Why do people keep spreading this FUD? The GPL is far more one-way than the BSD License. It's designed to be.
Yes, but it is designed to ensure that open source community benefits rather than some private entity. Or, more accurately, that the private entity is still able to benefit from it, it just can't stop others from benefiting as well.
So how is that any different than when one of Stallman's Faithful(TM) does the same thing?
Because when the change to the BSD code is added to code licensed under GPL, the changes are still available to the public. People can still learn from and improve that code and share their changes with the world. When a corporation does it, they can (at their option, of course) force you to pay in order to take advantage of those improvements and prevent you from accessing the source code and learning how the change was achieved.
Believe me, I'm not anti-corporation and I don't believe that corporations are necessarily evil. Google and IBM have made generous contributions to open source. I just think that is a corporation is going to take advantage of a public work (and open source to me is such a work), it should be required to share in that benefit. Just look at the bailouts happening now - should the beneficiaries of these bailouts be able to invest them into their business and make billions without giving anything back? No. At the very least, we should get back what was given, but it seems only fair that we also be given interest - this is what the GPL enforces.
And I don't claim that the BSD license is useless - indeed core standards required for interoperability need to be freely accessible to all (including corporations developing closed source code) in order to foster interoperability.
So, yes, if the original project (and its contributors) is your sole measure of benefiting society, then the GPL is arguably just as bad as a corporation stealing code. But if you consider the benefit to society at large (in other words the project's USERS) as your measure of benefit, then the difference between GPL and corporate adoption is obvious.
As far as I'm concerned, Sun (or anyone complicit in their activities re: Java) lost all right to bitch about this once every new version of Java consistently broke backwards compatibility with previous versions. I'm sick of updating to the latest version of Java and having every existing Java application (I'm looking at you, Cisco) stop working, even though you keep each previous version installed by default. I mean really, what's the point of having a half dozen versions of the JVM installed if the only thing it uses is the latest one?
And yes, I know you can tweak a file here and there to force a given application to use a given JVM (and, if the app - not Java - supports it, Launcher), but that fails to address two important issues - a) that a given java app can't specify what version of the JVM it wants, and b) that even within a given version (say 1.6 update 7 versus 1.6 update 11) the functionality of (and maybe even interfaces to) included objects changes to the point of breaking compatibility.
I used to hate Java (and JavaScript) because it took forever to load, turning a screaming fast Internet connection into a rush hour exercise in patience, but they improved that and I started singing the praises of Java and JavaScript. Then I found that even though JavaScript is still good, Java now drives me crazy because I can't keep it updated unless I want to get under the hood and fix everything it broke in the applications I use. And with the recent trend of releasing an updated JVM once every 2 months or so, this gets very tedious, very fast.
"NASA's newest module for the International Space Station will get a new name on April 14. The agency plans to make the announcement with the help of Expedition 14 and 15 astronaut Sunita 'Suni' Williams on Comedy Central's 'The Colbert Report.' The program will air at 11:30 p.m. EDT."
Transcript of NASA segment from the April 14th, 2009 Colbert show.
Colbert: As many of our watchers will recall, NASA recently had a contest allowing the public to vote for the new name for "Node 3", the newest module of the International Space Station. Thanks to you, my fans, the highest voted name was "Colbert". However, NASA reserves the right to select any name they choose, regardless of the results of the contest, leaving many wondering if my prestigious and time honored name will indeed grace the new module.
(laughter from audience)
Colbert: Tonight, we have a very special guest from NASA - a two time visitor to the International Space Station - here to officially announce the selected name. Please offer a warm welcome for Astronaut Sunita Williams!
(audience cheers) Sunita walks on stage, shakes hands with Colbert.
Colbert: Thank you for coming.
Sunita: It's a pleasure to be here.
Colbert: I know we are all waiting to hear what NASA has decided, but first tell the audience a little about yourself.
(Snipped for brevity - read about her here. She was one of the astronauts to use the ametuer radio stations on the station to talk with school children - very cool stuff.)
Colbert: Thank you "Suni". You've done some amazing things, and we look forward to the contributions yet to come. (applause from audience) Ok, it looks like we might have a revolt on our hands if we don't cut to the chase. NASA has chosen you to officially announce - here, tonight - the name of the newest module for the International Space Station.
Sunita: Yes.
Colbert: Then, without further delay, Sunita Williams, ladies and gentlemen.
Suinita: Thank you. "Node 3", as it has been known, is the newest addition to the ISS, due to be sent up February 2010. It will provide life support systems, including water recycling and oxygen generation, for the ISS. Tonight, it is my great honor to announce on behalf of NASA that it has now, officially, been renamed "Xenu". (laughter from audience) No, seriously.
(Sunita can't keep her face straight, causing Colbert to break from script with a smile. Sunita breaks into laughter)
Colbert: We are going to get sued for this.
End Transcript - sorry, you're going to have to wait for tomorrow's airing for the revelation of the true name.
So as an ISP what do you do? Eat the cost? Raise the rates for all your customers, even those that use 2GB/month? Kick off the high users for breaking an 'invisible' cap hinted at in your TOS? Or introduce tiered pricing, so those that use most, pay most?
Yes. Wait, what do you mean it was an either/or question? How are we supposed to boost our margins with that arbitrary limitation?
Without copyright laws, the GPL would be unenforcible.
Without copyright laws, the GPL would be unnecessary. Without copyright laws, everything would be even more lax than BSD (which I believe still requires you to attribute your code). The purpose of the GPL is to acknowledge that because of copyright laws, a BSD style license is frequently a one way street - businesses use and enhance the software without giving anything back to the community, all the while they are able to sue if their changes to the code see unauthorized distribution. That is to say, business can have their cake and eat it too, stifling the free exchange of ideas. GPL forces companies to play fair if they decide to use the code, hence the GPP's use of the term "walled garden".
It seems to me that this strategy is more likely to provide fuel to the fire for overturning or severely diminishing Fair Use. If he can prove that electronic distribution of copyrighted works is covered under Fair Use, then it makes a strong case that Fair Use has overstepped its intended bounds. Wendy Seltzer says as much in the referenced Ars article, though I came to this conclusion just from reading the summary before deciding to make sure the summary wasn't just misleading.
The reference is from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In fact, 2001 is referenced in many other places, including the Technical Specifications page for CADIE (http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/tech.html) where they mention bringing her online January 12, 2009 (HAL was activated on January 12, 1997). Also, her notes for that clip specifically mentions HAL:
CADIE: Could there ever be a movie character who speaks to me more loudly than HAL? If parody tweaks the parodist as well as her target, this introduction of myself to the world cuts as deeply as the original.
Much of the monologue parodies HAL's lines from the movie/book:
HAL: Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
---
HAL: Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.
---
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
---
HAL: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
Large gaps. Okay, and what happened in Jesus's life between the Manger and adulthood? There is a large gap in the bible where that should be covered. Does that mean that Jesus was called back by God for a few years, then returned when he was fully grown? The more logical assumption would be that he grew up, just like a normal person, but that that information was either poorly documented or left out of the Bible due to lack of relevance. The point is, the Bible doesn't give a complete day by day or even year by year reckoning of the entire 6000 year history of the world it claims, and likewise neither does the available evidence supporting evolution have a piece of the puzzle that covers everything that happened in the last billion and a half years of life on Earth. Gaps in knowledge are expected when dealing with the past, whether you get your info from a divine source or from science. You make logical assumptions about the information that is missing and move on.
If written records from the last 6000 years can get lost, it is reasonable to assume that a pretty special set of circumstances has to take place to preserve many of the types of evidence for events that transpired millions or hundreds of millions of years ago. This, primarily, is the reason for these "large gaps" in the fossil records. In short, it is not proof that they never existed; while that may be, it is also likely that they were subsequently destroyed or have yet to be found, and indeed, the latter two options are the more likely.
With this, let me put into a simple analogy why evolution isn't "proved" and why it can not be. This is not a weakness of science as the creationists (or at least the ID folks) like to claim, it is simply a fact of information gathering when much of the information is lost. In other words, the preponderance of evidence supporting evolution is every bit as valid and unassailable as that supporting quantum mechanics and chemistry or any other theory in a life science field - evolutionists aren't trying to be anti-religious - the religious folk are the ones that attacked evolution, which has no more of an agenda than any other field.
Let's say we have a jigsaw puzzle of Abraham Lincoln, but we don't know that. Due to a fire, much of the puzzle is lost - maybe 90% of it (much more of the evidence for evolution is gone - greater than 99.99% I'd wager). Now, as we look at the pieces we have, we postulate that the picture is that of a man (we found a piece that has his beard), white, aged 50 or so. As we find new pieces, they further support our basic postulates (it is a picture of a man, white, aged 50ish), though they also allow us to refine (probably closer to 55, etc), or possibly prove wrong some of our previous assumptions on the finer points (oh, I guess it can't be a picture of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top), but the basic theory continues to be strengthened and allows us to continually predict what we should find (we expect to find two eyes, a nose, a mouth, all in black and white, etc) with great accuracy, or at least make useful assumptions about what is missing.
Even if someone theorizes that it is Abraham Lincoln, we still can't be certain that it isn't just a picture of someone dressed up to look like Abraham Lincoln, though that theory would still be as good as true in its predictive abilities and its application to scientific progress.
Again, evolution is supported just like any other field of science. If you attack the process by which the evidence in evolution is gathered and analyzed, then you attack the foundations of the same sciences that made solar power and nuclear weapons and CD players possible. Why is it that ID folk have no problem with astrophysics or geology, but simply can't abide by evolution when they are build upon the same principles of thought? Also, how does one ignore the large deficiencies of the Bible when it omits bus sized carnivores but a nearly complete (85%) skeleton is on public display in the Field Museum of Natural History? Oh, we don't have a hundred percent of the bones, or a complete carcass, or a living specimen, so it must just be an elephant skeleton that we have misconstrued as a Tyrannosaurus in order to undermine the Bible.
My only argument to this (as a USian) is that we cost more to bribe/propagandize than those in the other nations, and as a result have a higher quality of life in general. It's not really much of a defense, but it is the truth. We know we are being lied to, we are not blind to the corruption, we simply know that everyone has a price, and for better or for worse, our price leaves us living fairly comfortably. It's sad, it's selfish, but it's the way it is. We are not entirely hypocritical - we criticize the other nations because we want them to pay their citizens better for tolerating their corruption. We're trying to make the world a better place by increasing the cost of running dictatorships and police states such that the subjects of those states are comfortable and happy.
Government is a necessary evil, and corruption is unavoidable (greed is human nature). I hate the fact that we apparently tolerate corruption and propaganda at home (we should be more proactive at spotting it and stamping it out), but no nation can speak from a position of complete perfection. We are still one of the most desirable countries in which to live, so our compromises have worked out well so far - "so far" being a key point. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, but that might also be the price of happiness. Or perhaps the cost of happiness is eternal compromise. I think our current dissatisfaction comes not so much from the fact that our freedoms have been dramatically eroded recently, but that we haven't received sufficient compensation (in terms of financial or material well being) in exchange for them. The government/big corporations tried to give us all houses and a bull market that wouldn't stop, but that didn't work out so well.
This isn't, of course, the way we all feel. Invariably someone will reply and say that I have completely misrepresented the situation, or that I shouldn't sacrifice my rights at any cost. Idealists exist everywhere, and I appreciate them because without them we'd be in worse shape than we are now. Most people (myself included) are sheep, cattle. It takes a grave and personal injustice for me to stand up for my rights. I'll debate endlessly here on Slashdot about what is right, but taking action? That's somebody else's job. I'm not proud of it, but I don't deny it. Sadly, the vast majority of the population are like me, so while there'll be a whole slew of Slashdot posters that disagree with my stance, they are unfortunately in the minority outside of Slashdot (and probably within Slashdot as well, where people are MUCH braver on the forums than they are in real life).
I'm missing a geek security/political parallel there somewhere, though the UK has the correct stance from a security point of view. "Bad for citizens, good for networks"?
I agree with all your points, but just for humor's sake, I'm going to play devil's advocate to a few of them:
I'm almost 30 and I own several thousand comic books, probably 30 graphic novels, and actively collect 6 or 7 titles every month.
What's wrong with you? Even here on Slashdot we all (for very small values of "all") stopped buying comic books in the mid 90s or so once they all started sucking. Now we have to watch blockbuster Hollywood re-imaginings where they (often poorly) rehash the decent stories from the better days.
My wife is pregnant with our first child and I hope that I never become so irresponsible that I want the government to censor artistic expression because I'm too lazy to investigate the media my children are interested in before I let them consume it.
After the fourth or fifth episode of Barney/Teletubbies/whatever mind-numbing drivel passes as children's entertainment, you'll be begging to have some other poor schmuck suffer in your place to determine which are "safe". Am I rite?
But seriously, good post. I just couldn't resist the "funny because they are true (or at least grounded in truth)" observations. Comics mostly suck nowadays, and children's entertainment is largely like nails on the chalkboard while having your brain sucked out through a straw.
It's splitting hairs - the game is being launched from the card (in that you navigate to the game in the SD card's menu structure and select it for play there), but it is then (automagically) copied to the system memory for execution - behind the scenes such that to the typical user it appears to be playing from the card.
The end result, from a user point of view, is the same as if it were being played from the card except for one annoying point - the game size is still limited by the free internal memory on the Wii, meaning an 8 gig game is out, unless the Wii supports some system of virtualizing the system memory or loading the object in parts, which I suspect is possible.
So basically, you are both right, it just depends on how you look at it - from the technical perspective or from the user perspective - as well as the semantic detail - launching as opposed to executing.
He wasn't defending you, by the way. He was pointing out how ludicrous your argument was. Basically, you were saying that since you, personally, will never use this freedom, it has no value for anyone, anywhere, ever, and therefore should not be defended. Not only is that shortsighted and egocentric, it is - well, actually, I think shortsighted and egocentric pretty much covers it.
I'm like you, I don't like digging through other people's messy code. However, I like having the option to so that I can see how something was done so that I can use it to learn new techniques so that when or if I decide to build my own program I have another valuable tool in my toolbox. Also, though I am sorry that the tool you decided to dissect was a mess, a lot of open source code is clean and well documented. That may not be the norm (I haven't looked through much), but from what I have seen, it has improved dramatically over time.
Lastly, even though you may not see the value in being able to view and change code, as you mentioned in the last paragraph of your article, there are those that do. Because of them, FOSS improves and gives you the ability to dump one FOSS app for another that meets your needs better because someone that was willing to improve someone else's code had similar needs to yours. It allows those that like to tinker the ability to make changes to any FOSS app that you use to make it better by adding features that you will use. The point is, if you simply write off the FOSS ideals as useless because you don't take advantage of them directly, then fail to defend them because of that belief, you are missing the bigger picture and risk losing a resource that whether you know it or not you do benefit from.
FOSS appeals to more than just the people who maintain and improve the code, it appeals to anyone that uses it. In fact, I'd even argue that it benefits those that choose to use non-free alternatives as it provides competition - and when competing with free, proprietary has to be that much better in order to succeed with a price tag (and though the extent of this success is debatable, there is certainly increased pressure to improve for many, or FUD/lock-in for some few).
Right now, a web develoepr can rely on the fact that every visitor to his site is getting an up-to-date copy of the client software. We can have an interesting philosophical debate about whether they should rely on this assumption, or a much more practical one about how many do rely on it.
So I make non-backward-compatible changes to my website, and you run your cached/modified version of the client. Some features don't work. Your browser behaves in ways my server no longer expects. Depending on whether I forsaw this occurance, maybe the effect is harmless (except you're out of luck until you revert to a new download, and then start making your chnages again); or maybe if I was particularly clumsy or just have lousy luck, you corrupt some resource on the server.
Personally I don't see customization of web apps as a pressing need (prior to this article I've never thought about trying it, so clearly it isn't that important to my daily life). So to me, it isn't worth the trouble. YMMV.
Greasemonkey begs to differ - there is a very real and very popular desire to customize many aspects of popular websites, including the Javascript code in them. Greasemonkey also provides a solution to RMS's issue to an extent. It is not as accessible as he might like, and it doesn't solve the problem of programmatically determining whether you have the developer's permission to modify his code, but people are currently using it to make changes - maliciously or otherwise.
So you have two camps under RMS's plan - those that tag their client as free, in which case one would hope that they anticipate client side alteration, and those that do not, in which case they are still naive to expect that there will be no alteration of the client and such a change (bringing the possibility of that type of change into the public limelight) might achieve your "re-educating [of] every web developer". Just because it isn't common doesn't mean it isn't done, and whether browser developers embrace RMS's ideas or not doesn't change the fact that proper security should be a part of the design for every public facing resource.
So the argument, as you mentioned, is not that developers should know what they are doing, but simply that there already exists a desire to customize Javascript (even beyond just AJAX) applications and it needs to be made more accessible to the masses. Right now, people are modifying proprietary apps, which is likely a violation of TOU, because typically no license is included in the script portions of the page. He wants licensing to be made clear to the user so that they can easily detect what they are allowed to change and what they shouldn't (or should only at their own legal risk). More importantly for RMS, he could direct his browser to refuse to run any Javascript that is not free. That is the first step. Once it is clear what you can modify, then he wants the browser to have a simple method for activating your changes. Greasemonkey does this, I believe, but it is not built into the browser (and I don't think it should be, so I disagree with RMS on this point).
In TFA he extends the argument to Java applets, Flash, and Silverlight, which Greasemonkey does not cover as well (though by changing the calling pages you could force the page to load your local copy of the applet, etc), which adds a little more weight to his claim of inadequate current tools, even including third party add-ons.
The important part to remember, however, is that those that do not wish to play are free to not tag their programs as free, in which case they are free to continue on in the blissful belief that they can trust the client.
Acrobat works ok, I suppose. It is slow to load, but the thing that keeps me from using it is the updates.
I have to reboot my Windows box to update a document viewer? I can apply an entire Office service pack without rebooting, why do I have to reboot for Acrobat?
I don't need Yahoo or Google toolbar, or whatever they are pushing in the auto-updater nowadays. I don't want your crappy "free" image editor/viewer. Every time I update it, I have to carefully read each and every screen so they don't sneak in some crapware, then I have to reboot. It's unnecessarily annoying.
So I scrapped it, and have never looked back. Sumatra meets most my needs, though I do dip into Foxit if Sumatra has any rendering issues (very rare in my experience) or I need more advanced functionality.
The DNC registry should be scrapped and replaced by a law that any telemarketers that wish to make calls register all of their outbound numbers to a Telemarketer Registry. Then phone companies should regularly update their systems with that list (as the telemarketers do now with the DNC) and provide customers with a free service to block all incoming numbers on the list. Optionally, numbers from certain businesses can be unblocked if you have a reasonable expectation to receive calls from them (much like current email lists have the "friendly reminder" to make sure that your spam filter allows email from their domain).
Some fleshing for the finer details is needed (it could be tedious to make exceptions, and this places considerable burden on the phone provider), but in general I think that it would be far more efficient to maintain a list of telemarketer numbers than customer ones, and it places the burden of registering to the list on the party that potentially gains from the contact as opposed to the consumer that is more often than not uninterested in what the call might offer.
Evolution is just a theory, and the article makes it sound like there is an attempt to hide all of its perceived flaws or shortcomings. The reality is, any discussion of science should begin with an understanding of the Scientific Method, what a Theory IS, scientifically speaking, and then discussion of Evolution should include the acknowledgment that it is incompletely supported by evidence, but there is no strongly compelling evidence against it, and for well over 150 years newly found evidence has continued to provide additional support for the theory, and even influence various corrections, but has not contradicted the core principles of the theory. And that, in fact, the theory has provided usable information that has pointed scientists towards where and how to find many pieces of the supporting evidence.
I remember before the whole Creationist agenda gained its current momentum the big buzz phrase for evolution was "the missing link". There were many "missing links", all of varying sizes, of course, but THE missing link was presumably the one that linked apes to humans, or more accurately some point in that progression. Some people used it as an argument against evolution, but the argument mostly went along the lines of "evolution is fine, but humans are special" rather than a dispelling of the whole theory. However, most people seemed to see the "missing link" for what it was - a gap in the evidence, and fully expected scientists to find it eventually. It was the Holy Grail of evolutionists - everyone knew it existed, it was just a race to be the one to discover it. Somewhere between then and now, gaps in the fossil record became proof against evolution in the eyes of major portions of America.
But at the grade school level discussion of the minutia of the existing gaps is typically more advanced than any other material they are learning at that time. It'd be like getting into the math involved in quantum mechanics in high school physics classes. Even E=mc^2, which typically is mentioned at some point in high school physics is left in its abridged form and the Taylor series (required for increased accuracy as objects approach c - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence#Low-speed_expansion) is omitted.
The policy is designed more to prevent both muddying the waters and confusing students with false or unnecessary information than to "cover up" any gaps in the evidence for the theory of evolution, especially by promoting or providing undue emphasis on competing theories that are not widely accepted by the informed scientific community.
ID is not a theory. It does not stand on its own without evolution as its whole purpose is as an attack on evolution. If all the parts of ID that referenced evolution were removed from ID, all that would be left would boil down to "God created the universe and all the life we see within it more or less as it currently exists." That's simply Creationism. It may be non-denominational, but it is still nothing but religion and thus does not deserve to be mentioned even in passing in a science class.
Hmm. So, if faith is one of the highest virtues, and therefore God has hidden his existence intentionally as a test of faith, then all of the ID folks that point to various things as "irrefutable proof" of God's existence are therefore calling their God imperfect, non-omnipotent, and flawed. Or they are implicitly admitting that their observations are unprovable and rely on faith, and are therefore tacitly unscientific - thus NOT a scientific theory/fact.
This is one of the biggest problems I have with ID. I am an athiest, but if I were religious I would prefer Evolution over ID. The thought of a clockmaker God, one who has built a beautiful and intellectually engaging existence for us, challenging us with infinite puzzles and opportunity to view the beauty and complexity of His Creation is considerably more compelling than one who just took the easy way out and made a bland universe that simply is, and has no deeper meaning.
I guess that's just me. I'm a scientist at heart - I love the challenge, the discovery, the layered complexity of the world I live in. That is true beauty. I guess the ID folk just prefer to have all the answers given to them so they don't have to think.
This post is contentious, to be sure, but I have karma to burn...
It actually seemed to me more like he was saddled with this dog of a project and is hoping it dies quickly so he can move on to something that might actually have wings. It seemed he knew they were years behind their competitors and that they didn't really have a viable plan, but that his hands were tied and that it was probably some pet project of a higher-up, or some commitment that Microsoft had made years ago that they were bringing to market for no other reason than they had contractual obligations with "a partner" that it was cheaper to crash and burn the service than break the contract.
He knows full well that it won't garner any interest from consumers - with all of the other DRM laden services that have closed their doors (including a Microsoft one! - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080422-drm-sucks-redux-microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys.html) in the past year or so, he can't possibly believe that such a sub par service will "get some interest from consumers", and that they'll languish until somebody finally decided to pull the plug sometime next year.
Now, there may be trickery involved. "The ONLY music service for your Windows Mobile phone" seems like a dirty tactic MS could use to sucker people into using it, and if they do that, the service might just stay afloat for an extra year or two until people start catching on.
Before modding the parent down, please understand that he neglected to put in a sarcasm warning.
I know that politicians lie through their teeth to get elected, but I feel exceptionally taken by Obama's bait and switch.
Fittingly enough, the Slashdot fortune cookie for me today is "Sic transit gloria mundi. [So passes away the glory of this world.] -- Thomas `a Kempis"
Slashdot Mirror
Why do people keep spreading this FUD? The GPL is far more one-way than the BSD License. It's designed to be.
Yes, but it is designed to ensure that open source community benefits rather than some private entity. Or, more accurately, that the private entity is still able to benefit from it, it just can't stop others from benefiting as well.
So how is that any different than when one of Stallman's Faithful(TM) does the same thing?
Because when the change to the BSD code is added to code licensed under GPL, the changes are still available to the public. People can still learn from and improve that code and share their changes with the world. When a corporation does it, they can (at their option, of course) force you to pay in order to take advantage of those improvements and prevent you from accessing the source code and learning how the change was achieved.
Believe me, I'm not anti-corporation and I don't believe that corporations are necessarily evil. Google and IBM have made generous contributions to open source. I just think that is a corporation is going to take advantage of a public work (and open source to me is such a work), it should be required to share in that benefit. Just look at the bailouts happening now - should the beneficiaries of these bailouts be able to invest them into their business and make billions without giving anything back? No. At the very least, we should get back what was given, but it seems only fair that we also be given interest - this is what the GPL enforces.
And I don't claim that the BSD license is useless - indeed core standards required for interoperability need to be freely accessible to all (including corporations developing closed source code) in order to foster interoperability.
So, yes, if the original project (and its contributors) is your sole measure of benefiting society, then the GPL is arguably just as bad as a corporation stealing code. But if you consider the benefit to society at large (in other words the project's USERS) as your measure of benefit, then the difference between GPL and corporate adoption is obvious.
As far as I'm concerned, Sun (or anyone complicit in their activities re: Java) lost all right to bitch about this once every new version of Java consistently broke backwards compatibility with previous versions. I'm sick of updating to the latest version of Java and having every existing Java application (I'm looking at you, Cisco) stop working, even though you keep each previous version installed by default. I mean really, what's the point of having a half dozen versions of the JVM installed if the only thing it uses is the latest one?
And yes, I know you can tweak a file here and there to force a given application to use a given JVM (and, if the app - not Java - supports it, Launcher), but that fails to address two important issues - a) that a given java app can't specify what version of the JVM it wants, and b) that even within a given version (say 1.6 update 7 versus 1.6 update 11) the functionality of (and maybe even interfaces to) included objects changes to the point of breaking compatibility.
I used to hate Java (and JavaScript) because it took forever to load, turning a screaming fast Internet connection into a rush hour exercise in patience, but they improved that and I started singing the praises of Java and JavaScript. Then I found that even though JavaScript is still good, Java now drives me crazy because I can't keep it updated unless I want to get under the hood and fix everything it broke in the applications I use. And with the recent trend of releasing an updated JVM once every 2 months or so, this gets very tedious, very fast.
Transcript of NASA segment from the April 14th, 2009 Colbert show.
Colbert: As many of our watchers will recall, NASA recently had a contest allowing the public to vote for the new name for "Node 3", the newest module of the International Space Station. Thanks to you, my fans, the highest voted name was "Colbert". However, NASA reserves the right to select any name they choose, regardless of the results of the contest, leaving many wondering if my prestigious and time honored name will indeed grace the new module.
(laughter from audience)
Colbert: Tonight, we have a very special guest from NASA - a two time visitor to the International Space Station - here to officially announce the selected name. Please offer a warm welcome for Astronaut Sunita Williams!
(audience cheers) Sunita walks on stage, shakes hands with Colbert.
Colbert: Thank you for coming.
Sunita: It's a pleasure to be here.
Colbert: I know we are all waiting to hear what NASA has decided, but first tell the audience a little about yourself.
(Snipped for brevity - read about her here. She was one of the astronauts to use the ametuer radio stations on the station to talk with school children - very cool stuff.)
Colbert: Thank you "Suni". You've done some amazing things, and we look forward to the contributions yet to come. (applause from audience) Ok, it looks like we might have a revolt on our hands if we don't cut to the chase. NASA has chosen you to officially announce - here, tonight - the name of the newest module for the International Space Station.
Sunita: Yes.
Colbert: Then, without further delay, Sunita Williams, ladies and gentlemen.
Suinita: Thank you. "Node 3", as it has been known, is the newest addition to the ISS, due to be sent up February 2010. It will provide life support systems, including water recycling and oxygen generation, for the ISS. Tonight, it is my great honor to announce on behalf of NASA that it has now, officially, been renamed "Xenu". (laughter from audience) No, seriously.
(Sunita can't keep her face straight, causing Colbert to break from script with a smile. Sunita breaks into laughter)
Colbert: We are going to get sued for this.
End Transcript - sorry, you're going to have to wait for tomorrow's airing for the revelation of the true name.
So as an ISP what do you do? Eat the cost? Raise the rates for all your customers, even those that use 2GB/month? Kick off the high users for breaking an 'invisible' cap hinted at in your TOS? Or introduce tiered pricing, so those that use most, pay most?
Yes. Wait, what do you mean it was an either/or question? How are we supposed to boost our margins with that arbitrary limitation?
^ Fixed that for you.
Without copyright laws, the GPL would be unenforcible.
Without copyright laws, the GPL would be unnecessary. Without copyright laws, everything would be even more lax than BSD (which I believe still requires you to attribute your code). The purpose of the GPL is to acknowledge that because of copyright laws, a BSD style license is frequently a one way street - businesses use and enhance the software without giving anything back to the community, all the while they are able to sue if their changes to the code see unauthorized distribution. That is to say, business can have their cake and eat it too, stifling the free exchange of ideas. GPL forces companies to play fair if they decide to use the code, hence the GPP's use of the term "walled garden".
It seems to me that this strategy is more likely to provide fuel to the fire for overturning or severely diminishing Fair Use. If he can prove that electronic distribution of copyrighted works is covered under Fair Use, then it makes a strong case that Fair Use has overstepped its intended bounds. Wendy Seltzer says as much in the referenced Ars article, though I came to this conclusion just from reading the summary before deciding to make sure the summary wasn't just misleading.
The reference is from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In fact, 2001 is referenced in many other places, including the Technical Specifications page for CADIE (http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/tech.html) where they mention bringing her online January 12, 2009 (HAL was activated on January 12, 1997). Also, her notes for that clip specifically mentions HAL:
CADIE: Could there ever be a movie character who speaks to me more loudly than HAL? If parody tweaks the parodist as well as her target, this introduction of myself to the world cuts as deeply as the original.
Much of the monologue parodies HAL's lines from the movie/book:
HAL: Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
---
HAL: Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.
---
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
---
HAL: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
Touché, and well played indeed.
Large gaps. Okay, and what happened in Jesus's life between the Manger and adulthood? There is a large gap in the bible where that should be covered. Does that mean that Jesus was called back by God for a few years, then returned when he was fully grown? The more logical assumption would be that he grew up, just like a normal person, but that that information was either poorly documented or left out of the Bible due to lack of relevance. The point is, the Bible doesn't give a complete day by day or even year by year reckoning of the entire 6000 year history of the world it claims, and likewise neither does the available evidence supporting evolution have a piece of the puzzle that covers everything that happened in the last billion and a half years of life on Earth. Gaps in knowledge are expected when dealing with the past, whether you get your info from a divine source or from science. You make logical assumptions about the information that is missing and move on.
If written records from the last 6000 years can get lost, it is reasonable to assume that a pretty special set of circumstances has to take place to preserve many of the types of evidence for events that transpired millions or hundreds of millions of years ago. This, primarily, is the reason for these "large gaps" in the fossil records. In short, it is not proof that they never existed; while that may be, it is also likely that they were subsequently destroyed or have yet to be found, and indeed, the latter two options are the more likely.
With this, let me put into a simple analogy why evolution isn't "proved" and why it can not be. This is not a weakness of science as the creationists (or at least the ID folks) like to claim, it is simply a fact of information gathering when much of the information is lost. In other words, the preponderance of evidence supporting evolution is every bit as valid and unassailable as that supporting quantum mechanics and chemistry or any other theory in a life science field - evolutionists aren't trying to be anti-religious - the religious folk are the ones that attacked evolution, which has no more of an agenda than any other field.
Let's say we have a jigsaw puzzle of Abraham Lincoln, but we don't know that. Due to a fire, much of the puzzle is lost - maybe 90% of it (much more of the evidence for evolution is gone - greater than 99.99% I'd wager). Now, as we look at the pieces we have, we postulate that the picture is that of a man (we found a piece that has his beard), white, aged 50 or so. As we find new pieces, they further support our basic postulates (it is a picture of a man, white, aged 50ish), though they also allow us to refine (probably closer to 55, etc), or possibly prove wrong some of our previous assumptions on the finer points (oh, I guess it can't be a picture of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top), but the basic theory continues to be strengthened and allows us to continually predict what we should find (we expect to find two eyes, a nose, a mouth, all in black and white, etc) with great accuracy, or at least make useful assumptions about what is missing.
Even if someone theorizes that it is Abraham Lincoln, we still can't be certain that it isn't just a picture of someone dressed up to look like Abraham Lincoln, though that theory would still be as good as true in its predictive abilities and its application to scientific progress.
Again, evolution is supported just like any other field of science. If you attack the process by which the evidence in evolution is gathered and analyzed, then you attack the foundations of the same sciences that made solar power and nuclear weapons and CD players possible. Why is it that ID folk have no problem with astrophysics or geology, but simply can't abide by evolution when they are build upon the same principles of thought? Also, how does one ignore the large deficiencies of the Bible when it omits bus sized carnivores but a nearly complete (85%) skeleton is on public display in the Field Museum of Natural History? Oh, we don't have a hundred percent of the bones, or a complete carcass, or a living specimen, so it must just be an elephant skeleton that we have misconstrued as a Tyrannosaurus in order to undermine the Bible.
My only argument to this (as a USian) is that we cost more to bribe/propagandize than those in the other nations, and as a result have a higher quality of life in general. It's not really much of a defense, but it is the truth. We know we are being lied to, we are not blind to the corruption, we simply know that everyone has a price, and for better or for worse, our price leaves us living fairly comfortably. It's sad, it's selfish, but it's the way it is. We are not entirely hypocritical - we criticize the other nations because we want them to pay their citizens better for tolerating their corruption. We're trying to make the world a better place by increasing the cost of running dictatorships and police states such that the subjects of those states are comfortable and happy.
Government is a necessary evil, and corruption is unavoidable (greed is human nature). I hate the fact that we apparently tolerate corruption and propaganda at home (we should be more proactive at spotting it and stamping it out), but no nation can speak from a position of complete perfection. We are still one of the most desirable countries in which to live, so our compromises have worked out well so far - "so far" being a key point. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, but that might also be the price of happiness. Or perhaps the cost of happiness is eternal compromise. I think our current dissatisfaction comes not so much from the fact that our freedoms have been dramatically eroded recently, but that we haven't received sufficient compensation (in terms of financial or material well being) in exchange for them. The government/big corporations tried to give us all houses and a bull market that wouldn't stop, but that didn't work out so well.
This isn't, of course, the way we all feel. Invariably someone will reply and say that I have completely misrepresented the situation, or that I shouldn't sacrifice my rights at any cost. Idealists exist everywhere, and I appreciate them because without them we'd be in worse shape than we are now. Most people (myself included) are sheep, cattle. It takes a grave and personal injustice for me to stand up for my rights. I'll debate endlessly here on Slashdot about what is right, but taking action? That's somebody else's job. I'm not proud of it, but I don't deny it. Sadly, the vast majority of the population are like me, so while there'll be a whole slew of Slashdot posters that disagree with my stance, they are unfortunately in the minority outside of Slashdot (and probably within Slashdot as well, where people are MUCH braver on the forums than they are in real life).
UK = Deny by default
US = Allow by default
I'm missing a geek security/political parallel there somewhere, though the UK has the correct stance from a security point of view. "Bad for citizens, good for networks"?
Meh, needs dome refining.
I agree with all your points, but just for humor's sake, I'm going to play devil's advocate to a few of them:
I'm almost 30 and I own several thousand comic books, probably 30 graphic novels, and actively collect 6 or 7 titles every month.
What's wrong with you? Even here on Slashdot we all (for very small values of "all") stopped buying comic books in the mid 90s or so once they all started sucking. Now we have to watch blockbuster Hollywood re-imaginings where they (often poorly) rehash the decent stories from the better days.
My wife is pregnant with our first child and I hope that I never become so irresponsible that I want the government to censor artistic expression because I'm too lazy to investigate the media my children are interested in before I let them consume it.
After the fourth or fifth episode of Barney/Teletubbies/whatever mind-numbing drivel passes as children's entertainment, you'll be begging to have some other poor schmuck suffer in your place to determine which are "safe". Am I rite?
But seriously, good post. I just couldn't resist the "funny because they are true (or at least grounded in truth)" observations. Comics mostly suck nowadays, and children's entertainment is largely like nails on the chalkboard while having your brain sucked out through a straw.
It's splitting hairs - the game is being launched from the card (in that you navigate to the game in the SD card's menu structure and select it for play there), but it is then (automagically) copied to the system memory for execution - behind the scenes such that to the typical user it appears to be playing from the card.
The end result, from a user point of view, is the same as if it were being played from the card except for one annoying point - the game size is still limited by the free internal memory on the Wii, meaning an 8 gig game is out, unless the Wii supports some system of virtualizing the system memory or loading the object in parts, which I suspect is possible.
So basically, you are both right, it just depends on how you look at it - from the technical perspective or from the user perspective - as well as the semantic detail - launching as opposed to executing.
Thank you. That's right.
He wasn't defending you, by the way. He was pointing out how ludicrous your argument was. Basically, you were saying that since you, personally, will never use this freedom, it has no value for anyone, anywhere, ever, and therefore should not be defended. Not only is that shortsighted and egocentric, it is - well, actually, I think shortsighted and egocentric pretty much covers it.
I'm like you, I don't like digging through other people's messy code. However, I like having the option to so that I can see how something was done so that I can use it to learn new techniques so that when or if I decide to build my own program I have another valuable tool in my toolbox. Also, though I am sorry that the tool you decided to dissect was a mess, a lot of open source code is clean and well documented. That may not be the norm (I haven't looked through much), but from what I have seen, it has improved dramatically over time.
Lastly, even though you may not see the value in being able to view and change code, as you mentioned in the last paragraph of your article, there are those that do. Because of them, FOSS improves and gives you the ability to dump one FOSS app for another that meets your needs better because someone that was willing to improve someone else's code had similar needs to yours. It allows those that like to tinker the ability to make changes to any FOSS app that you use to make it better by adding features that you will use. The point is, if you simply write off the FOSS ideals as useless because you don't take advantage of them directly, then fail to defend them because of that belief, you are missing the bigger picture and risk losing a resource that whether you know it or not you do benefit from.
FOSS appeals to more than just the people who maintain and improve the code, it appeals to anyone that uses it. In fact, I'd even argue that it benefits those that choose to use non-free alternatives as it provides competition - and when competing with free, proprietary has to be that much better in order to succeed with a price tag (and though the extent of this success is debatable, there is certainly increased pressure to improve for many, or FUD/lock-in for some few).
Right now, a web develoepr can rely on the fact that every visitor to his site is getting an up-to-date copy of the client software. We can have an interesting philosophical debate about whether they should rely on this assumption, or a much more practical one about how many do rely on it.
So I make non-backward-compatible changes to my website, and you run your cached/modified version of the client. Some features don't work. Your browser behaves in ways my server no longer expects. Depending on whether I forsaw this occurance, maybe the effect is harmless (except you're out of luck until you revert to a new download, and then start making your chnages again); or maybe if I was particularly clumsy or just have lousy luck, you corrupt some resource on the server.
Personally I don't see customization of web apps as a pressing need (prior to this article I've never thought about trying it, so clearly it isn't that important to my daily life). So to me, it isn't worth the trouble. YMMV.
Greasemonkey begs to differ - there is a very real and very popular desire to customize many aspects of popular websites, including the Javascript code in them. Greasemonkey also provides a solution to RMS's issue to an extent. It is not as accessible as he might like, and it doesn't solve the problem of programmatically determining whether you have the developer's permission to modify his code, but people are currently using it to make changes - maliciously or otherwise.
So you have two camps under RMS's plan - those that tag their client as free, in which case one would hope that they anticipate client side alteration, and those that do not, in which case they are still naive to expect that there will be no alteration of the client and such a change (bringing the possibility of that type of change into the public limelight) might achieve your "re-educating [of] every web developer". Just because it isn't common doesn't mean it isn't done, and whether browser developers embrace RMS's ideas or not doesn't change the fact that proper security should be a part of the design for every public facing resource.
So the argument, as you mentioned, is not that developers should know what they are doing, but simply that there already exists a desire to customize Javascript (even beyond just AJAX) applications and it needs to be made more accessible to the masses. Right now, people are modifying proprietary apps, which is likely a violation of TOU, because typically no license is included in the script portions of the page. He wants licensing to be made clear to the user so that they can easily detect what they are allowed to change and what they shouldn't (or should only at their own legal risk). More importantly for RMS, he could direct his browser to refuse to run any Javascript that is not free. That is the first step. Once it is clear what you can modify, then he wants the browser to have a simple method for activating your changes. Greasemonkey does this, I believe, but it is not built into the browser (and I don't think it should be, so I disagree with RMS on this point).
In TFA he extends the argument to Java applets, Flash, and Silverlight, which Greasemonkey does not cover as well (though by changing the calling pages you could force the page to load your local copy of the applet, etc), which adds a little more weight to his claim of inadequate current tools, even including third party add-ons.
The important part to remember, however, is that those that do not wish to play are free to not tag their programs as free, in which case they are free to continue on in the blissful belief that they can trust the client.
Funny, I had the image of a guy carving grooves into an onion with a power tool. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Router_(woodworking))
Ah, Spaceballs. Maybe somebody with mod points will get it, and decide to waste them on an AC...
Acrobat works ok, I suppose. It is slow to load, but the thing that keeps me from using it is the updates.
So I scrapped it, and have never looked back. Sumatra meets most my needs, though I do dip into Foxit if Sumatra has any rendering issues (very rare in my experience) or I need more advanced functionality.
The DNC registry should be scrapped and replaced by a law that any telemarketers that wish to make calls register all of their outbound numbers to a Telemarketer Registry. Then phone companies should regularly update their systems with that list (as the telemarketers do now with the DNC) and provide customers with a free service to block all incoming numbers on the list. Optionally, numbers from certain businesses can be unblocked if you have a reasonable expectation to receive calls from them (much like current email lists have the "friendly reminder" to make sure that your spam filter allows email from their domain).
Some fleshing for the finer details is needed (it could be tedious to make exceptions, and this places considerable burden on the phone provider), but in general I think that it would be far more efficient to maintain a list of telemarketer numbers than customer ones, and it places the burden of registering to the list on the party that potentially gains from the contact as opposed to the consumer that is more often than not uninterested in what the call might offer.
In case the mention of the Babel Fish was not a dead giveaway, this is a quote from Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of novels.
Any chance to introduce someone to the marvel of Adam's works should be pursued...
This is exactly correct, IMO.
Evolution is just a theory, and the article makes it sound like there is an attempt to hide all of its perceived flaws or shortcomings. The reality is, any discussion of science should begin with an understanding of the Scientific Method, what a Theory IS, scientifically speaking, and then discussion of Evolution should include the acknowledgment that it is incompletely supported by evidence, but there is no strongly compelling evidence against it, and for well over 150 years newly found evidence has continued to provide additional support for the theory, and even influence various corrections, but has not contradicted the core principles of the theory. And that, in fact, the theory has provided usable information that has pointed scientists towards where and how to find many pieces of the supporting evidence.
I remember before the whole Creationist agenda gained its current momentum the big buzz phrase for evolution was "the missing link". There were many "missing links", all of varying sizes, of course, but THE missing link was presumably the one that linked apes to humans, or more accurately some point in that progression. Some people used it as an argument against evolution, but the argument mostly went along the lines of "evolution is fine, but humans are special" rather than a dispelling of the whole theory. However, most people seemed to see the "missing link" for what it was - a gap in the evidence, and fully expected scientists to find it eventually. It was the Holy Grail of evolutionists - everyone knew it existed, it was just a race to be the one to discover it. Somewhere between then and now, gaps in the fossil record became proof against evolution in the eyes of major portions of America.
But at the grade school level discussion of the minutia of the existing gaps is typically more advanced than any other material they are learning at that time. It'd be like getting into the math involved in quantum mechanics in high school physics classes. Even E=mc^2, which typically is mentioned at some point in high school physics is left in its abridged form and the Taylor series (required for increased accuracy as objects approach c - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence#Low-speed_expansion) is omitted.
The policy is designed more to prevent both muddying the waters and confusing students with false or unnecessary information than to "cover up" any gaps in the evidence for the theory of evolution, especially by promoting or providing undue emphasis on competing theories that are not widely accepted by the informed scientific community.
ID is not a theory. It does not stand on its own without evolution as its whole purpose is as an attack on evolution. If all the parts of ID that referenced evolution were removed from ID, all that would be left would boil down to "God created the universe and all the life we see within it more or less as it currently exists." That's simply Creationism. It may be non-denominational, but it is still nothing but religion and thus does not deserve to be mentioned even in passing in a science class.
Hmm. So, if faith is one of the highest virtues, and therefore God has hidden his existence intentionally as a test of faith, then all of the ID folks that point to various things as "irrefutable proof" of God's existence are therefore calling their God imperfect, non-omnipotent, and flawed. Or they are implicitly admitting that their observations are unprovable and rely on faith, and are therefore tacitly unscientific - thus NOT a scientific theory/fact.
This is one of the biggest problems I have with ID. I am an athiest, but if I were religious I would prefer Evolution over ID. The thought of a clockmaker God, one who has built a beautiful and intellectually engaging existence for us, challenging us with infinite puzzles and opportunity to view the beauty and complexity of His Creation is considerably more compelling than one who just took the easy way out and made a bland universe that simply is, and has no deeper meaning.
I guess that's just me. I'm a scientist at heart - I love the challenge, the discovery, the layered complexity of the world I live in. That is true beauty. I guess the ID folk just prefer to have all the answers given to them so they don't have to think.
This post is contentious, to be sure, but I have karma to burn...
It actually seemed to me more like he was saddled with this dog of a project and is hoping it dies quickly so he can move on to something that might actually have wings. It seemed he knew they were years behind their competitors and that they didn't really have a viable plan, but that his hands were tied and that it was probably some pet project of a higher-up, or some commitment that Microsoft had made years ago that they were bringing to market for no other reason than they had contractual obligations with "a partner" that it was cheaper to crash and burn the service than break the contract.
He knows full well that it won't garner any interest from consumers - with all of the other DRM laden services that have closed their doors (including a Microsoft one! - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080422-drm-sucks-redux-microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys.html) in the past year or so, he can't possibly believe that such a sub par service will "get some interest from consumers", and that they'll languish until somebody finally decided to pull the plug sometime next year.
Now, there may be trickery involved. "The ONLY music service for your Windows Mobile phone" seems like a dirty tactic MS could use to sucker people into using it, and if they do that, the service might just stay afloat for an extra year or two until people start catching on.
Before modding the parent down, please understand that he neglected to put in a sarcasm warning.
I know that politicians lie through their teeth to get elected, but I feel exceptionally taken by Obama's bait and switch.
Fittingly enough, the Slashdot fortune cookie for me today is "Sic transit gloria mundi. [So passes away the glory of this world.] -- Thomas `a Kempis"