OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25
Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL).net IDE, requires the.net framework and SDK
Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
Thunderbird - Mail client
Firefox - Web browser
Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot - For the essentials in life
Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions:)
SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet!
MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good:(
Thats about it, everything I install after a reimage of my machines!! Other things get tagged on, but those are the core!
If anyone has suggestions for alternatives, im open. But they have to be good! Im currently looking for a new.net IDE as sharpdevelop has a few bugs, and since its written in c#, i cant help fix em:(
As for UNIX, I use OpenBSD so its got a pretty sane base install. I usually drag in a few custom admin scripts ive
developed over the years, and my.profile for ksh, but thats about it. The box then gets configured for its custom job.
It's a moot point; a proprietary module that uses GPL symbols is an unauthorized derivative.
But how can some symbols be GPL and some not, considering that, as it stands, the entirety of the core kernel code is licensed under the GPL, and the GPL does not allow exceptions to that licensing? Im not trying to flame, its just not that clear to me!:)
I thought it was patents that you could selectivly defend (IE recent EOLAS issue with the loadable extensions within IE and mozilla, only taking action against IE tho), and copyrights and trademarks were the ones that needed to be vigorously defended to remain current (otherwise they may fall out of the realm of copyrightability, trademarkability)?
Ok, let me expand on my post then. I dont use Linux. I used to, then I moved to *BSD for reasons i do not want to go into (not ideological tho). I know roughly how the licensing works and have read up on the binary module topic, but since I am not a lawyer, I do not know 100% how the licensing works or would be applied in various cases, and I doubt anyone else can seriously lay this problem to rest, unless it was decided by a court of law. Im not speculating widely, Im asking leading questions, there is a difference. If you wish to attack me further, please feel free, this is a public forum.
Interesting story, considering the gray area many consider binary modules to be. Linus has said
that he considers binary modules to not be far enough removed from GPL code and thus infringing,
but since binary modules have been around since
very early on in the kernels development history without any enforcement of the GPL with regards to them,
wouldnt that potentially count against the GPL applying to binary modules if someone did decide to take action?
Doesnt the whole idea of kernel license strings interfere with this view as well? If modules are infringing if they arent
GPL, then why would they need to tell the kernel that they arent under the GPL? Also, where in the Kernel license
does it require you to be truthful to the kernel about your modules license? Nowhere, because it cant. The GPL
will not allow you to put that limitation on use of the kernel. Again, it comes back to wondering about the legality of binary modules.
Personally, I dont use linux and as such, this doesnt directly affect me. But still, it raises interesting questions
about how far removed code has to be to be able to be licensed differently. The kernel module API is a publically
available API, and Linus does not consider this to be far enough removed. So what is? Does the kernel have
to adhere to the CPUs or Motherboards firmware license, because its using a publically available API just like kernel modules are?
Hi, way offtopic so mod me so:) Regarding Absolution Gap, what did you really think of it? I read it about a week after it came out, and I have some comments on it. Email me if you want to discuss further. (richardprice@wiredworld.co.uk). BTW A. Reynolds is very approachable as an author, and I have been in discussion with him a couple of times, which is unusual for an author:)
Funnily enough, I always managed to find a PC manufacturer willing to legally sell me a PC that was either OS less, or had something other than an MS OS on it. Am I really in the minority here?
I wish someone would start doing what you suggest, but to the freaking governments. Or havent you noticed that in recent years, barely any government in the world is really acting in the best interests of the people it perportably represents? Ever wondered if a 'normal' person could get elected to a governmental position in the majority of western nations? Just look at the sums of money involved in getting elected president, they are up there as a good portion of a $Billion. Normal people barely get a look in once every 4 or 5 years.
Actually OJ was found innocent in a criminal court, guilty (or rather 'responsable') in a civil court of law under a lawsuit brought by family members of the people killed, and then innocent again on appeal under that lawsuit.
if the original waste code was released by the person that wrote it, then it's morally correct to spread it, in my eyes
I see your point of view, but what about works for hire, or employed programmers who had no pretence of ownership of said code?
Possible unlawful use of code
on
VIA Pulls PadLockSL
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
People might want to consider that the release of WASTE was indeed unlawful under current law, AOL/Nullsoft was within their rights to withdraw the code and the GPL was applied to the code under wrong circumstances. A lot of people have mentioned in previous WASTE related stories something to the tune of "It was GPLed, I dont care who GPLed it, Im not discontinuing my use or distribution of it" while not actually considering that just because it had the GPL applied to it, the GPL was lawfully applied.
Since this product was based on WASTE, this is possibly why it was taken down, and if so, then the fact that a major company thinks the GPL wasnt applied lawfully to it, then Im inclined to think that all the other archives of it around are infringing as well.
Just my 2 cents on the matter. In the origional WASTE story, i offered to mirror the source code. I did this until i actually sat back and thought about it, then I removed the code because I didnt think its release was lawful.
So I can use GPLed software as much as I like, without agreeing to or following the GPL at all so long as I do not ever distribute the software? Just what exactly gives you the right to use the software?
2 *MINUTES* boot time? What the _FUCK_ do you have loaded on there? I have a R31 Thinkpad, similiar spec to yours, 1.2g cele, 640mb ram, 5200rpm disk, and my windows XP install loads in less than 30 seconds, to a fully usable desktop. And thats with Grub interrupting it for 5 seconds. You sir, have some serious problems with that laptop.
I used to work in retail, a middle sized national UK chain, and I can safely say that these happenings
are not just US centric. They happen in this country too, and probably whereever there are large chains.
I was there a year before they brought in the electronic swipe card time keeping system, and I never think they
saved much money with it anyway, as right up until I left, they were still employing a woman 2 days a week to
chase up missed swipes, double checking stuff etc.
The company only paid you in increments of 15 minutes, and one of their favourite passtimes was to shave off
enough minutes from your swipe in and swipe out so that it looked like those periods only consisted of 14 minutes and
voila, half an hour saved on that day for that employee. Of course, us employees caught on and brought the issue up
with the store manager who of course denied it all.
I did some research into the time management system, and discovered that one of its features was a debug trail,
covering all activities within the system. So, one day when I had access to the system, I changed the windows
shortcut to turn on this debug trail, and noone was any the wiser about it.
6 months later, we had a store visit by a group of people on the board of directors. I waited until they had done the rounds,
and the store manager was glowing with pride etc, when I interrupted them to ask them a question. The question I
asked was "So, is it national company policy to rip off your workers?", and when asked to explain, I did so.
Of course, they denied all knowledge, and the store manager was ready to throw me out there and then, until I said
"Well, I can prove it.", and prove it I did. The VIPs, who later it turned out, knew nothing of this, took a copy of
this file, and had it verified by the people who sold the time management system (luckily, they had checksums on
all activities within the file, so they could conclusivly say that it was not faked, and every action produced the
correct checksum in the correct order).
The store manager got sacked, as did a number of others in the chain who were doing a similiar thing, and all workers in these stores got paid an extra 2 weeks of pay. I took the money and left the company, to join my current employers who Im very happy at, outside of retail:)
Actually, you can have a restraining order restricting the person from having any CONTACT with you, which includes email, phone, physical conversation. You are asking the court to restrain the other party from contacting you. I should know, Ive used one:)
Cast pay request == USD 8 Million season == USD 48 Million
Percentage of pay to worth == ( 100/1000 ) * 48 = 4.8%
Now to me, for a USD Billion value TV show, spending 4.8% on the actors doesnt seem excessive. How much would the show be valued at without these actors?
You freeze the companies assets for the 90 days, not allowing them to make any sort of financial transaction, while allowing stock market trading to commence as normal. The company is not allowed to make any sort of income during this time, all its products are removed from shelves for this duration, and the company is only allowed to work toward a resolution imposed by the court at the beginning of the "jail" period. In this case, MS would only be allowed to work toward removing WMP from windows, wouldnt be allowed to conduct any development in the EU, no sales of products in the EU.
How do you give a corporation the death penalty?
The court replaces the entire board of directors and upper echelon of the business with appointed people, who will run it for a period of time no less than 10 years. The old directors will not be allowed to work together for a period of 2 years. This should remove any top level influence that has caused the issue that is forcing the action. Remember, more often than not, a corporation is no more than the dicision makers. and under different guidance, it should become a different company.
--
Of course, the first solution above is damaging to the consumer. No sales of MS Windows for 90 days! No sales of Office for 90 days! No third party could ramp it up enough to support linux, and by my estimates, full linux support would only occur 1 to 2 years after such an order was imposed on MS.
Just to make my views clear, I dont think this EU case is correct. MS didnt prevent any consumer from installing what they want on their desktop, they jsut followed progress and included a multimedia player, which I hope you agree is expected of a computer today. Should they be sued by third parties because they included a TCP/IP stack, which is arguably a lot harder to replace? What about the shell, as there are third party shells out there.
Define "Lowest common demoninator". There are people out there who still run 486s, hell, even 386s. Should Gnome have targetted these as the lowest common demoninator? No, for the simple reason that there ARE window managers for these circumstances, and Gnome wanted to move forward. Sometimes progress actually INVOLVES progress, and that means sometimes people dont get catered for, which is fine so long as the people you ARE catering for have their needs met.
Why should the Gnome project have to code around people who have 2mbyte graphics cards, people who moan that terminals arent responsive enough, people who want to run modern software on hardware that by all defininitions is well past it. By all means, enjoy what you can run, but dont moan when progress is being made and you cant take part in it.
I use OpenBSD, which like most of the BSDs has the ports tree, and also has packages. Most of the ports tree are built as packages and are available on the FTP sites, allowing you to either install 3rd party applications from source preprepared for the job, or install the package that has already been preproduced from that port. Best of both worlds, and indeed if you are after customisation and have a number of systems, you can make the changes on one system, and bingo - you have the package ready to roll out to the other systems.
As for what I use? I used to use solely ports, but now I usually grab all the packages when I do a fresh install, and only use ports for what isnt available as a package, as the packages give me no disadvantage.
legitimise unauthorised sharing of copyright material, so please dont think it does. Unauthorised sharing is still illegal and should be dealt with, regardless of wether or not it increases sales, if the copyright holders want to deal with it.
In the 1960s, if you were handing out communist propaganda on a US street corner, you were liable to be arrested and charged under a public disorder offence. For handing out bits of paper. Id call that state censorship.
Slashdot Mirror
Thats about it, everything I install after a reimage of my machines!! Other things get tagged on, but those are the core!
If anyone has suggestions for alternatives, im open. But they have to be good! Im currently looking for a new .net IDE as sharpdevelop has a few bugs, and since its written in c#, i cant help fix em :(
As for UNIX, I use OpenBSD so its got a pretty sane base install. I usually drag in a few custom admin scripts ive developed over the years, and my .profile for ksh, but thats about it. The box then gets configured for its custom job.
So, who decides what a derivitive work is? ;)
It's a moot point; a proprietary module that uses GPL symbols is an unauthorized derivative.
But how can some symbols be GPL and some not, considering that, as it stands, the entirety of the core kernel code is licensed under the GPL, and the GPL does not allow exceptions to that licensing? Im not trying to flame, its just not that clear to me! :)
I thought it was patents that you could selectivly defend (IE recent EOLAS issue with the loadable extensions within IE and mozilla, only taking action against IE tho), and copyrights and trademarks were the ones that needed to be vigorously defended to remain current (otherwise they may fall out of the realm of copyrightability, trademarkability)?
Ok, let me expand on my post then. I dont use Linux. I used to, then I moved to *BSD for reasons i do not want to go into (not ideological tho). I know roughly how the licensing works and have read up on the binary module topic, but since I am not a lawyer, I do not know 100% how the licensing works or would be applied in various cases, and I doubt anyone else can seriously lay this problem to rest, unless it was decided by a court of law. Im not speculating widely, Im asking leading questions, there is a difference. If you wish to attack me further, please feel free, this is a public forum.
Interesting story, considering the gray area many consider binary modules to be. Linus has said that he considers binary modules to not be far enough removed from GPL code and thus infringing, but since binary modules have been around since very early on in the kernels development history without any enforcement of the GPL with regards to them, wouldnt that potentially count against the GPL applying to binary modules if someone did decide to take action? Doesnt the whole idea of kernel license strings interfere with this view as well? If modules are infringing if they arent GPL, then why would they need to tell the kernel that they arent under the GPL? Also, where in the Kernel license does it require you to be truthful to the kernel about your modules license? Nowhere, because it cant. The GPL will not allow you to put that limitation on use of the kernel. Again, it comes back to wondering about the legality of binary modules.
Personally, I dont use linux and as such, this doesnt directly affect me. But still, it raises interesting questions about how far removed code has to be to be able to be licensed differently. The kernel module API is a publically available API, and Linus does not consider this to be far enough removed. So what is? Does the kernel have to adhere to the CPUs or Motherboards firmware license, because its using a publically available API just like kernel modules are?
Interesting. Very interesting!
Hi, way offtopic so mod me so :) Regarding Absolution Gap, what did you really think of it? I read it about a week after it came out, and I have some comments on it. Email me if you want to discuss further. (richardprice@wiredworld.co.uk). BTW A. Reynolds is very approachable as an author, and I have been in discussion with him a couple of times, which is unusual for an author :)
Funnily enough, I always managed to find a PC manufacturer willing to legally sell me a PC that was either OS less, or had something other than an MS OS on it. Am I really in the minority here?
I wish someone would start doing what you suggest, but to the freaking governments. Or havent you noticed that in recent years, barely any government in the world is really acting in the best interests of the people it perportably represents? Ever wondered if a 'normal' person could get elected to a governmental position in the majority of western nations? Just look at the sums of money involved in getting elected president, they are up there as a good portion of a $Billion. Normal people barely get a look in once every 4 or 5 years.
Actually OJ was found innocent in a criminal court, guilty (or rather 'responsable') in a civil court of law under a lawsuit brought by family members of the people killed, and then innocent again on appeal under that lawsuit.
if the original waste code was released by the person that wrote it, then it's morally correct to spread it, in my eyes
I see your point of view, but what about works for hire, or employed programmers who had no pretence of ownership of said code?
People might want to consider that the release of WASTE was indeed unlawful under current law, AOL/Nullsoft was within their rights to withdraw the code and the GPL was applied to the code under wrong circumstances. A lot of people have mentioned in previous WASTE related stories something to the tune of "It was GPLed, I dont care who GPLed it, Im not discontinuing my use or distribution of it" while not actually considering that just because it had the GPL applied to it, the GPL was lawfully applied.
Since this product was based on WASTE, this is possibly why it was taken down, and if so, then the fact that a major company thinks the GPL wasnt applied lawfully to it, then Im inclined to think that all the other archives of it around are infringing as well.
Just my 2 cents on the matter. In the origional WASTE story, i offered to mirror the source code. I did this until i actually sat back and thought about it, then I removed the code because I didnt think its release was lawful.
So I can use GPLed software as much as I like, without agreeing to or following the GPL at all so long as I do not ever distribute the software? Just what exactly gives you the right to use the software?
Have a look at the Unison article on BSDstudio (link) for an indepth introduction to using Unison in this manner.
try sharpdevelop, (#develop). Tis a free eclipse like .net developers tool, written in c#.
2 *MINUTES* boot time? What the _FUCK_ do you have loaded on there? I have a R31 Thinkpad, similiar spec to yours, 1.2g cele, 640mb ram, 5200rpm disk, and my windows XP install loads in less than 30 seconds, to a fully usable desktop. And thats with Grub interrupting it for 5 seconds. You sir, have some serious problems with that laptop.
I used to work in retail, a middle sized national UK chain, and I can safely say that these happenings are not just US centric. They happen in this country too, and probably whereever there are large chains.
I was there a year before they brought in the electronic swipe card time keeping system, and I never think they saved much money with it anyway, as right up until I left, they were still employing a woman 2 days a week to chase up missed swipes, double checking stuff etc.
The company only paid you in increments of 15 minutes, and one of their favourite passtimes was to shave off enough minutes from your swipe in and swipe out so that it looked like those periods only consisted of 14 minutes and voila, half an hour saved on that day for that employee. Of course, us employees caught on and brought the issue up with the store manager who of course denied it all.
I did some research into the time management system, and discovered that one of its features was a debug trail, covering all activities within the system. So, one day when I had access to the system, I changed the windows shortcut to turn on this debug trail, and noone was any the wiser about it.
6 months later, we had a store visit by a group of people on the board of directors. I waited until they had done the rounds, and the store manager was glowing with pride etc, when I interrupted them to ask them a question. The question I asked was "So, is it national company policy to rip off your workers?", and when asked to explain, I did so.
Of course, they denied all knowledge, and the store manager was ready to throw me out there and then, until I said "Well, I can prove it.", and prove it I did. The VIPs, who later it turned out, knew nothing of this, took a copy of this file, and had it verified by the people who sold the time management system (luckily, they had checksums on all activities within the file, so they could conclusivly say that it was not faked, and every action produced the correct checksum in the correct order).
The store manager got sacked, as did a number of others in the chain who were doing a similiar thing, and all workers in these stores got paid an extra 2 weeks of pay. I took the money and left the company, to join my current employers who Im very happy at, outside of retail :)
Actually, you can have a restraining order restricting the person from having any CONTACT with you, which includes email, phone, physical conversation. You are asking the court to restrain the other party from contacting you. I should know, Ive used one :)
Your maths are kind of slightly off:
Now to me, for a USD Billion value TV show, spending 4.8% on the actors doesnt seem excessive. How much would the show be valued at without these actors?
How do you put a corporation in jail for 90 days?
You freeze the companies assets for the 90 days, not allowing them to make any sort of financial transaction, while allowing stock market trading to commence as normal. The company is not allowed to make any sort of income during this time, all its products are removed from shelves for this duration, and the company is only allowed to work toward a resolution imposed by the court at the beginning of the "jail" period. In this case, MS would only be allowed to work toward removing WMP from windows, wouldnt be allowed to conduct any development in the EU, no sales of products in the EU.
How do you give a corporation the death penalty?
The court replaces the entire board of directors and upper echelon of the business with appointed people, who will run it for a period of time no less than 10 years. The old directors will not be allowed to work together for a period of 2 years. This should remove any top level influence that has caused the issue that is forcing the action. Remember, more often than not, a corporation is no more than the dicision makers. and under different guidance, it should become a different company.
--Of course, the first solution above is damaging to the consumer. No sales of MS Windows for 90 days! No sales of Office for 90 days! No third party could ramp it up enough to support linux, and by my estimates, full linux support would only occur 1 to 2 years after such an order was imposed on MS.
Just to make my views clear, I dont think this EU case is correct. MS didnt prevent any consumer from installing what they want on their desktop, they jsut followed progress and included a multimedia player, which I hope you agree is expected of a computer today. Should they be sued by third parties because they included a TCP/IP stack, which is arguably a lot harder to replace? What about the shell, as there are third party shells out there.
Define "Lowest common demoninator". There are people out there who still run 486s, hell, even 386s. Should Gnome have targetted these as the lowest common demoninator? No, for the simple reason that there ARE window managers for these circumstances, and Gnome wanted to move forward. Sometimes progress actually INVOLVES progress, and that means sometimes people dont get catered for, which is fine so long as the people you ARE catering for have their needs met.
Why should the Gnome project have to code around people who have 2mbyte graphics cards, people who moan that terminals arent responsive enough, people who want to run modern software on hardware that by all defininitions is well past it. By all means, enjoy what you can run, but dont moan when progress is being made and you cant take part in it.
You have to draw the line somewhere.
There are many bytecode cachers that do this for you, indeed zend supply one free of charge.
I use OpenBSD, which like most of the BSDs has the ports tree, and also has packages. Most of the ports tree are built as packages and are available on the FTP sites, allowing you to either install 3rd party applications from source preprepared for the job, or install the package that has already been preproduced from that port. Best of both worlds, and indeed if you are after customisation and have a number of systems, you can make the changes on one system, and bingo - you have the package ready to roll out to the other systems.
As for what I use? I used to use solely ports, but now I usually grab all the packages when I do a fresh install, and only use ports for what isnt available as a package, as the packages give me no disadvantage.
legitimise unauthorised sharing of copyright material, so please dont think it does. Unauthorised sharing is still illegal and should be dealt with, regardless of wether or not it increases sales, if the copyright holders want to deal with it.
In the 1960s, if you were handing out communist propaganda on a US street corner, you were liable to be arrested and charged under a public disorder offence. For handing out bits of paper. Id call that state censorship.