That's just because there is no other way to do it in a system based on copyright. If they don't copyright it, someone else will copyright it for proprietary versions. They copyright to keep others from abusing copyright. That's the whole point. There's no other way in a copyright system like the U.S. to preserve freedom. However, the license itself shows that it thinks that the priviledges normally associated with copyrights are not good.
Actually, most of computer work is in customizations, not packaged products. Open source acknowledges this. Open Source is basically a large group of people who write custom solutions, while sharing the base they start from.
Which do you think companies spend more money on? Buying applications or customizing them? If you are unsure, look at Oracle consulting contracts. The software packages are only a minor cost.
Also, you still have to answer the question, does intellectual property make sense at all? It is the exact opposite of regular property. With regular property, the possessor has all the rights. With intellectual property, the creator has all the rights. I believe in property ownership, which naturally excludes intellectual property ownership.
Sun's JDK is _NOT_ open source. Even though they have free (as in price) access to their source tree, redistribution of said source (especially modifications) is illegal. Notice that you will only find binaries on Blackdown's site. Sun is using the work of Blackdown IN A PROPRIETARY NATURE without giving them credit.
Now, this is within their legal right, and I'm sure Blackdown is aware of that. But it sucks, nonetheless.
How can any of RedHat's activities be considered a slap in the face, when you can copy AND SELL a Verbatim RedHat CD and manuals without paying RedHat a dime. You can actually set up your computers to do a RedHat install from THEIR web site FOR FREE! RedHat also gave developers first dibs at their IPO. So, the situation isn't nearly the same, because almost everything RedHat does is publicly available without going through RedHat. If they make a lot of money, it's because people think its worthwhile to pay it. I can get any RedHat CD from cheapbytes for a few bucks if I don't think RedHat deserves the money.
Also, have you heard of GNOME? RedHat put a _lot_ of money into that, and ORBit, and the GUI installer, and kudzu, and soundconfig, and patching programs to work together cohesively, and so on and so forth.
GPL programs are automatically immune to this sort of problem.
The talk about XFree86 being the standard is that X is _the_ X server that most people use on x86 UNIX machines. Also, a lot of proprietary x86 X servers use the XFree86 code base. Those two facts show that XFree is actually the standard in actuality, even though it is not so on paper. What makes a standard is people who use it and write to it, not some silly document.
First, Debian is also being ported to the HURD, which I am eagerly awaiting.
On a more general note, the more people that do porting projects like this, the more pluggable the whole system will get. Wouldn't it be great if you could select your kernel, libc, and packages independent of each other? This is what UNIX is about... choice.
It would also be great to have glibc ported to FreeBSD. I sure hope that is the route they decide to take. This would allow FreeBSDers to have better access to new applications (although I'm not sure if they care - BSD is usually about stability, not newness). Also, given the user base of Debian, this would give more competition to Linux, and give us a reason to still be competitive.
Finally, this will expose more bugs in all systems, which is always a good thing.
I agree that communism in general is a very bad idea. My point was, simply, that being a communist doesn't make every idea you will ever have bad. You can be a communist and accidentally stumble across a correct idea. All I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't be upset that communists like Linux. We should instead be glad that China likes Linux, because that means there will be a whole lot more people using it.
Just because China likes Linux does _not_ mean that Linux is somehow intrisically communist. Most countries, including communist ones use almost entirely Windows, which doesn't make BillG a communist. Also, why does everyone think that just because _most_ communist ideals are mistaken, that they all are? Can't there be certain issues that communists and capitalists agree on, even if for different reasons? There is a line between communists and capitalists, but that line is not everywhere. Nice people are communists, nice people are capitalists. Bad people are communists, bad people are capitalists. Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they do eeeevil.
This was _very_ enlightening. I'm a web programmer, but I've never been a cracker. I know basic web security, but it is really interesting to find out
1) How someone determines what your system is like
2) How someone uses that information to crack your system
This is very useful information. I hope that people continue to hold contests like this, and publish the results, so we can all make our systems (and our web scripts) more secure.
This book was really good for an introduction to modules for someone (like me) who had never done anything beyond fork/exec CGI scripts. However, as you learn more, and try to do more interesting stuff, you find that the book skimmed the surface on several areas. Basically, for anything very technical or sophisticated, take the book with a grain of salt. Don't assume the book to be 100% correct on every point. They make a lot of mistakes. However, it was definitely worth the read and the money, and I use the appendices quite often when trying to find the function I need.
Thinking about every aspect does not mean that you can come up with all the answers. There will always be variables you overlook, functions you forgot to add, and the like.
"you'll get about half way into the project, realize the way you are solving your problem is all wrong and you have to scrap your work"
There's nothing wrong with recoding things. In fact, you should always plan on throwing away a lot of what you start doing.
The way I usually design programs (which seems to work well) is by hacking together a half-working solution (very buggy, missing features, command-line, but actually doing something) and then looking at the code and deducing where the separate pieces are, what problems will I face, and then creating a design document which outlines a good design to the problem.
Until you start coding, you really don't know what you're messing with. The best idea is to plan to throw away your first prototype, but use it as a place to design from.
Also, a great book to read about the software design process is "the mythical man-month". It's old, but the ideas are still useful.
Even though software is not the only place this happens, I think that the freedom is still an issue in these other mediums. For example, if I have a trash can, I can build one just like it. I can then sell it to whoever I want. I can even build a trash can duplicating machine, and make and sell as many trash cans as I want. The same goes with hammers, desks, etc.
Let's take plants, for example. If I buy a plant, I can use the seeds to create more plants. I have not violated the intellectual property rights of the creator, even if he spent years genetically engineering the plant. Once its mine, I can do whatever I want with it.
Although you do choose what you consume, the way software licenses are handled are not good at all. After I buy the software, it's mine. You can't present the contract after the purchase. I have no moral obligation to follow or obey any contract presented after the sale, especially if it doesn't involve interaction with other people. I personally don't have a moral issue with lying to my computer. I'm a programmer, therefore lying to the computer is my job. As long as the information is not knowingly transmitted to the other parties, I always click on the "Yes I Agree" button, even if I don't, because lying to a computer is not bad. It's a different story if the information is transmitted to their computers, because then I'm lying to them. But as long as it's my software (because I bought it), I can do with it whatever I want.
It seems to me that ESR decided to take the easy road instead of the hard road. What I mean is, not that ESR's job is easy, but that he is sacrificing the future of free software for success today. If you look around at the big businesses, few of them are creating software that is truly free. Instead they are just "opening up the source" which doesn't make the software any more free. Also, more and more people are using freedom-deducted software as an integral part of free software products like Linux. The problem is getting worse, not better. ESR is succeeding in publicity, but not publicity about the principals. Therefore, if people don't learn the principals, they won't know why its bad to put a lot of restrictions on how people use the software. Thus, everyone will show the source code, but take all of our freedoms away.
I am not saying I disagree with ESR's message of having the source available creates better products - neither does RMS. The problem is that if that's the only message the businessmen hear, all they will do is open up the source, and continue to restrict freedom. ESR's "tactics" show that he is about "us being better than them" and not about the freedom of the user. If the Open Source movement was meant to create more freedom, then it can't do so without being more public about it.
So, stick with GPL and X-Free type licenses, and don't let all the talk about "Open Source" forget what we really want, and that is freedom.
Also, just as a rant, I'd like to say that RMS is NOT a communist, and the free software community is not communistic. In fact, it's the other way around. In the free software community, you get full control over your personal posssessions. Big brother has no control over how you use the software. In the commercial software community, your personal property rights are violated because your rights to YOUR OWN PERSONAL PROPERTY are being violated. VIOLATING PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS NOT CAPITALISTIC, IT'S COMMUNISTIC. I always get frustrated when people compare intellectual property rights to personal property rights. They are not the same, in fact PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE IN DIRECT CONFLICT. You can have one, but not the other. Personally, I'd rather have the rights to my own stuff than some software corporation.
Donald Becker is as good of a guy as he is a programmer. I haven't had much interaction with him, but he did assist me in solving a REALLY stupid RTFM type of problem that I was having (I didn't have the most recent driver). He showed me step-by-step what I needed to do to fix it, and was really nice about it. My hat is off to him! I also enjoy reading his work on Beowulf.
I think that the purpose of putting the code into the Wine code base first is so that Wine can continue to keep its old license. Wine code CAN be used in (L)GPL projects, but (L)GPL code cannot be used in wine. Therefore, to keep both projects moving, a developer needs to fix wine problems in the wine source itself first (under the wine license) and then move it to the TWINE project, where the it gets rebranded as LGPL.
Here's what I did - I made a network at home, and tried to use every technology that I read about, whether I needed it or not. When I didn't know how to do something, I looked it up on the web, or read a book. Simply playing with your own system is quite enough to be a competent SysAdmin, if you experiment enough with it.
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That's just because there is no other way to do it in a system based on copyright. If they don't copyright it, someone else will copyright it for proprietary versions. They copyright to keep others from abusing copyright. That's the whole point. There's no other way in a copyright system like the U.S. to preserve freedom. However, the license itself shows that it thinks that the priviledges normally associated with copyrights are not good.
Actually, most of computer work is in customizations, not packaged products. Open source acknowledges this. Open Source is basically a large group of people who write custom solutions, while sharing the base they start from.
Which do you think companies spend more money on? Buying applications or customizing them? If you are unsure, look at Oracle consulting contracts. The software packages are only a minor cost.
Also, you still have to answer the question, does intellectual property make sense at all? It is the exact opposite of regular property. With regular property, the possessor has all the rights. With intellectual property, the creator has all the rights. I believe in property ownership, which naturally excludes intellectual property ownership.
The GPL acknowledges this well.
Sun's JDK is _NOT_ open source. Even though they have free (as in price) access to their source tree, redistribution of said source (especially modifications) is illegal. Notice that you will only find binaries on Blackdown's site. Sun is using the work of Blackdown IN A PROPRIETARY NATURE without giving them credit.
Now, this is within their legal right, and I'm sure Blackdown is aware of that. But it sucks, nonetheless.
That's why I would use GPL.
How can any of RedHat's activities be considered a slap in the face, when you can copy AND SELL a Verbatim RedHat CD and manuals without paying RedHat a dime. You can actually set up your computers to do a RedHat install from THEIR web site FOR FREE! RedHat also gave developers first dibs at their IPO. So, the situation isn't nearly the same, because almost everything RedHat does is publicly available without going through RedHat. If they make a lot of money, it's because people think its worthwhile to pay it. I can get any RedHat CD from cheapbytes for a few bucks if I don't think RedHat deserves the money.
Also, have you heard of GNOME? RedHat put a _lot_ of money into that, and ORBit, and the GUI installer, and kudzu, and soundconfig, and patching programs to work together cohesively, and so on and so forth.
GPL programs are automatically immune to this sort of problem.
The talk about XFree86 being the standard is that X is _the_ X server that most people use on x86 UNIX machines. Also, a lot of proprietary x86 X servers use the XFree86 code base. Those two facts show that XFree is actually the standard in actuality, even though it is not so on paper. What makes a standard is people who use it and write to it, not some silly document.
First, Debian is also being ported to the HURD, which I am eagerly awaiting.
On a more general note, the more people that do porting projects like this, the more pluggable the whole system will get. Wouldn't it be great if you could select your kernel, libc, and packages independent of each other? This is what UNIX is about... choice.
It would also be great to have glibc ported to FreeBSD. I sure hope that is the route they decide to take. This would allow FreeBSDers to have better access to new applications (although I'm not sure if they care - BSD is usually about stability, not newness). Also, given the user base of Debian, this would give more competition to Linux, and give us a reason to still be competitive.
Finally, this will expose more bugs in all systems, which is always a good thing.
I agree that communism in general is a very bad idea. My point was, simply, that being a communist doesn't make every idea you will ever have bad. You can be a communist and accidentally stumble across a correct idea. All I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't be upset that communists like Linux. We should instead be glad that China likes Linux, because that means there will be a whole lot more people using it.
Just because China likes Linux does _not_ mean that Linux is somehow intrisically communist. Most countries, including communist ones use almost entirely Windows, which doesn't make BillG a communist. Also, why does everyone think that just because _most_ communist ideals are mistaken, that they all are? Can't there be certain issues that communists and capitalists agree on, even if for different reasons? There is a line between communists and capitalists, but that line is not everywhere. Nice people are communists, nice people are capitalists. Bad people are communists, bad people are capitalists. Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they do eeeevil.
This was _very_ enlightening. I'm a web programmer, but I've never been a cracker. I know basic web security, but it is really interesting to find out
1) How someone determines what your system is like
2) How someone uses that information to crack your system
This is very useful information. I hope that people continue to hold contests like this, and publish the results, so we can all make our systems (and our web scripts) more secure.
This book was really good for an introduction to modules for someone (like me) who had never done anything beyond fork/exec CGI scripts. However, as you learn more, and try to do more interesting stuff, you find that the book skimmed the surface on several areas. Basically, for anything very technical or sophisticated, take the book with a grain of salt. Don't assume the book to be 100% correct on every point. They make a lot of mistakes. However, it was definitely worth the read and the money, and I use the appendices quite often when trying to find the function I need.
"you'll get about half way into the project, realize the way you are solving your problem is all wrong and you have to scrap your work"
There's nothing wrong with recoding things. In fact, you should always plan on throwing away a lot of what you start doing.
The way I usually design programs (which seems to work well) is by hacking together a half-working solution (very buggy, missing features, command-line, but actually doing something) and then looking at the code and deducing where the separate pieces are, what problems will I face, and then creating a design document which outlines a good design to the problem.
Until you start coding, you really don't know what you're messing with. The best idea is to plan to throw away your first prototype, but use it as a place to design from.
Also, a great book to read about the software design process is "the mythical man-month". It's old, but the ideas are still useful.
Even though software is not the only place this happens, I think that the freedom is still an issue in these other mediums. For example, if I have a trash can, I can build one just like it. I can then sell it to whoever I want. I can even build a trash can duplicating machine, and make and sell as many trash cans as I want. The same goes with hammers, desks, etc.
Let's take plants, for example. If I buy a plant, I can use the seeds to create more plants. I have not violated the intellectual property rights of the creator, even if he spent years genetically engineering the plant. Once its mine, I can do whatever I want with it.
Although you do choose what you consume, the way software licenses are handled are not good at all. After I buy the software, it's mine. You can't present the contract after the purchase. I have no moral obligation to follow or obey any contract presented after the sale, especially if it doesn't involve interaction with other people. I personally don't have a moral issue with lying to my computer. I'm a programmer, therefore lying to the computer is my job. As long as the information is not knowingly transmitted to the other parties, I always click on the "Yes I Agree" button, even if I don't, because lying to a computer is not bad. It's a different story if the information is transmitted to their computers, because then I'm lying to them. But as long as it's my software (because I bought it), I can do with it whatever I want.
It seems to me that ESR decided to take the easy road instead of the hard road. What I mean is, not that ESR's job is easy, but that he is sacrificing the future of free software for success today. If you look around at the big businesses, few of them are creating software that is truly free. Instead they are just "opening up the source" which doesn't make the software any more free. Also, more and more people are using freedom-deducted software as an integral part of free software products like Linux. The problem is getting worse, not better. ESR is succeeding in publicity, but not publicity about the principals. Therefore, if people don't learn the principals, they won't know why its bad to put a lot of restrictions on how people use the software. Thus, everyone will show the source code, but take all of our freedoms away.
I am not saying I disagree with ESR's message of having the source available creates better products - neither does RMS. The problem is that if that's the only message the businessmen hear, all they will do is open up the source, and continue to restrict freedom. ESR's "tactics" show that he is about "us being better than them" and not about the freedom of the user. If the Open Source movement was meant to create more freedom, then it can't do so without being more public about it.
So, stick with GPL and X-Free type licenses, and don't let all the talk about "Open Source" forget what we really want, and that is freedom.
Also, just as a rant, I'd like to say that RMS is NOT a communist, and the free software community is not communistic. In fact, it's the other way around. In the free software community, you get full control over your personal posssessions. Big brother has no control over how you use the software. In the commercial software community, your personal property rights are violated because your rights to YOUR OWN PERSONAL PROPERTY are being violated. VIOLATING PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS NOT CAPITALISTIC, IT'S COMMUNISTIC. I always get frustrated when people compare intellectual property rights to personal property rights. They are not the same, in fact PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE IN DIRECT CONFLICT. You can have one, but not the other. Personally, I'd rather have the rights to my own stuff than some software corporation.
Donald Becker is as good of a guy as he is a programmer. I haven't had much interaction with him, but he did assist me in solving a REALLY stupid RTFM type of problem that I was having (I didn't have the most recent driver). He showed me step-by-step what I needed to do to fix it, and was really nice about it. My hat is off to him! I also enjoy reading his work on Beowulf.
I think that the purpose of putting the code into the Wine code base first is so that Wine can continue to keep its old license. Wine code CAN be used in (L)GPL projects, but (L)GPL code cannot be used in wine. Therefore, to keep both projects moving, a developer needs to fix wine problems in the wine source itself first (under the wine license) and then move it to the TWINE project, where the it gets rebranded as LGPL.
Here's what I did - I made a network at home, and tried to use every technology that I read about, whether I needed it or not. When I didn't know how to do something, I looked it up on the web, or read a book. Simply playing with your own system is quite enough to be a competent SysAdmin, if you experiment enough with it.