Back in the day - I mean the day of rotary phones here, when "dialing" actually described how you selected who you wanted to call - my grandmother used to keep a very, very loud whistle next to the phone. Obscence or harassing phone callers were greeted with a blast into the mouthpiece.
I'm starting to wonder if the same idea might not be the best strategy for dealing with telemarketers...
It's a federal law, telemarketers are not allowed more than 4 rings, 5 rings is harrasment.
Then it's a pretty useless law - the "ringing" call progress tone the caller hears is not synchronized with the ring signal sent to the phone. Try calling your cell phone from your land line or vice-versa and see.
I've done the "place me on your do not call list" thing for a while - never heard of the agency thing, have to try that.
Though usually I just say fsck it, let the machine get it, and only pick up if it's someone I want to talk to.
If companies deep linked to/., now that/. relies heavily on ads for its revenue, we probably wouldn't have it.
If you deep link to a/. story - say a link to your post - there's still an ad. (Or at least, a peak at the source tells me there would be one, if I wasn't running Junkbuster.)
Every original piece of software, whether a general word processor or a company-specific program is custom at the time it is created.
Nonsense. There's a large difference between meeting an existing customer's requirements, and developing software with future customers in mind - on the legal, economic, and engineering fronts.
Companies make decisions based on profit and loss analysis, not out of some feeling of community with other companies.
And in the end, belonging to a community of free software users is good for the bottom line.
Software is useless. It's what software enables people and companies to do that is important. In a free software "ecology", people and companies can get more done.
Look at Microsoft's financial condition...
Yes, crime pays.
But seriously, Microsoft is small potatoes. If something (like free software) is good for their customers (and it is), and those customers come to know that (as they are), they will be irrelevant.
The arrogance of open source proponents is, frankly, astounding.
Your determination to mis-read my words is what is astounding. I haven't suggested that anyone do anything; I've merely been discussing possibilities.
You want to risk the jobs of thousands of people so that you can test your ideas about open source software.
Do you even remember the original question anymore? One guy writing one application for a small business! That's where this sort of idea will be tested. Stop hyperventilating, your job is safe from the big bad GPL for the moment.
There are no exceptions for disgruntled employees supplying it to competitors.
It's not a question of exception. The "you" in the licence refers to the intended recipient of the software:
Each licensee is addressed as "you".
"You" would not apply to someone who violates his employment contract - and quite possibly various and asundry "data trespass" laws - to obtain a copy, any more than if I stole disks with proprietry software and a licence for "you" out of your mailbox.
(You really should read entire documents for context before quoting something in support of your argument.)
You have not shown me any examples of any open source projects where the source is not readily available...
Irrelevant to the question of what the open source / free software definitions require authors to do. We're talking about custom jobs here; any such software is not going to be a well-known project.
The Venn diagram in this document from the GNU project clearly shows that the creators of the "free software" movement understand that not all free software is available for free download.
nor have you given any examples of such a license.
I've already explained how this could happen under the GPL.
My original argument was that making a piece of custom software "open source" does not provide an advantage to a business.
Perhaps way back at the start of the thread. But then you started to mis-interpret what open source / free software requires. That's all that I've been trying to correct you about, and I hope you're a little clearer on it now.
However, to adress that point: releasing software under the GPL does provide a "big picture" advantage in the sense that it encourages others to do the same. When everyone has the freedom to use, modify, and share software, we all benefit.
For example: these days I work for a division of IBM that makes software for telephone systems. Our clients are Sprint PCS, Verizon, SBC, and so on.
We did the software behind Sprint's "Voice Command" system, and we're working on a new version. Sprint is footing the bill. Yet that software will be owned by IBM, and IBM will possibly sell it to others too.
The source will be IBM proprietary. Would it be more to Sprint's advantage to have that software under the GPL, than under the current scheme? Yes; it would mean that Sprint would have the ability to maintain and modify the software (or more likely, to hire some other company to do so) if IBM's support fees became excessive, or if our development team were to be killed by the next round of layoffs.
Would it be to IBM's advantage? To their short-term thinking, no. They would lose control of Sprint's use of the software. They could still make plenty of money, of course, though they would have to change their fee structure to accomidate a GPL-ing. But, while IBM is slowly seeing the free software light, they're still all about control.
But what if, in some sort of multi-way exchange for GPLing our software, we got the guys who provide our speech recognition software to GPL their stuff? I'm the guy tasked with integrating the Nuance speech reco stuff into our code, and man! Having source access would have saved us hundreds of hacker-hours and tens of thousands of dollars. We'd still need to pay Nuance for support and for further development, but being able to instrument their code, to source-level debug a core dump happening in their API, to not have to wait for patches...it would be wonderful. And profitable. Multiply by several times for the text-to-speech software, the software for the switch, and so on.
Would Verizon or SBC get to use our software for free if it were GPLed? No way. IBM isn't going to put it up on a web site for download. Sprint isn't going to give them a copy. And if somehow someone slipped them a bootleg CD, the support required to use the software is considerable. (Not to mention the potential legal issues - Sprint would have the right to share, use, and modify the software, but I don't think that entitles a disgruntled employee, or someone to whom he sends an "unauthorized" CD, to do the same.)
Everyone involved would benefit if all the software involved here was GPLed. But no one wants to be first.
How the hell can you have "open source" software where the source is not freely available?
The author can choose to only make source available TO PEOPLE WHO'VE BOUGHT BINARIES. (Of course, under the GPL or similar schemes, the author can't prevent those people from making the source available to others; however, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the customer is unlikely to give the source (or binaries) away to their competitors. And when you're doing a custom job for a customer, their competitors probably wouldn't have much use for it as-is, anyway.)
I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.
I could claim to have an open source copy of Windows. It's just that Microsoft has chosen not to make the source available to the general public.
Complete non sequitor. An open source / free software defeloper don't have to make the source available to the general public - only to the people to whom they've provided binaries. And that can be limited to the set of people who have paid them.
Are you beginning to get the picture? I write a GPLed application. I sell you a binary. You say to me, "I want source." I mail you a CD-ROM. Your competitor says to me "I want source." I say "Buy the program." Your competitor says to you, "Give me the program." You laugh at him. All quite legit under the GPL.
But, if at some future time I go out of business, or start practicing evil things with the software, you can fork it and hire someone to continue development along the lines you prefer. You can even team up with your competitor to share development costs.
I was releasing open source software (into the public domain) in the early 1980's, so I'm well versed in what
constitutes "free software" and "open source."
No, you're not, or you wouldn't make such fundamental errors.
They will get it from sourceforge or wherever it is mirrored.
It doesn't have to be mirrored anywhere, or made available for download anywhere. The "free software" movement well-predates the widespread use of the internet, you know - RMS probably was envisioning tapes and 5 1/4" floppies when he first wrote the GPL.
Since you clearly don't understand the term "open source"
To the contrary, it is clear that it is you need to read the document you linked to. There's nothing there that requires source code or binaries be made available to the general public - read the entire sentance you quoted. I need only provide source to those to whom I sell binaries. "Open source" and "free software" models are agreed on this.
In fact, you are displaying such willful ignorance on this topic I begin to wonder if you're trolling. Either that, or you've bought so deeply into proprietary software ideas that you're having psychological difficulty in understanding the ideas behind the "free software" and "open source" movements.
So why we he/she want you to go giving out to everyone else for free?
Why do you think that making software open source or free means giving it away to everyone? "Free as in freedom, not as in price" - I can very well write code under the GPL and only give a copy to people who pay me large amounts of cash. Only thing is 1) I have to give them source upon request, and 2) I have to let them give copies (or modifications) away if they want to - but they're hardly going to give copies to their competitors, are they?
If the client agrees to make the work open source, then their competitors will be able to use it at no cost.
Who's going to give the competitor a copy? Surely not the client. And if I've sold the client a copy, why would I give the software to the competitor for free if I could sell it to them to?
Making software free, or even open source, doesn't mean you can't sell it, and doesn't mean you have to give it to anyone who asks.
Your client will already own the code...
That depends on the situation and the terms of the contract.
I have a lot of respect for Noam's honesty in politics - but I wish he would spend more time in proposing solutions rather than just bash my culture. He repetidly make the clasic error of assuming that identification of a problem is the same as fixing it
So long as otherwise intelligent people persist in identifing this system of endless, mindless consumption as "their culture", merely pointing out the problems is difficult enough.
As far as teaching Lucas new tricks about mythology, didn't he basically rip off the storyline of Star Wars from other places (most notably, Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress) and put it in a sci-fi costume?
Artists are inspired by previous work - that's part of the creative process. Nothing wrong with it. William Shakespeare "ripped off" all sorts of people. Kurosawa "ripped off" Shakespeake. It's how the arts evolve.
the Star Wars films were based on pulp sci-fi writings
Which doesn't stop them being informed by myth.
Part of Campbell's point is the myth is so basic to our psyche and pervasive in our culture, you can't help but have resonances in any epic-size story.
You think pulp sci-fi writers had never heard of Ulysses? Of Beowulf?
talking into a machine will be bad for the office... gee, I guess we better throw away all those telephones
Please do.
Few things I find more distracting than someone yacking away on their office phone. There's one guy I hear clearly from 20 feet away - I don't know how the other guy who shares his office refrains from homocide.
Why the hell should Microsoft alone be forced to open their APIs and file formats?
Because they're criminals, and that's less extreme remedy for their criminal behavior than revoking their corporate charter (which is my preferred choice, but I know it won't fly).
However, it doesn't make any fiscal sense for me to change them over to
something else just because I prefer the GPL to an MS EULA.
Ah, but a large portion of the reason one should favor free software is exactly for technical reasons. It's not just a question of the ethics of proprietary vs. free software, it's the technical issues of interoperabilty, repairability, security, persistance of data,
and single-supplier dependance.
Granted, this might be a rarity, but simply refusing to use a technology for "ethical" reasons is absurd...
So, to take an extreme example, you'd have no problem purchasing software made with slave labor? It's not absurd - search Google for "prison-industrial complex". This neoslavery is alread being used for routine data-entry tasks in some places. I could very well see, some years down the road, hackers imprisoned for "War on Copying" crimes being put to work for pennies a day...
If you're buying a hammer, and you can get an identical one cheaper made by Chinese prison labor, do you argue "it's the right tool for the job"? Or do you engage your fscking brain for a minute and contemplate the wider consequences of your actions?
Sure, Microsoft may not (yet) be that evil.
But if people take your attitude, you're giving the opportunity for exactly that sort of evil to develop.
Does anyone know of a CFL that is sized (and shaped) appropriately for the light fixture on a celiing fan?
I have CFLs in the fixtures on both my ceiling fans...I think they're Phillips. They are just about regular incandenscent size, work ok in the enclosed fixture, and are about equivalent to 60w incandescent.
Any form of identification is completely uncalled for.
What's uncalled for (besides your sarcasm) is a manatory id.
Think of it this way: how would I personally benefit from being forced, by threat of incarceration, to carry around government papers? Not at all. How would you benefit from me being forced to carry around those papers? Not at all.
Now, how would a (hypothetical or not, depending on your viewpoint) state bent on restricting its citizen's basic libertaies benefit from making people carry around its papers? Greatly.
a law enforcement type of agency which monitors web traffic and fines individuals which break laws, i.e. distribute copyrighted information?
Sort of like the old KGB, which montitored speech and punished individuals who broke laws?
Surely you're not naive enough to belive that such a law enforcement body would stick to copyright issues, are you? Of course, you'd have to outlaw cryptography too, lest those evil file sharers use PGP to hide their nefarious goings-on...
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the day - I mean the day of rotary phones here, when "dialing" actually described how you selected who you wanted to call - my grandmother used to keep a very, very loud whistle next to the phone. Obscence or harassing phone callers were greeted with a blast into the mouthpiece.
I'm starting to wonder if the same idea might not be the best strategy for dealing with telemarketers...
Then it's a pretty useless law - the "ringing" call progress tone the caller hears is not synchronized with the ring signal sent to the phone. Try calling your cell phone from your land line or vice-versa and see.
I've done the "place me on your do not call list" thing for a while - never heard of the agency thing, have to try that.
Though usually I just say fsck it, let the machine get it, and only pick up if it's someone I want to talk to.
Are you sure? This is the Weekly Standard, after all...
And to protect that, you lock up people who say things you don't like. Brilliant.
"First they came for the neo-Nazis, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a neo-Nazi..."
If you deep link to a /. story - say a link to your post - there's still an ad. (Or at least, a peak at the source tells me there would be one, if I wasn't running Junkbuster.)
Nonsense. There's a large difference between meeting an existing customer's requirements, and developing software with future customers in mind - on the legal, economic, and engineering fronts.
And in the end, belonging to a community of free software users is good for the bottom line.
Software is useless. It's what software enables people and companies to do that is important. In a free software "ecology", people and companies can get more done.
Yes, crime pays.
But seriously, Microsoft is small potatoes. If something (like free software) is good for their customers (and it is), and those customers come to know that (as they are), they will be irrelevant.
Your determination to mis-read my words is what is astounding. I haven't suggested that anyone do anything; I've merely been discussing possibilities.
Do you even remember the original question anymore? One guy writing one application for a small business! That's where this sort of idea will be tested. Stop hyperventilating, your job is safe from the big bad GPL for the moment.
It's not a question of exception. The "you" in the licence refers to the intended recipient of the software: Each licensee is addressed as "you".
"You" would not apply to someone who violates his employment contract - and quite possibly various and asundry "data trespass" laws - to obtain a copy, any more than if I stole disks with proprietry software and a licence for "you" out of your mailbox.
(You really should read entire documents for context before quoting something in support of your argument.)
Irrelevant to the question of what the open source / free software definitions require authors to do. We're talking about custom jobs here; any such software is not going to be a well-known project.
The Venn diagram in this document from the GNU project clearly shows that the creators of the "free software" movement understand that not all free software is available for free download.
I've already explained how this could happen under the GPL.
Perhaps way back at the start of the thread. But then you started to mis-interpret what open source / free software requires. That's all that I've been trying to correct you about, and I hope you're a little clearer on it now.
However, to adress that point: releasing software under the GPL does provide a "big picture" advantage in the sense that it encourages others to do the same. When everyone has the freedom to use, modify, and share software, we all benefit.
For example: these days I work for a division of IBM that makes software for telephone systems. Our clients are Sprint PCS, Verizon, SBC, and so on.
We did the software behind Sprint's "Voice Command" system, and we're working on a new version. Sprint is footing the bill. Yet that software will be owned by IBM, and IBM will possibly sell it to others too.
The source will be IBM proprietary. Would it be more to Sprint's advantage to have that software under the GPL, than under the current scheme? Yes; it would mean that Sprint would have the ability to maintain and modify the software (or more likely, to hire some other company to do so) if IBM's support fees became excessive, or if our development team were to be killed by the next round of layoffs.
Would it be to IBM's advantage? To their short-term thinking, no. They would lose control of Sprint's use of the software. They could still make plenty of money, of course, though they would have to change their fee structure to accomidate a GPL-ing. But, while IBM is slowly seeing the free software light, they're still all about control.
But what if, in some sort of multi-way exchange for GPLing our software, we got the guys who provide our speech recognition software to GPL their stuff? I'm the guy tasked with integrating the Nuance speech reco stuff into our code, and man! Having source access would have saved us hundreds of hacker-hours and tens of thousands of dollars. We'd still need to pay Nuance for support and for further development, but being able to instrument their code, to source-level debug a core dump happening in their API, to not have to wait for patches...it would be wonderful. And profitable. Multiply by several times for the text-to-speech software, the software for the switch, and so on.
Would Verizon or SBC get to use our software for free if it were GPLed? No way. IBM isn't going to put it up on a web site for download. Sprint isn't going to give them a copy. And if somehow someone slipped them a bootleg CD, the support required to use the software is considerable. (Not to mention the potential legal issues - Sprint would have the right to share, use, and modify the software, but I don't think that entitles a disgruntled employee, or someone to whom he sends an "unauthorized" CD, to do the same.)
Everyone involved would benefit if all the software involved here was GPLed. But no one wants to be first.
The author can choose to only make source available TO PEOPLE WHO'VE BOUGHT BINARIES . (Of course, under the GPL or similar schemes, the author can't prevent those people from making the source available to others; however, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the customer is unlikely to give the source (or binaries) away to their competitors. And when you're doing a custom job for a customer, their competitors probably wouldn't have much use for it as-is, anyway.)
I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.
Complete non sequitor. An open source / free software defeloper don't have to make the source available to the general public - only to the people to whom they've provided binaries. And that can be limited to the set of people who have paid them.
Are you beginning to get the picture? I write a GPLed application. I sell you a binary. You say to me, "I want source." I mail you a CD-ROM. Your competitor says to me "I want source." I say "Buy the program." Your competitor says to you, "Give me the program." You laugh at him. All quite legit under the GPL.
But, if at some future time I go out of business, or start practicing evil things with the software, you can fork it and hire someone to continue development along the lines you prefer. You can even team up with your competitor to share development costs.
No, you're not, or you wouldn't make such fundamental errors.
It doesn't have to be mirrored anywhere, or made available for download anywhere. The "free software" movement well-predates the widespread use of the internet, you know - RMS probably was envisioning tapes and 5 1/4" floppies when he first wrote the GPL.
To the contrary, it is clear that it is you need to read the document you linked to. There's nothing there that requires source code or binaries be made available to the general public - read the entire sentance you quoted. I need only provide source to those to whom I sell binaries. "Open source" and "free software" models are agreed on this.
In fact, you are displaying such willful ignorance on this topic I begin to wonder if you're trolling. Either that, or you've bought so deeply into proprietary software ideas that you're having psychological difficulty in understanding the ideas behind the "free software" and "open source" movements.
Why do you think that making software open source or free means giving it away to everyone? "Free as in freedom, not as in price" - I can very well write code under the GPL and only give a copy to people who pay me large amounts of cash. Only thing is 1) I have to give them source upon request, and 2) I have to let them give copies (or modifications) away if they want to - but they're hardly going to give copies to their competitors, are they?
Who's going to give the competitor a copy? Surely not the client. And if I've sold the client a copy, why would I give the software to the competitor for free if I could sell it to them to?
Making software free, or even open source, doesn't mean you can't sell it, and doesn't mean you have to give it to anyone who asks.
That depends on the situation and the terms of the contract.
May I suggest you go familiarize yourself with the works of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman?
So long as otherwise intelligent people persist in identifing this system of endless, mindless consumption as "their culture", merely pointing out the problems is difficult enough.
Artists are inspired by previous work - that's part of the creative process. Nothing wrong with it. William Shakespeare "ripped off" all sorts of people. Kurosawa "ripped off" Shakespeake. It's how the arts evolve.
Which doesn't stop them being informed by myth.
Part of Campbell's point is the myth is so basic to our psyche and pervasive in our culture, you can't help but have resonances in any epic-size story.
You think pulp sci-fi writers had never heard of Ulysses? Of Beowulf?
Please do.
Few things I find more distracting than someone yacking away on their office phone. There's one guy I hear clearly from 20 feet away - I don't know how the other guy who shares his office refrains from homocide.
Because they're criminals, and that's less extreme remedy for their criminal behavior than revoking their corporate charter (which is my preferred choice, but I know it won't fly).
Ah, but a large portion of the reason one should favor free software is exactly for technical reasons. It's not just a question of the ethics of proprietary vs. free software, it's the technical issues of interoperabilty, repairability, security, persistance of data, and single-supplier dependance.
So, to take an extreme example, you'd have no problem purchasing software made with slave labor? It's not absurd - search Google for "prison-industrial complex". This neoslavery is alread being used for routine data-entry tasks in some places. I could very well see, some years down the road, hackers imprisoned for "War on Copying" crimes being put to work for pennies a day...
If you're buying a hammer, and you can get an identical one cheaper made by Chinese prison labor, do you argue "it's the right tool for the job"? Or do you engage your fscking brain for a minute and contemplate the wider consequences of your actions?
Sure, Microsoft may not (yet) be that evil. But if people take your attitude, you're giving the opportunity for exactly that sort of evil to develop.
...the ACM Code of Ethics?
What's uncalled for (besides your sarcasm) is a manatory id.
Think of it this way: how would I personally benefit from being forced, by threat of incarceration, to carry around government papers? Not at all. How would you benefit from me being forced to carry around those papers? Not at all.
Now, how would a (hypothetical or not, depending on your viewpoint) state bent on restricting its citizen's basic libertaies benefit from making people carry around its papers? Greatly.
Have you ever had that independantly checked? I really think there's a perceptual issue here and people simply don't realize how loud they're being.
I see it all the damn time.
Sort of like the old KGB, which montitored speech and punished individuals who broke laws?
Surely you're not naive enough to belive that such a law enforcement body would stick to copyright issues, are you? Of course, you'd have to outlaw cryptography too, lest those evil file sharers use PGP to hide their nefarious goings-on...