And I suggest that you read up about how politics have evolved over the last century. There are more issues around than Keynes vs Friedman, these days. As for free software and other "geeky" issues, the greens and the libertarians are closer to each other than to the democrats and the republican.
"This is basic set theory--the set of licenses that qualify for being listed as Free Software are simply not the same set of licenses that are approved by the Open Source Initiative."
I know; I've studied the venn diagram at FSF's page. The reason for that is that though the definition is pretty much the same (the DFSG and the OSD was at a time almost indentical, the four-freedoms also apply to the same software), the two movements come to different conclusions from that definition occasionally, because of the human factor. The definition is not a machine-readable, clear cut if-then-case, human judgement is necessary. The FSF chose to dis the original artistic licence because they didn't want to risk that the unclarities in it spread to their GNU system. The OSI wasn't in such a risky position, so it approved it. As for the APSL; debian has declared it non-free while the OSI has accepted it -- working from the same definition! Also, RMS once accepted the vim license even though it had the same non-freeness (compulsory source release even for non-modified software) as the APSL. Besides, the FSF has a lot more free licenses on it's list than the OSI has on theirs, currently. (Due to a number of reasons not having anything to do with the free software definition.)
---
"While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom,"...can be paraphrased as "While free software, even if it's called 'open source', would give you the same freedom,".
" it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas."
Yes. This is why I call it free software.
But what is 'it' in the above sentence?
Take Mozilla for example. The source was released largely due to the efforts of the open source crowd. (Which could not have existed if it weren't for RMS and the GNU project, but I digress...) Still, a free software zealout such as my self can look at it, read the MPL (which has a fair share of problems, don't get me wrong) and say "Yeah, this qualifies as free software, I can use it". Same goes in the other direction. ESR and the other OSIans can look at Emacs with it's GPL, say "yeah, this meets the OSD, this qualifies as open source software, so we can use it".
See?
Yes, the two movements use different languages to further different goals.(I happen to agree with the goals of the FSF.)
Yes, they refer to 'it' as free software/open source software respectively. (Some people, not in a particular "camp", use the terms interchangeably or wnite FS/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS)
No, that does not mean that 'it' does not refer to the same thing. It does.
Yes, I am very much aware of that essay, as well as the OSIs view. I'm very much in the "free software" camp, as movements go.
However, as far as software goes...
the words free software and open source do refer to the same thing. GNU Emacs? That's open source even though it's maker likes to call it free software. GPL is an OSD-compliant license as well as a DFSG-compliant one and a four-freedoms-of-fsf-compliant one.
It's the same *software*, it's the same licenses, it's the same thing.
There's two movements with very different views and goals, one of them calls it free software and the other calls it open source -- when they speak about the same thing. The OSI denies the notion that it's about essentianl user freedom, and this is an interesting conflict which I don't mean to downplay.
Heh... yeah, personally, I like his religious writings as fiction. The screwtape letters is fairly boring but based on a good premise. Mere Christianity has good writing but, as far as I can see, flawed logic. He was a good writer and even as a zealous warrior against God and for the greater glory of Discordia I can apprieciate it, a lot more than some other Christian writers some people want me to read.
Hi. I'm an free software zealot, a DGH and I tend to agree with RMS on almost every issue.
But people trying to widen the chasm between free software and open source bug me.
Sure, on the one hand we have FSF vs OSI. Different.
But on the other hand, we have a huge number of people who use the two terms interchangeably because they do refer to the same thing. It is (mostly) the same software, the same licenses.
Octal girl said that people were adopting open source. I presume she means "open source software" which is mostly the same as "free software".
You're separating the two way too much, it's not constructive. IMHO.
One of my favourite games ever is Grim Fandango. Original, clever and wonderful. I also love the original Sam & Max and Full Throttle and Monkey Island.
But why keep rehashing the past? Look forward, give us new stuff!
Tim Shafer, Ron Gilbert and the others of the golden era have left.
Yeah, I read about 8h a day now that I ditched the tube. Mostly books (the library is great), some magazines, and of course fan fiction and other internet stuff.
Me and my friends were kidding the other day that the RIAA and MPAA could talk about "killing music" and "killing movies" all day if they wanted, and even if they were right, we could survive on listening to filk and reading slash.:)
Replace a commercial-owned, pro-capital TV with a state-owned, pro-statism TV?
Well... it's as bad, really, but at least you wouldn't get to see as many annoying ads.
(One thing that bugs me by public service TV and radio here was that they had no ads, but they did have trailers. What ever happened to the idea of just sending programs? How many times do you want to see that trailer, anyway?)
"...giving advertisers a profile of your interest and let them show you a (smaller number) of unskippable ads for things you are really interested in... "
I haven't seen an ad for something I was interested in for years.
Advertising must die - if it brings television with it on the way down, like a house of cards... what can we do about that? Ah, anyone remember when they said that the lower 25% of the screen were to become an ad even during programming? Death to ads!
What's that supposed to mean? You can run GNU/Linux on an iBook or TiBook just fine (I do).
Being a GNU hippie is great. Not everyone is like that, not now, nor before, but some are and what are you suggesting, that we go install Mac OS X? That's neither free nor cool.
Sure, slashdot is a heterogenous collection of people with different views, and that's good.
However:
When I started reading slashdot a couple of years ago, there were always many post promoting free software or open source and justifying copyright infringement. And this was good. I agree with those views.
These days when I read the highest moderated posts they're often promoting propretary software, they're speaking out against "piracy", they're almost MPAA-loving microsoftians.
Has the slashdot readership changed that much? Hmm, maybe time to do a statistical study...
"I agree w/ the idea of copyprotected music. It is a produced object."
Huh? You produce an object, a song by writing it, performing it, recording it.
Then someone else can produce objects by doing "cp peridriga's-song.ogg copy-of-peridriga's-song.ogg".
That's beneficial for society (assuming that the song is good), and you don't have to be afraid that some stalinist is going to come to your house and take the song or prevent you from making copies of your song.
And we have the same freedom. We may also make copies of the song.
I'm interested in learning sign language, but how do I do it?
I don't hang out with someone hearing impaired, I don't have a tv, so I don't see the news in sign... is there like a webpage or something that'll help you learn?
Slashdot Mirror
Not really.
Sure, tremor sounds great and use it for the player, nice, but what's wrong with Ogg? It sounds great, use it, it'll become more catchy with time.
And I suggest that you read up about how politics have evolved over the last century.
There are more issues around than Keynes vs Friedman, these days. As for free software and other "geeky" issues, the greens and the libertarians are closer to each other than to the democrats and the republican.
I know; I've studied the venn diagram at FSF's page. The reason for that is that though the definition is pretty much the same (the DFSG and the OSD was at a time almost indentical, the four-freedoms also apply to the same software), the two movements come to different conclusions from that definition occasionally, because of the human factor. The definition is not a machine-readable, clear cut if-then-case, human judgement is necessary. The FSF chose to dis the original artistic licence because they didn't want to risk that the unclarities in it spread to their GNU system. The OSI wasn't in such a risky position, so it approved it. As for the APSL; debian has declared it non-free while the OSI has accepted it -- working from the same definition! Also, RMS once accepted the vim license even though it had the same non-freeness (compulsory source release even for non-modified software) as the APSL.
Besides, the FSF has a lot more free licenses on it's list than the OSI has on theirs, currently. (Due to a number of reasons not having anything to do with the free software definition.)
---
"While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom,"
" it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas."
Yes. This is why I call it free software.
But what is 'it' in the above sentence?
Take Mozilla for example. The source was released largely due to the efforts of the open source crowd. (Which could not have existed if it weren't for RMS and the GNU project, but I digress...) Still, a free software zealout such as my self can look at it, read the MPL (which has a fair share of problems, don't get me wrong) and say "Yeah, this qualifies as free software, I can use it". Same goes in the other direction. ESR and the other OSIans can look at Emacs with it's GPL, say "yeah, this meets the OSD, this qualifies as open source software, so we can use it".
See?
Yes, I am very much aware of that essay, as well as the OSIs view. I'm very much in the "free software" camp, as movements go.
However, as far as software goes...
the words free software and open source do refer to the same thing. GNU Emacs? That's open source even though it's maker likes to call it free software. GPL is an OSD-compliant license as well as a DFSG-compliant one and a four-freedoms-of-fsf-compliant one.
It's the same *software*, it's the same licenses, it's the same thing.
There's two movements with very different views and goals, one of them calls it free software and the other calls it open source -- when they speak about the same thing. The OSI denies the notion that it's about essentianl user freedom, and this is an interesting conflict which I don't mean to downplay.
Heh... yeah, personally, I like his religious writings as fiction. The screwtape letters is fairly boring but based on a good premise. Mere Christianity has good writing but, as far as I can see, flawed logic. He was a good writer and even as a zealous warrior against God and for the greater glory of Discordia I can apprieciate it, a lot more than some other Christian writers some people want me to read.
Actually, Lisp dates back to the fifties.
Hi. I'm an free software zealot, a DGH and I tend to agree with RMS on almost every issue.
But people trying to widen the chasm between free software and open source bug me.
Sure, on the one hand we have FSF vs OSI. Different.
But on the other hand, we have a huge number of people who use the two terms interchangeably because they do refer to the same thing. It is (mostly) the same software, the same licenses.
Octal girl said that people were adopting open source. I presume she means "open source software" which is mostly the same as "free software".
You're separating the two way too much, it's not constructive. IMHO.
It's not just "GPL are three beautiful letters and Microsoft is evil". It's also about code availability and a political statement.
This is very different from what Red Hat said about a year ago. Though it could almost be guessed, from Null, it's still interesting.
I hope they come up with good stuff that the other distros can snarf, and that this lessens Microsofts influence.
Good luck!
Yeah, and also:
While calling it Micro$oft is boring now, it did help in making microsoft-hate commonplace.
Childish, true, but we've all been children.
One of my favourite games ever is Grim Fandango. Original, clever and wonderful. I also love the original Sam & Max and Full Throttle and Monkey Island.
But why keep rehashing the past? Look forward, give us new stuff!
Tim Shafer, Ron Gilbert and the others of the golden era have left.
"Poor white trash? Make a little money while you sit on your ass."
Advertise to people so poor that they have to endure commersials and thus can't afford any products?
Yeah, I read about 8h a day now that I ditched the tube. Mostly books (the library is great), some magazines, and of course fan fiction and other internet stuff.
:)
Me and my friends were kidding the other day that the RIAA and MPAA could talk about "killing music" and "killing movies" all day if they wanted, and even if they were right, we could survive on listening to filk and reading slash.
Replace a commercial-owned, pro-capital TV with a state-owned, pro-statism TV?
Well... it's as bad, really, but at least you wouldn't get to see as many annoying ads.
(One thing that bugs me by public service TV and radio here was that they had no ads, but they did have trailers. What ever happened to the idea of just sending programs? How many times do you want to see that trailer, anyway?)
You mean like that Xbox episode of Will and Grace?
Product placement is much more insidious and subtile than regular ones. They're also more effective and harder to get away from.
Can you imagine product placements in social satire like Futurama or Freaks and Geeks?
"...giving advertisers a profile of your interest and let them show you a (smaller number) of unskippable ads for things you are really interested in... "
I haven't seen an ad for something I was interested in for years.
Advertising must die - if it brings television with it on the way down, like a house of cards... what can we do about that? Ah, anyone remember when they said that the lower 25% of the screen were to become an ad even during programming? Death to ads!
What's that supposed to mean? You can run GNU/Linux on an iBook or TiBook just fine (I do).
Being a GNU hippie is great. Not everyone is like that, not now, nor before, but some are and what are you suggesting, that we go install Mac OS X? That's neither free nor cool.
Sure, slashdot is a heterogenous collection of people with different views, and that's good.
However:
When I started reading slashdot a couple of years ago, there were always many post promoting free software or open source and justifying copyright infringement. And this was good. I agree with those views.
These days when I read the highest moderated posts they're often promoting propretary software, they're speaking out against "piracy", they're almost MPAA-loving microsoftians.
Has the slashdot readership changed that much? Hmm, maybe time to do a statistical study...
My bad. I'm in Sweden, so I guess I should learn the swedish sign language. (Is there a reason why there's a gazillion different ones?)
Moderators:
What's so funny about this? I'm not dissing the mods, but can someone just fill me in on the joke?
ESR? You mean RMS. Blame where blame is due... :)
Actually, I think this is a step in the right direction.
There are some minor issues to work on.
See the Debian constitution for details.
"I agree w/ the idea of copyprotected music. It is a produced object."
Huh? You produce an object, a song by writing it, performing it, recording it.
Then someone else can produce objects by doing "cp peridriga's-song.ogg copy-of-peridriga's-song.ogg".
That's beneficial for society (assuming that the song is good), and you don't have to be afraid that some stalinist is going to come to your house and take the song or prevent you from making copies of your song.
And we have the same freedom. We may also make copies of the song.
That's fair, that's free, that's just.
I'm interested in learning sign language, but how do I do it?
I don't hang out with someone hearing impaired, I don't have a tv, so I don't see the news in sign... is there like a webpage or something that'll help you learn?