The dominance of a single language (be it english) is a sign of cultural poverty. Every country should promote its native language as the language of choice for its media. The native language is what gives every people in this world access to its culturel heritage. By forcing a single language you take away that cultural heritage.
So what you're saying is, because I don't speak German or Gaelic, then I have no chance at understanding my German or Gaelic cultural ancestry? Gimme a break! That's the kind of nationalistic bullshit that Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and the rest of the kooks all admire.
I have great respect for my cultural heritage, but I don't let that run my life.
Face the facts. Nationalism has no place in the global community, which is what the Internet is. If you don't like it, get offline.
The way to beat this is to create an entirely new language. Just as a great OS would borrow bits and pieces from all other good OSs, a new language could be built that implemented the best qualities of all known languages, both past and present, and could be patched where it needed.
This way, we could avoid the idiotic nationalism involved in such a change, and the resulting language would be better than any existing language. People would *want* to learn it. We need to give it a name. How about NewSpeak? Or is that already taken...
It's already been done. It's called Esperanto. And it has been a complete failure.
Every week (or every day), post a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for ALL logs they have kept on you. If the information requested is not a matter of national security, they MUST provide any and all logs they have kept on you.
Of course, if they haven't kept any logs, you can be happy that they haven't (yet) chosen to spy on you.
If enough people posted enough FOIA requests for full keystroke logs, the department would get tired pretty quickly and probably stop.
4.0 Finally out? Wow! I've been in the open source scene for about 4 years. I think in that time it was always in the 3.x series. Man that's almost as bad as Microsoft.
Wonder how many more years until it will be version 5.0
You're smoking something. 3.0 came out in October of 1998. Even then, the last release of 2.2, 2.2.8 came out in December 1998.
I remember when it was cool to have a sig file with NUKE, FUSION etc in it to make big brother read your mail. Now people want privacy.;) Go figure:)
Figure that the reason that we put such incriminating words in our.sig's was not that we wanted Big Brother to read our mail; it's because we wanted to throw so much crap into the wheels of the big machine that it would become quite useless as a means to filter.
It's still done. Remember the attempt to crash Echelon a few months ago?
Bugfixes are insidious little creatures. Most of the time, there is one right way to do them and any other way requires a big change in some program logic.
So if the "right" way is GPLed, that means changing some program logic.
As for the flight simulator comparison, your interpretation is incorrect. Programmer A *can* include a flight simulator in his spreadsheet program, as long as he does not use any of the code written by programmer B.
Under normal circumstances, an *idea* is not copyrightable, but the underlying *implementation* might be. (Replies to this post referencing Amazon's recent patent will be ignored as flamebait.)
Forgive me if the scenario was not quite clear. What I meant to say was the programmer felt that others could BENEFIT from the free use of the software, before he completed it (and sold it).
And then someone finds a bug and fixes the bug UNDER THE GPL.
It is that forced continuance of the GPL which "poisons" the project.
Programmer A intends others to get BENEFITS out of using his software, since he cannot charge for it when it is not yet complete (OK, Microsoft might do this, but most individual programmers cannot). Programmer A *DID* *NOT* expect others to find bugs (after all, he felt that others could gain from using it).
But if others find bugs, he cannot fail to fix those bugs in his final product (OK, Microsoft might do this, too, but responsible programmers do not).
My argument is that, contrary to alternate claims, an author would have a near impossible task ever to remove a piece of software from the GPL, and if you release a piece of software under the GPL, it's GPL until the universe dies.
Suppose programmer A writes a program. The program is still in alpha, but when it becomes complete, programmer A plans to market it.
Since programmer A has other things to do, and the program is already somewhat useful, he releases the program under the GPL, so that others may benefit from his brilliance.
Programmer B finds a bug in the program and fixes it, following the GPL and releasing his bugfix to the code under the GPL.
Now, if programmer A wants to release the final version, he either has to 1) find another bugfix to correct the problem, or 2) convince programmer B to release that bugfix to programmer A under other terms than the GPL.
Programmers C, D, E, and F all find additional bugs and submit fixes, all under the GPL. At this time, programmer A would either have to find alternative solutions or else convince programmers B-F to release their changes to him under terms other than the GPL.
As those who understand statistics and human behavior, the chances that programmer A can either convince all of the other programmers to release those changes to him or have enough time to rewrite his code so that it neither contains the bug nor includes GPL fixes--approaches zero.
GPL has effectively "poisoned" the development of the product. Programmer A dumps the project in disgust and resolves never to use the GPL again. Programmer A has just lost his time, efforts, and an idea for a project which is now polluted by the GPL.
Some enterprising programmer *might* pick up that code and reuse it or fix it. But it is unlikely that the code will reach anywhere near what it could have been, had programmer A not dropped the project.
The bottom line is: if you use the GPL, you're stuck with it. It locks you into that licensing scheme, and unless you have the time, energy, and will to completely rewrite a piece of software released under the GPL, you will lose control of your idea and your software, even if that was not your original intent.
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Three failed businesses, a failed S&L, costing the government billions of dollars, never a real job in his life, and you're HAPPY to vote for Bush?
Both of them are for "big government". It's just a matter of which departments get the "big government" money.
Gore: the government fscks you with pencil and paper in their hands.
Bush: the government fscks you with guns and ammunition in their hands.
Would you prefer to see the bureaucrat or the soldier (FBI) at your door?
So what you're saying is, because I don't speak German or Gaelic, then I have no chance at understanding my German or Gaelic cultural ancestry? Gimme a break! That's the kind of nationalistic bullshit that Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and the rest of the kooks all admire.
I have great respect for my cultural heritage, but I don't let that run my life.
Face the facts. Nationalism has no place in the global community, which is what the Internet is. If you don't like it, get offline.
This way, we could avoid the idiotic nationalism involved in such a change, and the resulting language would be better than any existing language. People would *want* to learn it. We need to give it a name. How about NewSpeak? Or is that already taken...
It's already been done. It's called Esperanto. And it has been a complete failure.
I had heard that 4.4BSD was finally the point at which they were able to completely abstract the OS interface from the device drivers.
So, if you define an OS to have a complete abstraction layer between the interface and the hardware, wouldn't 4.4BSD be the first OS?
As it seems and from all the threads here, it's very important to define "What is an OS?" in order to see which was the first.
After all, computers weren't created, they EVOLVED.
Between Apple Computer for all things digital and Apple Corps. for all things musical, I think they will have a hard time retaining that name.
Every week (or every day), post a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for ALL logs they have kept on you. If the information requested is not a matter of national security, they MUST provide any and all logs they have kept on you.
Of course, if they haven't kept any logs, you can be happy that they haven't (yet) chosen to spy on you.
If enough people posted enough FOIA requests for full keystroke logs, the department would get tired pretty quickly and probably stop.
4.0 Finally out? Wow! I've been in the open source scene for about 4 years. I think in that time it was always in the 3.x series. Man that's almost as bad as Microsoft.
Wonder how many more years until it will be version 5.0
You're smoking something. 3.0 came out in October of 1998. Even then, the last release of 2.2, 2.2.8 came out in December 1998.
That's about one and a half years, not four.
-Corydon76
Go figure
Figure that the reason that we put such incriminating words in our .sig's was not that we wanted Big Brother to read our mail; it's because we wanted to throw so much crap into the wheels of the big machine that it would become quite useless as a means to filter.
It's still done. Remember the attempt to crash Echelon a few months ago?
The original poster is concerned that the GPL is not nearly the cure-all that some people make it out to be.
Bugfixes are insidious little creatures. Most of the time, there is one right way to do them and any other way requires a big change in some program logic.
So if the "right" way is GPLed, that means changing some program logic.
As for the flight simulator comparison, your interpretation is incorrect. Programmer A *can* include a flight simulator in his spreadsheet program, as long as he does not use any of the code written by programmer B.
Under normal circumstances, an *idea* is not copyrightable, but the underlying *implementation* might be. (Replies to this post referencing Amazon's recent patent will be ignored as flamebait.)
Forgive me if the scenario was not quite clear. What I meant to say was the programmer felt that others could BENEFIT from the free use of the software, before he completed it (and sold it).
And then someone finds a bug and fixes the bug UNDER THE GPL.
It is that forced continuance of the GPL which "poisons" the project.
Programmer A intends others to get BENEFITS out of using his software, since he cannot charge for it when it is not yet complete (OK, Microsoft might do this, but most individual programmers cannot). Programmer A *DID* *NOT* expect others to find bugs (after all, he felt that others could gain from using it).
But if others find bugs, he cannot fail to fix those bugs in his final product (OK, Microsoft might do this, too, but responsible programmers do not).
My argument is that, contrary to alternate claims, an author would have a near impossible task ever to remove a piece of software from the GPL, and if you release a piece of software under the GPL, it's GPL until the universe dies.
-CD76
Suppose programmer A writes a program. The program is still in alpha, but when it becomes complete, programmer A plans to market it.
Since programmer A has other things to do, and the program is already somewhat useful, he releases the program under the GPL, so that others may benefit from his brilliance.
Programmer B finds a bug in the program and fixes it, following the GPL and releasing his bugfix to the code under the GPL.
Now, if programmer A wants to release the final version, he either has to 1) find another bugfix to correct the problem, or 2) convince programmer B to release that bugfix to programmer A under other terms than the GPL.
Programmers C, D, E, and F all find additional bugs and submit fixes, all under the GPL. At this time, programmer A would either have to find alternative solutions or else convince programmers B-F to release their changes to him under terms other than the GPL.
As those who understand statistics and human behavior, the chances that programmer A can either convince all of the other programmers to release those changes to him or have enough time to rewrite his code so that it neither contains the bug nor includes GPL fixes--approaches zero.
GPL has effectively "poisoned" the development of the product. Programmer A dumps the project in disgust and resolves never to use the GPL again. Programmer A has just lost his time, efforts, and an idea for a project which is now polluted by the GPL.
Some enterprising programmer *might* pick up that code and reuse it or fix it. But it is unlikely that the code will reach anywhere near what it could have been, had programmer A not dropped the project.
The bottom line is: if you use the GPL, you're stuck with it. It locks you into that licensing scheme, and unless you have the time, energy, and will to completely rewrite a piece of software released under the GPL, you will lose control of your idea and your software, even if that was not your original intent.
-CD76
Translation: Linux is not suitable for idiots.
Of course, from the kind of idiots I've had to support, I'd say that computers are unsuitable for use by "business productivity users".
-Corydon76
According to this article here:
Ellison is planning on spinning off the NC offering as its own company.