So are we saying that Knuth is planning on becoming metabolically challenged in 2007 or do we think he's made other arrangements? Maybe he got in contact with a Frost Giant or something. Maybe the Iraqi group escaped "Mission Accomplished" and offered Knuth a better deal? So many ideas. Come on Charles, tell us what happens next.
The idea that ATT somehow copied the @home network is really unlikely since the attbi.com setup is different for me. They are using DHCP (makes sense to me) and @home was using fixed IP's for us in my apartment complex.
Consipracy theories aside, I think everyone has pointed out how bad the Excite aquisition was for @home. That seems to be the clearest cause of failure for @home. The rest is just ruthless business practice (the move from @home.com to attbi.com was relatively painless).
You could have your students implement an SMTP mail agent, an ftp client, or something more complex like ssh. I played around with doing this in perl and it was really cool. Of course doing these projects in C would be best. Certainly lots of real world benefit.
Use of Weapons is exsquisite in its pain. Consider Phlebas is gigantic in its backdrop but never loses site of the individuals in its universe (the fleash eaters and the hero's escape will always be stuck in my mind).
I still have to read the Player of Games. Check Banks out. He is both deeply interested in the future and somewhat skeptical. Good mix for us geeks to be exposed to.
To me, it seems that sites like Slashdot, Ars Technica, and Tom's Hardware are fulfilling the origional purpose most of these "big" computer magazines had in the begining, informing the community, carefully reviewing products/books/ideas, building consensus, etc. Most of the big mags lost track of that and became the playthings of their advertisers. This isn't to say that Slashdot couldn't do the same thing but there will always be the oportunity for others to keep their fingers on the pulse of the true community of computer users/enthusiasts, especailly as Startup costs for a web site are minimal compared with a print Mag. Like others, I like DDJ (makes me feel smart when I read it and understand a good part of it;-)) but sites like this one are really important for keeping a community pulling in somewhat the same direction.
Why? Because HTML 4.0, CSS and even XML, provide all the tools necessary to provide accessibility while letting designers imaginations roam free. Take a look at the specs on the these standards ( w3c.org). There is some really cool stuff one can do with the new standards. Is it a tax on companies? Not really. The Federal government has always had standards for companies that want to work with it (frome safety and health issues to civil rights). The companies have always had a choice, though. If they didn't like the government's rules, they could do business with someone else. Even private companies have standards they hold one another to when conducting bussiness. Finally, even if you don't care about people with disabilities, there is a very good reason for the Federal government to be pushing standards compliance: effeciency. If every company keeps using non-standard (and incidentally non-accessable) HTML, every document will have to be examined or at the very least, undergo further processing befor it can be integrated with standards compliant data. We the tax payers will save money and time by mandating that standard HTML, XML, CSS, and even DOM and RDF are used. To me, it appears that the ultimate benefits of requiring accessibility will reach far beyond simply allowing more access to government docs. This effort will help all of us be more standards compliant, reducing the need for re-processing data and wasting time that could be better spent understanding its meaning.
This is the kind of thing the FSF excells at and is one of the reasons why I'm grateful for their existance. The note was reasonable, well argued, and provides room for some diversity of opinion on which is the best liscense while providing a fairly clear benchmark about what is and isn't Free Software. I appreciated the levels of Freedom too, because they offer hooks to get non-programers commited to Free Software. I think the strictly Open Source POV misses out on this argument because it is primarily aimed at Programers and Bussinessmen (IMHO, of course;-)). It's too bad so much acrimony gets stirred up when we really want the same things and we can all benefit from the diversity of opinion (or even just focus) that exists in the world. We won't all agree about every detail but I think we can live side by side if we are more careful of each other's feelings.
I'm not saying that ESR doesn't have a right to say what he did but isn't it a little disingenious to make fun of the people who read Slashdot in one breath and then talk about how much their comments hurt in another? I'm surprised that ESR even cares what people think. If he is sure he is doing right, then why should it matter what I think of him? If he is vindicated in the end, I will look like a fool and be forgotten or held up for ridicule. If I'm right, well Eric still doesn't have to do anything about it (He wouldn't know me if he stepped on me;-)). I guess the real question is what kind of discussion, criticism and questioning can ESR and other people out front of the Open Source movement accept? Can they bare having people disagree with them? Can ESR accept that people might not think everything he does is correct? I'm trying to not flame or be juvenile. These are real questions stuff like ESR's essay raise. Is it ok in the open source movement for the people who aren't leaders to have opinions? Should we just keep our mouths shut? I've come to feel that outiders aren't exactly welcome on the linux-kernel mailing list and this is probably correct. I really can't contribute much of anything to the discussion so I just lurk now, trying to learn. Is that how Slashdot should be, though? A place for only a few to post? Disagreement, rudeness, and even out right flame wars are a fairly natural part of life. They don't feel good and quite often are wasting time. But valuable learning can ocur, new ideas can be presented only in a free and open environment. Some people (not always the same people) will get mad and write things that are hurtful. But shouldn't we all be a bit tougher about flames. The old saying "Sticks and Stones break my bones but words can never hurt me" comes to mind. Sure words can and do hurt but that is part of the price of communication. If you never want to be hurt don't be around people. I don't know. I wouldn't want to be in ESR's shoes and I wouldn't like having so many people atribute so many bad motives to me. But I would like to think that I could rise above the hurt feelings and understand what was being said and for what reason.
Here in the Central Valley of California we have been dealing with the murder of the tree female tourists near Yosimite. It is so sad and senseless and hard to deal with. Why were these women killed? Did they do something wrong? Could they have prevented their deaths by doing soemthign else? Even in your friend's case, could she have done something different to preven her rape? Certainly she could have avoided the meeting but that is an observation of hindsight. Unfortunately, there is no way to predict why these things happen. There are people who make stupid decisions all the time and nothing bad seems to happen. There are people who take every precaution and use very good common sense who are then brutally murdered or worse. If any comfort is available to the victims and their families let me say that usually there was little that could be done to prevent the event. Violent crimes such as these are usually perpetrated for reasons that the victems can do nothing about and have little influence on. It is up to us as a society to support the victems and their families and make sure they aren't blamed for their own tradgedies. We must not succumb to the easy temptation to look for a reason behind every event. There are some things that just aren't explainable in terms most of us understand. All we can do is offer grace and compassion for the victems and support their desires for justice.
Look, folks, ESR wasn't saying he is quiting. He was saying: Look don't give me such a hard time. Someone has to do this. I'm doing you all a favor. Quit sniping and get behind me. Well, I never voted for ESR to be the Open Source Evangelist. I'm not clear that anyone did. Eric Raymond has convinced some "important" people to open up their source code (couldn't convince them to do this while adopting a normal Open Source Liscense and declaired the proliferating numbers of personalized liscenses to be OK, but I digress). However, that anyone even listened to ESR (forceful though he may be) in the first place driectly resulted from the fact that the open code currently in use tends to be quite good. Simple as that. So Eric is articulate, a shameless promoter (of self to a lesser extent, I'll admit), and even has some serious hacking credentials (whatever that may mean). But he wasn't elected, he wasn't asked, as far as I know by "Open Source Leaders" to assume the role of evangelist. ESR decided there was a job that needed doing and he started doing it. Fine. In fact, best of luck to you ESR. It shows initiative and gumption. However, I don't agree with all the things ESR says. I don't support all the tactics or even philosophical positions ESR posits as core elements of Open Source software. I don't think bussiness is important to the continued "success" (I'm not even clear what that term means in this context) of the Open Source Movement. So if some people don't support ESR in the manner he feels he deserves, all I can say is that he asked for it. He decided there was a job to be done. He is doing it in a particular way that isn't exactly sensitive to the feelings and opinions of his "fellow" members of the movement. Thus, any grumbling that occurs was inevitable. Eric's statement is really disapointing. I'm sure he has been frustrated that not everyone agree's with him. I'm sure the "community's" reaction to his work with Apple was very discouraging. But Eric made the decisions he did and took the actions he took after consulting only a very small portion of the community. To lead a movement is tricky. Very rarely do people follow where they don't want to go. If you are a self-appointed leader, it is even more difficult. You always have to make sure you are out front of your troops but not going in a direction they won't follow. ESR has made interesting arguments in the past. He has convinced many people that Open Source is a powerful way to develop not just cheap but good software. Eric would do very well to back off for a while. He should figure out where a gould portion of this community stands. Eric then needs to decide if he wants to be a spokesman for the Open Source community as it stands (even just some portion of it) or try to make it into the kind of community he thinks it should be. I believe ESR has a lot to offer if he will adopt the first approach. If he goes for the second, well we can live without him.
You almost touched on this but one prfound impact of low latency communications is that we can have "combatants" sitting hundreds of miles from the FEBA (forward edge of teh battle area) and still in many ways experiencing much of the stress, horror, and yes, even thrill, of combat. Just think what those pilots of the "Predator" spy ROV must experience when they are flying over Kosovo watching the Serbs blow up another town and knowing there is not a damn thing they can do directly. I think the human consequences of this low latency are going to stunning (both in positive and negative senses).
Give me a break. The argument that Apple has to maintain control of the top layers of their OS to remain profitable is inane. For years, people maintained two complementary points about Apple that you ignore at your peril. Apple has never made money selling its OS. All the profits Apple has hapily received over the past year and half have come from new and inovative hardware strategies. People rarely buy the MacOS. It usually comes with the computer you purchase. Apple could give away a closed copy of any verison of the MacOS and still remain highly profitable. Secondly, the argument against cloning was that Apple had to maintain low level control of the Hardware and the Opreating system to maintain the high levels of reliability and interoperability that people expect from Apple's boxes.
Thus, from these two facts, Apple's profitability does not depend on keeping part of their OS closed. Additionally, they have ceeded the importance of control over the low level interfaces but in a very cynical and greedy way: Apple still makes the profits from the hardware but it gets a huge pool of beta testers and if one of these testers happens to come up with an interesting piece of code, Apple gets that for free too.
I trust Apple about as far as I can throw Steve Jobs and I am a Macintosh user from as far back as 1985. I know this company and never forget that they are determined to make an "impact" even if that means driving the company to bankruptcy. Jobs has never been a colaborator. He has never believed in letting go.
So sure, Apple gets half a point for giving us access driver code that we can integrate into LinuxPPC. What else does the community get? Where are the significant benefits to the rest of the community?
Don't be so quick to dismiss the FSF and and its desciples as 60's radicles. They are talking about something entirely different than free love (or free beer for that matter, something I think should be part of any national health plan, btw). Their points about the social consequences of closed source for programs or hidden information in general are devestating to a society that prides itself on freedom of speach and dissent. Apple could dump the MacOS, or more likely, make blue box run on top of LinuxPPC, give it away to anyone who wants it, and sell hardware and be a very profitable (perhaps more so) company. They don't because they have a philosophical distrust for the intelegence of their users. This makes for a highly structured, highly reliable, and really simple to use OS. Unfortunatly it is also made in the image of Steve Jobs, Avi Trevana or whoever is leading Apple at the time. This is fine for some people and some applications. But it is entirely disntinct from the Free Software movement (no matter what you call it). Choice is the rule when you can mix and match your components as easily as you choose your sox.
We in the Linux/Open Source/Free Software community have nothing to fear from Apple. They can't harm us and they can't stop our software from being better than theirs. Apple doesn't need us to help it make a profit. They can try to be open source if they like but we have the right to say, "Nope, that isn't what I call open source." I owe Apple nothing. I've paid for my Apple computers and bought updates to their OS many times. If anything Apple owes me but I don't expect them to give anything back because that isn't how capitalism works. But I'll be damned if I'm going to bless this latest publicity stunt from Apple as anything more than an interesting development.
Anyone know if Bruce Perens has a middle name? That way we can have the easy short hand of B*P to go along with RMS and ESR. However, maybe BP isn't as important as ESR and RMS so he should only have two letters. Thus we could say ESR thinks this but RMS thinks that and BP is somewhere in the middle. One problem, of course is that people might confuse BP for British Petrolium and that wouldn't be exactly fair to either of them (Bruce may be slick but is he really oily?). Just Curious.
RMS hit the Jobs on the head ...
on
RMS on APSL
·
· Score: 1
I hate to say this but I agree with RMS entirely in this case. Apple (in particular, as embodied in Steve Jobs) has no interest in openess or freedom in the sense that RMS holds dear. Really, Apple has no interest in even the underlying ideas of the "Open Source" movement either. They aren't clearly interested in advancing the state of the art, just the state of Apple. Apple has always been guilty of the Not Invented Here syndrom. All they want (IMHO, of course;-)) is a cheap source of beta testing and bug fixing. RMS is right about the issues of privacy and controle, too. If you want to give your efforts to Apple for free, then go ahead and work under the APSL. But Apple has never given anything away. Whether or not you like RMS and his notions, it is nice to have one basic liscense that everyone adheres too. I think the proliferation of "liscences" is a shame (perhaps inevitable, considering the viral nature of the GPL). Maybe OSI could come up with a Open Source Liscense that would be acceptable to the capitalists in the audience and then we could settle down to two variants that (hopefully) wouldn't be mutually exclusive.
Slashdot Mirror
So are we saying that Knuth is planning on becoming metabolically challenged in 2007 or do we think he's made other arrangements? Maybe he got in contact with a Frost Giant or something. Maybe the Iraqi group escaped "Mission Accomplished" and offered Knuth a better deal? So many ideas. Come on Charles, tell us what happens next.
better yet, somehow use them to brew tea! ;-P
The idea that ATT somehow copied the @home network is really unlikely since the attbi.com setup is different for me. They are using DHCP (makes sense to me) and @home was using fixed IP's for us in my apartment complex.
Consipracy theories aside, I think everyone has pointed out how bad the Excite aquisition was for @home. That seems to be the clearest cause of failure for @home. The rest is just ruthless business practice (the move from @home.com to attbi.com was relatively painless).
You could have your students implement an SMTP mail agent, an ftp client, or something more complex like ssh. I played around with doing this in perl and it was really cool. Of course doing these projects in C would be best. Certainly lots of real world benefit.
Use of Weapons is exsquisite in its pain.
Consider Phlebas is gigantic in its backdrop but never loses site of the individuals in its universe (the fleash eaters and the hero's escape will always be stuck in my mind).
I still have to read the Player of Games.
Check Banks out. He is both deeply interested in the future and somewhat skeptical.
Good mix for us geeks to be exposed to.
Shitkicker, Redneck, Buffalo Soldier, VC, Yankie Doodle Dandy, PMS, Hick.
To me, it seems that sites like Slashdot, Ars Technica, and Tom's Hardware are fulfilling the origional purpose most of these "big" computer magazines had in the begining, informing the community, carefully reviewing products/books/ideas, building consensus, etc. Most of the big mags lost track of that and became the playthings of their advertisers. This isn't to say that Slashdot couldn't do the same thing but there will always be the oportunity for others to keep their fingers on the pulse of the true community of computer users/enthusiasts, especailly as Startup costs for a web site are minimal compared with a print Mag. ;-)) but sites like this one are really important for keeping a community pulling in somewhat the same direction.
Like others, I like DDJ (makes me feel smart when I read it and understand a good part of it
Why? Because HTML 4.0, CSS and even XML, provide all the tools necessary to provide accessibility while letting designers imaginations roam free. Take a look at the specs on the these standards ( w3c.org). There is some really cool stuff one can do with the new standards.
Is it a tax on companies? Not really. The Federal government has always had standards for companies that want to work with it (frome safety and health issues to civil rights). The companies have always had a choice, though. If they didn't like the government's rules, they could do business with someone else.
Even private companies have standards they hold one another to when conducting bussiness.
Finally, even if you don't care about people with disabilities, there is a very good reason for the Federal government to be pushing standards compliance: effeciency. If every company keeps using non-standard (and incidentally non-accessable) HTML, every document will have to be examined or at the very least, undergo further processing befor it can be integrated with standards compliant data. We the tax payers will save money and time by mandating that standard HTML, XML, CSS, and even DOM and RDF are used.
To me, it appears that the ultimate benefits of requiring accessibility will reach far beyond simply allowing more access to government docs. This effort will help all of us be more standards compliant, reducing the need for re-processing data and wasting time that could be better spent understanding its meaning.
This is the kind of thing the FSF excells at and is one of the reasons why I'm grateful for their existance. The note was reasonable, well argued, and provides room for some diversity of opinion on which is the best liscense while providing a fairly clear benchmark about what is and isn't Free Software. ;-)).
I appreciated the levels of Freedom too, because they offer hooks to get non-programers commited to Free Software. I think the strictly Open Source POV misses out on this argument because it is primarily aimed at Programers and Bussinessmen (IMHO, of course
It's too bad so much acrimony gets stirred up when we really want the same things and we can all benefit from the diversity of opinion (or even just focus) that exists in the world. We won't all agree about every detail but I think we can live side by side if we are more careful of each other's feelings.
I'm not saying that ESR doesn't have a right to say what he did but isn't it a little disingenious to make fun of the people who read Slashdot in one breath and then talk about how much their comments hurt in another? ;-)).
I'm surprised that ESR even cares what people think. If he is sure he is doing right, then why should it matter what I think of him? If he is vindicated in the end, I will look like a fool and be forgotten or held up for ridicule. If I'm right, well Eric still doesn't have to do anything about it (He wouldn't know me if he stepped on me
I guess the real question is what kind of discussion, criticism and questioning can ESR and other people out front of the Open Source movement accept? Can they bare having people disagree with them? Can ESR accept that people might not think everything he does is correct?
I'm trying to not flame or be juvenile. These are real questions stuff like ESR's essay raise. Is it ok in the open source movement for the people who aren't leaders to have opinions? Should we just keep our mouths shut? I've come to feel that outiders aren't exactly welcome on the linux-kernel mailing list and this is probably correct. I really can't contribute much of anything to the discussion so I just lurk now, trying to learn.
Is that how Slashdot should be, though? A place for only a few to post?
Disagreement, rudeness, and even out right flame wars are a fairly natural part of life. They don't feel good and quite often are wasting time. But valuable learning can ocur, new ideas can be presented only in a free and open environment. Some people (not always the same people) will get mad and write things that are hurtful. But shouldn't we all be a bit tougher about flames. The old saying "Sticks and Stones break my bones but words can never hurt me" comes to mind. Sure words can and do hurt but that is part of the price of communication. If you never want to be hurt don't be around people.
I don't know. I wouldn't want to be in ESR's shoes and I wouldn't like having so many people atribute so many bad motives to me. But I would like to think that I could rise above the hurt feelings and understand what was being said and for what reason.
Here in the Central Valley of California we have been dealing with the murder of the tree female tourists near Yosimite. It is so sad and senseless and hard to deal with. Why were these women killed? Did they do something wrong? Could they have prevented their deaths by doing soemthign else? Even in your friend's case, could she have done something different to preven her rape? Certainly she could have avoided the meeting but that is an observation of hindsight.
Unfortunately, there is no way to predict why these things happen. There are people who make stupid decisions all the time and nothing bad seems to happen. There are people who take every precaution and use very good common sense who are then brutally murdered or worse. If any comfort is available to the victims and their families let me say that usually there was little that could be done to prevent the event. Violent crimes such as these are usually perpetrated for reasons that the victems can do nothing about and have little influence on.
It is up to us as a society to support the victems and their families and make sure they aren't blamed for their own tradgedies. We must not succumb to the easy temptation to look for a reason behind every event. There are some things that just aren't explainable in terms most of us understand. All we can do is offer grace and compassion for the victems and support their desires for justice.
Look, folks, ESR wasn't saying he is quiting. He was saying: Look don't give me such a hard time. Someone has to do this. I'm doing you all a favor. Quit sniping and get behind me.
Well, I never voted for ESR to be the Open Source Evangelist. I'm not clear that anyone did.
Eric Raymond has convinced some "important" people to open up their source code (couldn't convince them to do this while adopting a normal Open Source Liscense and declaired the proliferating numbers of personalized liscenses to be OK, but I digress).
However, that anyone even listened to ESR (forceful though he may be) in the first place driectly resulted from the fact that the open code currently in use tends to be quite good. Simple as that.
So Eric is articulate, a shameless promoter (of self to a lesser extent, I'll admit), and even has some serious hacking credentials (whatever that may mean). But he wasn't elected, he wasn't asked, as far as I know by "Open Source Leaders" to assume the role of evangelist.
ESR decided there was a job that needed doing and he started doing it. Fine. In fact, best of luck to you ESR. It shows initiative and gumption.
However, I don't agree with all the things ESR says. I don't support all the tactics or even philosophical positions ESR posits as core elements of Open Source software. I don't think bussiness is important to the continued "success" (I'm not even clear what that term means in this context) of the Open Source Movement.
So if some people don't support ESR in the manner he feels he deserves, all I can say is that he asked for it. He decided there was a job to be done. He is doing it in a particular way that isn't exactly sensitive to the feelings and opinions of his "fellow" members of the movement. Thus, any grumbling that occurs was inevitable.
Eric's statement is really disapointing. I'm sure he has been frustrated that not everyone agree's with him. I'm sure the "community's" reaction to his work with Apple was very discouraging. But Eric made the decisions he did and took the actions he took after consulting only a very small portion of the community.
To lead a movement is tricky. Very rarely do people follow where they don't want to go. If you are a self-appointed leader, it is even more difficult. You always have to make sure you are out front of your troops but not going in a direction they won't follow.
ESR has made interesting arguments in the past. He has convinced many people that Open Source is a powerful way to develop not just cheap but good software.
Eric would do very well to back off for a while. He should figure out where a gould portion of this community stands. Eric then needs to decide if he wants to be a spokesman for the Open Source community as it stands (even just some portion of it) or try to make it into the kind of community he thinks it should be.
I believe ESR has a lot to offer if he will adopt the first approach. If he goes for the second, well we can live without him.
You almost touched on this but one prfound impact of low latency communications is that we can have "combatants" sitting hundreds of miles from the FEBA (forward edge of teh battle area) and still in many ways experiencing much of the stress, horror, and yes, even thrill, of combat.
Just think what those pilots of the "Predator" spy ROV must experience when they are flying over Kosovo watching the Serbs blow up another town and knowing there is not a damn thing they can do directly.
I think the human consequences of this low latency are going to stunning (both in positive and negative senses).
So then, how do you feel about B*P?
Give me a break. The argument that Apple has to maintain control of the top layers of their OS to remain profitable is inane. For years, people maintained two complementary points about Apple that you ignore at your peril. Apple has never made money selling its OS. All the profits Apple has hapily received over the past year and half have come from new and inovative hardware strategies. People rarely buy the MacOS. It usually comes with the computer you purchase. Apple could give away a closed copy of any verison of the MacOS and still remain highly profitable.
Secondly, the argument against cloning was that Apple had to maintain low level control of the Hardware and the Opreating system to maintain the high levels of reliability and interoperability that people expect from Apple's boxes.
Thus, from these two facts, Apple's profitability does not depend on keeping part of their OS closed. Additionally, they have ceeded the importance of control over the low level interfaces but in a very cynical and greedy way: Apple still makes the profits from the hardware but it gets a huge pool of beta testers and if one of these testers happens to come up with an interesting piece of code, Apple gets that for free too.
I trust Apple about as far as I can throw Steve Jobs and I am a Macintosh user from as far back as 1985. I know this company and never forget that they are determined to make an "impact" even if that means driving the company to bankruptcy. Jobs has never been a colaborator. He has never believed in letting go.
So sure, Apple gets half a point for giving us access driver code that we can integrate into LinuxPPC. What else does the community get?
Where are the significant benefits to the rest of the community?
Don't be so quick to dismiss the FSF and and its desciples as 60's radicles. They are talking about something entirely different than free love (or free beer for that matter, something I think should be part of any national health plan, btw).
Their points about the social consequences of closed source for programs or hidden information in general are devestating to a society that prides itself on freedom of speach and dissent.
Apple could dump the MacOS, or more likely, make blue box run on top of LinuxPPC, give it away to anyone who wants it, and sell hardware and be a very profitable (perhaps more so) company.
They don't because they have a philosophical distrust for the intelegence of their users. This makes for a highly structured, highly reliable, and really simple to use OS. Unfortunatly it is also made in the image of Steve Jobs, Avi Trevana or whoever is leading Apple at the time.
This is fine for some people and some applications. But it is entirely disntinct from the Free Software movement (no matter what you call it). Choice is the rule when you can mix and match your components as easily as you choose your sox.
We in the Linux/Open Source/Free Software community have nothing to fear from Apple. They can't harm us and they can't stop our software from being better than theirs. Apple doesn't need us to help it make a profit. They can try to be open source if they like but we have the right to say, "Nope, that isn't what I call open source."
I owe Apple nothing. I've paid for my Apple computers and bought updates to their OS many times. If anything Apple owes me but I don't expect them to give anything back because that isn't how capitalism works.
But I'll be damned if I'm going to bless this latest publicity stunt from Apple as anything more than an interesting development.
anyone running crack against the router yet?
Anyone know if Bruce Perens has a middle name? That way we can have the easy short hand of B*P to go along with RMS and ESR. However, maybe BP isn't as important as ESR and RMS so he should only have two letters. Thus we could say ESR thinks this but RMS thinks that and BP is somewhere in the middle.
One problem, of course is that people might confuse BP for British Petrolium and that wouldn't be exactly fair to either of them (Bruce may be slick but is he really oily?).
Just Curious.
I hate to say this but I agree with RMS entirely in this case. Apple (in particular, as embodied in Steve Jobs) has no interest in openess or freedom in the sense that RMS holds dear. Really, Apple has no interest in even the underlying ideas of the "Open Source" movement either. They aren't clearly interested in advancing the state of the art, just the state of Apple. Apple has always been guilty of the Not Invented Here syndrom. All they want (IMHO, of course ;-)) is a cheap source of beta testing and bug fixing.
RMS is right about the issues of privacy and controle, too. If you want to give your efforts to Apple for free, then go ahead and work under the APSL. But Apple has never given anything away.
Whether or not you like RMS and his notions, it is nice to have one basic liscense that everyone adheres too. I think the proliferation of "liscences" is a shame (perhaps inevitable, considering the viral nature of the GPL). Maybe OSI could come up with a Open Source Liscense that would be acceptable to the capitalists in the audience and then we could settle down to two variants that (hopefully) wouldn't be mutually exclusive.