I said:
People who support "open source" and don't like RMS should stop using the GPL (any version). How many ways is there to interpret that?
That people that don't like RMS shouldn't use any GPL software? How do you possibly get that? Do you equate "the GPL" with "any GPL software"? Just so we're clear no, I am not saying that.
What I'm saying is that if you think the FSF are wrong then don't use the FSF's licenses on your software. I don't think that is such a way out concept do you?
Are you saying Linux should no longer be under the gpl? No. I wasn't saying that either. But if you want my opinion, Linux shouldn't have been released under the GPL. Linus should have stuck to his non-commercial-use-only license. He only adopted the GPL because of pressure from others and has never believed in it. I don't advocate people doing things they don't believe in.
Great research! Where can I buy a bipedal robot kit with this technology for my next robot project? Oh, I can't. Too bad.
So if I want a bipedal robot I have to duplicate your work. Maybe I can read your scientific papers and that will give me 10% of the knowledge you gained in doing this project, but I still have to turn theory into practice.
Umm.. no. See, it's arrogant to assume we are special. That's what being arrogant is all about. Assuming you are not special is what people humble is all about.
Yup, cause we really explored the Moon. After all, we landed on 5 or 6 random positions on the equator, stayed there for an hour or two and picked up some rocks. Planetoid explored!
Mars, we've not even gone to. We've got some rock inspecting toys up there, but that's about it.
Venus, we've never been to there either. Our probes have sampled the atmosphere, that's about it. We still have no idea why it has such a strange rotation.
We have absolutely no credible statement to make about the prevalence of life in the solar system, let alone the universe. But hey, anonymous person on Slashdot, thanks setting us straight.
Holier than thou attitudes and quoting the constitution doesn't work on everyone.
Sometimes you actually have to educate people out of their self induced ignorance of history before you can get them to understand why privacy is important. And even then, there's always people who will believe "it can't happen here."
Here's a tip to whoever made this archive, if you want people to abide by the GPL you really should do so yourself. That means:
1. Putting a copy of the GPL in the archive with your program. 2. Putting the source code in the archive with the binary form of your program; or 3. Putting an offer to provide source code, valid for 3 years, in the archive with your program.
If you don't do it, what makes you think anyone else is going to?
There's the ruling. Far as I'm aware it was a copyright misuse decision. They were trying to use copyright to do something other than prevent distribution (lock out competitors). Triviality didn't come into it.
Your criticism of the tax suggestion is valid. RMS would probably agree with you. At the time, it was only slightly wacky, but it has gotten more wacky over time and now is clearly not a good idea. BTW, this is basically how UK television is financed. The result is great tv, but for $3 billion a year I could give you some great tv too.
As for the rest of what you've quoted and commented on, I happen to agree with RMS. Proprietary software is wrong. Copyright is an unjust system which is just as inefficient as UK tv licenses. They both require massive and intrusive police forces to enforce. That alone should be evidence enough that it's a bad idea. The fact that both copyright and tv licenses are tolerated and many people can't see what is wrong with them is testimony to the old adage: you can get used to anything. Like cooking a frog, all you've gotta do is turn up the heat slow enough.
And that's the key point here. As soon as you need people with guns to force the populous to obey laws that they would much rather break, then you're not living in freedom anymore. It doesn't matter if the laws are about restricting the sale of party drugs or restricting the copying of bits. If "the people" want to do it and "the government" is stopping them, then the government is not for the people.. and it obviously isn't by the people.
Sounds like copyright abuse to me. Ya know, trying to obtain from a license more power than is granted under copyright law? Penalty: those portions of your license become void, and you might lose copyright protection all together - as happened in the Lexmark case.
Their recent history with GPLv2 stuff has been reasonably classy. I must have missed that. Far as WebKit is concerned, however, they are mixing LGPL code with an incompatible license. They don't go to any effort to separate the LGPL code from the other licensed code. They don't dynamically link it. They don't provide object files. They don't explicitly authorize the reverse engineering for debugging purposes that the LGPL requires. They're really not abiding by the LGPL at all.. but the authors of the particular code they're using just don't care.. so there's no repercussions.
What's clicking got to do with it? Someone might see your ad, remember the name of your company and what they sell, then 10 months later tell a friend, who then goes and buys your product.
There's no way to track that (hopefully), and yet a lot of business comes about exactly that way.
This is why real advertisers sell space and don't bother with tracking. If the ad isn't getting you business, you wouldn't have renewed your contract with the advertiser.
Absolutely. I've tried to explain this before, but it always gets muddled up. Ideally I'd like to release my code with the least restrictions possible, because I want the users of my software to be free, but in practice if I don't put some copyleft like restrictions on my code then it will end up that some of the users of my software will not be free. If my goal is to maximize the freedom of the users of my software then, paradoxically, I must restrict them - specifically, from taking freedom away from others.
As such, I believe the BSD style licenses are more idealistic than copyleft licenses, but less effective.
Slashdot Mirror
I said: People who support "open source" and don't like RMS should stop using the GPL (any version). How many ways is there to interpret that? That people that don't like RMS shouldn't use any GPL software? How do you possibly get that? Do you equate "the GPL" with "any GPL software"? Just so we're clear no, I am not saying that.
What I'm saying is that if you think the FSF are wrong then don't use the FSF's licenses on your software. I don't think that is such a way out concept do you? Are you saying Linux should no longer be under the gpl? No. I wasn't saying that either. But if you want my opinion, Linux shouldn't have been released under the GPL. Linus should have stuck to his non-commercial-use-only license. He only adopted the GPL because of pressure from others and has never believed in it. I don't advocate people doing things they don't believe in.
I agree with you.
People who support "open source" and don't like RMS should stop using the GPL (any version).
Ok, fair enough. They still didn't look for life by any means which would make it reasonable to conclude that there is no life there.
Maybe Slashdot editors should take up data mining (aka, actually reading the site).
Great research! Where can I buy a bipedal robot kit with this technology for my next robot project? Oh, I can't. Too bad.
So if I want a bipedal robot I have to duplicate your work. Maybe I can read your scientific papers and that will give me 10% of the knowledge you gained in doing this project, but I still have to turn theory into practice.
Commercialize your research already.
Probes != us.
I thought I made that clear.
I said this to the other guy. Being arrogant is believing you are special.
So if they got a warrant before they could look at this giant database of personal information, would that be ok?
:)
Cause that's what Professor Daniel Solove concluded in the article you are linking to said. You did read the article right?
Umm.. no. See, it's arrogant to assume we are special. That's what being arrogant is all about. Assuming you are not special is what people humble is all about.
That's for reducing this to a semantic argument.
Yup, cause we really explored the Moon. After all, we landed on 5 or 6 random positions on the equator, stayed there for an hour or two and picked up some rocks. Planetoid explored!
Mars, we've not even gone to. We've got some rock inspecting toys up there, but that's about it.
Venus, we've never been to there either. Our probes have sampled the atmosphere, that's about it. We still have no idea why it has such a strange rotation.
We have absolutely no credible statement to make about the prevalence of life in the solar system, let alone the universe. But hey, anonymous person on Slashdot, thanks setting us straight.
The arrogance of thinking that we're the only possible form of life is ludicrous.
Holier than thou attitudes and quoting the constitution doesn't work on everyone.
Sometimes you actually have to educate people out of their self induced ignorance of history before you can get them to understand why privacy is important. And even then, there's always people who will believe "it can't happen here."
No shit.
I think I made myself pretty clear. If you don't follow your own license, who will?
Here's a tip to whoever made this archive, if you want people to abide by the GPL you really should do so yourself. That means:
1. Putting a copy of the GPL in the archive with your program.
2. Putting the source code in the archive with the binary form of your program; or
3. Putting an offer to provide source code, valid for 3 years, in the archive with your program.
If you don't do it, what makes you think anyone else is going to?
ahh, but the key point is that people are always referring the FSF as the idealistic ones.
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Lexmark_v_Static_Co ntrol/20030108_lexmark_v_static_control_components .pdf
There's the ruling. Far as I'm aware it was a copyright misuse decision. They were trying to use copyright to do something other than prevent distribution (lock out competitors). Triviality didn't come into it.
Your criticism of the tax suggestion is valid. RMS would probably agree with you. At the time, it was only slightly wacky, but it has gotten more wacky over time and now is clearly not a good idea. BTW, this is basically how UK television is financed. The result is great tv, but for $3 billion a year I could give you some great tv too.
As for the rest of what you've quoted and commented on, I happen to agree with RMS. Proprietary software is wrong. Copyright is an unjust system which is just as inefficient as UK tv licenses. They both require massive and intrusive police forces to enforce. That alone should be evidence enough that it's a bad idea. The fact that both copyright and tv licenses are tolerated and many people can't see what is wrong with them is testimony to the old adage: you can get used to anything. Like cooking a frog, all you've gotta do is turn up the heat slow enough.
And that's the key point here. As soon as you need people with guns to force the populous to obey laws that they would much rather break, then you're not living in freedom anymore. It doesn't matter if the laws are about restricting the sale of party drugs or restricting the copying of bits. If "the people" want to do it and "the government" is stopping them, then the government is not for the people.. and it obviously isn't by the people.
Sounds like copyright abuse to me. Ya know, trying to obtain from a license more power than is granted under copyright law? Penalty: those portions of your license become void, and you might lose copyright protection all together - as happened in the Lexmark case.
Yep, right now you make a lot more sense than Groklaw.
Copyright is about copying.. Novell are doing the copying, not Microsoft.
You have to be a little crazy to stand for freedom in today's world.
What's clicking got to do with it? Someone might see your ad, remember the name of your company and what they sell, then 10 months later tell a friend, who then goes and buys your product.
There's no way to track that (hopefully), and yet a lot of business comes about exactly that way.
This is why real advertisers sell space and don't bother with tracking. If the ad isn't getting you business, you wouldn't have renewed your contract with the advertiser.
Absolutely. I've tried to explain this before, but it always gets muddled up. Ideally I'd like to release my code with the least restrictions possible, because I want the users of my software to be free, but in practice if I don't put some copyleft like restrictions on my code then it will end up that some of the users of my software will not be free. If my goal is to maximize the freedom of the users of my software then, paradoxically, I must restrict them - specifically, from taking freedom away from others.
As such, I believe the BSD style licenses are more idealistic than copyleft licenses, but less effective.
Get the rest of the difficult AI problems into CAPTCHAs. We've finally figured out a way to finance AI research!
Yeah, I always wondered how they kept robots away from the soccer fields.
Every time someone takes a dive the robots would be running onto the field to stop play.