RMS wants credit for his part in the creation of the modern linux distribution.
More importantly, he wants GNU to be mentioned to spread awareness of the ideals of free software. If people hear about the system called "Linux", they look up Linux and find that it's author wrote it just for fun. If we call the system GNU+Linux, or just GNU, people will read about the GNU project and the ideas and ideals behind it.
The GPL version you quoted is specific to software and it has nothing to do with "the power of doing anything I want with my own hardware" but just about having access to source code.
On the contrary, the GPL is about ensuring that all users have the four freedoms described in , of which freedom 1 is "The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this."
You cannot adapt the program to your needs if the machine on which it runs will not allow your modified version to run. The only reason it doesn't say "study how the program works, adapt it to your needs, and run the modified versions as you wish" is that that wasn't an issue when that document was written, or when the GPLv2 was written. It is now, so the GPL has been updated to close that and a few other loopholes. This is not a new political agenda that is being added to the GPL; this is what the intention of the GPL has been all along.
Because the user owns the phone and should have the right to run any software he wants to on his property?
That's the phone owner's fight, not mine. If you want to fight the lack of control the consumer has over its own devices, that's fine, but don't infect important public licenses with your political agenda.
But the GPL has always been about that fight and that political agenda. This is from GPL version 2: "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users" (emphasis mine). If you don't agree with that, and you don't want to fight the phone owner's fight, then the GPL was probably the wrong license for you to choose to begin with, because that is what the GPL was always about.
I have re-written quite a few xorg.conf files to deal with my dual-head display and have not yet come across a distro that handles it well enough to just use a GUI.
Yeah, in the same way that Mazda is a part of the big Ford company. But you wouldn't submit and article called "How Ford Builds Cars" and then cover only the Mazda factor's stereo installation.
Not at all in the same way. ATI is just an AMD brand now. Compare http://www.mazda.com/ to http://www.ati.com/ and you will see why the article's title is perfectly valid.
An invasion is not necessary; the current prime minister of Denmark beats even Tony Blair when it comes to kissing George Bush's ass. The white house dictates so much of Danish foreign policy that it feels like the country is invaded by the US already. (I'm not a Danish citizen, I just live there.)
Sorry, I'm using the terminology of TFA and the GP poster (yeah, I know, pointing out terminology things while using the wrong terminology). The "Operating environment", "operating system distribution", "the stuff my computer is running", or whatever you want to call the whole thing combined, is still mainly GNU, and most of the time I hear people say "Linux", they really mean GNU.
It sounds like someone is using the phrase 'operating system' to refer to an operating system distribution again.
Ah, okay, that someone would be TFA and/or the GP poster:-) But when people talk about "the Linux operating system", most of the time they mean GNU, and when they say "how do I do this on a Linux system", most of the time they mean GNU (that is, the answer would be relevant to any GNU system regardless of the kernel, but not to a Linux system with other userland than GNU).
Because that is the name of the operating system. The GNU project has implemented an entire free operating system, except for one critical part, the kernel. Linus Torvalds and his merry men has implemented a kernel, Linux, which works very well in the GNU operating system, but that doesn't make the system "Linux". Fedora Core, for example, may be commonly called a "Linux distribution", but "GNU distribution" is far more correct. Now, why people keep referring to GNU and GNU-based distributions with this "Linux" thing in the name, and even as "Linux" alone, I don't know.
If you only want to call it one word (which is very reasonable), that word is GNU. Because that is the operating system you are running: The GNU operating system.
You don't refer to Windows XP as "NTKRNL32.EXE" either.
How exactly is MS breaching the GPL? Also, the GPL is a copyright license, not a contract, so you cannot sue for "breach of GPL". What you can so them for is copyright violation, if they are distributing your stuff in a way that you haven't given them a license for.
They are not announcing it now. They announced this before there was a Windows XP!
After they had Windows 2000 and Windows ME out the door, a bunch of people from Microsoft went to the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort in Canada to plan the next two versions of Windows. They named them after the mountains. Whistler was basically a project to slap the user interface from Windows ME onto Windows 2000 and turn 2000 into something they could ship a Home Edition of. Whistler was to ship in 2001, which it did, as Windows XP.
The next version, Blackcomb, was supposed to totally revolutionize everything and ship in 2005. That is what they are today calling Windows "Vienna".
And in between, they planned an project called Longhorn (after a bar at the ski resort) which was to be a small upgrade of Whistler, like Win98SE was to Win98. That is what they just shipped, as Vista, 4 years after the planned release date in 2003.
Meanwhile, I'm using various GNU-based operating systems and am happier than ever.
What bother me more is prioritary codecs. If they are Fluendo ones, I am fine, but if they are some thirty party hacks, sorry, I don't think Ubuntu should get involved in this.
I think mostly they're talking about codecs that are free software that implements formats that are restricted by patents. In other words, the code may be released under the GPL, but nevertheless it's illegal to use it in the US, Japan (and where else?) without paying a license. That kind of proprietary...
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Yes, absolutely! I wasn't arguing against your point, I was agreeing with it :-)
More importantly, he wants GNU to be mentioned to spread awareness of the ideals of free software. If people hear about the system called "Linux", they look up Linux and find that it's author wrote it just for fun. If we call the system GNU+Linux, or just GNU, people will read about the GNU project and the ideas and ideals behind it.
But the point is that then you should call the system GNU since that is what it is. You don't call your laptop OS "ntoskrnl.exe", do you?
You cannot adapt the program to your needs if the machine on which it runs will not allow your modified version to run. The only reason it doesn't say "study how the program works, adapt it to your needs, and run the modified versions as you wish" is that that wasn't an issue when that document was written, or when the GPLv2 was written. It is now, so the GPL has been updated to close that and a few other loopholes. This is not a new political agenda that is being added to the GPL; this is what the intention of the GPL has been all along.
But the GPL has always been about that fight and that political agenda. This is from GPL version 2: "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users" (emphasis mine). If you don't agree with that, and you don't want to fight the phone owner's fight, then the GPL was probably the wrong license for you to choose to begin with, because that is what the GPL was always about.
this screenshot is from the next Ubuntu (gutsy; 7.10).
Not at all in the same way. ATI is just an AMD brand now. Compare http://www.mazda.com/ to http://www.ati.com/ and you will see why the article's title is perfectly valid.
404 is an HTTP status code. If firefox cannot find the server you want to connect to, where do you want that 404 to come from?
Dual "pain"?!?
If that wasn't intentional, it's... scary...
:-D
An invasion is not necessary; the current prime minister of Denmark beats even Tony Blair when it comes to kissing George Bush's ass. The white house dictates so much of Danish foreign policy that it feels like the country is invaded by the US already. (I'm not a Danish citizen, I just live there.)
Reread what you were replying to
Sorry, I'm using the terminology of TFA and the GP poster (yeah, I know, pointing out terminology things while using the wrong terminology). The "Operating environment", "operating system distribution", "the stuff my computer is running", or whatever you want to call the whole thing combined, is still mainly GNU, and most of the time I hear people say "Linux", they really mean GNU.
Ah, okay, that someone would be TFA and/or the GP poster
Because that is the name of the operating system. The GNU project has implemented an entire free operating system, except for one critical part, the kernel. Linus Torvalds and his merry men has implemented a kernel, Linux, which works very well in the GNU operating system, but that doesn't make the system "Linux". Fedora Core, for example, may be commonly called a "Linux distribution", but "GNU distribution" is far more correct. Now, why people keep referring to GNU and GNU-based distributions with this "Linux" thing in the name, and even as "Linux" alone, I don't know.
If you only want to call it one word (which is very reasonable), that word is GNU. Because that is the operating system you are running: The GNU operating system.
You don't refer to Windows XP as "NTKRNL32.EXE" either.
Don't be sorry! You're on
And your analysis is interesting, I liked reading it.
That's how it works. The update manager will upgrade you from 6.06 to 6.10, and then from 6.10 to 7.04.
Mac OS X?
How exactly is MS breaching the GPL? Also, the GPL is a copyright license, not a contract, so you cannot sue for "breach of GPL". What you can so them for is copyright violation, if they are distributing your stuff in a way that you haven't given them a license for.
They are not announcing it now. They announced this before there was a Windows XP!
After they had Windows 2000 and Windows ME out the door, a bunch of people from Microsoft went to the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort in Canada to plan the next two versions of Windows. They named them after the mountains. Whistler was basically a project to slap the user interface from Windows ME onto Windows 2000 and turn 2000 into something they could ship a Home Edition of. Whistler was to ship in 2001, which it did, as Windows XP.
The next version, Blackcomb, was supposed to totally revolutionize everything and ship in 2005. That is what they are today calling Windows "Vienna".
And in between, they planned an project called Longhorn (after a bar at the ski resort) which was to be a small upgrade of Whistler, like Win98SE was to Win98. That is what they just shipped, as Vista, 4 years after the planned release date in 2003.
Meanwhile, I'm using various GNU-based operating systems and am happier than ever.
Yes, they just renamed it since blackcomb was supposed to ship in 2005, so it started to get embarrassing for them...
I think mostly they're talking about codecs that are free software that implements formats that are restricted by patents. In other words, the code may be released under the GPL, but nevertheless it's illegal to use it in the US, Japan (and where else?) without paying a license. That kind of proprietary...
Wrong!
" With Ubuntu, our vision is to make the very best of free software freely available, globally. To the extent we make short-term compromises, for drivers or firmware along the way, we see those as bugs, and ones that will be closed over time. "