want, work and live where you wish, maintain your privacy as you wish) is becoming inextricably linked to your freedom to control computers and software. Repeat: IF YOU CANNOT CONTROL COMPUTERS AND THE SOFTWARE THEY RUN, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR FREEDOM. Put another way, severe restrictions can and will be put on how you are allowed to live your life.
Your "ideal world" is the vision of a lazy person who thinks (or hopes) that everything will work out for the best. RMS is not such a person, which is perhaps why you do not seem to understand what the FSF is about.
I'm not talking about credit hijacking. It is a fact that the BSD's and Linux are so easy to get and maintain as a result of the gcc collection. Linux is a kernel, nothing more. The BSDs would have forever been a niche platform without a free set of compilers and development tools that did not depend on the generosity of a vendor.
The major free OS distributions are built and distributed with it. Major software companies develop with it.
My assertion is that these free OS choices would not be able to flourish as they have without it and other free tools. Even the BSD teams acknowledge that their distributions rely on the GNU compilers and build tools.
So, you disapprove of him in some unspecified way, but thanks to him and the other "kooks," your "world is being attended to?" Thank goodness that RMS is doing the work that you are too "normal" to do, Mr Business Person.
My first reaction to your post is "screw off."
My second is to make a list of all the things that could not have flourished over the past 10 years if Stallman had not, in an obvious fit of "kookiness," started the GNU project:
Linux FreeBSD MacOSX OpenBSD OpenSSH pgp G NUpg... and anything else for which you are required merely to type 'make.'
Free software has more than the wonderful effect of "attending to" your world. It has Ballmer openly crapping himself during keynote speeches. It has some governments considering the radical move of removing their dependency on software made by foriegners with nationalist concerns in a world where freedom and your ability to run software are becoming more and more the same.
Think of what you do in a day: use the ATM, check your email, check your voice mail, get mail on paper, read the newspaper, watch television, get water from the tap, turn on the lights, listen to some music. Now picture that all running on software owned by the "Trusted Computing" infrastructure, which decides what you are and are not allowed to do with the stuff for which you pay. Feel a little "kooky?"
When you say "accessible from 93" you should mention that you will be on a 1 mile stretch of 93 for about 1 hour during certain times of day.
On a regular weekday the trip from the convention center site to the bridge out of South Boston towards 93 takes 40 minutes (you can walk the same route in about 10 minutes). Even the people running the Big Dig are lowering expectations for any traffic fixes because of this project; the traffic jam will just be moved underground.
Not that this has anything to do with Apple's decision, but if I worked for them I'd be thankful I did not have to travel to Boston these days.
On the other hand, maybe a MacWorld Boston experience would inspire them to build the ultimate telecommuting solution for OS X!
The author has many issues with the GPL. Go to www.google.com and search the following:
"brett glass" gpl
To see what he writes. He has stated many times that it is an "unethical" license, and that it is a secret plan (or at least a purposefully obfuscated plan) to "destroy programmers' livelihoods." He also likes to split hairs down to the molecular level, and I don't advise the faint of heart using a metaphor to explain a position with which he disagrees, he'll start arguing about the metaphor.
Now, I am a sick person for enjoying ad nauseum newsgroup debates, but search google with this:
"brett glass" lynx GPL
and skim the message thread. I found it hilarious. Richard Stallman even chimes in at one point, and the author accuses him of using the GPL to nurse a 30 year old grudge against Symbolics.
Another fun time can be had by searching FreeBSD newsgroup archives where the author upbraids the core development team for a) refusing to supply features he wants, or b) deciding to stop supporting old versions of FreeBSD due to resource constraints (there is an amusing a.out vs. ELF thread somewhere in one of the archives).
I may be wrong, but I think that there is something he does not get about the word "free."
We'll also travel to this office in personal atomic powered flying cars.
After reading this, I bet that Bill Gates' original plans for his mansion had a "pinball machine room," a secret entrance, and a robot chef that tells jokes while it serves you.
I switched only because I needed a new video editing PC. After several years of building my own boxes with Windows NT and 2000 and 3rd party hardware, Adobe Premiere is still not easy to learn, nor is it very stable, nor is it very fast. And the 3rd party hardware makes me shudder with revulsion: buggy drivers and a lot of vendor denial.
The cost for the PC hardware I wanted was about 2700.00 USD. Then I looked at my other PCs: one is very stable, one does not work with any version of Windows but runs for 100 days with Linux, another one was sort of flaky until I installed OpenBSD (this is why it's good to have many OS choices; if it's a hardware problem, it should die under ANY OS, like my Thinkpad with a bad motherboard used to do).
When I looked at the Power Mac dual G4 1GHz, I saw the tradeoffs: slower bus, less MHz in the CPUs, and so on. But, I get 2 firewire ports digital video out and OSX all included. I also saw several movies in the past 2 years with a credit to FCP. The price was $200 over what I would pay for a tricked out PC.
I went to the Apple store where they showed me how to download and edit footage right in the store. I have never seen a PC store with a setup like this.
I was surprised at how fast the Mac replaced my Windows PC for everything I do: Office, e-mail, software development. The hardware is not the latest or sexiest, but it works better. The computer _feels_ faster, because I never have to stop working to appease some sudden need the OS has.
I think that the world of cheap commodity hardware and all-compatible software is still a dream; believe it or not, Intel, Motorola, Sparc, they're ALL using proprietary technology that locks you into a vendor's plans, whims, and mistakes. Get used to it. When buying the Apple, I chose a different route: pay a premium for "commodity" hardware with a lot of added value. Dell and Gateway have gotten so big that they cannot afford to lose any money; maybe being the biggest company is not always the best thing to do.
About me and technology: I work in a Windows NT/2000/Solaris 7-8-9 shop. By day I am a systems architect building Solaris, Windows, and OpenBSD systems for security and business automation. I program in python, perl, java, and C++.
"Apple is a terrible company to include in this kind of survey. A very large percentage of their customers are Mac enthusiasts."
Attacking the survey methedology with a vague unsupported assertion is not really the way to prove a point.
The reason I doubt your assertion is that during the 'dark years' before Jobs return, customers were leaving the platform and making their dissatisfaction with the quality of the product and support well known.
I think that one reason Apple might rate high is that they are responsible everything on my computer: the hardware, the OS, Final Cut Pro, the iTools, the iPod, and so on. Also, their stuff no longer seems to break as often as it did 4 years ago.
But seriously, you keep repeating the same scenario over and over without a scrap of evidence or precedent to back it up, other than the fact that you can "see it happening someday."
"My theory is that RedHat will try to prevent people from simply copying their distribution and rebranding it."
Yes, I understand your 'theory,' but to make my point as clearly as possible: the GPL says that nobody is allowed to do what you have described.
So, you say that the US gov't will (somehow) pressure the courts into nullifying some or all of the GPL (by appointing anti-GPL judges to the Federal Courts???), but why would anyone do this to 'save' the software industry?
Except for the BSD license and public domain, the GPL is the least restrictive software license in use today. If it is found to be unenforceable, EVERY vendor of software (including RedHat in your example) is screwed, as they are releasing software under licenses that are MORE restrictive than the one which has been found to be unenforceable. Read the licenses with other software, and you will see the types of restrictions that copyright holders feel they can impose on users and developers.
I really do understand the mechanics of what you are describing, but from both a legal and business point of view, it makes absolutely no sense. When RedHat appoints a suicidal maniac as their CEO,
or when Brett Glass becomes Speaker of the House, what you describe might come to pass, but until then, I think that closing down the ftp server and raising the price of CD's would be an easier way to make some money without trying to outlaw restrictions on software use and copying.
I agree with your conclusions if the anecdotes are true. Add up enough anecdotes, and you have evidence....
But, we are talking about unions, which started in order to protect workers' interests and rights, but have ended up as corporate as any other business. And, we are talking about show business, which is well-known as the most hateful, power mad, greed- ego- and insecurity- driven activity around.
But this is off topic. My point is that however a union behaves internally with its members, it has the power given by its members to protect their interests, in this case, a creator being able refuse a third party the right to change then sell a copy of his or her work.
But the rest of the example; I still do not get it. If the source code is under the GPL, then the copyright holder cannot, under the terms of the license, stop anyone from modifying and re-releasing it in source or binary form.
All RedHat can do is tell me not to use the RedHat name on it.
And, as for free binaries, who cares? Free binaries are not a requirement of the GPL, however, source-on-demand for low cost (like the cost of media) is a requirement, and the distributor is not allowed to restrict further distribution.
In your example, OF has removed the embedded RedHat strings from the source code, right? So officially it is now a product derived from GPL source code and falls under the GPL.
While your example is limited in scope, I fail to see the logic from one step to the next, and I see no way that this could lead to the legal nullification of the GPL, without also leading to the nullification of software licenses as they exist.
Sounds like the spirit of GNU remains. RedHat (and other distributors) do have a copyright on their CD setup. You can do whatever you want with the software. I just don't see this weird paranoid DMCA scenario the original post describes.
"They attempted to FORCE George Lucas to put his name at the beginning of Star Wars..."
Off the main topic, but you are incorrect. The dispute was over the director's credit on "Empire Strikes Back," which was not directed by Lucas. It also was not just the DGA.
Both the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild fined Lucas for placing Irvin Kershner's and the writers' credits at the end of the movie while keeping the Lucasfilm Ltd. logo (the producer's credit) up front. Lucas resigned from the Directors Guild, which is why he could not hire an American director for "Jedi."
The two Guilds spend a lot of time looking out for the interests of their members, the people who actually create the content you watch, so I would say that they are within their rights to assert a Eurpoean-style 'moral right' to a work of art as its creator.
I think it's a very important issue, because in the US, only a director with 'final cut' in his or her contract can refuse someone else's edits. If the case holds up in court, it could change the whole "work for hire" concept of US contract law as it pertains to anything that could be a work of art. Of course, the contract could still call for the director/writer to produce an "R" rated movie, since, God forbid, an NC-17 rating might mean that a movie deals with topics unsuitable for kids. I mean seriously, Ferrara said that "Bad Lieutenant" was not a movie for children, nor were any of his other movies.
I think that this is why the studios themselves are not weighing in on this yet, because a) it's not costing them money, and b) they don't want to help the directors and writers get power over the work they produce.
Also, I presume that the companies involved are snipping out scenes for a fee. This makes me think that they have violated the copyright by redistributing an altered copy.
And, wha'? Why would RedHat stop distributing binaries? And how the heck would your fictional company get hold of the stuff, as purchased source code?
RedHat has been pretty careful to follow the letter and spirit of the GPL, and they remain openly committed to that model. Why would they try to subvert it now?
Commercial entities _already_ own and have a legal copyright for their GPL-derived code.
All RedHat has to do in order to make free copies more scarce is to stop maintaining an anonymous ftp server, and stop allowing updates to mirror sites. That is perfectly allowed under the GPL. Of course, they cannot stop anyone from buying the disc and redistributing the contents.
I see the source of your misunderstanding. I did not write that Microsoft lost money; I was actually alluding to their habit of killing promising technologies and companies with illegal tactics to maintain their monopoly (I got those facts from the New York Times, MSNBC, and the Department of Justice). This is a reference to the software market, not the stock market.
I don't know if you're old enough to read yet, but your snippet of my post is misleading; the sentence about MS is actually the "topic sentence" of a new paragraph, which indicates the start of a different idea.
When I write "their effect on the market," I may have shown a misguided faith in your comprehension skills and knowledge of current events; I presumed that anyone who has read a newspaper in the last three years could figure out that I was referring to Linux as a tool to help undo some of the harm MS did to the technology market. Remove the OS from the realm of competition, and they lose their clout to kill the next Netscape. Make them compete on technical merits with another OS, and they will have to improve their software proportionally to the money they charge for it.
I read that with disbelief, then considered the source. USA Today is not really an in-depth reporting machine. It's either sloppy fact checking or, as you say, they left out the details of what changes were made.
I do find it strange if the architect of those system upgrades was surprised, as the article implies.
Every time I see a story about how "Linux is Dead on the (desktop, webserver, database server)" I wonder why I should listen to the opinions of people who helped to build the last stock bubble with companies that did nothing (but they did it fast!).
Nobody knows how long it will take to 'correct' Microsoft's nasty effect on the the market, but remember, MS wouldn't mention Linux 5 years ago, then they laughed at it, now they're competing against it.
I think that some in the Linux community got scared because business people were pronouncing defeat for Linux because of, well, think of any reason you can: no apps, performance and security problems, no support, lousy interface. Recently we've been seeing that those opinions were just immature impatience, as Linux adoption continues in spite of 10 years of gloomy forcasts from the pundits.
Re:Read the article...
on
Is Linux Dead?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I thought the article was actually very well written, and it presented logical reasons for Linux's failure to make significant gains in the desktop market.
There was even a quote about the MS monopoly being partly responsible for this: closed office file formats, and PCs that 'automatically' ship with Windows and no other choices.
So, I disagree with the posted story. This article is another in a long series of "Linux has not won the desktop" articles, and is the first one I've seen that comes close to laying the blame partly on MS.
You have a skewed view of the UNIX admin world. In my workplace (small investment firm), we have 6 UNIX admins who jump at the chance to learn something new. They'll dive into Linux, then realize OpenBSD is better for their task because of its security and inhale the documentation, all while keeping a fleet of Solaris servers running for production work.
If one of them does not know how to program, he picks up a book and starts writing python in a couple of days.
It sounds like you and I are at the extreme ends of the UNIX admin experience, because my situation sounds so opposite to yours.
To the original poster: what kind of workplace is yours? If your UNIX people jump at new stuff, they'll soon figure out if the new system can be successfully integrated and how long it will take.
What the hell kind of place are you working at? I would get out of there immediately. If the market in your area is so glutted with useless UNIX people like this, you should have no problem getting another job.
Muslims are also not supposed to borrow money with interest, so some in the US have set up 'rent-to-own' companies to help Muslims who abide by this buy houses, cars, and other big-ticket items.
Being so adaptable, I presume good Muslims will just start investigating Free software.
Also, as I read these posts, I see a lot of flames against Islam. I am not a Muslim, but as one who was raised in a Christian church, I can see that many high authorities of Islam are like those of the Catholic and other Christian faiths: business people who live well while telling their followers to 'accept their lot in life,' which can mean poverty, paying $250 for an OS that crashes often, or having too many children because birth control is a sin.
Most of the top religious leaders represent their own interests first, just as the BSA represents the interests of software makers who want to cling to 'shrink-wrap' licensing model, and the RIAA represents those who want to be paid every time you hum a tune to yourself.
One should not automatically equate Islamic leaders' statements with the beliefs of all Muslims. Just as they condone or refuse to condemn some actions we find mighty upsetting, Western religions have condoned and remained silent on some nasty shit over the centuries (like, say, the Nazi war on Jews).
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you that the views in the parent message seem libertarian, and that is the problem I have. I believe the notion of pure freedom, in which nobody forces anyone else to behave in a way they do not want to behave, is a fantasy. This is different from the example that the ideal world is a democracy; anyone who thinks about it can see your points. Democcracy leads to some incredibly stupid things, but at the same time, it's the best thing we've got so far.
As for protecting freedom with a software license, any situation in which some people feel oppressed by others is changed through law, whether through the enforcement of it, the refusal to enforce it, the creation of new law through peaceful or violent means, or the repeal of law.
In this specific topic, you are correct; the GPL cannot undo bad laws. Under US copyright law, however, it can protect your freedom. This is one reason why I believe that no advocate of more restrictive software licenses has tried to challenge the validity of the GPL. A successful challenge to its validity would challenge the validity of all software licenses, and possibly the basis on which they rest: you rcopyright allows you to dictate terms of use.
The GPL, with no context, does not protect the freedoms it tries to address. But it does protect those freedoms through US copyright law.
Stanislaw Lem is Polish, not French.
The English version of Solaris was translated from French. Does anyone know if French is the original language of the novel, or is the English version a twice-removed translation? I know that Lem writes in Polish and German.
Congratulations, you have your ideal world, and you didn't have to do any work to achieve it! Your ideal world, in which there is a mix of MIT, BSD licenses, the GPL, and the licenses of Microsoft, Sun, Sony, and so on, is the world we live in now.
The proponents and owners of the "fascist" licenses are now trying to enlist the governments of the world to help them maintain a stranglehold on the market and people's freedoms to use computers to their full potential. The DMCA is a product of your ideal world.
Your freedom (as in, your freedom to think what you want, read what you want, spend your money as you want, work and live where you wish, maintain your privacy as you wish) is becoming inextricably linked to your freedom to control computers and software. Repeat: IF YOU CANNOT CONTROL COMPUTERS AND THE SOFTWARE THEY RUN, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR FREEDOM. Put another way, severe restrictions can and will be put on how you are allowed to live your life.
Your "ideal world" is the vision of a lazy person who thinks (or hopes) that everything will work out for the best. RMS is not such a person, which is perhaps why you do not seem to understand what the FSF is about.
I'm not talking about credit hijacking. It is a fact that the BSD's and Linux are so easy to get and maintain as a result of the gcc collection. Linux is a kernel, nothing more. The BSDs would have forever been a niche platform without a free set of compilers and development tools that did not depend on the generosity of a vendor.
The major free OS distributions are built and distributed with it. Major software companies develop with it.
My assertion is that these free OS choices would not be able to flourish as they have without it and other free tools. Even the BSD teams acknowledge that their distributions rely on the GNU compilers and build tools.
So, you disapprove of him in some unspecified way, but thanks to him and the other "kooks," your "world is being attended to?" Thank goodness that RMS is doing the work that you are too "normal" to do, Mr Business Person.
G NUpg ... and anything else for which you are required merely to type 'make.'
My first reaction to your post is "screw off."
My second is to make a list of all the things that could not have flourished over the past 10 years if Stallman had not, in an obvious fit of "kookiness," started the GNU project:
Linux
FreeBSD
MacOSX
OpenBSD
OpenSSH
pgp
Free software has more than the wonderful effect of "attending to" your world. It has Ballmer openly crapping himself during keynote speeches. It has some governments considering the radical move of removing their dependency on software made by foriegners with nationalist concerns in a world where freedom and your ability to run software are becoming more and more the same.
Think of what you do in a day: use the ATM, check your email, check your voice mail, get mail on paper, read the newspaper, watch television, get water from the tap, turn on the lights, listen to some music. Now picture that all running on software owned by the "Trusted Computing" infrastructure, which decides what you are and are not allowed to do with the stuff for which you pay. Feel a little "kooky?"
When you say "accessible from 93" you should mention that you will be on a 1 mile stretch of 93 for about 1 hour during certain times of day.
On a regular weekday the trip from the convention center site to the bridge out of South Boston towards 93 takes 40 minutes (you can walk the same route in about 10 minutes). Even the people running the Big Dig are lowering expectations for any traffic fixes because of this project; the traffic jam will just be moved underground.
Not that this has anything to do with Apple's decision, but if I worked for them I'd be thankful I did not have to travel to Boston these days.
On the other hand, maybe a MacWorld Boston experience would inspire them to build the ultimate telecommuting solution for OS X!
The author has many issues with the GPL. Go to www.google.com and search the following:
"brett glass" gpl
To see what he writes. He has stated many times that it is an "unethical" license, and that it is a secret plan (or at least a purposefully obfuscated plan) to "destroy programmers' livelihoods." He also likes to split hairs down to the molecular level, and I don't advise the faint of heart using a metaphor to explain a position with which he disagrees, he'll start arguing about the metaphor.
Now, I am a sick person for enjoying ad nauseum newsgroup debates, but search google with this:
"brett glass" lynx GPL
and skim the message thread. I found it hilarious. Richard Stallman even chimes in at one point, and the author accuses him of using the GPL to nurse a 30 year old grudge against Symbolics.
Another fun time can be had by searching FreeBSD newsgroup archives where the author upbraids the core development team for a) refusing to supply features he wants, or b) deciding to stop supporting old versions of FreeBSD due to resource constraints (there is an amusing a.out vs. ELF thread somewhere in one of the archives).
I may be wrong, but I think that there is something he does not get about the word "free."
We'll also travel to this office in personal atomic powered flying cars.
After reading this, I bet that Bill Gates' original plans for his mansion had a "pinball machine room," a secret entrance, and a robot chef that tells jokes while it serves you.
I switched only because I needed a new video editing PC. After several years of building my own boxes with Windows NT and 2000 and 3rd party hardware, Adobe Premiere is still not easy to learn, nor is it very stable, nor is it very fast. And the 3rd party hardware makes me shudder with revulsion: buggy drivers and a lot of vendor denial.
The cost for the PC hardware I wanted was about 2700.00 USD. Then I looked at my other PCs: one is very stable, one does not work with any version of Windows but runs for 100 days with Linux, another one was sort of flaky until I installed OpenBSD (this is why it's good to have many OS choices; if it's a hardware problem, it should die under ANY OS, like my Thinkpad with a bad motherboard used to do).
When I looked at the Power Mac dual G4 1GHz, I saw the tradeoffs: slower bus, less MHz in the CPUs, and so on. But, I get 2 firewire ports digital video out and OSX all included. I also saw several movies in the past 2 years with a credit to FCP. The price was $200 over what I would pay for a tricked out PC.
I went to the Apple store where they showed me how to download and edit footage right in the store. I have never seen a PC store with a setup like this.
I was surprised at how fast the Mac replaced my Windows PC for everything I do: Office, e-mail, software development. The hardware is not the latest or sexiest, but it works better. The computer _feels_ faster, because I never have to stop working to appease some sudden need the OS has.
I think that the world of cheap commodity hardware and all-compatible software is still a dream; believe it or not, Intel, Motorola, Sparc, they're ALL using proprietary technology that locks you into a vendor's plans, whims, and mistakes. Get used to it. When buying the Apple, I chose a different route: pay a premium for "commodity" hardware with a lot of added value. Dell and Gateway have gotten so big that they cannot afford to lose any money; maybe being the biggest company is not always the best thing to do.
About me and technology: I work in a Windows NT/2000/Solaris 7-8-9 shop. By day I am a systems architect building Solaris, Windows, and OpenBSD systems for security and business automation. I program in python, perl, java, and C++.
"Apple is a terrible company to include in this kind of survey. A very large percentage of their customers are Mac enthusiasts."
Attacking the survey methedology with a vague unsupported assertion is not really the way to prove a point.
The reason I doubt your assertion is that during the 'dark years' before Jobs return, customers were leaving the platform and making their dissatisfaction with the quality of the product and support well known.
I think that one reason Apple might rate high is that they are responsible everything on my computer: the hardware, the OS, Final Cut Pro, the iTools, the iPod, and so on. Also, their stuff no longer seems to break as often as it did 4 years ago.
I see. A communist plot.
But seriously, you keep repeating the same scenario over and over without a scrap of evidence or precedent to back it up, other than the fact that you can "see it happening someday."
Yes, I understand your 'theory,' but to make my point as clearly as possible: the GPL says that nobody is allowed to do what you have described.
So, you say that the US gov't will (somehow) pressure the courts into nullifying some or all of the GPL (by appointing anti-GPL judges to the Federal Courts???), but why would anyone do this to 'save' the software industry?
Except for the BSD license and public domain, the GPL is the least restrictive software license in use today. If it is found to be unenforceable, EVERY vendor of software (including RedHat in your example) is screwed, as they are releasing software under licenses that are MORE restrictive than the one which has been found to be unenforceable. Read the licenses with other software, and you will see the types of restrictions that copyright holders feel they can impose on users and developers.
I really do understand the mechanics of what you are describing, but from both a legal and business point of view, it makes absolutely no sense. When RedHat appoints a suicidal maniac as their CEO, or when Brett Glass becomes Speaker of the House, what you describe might come to pass, but until then, I think that closing down the ftp server and raising the price of CD's would be an easier way to make some money without trying to outlaw restrictions on software use and copying.
I agree with your conclusions if the anecdotes are true. Add up enough anecdotes, and you have evidence....
But, we are talking about unions, which started in order to protect workers' interests and rights, but have ended up as corporate as any other business. And, we are talking about show business, which is well-known as the most hateful, power mad, greed- ego- and insecurity- driven activity around.
But this is off topic. My point is that however a union behaves internally with its members, it has the power given by its members to protect their interests, in this case, a creator being able refuse a third party the right to change then sell a copy of his or her work.
But the rest of the example; I still do not get it. If the source code is under the GPL, then the copyright holder cannot, under the terms of the license, stop anyone from modifying and re-releasing it in source or binary form.
All RedHat can do is tell me not to use the RedHat name on it.
And, as for free binaries, who cares? Free binaries are not a requirement of the GPL, however, source-on-demand for low cost (like the cost of media) is a requirement, and the distributor is not allowed to restrict further distribution.
In your example, OF has removed the embedded RedHat strings from the source code, right? So officially it is now a product derived from GPL source code and falls under the GPL.
While your example is limited in scope, I fail to see the logic from one step to the next, and I see no way that this could lead to the legal nullification of the GPL, without also leading to the nullification of software licenses as they exist.
Sounds like the spirit of GNU remains. RedHat (and other distributors) do have a copyright on their CD setup. You can do whatever you want with the software. I just don't see this weird paranoid DMCA scenario the original post describes.
I'm mainly confused because I am still downloading iso images from RedHat, as late as last week. Maybe one of their admins didn't get the memo.
"They attempted to FORCE George Lucas to put his name at the beginning of Star Wars..."
Off the main topic, but you are incorrect. The dispute was over the director's credit on "Empire Strikes Back," which was not directed by Lucas. It also was not just the DGA.
Both the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild fined Lucas for placing Irvin Kershner's and the writers' credits at the end of the movie while keeping the Lucasfilm Ltd. logo (the producer's credit) up front. Lucas resigned from the Directors Guild, which is why he could not hire an American director for "Jedi."
The two Guilds spend a lot of time looking out for the interests of their members, the people who actually create the content you watch, so I would say that they are within their rights to assert a Eurpoean-style 'moral right' to a work of art as its creator.
I think it's a very important issue, because in the US, only a director with 'final cut' in his or her contract can refuse someone else's edits. If the case holds up in court, it could change the whole "work for hire" concept of US contract law as it pertains to anything that could be a work of art. Of course, the contract could still call for the director/writer to produce an "R" rated movie, since, God forbid, an NC-17 rating might mean that a movie deals with topics unsuitable for kids. I mean seriously, Ferrara said that "Bad Lieutenant" was not a movie for children, nor were any of his other movies.
I think that this is why the studios themselves are not weighing in on this yet, because a) it's not costing them money, and b) they don't want to help the directors and writers get power over the work they produce.
Also, I presume that the companies involved are snipping out scenes for a fee. This makes me think that they have violated the copyright by redistributing an altered copy.
And, wha'? Why would RedHat stop distributing binaries? And how the heck would your fictional company get hold of the stuff, as purchased source code?
RedHat has been pretty careful to follow the letter and spirit of the GPL, and they remain openly committed to that model. Why would they try to subvert it now?
Commercial entities _already_ own and have a legal copyright for their GPL-derived code.
All RedHat has to do in order to make free copies more scarce is to stop maintaining an anonymous ftp server, and stop allowing updates to mirror sites. That is perfectly allowed under the GPL. Of course, they cannot stop anyone from buying the disc and redistributing the contents.
I see the source of your misunderstanding. I did not write that Microsoft lost money; I was actually alluding to their habit of killing promising technologies and companies with illegal tactics to maintain their monopoly (I got those facts from the New York Times, MSNBC, and the Department of Justice). This is a reference to the software market, not the stock market.
I don't know if you're old enough to read yet, but your snippet of my post is misleading; the sentence about MS is actually the "topic sentence" of a new paragraph, which indicates the start of a different idea.
When I write "their effect on the market," I may have shown a misguided faith in your comprehension skills and knowledge of current events; I presumed that anyone who has read a newspaper in the last three years could figure out that I was referring to Linux as a tool to help undo some of the harm MS did to the technology market. Remove the OS from the realm of competition, and they lose their clout to kill the next Netscape. Make them compete on technical merits with another OS, and they will have to improve their software proportionally to the money they charge for it.
I read that with disbelief, then considered the source. USA Today is not really an in-depth reporting machine. It's either sloppy fact checking or, as you say, they left out the details of what changes were made.
I do find it strange if the architect of those system upgrades was surprised, as the article implies.
Every time I see a story about how "Linux is Dead on the (desktop, webserver, database server)" I wonder why I should listen to the opinions of people who helped to build the last stock bubble with companies that did nothing (but they did it fast!).
Nobody knows how long it will take to 'correct' Microsoft's nasty effect on the the market, but remember, MS wouldn't mention Linux 5 years ago, then they laughed at it, now they're competing against it.
I think that some in the Linux community got scared because business people were pronouncing defeat for Linux because of, well, think of any reason you can: no apps, performance and security problems, no support, lousy interface. Recently we've been seeing that those opinions were just immature impatience, as Linux adoption continues in spite of 10 years of gloomy forcasts from the pundits.
I thought the article was actually very well written, and it presented logical reasons for Linux's failure to make significant gains in the desktop market.
There was even a quote about the MS monopoly being partly responsible for this: closed office file formats, and PCs that 'automatically' ship with Windows and no other choices.
So, I disagree with the posted story. This article is another in a long series of "Linux has not won the desktop" articles, and is the first one I've seen that comes close to laying the blame partly on MS.
A more serious answer.
You have a skewed view of the UNIX admin world. In my workplace (small investment firm), we have 6 UNIX admins who jump at the chance to learn something new. They'll dive into Linux, then realize OpenBSD is better for their task because of its security and inhale the documentation, all while keeping a fleet of Solaris servers running for production work.
If one of them does not know how to program, he picks up a book and starts writing python in a couple of days.
It sounds like you and I are at the extreme ends of the UNIX admin experience, because my situation sounds so opposite to yours.
To the original poster: what kind of workplace is yours? If your UNIX people jump at new stuff, they'll soon figure out if the new system can be successfully integrated and how long it will take.
Also not meant to be flippant.
What the hell kind of place are you working at? I would get out of there immediately. If the market in your area is so glutted with useless UNIX people like this, you should have no problem getting another job.
Muslims are also not supposed to borrow money with interest, so some in the US have set up 'rent-to-own' companies to help Muslims who abide by this buy houses, cars, and other big-ticket items.
Being so adaptable, I presume good Muslims will just start investigating Free software.
Also, as I read these posts, I see a lot of flames against Islam. I am not a Muslim, but as one who was raised in a Christian church, I can see that many high authorities of Islam are like those of the Catholic and other Christian faiths: business people who live well while telling their followers to 'accept their lot in life,' which can mean poverty, paying $250 for an OS that crashes often, or having too many children because birth control is a sin.
Most of the top religious leaders represent their own interests first, just as the BSA represents the interests of software makers who want to cling to 'shrink-wrap' licensing model, and the RIAA represents those who want to be paid every time you hum a tune to yourself.
One should not automatically equate Islamic leaders' statements with the beliefs of all Muslims. Just as they condone or refuse to condemn some actions we find mighty upsetting, Western religions have condoned and remained silent on some nasty shit over the centuries (like, say, the Nazi war on Jews).