This is just ridiculous. RMS has always sold copies of GNU Emacs, ever since the very early days of the GNU project (and even before, I think). What he objects to is the use of non-copylefted software to discourage people from sharing free software even when they have a right to do so.
I'm proud to say that Wisconsin held out on the 21 drinking age for a while. Unfortunately, Minnesota and Illinois spoiled it for us -- their kids would drive across the border to get drunk and crash on the way home.
Actually, Rancid is not pop punk, it is street punk.
As for the rest, I more or less agree, except that as another post mentioned the events in the documentary took place before punk hit the west coast (which began in 77-78, but the L.A. scene really got going in the early '80s).
BTW, my little brother plays Tony Hawk (I don't know which one) on the N64, and the soundtrack includes Suicidal Tendencies and the Dead Kennedys. Police Truck, actually, although they didn't go so far as to actually include the words, so it's an instrumental version.
RMS has never suggested that calling a Linux-based distribution "Linux" rather than "GNU/Linux" makes it less free. He only points out that it takes the emphasis off the concept of Free Software. RMS didn't create the GNU system so that people would have software that they wouldn't have to pay for -- in fact, he used to sell lots of copies of Emacs. Rather, he wanted to create something that people could *share*. It makes him angry when Linus comes along and says that free beer is enough. Now, I use proprietary software too sometimes, but I don't go around saying this makes my desktop *more free*. It makes it less so.
You still don't get it. Furthermore, you provide no statements supporting your claim that RMS is hypocritical. To RMS, the whole point is *freedom*, the freedom to use, modify and share software. Not the freedom to choose to use proprietary software. He doesn't propose to ban that freedom, but to say that's the "whole point" shows... well, that it you that are missing the point.
Furthermore, without the people that have chosen to use software because it is free, we wouldn't have all the great free software that's around, from the GNU project or no.
If you think that freedom is not a good reason to use free software, then you still don't believe in software freedom *at all*. You are simply an opportunist who is happy to take whatever someone has given you without thinking about why they gave you or what they were hoping to accomplish.
Actually, the things that prevent Linux from becoming the #1 platform are the reluctance of hardware manufacturers to release their specs to support free software; distros' failure to provide really good, integrated configuration tools (although progress is being made); and continued clinging to X, a monster which creates a barrier to performance that modern PC hardware is just finally beginning to overcome (at least with KDE or Gnome, which required to make Linux-based systems at all useable for most people).
Lest we forget, RMS originally realized the problem with proprietary software over the issue of a printer driver. Who can blame him now for being angry when people say that it's OK to use proprietary hardware drivers? The whole point, way back then, was that he wanted to be able to fix a driver that didn't work, and they wouldn't give him the source!
Now people say that it's OK to backslide here and there until, hell, who cares if it's free or not, as long as it works good right now. That was never "the point" for the GNU project, and if you think it is then you are very, very confused.
You know, if I were making a mod myself I wouldn't mind so much giving them unlimited use of the material I produced. After all, that clause would allow them to enshrine my own ideas as the best of the RPG community -- I consider BG2, at least, a great achievement in RPG composition -- and it also protects them from the risks of being sued if their orginal creations resemble mine. What's aggravating is the clause that allows them to prohibit me from distributing my own mod; they could just lift my own work and stop me from even giving it to my own best friends (legally). What kind of a trade-off is that?
I think that the author intentionally named Pinochet as "benign" in order to drive home the irony of his article, and also to give us a real-world example of the kind of regime he would be justifying. He values the end over the means, even if the means involve murder and torture.
What this article neglects to mention is that rule by sheer terror inherently breeds rebellion. When fear, not loyalty, is the only reason for obedience, sooner or later people *will* rebel. In the face of rebellion the ruling power depends on its own strength of arms and the loyalty of its supporters. The final battle in Episode VI proved that it had neither -- the Death Star was defeated and Vader betrayed his ruler.
Isn't that kind of like when Homer Simpsons closed his eyes so he wouldnt see the light turned red? "It's only illegal if I see it!"
That's right, actually. That's basically how the law works. If you don't get caught, then it might as well not be illegal. Ask all the college kids smokin' dope, they'll tell you the same thing.
My thought was a baby with three cyclops heads and a spawn from "Aliens" bursting out of his chest - I think that horrible mutations and parasitic insectoid monsters both have primal appeal to our sense of horror.
For me, the perfect "distro" (it's not even really that) is Linux From Scratch. Complete control over everything!
That's fine, as long as you're willing to throw out all of the work that distro designers have done to make things actually work right. If you really only need a few packages, I'm sure you can manage Linux from scratch, if you need more (say, X?) it might get a little time consuming to solve every problem yourself.
There is zero proof that smoking causes lung cancer -- only speculation.
Well actually, it has been proven. First, they have done some excellent epidemiologic studies which indicated it -- I think that's what you're referring to here in comparison to the studies of violence and video games. However, there has since been biological research which has shown the actual mechanism by which cigarette smoke causes cancer. This came out just a few (maybe 3?) years ago; unfortunately, I don't remember where I read about it. It wasn't a big surprise, since everyone already knew very well that it caused cancer.
As for families that don't allow violent games being "conservative," most of the families I know that don't allow violent games are the same ones that don't allow wars toys, the "hippy liberal peacenik" types.
A 17 year old does not require any more supervision. I don't care what anybody says, I don't know anybody at the age of 17 who felt they were under total control by their parents. If this proposal had said 'under the age of 14', I wouldn't be complaining. But older than that, and you're intruding on this child's ability to develop into an adult.
Here's a radical concept:
A 17-year-old can find an 18-year-old to buy the game for him! See, this law actually encourages kids to develop critical thinking skills to surmount obstacles, much like the drinking age teaches kids how to get around drinking laws by getting their friends to buy them liquor. The effect would be that a 14-year-old would have trouble obtaining such games without an acquiescent parent, sibling, or other relative, but older kids would likely have peers that could snag the game for them. As long as this law doesn't include the kind of "procurement for minors" clauses that liquor laws do, it won't have such an insidious effect on kids.
Of course, as mentioned above, it might threaten stores with arbitrary litigation unless each game's legal status is determined before it goes on shelves, rather than after litigation has begun.
Where I live, HBO has been tied (illegally?) to digital cable, so that regular cable subscribers can no longer get it even if they're willing to pay for it. In order to watch HBO you need to get digital cable, which is quite a markup. Actually, my dad finally did it because he loves HBO so much (especially when he's up late at night, since he's an insomniac), but we were pretty pissed.
There are plenty of good bands that don't have contracts with RIAA member record labels. The problem is that lots of people like the shitty crap that RIAA labels put out. It's fairly easy: if a band is a stinking sellout, you don't need to buy their albums. When will you all get the point that it's not just the record labels' greed, but the greed of bands that whore themselves to the majors, that create the problem.
For example, you can go to unixpunx.org and download plenty of music by bands that don't object to you sharing it. A real band wants you to hear their music. A relatively lazy band like Metallica may make you think otherwise, but they're old and they've lost their touch anyway, the stupid jerks.
Major labels are bastards -- "Put 'em up against the wall and shoot 'em." It's really that simple. Anyone who signs to them is just asking to be taken for a ride anyway.
Therefore, the equilibrium would be unstable, but chaotic enough to always return to the balance point. There is no guarantee than man-made climate change will have the same effect.
How did the Jews fight the Nazis? Well, they didn't really. Actually, most Jews had little choice but to run away, because they weren't numerous enough to fight the Nazis. Then, the U.K., the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. all ganged up on the Nazis and defeated them with their superior resources and manpower. Of course, most people in these countries had no great fondness for the Jews, they had their own reasons for fighting Fascism.
Not that this is relevant to the rest of your post, I just thought I'd straighten that out.
It's a well known fact that people who know a lot about a subject, and may be able to answer any question you may have if you ask them, simply can't write a book or teach a class to save their lives.
Yeah, that's why the K&R C book and Stroustrup's C++ book are such poor learning tools. That's also why Donald Knuth is such a poor teacher, he knows his stuff way too well.
Really, the problem is not that people know their stuff too well, it's that they've only mastered half of the process of writing a good technical book: the first half is knowing the material, the second half is knowing how to teach it. On the other hand, many of the really *brilliant* people can do both very well. In fact, there are people out there who can do anything if they put their minds to it. Those are the ones that make the best teachers.
(One brilliant person who was a terrible teacher: Albert Einstein. Apparently he was a terrible lecturer at Princeton. Then again, he never planned on being a teacher, he just did physics because he loved it.)
Heck, even as a male, I would be very unsettled dealing with any idiot that put pr0n wallpaper on their screen.
So true! There's a huge difference between having porn on your computer for your own personal consumption and advertising it so that anyone who walks by can see! (For that matter, it would be fairly distracting to you while you were doing stuff on the machine.)
This reminds me of my dorm room freshman year, when my roommate had a nude poster on the wall on his side of the room. I had no problem with it, but when my girlfriend came over, she didn't like it. I used to stick a blank piece of paper over it with poster putty while she was over.
There's a whole host of ethical issues with porn just dealing with the *making* of it, the least you can do is not make more problems for people with your *viewing* of it.
P.S.: I love pr0n myself, don't think I'm ripping on it. Sometimes the way that some men enjoy degrading women disgusts me, though. I don't like degrading women, I prefer to admire them.
Maybe it would be a better idea to stick it in the oven? Or maybe even the microwave? I'd think a good heating would corrupt the data pretty badly, THEN you can shred it afterward just to be sure.
Yes, if you separate the GPL code and your program, then it's not a violation of the license, any more than it's a violation of the license to run proprietary software on the Linux kernel, or write proprietary code that accesses a MySQL database. However, when you do this you're no longer circumventing what the program's author intended to accomplish. Plus, you've made a new contribution to the software by writing a CORBA server for everyone to use. This isn't a loophole, it's how the GPL is intended to work.
Sure, the computer makes a fine tool for producing musical recordings, and for actually composing certain genres of music as well (particularly electronica, but also "classical," from what I understand). I somehow doubt that the computer will increase creative experimentation, however. First of all, we've already reached the point where anyone can pick up an instrument and learn to play. Second, most people don't "experiment," they just copy what other people have done.
If you've made music on the computer and you've played a real instrument as well then you should know that only a real instrument gives you true, uninhibited power of expression. So much of music flows from the irrational part of us, and the computer can never help us with that.
I'm afraid you misunderstand the license. What you suggest still involves linking your program to the GPLed code at runtime, which is expressly forbidden by the GPL.
Besides, you have to release the code of the wrapper library under the GPL, which in turn requires you to release the code of your other program under the GPL as well. The chain will continue no matter how many "wrappers" you write.
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This is just ridiculous. RMS has always sold copies of GNU Emacs, ever since the very early days of the GNU project (and even before, I think). What he objects to is the use of non-copylefted software to discourage people from sharing free software even when they have a right to do so.
I'm proud to say that Wisconsin held out on the 21 drinking age for a while. Unfortunately, Minnesota and Illinois spoiled it for us -- their kids would drive across the border to get drunk and crash on the way home.
Actually, Rancid is not pop punk, it is street punk.
As for the rest, I more or less agree, except that as another post mentioned the events in the documentary took place before punk hit the west coast (which began in 77-78, but the L.A. scene really got going in the early '80s).
BTW, my little brother plays Tony Hawk (I don't know which one) on the N64, and the soundtrack includes Suicidal Tendencies and the Dead Kennedys. Police Truck, actually, although they didn't go so far as to actually include the words, so it's an instrumental version.
Great bandwidth for graphics and info
Yeah, it includes *tons* of station wagons and 747s full of DVDs.
Other downsides to are that the quests are kinda lame and your character can only accomplish the most trivial ones without help.
RMS has never suggested that calling a Linux-based distribution "Linux" rather than "GNU/Linux" makes it less free. He only points out that it takes the emphasis off the concept of Free Software. RMS didn't create the GNU system so that people would have software that they wouldn't have to pay for -- in fact, he used to sell lots of copies of Emacs. Rather, he wanted to create something that people could *share*. It makes him angry when Linus comes along and says that free beer is enough. Now, I use proprietary software too sometimes, but I don't go around saying this makes my desktop *more free*. It makes it less so.
You still don't get it. Furthermore, you provide no statements supporting your claim that RMS is hypocritical. To RMS, the whole point is *freedom*, the freedom to use, modify and share software. Not the freedom to choose to use proprietary software. He doesn't propose to ban that freedom, but to say that's the "whole point" shows... well, that it you that are missing the point.
Furthermore, without the people that have chosen to use software because it is free, we wouldn't have all the great free software that's around, from the GNU project or no.
If you think that freedom is not a good reason to use free software, then you still don't believe in software freedom *at all*. You are simply an opportunist who is happy to take whatever someone has given you without thinking about why they gave you or what they were hoping to accomplish.
Actually, the things that prevent Linux from becoming the #1 platform are the reluctance of hardware manufacturers to release their specs to support free software; distros' failure to provide really good, integrated configuration tools (although progress is being made); and continued clinging to X, a monster which creates a barrier to performance that modern PC hardware is just finally beginning to overcome (at least with KDE or Gnome, which required to make Linux-based systems at all useable for most people).
Lest we forget, RMS originally realized the problem with proprietary software over the issue of a printer driver. Who can blame him now for being angry when people say that it's OK to use proprietary hardware drivers? The whole point, way back then, was that he wanted to be able to fix a driver that didn't work, and they wouldn't give him the source!
Now people say that it's OK to backslide here and there until, hell, who cares if it's free or not, as long as it works good right now. That was never "the point" for the GNU project, and if you think it is then you are very, very confused.
You know, if I were making a mod myself I wouldn't mind so much giving them unlimited use of the material I produced. After all, that clause would allow them to enshrine my own ideas as the best of the RPG community -- I consider BG2, at least, a great achievement in RPG composition -- and it also protects them from the risks of being sued if their orginal creations resemble mine. What's aggravating is the clause that allows them to prohibit me from distributing my own mod; they could just lift my own work and stop me from even giving it to my own best friends (legally). What kind of a trade-off is that?
I think that the author intentionally named Pinochet as "benign" in order to drive home the irony of his article, and also to give us a real-world example of the kind of regime he would be justifying. He values the end over the means, even if the means involve murder and torture.
What this article neglects to mention is that rule by sheer terror inherently breeds rebellion. When fear, not loyalty, is the only reason for obedience, sooner or later people *will* rebel. In the face of rebellion the ruling power depends on its own strength of arms and the loyalty of its supporters. The final battle in Episode VI proved that it had neither -- the Death Star was defeated and Vader betrayed his ruler.
Isn't that kind of like when Homer Simpsons closed his eyes so he wouldnt see the light turned red? "It's only illegal if I see it!"
That's right, actually. That's basically how the law works. If you don't get caught, then it might as well not be illegal. Ask all the college kids smokin' dope, they'll tell you the same thing.
My thought was a baby with three cyclops heads and a spawn from "Aliens" bursting out of his chest - I think that horrible mutations and parasitic insectoid monsters both have primal appeal to our sense of horror.
For me, the perfect "distro" (it's not even really that) is Linux From Scratch. Complete control over everything!
That's fine, as long as you're willing to throw out all of the work that distro designers have done to make things actually work right. If you really only need a few packages, I'm sure you can manage Linux from scratch, if you need more (say, X?) it might get a little time consuming to solve every problem yourself.
There is zero proof that smoking causes lung cancer -- only speculation.
Well actually, it has been proven. First, they have done some excellent epidemiologic studies which indicated it -- I think that's what you're referring to here in comparison to the studies of violence and video games. However, there has since been biological research which has shown the actual mechanism by which cigarette smoke causes cancer. This came out just a few (maybe 3?) years ago; unfortunately, I don't remember where I read about it. It wasn't a big surprise, since everyone already knew very well that it caused cancer.
As for families that don't allow violent games being "conservative," most of the families I know that don't allow violent games are the same ones that don't allow wars toys, the "hippy liberal peacenik" types.
A 17 year old does not require any more supervision. I don't care what anybody says, I don't know anybody at the age of 17 who felt they were under total control by their parents. If this proposal had said 'under the age of 14', I wouldn't be complaining. But older than that, and you're intruding on this child's ability to develop into an adult.
Here's a radical concept:
A 17-year-old can find an 18-year-old to buy the game for him! See, this law actually encourages kids to develop critical thinking skills to surmount obstacles, much like the drinking age teaches kids how to get around drinking laws by getting their friends to buy them liquor. The effect would be that a 14-year-old would have trouble obtaining such games without an acquiescent parent, sibling, or other relative, but older kids would likely have peers that could snag the game for them. As long as this law doesn't include the kind of "procurement for minors" clauses that liquor laws do, it won't have such an insidious effect on kids.
Of course, as mentioned above, it might threaten stores with arbitrary litigation unless each game's legal status is determined before it goes on shelves, rather than after litigation has begun.
Where I live, HBO has been tied (illegally?) to digital cable, so that regular cable subscribers can no longer get it even if they're willing to pay for it. In order to watch HBO you need to get digital cable, which is quite a markup. Actually, my dad finally did it because he loves HBO so much (especially when he's up late at night, since he's an insomniac), but we were pretty pissed.
There are plenty of good bands that don't have contracts with RIAA member record labels. The problem is that lots of people like the shitty crap that RIAA labels put out. It's fairly easy: if a band is a stinking sellout, you don't need to buy their albums. When will you all get the point that it's not just the record labels' greed, but the greed of bands that whore themselves to the majors, that create the problem.
For example, you can go to unixpunx.org and download plenty of music by bands that don't object to you sharing it. A real band wants you to hear their music. A relatively lazy band like Metallica may make you think otherwise, but they're old and they've lost their touch anyway, the stupid jerks.
Major labels are bastards -- "Put 'em up against the wall and shoot 'em." It's really that simple. Anyone who signs to them is just asking to be taken for a ride anyway.
Therefore, the equilibrium would be unstable, but chaotic enough to always return to the balance point. There is no guarantee than man-made climate change will have the same effect.
There's always the Nuclear Winter theory.
How did the Jews fight the Nazis? Well, they didn't really. Actually, most Jews had little choice but to run away, because they weren't numerous enough to fight the Nazis. Then, the U.K., the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. all ganged up on the Nazis and defeated them with their superior resources and manpower. Of course, most people in these countries had no great fondness for the Jews, they had their own reasons for fighting Fascism.
Not that this is relevant to the rest of your post, I just thought I'd straighten that out.
It's a well known fact that people who know a lot about a subject, and may be able to answer any question you may have if you ask them, simply can't write a book or teach a class to save their lives.
Yeah, that's why the K&R C book and Stroustrup's C++ book are such poor learning tools. That's also why Donald Knuth is such a poor teacher, he knows his stuff way too well.
Really, the problem is not that people know their stuff too well, it's that they've only mastered half of the process of writing a good technical book: the first half is knowing the material, the second half is knowing how to teach it. On the other hand, many of the really *brilliant* people can do both very well. In fact, there are people out there who can do anything if they put their minds to it. Those are the ones that make the best teachers.
(One brilliant person who was a terrible teacher: Albert Einstein. Apparently he was a terrible lecturer at Princeton. Then again, he never planned on being a teacher, he just did physics because he loved it.)
Heck, even as a male, I would be very unsettled dealing with any idiot that put pr0n wallpaper on their screen.
So true! There's a huge difference between having porn on your computer for your own personal consumption and advertising it so that anyone who walks by can see! (For that matter, it would be fairly distracting to you while you were doing stuff on the machine.)
This reminds me of my dorm room freshman year, when my roommate had a nude poster on the wall on his side of the room. I had no problem with it, but when my girlfriend came over, she didn't like it. I used to stick a blank piece of paper over it with poster putty while she was over.
There's a whole host of ethical issues with porn just dealing with the *making* of it, the least you can do is not make more problems for people with your *viewing* of it.
P.S.: I love pr0n myself, don't think I'm ripping on it. Sometimes the way that some men enjoy degrading women disgusts me, though. I don't like degrading women, I prefer to admire them.
Perhaps digital right can be added in the standard library?
Maybe it would be a better idea to stick it in the oven? Or maybe even the microwave? I'd think a good heating would corrupt the data pretty badly, THEN you can shred it afterward just to be sure.
Yes, if you separate the GPL code and your program, then it's not a violation of the license, any more than it's a violation of the license to run proprietary software on the Linux kernel, or write proprietary code that accesses a MySQL database. However, when you do this you're no longer circumventing what the program's author intended to accomplish. Plus, you've made a new contribution to the software by writing a CORBA server for everyone to use. This isn't a loophole, it's how the GPL is intended to work.
Sure, the computer makes a fine tool for producing musical recordings, and for actually composing certain genres of music as well (particularly electronica, but also "classical," from what I understand). I somehow doubt that the computer will increase creative experimentation, however. First of all, we've already reached the point where anyone can pick up an instrument and learn to play. Second, most people don't "experiment," they just copy what other people have done.
If you've made music on the computer and you've played a real instrument as well then you should know that only a real instrument gives you true, uninhibited power of expression. So much of music flows from the irrational part of us, and the computer can never help us with that.
I'm afraid you misunderstand the license. What you suggest still involves linking your program to the GPLed code at runtime, which is expressly forbidden by the GPL.
Besides, you have to release the code of the wrapper library under the GPL, which in turn requires you to release the code of your other program under the GPL as well. The chain will continue no matter how many "wrappers" you write.
Yeah, and it comes with an industrial-strength porn download manager and viewer.