GPL'd code is usually hard to steal, since anyone who has it is allowed to make copies and distribute them.
But that's not what you mean. You mean they will use a GPL'd program, change it, and block it from being exported. Nothing will stop them (except ethics maybe, but I don't get the feeling world leaders have much of that). And it's not even illegal (according to international law, or even US copyright law (which is void in China btw)).
The people distributing the source allow redistribution, just as the GPL says they must. Exporting laws are generally not considered a limitation to the person you distribute the program to, but rather a limitation which is just part of the world. If the chinese would have a problem with it, then so does the US government for their anti-encryption-export laws.
The only license violation that might happen (IMO) is that they modify a program, then they do redistribute it, but refuse to distribute the source (of their modifications, or of the whole program) as well. As long as they keep it inside China, they'll probably get away with it. However, I don't think they want to keep their code secret. They probably will want to train IT professionals, and then having lots of source code availabe certainly helps.
But the biggest drawback was that SGI patented the idea so it wasn't freely available. Now, some of the scientists behind the SGI random number system have create LavaRnd, an open source project for creating truly random numbers
So now there is an open source project of a patented technology. Why couldn't SGI ask royalties for its use? It doesn't sound like a free project to me. While the SGI people making it probably want it to be, some other people at SGI may decide otherwise later on.
if you use a multi-clipboard program <snip> you don't lose clipboard contents when the original source program closes.
You don't need a program for that, X has the buffer he wants built in. Only if the program explicitly clears the selection on close, it is lost, and I don't know of any programs that do such a thing.
Linux does not live or die by GNU alone. It is a system, and yes, GNU is part of that system
Wrong. GNU is an operating system. It's a replacement of the proprietary unix operating system. GNU was meant to be a system, Linux was not. Linux is a kernel, which needs an operating system to live. Theoretically (and perhaps even practically) Linux can run with some other operating system. But it usually doesn't.
It seems rather childish for RMS to stand up and shout "Well, if it weren't for ME you wouldn't even have your ball to play with!"
RMS doesn't say that. RMS says he's the one who made the operating system. And the operating system really should be called GNU. Not GNU/Linux, just GNU. The main reason RMS suggests to call it GNU/Linux anyway is that the name "Linux" is something that people know. It's pretty bad PR to give yourself a completely new name when people are just getting to know the thing. That's why he wants us to call it GNU/Linux. So people still recognize the word. If many people call it GNU/Linux, perhaps we could start to call it by its proper name.
In a later post, you say that Linus didn't try to finish the GNU system, he tried to make his own project instead. I don't really know about Linus' reasons, but let's suppose that this is true. That's fine, the nature of free software is that such things are possible. But it is usually considered polite to use the name of a system that the creator chose for it. If Linus didn't want to call the whole system "GNU", because he thought his contribution was large, then he should have thought of calling it something like "GNU/Linux". But to leave out the name of the original is quite rude, really.
Your arguments are good. But they don't have much to do with what I said. My point is, that if so many people appearently think it is all right to break the law on this point, perhaps the law should be different.
Democracy not only means that you can personally choose what you do, it also means that all the people together choose what they do. They do that through their representatives by making laws. In many cases laws limit a few (or even many) people. But the idea of the law should always be to be beneficial for the citizens on avaredge (how exactly to calculate that avaredge is a very hard problem, called ethics.)
Probably the idea of copyright law used to be that by giving a monopoly to the creators, they will have an incentive to create more. On the other hand, this monopoly is not a good thing for the community (it stifles innovation on the long term), so it should be for limited times. Let's ignore what's happening to it at the moment.
Now very many people seem to be using P2P for illegal activities. If this is true, then the conclusion should not be to punish all the people. The conclusion should be that the law they're breaking perhaps isn't so good for the people. In general, if people are breaking the law, either the people are wrong, or the law is wrong. If it's only a few people, then they are usually wrong. But if there are really many of them, then obviously the people don't want that law. And since in a democracy the people are the ones that make the laws (indirectly), that means the law is wrong and should be changed.
The massive popularity of peer-to-peer networks also needs to be urgently addressed
Yeah, because if people massively use peer-to-peer, then they probably want their representatives to put an end to that. Or perhaps they don't?
I don't think the US will think it useful
on
Japan's War On E-Waste
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Perhaps it is a good idea for the US from an environmental point of view, but I don't think it will be done. Why not? Because it costs money. Land is money, how much it is depends on how much there is available. In the US there is more than enough land, so it is not worth much. In Japan on the other hand, land is very scarse and thus worth a lot. If the japanese can make sure they need less waste dumps this way, then they will do it. The US doesn't care about waste dumps. They'll just build their houses/industries/... somewhere else.
The GPL doesn't fight its way in, as another poster put it: it lures. Programmers can be lazy and just use the code. That has a price: they can only release their code under the GPL after that (or not at all). But it is their choice. They can also choose not to use the code.
Of course if I write a GPL library which can be used as a replacement for a differently licensed library with the same API, then your linking some program (copyrighted by mr X) to my library instead of the other one doesn't change the license of that program. But if mr X wrote his program for use with my library, and to make it usable he distributes my library with his program, then he chose to apply the GPL to his code when he chose to distribute my library.
This is all about choice. The copyright owner can choose what license he wants for his code. Certain contractual agreements may limit the choice. The GPL is such a contractual agreement. (I'm not sure if it is in the legal sense of the word, but you get the idea.) If you agree to distributing a derivative work of a GPL'd program, then you agreed to license that derivative work under the terms of the GPL. No fighting or fooling involved.
As far as I know, the terms of the GPL are only important when it comes to (re)distributing the program (or derivative works thereof). If a programmer distributes a GPL'd library, then he'd better know the license. That's how things work in this world. If he "forgot" to read the license, then he's just stupid to redistribute it.
_THAT_'s the viral part. He calls into a library and because he does that he has to make his own code which he owns copyright of open because someone else who doesn't own the copyright of that work said so.
Not that it hasn't been said before, but what's so viral about that?
A virus is something that is bad for you, that has a will (could be programmed in) to distribute itself in a parasitic way: it uses its host to distribute itself without offering benefits to the host. Of course the host doesn't want that, so the virus has some mechanism to inject itself into the host without the host being able to stop it (for example because it doesn't notice).
Does the [L]GPL do stuff like that? No, it doesn't.
If I want to write a program, and I choose to use a library (whether I use it in binary form is irrelevant), then I have to follow the terms of that library's license. If it says I can only link to it if I pay them $100 per copy, then I have a choice: I use that library and pay the guy, or I don't use the library.
But this whole story is only true if you actually want to distribute the library with the code. The API of your OS is part of the OS. If you interface it, you don't send the OS with your program to make sure people can run it. And since you don't distribute the library, they cannot make any claims on what you're allowed to do. They could make claims, but only on what people are allowed to do with the OS. For example, Microsoft could only sell Windows to people who agree not to use GPL'd code on the system (they don't, but they could).
Reasoning's code inspection service is based on a combination of proprietary technology and repeatable process. The results are objective and comparable across software applications, development methodologies, and coding styles
I have been thinking of writing a program that can detect security holes (buffer overflows in particular) automatically. It would be very hard. But they claim they have such a program, that just finds bugs automatically, and all they use it for is counting them? Somehow I can't believe that. So I guess they don't have such software and are doing something which isn't really objective and comparable at all...
Another reason for this suggestion is that they count bugs per line of code. That for one is not comparable across coding styles.
Re:Ethical use of software
on
Random Humor
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· Score: 1
Oh don't worry, I've done and am doing a share of that as well. But I don't think it matters for this statement.
Ethically, software should be free IMO. People who want to use software should be able to do so, without any legal problems that conventional licenses give you. It is reasonable to ask from me that if I make programs, I make them free software. I do that. But if I would not make programs, then I should still be free to use software.
Ethical use of software
on
Random Humor
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· Score: 1
and in case you were worried about this file being copyrighted.... 'The Software Publishers Association gives you permission to copy this video for the non-profit purpose of promoting the ethical and legal use of software.'
Ah that's good. So I may use it to show to my friends and tell them why this really isn't how it should be, because ethically, software should be free:-)
How nice it is to see real arguments, that are hard to argue with. So convincing.
Linux is my operating system. I'm not afraid to say it. It is the software that is managing all the of the hardware in my computer, providing drivers, making sure memory is taken care of, managing all of my processes...GNU tools are in there along with a bunch of other things. I could replace all the GNU tools with other software and still use Linux. Linux is operating my system, whether or not GNU is there. Get a grip.
Linux isn't operating your system, your electricity company is. That's where the credit should be. Get yourself a sticker that says "this computer is operating on electricity".
Of course you need a kernel to run a system. You need libc as well. Oh, and most people think X is a neccesity. And X is actually worthless without a window manager. Your reason for calling the system Linux can be used as well to call the whole system "bash". Without bash, many scripts need to be rewritten, as long as that is not done the system is unusable.
When naming something, you shouldn't look for some component that can't be missed. You don't call a human body "brain", now do you? What you should look for the component that put the whole thing together. The FSF created an operating system. They used some other software as well, the whole point of free software is that that is possible. But the system was created by the FSF and they called it GNU. GNU is the framework. Many of the pieces are GNU as well. Some aren't. But in total, the system is (a modified version of) GNU.
The difference between "A GNU system with Linux in it" and "Linux with some GNU running on it" is that the former says GNU is a system, and there are some other parts in the version we have here. The latter says Linux is a system and some random programs which all happen to be from GNU are running on it. The point is that the latter is false. Those programs aren't accidentilly all from GNU, they are because GNU is a system. Linux is not. Is is just one of the (essential) parts of your GNU system that happens not to be a part of GNU itself.
Ok, perhaps I should not have mentioned Microsoft on a place like this. I wrote "Microsoft and others" and I didn't mean Microsoft is more guilty than the others. It just happens to be the most well known company spreading such FUD. I agree with you that it is because of capitalism that anyone would want to do such a thing. Regardless of of capitalism, I do blame anyone spreading FUD for being unethical (and that's the worst I ranking I have).
GNU/hurd or anything else right now could in no way compete with anything Linux has achieved, in terms of market share, popularity and rate of growth.
The popularity, market share and rate of growth are not of the Linux operating system (which doesn't exist: Linux is only a kernel), and not of the Linux kernel, but of the GNU/Linux operating system, which happens to be 10 times more GNU than Linux. If Linux went away, the more limited hardware support in BSD systems and the Hurd kernel would be fixed quickly (in one of them at least). And to a user, GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux look exactly the same: as a GNU system. It's only different to programmers.
The point is that he usually tries to reach "the general public" and he knows as well as we do that the general public doesn't know what GNU is. Microsoft and others put a lot of money into making the general public believe crap, like "It is a natural right of a coder to get money for every copy of his code that is made." RMS is constantly trying to educate the public that these kind of things are not true. And that free software actually makes a better world. He hopes to tell this to new people, so he needs to start at the beginning every time.
While I like the general idea of your message, there is one thing I don't agree on:
At the same time, don't get too hung up on data format standards - MS has shown that so long as your next version reads them, that's good enough, your next version doesn't have to use the same data format as its native format, so long as it can read the old format.
The fact that Microsoft makes software that gives everybody a headache doesn't mean we should as well. I know lots of people who hate converting their documents all the time (once every 3 years or so), only somehow they don't realize Microsoft is the one mandating the conversion. If they would find out, they would hate them more than they already do. Of course we could keep all the old versions readable by the newer programs, but at some point it is just too much. The program would get too large and it would just be better to throw out support for the oldest versions. If you do a little thinking before version 1, you don't have that problem.
The free software community cannot risk being hated by the people. And what's more: we don't want to trick people into deals that aren't good for them. We should set standards, indeed. But we should make sure they are extensible, so there is no need for a new format in the next version.
We should really do the same thing Adobe managed to do with PDF: send people documents in our format, and give them a link to a small, easy to use viewer, and while we're on it anyway, to a larger, perhaps a bit less easy to use editor.
The faster Pentium IIIs were good enough for almost everyone.
Yeah, just like 640kB was enough for everyone.
If computers can do more, people do more with them. When Gates made his claim, he (and everyone else) didn't think of 3D realtime games. That was unthinkable with the computers of that time.
I'm not saying people need better computers than a pentium III. Then again, I think 640kB really was enough for everyone. But the hardware suppliers didn't like that, and their marketing convinced the people. Why do you think they cannot do that again?
While it is a very good thing that people who want to implement applications that follow the standards don't need to pay money for doing that, it is of course bad that they still may need to pay other things, for example freedom of license. The restrictions may be such that GPL'd applications are not allowed, for whatever reason. If MS or similar companies abuse this, then this may not be a good thing after all.
This is just pure FUD bullshit. MS is very responsive to bugs, especially nowadays. Fixes are released sometimes hours after bugs are found. Subscribe to the security newsletter [microsoft.com] and find out for yourself.
How can you say that on the same day that there is an article on this site saying: Muhammad Faisal Rauf Danka posted a note to the Full-Disclosure security e-mail list after multiple unsuccessful attempts to contact Microsoft. They don't sound very responsive to me.
Windows also reports less annual bugs than Linux, this [zdnet.com.au] is an old article, but the pattern continues to this day. A little search on SecurityFocus will show you.
I expect you to mean GNU/Linux, since I don't think the kernel reports that many security bugs. Well, not the stable release anyway. But of course a complete GNU/Linux distribution reports more bugs than Microsoft. There's much more software to have bugs in. And Microsoft doesn't report any bugs if users don't find them. And users don't find as many bugs as they do in free software, because
There aren't any users that are hacking around in the source code
If users find bugs, they may report them to their vendor, which might report it back to Microsoft. More often, the vendor will assume that the user just made some stupid mistake, just like the other 99 users that asked him why their computer didn't do what they expected from it.
I know in my area that someone who is a real expert in W2K will cost around £30k/year and I'd have a choice of them, yet the cost for a Red Hat specialist is -far- more expensive. It's more in the £40k region at least, and I'd not have many to choose from.
Remember that story on slashdot somewhere last year (I'm too lazy to look it up) where someone did some research and found that while GNU/Linux admins were more expensive per person, they were cheaper per computer because they could manage way more computers than the windows admins? Perhaps you should read it. The cost of support isn't $/admin/hour, it's $/computer/hour.
Perhaps that is because Debian calls a buffer overflow in ghostview a security bug, while Microsoft doesn't. And even if they did, they wouldn't publish it an no hacker would even think about trying to find it, because it's totally useless for an exploit.
Furthermore, Debian is a GNU/Linux system, that's a full system with loads of applications on it. The kernel, X and the most important GNU tools are together at most 30% of it. Then you have a system that is comparable to the Windows part that Microsoft reports bugs for.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of something I read back in 2000 :-)
GPL'd code is usually hard to steal, since anyone who has it is allowed to make copies and distribute them.
But that's not what you mean. You mean they will use a GPL'd program, change it, and block it from being exported. Nothing will stop them (except ethics maybe, but I don't get the feeling world leaders have much of that). And it's not even illegal (according to international law, or even US copyright law (which is void in China btw)).
The people distributing the source allow redistribution, just as the GPL says they must. Exporting laws are generally not considered a limitation to the person you distribute the program to, but rather a limitation which is just part of the world. If the chinese would have a problem with it, then so does the US government for their anti-encryption-export laws.
The only license violation that might happen (IMO) is that they modify a program, then they do redistribute it, but refuse to distribute the source (of their modifications, or of the whole program) as well. As long as they keep it inside China, they'll probably get away with it. However, I don't think they want to keep their code secret. They probably will want to train IT professionals, and then having lots of source code availabe certainly helps.
But the biggest drawback was that SGI patented the idea so it wasn't freely available. Now, some of the scientists behind the SGI random number system have create LavaRnd, an open source project for creating truly random numbers
So now there is an open source project of a patented technology. Why couldn't SGI ask royalties for its use? It doesn't sound like a free project to me. While the SGI people making it probably want it to be, some other people at SGI may decide otherwise later on.
if you use a multi-clipboard program <snip> you don't lose clipboard contents when the original source program closes.
You don't need a program for that, X has the buffer he wants built in. Only if the program explicitly clears the selection on close, it is lost, and I don't know of any programs that do such a thing.
Linux does not live or die by GNU alone. It is a system, and yes, GNU is part of that system
Wrong. GNU is an operating system. It's a replacement of the proprietary unix operating system. GNU was meant to be a system, Linux was not. Linux is a kernel, which needs an operating system to live. Theoretically (and perhaps even practically) Linux can run with some other operating system. But it usually doesn't.
It seems rather childish for RMS to stand up and shout "Well, if it weren't for ME you wouldn't even have your ball to play with!"
RMS doesn't say that. RMS says he's the one who made the operating system. And the operating system really should be called GNU. Not GNU/Linux, just GNU. The main reason RMS suggests to call it GNU/Linux anyway is that the name "Linux" is something that people know. It's pretty bad PR to give yourself a completely new name when people are just getting to know the thing. That's why he wants us to call it GNU/Linux. So people still recognize the word. If many people call it GNU/Linux, perhaps we could start to call it by its proper name.
In a later post, you say that Linus didn't try to finish the GNU system, he tried to make his own project instead. I don't really know about Linus' reasons, but let's suppose that this is true. That's fine, the nature of free software is that such things are possible. But it is usually considered polite to use the name of a system that the creator chose for it. If Linus didn't want to call the whole system "GNU", because he thought his contribution was large, then he should have thought of calling it something like "GNU/Linux". But to leave out the name of the original is quite rude, really.
Your arguments are good. But they don't have much to do with what I said. My point is, that if so many people appearently think it is all right to break the law on this point, perhaps the law should be different.
Democracy not only means that you can personally choose what you do, it also means that all the people together choose what they do. They do that through their representatives by making laws. In many cases laws limit a few (or even many) people. But the idea of the law should always be to be beneficial for the citizens on avaredge (how exactly to calculate that avaredge is a very hard problem, called ethics.)
Probably the idea of copyright law used to be that by giving a monopoly to the creators, they will have an incentive to create more. On the other hand, this monopoly is not a good thing for the community (it stifles innovation on the long term), so it should be for limited times. Let's ignore what's happening to it at the moment.
Now very many people seem to be using P2P for illegal activities. If this is true, then the conclusion should not be to punish all the people. The conclusion should be that the law they're breaking perhaps isn't so good for the people. In general, if people are breaking the law, either the people are wrong, or the law is wrong. If it's only a few people, then they are usually wrong. But if there are really many of them, then obviously the people don't want that law. And since in a democracy the people are the ones that make the laws (indirectly), that means the law is wrong and should be changed.
The massive popularity of peer-to-peer networks also needs to be urgently addressed
Yeah, because if people massively use peer-to-peer, then they probably want their representatives to put an end to that. Or perhaps they don't?
Perhaps it is a good idea for the US from an environmental point of view, but I don't think it will be done. Why not? Because it costs money. Land is money, how much it is depends on how much there is available. In the US there is more than enough land, so it is not worth much. In Japan on the other hand, land is very scarse and thus worth a lot. If the japanese can make sure they need less waste dumps this way, then they will do it. The US doesn't care about waste dumps. They'll just build their houses/industries/... somewhere else.
Mozilla has a 30% share of slashdot traffic
Where did you get that figure from?
The GPL doesn't fight its way in, as another poster put it: it lures. Programmers can be lazy and just use the code. That has a price: they can only release their code under the GPL after that (or not at all). But it is their choice. They can also choose not to use the code.
Of course if I write a GPL library which can be used as a replacement for a differently licensed library with the same API, then your linking some program (copyrighted by mr X) to my library instead of the other one doesn't change the license of that program. But if mr X wrote his program for use with my library, and to make it usable he distributes my library with his program, then he chose to apply the GPL to his code when he chose to distribute my library.
This is all about choice. The copyright owner can choose what license he wants for his code. Certain contractual agreements may limit the choice. The GPL is such a contractual agreement. (I'm not sure if it is in the legal sense of the word, but you get the idea.) If you agree to distributing a derivative work of a GPL'd program, then you agreed to license that derivative work under the terms of the GPL. No fighting or fooling involved.
As far as I know, the terms of the GPL are only important when it comes to (re)distributing the program (or derivative works thereof). If a programmer distributes a GPL'd library, then he'd better know the license. That's how things work in this world. If he "forgot" to read the license, then he's just stupid to redistribute it.
_THAT_'s the viral part. He calls into a library and because he does that he has to make his own code which he owns copyright of open because someone else who doesn't own the copyright of that work said so.
Not that it hasn't been said before, but what's so viral about that?
A virus is something that is bad for you, that has a will (could be programmed in) to distribute itself in a parasitic way: it uses its host to distribute itself without offering benefits to the host. Of course the host doesn't want that, so the virus has some mechanism to inject itself into the host without the host being able to stop it (for example because it doesn't notice).
Does the [L]GPL do stuff like that? No, it doesn't.
If I want to write a program, and I choose to use a library (whether I use it in binary form is irrelevant), then I have to follow the terms of that library's license. If it says I can only link to it if I pay them $100 per copy, then I have a choice: I use that library and pay the guy, or I don't use the library.
But this whole story is only true if you actually want to distribute the library with the code. The API of your OS is part of the OS. If you interface it, you don't send the OS with your program to make sure people can run it. And since you don't distribute the library, they cannot make any claims on what you're allowed to do. They could make claims, but only on what people are allowed to do with the OS. For example, Microsoft could only sell Windows to people who agree not to use GPL'd code on the system (they don't, but they could).
Reasoning's code inspection service is based on a combination of proprietary technology and repeatable process. The results are objective and comparable across software applications, development methodologies, and coding styles
I have been thinking of writing a program that can detect security holes (buffer overflows in particular) automatically. It would be very hard. But they claim they have such a program, that just finds bugs automatically, and all they use it for is counting them? Somehow I can't believe that. So I guess they don't have such software and are doing something which isn't really objective and comparable at all...
Another reason for this suggestion is that they count bugs per line of code. That for one is not comparable across coding styles.
Oh don't worry, I've done and am doing a share of that as well. But I don't think it matters for this statement.
Ethically, software should be free IMO. People who want to use software should be able to do so, without any legal problems that conventional licenses give you. It is reasonable to ask from me that if I make programs, I make them free software. I do that. But if I would not make programs, then I should still be free to use software.
and in case you were worried about this file being copyrighted.... 'The Software Publishers Association gives you permission to copy this video for the non-profit purpose of promoting the ethical and legal use of software.'
Ah that's good. So I may use it to show to my friends and tell them why this really isn't how it should be, because ethically, software should be free :-)
Ah, a "GNU/Linux" weenie.
How nice it is to see real arguments, that are hard to argue with. So convincing.
Linux is my operating system. I'm not afraid to say it. It is the software that is managing all the of the hardware in my computer, providing drivers, making sure memory is taken care of, managing all of my processes...GNU tools are in there along with a bunch of other things. I could replace all the GNU tools with other software and still use Linux. Linux is operating my system, whether or not GNU is there. Get a grip.
Linux isn't operating your system, your electricity company is. That's where the credit should be. Get yourself a sticker that says "this computer is operating on electricity".
Of course you need a kernel to run a system. You need libc as well. Oh, and most people think X is a neccesity. And X is actually worthless without a window manager. Your reason for calling the system Linux can be used as well to call the whole system "bash". Without bash, many scripts need to be rewritten, as long as that is not done the system is unusable.
When naming something, you shouldn't look for some component that can't be missed. You don't call a human body "brain", now do you? What you should look for the component that put the whole thing together. The FSF created an operating system. They used some other software as well, the whole point of free software is that that is possible. But the system was created by the FSF and they called it GNU. GNU is the framework. Many of the pieces are GNU as well. Some aren't. But in total, the system is (a modified version of) GNU.
The difference between "A GNU system with Linux in it" and "Linux with some GNU running on it" is that the former says GNU is a system, and there are some other parts in the version we have here. The latter says Linux is a system and some random programs which all happen to be from GNU are running on it. The point is that the latter is false. Those programs aren't accidentilly all from GNU, they are because GNU is a system. Linux is not. Is is just one of the (essential) parts of your GNU system that happens not to be a part of GNU itself.
Ok, perhaps I should not have mentioned Microsoft on a place like this. I wrote "Microsoft and others" and I didn't mean Microsoft is more guilty than the others. It just happens to be the most well known company spreading such FUD. I agree with you that it is because of capitalism that anyone would want to do such a thing. Regardless of of capitalism, I do blame anyone spreading FUD for being unethical (and that's the worst I ranking I have).
GNU/hurd or anything else right now could in no way compete with anything Linux has achieved, in terms of market share, popularity and rate of growth.
The popularity, market share and rate of growth are not of the Linux operating system (which doesn't exist: Linux is only a kernel), and not of the Linux kernel, but of the GNU/Linux operating system, which happens to be 10 times more GNU than Linux. If Linux went away, the more limited hardware support in BSD systems and the Hurd kernel would be fixed quickly (in one of them at least). And to a user, GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux look exactly the same: as a GNU system. It's only different to programmers.
The point is that he usually tries to reach "the general public" and he knows as well as we do that the general public doesn't know what GNU is. Microsoft and others put a lot of money into making the general public believe crap, like "It is a natural right of a coder to get money for every copy of his code that is made." RMS is constantly trying to educate the public that these kind of things are not true. And that free software actually makes a better world. He hopes to tell this to new people, so he needs to start at the beginning every time.
While I like the general idea of your message, there is one thing I don't agree on:
At the same time, don't get too hung up on data format standards - MS has shown that so long as your next version reads them, that's good enough, your next version doesn't have to use the same data format as its native format, so long as it can read the old format.
The fact that Microsoft makes software that gives everybody a headache doesn't mean we should as well. I know lots of people who hate converting their documents all the time (once every 3 years or so), only somehow they don't realize Microsoft is the one mandating the conversion. If they would find out, they would hate them more than they already do. Of course we could keep all the old versions readable by the newer programs, but at some point it is just too much. The program would get too large and it would just be better to throw out support for the oldest versions. If you do a little thinking before version 1, you don't have that problem.
The free software community cannot risk being hated by the people. And what's more: we don't want to trick people into deals that aren't good for them. We should set standards, indeed. But we should make sure they are extensible, so there is no need for a new format in the next version.
We should really do the same thing Adobe managed to do with PDF: send people documents in our format, and give them a link to a small, easy to use viewer, and while we're on it anyway, to a larger, perhaps a bit less easy to use editor.
only the copyright owner should be able to wield this awesome power, since having the feds do it would be against the law.
Why should the police catch ciminals? They shouldn't be allowed to do that! Let them do more paperwork! Enforcing the law is a task for victims!
The faster Pentium IIIs were good enough for almost everyone.
Yeah, just like 640kB was enough for everyone.
If computers can do more, people do more with them. When Gates made his claim, he (and everyone else) didn't think of 3D realtime games. That was unthinkable with the computers of that time.
I'm not saying people need better computers than a pentium III. Then again, I think 640kB really was enough for everyone. But the hardware suppliers didn't like that, and their marketing convinced the people. Why do you think they cannot do that again?
While it is a very good thing that people who want to implement applications that follow the standards don't need to pay money for doing that, it is of course bad that they still may need to pay other things, for example freedom of license. The restrictions may be such that GPL'd applications are not allowed, for whatever reason. If MS or similar companies abuse this, then this may not be a good thing after all.
This is just pure FUD bullshit. MS is very responsive to bugs, especially nowadays. Fixes are released sometimes hours after bugs are found. Subscribe to the security newsletter [microsoft.com] and find out for yourself.
How can you say that on the same day that there is an article on this site saying: Muhammad Faisal Rauf Danka posted a note to the Full-Disclosure security e-mail list after multiple unsuccessful attempts to contact Microsoft. They don't sound very responsive to me.
Windows also reports less annual bugs than Linux, this [zdnet.com.au] is an old article, but the pattern continues to this day. A little search on SecurityFocus will show you.
I expect you to mean GNU/Linux, since I don't think the kernel reports that many security bugs. Well, not the stable release anyway. But of course a complete GNU/Linux distribution reports more bugs than Microsoft. There's much more software to have bugs in. And Microsoft doesn't report any bugs if users don't find them. And users don't find as many bugs as they do in free software, because
I know in my area that someone who is a real expert in W2K will cost around £30k/year and I'd have a choice of them, yet the cost for a Red Hat specialist is -far- more expensive. It's more in the £40k region at least, and I'd not have many to choose from.
Remember that story on slashdot somewhere last year (I'm too lazy to look it up) where someone did some research and found that while GNU/Linux admins were more expensive per person, they were cheaper per computer because they could manage way more computers than the windows admins? Perhaps you should read it. The cost of support isn't $/admin/hour, it's $/computer/hour.
Perhaps that is because Debian calls a buffer overflow in ghostview a security bug, while Microsoft doesn't. And even if they did, they wouldn't publish it an no hacker would even think about trying to find it, because it's totally useless for an exploit.
Furthermore, Debian is a GNU/Linux system, that's a full system with loads of applications on it. The kernel, X and the most important GNU tools are together at most 30% of it. Then you have a system that is comparable to the Windows part that Microsoft reports bugs for.