And what does society get for being the strong arm that stops people from stealing the interest from your investments?
It gets trust in the banks and hence huge sums of money just lying around to be loaned out to people who want to buy houses or start businesses.
I could conceivably patent "rock and roll music about cars", but I can only copyright "Lil' Deuce Coupe", and the fact that it is copyrighted hasn't stopped,
There is, of course, a big difference between rock music and epic storytelling. As I mentioned elsewhere in this forum, many of Shakespeare's plays - including Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth are clearly derivative (in the legal sense) of other plays and writings, some of which had been plagerized by their authors. The author of The Wind Done Gone (a retelling of Gone with the Wind from the viewpoint of the slaves) was hasseled severely by the copyright owners of Gone with the Wind. Apparently the author of The Wind Done Gone had a story that she thought could only be told the way she told it. Another famous derivative work is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; why would the world be a better place if Stoddard couldn't have used Shakespeare's characters because BigCorp wanted too much for the licensing rights?
It's not clearly useful to make a derivative rock song; but many, many authors, both big and small, have found it useful to work off a shared mythos
Like I said, just making a "special edition" doesn't garner a whole new copyright, because the copyright applies from the date of first publication, regardless of how many "director's cut" or "special editions" that you do.
I believe you're mistaken here. From the Copyright FAQ at the US Copyright Office (see loc.gov):
47 * How much do I have to change in my own work to make a new claim of copyright?
You may make a new claim in your work if the changes are substantial and creative -- something more than just editorial changes or minor changes. This would qualify as a new derivative work. For instance, simply making spelling corrections throughout a work does not warrant a new registration -- adding an additional chapter would. See Circular 14 for further information.
[End Quote]
So a director's cut that includes new material would certainly count for a new copyright. Project Gutenberg won't use any book published after 1923, for the most part, for fear that a new copyright may have been gained or that the company will try and claim that a new copyright was gained.
But mostly I fail to see why your (hypothetical) kids have any right to my (hypothetical) creations
Because, societies in part are built on shared myths/stories. Aesop's fables. Romeo and Juliet. Plato's Republic. The Odyssey. Robin Hood. At which point those myths/stories stop being shared, the society weakens and shared lines of thought get broken. If Robin Hood wasn't public domain, it wouldn't be the great source of stories that it is (I can think of four Robin Hood movies of the top of my head), and there would be a lot fewer people who would catch references to it.
If they shut off the public domain, the school books will include increasingly dated literature - new stuff costs. Very few new books will make permenant literature, as teachers can only teach so many expensive books.
And what does society get for being the strong arm that stops people from copying your work? Nothing - most people write works to pay their bills now, not their great-grandkids a hundred years from now, or some corporate lawyer's salary a hundred years from now. Net harm to society so some people can reap money from something they didn't do is not something that society's going to support.
I remember that some foreign works, which fell into the public domain due to technical reasons, were returned to full copyright by one act (Interestingly enough, I believe that included the Lord of the Rings.) That was years ago, though.
The last extension did not remove stuff from the public domain. (See the law itself. It has three sections: Copyrights for stuff after 1977, stuff that was created but not published befor 1977, and "subsisting copyrights") When they say that it was retroactive, they mean it extended the copyright term even for books published before the law was passed, not that it put stuff in the public domain under copyright.
Copyright simply means that you'll have to write your own stories instead of copying his.
Perhaps the public interest would be even better served by encouraging creativity rather than reproduction.
Almost everyone of Shakespeare's plays is based off a preexisting work; the plot and stories of Romeo and Juliet and MacBeth already existed, Shakespeare just added his own touch.
Also, public interest seems served by letting people adapt one medium to another. There have been a number of great movies, based off a preexisting play or book. I don't see how that's a bad thing, or something that we should discourage.
So what if an author had some sperm frozen, but then died soon, and his wife decided 15 years later to use the sperm to have another child?
I'm not even sure I'd really consider the child his, except in a purely biological way of little interest in society. You have to be involved some way for the child to be yours - dumping your sperm off at the sperm bank doesn't count. If you chose to have a child, then you should be prepared to raise it; it's not like the child's father died in a sudden accident and left it stranded.
The biggest problem I can see, is that there's a number of works that sell slowly but steadily over a long period of time, and your system wouldn't let the little guys keep the copyright for 25 years. Take, for example, The Art of Computer Programming, or the Berlitz Guide to Swahilli, which would be forced into the public domain. The first particularly benefits the corporation over the author.
It might work with a lighter curve. Your system effectively makes copyright last forat most 25 years - even the richest companies can't afford to shell out a million bucks a year for a 25 year old work. But something that would let Disney keep some of their major films under copyright for 75 years, while letting most stuff stay in copyright for about 25 years would be more reasonable.
Stifling Disney's business by taking away their rights to there mascot
A mascot is protected by trademark, and I believe Disney does have a trademark on Mickey Mouse. If Steamboat Willie fell out of copyright, people could show that piece, but they would be on slippery ground doing anything else with Mickey Mouse.
In any case, what's so miserable about Mickey Mouse being in the public domain. Cinderalla is. The Hunchback is. Many characters that roam Disneyland are in the public domain, and it doesn't seem to hurt Disney.
This is a cool chart showing what could happen to the amount of public domain work available if Public Domain is unrestricted by term extension.
That's an awful graph. What exactly is it measuring? Copyright extensions don't take stuff out of the public domain, so why does the unrestrained line keep climbing while the hindered line drops to zero. Why is it linear? I'm unhappy it's being used for my side - it's obviously meaningless.
Apparently you have no children. Many authors do, and would like to leave them something.
Many engineers have children, too, and would like to leave them something. Money, bonds, real estate, all work.
I'd have to agree with Jordan's solution. 20 years after death, and then any kids will be adults, and should be able to take care of themselves, and if not, they have the same recourses as the rest of society.
Isn't this about another group of people that thinks it needs to make a profit?
Most people do need to make money to eat and stuff like that. What's your problem with that? Somebody was needed with clear grounds to press the suit, and they were it. Dover Press help make college affordable, with $1-$2 public domain books (that look like crap sometimes, but the text is all there.)
Also, did you miss the part about "many make their work freely available to others." This isn't just the companies here.
Rest assured, however, they are pressing the loss to society and all that in their case.
Until there is an ISO standard, there isn't going to be a "right thing",
Huh? It's totally bogus to think that only ISO can create a standard. There is a written standard for X, and that does explain what the "right thing" is.
RMS wrote: When Qt was non-free, KDE was a danger to the community
The way I read it as, not having been under a rock for the last decade is: When Qt didn't use my specific licence, KDE was a danger to the community.
He meant exactly what he said. Part of communication is understanding where the other person is coming from, and not taking potshots at others because they believe in different things than you. RMS believes that it's important that people use all Free software, and a huge project of Free software that depended on non-Free software was a threat to that. He did what he felt he had to; deal.
I'll keep doing it for as long as he wants to be in charge of other peoples projects.... I don't think a monoculture is the way to go
Why, when RMS makes comments on what direction GNOME and KDE should go, "he wants to be in charge", but you can make all the comments you want? He has the right to make his opinion known, as do you, and people can listen or not as they want.
And I see this as them specifing what they want, not what you want. LSB packages don't have dependecies, beyond lsb, since dependencies aren't portable among RPM systems. It isn't for people installing a large volume of packages - it's so you can install one or two packages like oracle or Civ:CTP.
You're wondering if a guide to using software shoudl include instructions about installing that software: yes it should.
Should it include instructions on how to use your keyboard to type in the installation? Unless installing that software is tricky, then don't bother. If you need to know that to install ppp, you say apt-get install ppp, then you should reading the Debian instructions first. If you need to point out that it isn't named ppp on all system, well, removing deb's won't solve that problem.
What is preventing you from changing?
Do you have any idea how much work it would be to take 6000 packages, and repackage them in RPM format? Do you have any idea how much work it would be to support mixed deb and rpm installs? (We still haven't switched completely to/usr/share/doc - there's still a simlink from/usr/doc to/usr/share/doc for each directory in/usr/share/doc, because of a need for backward compatibility.)
And for all that, compatibility still won't appear. A KDE RPM compiled against libpng3 will still have various problems when run with a libqt RPM linked against libpng2. An RPM that depends on XFree86 will still not work on a Debian system that has xserver-common installed. An RPM that depends on libstdc++2.9 won't make that library suddenly appear on a Debian system - it needs to be recompiled.
For servers and wrokstations, Linux should be Linux. If you want to make it something else, you have the option,
Fine. We're exercising that option. You're welcome to go to the trademark holder, and whine about how we diluting the trademark, but until then we're have as much right to call it Linux as anyone else.
it should support LSB standards in their entirety and reliably
That doesn't include RPM dependencies, because the LSB doesn't include dependencies. In fact, the LSB was carefully designed so that Debian can support it in its entirety and reliably without moving to RPMs.
The LSB was never designed to be what you want it to be. If you want a straitjacket standard, you're welcome to try and get one started; good luck getting everyone to use it.
If Debian don't want stable and reliable way of installing LSB packages, they should stop hoping inanely that the packaging system decision will be reversed and simply say they have no interest in the LSB, as Slackware does.
Please don't confuse what you want the LSB to be with what the LSB is. Debian is a full member of the LSB, the packaging decision was made with Debian's approval, and it has always been understood that Alien is an acceptable solution.
An LSB package must have one, and only one, dependency - lsb. There's no possibility of a large independent set of LSB packages.
How will that solve the LDP from having to write twelve million different guides to ppp because some distro decided to use a nonstandard initscript dir, packaging system, or documentation directory?
Does every guide really have to tell you how to install a package? Even if you do standardize on all that, what's to prevent a distro from coming up with a better name for it or a completely different implementation? (Documentation directory is more of a strawman - it's dictated by FHS, which is followed by almost everyone.)
Getting a large piece of software like KDE working right on your distribution can take quite a bit of work.
This is precisely the problem the LSB was created to solve. Linux apps should be Linux apps.
So you're going to magically wave your hands and get everything working right? We must never change libpng (since doing so cause rampant incompatibilities in KDE pacakges, that would require a full recompile of everything.) We must never change compilers (again, massive incompatibilies.) We must never add i18n to the package format, for that must forever be pure rpm 3.0. We must never change libc's, even if something vastly superior to glibc comes up.
We aren't interested in something that would prevent us from improving Debian. Yes, we are different from RedHat. We try to make the incompatibilities where we do something better, but life is as it is. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. It's a strength of Linux.
To think that different Linux distros are different OS saddens me
Why? In some ways, Linux has the best of all possible worlds. It doesn't have the monoculture of Windows or MacOS, where new ideas and new ways never get tested and if you don't like it, there's nothing similar that might fix your bug - if you want to move, you change everything. It beats the proprietary Unixes, in that they all work together in new features and bug fixes, and almost never will a program work on one Linux but not another. With Linux, you have actual choices, without losing everything you liked about the operating system.
Without this data there is no `management' and it seems alien can hardly be trusted to install a large amount of interdependent software.
Why would you want to do that? There's no large interdependent amount of non-free software for Linux. If you're using Debian, use Debian packages - they work better on Debian, since they are built for and tested with Debian. I would be surprised to find a large amount of interdependent Free software that Debian doesn't include at least of most of.
Does the RPM world agree on dependencies? It didn't last time I heard, but I don't pay attention to stuff like that. The X maintainer completely rearranges the X packages frequently, as do the Gnome and KDE developers, and fairly often some developer will change the packages on his or her package and everyone depending on that package will have to jump to correct their package's dependencies. My assumption would be that Red Hat and everyone else do this too, whenever they find it beneficial, making it a pita to keep track of dependencies cross- and even intra-distribution.
Theoretically, the KDE people (for example) should only have to release one set of packages per OS.
They can't. The LSB doesn't standardize C++, since the libraries change too much.
In any case, there's no reason for any Debian user to be using KDE that isn't from Debian and isn't from source. Debian does great work to make sure that everything supports the Debian menu system, for example, and any problems with the software can go through one main bug tracking system.
Doing otherwise wastes a great amoutn of time that could be used elsewhere.
Getting a large piece of software like KDE working right on your distribution can take quite a bit of work. So? If someone from Debian feels like putting that work into getting to work right with
Debian, what buisness of it is yours? Taking that away would take away the point of a distribution.
If you want to write an LSB program, then the LSB is there for you, and Debian will support that. If not, then the source and volunteers from the distributions will be there for you.
A standardized packaging system is useful for more than just closed source apps - its useful for every open source app maintainer
That's what "configure; make; make install" is for.
You can't tell everyone to use the same language so we don't need to translate; don't tell everyone to use the same distribution so people don't have to worry about the differences.
If their licence agreement says you have to register with them. Guess what, you have to register with them. You don't like that policy, don't buy the product!
I handed the clerk money, she gave me the box, that's what called a sale. Now I own the box and contents, and can do whatever I want with them. I signed no contract, I'm not obliged to follow any contract.
If you buy a car, and once you get it home you see a little paper attached which says you can't get it serviced at a Ford dealer, and that opening the hood means you consented to the contract, does that mean anything? No.
Hemingway, maybe. But Faulkner? Melville? It would drive one batty.
E-books has some advantages that can show up especially in older books. A lot of the older books are found in clunky omnibus editions, expensive fancy editions, or cheap editions that have awful typesetting. Or I can check out a musty old version from the library that falls apart in my hands. Both my screen and my printer are nice and high contrast, with clean fonts, and many older books are free from Project Gutenberg or the like.
And no matter how I plan to have rooms full of oak book shelves filled with books, I'm still currently stuck in a small college room with limited space. I may as well wait until I have the money to buy a nice version, and the space to store, before I add more dead tree editions to my collection.
An often quoted aphorism. It's interesting, though, that those who gain power by respect tend to be much more ethical than those who were born into (kings) or those who make deals for power (politicians).
Of course, Dr. Ethan Urquhart of Athos firmly pointed out that he was born in a uterine replicator, and that they're every bit as good as the other way, in Ethan of Athos by Bujold. Of course, he lived on a planet without woman, so that might skew his view . . . (Women, being inherantly sinful according to Athosian teachings, aren't permitted to have contact with the planet.)
It's Debian GNU/Linux, as named by its creators. Please respect our right to name our distribution as we like.
IFF (that is: if, and only if) someone actualy produces a GNU/FSF distribution of linux will it make sence to use 'GNU/Linux'
The FSF supported Debian GNU/Linux in the beginning. While we are no longer formally a FSF project, we still regard the FSF as a respected "friend", and attempt to work with them whenever possible.
"I'm a slashdot troll, who never has to worry about being misquoted because no one would bother quoting me, so I'll attack RMS for being misquoted because he's a nice easy target, and it's easier to destroy than create."
Slashdot's editorial position tends to be. To the point of producing snide commentary in the body of the articles submitted by someone else. Minor version of software for Linux get announced with great fanfare, but nary a peep whenever there's a new development in the Windows development world, because after all, "real geeks don't do windows".
There's a quote a radio station I used to listen to used: "You get what you pay for. And you're listening to us . . . for free." Slashdot is a pro-Linux site. I don't go on MSNBC and bitch about it not covering Debian's new release - why do you come here and bitch about Slashdot not covering new developments in the Windows world? It's not Slashdot's job - if you want that, go elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
And what does society get for being the strong arm that stops people from stealing the interest from your investments?
It gets trust in the banks and hence huge sums of money just lying around to be loaned out to people who want to buy houses or start businesses.
I could conceivably patent "rock and roll music about cars", but I can only copyright "Lil' Deuce Coupe", and the fact that it is copyrighted hasn't stopped,
There is, of course, a big difference between rock music and epic storytelling. As I mentioned elsewhere in this forum, many of Shakespeare's plays - including Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth are clearly derivative (in the legal sense) of other plays and writings, some of which had been plagerized by their authors. The author of The Wind Done Gone (a retelling of Gone with the Wind from the viewpoint of the slaves) was hasseled severely by the copyright owners of Gone with the Wind. Apparently the author of The Wind Done Gone had a story that she thought could only be told the way she told it.
Another famous derivative work is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; why would the world be a better place if Stoddard couldn't have used Shakespeare's characters because BigCorp wanted too much for the licensing rights?
It's not clearly useful to make a derivative rock song; but many, many authors, both big and small, have found it useful to work off a shared mythos
Like I said, just making a "special edition" doesn't garner a whole new copyright, because the copyright applies from the date of first publication, regardless of how many "director's cut" or "special editions" that you do.
I believe you're mistaken here. From the Copyright FAQ at the US Copyright Office (see loc.gov):
47 * How much do I have to change in my own work to make a new claim of copyright?
You may make a new claim in your work if the changes are substantial and creative -- something more than just editorial changes or minor changes. This would qualify as a new derivative work. For instance, simply making spelling corrections throughout a work does not warrant a new registration -- adding an additional chapter would. See Circular 14 for further information.
[End Quote]
So a director's cut that includes new material would certainly count for a new copyright. Project Gutenberg won't use any book published after 1923, for the most part, for fear that a new copyright may have been gained or that the company will try and claim that a new copyright was gained.
But mostly I fail to see why your (hypothetical) kids have any right to my (hypothetical) creations
Because, societies in part are built on shared myths/stories. Aesop's fables. Romeo and Juliet. Plato's Republic. The Odyssey. Robin Hood. At which point those myths/stories stop being shared, the society weakens and shared lines of thought get broken. If Robin Hood wasn't public domain, it wouldn't be the great source of stories that it is (I can think of four Robin Hood movies of the top of my head), and there would be a lot fewer people who would catch references to it.
If they shut off the public domain, the school books will include increasingly dated literature - new stuff costs. Very few new books will make permenant literature, as teachers can only teach so many expensive books.
And what does society get for being the strong arm that stops people from copying your work? Nothing - most people write works to pay their bills now, not their great-grandkids a hundred years from now, or some corporate lawyer's salary a hundred years from now. Net harm to society so some people can reap money from something they didn't do is not something that society's going to support.
I remember that some foreign works, which fell into the public domain due to technical reasons, were returned to full copyright by one act (Interestingly enough, I believe that included the Lord of the Rings.) That was years ago, though.
The last extension did not remove stuff from the public domain. (See the law itself. It has three sections: Copyrights for stuff after 1977, stuff that was created but not published befor 1977, and "subsisting copyrights") When they say that it was retroactive, they mean it extended the copyright term even for books published before the law was passed, not that it put stuff in the public domain under copyright.
Copyright simply means that you'll have to write your own stories instead of copying his.
Perhaps the public interest would be even better served by encouraging creativity rather than reproduction.
Almost everyone of Shakespeare's plays is based off a preexisting work; the plot and stories of Romeo and Juliet and MacBeth already existed, Shakespeare just added his own touch.
Also, public interest seems served by letting people adapt one medium to another. There have been a number of great movies, based off a preexisting play or book. I don't see how that's a bad thing, or something that we should discourage.
So what if an author had some sperm frozen, but then died soon, and his wife decided 15 years later to use the sperm to have another child?
I'm not even sure I'd really consider the child his, except in a purely biological way of little interest in society. You have to be involved some way for the child to be yours - dumping your sperm off at the sperm bank doesn't count. If you chose to have a child, then you should be prepared to raise it; it's not like the child's father died in a sudden accident and left it stranded.
Problems?
The biggest problem I can see, is that there's a number of works that sell slowly but steadily over a long period of time, and your system wouldn't let the little guys keep the copyright for 25 years. Take, for example, The Art of Computer Programming, or the Berlitz Guide to Swahilli, which would be forced into the public domain. The first particularly benefits the corporation over the author.
It might work with a lighter curve. Your system effectively makes copyright last forat most 25 years - even the richest companies can't afford to shell out a million bucks a year for a 25 year old work. But something that would let Disney keep some of their major films under copyright for 75 years, while letting most stuff stay in copyright for about 25 years would be more reasonable.
Stifling Disney's business by taking away their rights to there mascot
A mascot is protected by trademark, and I believe Disney does have a trademark on Mickey Mouse. If Steamboat Willie fell out of copyright, people could show that piece, but they would be on slippery ground doing anything else with Mickey Mouse.
In any case, what's so miserable about Mickey Mouse being in the public domain. Cinderalla is. The Hunchback is. Many characters that roam Disneyland are in the public domain, and it doesn't seem to hurt Disney.
This is a cool chart showing what could happen to the amount of public domain work available if Public Domain is unrestricted by term extension.
That's an awful graph. What exactly is it measuring? Copyright extensions don't take stuff out of the public domain, so why does the unrestrained line keep climbing while the hindered line drops to zero. Why is it linear? I'm unhappy it's being used for my side - it's obviously meaningless.
Apparently you have no children. Many authors do, and would like to leave them something.
Many engineers have children, too, and would like to leave them something. Money, bonds, real estate, all work.
I'd have to agree with Jordan's solution. 20 years after death, and then any kids will be adults, and should be able to take care of themselves, and if not, they have the same recourses as the rest of society.
Isn't this about another group of people that thinks it needs to make a profit?
Most people do need to make money to eat and stuff like that. What's your problem with that? Somebody was needed with clear grounds to press the suit, and they were it. Dover Press help make college affordable, with $1-$2 public domain books (that look like crap sometimes, but the text is all there.)
Also, did you miss the part about "many make their work freely available to others." This isn't just the companies here.
Rest assured, however, they are pressing the loss to society and all that in their case.
Until there is an ISO standard, there isn't going to be a "right thing",
Huh? It's totally bogus to think that only ISO can create a standard. There is a written standard for X, and that does explain what the "right thing" is.
RMS wrote: When Qt was non-free, KDE was a danger to the community
... I don't think a monoculture is the way to go
The way I read it as, not having been under a rock for the last decade is: When Qt didn't use my specific licence, KDE was a danger to the community.
He meant exactly what he said. Part of communication is understanding where the other person is coming from, and not taking potshots at others because they believe in different things than you. RMS believes that it's important that people use all Free software, and a huge project of Free software that depended on non-Free software was a threat to that. He did what he felt he had to; deal.
I'll keep doing it for as long as he wants to be in charge of other peoples projects.
Why, when RMS makes comments on what direction GNOME and KDE should go, "he wants to be in charge", but you can make all the comments you want? He has the right to make his opinion known, as do you, and people can listen or not as they want.
I see this as a conflict within the LSB
/usr/share/doc - there's still a simlink from /usr/doc to /usr/share/doc for each directory in /usr/share/doc, because of a need for backward compatibility.)
And I see this as them specifing what they want, not what you want. LSB packages don't have dependecies, beyond lsb, since dependencies aren't portable among RPM systems. It isn't for people installing a large volume of packages - it's so you can install one or two packages like oracle or Civ:CTP.
You're wondering if a guide to using software shoudl include instructions about installing that software: yes it should.
Should it include instructions on how to use your keyboard to type in the installation? Unless installing that software is tricky, then don't bother. If you need to know that to install ppp, you say apt-get install ppp, then you should reading the Debian instructions first. If you need to point out that it isn't named ppp on all system, well, removing deb's won't solve that problem.
What is preventing you from changing?
Do you have any idea how much work it would be to take 6000 packages, and repackage them in RPM format? Do you have any idea how much work it would be to support mixed deb and rpm installs? (We still haven't switched completely to
And for all that, compatibility still won't appear. A KDE RPM compiled against libpng3 will still have various problems when run with a libqt RPM linked against libpng2. An RPM that depends on XFree86 will still not work on a Debian system that has xserver-common installed. An RPM that depends on libstdc++2.9 won't make that library suddenly appear on a Debian system - it needs to be recompiled.
For servers and wrokstations, Linux should be Linux. If you want to make it something else, you have the option,
Fine. We're exercising that option. You're welcome to go to the trademark holder, and whine about how we diluting the trademark, but until then we're have as much right to call it Linux as anyone else.
it should support LSB standards in their entirety and reliably
That doesn't include RPM dependencies, because the LSB doesn't include dependencies. In fact, the LSB was carefully designed so that Debian can support it in its entirety and reliably without moving to RPMs.
The LSB was never designed to be what you want it to be. If you want a straitjacket standard, you're welcome to try and get one started; good luck getting everyone to use it.
If Debian don't want stable and reliable way of installing LSB packages, they should stop hoping inanely that the packaging system decision will be reversed and simply say they have no interest in the LSB, as Slackware does.
Please don't confuse what you want the LSB to be with what the LSB is. Debian is a full member of the LSB, the packaging decision was made with Debian's approval, and it has always been understood that Alien is an acceptable solution.
An LSB package must have one, and only one, dependency - lsb. There's no possibility of a large independent set of LSB packages.
How will that solve the LDP from having to write twelve million different guides to ppp because some distro decided to use a nonstandard initscript dir, packaging system, or documentation directory?
Does every guide really have to tell you how to install a package? Even if you do standardize on all that, what's to prevent a distro from coming up with a better name for it or a completely different implementation? (Documentation directory is more of a strawman - it's dictated by FHS, which is followed by almost everyone.)
Getting a large piece of software like KDE working right on your distribution can take quite a bit of work.
This is precisely the problem the LSB was created to solve. Linux apps should be Linux apps.
So you're going to magically wave your hands and get everything working right? We must never change libpng (since doing so cause rampant incompatibilities in KDE pacakges, that would require a full recompile of everything.) We must never change compilers (again, massive incompatibilies.) We must never add i18n to the package format, for that must forever be pure rpm 3.0. We must never change libc's, even if something vastly superior to glibc comes up.
We aren't interested in something that would prevent us from improving Debian. Yes, we are different from RedHat. We try to make the incompatibilities where we do something better, but life is as it is. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. It's a strength of Linux.
To think that different Linux distros are different OS saddens me
Why? In some ways, Linux has the best of all possible worlds. It doesn't have the monoculture of Windows or MacOS, where new ideas and new ways never get tested and if you don't like it, there's nothing similar that might fix your bug - if you want to move, you change everything. It beats the proprietary Unixes, in that they all work together in new features and bug fixes, and almost never will a program work on one Linux but not another. With Linux, you have actual choices, without losing everything you liked about the operating system.
Without this data there is no `management' and it seems alien can hardly be trusted to install a large amount of interdependent software.
Why would you want to do that? There's no large interdependent amount of non-free software for Linux. If you're using Debian, use Debian packages - they work better on Debian, since they are built for and tested with Debian. I would be surprised to find a large amount of interdependent Free software that Debian doesn't include at least of most of.
Does the RPM world agree on dependencies? It didn't last time I heard, but I don't pay attention to stuff like that. The X maintainer completely rearranges the X packages frequently, as do the Gnome and KDE developers, and fairly often some developer will change the packages on his or her package and everyone depending on that package will have to jump to correct their package's dependencies. My assumption would be that Red Hat and everyone else do this too, whenever they find it beneficial, making it a pita to keep track of dependencies cross- and even intra-distribution.
Theoretically, the KDE people (for example) should only have to release one set of packages per OS.
They can't. The LSB doesn't standardize C++, since the libraries change too much.
In any case, there's no reason for any Debian user to be using KDE that isn't from Debian and isn't from source. Debian does great work to make sure that everything supports the Debian menu system, for example, and any problems with the software can go through one main bug tracking system.
Doing otherwise wastes a great amoutn of time that could be used elsewhere.
Getting a large piece of software like KDE working right on your distribution can take quite a bit of work. So? If someone from Debian feels like putting that work into getting to work right with
Debian, what buisness of it is yours? Taking that away would take away the point of a distribution.
If you want to write an LSB program, then the LSB is there for you, and Debian will support that. If not, then the source and volunteers from the distributions will be there for you.
A standardized packaging system is useful for more than just closed source apps - its useful for every open source app maintainer
That's what "configure; make; make install" is for.
You can't tell everyone to use the same language so we don't need to translate; don't tell everyone to use the same distribution so people don't have to worry about the differences.
If their licence agreement says you have to register with them. Guess what, you have to register with them. You don't like that policy, don't buy the product!
I handed the clerk money, she gave me the box, that's what called a sale. Now I own the box and contents, and can do whatever I want with them. I signed no contract, I'm not obliged to follow any contract.
If you buy a car, and once you get it home you see a little paper attached which says you can't get it serviced at a Ford dealer, and that opening the hood means you consented to the contract, does that mean anything? No.
Hemingway, maybe. But Faulkner? Melville? It would drive one batty.
E-books has some advantages that can show up especially in older books. A lot of the older books are found in clunky omnibus editions, expensive fancy editions, or cheap editions that have awful typesetting. Or I can check out a musty old version from the library that falls apart in my hands. Both my screen and my printer are nice and high contrast, with clean fonts, and many older books are free from Project Gutenberg or the like.
And no matter how I plan to have rooms full of oak book shelves filled with books, I'm still currently stuck in a small college room with limited space. I may as well wait until I have the money to buy a nice version, and the space to store, before I add more dead tree editions to my collection.
Power corrupts all it touches.
An often quoted aphorism. It's interesting, though, that those who gain power by respect tend to be much more ethical than those who were born into (kings) or those who make deals for power (politicians).
Of course, Dr. Ethan Urquhart of Athos firmly pointed out that he was born in a uterine replicator, and that they're every bit as good as the other way, in Ethan of Athos by Bujold. Of course, he lived on a planet without woman, so that might skew his view . . . (Women, being inherantly sinful according to Athosian teachings, aren't permitted to have contact with the planet.)
Debian/Linux[1]
It's Debian GNU/Linux, as named by its creators. Please respect our right to name our distribution as we like.
IFF (that is: if, and only if) someone actualy produces a GNU/FSF distribution of linux will it make sence to use 'GNU/Linux'
The FSF supported Debian GNU/Linux in the beginning. While we are no longer formally a FSF project, we still regard the FSF as a respected "friend", and attempt to work with them whenever possible.
"I'm a slashdot troll, who never has to worry about being misquoted because no one would bother quoting me, so I'll attack RMS for being misquoted because he's a nice easy target, and it's easier to destroy than create."
Slashdot's editorial position tends to be. To the point of producing snide commentary in the body of the articles submitted by someone else. Minor version of software for Linux get announced with great fanfare, but nary a peep whenever there's a new development in the Windows development world, because after all, "real geeks don't do windows".
There's a quote a radio station I used to listen to used: "You get what you pay for. And you're listening to us . . . for free." Slashdot is a pro-Linux site. I don't go on MSNBC and bitch about it not covering Debian's new release - why do you come here and bitch about Slashdot not covering new developments in the Windows world? It's not Slashdot's job - if you want that, go elsewhere.