Sun's business model was based on hardware, not software. CA's business model is as a large,, diversified software company (and Ingres is open source now, or didn't you notice?). Hummingbird did substantial work to get X running on Windows; surely that counts for something.
None of the examples you cite are actually examples of open source software being "taken closed" and making money. There are plenty of examples of ones who have not done well, including at least one X vendor for Linux.
You didn't reply to my answer before. You're confusing X with the desktop. Since X explicitly excludes the desktop, Irix, Solaris, and the rest all did their own. That MIT X was worthless to end users was their own doing.
They may or may not. That's up to the developer of the derivative work to decide, and he gets to choose the license for his work just as the original developer gets to choose for his work.
In no way can the developer of the derivative work take, destroy, influence, infringe, or inhibit the original developer's rights in his own work. This is the point that GPL zealots keep forgetting, ignoring, glossing over, or just plain lying about.
Eric's point is that people who take steps such as the ones in your first example always lose in the marketplace: they simply can't keep up with the pace of innovation in the open source world. Your first example also ignores the fact that the original code is always and forever freely available.
The second argument is the same: Yes, they can create a closed-source version of your code. History shows, however, that companies that do that never win. Not one company based on this business model has survived.
Nope. You always retain the right to your own work. If you use a non-GPL license, you do not claim any rights to anyone else's work; this is the GPL's distinguishing feature.
Nobody can forcibly take away your rights to your own work. This is a common misconception among GPL zealots and those who only listen to them. If I release a piece of software under a BSD license, even if someone takes that code and incorporates it in their own closed-source product, I still have complete rights to the original software.
You've got it exactly right. The FSF and its carde of GPL zealots are arguing based on their religion, not on the real world as it is. ESR's a lot more in touch with the real world.
RMS's insistence on the GPL is based on freedom for users, not programmers. In fact, programmers are the group that the GPL denies freedom to.
That people who try closed forks of open source projects hurt themselves is shown by history. For example, there were at least two companies that did closed-source versions of Apache? They're not around any more. They couldn't keep up with the Apache developer community.
ESR is not jealous of RMS. If anything, the reverse is true. There's some personal history between the two that it's not my place to divulge, but it makes the parent comment completely laughable.
Except for two minor details: 1) History shows that someone who tries it - whether the code is GPLed or not - invariably shoots themselves in the ass, and 2) your work cannot ever be taken closed-source without your consent. You always retain the rights to it.
...they dropped Schlock Mercenary from AdSense, they say, because of invalid clicks. Whether they're doing enough or not is, of course, open to dispute, but they do monitor clickthroughs.
A vac pump only costs a few thousand dollars, the rest costs a few hundred dollars.
Of course, you could probably buy a nice machine to take care of it all for a few 10k's.
*gasp*wheeeeze* Uhm...I'm not exactly made of money...
but the idea of a lab lyophilizer is a good one. I might be able to find a way to get access to one of those, assuming they'll hold a 10.5-inch reel of tape.
It's all IBM mainframe stuff, for OS/360 and its descendants, and DOS/360 and its descendants.
The machine I read the data with is a Compaq Proliant 1850R running, at the moment, Red Hat 9 and Hercules current CVS. The 9-track drive is a Qualstar 3412S, and the 3480-compatible drive is a Fujitsu.
This has been suggested as well; the main reason I haven't tried it is that I haven't had a tape with the problem that was unimportant enough to be able to lose should the experiment fail.
One other suggestion I'll make: you can run VMS either on a VAX (or an Alpha), or on Bob Supnik's SIMH emulator, and at least save yourself the hassle of reverse engineering the save file format. You can find info on the VMS Hobbyist License program at the OpenVMS Hobbyist Program site.
If you get a TK50-compatible SCSI drive, you can either attach it directly to the VMS system or else copy the tape data to a disk image file and process it from there.
I regularly read 9-track tapes written in the late 60s.
The tapes I have the most problems with are actually from about 1984-1987 or so...Memorex and BASF switched to a binder (the stuff that keeps the oxide on the tape) in those years that tends to migrate to the surface, making the tape stick to the read/write head and preventing it from reading correctly. There are ways of correcting the problem long enough to read the data, but I haven't been able to try any of them (the best, supposedly, is to run the tape through the same process used to freeze-dry food commercially).
You'd be amazed at what we've got running under Hercules...there's a lot of computing history being lost because people threw away old round tapes, thinking "Oh, we'll never run THAT again". A guy used an emulator to rescue old census data from Africa (was the story reported here? It wasn't that long ago), and that kind of thing will be only seen more as time goes on.
If you know of old IBM mainframe software on tape, drop me a note; chances are I can recover it. I've got 9-track and 3480 cartridge tape drives on a PC just for that purpose.
If Paul Graham supports spamming by giving spammer-friendly ISPs his dollars, he deserves to get blocklisted. He should be complaining about the spammer and the ISP's failure to terminate their accound, not the blocklist.
Wonder if Nokia will fix the animated.GIF display bugs that Safari on Tiger has? I can reliably crash Safari looking at one, and there's another that doesn't display on the web page it's part of, but will display if loaded by itself.
Folders may die, but what about directories?
on
The Death of Folders?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The idea of a folder as a visual reference for a directory may well be on the way out. There's still plenty of need for directories and hierarchical organization, though, for managing the contents of a system from the standpoint of software. OS X's Unix base is pretty heavily dependent on the basic Unix filesystem structure, and lots of software is built with a deeply ingrained assumption that it's there and the way files are organized.
Spotlight is great for users, but there will be a need for something like the Finder indefinitely.
Note that qmail, an alternative mail transport program, generates post-reception bounce messages in circumstances where other mail transports would have refused the reception. This means every qmail site is basically an open spam relay. For this reason alone, qmail should never be used by anyone.
Wonder how long it'll be before Jef gets a lawsuit threat from that litigious asshole Dan Bernstein, author of qmail?
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Sun's business model was based on hardware, not software. CA's business model is as a large,, diversified software company (and Ingres is open source now, or didn't you notice?). Hummingbird did substantial work to get X running on Windows; surely that counts for something.
None of the examples you cite are actually examples of open source software being "taken closed" and making money. There are plenty of examples of ones who have not done well, including at least one X vendor for Linux.
You didn't reply to my answer before. You're confusing X with the desktop. Since X explicitly excludes the desktop, Irix, Solaris, and the rest all did their own. That MIT X was worthless to end users was their own doing.
They may or may not. That's up to the developer of the derivative work to decide, and he gets to choose the license for his work just as the original developer gets to choose for his work.
In no way can the developer of the derivative work take, destroy, influence, infringe, or inhibit the original developer's rights in his own work. This is the point that GPL zealots keep forgetting, ignoring, glossing over, or just plain lying about.
Eric's point is that people who take steps such as the ones in your first example always lose in the marketplace: they simply can't keep up with the pace of innovation in the open source world. Your first example also ignores the fact that the original code is always and forever freely available.
The second argument is the same: Yes, they can create a closed-source version of your code. History shows, however, that companies that do that never win. Not one company based on this business model has survived.
Nope. You always retain the right to your own work. If you use a non-GPL license, you do not claim any rights to anyone else's work; this is the GPL's distinguishing feature.
Nobody can forcibly take away your rights to your own work. This is a common misconception among GPL zealots and those who only listen to them. If I release a piece of software under a BSD license, even if someone takes that code and incorporates it in their own closed-source product, I still have complete rights to the original software.
FWIW, ESR disagrees with my .sig too.
You've got it exactly right. The FSF and its carde of GPL zealots are arguing based on their religion, not on the real world as it is. ESR's a lot more in touch with the real world.
RMS's insistence on the GPL is based on freedom for users, not programmers. In fact, programmers are the group that the GPL denies freedom to.
That people who try closed forks of open source projects hurt themselves is shown by history. For example, there were at least two companies that did closed-source versions of Apache? They're not around any more. They couldn't keep up with the Apache developer community.
Nice picture. Wish I'd taken it. Well lit, good use of depth of field, well composed, shows the subject well.
I also wish I could play a musical instrument, but that's one talent I completely lack.
ESR is not jealous of RMS. If anything, the reverse is true. There's some personal history between the two that it's not my place to divulge, but it makes the parent comment completely laughable.
Except for two minor details: 1) History shows that someone who tries it - whether the code is GPLed or not - invariably shoots themselves in the ass, and 2) your work cannot ever be taken closed-source without your consent. You always retain the rights to it.
ESR is in the process of writing an essay on the subject, although he tells me it's not quite ready for release just yet.
...they dropped Schlock Mercenary from AdSense, they say, because of invalid clicks. Whether they're doing enough or not is, of course, open to dispute, but they do monitor clickthroughs.
Is M$ still asserting patent claims over either or both?
A vac pump only costs a few thousand dollars, the rest costs a few hundred dollars.
Of course, you could probably buy a nice machine to take care of it all for a few 10k's.
*gasp*wheeeeze* Uhm...I'm not exactly made of money...
but the idea of a lab lyophilizer is a good one. I might be able to find a way to get access to one of those, assuming they'll hold a 10.5-inch reel of tape.
It's all IBM mainframe stuff, for OS/360 and its descendants, and DOS/360 and its descendants.
The machine I read the data with is a Compaq Proliant 1850R running, at the moment, Red Hat 9 and Hercules current CVS. The 9-track drive is a Qualstar 3412S, and the 3480-compatible drive is a Fujitsu.
This has been suggested as well; the main reason I haven't tried it is that I haven't had a tape with the problem that was unimportant enough to be able to lose should the experiment fail.
One other suggestion I'll make: you can run VMS either on a VAX (or an Alpha), or on Bob Supnik's SIMH emulator, and at least save yourself the hassle of reverse engineering the save file format. You can find info on the VMS Hobbyist License program at the OpenVMS Hobbyist Program site.
If you get a TK50-compatible SCSI drive, you can either attach it directly to the VMS system or else copy the tape data to a disk image file and process it from there.
I regularly read 9-track tapes written in the late 60s.
The tapes I have the most problems with are actually from about 1984-1987 or so...Memorex and BASF switched to a binder (the stuff that keeps the oxide on the tape) in those years that tends to migrate to the surface, making the tape stick to the read/write head and preventing it from reading correctly. There are ways of correcting the problem long enough to read the data, but I haven't been able to try any of them (the best, supposedly, is to run the tape through the same process used to freeze-dry food commercially).
You'd be amazed at what we've got running under Hercules...there's a lot of computing history being lost because people threw away old round tapes, thinking "Oh, we'll never run THAT again". A guy used an emulator to rescue old census data from Africa (was the story reported here? It wasn't that long ago), and that kind of thing will be only seen more as time goes on.
If you know of old IBM mainframe software on tape, drop me a note; chances are I can recover it. I've got 9-track and 3480 cartridge tape drives on a PC just for that purpose.
If Paul Graham supports spamming by giving spammer-friendly ISPs his dollars, he deserves to get blocklisted. He should be complaining about the spammer and the ISP's failure to terminate their accound, not the blocklist.
Wonder if Nokia will fix the animated .GIF display bugs that Safari on Tiger has? I can reliably crash Safari looking at one, and there's another that doesn't display on the web page it's part of, but will display if loaded by itself.
The idea of a folder as a visual reference for a directory may well be on the way out. There's still plenty of need for directories and hierarchical organization, though, for managing the contents of a system from the standpoint of software. OS X's Unix base is pretty heavily dependent on the basic Unix filesystem structure, and lots of software is built with a deeply ingrained assumption that it's there and the way files are organized.
Spotlight is great for users, but there will be a need for something like the Finder indefinitely.
Note that qmail, an alternative mail transport program, generates post-reception bounce messages in circumstances where other mail transports would have refused the reception. This means every qmail site is basically an open spam relay. For this reason alone, qmail should never be used by anyone.
Wonder how long it'll be before Jef gets a lawsuit threat from that litigious asshole Dan Bernstein, author of qmail?
Merciful $DEITY. How much of a crackpot can one person be?
If anyone ever deserved to go to prison for felony st00pid, this guy does (assuming, of course, that he's actually guilty).