I don't think this is so. I've heard two structural experts being interviewed, and both have said that the combination of the planes hitting the buildings and the fires caused by their fuel would be sufficient to bring the buildings down.
Just in case nobody has posted this yet, the author of the article at Anandtech explains that there's an NDA in force. It'll be eighteen months before he can reveal the name of the company. You'll have to search for "Paul Sullivan" to see his comment.
It amazes me how eagerly people will believe that the kool-aid they are being fed doesn't contain poison. Why do you find my points to be so controversial that I need to back them up? Have you never bothered to think about these issues yourself?
Just as a general point, you'll find that people
are more likely to listen to what you say if you
don't use hyperbole. Kool-aid? Poison? What are you talking about?
As for this:
Free as in Speech is clearly a misnomer, as Free Software has little if anything to do with Free Speech. It's a rather poor attempt to misdirect criticism by wrapping oneself in the flag.
Surely you're joking? They're not talking about "free speech". They're talking about the
use of the word "free" to mean something other
than "at no price". Freedom as in liberty (to
say what you want, or to modify the code on which
you depend), rather than free from price, which
they don't particularly care about.
As for your quote from the GNU Manifesto, you've said yourself that later statements have modified it. But the fact that they leave the original there suggests they are not attempting to deceive anyone, surely? As I said, the information is there for people to interpret. Clearly you see things differently to the way I do. However, you still haven't explained why prefer to believe that the FSF is against charging for software, when they say explicitly that they are not against it. If they were trying to deceive us, why would they leave the original documents there?
Earlier in this thread, I did you the courtesy
of assuming that you were a serious poster with
a serious opinion. But this post is purely and
simply a troll. You cannot seriously claim that
Stallman and the FSF are trying deceive people,
as you can barely go a week without an opinion
of theirs being promulgated through the Linux
community. If you do find that you've not heard
from them in a while, there's a whole website
dedicated to a detailed explanation of their
philosophy.
Perhaps I've misjudged your intentions. If so, please post
an explanation of this comment of yours:
They give their view on selling software because they are trying to be deceptive. They know exactly what they are doing, but want to misdirect criticism.
If you can't provide an example of how the FSF
is deceiving people, could I suggest that you should think
a little harder before posting?
I think that if you're going to write something
like this, you should really provide some evidence to back it up. For example, why is Free
as in Speech a "misnomer"?
As for your last paragraph, the poster you're replying to gave a link which sets out the FSF's views on selling free software. Can you give us some idea of what Levy says that contradicts that? Without this it's hard to see why you would believe Levy (whoever he is) when you don't believe what Stallman's own
organization says.
How did Stallman create the "licensing mess"? He
set out his philosophy, formulated the GPL and
invited other programmers to use it for their
software. How is that creating a mess?
As for a software company that doesn't want to use
the GPL, how hard can it be? If you don't want to
use the GPL for your programs, don't incorporate GPLed software into them. I am at a loss to see what the difficulty could be.
They weren't forced to use the GPL. They
chose to use readline, which is GPLed software. If they didn't want to GPL their product, they could have implemented their own readline(), or used some other approach. In the
end they clearly were willing to use the GPL, because they released their product under that license. That isn't "at gunpoint", they made a choice.
Nobody in the history of the world has ever been
forced to use GPLed software. A person may choose
to incorporate GPLed software into their own software. But nobody has ever been forced to use GPLed software. So anyone who shares their software under
the GPL is doing because they want to. If they didn't want to share their software under the GPL, they would have chosen to re-write the GPLed portions that they included. You simply cannot justify your "sharing at gunpoint" remark. It's just hyperbole.
Your "radical leftist politics" remark seems meaningless to me. If I say that "you can use my software so long as you let others use the software you derive from my software", how is that a left or a right wing position?
Andrew Williams
I could not disagree more. Under the GPL, once
the public has paid for the development of the
software, everyone can always get access to
the source code. So if my taxes pay for some
researcher to develop software, that software is
available to me for ever Note that it's also
available to commercial software organizations
who get exactly the same rights to the software as any other taxpayer. But that software
must remain available to everybody who paid
for it. Surely this must be the right way to license software
which is paid for by taxpayers?
"good faith" and "GPL" don't even belong on the same page, and their "ethical position" is that selling people useful software is evil. Not
inefficient, not annoying, not less than ideal, but baby-eating evil.
Their position is that selling people software without giving them access to the source code is unethical.
It is designed purely as a deliberate
attack on proprietary software developers.
This doesn't make sense. If you don't want to
GPL your software, don't use someone else's GPLed
software. How is that an attack?
This is the whole point. Eventually, the simple
price issue means that Linux will start to encroach on desktops where only one application
is run. The sort of job where the user comes
to work, logs in, works all day with one
application, then logs out and goes home at the end of the day. What difference does it make which OS is installed? None, except that you can install Linux for the cost of the application, whereas for Windows you have to pay $50 or $100 or whatever it is per seat.
So people who do one task at work will use Linux (and may not even know it). That's where Linux will start to make an impact. After that, who knows what will happen? Personally, I suspect that MS have chosen a bad time to radically change their licensing model.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think this is so. I've heard two structural experts being interviewed, and both have said that the combination of the planes hitting the buildings and the fires caused by their fuel would be sufficient to bring the buildings down.
Just in case nobody has posted this yet, the author of the article at Anandtech explains that there's an NDA in force. It'll be eighteen months before he can reveal the name of the company. You'll have to search for "Paul Sullivan" to see his comment.
Failure is its own reward.
Just as a general point, you'll find that people are more likely to listen to what you say if you don't use hyperbole. Kool-aid? Poison? What are you talking about?
As for this:
Surely you're joking? They're not talking about "free speech". They're talking about the use of the word "free" to mean something other than "at no price". Freedom as in liberty (to say what you want, or to modify the code on which you depend), rather than free from price, which they don't particularly care about.
As for your quote from the GNU Manifesto, you've said yourself that later statements have modified it. But the fact that they leave the original there suggests they are not attempting to deceive anyone, surely? As I said, the information is there for people to interpret. Clearly you see things differently to the way I do. However, you still haven't explained why prefer to believe that the FSF is against charging for software, when they say explicitly that they are not against it. If they were trying to deceive us, why would they leave the original documents there?
Andrew
Failure is its own reward.
My apologies. I missed your earlier reply.
Andrew
Thanks for any information you can offer!
Andrew
Perhaps I've misjudged your intentions. If so, please post an explanation of this comment of yours:
If you can't provide an example of how the FSF is deceiving people, could I suggest that you should think a little harder before posting?
Failure is its own reward.
As for your last paragraph, the poster you're replying to gave a link which sets out the FSF's views on selling free software. Can you give us some idea of what Levy says that contradicts that? Without this it's hard to see why you would believe Levy (whoever he is) when you don't believe what Stallman's own organization says.
Failure is its own reward.
As for a software company that doesn't want to use the GPL, how hard can it be? If you don't want to use the GPL for your programs, don't incorporate GPLed software into them. I am at a loss to see what the difficulty could be.
Andrew Williams
Andrew
Failure is its own reward.
Nobody in the history of the world has ever been forced to use GPLed software. A person may choose to incorporate GPLed software into their own software. But nobody has ever been forced to use GPLed software. So anyone who shares their software under the GPL is doing because they want to. If they didn't want to share their software under the GPL, they would have chosen to re-write the GPLed portions that they included. You simply cannot justify your "sharing at gunpoint" remark. It's just hyperbole.
Your "radical leftist politics" remark seems meaningless to me. If I say that "you can use my software so long as you let others use the software you derive from my software", how is that a left or a right wing position? Andrew Williams
I could not disagree more. Under the GPL, once the public has paid for the development of the software, everyone can always get access to the source code. So if my taxes pay for some researcher to develop software, that software is available to me for ever Note that it's also available to commercial software organizations who get exactly the same rights to the software as any other taxpayer. But that software must remain available to everybody who paid for it. Surely this must be the right way to license software which is paid for by taxpayers?
Failure is its own reward.
Their position is that selling people software without giving them access to the source code is unethical.
It is designed purely as a deliberate attack on proprietary software developers.
This doesn't make sense. If you don't want to GPL your software, don't use someone else's GPLed software. How is that an attack?
Failure is its own reward.
So people who do one task at work will use Linux (and may not even know it). That's where Linux will start to make an impact. After that, who knows what will happen? Personally, I suspect that MS have chosen a bad time to radically change their licensing model.
Failure is its own reward.