It's not really an open source issue, it's an issue of open protocols, which is far more important than open source.
Closed source allows some companies to make money directly from the software they produce. If closed-source software producers can do this and still remain competitive, then good for them! BUT, it's only acceptable when they compete fairly in the market and if consumer choice is really there. In order for this to happen, we need open protocols.
Now picture Microsoft DRM-enabled sound and video cards that only allow Microsoft-signed drivers;
If you can run arbitrary code that can talk to the PCI bus, this won't be possible. Why? Even if every byte sent to the card must be signed using some key, that key will have to be shipped with the drivers, which makes it trivial to extract.
I don't mean to be insulting or anything, it's just clear that you have very little knowledge of how public key crpytography and one-way hash functions work.
One-way hash functions: In a nutshell, a one-way hash function is a function that takes a variable-length string of input data and returns a fixed-length string (the hash) that represents it. Due to the mathematics involved, it is computationally infeasible to derive a different input string that will evaluate to the same hash. The same input data always produces the same hash.
Symmetric (a.k.a. "secret key") Cryptography: Basically, you take two inputs, the "plaintext" and the "key", and you feed them through an algorithm to get the output ("ciphertext") that looks like jibberish (a process called "encryption"). You can then take the ciphertext and the same key, feed them through the inverse algorithm, and get the original plaintext (a process called "decryption").
Asymmetric (a.k.a. "public key") Cryptography: It's just like symmetric cryptography, except instead of using the same key for both encryption and decryption, you use two different but related keys -- one for encryption and one for decryption. You call one of these keys "private" and you never let anyone see it. You call the other key "public" and you distribute it to everyone.
Other people can encrypt data using your public key, and that data can only be decrypted using your private key. The other thing you can do is encrypt data using your private key, so that it can only be decrypted using your public key.
But what use is that, you say? Well, you can encrypt the hash of the program you're signing using your private key, and distribute the resulting cyphertext with your program. If other people want to verify that your program is authentic, they can compute their own hash of your program, and then decrypt the cyphertext of the hash you computed. If both hashes are the same, then your program is verified, because only someone with your private key could have generated that cyphertext.
This is how all digital signature systems work.
For more information (especially if I confused you), see An Introduction to Cryptography (PDF), which explains it much better that I can.
The Free Software Foundation publishes a good comparison of various licenses which you might be interested in reading if you are interested in the different types of source-available software licensing.
True, but so what? When id released the Doom, Quake and Quake II engines as GPL (thanks John!), nobody complained. Just look at what the QuakeForge project has done with it.
Licenses are for *other* parties to use your copyrighted works.
Licenses are for other parties to distribute copies of your copyrighted works. Use has nothing to do with copyright, although some parties would have you believe otherwise.
What about D. J. Bernstein's "Internet Mail 2000" idea? As far as I can tell, it's a system where the recipient has to actively fetch mail from other hosts, so you could just choose to not fetch mail from spammers.
If the security of your web application depends on browser-specific behaviour, you should not be writing security-sensitive web applications, because you clearly don't know what you are doing. Learn a bit about cryptography and secure programming first.
Like what? We switched to IIS where I work, but that was only because we're a Windows web hosting company and people were asking for things that needed IIS. All of our internal operations (including our own website) will be moving away from Windows entirely... to Apache/Linux and/or Apache/*BSD.
Debian's package manager is not "far better than rpm" (I am also a Debian user). What makes Debian better is the system integration amd automation that other distros lack. Besides apt-get, Debian has
diversions (somewhat part of dpkg),
alternatives (somewhat part of dpkg),
a more consistent filesystem hierarchy (i.e./usr/share/doc/packagename/(copyright|README |README.Debian),
menu (before most other distros did),
defoma (automatic font management),
dhelp (centralized documentation management),
mime-support (centralized MIME-type management),
the Debian Bug Tracking System,
the main/contrib/non-free split,
debconf,
more packages than the other distros,
good internationalization support (don't know for sure because I'm a native English speaker, but I've dabbled with it and it seemed to work easily enough),
dpsyco (not sure what this does yet, exactly, but I think it has something to do with configuring your entire system simply by installing a few custom packages via apt-get)
it asks me about configuration file changes, rather than clobbering (or not) my current config
kernel-pkg (this may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your taste)
debhelper/lintian/etc (basically the package development suite)
and probably other transparent stuff I'm not even aware of. That is why I like Debian.
(Note that I'm not implying that all other distros lack all of these features, since I'm not that familiar with other distros any more.)
Re:One argument for the GPL and against "look alik
on
Debian And WineX
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· Score: 2
Given the subjective usage of unpleasant/burdensome, I like the BSD advocate's usage better and believe...
Why must you conclude that one is better? Why not just accept the differences and move on? And, if you are going to state that one is better, could you at least justify it with a logical inference or something?
Re:One argument for the GPL and against "look alik
on
Debian And WineX
·
· Score: 2
I think you don't understand.
To be 'truely' free you should use BSD license.
No. I think you are confused with the wording. If you want your code to be "free" in the sense that your code's distribution and development can never be restricted, then use the (L)GPL. If you want to give away your code for free (no strings attached), then use the BSDL.
My Linux desktop contains less than 3% GNU software.
How much of that software would ever have been developed if the GNU tools weren't available when Linux was released? Don't call it "GNU/Linux" if you don't want to, but at least give RMS the credit he truly does deserve.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn right!
It's part of the subject line, see?
Closed source allows some companies to make money directly from the software they produce. If closed-source software producers can do this and still remain competitive, then good for them! BUT, it's only acceptable when they compete fairly in the market and if consumer choice is really there. In order for this to happen, we need open protocols.
Now picture Microsoft DRM-enabled sound and video cards that only allow Microsoft-signed drivers;
If you can run arbitrary code that can talk to the PCI bus, this won't be possible. Why? Even if every byte sent to the card must be signed using some key, that key will have to be shipped with the drivers, which makes it trivial to extract.
One-way hash functions: In a nutshell, a one-way hash function is a function that takes a variable-length string of input data and returns a fixed-length string (the hash) that represents it. Due to the mathematics involved, it is computationally infeasible to derive a different input string that will evaluate to the same hash. The same input data always produces the same hash.
Symmetric (a.k.a. "secret key") Cryptography: Basically, you take two inputs, the "plaintext" and the "key", and you feed them through an algorithm to get the output ("ciphertext") that looks like jibberish (a process called "encryption"). You can then take the ciphertext and the same key, feed them through the inverse algorithm, and get the original plaintext (a process called "decryption").
Asymmetric (a.k.a. "public key") Cryptography: It's just like symmetric cryptography, except instead of using the same key for both encryption and decryption, you use two different but related keys -- one for encryption and one for decryption. You call one of these keys "private" and you never let anyone see it. You call the other key "public" and you distribute it to everyone.
Other people can encrypt data using your public key, and that data can only be decrypted using your private key. The other thing you can do is encrypt data using your private key, so that it can only be decrypted using your public key.
But what use is that, you say? Well, you can encrypt the hash of the program you're signing using your private key, and distribute the resulting cyphertext with your program. If other people want to verify that your program is authentic, they can compute their own hash of your program, and then decrypt the cyphertext of the hash you computed. If both hashes are the same, then your program is verified, because only someone with your private key could have generated that cyphertext.
This is how all digital signature systems work.
For more information (especially if I confused you), see An Introduction to Cryptography (PDF), which explains it much better that I can.
I don't know, but you might want to check up on the efforts to use Bochs inside Wine on other platforms.
The Free Software Foundation publishes a good comparison of various licenses which you might be interested in reading if you are interested in the different types of source-available software licensing.
True, but so what? When id released the Doom, Quake and Quake II engines as GPL (thanks John!), nobody complained. Just look at what the QuakeForge project has done with it.
remember, a decent porn site is profitable and can afford to spend money to make money) [Emphasis added]
Now that's an oxymoron if I've ever read one!
Licenses are for other parties to distribute copies of your copyrighted works. Use has nothing to do with copyright, although some parties would have you believe otherwise.
I agree. IP over SSH is a bad idea for the same reasons why TCP over TCP is a bad idea.
Har!
What about D. J. Bernstein's "Internet Mail 2000" idea? As far as I can tell, it's a system where the recipient has to actively fetch mail from other hosts, so you could just choose to not fetch mail from spammers.
Mozilla isn't a just browser, it's what XEmacs should have been.
IE4 sucked! You must not remember what it did to Win95 machines. Ever try re-installing Win95 after installing IE4?
s/the single most/one of the most/
That's nice.
If the security of your web application depends on browser-specific behaviour, you should not be writing security-sensitive web applications, because you clearly don't know what you are doing. Learn a bit about cryptography and secure programming first.
HTML has been called a declarative programming language...
Like what? We switched to IIS where I work, but that was only because we're a Windows web hosting company and people were asking for things that needed IIS. All of our internal operations (including our own website) will be moving away from Windows entirely... to Apache/Linux and/or Apache/*BSD.
Here's one.
- diversions (somewhat part of dpkg),
- alternatives (somewhat part of dpkg),
- a more consistent filesystem hierarchy (i.e.
/usr/share/doc/packagename/(copyright|README |README.Debian), - menu (before most other distros did),
- defoma (automatic font management),
- dhelp (centralized documentation management),
- mime-support (centralized MIME-type management),
- the Debian Bug Tracking System,
- the main/contrib/non-free split,
- debconf,
- more packages than the other distros,
- good internationalization support (don't know for sure because I'm a native English speaker, but I've dabbled with it and it seemed to work easily enough),
- dpsyco (not sure what this does yet, exactly, but I think it has something to do with configuring your entire system simply by installing a few custom packages via apt-get)
- it asks me about configuration file changes, rather than clobbering (or not) my current config
- kernel-pkg (this may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your taste)
- debhelper/lintian/etc (basically the package development suite)
and probably other transparent stuff I'm not even aware of. That is why I like Debian.(Note that I'm not implying that all other distros lack all of these features, since I'm not that familiar with other distros any more.)
Why must you conclude that one is better? Why not just accept the differences and move on? And, if you are going to state that one is better, could you at least justify it with a logical inference or something?
To be 'truely' free you should use BSD license.
No. I think you are confused with the wording. If you want your code to be "free" in the sense that your code's distribution and development can never be restricted, then use the (L)GPL. If you want to give away your code for free (no strings attached), then use the BSDL.
How much of that software would ever have been developed if the GNU tools weren't available when Linux was released? Don't call it "GNU/Linux" if you don't want to, but at least give RMS the credit he truly does deserve.