I'd like to know where Eric Raymond get's his 85% from. On slashdot (hardly a hotbed of Stallman-esque free software radicals) the last poll on the topic had fully 40% of the people supporting the "free software" term.
Kubrick gets my vote as the greatest director of all time. I've been salivating for months at the thought of seeing his new movie "Eyes Wide Shut". A Kubrick film is simply not to be missed. From "The Killing" on through "Full Metal Jacket", every one of his films is solid, and most of them are masterpieces.
When you look at his films it is hard to believe they were all done by the same person. They are all so different in subject matter. "Dr. Strangelove", "2001: A Space Oddesy", "Spartacus", "A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining". This man has a truly amazing collection of films. The common denominator is that they are all spectacularly great.
This is perhaps the greatest loss in the history of film. You will be missed, Mr. Kubrick.
RMS has specifically stated that he does not get paid for his work at the FSF in order to eliminate a conflict of interest. He is a volunteer. If you think he might be lying (which I don't), you can probably look for verification in FSF filings with the IRS and State of Massachusetts.
Actually, as a certification mark, "Open Source" cannot be applied to your software without your consent. If you claim your program is "free software" and reject "open source" labeling, there is nothing OSI/ESR can do about it, even if you meet their criteria.
....how do they put the stock in your name if they don't ask for your information? BTW: That exit23b company only asked for a name and email address. That's not much. If they were willing to give me 10,000 shares, I'd gladly share more info with them!
I must say, after the very low quality of most slashdot "editorials" these days, this one was very refreshing. Very high quality.
The only thing I should mention is that the New England Journal of Medicine is a purveyor of all too much junk science. Check out one of the best sites on the web http://www.junkscience.com to find out more.
In every state but Arizona it is illegal for a non-lawyer to engage in the "unauthorized practice of law". To be a lawyer, you have to pass the bar exam. To even sit for the bar exam, you must have graduated from an accredited law school. These rules are widely perceived to be to protect high priced lawyers from competition from non-lawyers. Since all the people involved in enforcement of these statutes are lawyers, you can imagine the results.
With all the various certifications required to practice dozens if not hundreds of professions, we are rapidly returning to a medieval guild system. The lawyers and such of course claim that they are just trying to protect the public. It sure it curious that is lines their pockets with money at the same time.
Just because someone is seeking a tax break doesn't mean that they are not engaging in rent seeking. Lots of corporations/industries seek to obtain favorable tax treatment for themselves in order to make more money without seeking tax relief for anyone else. A tax break can be equivalent to a subsidy.
Stallman is clearly not a mainstream kind of guy. But that's no crime. And it's clearly not a reason to refute his free software philsophy.
BTW: I think you are wrong about his view on property rights. Stallman appears to support property rights in all physical objects. He is smart enought to recognize that property rights are just social inventions we created to arbitrate access to scare resources though. He is willing to question the current definition of property rights when he finds that they are not benefiting humanity. But in general he seems to support strong property rights.
Where he has a problem is in non-scare property rights in such items as software. Even there he doesn't claim there should be no rights. In fact he claims that there is no compelling reason to allow people to modify postings like this one that explain our thoughts and actions. What he does have a problem with are property "rights" that hurt humanity and that enrich rent seeking corporations at the expense of everyone else.
IMO, Stallman doesn't believe in socialism much at all. I don't think he really cares one way or another about it government from a philosophical standpoint. I just think he cares how a particular structure would affect the freedoms of ordinary people. But most of what he advocates is pure capitalism. Copyright and patent monopolies on software are a classic example of the fruits of corporate rent seeking. He only seeks to eliminate those distortions from the market.
OTOH, he as at times written proposals that are socialistic (his software tax in the GNU manifesto) but I haven't heard any of them lately. Perhaps in the early 80's when free software was not nearly as viable as it is today he thought maybe this was an area where the government needed to step in to provide funding. As it turned out, he was wrong.
SAP has two strikes against them when it comes to wide public recognition: they only sell to big business, and they are based in Germany. SAP seels ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. They have modules that basically do anything your business would need to do, ranging from financials to manufacturing control, to distribution, inventory, etc. It is red hot. The occupy (roughly) the same niche as companies like PeopleSoft, Baan, and the Applications side of Oracle (eg, Oracle Financials).
You must have missed the link to Stallman's letter. He corrected the author and explicitly stated that he was not going to write an SAP replacement himself, but rather that someone eventually would.
I don't think Stallman means "free market" in the libertarian sense of the word. When you him say "free market in tax breaks" you should probably read "rent seeking", something libertarians are dead against.
The EULA is a Microsoft agreement. I don't see where Toshiba fits into the equation except as a reseller. It seems to me that they would not have the authority to unilaterally modify the terms of acceptance of the agreement on behalf of Microsoft.
It was interesting to read his comment that 2.0.x will probably be dead when 2.2.x reaches maintenance phase. I thought one of the great things about free software was that you wouldn't be forced to upgrade a la Microsoft every time indefinetly. I hope that even if Alan, Linus, something new comes out. 2.0.x works great for me and I have no intention of upgrading my kernel to 2.2 any time soon. I plan to keep using 2.0.x et. al. stop supporting 2.0.x, someone else keeps it alive.
Well, America was built on immigration. A lot of the "foreign" programmers that come here do so with the hopes of becoming a US citizen or getting permanent residence. (Some are undoubtedly here just to make some cash as well). The fact that they can't get those types of visas easily is not necessarily their fault. So a lot of these people should count as Americans, IMO. But I agree with you that American companies do value the skills these people bring.
What you're missing is that many of these Indian programmers are Americans! A very large number of Indian programmers are US citizens or wish to become US citizens.
Predictions of massive loss of American jobs to foreign programmers reminds me of people constantly saying how America's poor educational system was going to cause us to fall behind competitors in Japan and Europe, whose students dramatically outperform US students in international comparisons. But guess what, the US is holding its own just find with Europe and Japan, despite an entire generating of people growing up in our supposedly third rate education system.
What I think these analyses fail to take into account is how American culture makes up for a lot of things. Americans have a more anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian outlook than people in most other countries. I think this tends to lead to more questioning of the current ways of doing things and thus a lot of innovation (Java being a great example from this book). Americans have certainly been heavily involved in most major software innovations. Additionally, America is very socially mobile, and has a culture that encourages people to take risks by starting busiesses, or jumping to a startup in the hopes of long hours and quick bucks. America is also fixated on freedom and rights so it should surprise no one that the "free software" movement had much of its genesis in America. In short, people in some other countries might be able to reguritate facts on an exam better than we can, but we've got a few qualities of our own that can make up (in some cases more than make up) for that.
The above paragraph is not meant to suggest that other countries are filled with sheep satisfied with their lot in life and with no ambition or mobility. I'm only saying that the elements I highlighted are more prevalent in America than elsewhere (which is something that many promient scholars agree with, BTW).
The GNU tools sold by Cygnus are free software. (I do thing they produce some proprietary things now, but it is a very small part of their portfolio). The money is to pay for support and upgrades.
Apparently you are not aware that the majority of the GNU development tools (egcs, glibc, etc) are largely developed by Cygnus and/or its employees. They have donated a huge amount of code to the free software community.
This is a truly sad day. I remember back in '91 writing an FTP interface to the old lyrics archive at cs.uwp.edu in VMS DCL to allow Indiana University students to search and download files there. It brings back a lot of memories for me. I can't believe the lyrics archive is gone.
The copyright protection racket industry could be sowing the seeds of its own doom with this, just as the Stamp Tax etc spelled the doom of British authority in colonial America. You can only push so hard against people before they being pushing back. People who would have gladly kept paying $15 dollars for CD's and otherwise gone on opposing unauthorized music reproduction for profit are going to start thinking twice after enough things like this. The music industry is just alienating their customers.
The people who buy Divx are going to be in a world of hurt if the format dies (which I hope it does soon). When nobody is selling additional viewings anymore, they'll be stuck with a whole stack of disc's they can't watch anymore! Yuck.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to know where Eric Raymond get's his 85% from. On slashdot (hardly a hotbed of Stallman-esque free software radicals) the last poll on the topic had fully 40% of the people supporting the "free software" term.
Kubrick gets my vote as the greatest director of all time. I've been salivating for months at the thought of seeing his new movie "Eyes Wide Shut". A Kubrick film is simply not to be missed. From "The Killing" on through "Full Metal Jacket", every one of his films is solid, and most of them are masterpieces.
When you look at his films it is hard to believe they were all done by the same person. They are all so different in subject matter. "Dr. Strangelove", "2001: A Space Oddesy", "Spartacus", "A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining". This man has a truly amazing collection of films. The common denominator is that they are all spectacularly great.
This is perhaps the greatest loss in the history of film. You will be missed, Mr. Kubrick.
RMS has specifically stated that he does not get paid for his work at the FSF in order to eliminate a conflict of interest. He is a volunteer. If you think he might be lying (which I don't), you can probably look for verification in FSF filings with the IRS and State of Massachusetts.
Actually, as a certification mark, "Open Source" cannot be applied to your software without your consent. If you claim your program is "free software" and reject "open source" labeling, there is nothing OSI/ESR can do about it, even if you meet their criteria.
....how do they put the stock in your name if they don't ask for your information? BTW: That exit23b company only asked for a name and email address. That's not much. If they were willing to give me 10,000 shares, I'd gladly share more info with them!
http://www.dejanews.c om/=gh/[ST_rn=qs]/getdoc.xp?AN=444382781.
He is right to criticize O'Reilly for this bogus "collaborative software" award.
The only thing I should mention is that the New England Journal of Medicine is a purveyor of all too much junk science. Check out one of the best sites on the web http://www.junkscience.com to find out more.
In every state but Arizona it is illegal for a non-lawyer to engage in the "unauthorized practice of law". To be a lawyer, you have to pass the bar exam. To even sit for the bar exam, you must have graduated from an accredited law school. These rules are widely perceived to be to protect high priced lawyers from competition from non-lawyers. Since all the people involved in enforcement of these statutes are lawyers, you can imagine the results.
With all the various certifications required to practice dozens if not hundreds of professions, we are rapidly returning to a medieval guild system. The lawyers and such of course claim that they are just trying to protect the public. It sure it curious that is lines their pockets with money at the same time.
Just because someone is seeking a tax break doesn't mean that they are not engaging in rent seeking. Lots of corporations/industries seek to obtain favorable tax treatment for themselves in order to make more money without seeking tax relief for anyone else. A tax break can be equivalent to a subsidy.
Stallman is clearly not a mainstream kind of guy. But that's no crime. And it's clearly not a reason to refute his free software philsophy.
BTW: I think you are wrong about his view on property rights. Stallman appears to support property rights in all physical objects. He is smart enought to recognize that property rights are just social inventions we created to arbitrate access to scare resources though. He is willing to question the current definition of property rights when he finds that they are not benefiting humanity. But in general he seems to support strong property rights.
Where he has a problem is in non-scare property rights in such items as software. Even there he doesn't claim there should be no rights. In fact he claims that there is no compelling reason to allow people to modify postings like this one that explain our thoughts and actions. What he does have a problem with are property "rights" that hurt humanity and that enrich rent seeking corporations at the expense of everyone else.
IMO, Stallman doesn't believe in socialism much at all. I don't think he really cares one way or another about it government from a philosophical standpoint. I just think he cares how a particular structure would affect the freedoms of ordinary people. But most of what he advocates is pure capitalism. Copyright and patent monopolies on software are a classic example of the fruits of corporate rent seeking. He only seeks to eliminate those distortions from the market.
OTOH, he as at times written proposals that are socialistic (his software tax in the GNU manifesto) but I haven't heard any of them lately. Perhaps in the early 80's when free software was not nearly as viable as it is today he thought maybe this was an area where the government needed to step in to provide funding. As it turned out, he was wrong.
SAP has two strikes against them when it comes to wide public recognition: they only sell to big business, and they are based in Germany. SAP seels ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. They have modules that basically do anything your business would need to do, ranging from financials to manufacturing control, to distribution, inventory, etc. It is red hot. The occupy (roughly) the same niche as companies like PeopleSoft, Baan, and the Applications side of Oracle (eg, Oracle Financials).
You must have missed the link to Stallman's letter. He corrected the author and explicitly stated that he was not going to write an SAP replacement himself, but rather that someone eventually would.
I don't think Stallman means "free market" in the libertarian sense of the word. When you him say "free market in tax breaks" you should probably read "rent seeking", something libertarians are dead against.
The EULA is a Microsoft agreement. I don't see where Toshiba fits into the equation except as a reseller. It seems to me that they would not have the authority to unilaterally modify the terms of acceptance of the agreement on behalf of Microsoft.
It was interesting to read his comment that 2.0.x will probably be dead when 2.2.x reaches maintenance phase. I thought one of the great things about free software was that you wouldn't be forced to upgrade a la Microsoft every time indefinetly. I hope that even if Alan, Linus, something new comes out. 2.0.x works great for me and I have no intention of upgrading my kernel to 2.2 any time soon. I plan to keep using 2.0.x et. al. stop supporting 2.0.x, someone else keeps it alive.
Well, America was built on immigration. A lot of the "foreign" programmers that come here do so with the hopes of becoming a US citizen or getting permanent residence. (Some are undoubtedly here just to make some cash as well). The fact that they can't get those types of visas easily is not necessarily their fault. So a lot of these people should count as Americans, IMO. But I agree with you that American companies do value the skills these people bring.
What you're missing is that many of these Indian programmers are Americans! A very large number of Indian programmers are US citizens or wish to become US citizens.
Predictions of massive loss of American jobs to foreign programmers reminds me of people constantly saying how America's poor educational system was going to cause us to fall behind competitors in Japan and Europe, whose students dramatically outperform US students in international comparisons. But guess what, the US is holding its own just find with Europe and Japan, despite an entire generating of people growing up in our supposedly third rate education system.
What I think these analyses fail to take into account is how American culture makes up for a lot of things. Americans have a more anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian outlook than people in most other countries. I think this tends to lead to more questioning of the current ways of doing things and thus a lot of innovation (Java being a great example from this book). Americans have certainly been heavily involved in most major software innovations. Additionally, America is very socially mobile, and has a culture that encourages people to take risks by starting busiesses, or jumping to a startup in the hopes of long hours and quick bucks. America is also fixated on freedom and rights so it should surprise no one that the "free software" movement had much of its genesis in America. In short, people in some other countries might be able to reguritate facts on an exam better than we can, but we've got a few qualities of our own that can make up (in some cases more than make up) for that.
The above paragraph is not meant to suggest that other countries are filled with sheep satisfied with their lot in life and with no ambition or mobility. I'm only saying that the elements I highlighted are more prevalent in America than elsewhere (which is something that many promient scholars agree with, BTW).
Recent events made him change his mind, eh? Like the events the proved his original thesis was completely wrong?
The GNU tools sold by Cygnus are free software. (I do thing they produce some proprietary things now, but it is a very small part of their portfolio). The money is to pay for support and upgrades.
Apparently you are not aware that the majority of the GNU development tools (egcs, glibc, etc) are largely developed by Cygnus and/or its employees. They have donated a huge amount of code to the free software community.
This is a truly sad day. I remember back in '91 writing an FTP interface to the old lyrics archive at cs.uwp.edu in VMS DCL to allow Indiana University students to search and download files there. It brings back a lot of memories for me. I can't believe the lyrics archive is gone.
The copyright protection racket industry could be sowing the seeds of its own doom with this, just as the Stamp Tax etc spelled the doom of British authority in colonial America. You can only push so hard against people before they being pushing back. People who would have gladly kept paying $15 dollars for CD's and otherwise gone on opposing unauthorized music reproduction for profit are going to start thinking twice after enough things like this. The music industry is just alienating their customers.
Pluto not a planet? Next they'll be telling us William Shatner didn't really write TekWar.
See my http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN =381686845 review of it.
The people who buy Divx are going to be in a world of hurt if the format dies (which I hope it does soon). When nobody is selling additional viewings anymore, they'll be stuck with a whole stack of disc's they can't watch anymore! Yuck.