You are apparently confusing permission and ability. Freedom is about permission, not skill. You might not have time to read and understand complete corresponding source code, but the free software movement has proven that collectively this work can be done because it is being done. Very complex programs are being read, written, and maintained for our mutual benefit by collective action. People must be allowed to decide for themselves what level of programming they want to undertake.
You'd have us believe that a phone works radically differently from any other networked computer. You don't have full access to most servers you use now but you'd be a fool to think that software freedom does you no favors to make your computer more trustworthy. Installing spyware without my consent on my 100% trustworthy phone would not be possible because such a phone lets me disallow installation of whatever software I want to disallow. The conversation data could be copied and stored but that's no different than tapping into the line; this has to do with the trouble with relying on other computers to get work done, and to some degree this problem is mitigated. The situation we face is not perfection or nothing; FLOSS didn't get as far as it has come by giving up because perfection is unattainable.
As for guarantees, I never said anything was guaranteed. Speaking of guarantees is silly. Real life offers no guarantee you'll understand and modify computer program source code, the plumbing in a house, the inner workings of your own body, and other complex things. Many other fields benefit from studying available documentation and doing experiments to figure out how things work and improve collective understanding. Proprietary software is different because it is designed to prevent such documentation and experimentation, therefore proprietary software puts us in a position of dependency not freedom. People apparently need to increase the odds that they can run something trustworthy. That trust comes from software freedom for cell phone software just like free software for any other computer. Anyone should be allowed to learn to program and control their computer entirely. We all need software freedom for all of our programs.
As I'm sure you know: Without complete corresponding source code to all of the software running on a phone, you'll never know the answer to those questions.
RMS knew the solution to this problem before the problem became widespread (as he often does) and he got the solution right early on: this is a social problem, not a technological problem. The solution is software freedom for all computer users for all the software they run.
Sadly, the Carrier IQ debacle is unlikely to propel people to see this solution. The problem is too weak in its urgency because Carrier IQ's (or any other workalike) privacy violations are merely annoying or scary. Privacy violations usually don't kill or maim anyone. Also, the affected audience has low market value: the general public. When proprietary software used in internal medical devices fails and kills someone, there will be another opportunity to talk of software freedom as a social solution to be taken seriously. And, for a time, people will be more receptive to the idea that all computer users deserve software freedom. People seem to have no problem hiring professionals in other fields they don't understand (plumbers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, builders) so it's not far-fetched to expect the public to hire computer programmers to inspect and modify programs on their behalf.
Talking about being "forced into buy e-books" is a lame cop-out of the important social issues at the heart of DRM—readers rights: what rights do readers have with the work they legally acquired, who benefits from the loss of readers' rights, and should readers stand for the loss of their rights.
DRM reduces (sometimes eliminates) reader's rights to resell the work, copy portions of the work, or experience (in this case read) the work whenever the reader chooses and do so without monitoring. That is unacceptable at any price but it's not the price that makes these restrictions unacceptable. As to the cop-out issue raised by the poster who started this thread (DRM not being "the biggest issue at the moment"): DRM is a huge issue that will only get bigger as time goes on as DRM appears in more electronics. Users do notice DRM all too late. I do my part to warn them against doing business with any organization that sells DRM-encumbered products or services, but people invariably figure it out with some inconvenience.
But this is the thin end of the wedge. Right now this inconvenience means something relatively small like not being able to read some e-book they acquired legally because they're outside an acceptable zone for reading a particular book. But miniature electronics are inside people's bodies now and DRM there could be deadly. Karen Sandler, co-host of the Software Freedom Law Show, has an enlarged heart. She wears a monitor/defibrillator on her heart to keep her heart in check. I'd hate to think what someone would suffer if some business plan meant installing DRM code onto a medical device like that and failing to operate because the owner was on the 'wrong side of the tracks'. Technologically speaking, there's nothing to stop this from coming to pass. We, collectively, are in a weaker position thinking of this in a technocratic way by waiting for some horror to pass and dreaming up technical workarounds to make bad outcomes less likely than we are to assert an argument that says what the allowable limits of debate ought to be. Politically I think we have a better chance to educate the public about the problems of DRM and make it less likely to become an accepted way of doing business now that it's relatively new and not yet installed everywhere.
If Lego freed the client and server this would not be the first time an MMO was freed. Freeing the complete source code to play the game and build upon the game is the best way to treat the users.
It was one thing when it came to buying digital music. You could spend $1 to get the song that you wanted, rather than paying $25 to get a CD with the song that you wanted. That's a big enough price difference to make it worthwhile. But with e-books, it's just stupid to spend $15 on a e-book, while the actual book is only $17.
But you're merely haggling over price, as the old joke goes. I don't think digital handcuffs become acceptable at any price because I don't want to be taken advantage of. The physical book confers rights of ownership DRM is designed to take away regardless of how little one pays for the DRM-riddled alternative. As George Hoteling saw first hand years ago, one might not have right of first sale anymore. Even ostensible advantages one might imagine come nearly free in digital format aren't necessarily there like they should be as Wil Wheaton saw when he updated his iPod software with Apple software and lost all of his tracks only to learn Apple would restore them in what Wheaton called a "one-time only do-over to replace all of your purchased music, free of charge". Magnatune.com, on the other hand, lets you restore purchased tracks as many time as you want, share tracks with others, and Magnatune always sold its wares DRM-free. Inexpensive digital media doesn't become more attractive with restrictions management.
Nobody needed to, but people did so they could set up their fiefdom more effectively. It's the same sentiment that drives various "app stores" and other attempts at monopoly. It's not easy to impose ridiculous rules when one has to build on systems like email and NNTP. It's apparently more effective to develop one's own system with preposterous rules and play to a naive sense that says popularity is more important than anything else.
No, you talk as if someone is forcing rms' talks on us or rms is forced to give these talks. You can't complain about how trivial you think his conditions are without looking foolish for having been given a chance to see those conditions beforehand. Those people are now getting this information in advance of an rms talk and could choose to say to him that they find the terms too "extreme" to agree with and break the agreement. The point here goes to rms for being so straightforward about what he wants.
rms is not putting on a power display, getting "people [to] jump through flaming hoops for [him]", or "show[ing] their superiority" (although some people who ought to know better get his movement wrong so clearly he possesses superior knowledge of his movement). rms disagrees with some of the all-too-often unspoken underlying assumptions behind proprietary software, and he doesn't like the effects it has on the public.
Giving an arranged lecture is not like standing in line, and rms would never have anything to do with buying a computer he couldn't fully control. His dedication to an ethical standard that benefits the public without controlling them, keeping them on a purchasing treadmill, or denying them software freedom is what separates him from Wozniak. And we're all better off for having more people of rms' high ethical standards in our lives. "Normalcy" should be defined by our respect for our mutual freedom, not our subservience.
Therefore you should acknowledge how organized, honest, and complete rms is and thank him for being so clear with everyone he talks with, even if you don't agree with his values.
These points are his choices and you're better off knowing his choices so clearly and in advance. Complaining about this level of honesty and clarity only makes you look like you don't understand how beneficial it is to have this information before choosing to do business with rms.
A planned speaking engagement is not like "talking to a reporter" (which is off-the-cuff). Reporters who claim to represent his values in their reportage should be expected to get their facts straight, and the fact is rms talks at length on how free software and open source are not the same. It's right and proper if he doesn't want people conflating his movement with a movement that doesn't share his values. More importantly, it's his choice whether to agree to give a talk at a venue that doesn't display his values and we should relish his honesty.
It's his choice whether he wants to speak at events that misframe his message and his choice if "such people are the ones who might most benefit from his message". Perhaps such people would be better off if they were to visit more talks and read more books, including ones that champion software freedom.
And if David Kappos' recent move is any indication, her next big step is clear: head up the US Patent and Trademark Office when Kappos leaves. I'm guessing that IBM would love this move because there she can better serve IBM's interests against those of the public. Kappos, current USPTO Director, was former IBM vice president and assistant general counsel of "intellectual property" law. IBM holds the most patents. First-to-file undoubtedly helps large firms like IBM because large firms hire lots of lawyers to file all sorts of patent applications. The more patents IBM holds, the more IBM can cross-license their way out of any threatened patent litigation by threatening countersuit and then negotiating a patent license.
OSS software would have its source available, but also would not be of much use after such a long span of time.
There is no way to know what the utility of a program will be later on and such matters should not be judged subjectively based on perceived utility in the first place. A shorter term of copyright could very easily place FLOSS developers in a position which essentially contributes work to proprietors; the shorter the term of copyright, the less time proprietors need to wait to release a proprietary version of even a strongly-copylefted free software program like GNU Emacs. The essay I linked to answers your question rather directly.
For software (and possibly other classes of work as the Copyright Office sees fit) we should require as part of the registration process not only the deposit formality, i.e.that a copy of the work be deposited with the Library of Congress (as is usually the case), but that any and all supplemental information required by the Copyright Office also be deposited.
Your proposal would go against the power of copyright as it is today by making program source code readable by anyone. I think that alone would make the plan unworkable. Stallman's proposal merely changes what happens when the program enters the public domain by repairing the unfairness to users introduced by the Pirate Party's plan for a shorter term of copyright:
I could support a law that would make GPL-covered software's source code available in the public domain after 5 years, provided it has the same effect on proprietary software's source code. After all, copyleft is a means to an end (users' freedom), not an end in itself. And I'd rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright.
So I proposed that the Pirate Party platform require proprietary software's source code to be put in escrow when the binaries are released. The escrowed source code would then be released in the public domain after 5 years. Rather than making free software an official exception to the 5-year copyright rule, this would eliminate proprietary software's unofficial exception. Either way, the result is fair.
Notice that Stallman's proposal only applies to proprietary software as makes sense since free software respects users freedoms straight away.
Longer terms of copyright is no solution but short copyright terms means FLOSS programmers end up contributing to proprietors as if they were public-minded charities while giving the public nothing in exchange. Considering a 5-year term of copyright, Richard Stallman correctly points out:
[W]hat would be the effect of terminating this program's copyright after 5 years? This would not require the developer to release source code, and presumably most will never do so. Users, still denied the source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom. The program could even have a “time bomb” in it to make it stop working after 5 years, in which case the “public domain” copies would not run at all.
Thus, the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years. The Free World would get the bad, but not the good. The difference between source code and object code and the practice of using EULAs would give proprietary software an effective exception from the general rule of 5-year copyright — one that free software does not share.
I think the Pirate Party should take Stallman's warnings more seriously than I've heard Falkvinge take them in the past (I believe it was a Google talk in which Falkvinge merely dismissed Stallman's concerns without ever responding to them seriously and the questioner, perhaps not recognizing the dismissal, didn't follow-up to get a serious answer). Like Stallman says, "I'd rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright" and I would rather not have to forgo FLOSS development because copyright law is written to favor proprietors in the form of gifting FLOSS contributions to proprietors.
The form of time bomb Stallman speaks of could be done in a way that would not qualify as DRM in most people's minds, so any discussion of disallowing DRM would not necessarily save anyone: a program that is designed and built to require a server to run and provide any functionality coupled with server-side accounts that are built to expire after 5 years. The program runs but becomes useless to most people running the program in the ordinary fashion. Couple this with no source code under a free license and the user is not only left out after some planned obsolescence but possibly facing a community of apologists who claim that the user should expect no better.
Most computer users today are taught to think of personal convenience and price first, not ever taught to think of the consequences of their choices. Thus most users are left vulnerable to arrangements they won't discover until years after they've paid for service (buying Major League Baseball recording viewing privileges online, or doing business with most media services like iTunes or Wal-Mart, are a few examples).
Not entirely, and now that their catalog includes more than music the same old issues have continued. In early 2009 Apple said that they had removed DRM from 80% of their music catalog. Today, as I understand it, audio books still have DRM, earlier-purchased audio tracks still have DRM, and of course (as should be apparent given Wheaton's story you quoted) videos have DRM.
Wil Wheaton nailed it when he said "make it simple, make it cheap, and folks WILL buy it. Make it expensive and a pain to use? people will just BT". he gave a perfect example, he bought the Doctor Who episodes on iTunes and then when he crossed the Canadian border his videos wouldn't play so his first thought was 'If I would have just pirated it i'd be watching my shows now".
I'm glad to see that he's coming around to seeing this from a more wisened user's perspective, but apparently he still has much to learn about doing business with Apple and becoming more articulate about defining his interests. In 2006 Wheaton lost all of his iTunes tracks while "upgrading" to some version of iTunes. Wheaton contacted Apple and then Apple restored the lost tracks to his account. Wheaton treated this as a reason to do business with Apple ("If you make a purchase from the iTunes Music Store, and something horrible happens and you lose all your music, Apple will give you a one-time only do-over to replace all of your purchased music, free of charge.") instead of looking at this as a problem to be solved. Removing all DRM and letting users make copies of the media puts users in a position where users can rescue themselves from unfortunate losses. Users ought to be able to re-download purchased media as many times as they wish, and share tracks as well. Magnatune.com, by contrast, does all of this: they never got into the DRM game so Magnatune has no (apparently halfway) Apple-style backtracking to go through on DRM. Magnatune contributes to FLOSS player programs; programs that give technically-minded users the opportunity to inspect programs before you run them so users don't walk into the trap Wheaton experienced in 2006 with iTunes. Magnatune lets users re-download purchased tracks as much as the customer wishes upon supplying an email address at purchase time (for logging in). Magnatune also lets you share membership downloads with some friends. Purchasing media from Magnatune means you can play the media as much as you want without anyone tracking what you play, where you play it, or restricting what you use to play the media they sell.
The dual PSU is an issue, but the mini's are so small and cheap enough why wouldn't you just be running several and have hot failover to the working ones?
Isn't this a way of saying one should only run services that have a failover mechanism built into them?
[...] "but lacks the enterprise features that previous print servers had"
MacOS X print serving was always a joke even for OD-bound Macs in a strictly Mac environment (i.e., using nothing but what Apple would sell you). One would expect an OpenDirectory server to publish a PPD alongside a URL to a printer location (such as one might need to do if one uses EFI RIPs and the corresponding EFI PPD to connect to an LPR print queue). No way; one must distribute the PPD via other means (static image, radmind, package install system, one-off local install, what have you) and then publish the print queue with the OD server pointing to wherever that PPD is installed on the machine. This is remarkably immature printer serving.
Deleting managed printers from the client is not straightforward. This should be as simple as removing the printer from the relevant group the client is in, logging the client out, and logging back in as a valid user on the client. But in practice this generally requires removing a bunch of managed print queues (the ones named "mcx_" followed by a number) then letting OD push down the printer set you want.
It would be easier, less time-consuming, and more predictable to "manage" the printers by giving the relevant CLI CUPS commands manually. At least then you'd get feedback about how well printer creation went and you would know what's going on each step of the way.
Setting up shared print queues on MacOS X Server is also a time-consuming joke as you wait for the Apple-made UI let you indicate which protocols you'll use to share a print queue.
Bear in mind that, if put to a legal test, parts of the license could be found unenforceable, in which case someone could escape the terms of the GPL.
We should not talk about the GPL as if it has never been scrutinized in court before. I know of no case where some part of the GPL was deemed unenforceable. I know of the opposite: a judge telling the litigants that the GPL is enforceable and that the alleged copyright infringer should clean up their act (the implication being that the defendant won't like what happens after one is found to have violated the license) followed by an out-of-court settlement.
Another possible loophole is the definition of a "derivative work". Generally I think we assume that if a project pulls in some code that is identifiable as having been part of a GPL product, then that project (according to the GPL) must also be licensed by the GPL. But that assertion, too, is something that would have to be tested.
I very much doubt that identifying a derivative work is new. Copyright has dealt with derivative works for a long time. Why would the GPL pose substantial novelty here? Overall in copyright and with regards to the GPL specifically, I don't think there's as much new ground here as you think there is; the GPL was built on remarkably well-trod ground. I think of this in the way Eben Moglen taught us to think of it: would-be litigants are wise not to take this kind of case to court on the theory that the GPL is somehow untested because plenty of lawyers in large firms have looked at the GPL and declined to go to court after examining what the GPL says. I'm reminded of one case I saw the outcome of but never noticed go to court: NeXT's Steve Jobs apparently thought it was okay to build on GCC with NeXT's Objective-C code and distribute the result without also distributing complete corresponding source code. Talk about ethically and intellectually challenged. The FSF talked to NeXT and NeXT shipped complete corresponding source code afterwards. I doubt NeXT changed their mind without running it past the lawyers first.
None of these things are your fault but nowhere on that page do I see anything that would explain why Apple is so far behind its competitors in enterprise offerings for hardware or software. I'm surprised Apple's proprietary software is so incapable of scaling out well and has been this poor for so long.
Take the appalling lack of bugfixes in some of their software: login restrictions don't work as advertised with Active Directory or Open Directory (and verified by an Apple employee). This has been going on for 2 major versions of the OS (10.5 and 10.6) at least. Service ACLs are sort of a clever workaround but no real substitute for the functionality one is supposed to get with allow/deny groups (which actually seems like a neat feature!). Workgroup Manager (which you'll use a lot if you configure OD stuff) is needlessly hard to use because its interface is pretty much amateur hour. WGM still has display bugs (don't resize that window too large or too small, and don't expect to easily see nested group relationships); you can never really add AD computer objects to OD groups reliably even though one would expect that if the computer is running and set to connect to the OD server in question, the OD server could interrogate the client to get whatever information it needs to be a first-class member of an OD group. Some of the things Apple implements with OD are nice: a single simple approach to app configuration details (plists) but there's much missing and this hasn't changed in years.
Apple has no serious package management system. I get better package management from my free software systems I run at home. Apple's packages aren't terribly useful to upgrade versions cleanly, track what's installed, allow integration with local configuration data, and a host of other things I can do with FLOSS package managers. MacOS users still think that proper app management can result from dragging something to the trash but there's no accounting for anything outside the appwrapper in this scenario. Relying on app developers to supply an uninstall method strikes me as unwise.
Printer management on MacOS for enterprises continues to unimpress me: version after version I see no major changes here. To fully set up a printer and its PPD options (printer trays, duplexing, etc.) one must either configure the PPD ahead of time and use some other tool to put it into place (radmind, static imaging, a package deployment system: you'll probably end up using static imaging plus a system Apple doesn't supply highlighting the incompleteness of Apple's approach), or one must configure the PPD on the client in place (via Apple Remote Desktop or scripting). Cleanly pushing down complete printer configs with PPDs/drivers is still not an option for MacOS and by now it should be. CUPS is still excellent for what it does (and still free software!) but deploying printer config entries is typical enterprise work and this needs a lot of development work on Apple's part to be taken more seriously.
And then there's the server hardware: always a joke. Xserves were never really that great when compared to what one could get at the time with garden-variety PC servers. Even if you thought Xserves were adequate (I know no admin well-versed in PC hardware who thinks this) Xserves went away leaving the non-rackmountable Mac Pro and the Mini with two harddrives. The Mini "server" offers no way to get to the drives without powering the Mini down. Minis are still hard to disassemble to get to the hard drive, so plan on downtime and frustration as you open the case. This is what Apple seriously offers for server use. Then Xserves became a third-party offering with some degree of Apple blessing (I'm guessing). This simply doesn't instill confidence that Apple cares about enterprise support. This progression makes me think Apple is trying hard to walk away from enterprise use without coming clean with their users and saying so. I suspect Apple wants each MacOS user to be managed by Apple (like iOS devices are) and that's not the ki
There's no need to choose between boycotting the manufacturer and criminal prosecution. Both are available to all of us and both should be used.
"The computers have already sold" makes it sound like future sales with keyloggers are impossible. Samsung is not the only organization who can do this either.
Then you shouldn't have any problem listing these things in detail. I doubt what you're saying is true. I think it's far more likely Eben Moglen's description is the case: (paraphrased) announce GPLv4 and people will love GPLv3 like a brother. This is what happened with GPLv2: when it was announced work began on GPLv3, suddenly GPLv2 was loved.
Some of what Apple does reveals Apple to be just another proprietor who built their fortunes on free software: they know they can't go far without software freedom, and they want to treat the free software community as a market, but they don't want to behave as a member of the free software community.
As for being "quite happy to contribute to GCC", that simply is not true. NeXT committed copyright infringement and GCC's copyright holder (FSF) compelled them to comply with GCC's license (GPLv2). Bradley Kuhn describes it succinctly, "Apple lawyers have a pathological hatred of GPL, which he believes comes directly down from Steve Jobs, who began his dislike of GPL when he tried, while at NeXT, to distribute a proprietary front-end for GCC for Objective-C." and Richard Stallman talks of this in the essay Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism explaining why GCC can compile Objective-C:
NeXT initially wanted to make this front end proprietary; they proposed to release it as.o files, and let users link them with the rest of GCC, thinking this might be a way around the GPL's requirements. But our lawyer said that this would not evade the requirements, that it was not allowed. And so they made the Objective C front end free software.
NeXT was lucky they were dealing with a copyright holder who (then as now) seeks compliance with the license above monetary compensation and court appearances. NeXT was also lucky that, at the time, they were able to correct their illegality outside the spotlight of publicity. Apple owns NeXT now and we're talking about the same person in charge at both companies. Apple would go on to commit copyright infringement against the FSF again in May 2010 distributing GNU Go in violation of the GPL (by adding additional restrictions on top of GPLv2 which that license disallows) but that time chose to cease distributing GNU Go.
If that's so, and I have no objection to what you're saying (the NeXT/GCC affair demonstrates why Bradley Kuhn says "Apple lawyers have a pathological hatred of GPL"): should free software hackers consider forking CUPS or keeping track of the latest GPL'd version of CUPS with an eye toward forking should CUPS' license become non-free? Apple owns CUPS now so I think it's reasonable to wonder about the future of the print system a lot of free software distributions have become dependent upon.
With all the level-headed commentary correcting the parent post (in just about every thread on this story), how did the parent post avoid getting moderated down to zero as a troll or flamebait? The parent post so thoroughly misunderstands relevant issues at hand here ("open source" versus free software, misunderstanding commercialism, saying GPL'd software is as "bad" as proprietary software, etc.) yet the parent post shows up as +3 Insightful (and went to +4 Insightful in the time I wrote this post). I know/. moderation is unreliable but I guess I would have liked to see something closer to the truth than that.
This is the difference between free and proprietary software: Apple's software is proprietary—you have no way to restrict Apple from using their power to "kill" (their term) applications on your computer. If Android is free software—software which respects your freedom to control your computer—it's up to you to make things better by hacking software or getting more knowledgeable people involved. Free software lets you choose to remove the code that grants Google app-killing power (or have someone remove app-killing code on your behalf) leaving you free to independently determine what programs to run no matter who calls those programs "malware". After all, if it's your computer you should determine what you want running on that computer. Given this understanding, I don't see the hypocrisy. I also don't see the problem in jailbreaking an iPhone other than doing business with Apple in the first place (one should not reward one's "jailer").
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I don't believe it's good to lose one's software freedom and let unknown people determine what you make your computers do.
You are apparently confusing permission and ability. Freedom is about permission, not skill. You might not have time to read and understand complete corresponding source code, but the free software movement has proven that collectively this work can be done because it is being done. Very complex programs are being read, written, and maintained for our mutual benefit by collective action. People must be allowed to decide for themselves what level of programming they want to undertake.
You'd have us believe that a phone works radically differently from any other networked computer. You don't have full access to most servers you use now but you'd be a fool to think that software freedom does you no favors to make your computer more trustworthy. Installing spyware without my consent on my 100% trustworthy phone would not be possible because such a phone lets me disallow installation of whatever software I want to disallow. The conversation data could be copied and stored but that's no different than tapping into the line; this has to do with the trouble with relying on other computers to get work done, and to some degree this problem is mitigated. The situation we face is not perfection or nothing; FLOSS didn't get as far as it has come by giving up because perfection is unattainable.
As for guarantees, I never said anything was guaranteed. Speaking of guarantees is silly. Real life offers no guarantee you'll understand and modify computer program source code, the plumbing in a house, the inner workings of your own body, and other complex things. Many other fields benefit from studying available documentation and doing experiments to figure out how things work and improve collective understanding. Proprietary software is different because it is designed to prevent such documentation and experimentation, therefore proprietary software puts us in a position of dependency not freedom. People apparently need to increase the odds that they can run something trustworthy. That trust comes from software freedom for cell phone software just like free software for any other computer. Anyone should be allowed to learn to program and control their computer entirely. We all need software freedom for all of our programs.
As I'm sure you know: Without complete corresponding source code to all of the software running on a phone, you'll never know the answer to those questions.
RMS knew the solution to this problem before the problem became widespread (as he often does) and he got the solution right early on: this is a social problem, not a technological problem. The solution is software freedom for all computer users for all the software they run.
Sadly, the Carrier IQ debacle is unlikely to propel people to see this solution. The problem is too weak in its urgency because Carrier IQ's (or any other workalike) privacy violations are merely annoying or scary. Privacy violations usually don't kill or maim anyone. Also, the affected audience has low market value: the general public. When proprietary software used in internal medical devices fails and kills someone, there will be another opportunity to talk of software freedom as a social solution to be taken seriously. And, for a time, people will be more receptive to the idea that all computer users deserve software freedom. People seem to have no problem hiring professionals in other fields they don't understand (plumbers, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, builders) so it's not far-fetched to expect the public to hire computer programmers to inspect and modify programs on their behalf.
Talking about being "forced into buy e-books" is a lame cop-out of the important social issues at the heart of DRM—readers rights: what rights do readers have with the work they legally acquired, who benefits from the loss of readers' rights, and should readers stand for the loss of their rights.
DRM reduces (sometimes eliminates) reader's rights to resell the work, copy portions of the work, or experience (in this case read) the work whenever the reader chooses and do so without monitoring. That is unacceptable at any price but it's not the price that makes these restrictions unacceptable. As to the cop-out issue raised by the poster who started this thread (DRM not being "the biggest issue at the moment"): DRM is a huge issue that will only get bigger as time goes on as DRM appears in more electronics. Users do notice DRM all too late. I do my part to warn them against doing business with any organization that sells DRM-encumbered products or services, but people invariably figure it out with some inconvenience.
But this is the thin end of the wedge. Right now this inconvenience means something relatively small like not being able to read some e-book they acquired legally because they're outside an acceptable zone for reading a particular book. But miniature electronics are inside people's bodies now and DRM there could be deadly. Karen Sandler, co-host of the Software Freedom Law Show, has an enlarged heart. She wears a monitor/defibrillator on her heart to keep her heart in check. I'd hate to think what someone would suffer if some business plan meant installing DRM code onto a medical device like that and failing to operate because the owner was on the 'wrong side of the tracks'. Technologically speaking, there's nothing to stop this from coming to pass. We, collectively, are in a weaker position thinking of this in a technocratic way by waiting for some horror to pass and dreaming up technical workarounds to make bad outcomes less likely than we are to assert an argument that says what the allowable limits of debate ought to be. Politically I think we have a better chance to educate the public about the problems of DRM and make it less likely to become an accepted way of doing business now that it's relatively new and not yet installed everywhere.
If Lego freed the client and server this would not be the first time an MMO was freed. Freeing the complete source code to play the game and build upon the game is the best way to treat the users.
It was one thing when it came to buying digital music. You could spend $1 to get the song that you wanted, rather than paying $25 to get a CD with the song that you wanted. That's a big enough price difference to make it worthwhile. But with e-books, it's just stupid to spend $15 on a e-book, while the actual book is only $17.
But you're merely haggling over price, as the old joke goes. I don't think digital handcuffs become acceptable at any price because I don't want to be taken advantage of. The physical book confers rights of ownership DRM is designed to take away regardless of how little one pays for the DRM-riddled alternative. As George Hoteling saw first hand years ago, one might not have right of first sale anymore. Even ostensible advantages one might imagine come nearly free in digital format aren't necessarily there like they should be as Wil Wheaton saw when he updated his iPod software with Apple software and lost all of his tracks only to learn Apple would restore them in what Wheaton called a "one-time only do-over to replace all of your purchased music, free of charge". Magnatune.com, on the other hand, lets you restore purchased tracks as many time as you want, share tracks with others, and Magnatune always sold its wares DRM-free. Inexpensive digital media doesn't become more attractive with restrictions management.
Nobody needed to, but people did so they could set up their fiefdom more effectively. It's the same sentiment that drives various "app stores" and other attempts at monopoly. It's not easy to impose ridiculous rules when one has to build on systems like email and NNTP. It's apparently more effective to develop one's own system with preposterous rules and play to a naive sense that says popularity is more important than anything else.
No, you talk as if someone is forcing rms' talks on us or rms is forced to give these talks. You can't complain about how trivial you think his conditions are without looking foolish for having been given a chance to see those conditions beforehand. Those people are now getting this information in advance of an rms talk and could choose to say to him that they find the terms too "extreme" to agree with and break the agreement. The point here goes to rms for being so straightforward about what he wants.
rms is not putting on a power display, getting "people [to] jump through flaming hoops for [him]", or "show[ing] their superiority" (although some people who ought to know better get his movement wrong so clearly he possesses superior knowledge of his movement). rms disagrees with some of the all-too-often unspoken underlying assumptions behind proprietary software, and he doesn't like the effects it has on the public.
Giving an arranged lecture is not like standing in line, and rms would never have anything to do with buying a computer he couldn't fully control. His dedication to an ethical standard that benefits the public without controlling them, keeping them on a purchasing treadmill, or denying them software freedom is what separates him from Wozniak. And we're all better off for having more people of rms' high ethical standards in our lives. "Normalcy" should be defined by our respect for our mutual freedom, not our subservience.
Therefore you should acknowledge how organized, honest, and complete rms is and thank him for being so clear with everyone he talks with, even if you don't agree with his values.
These points are his choices and you're better off knowing his choices so clearly and in advance. Complaining about this level of honesty and clarity only makes you look like you don't understand how beneficial it is to have this information before choosing to do business with rms.
A planned speaking engagement is not like "talking to a reporter" (which is off-the-cuff). Reporters who claim to represent his values in their reportage should be expected to get their facts straight, and the fact is rms talks at length on how free software and open source are not the same. It's right and proper if he doesn't want people conflating his movement with a movement that doesn't share his values. More importantly, it's his choice whether to agree to give a talk at a venue that doesn't display his values and we should relish his honesty.
It's his choice whether he wants to speak at events that misframe his message and his choice if "such people are the ones who might most benefit from his message". Perhaps such people would be better off if they were to visit more talks and read more books, including ones that champion software freedom.
And if David Kappos' recent move is any indication, her next big step is clear: head up the US Patent and Trademark Office when Kappos leaves. I'm guessing that IBM would love this move because there she can better serve IBM's interests against those of the public. Kappos, current USPTO Director, was former IBM vice president and assistant general counsel of "intellectual property" law. IBM holds the most patents. First-to-file undoubtedly helps large firms like IBM because large firms hire lots of lawyers to file all sorts of patent applications. The more patents IBM holds, the more IBM can cross-license their way out of any threatened patent litigation by threatening countersuit and then negotiating a patent license.
OSS software would have its source available, but also would not be of much use after such a long span of time.
There is no way to know what the utility of a program will be later on and such matters should not be judged subjectively based on perceived utility in the first place. A shorter term of copyright could very easily place FLOSS developers in a position which essentially contributes work to proprietors; the shorter the term of copyright, the less time proprietors need to wait to release a proprietary version of even a strongly-copylefted free software program like GNU Emacs. The essay I linked to answers your question rather directly.
For software (and possibly other classes of work as the Copyright Office sees fit) we should require as part of the registration process not only the deposit formality, i.e.that a copy of the work be deposited with the Library of Congress (as is usually the case), but that any and all supplemental information required by the Copyright Office also be deposited.
Your proposal would go against the power of copyright as it is today by making program source code readable by anyone. I think that alone would make the plan unworkable. Stallman's proposal merely changes what happens when the program enters the public domain by repairing the unfairness to users introduced by the Pirate Party's plan for a shorter term of copyright:
Notice that Stallman's proposal only applies to proprietary software as makes sense since free software respects users freedoms straight away.
Longer terms of copyright is no solution but short copyright terms means FLOSS programmers end up contributing to proprietors as if they were public-minded charities while giving the public nothing in exchange. Considering a 5-year term of copyright, Richard Stallman correctly points out:
[W]hat would be the effect of terminating this program's copyright after 5 years? This would not require the developer to release source code, and presumably most will never do so. Users, still denied the source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom. The program could even have a “time bomb” in it to make it stop working after 5 years, in which case the “public domain” copies would not run at all.
Thus, the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years. The Free World would get the bad, but not the good. The difference between source code and object code and the practice of using EULAs would give proprietary software an effective exception from the general rule of 5-year copyright — one that free software does not share.
I think the Pirate Party should take Stallman's warnings more seriously than I've heard Falkvinge take them in the past (I believe it was a Google talk in which Falkvinge merely dismissed Stallman's concerns without ever responding to them seriously and the questioner, perhaps not recognizing the dismissal, didn't follow-up to get a serious answer). Like Stallman says, "I'd rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright" and I would rather not have to forgo FLOSS development because copyright law is written to favor proprietors in the form of gifting FLOSS contributions to proprietors.
The form of time bomb Stallman speaks of could be done in a way that would not qualify as DRM in most people's minds, so any discussion of disallowing DRM would not necessarily save anyone: a program that is designed and built to require a server to run and provide any functionality coupled with server-side accounts that are built to expire after 5 years. The program runs but becomes useless to most people running the program in the ordinary fashion. Couple this with no source code under a free license and the user is not only left out after some planned obsolescence but possibly facing a community of apologists who claim that the user should expect no better.
Most computer users today are taught to think of personal convenience and price first, not ever taught to think of the consequences of their choices. Thus most users are left vulnerable to arrangements they won't discover until years after they've paid for service (buying Major League Baseball recording viewing privileges online, or doing business with most media services like iTunes or Wal-Mart, are a few examples).
Not entirely, and now that their catalog includes more than music the same old issues have continued. In early 2009 Apple said that they had removed DRM from 80% of their music catalog. Today, as I understand it, audio books still have DRM, earlier-purchased audio tracks still have DRM, and of course (as should be apparent given Wheaton's story you quoted) videos have DRM.
Wil Wheaton nailed it when he said "make it simple, make it cheap, and folks WILL buy it. Make it expensive and a pain to use? people will just BT". he gave a perfect example, he bought the Doctor Who episodes on iTunes and then when he crossed the Canadian border his videos wouldn't play so his first thought was 'If I would have just pirated it i'd be watching my shows now".
I'm glad to see that he's coming around to seeing this from a more wisened user's perspective, but apparently he still has much to learn about doing business with Apple and becoming more articulate about defining his interests. In 2006 Wheaton lost all of his iTunes tracks while "upgrading" to some version of iTunes. Wheaton contacted Apple and then Apple restored the lost tracks to his account. Wheaton treated this as a reason to do business with Apple ("If you make a purchase from the iTunes Music Store, and something horrible happens and you lose all your music, Apple will give you a one-time only do-over to replace all of your purchased music, free of charge.") instead of looking at this as a problem to be solved. Removing all DRM and letting users make copies of the media puts users in a position where users can rescue themselves from unfortunate losses. Users ought to be able to re-download purchased media as many times as they wish, and share tracks as well. Magnatune.com, by contrast, does all of this: they never got into the DRM game so Magnatune has no (apparently halfway) Apple-style backtracking to go through on DRM. Magnatune contributes to FLOSS player programs; programs that give technically-minded users the opportunity to inspect programs before you run them so users don't walk into the trap Wheaton experienced in 2006 with iTunes. Magnatune lets users re-download purchased tracks as much as the customer wishes upon supplying an email address at purchase time (for logging in). Magnatune also lets you share membership downloads with some friends. Purchasing media from Magnatune means you can play the media as much as you want without anyone tracking what you play, where you play it, or restricting what you use to play the media they sell.
The dual PSU is an issue, but the mini's are so small and cheap enough why wouldn't you just be running several and have hot failover to the working ones?
Isn't this a way of saying one should only run services that have a failover mechanism built into them?
MacOS X print serving was always a joke even for OD-bound Macs in a strictly Mac environment (i.e., using nothing but what Apple would sell you). One would expect an OpenDirectory server to publish a PPD alongside a URL to a printer location (such as one might need to do if one uses EFI RIPs and the corresponding EFI PPD to connect to an LPR print queue). No way; one must distribute the PPD via other means (static image, radmind, package install system, one-off local install, what have you) and then publish the print queue with the OD server pointing to wherever that PPD is installed on the machine. This is remarkably immature printer serving.
Deleting managed printers from the client is not straightforward. This should be as simple as removing the printer from the relevant group the client is in, logging the client out, and logging back in as a valid user on the client. But in practice this generally requires removing a bunch of managed print queues (the ones named "mcx_" followed by a number) then letting OD push down the printer set you want.
It would be easier, less time-consuming, and more predictable to "manage" the printers by giving the relevant CLI CUPS commands manually. At least then you'd get feedback about how well printer creation went and you would know what's going on each step of the way.
Setting up shared print queues on MacOS X Server is also a time-consuming joke as you wait for the Apple-made UI let you indicate which protocols you'll use to share a print queue.
I refuse to give up one of the few pieces of data about me that Google allows me to control... for a few pixels.
Madam what you are is clear, we are merely haggling over price.
Bear in mind that, if put to a legal test, parts of the license could be found unenforceable, in which case someone could escape the terms of the GPL.
We should not talk about the GPL as if it has never been scrutinized in court before. I know of no case where some part of the GPL was deemed unenforceable. I know of the opposite: a judge telling the litigants that the GPL is enforceable and that the alleged copyright infringer should clean up their act (the implication being that the defendant won't like what happens after one is found to have violated the license) followed by an out-of-court settlement.
Another possible loophole is the definition of a "derivative work". Generally I think we assume that if a project pulls in some code that is identifiable as having been part of a GPL product, then that project (according to the GPL) must also be licensed by the GPL. But that assertion, too, is something that would have to be tested.
I very much doubt that identifying a derivative work is new. Copyright has dealt with derivative works for a long time. Why would the GPL pose substantial novelty here? Overall in copyright and with regards to the GPL specifically, I don't think there's as much new ground here as you think there is; the GPL was built on remarkably well-trod ground. I think of this in the way Eben Moglen taught us to think of it: would-be litigants are wise not to take this kind of case to court on the theory that the GPL is somehow untested because plenty of lawyers in large firms have looked at the GPL and declined to go to court after examining what the GPL says. I'm reminded of one case I saw the outcome of but never noticed go to court: NeXT's Steve Jobs apparently thought it was okay to build on GCC with NeXT's Objective-C code and distribute the result without also distributing complete corresponding source code. Talk about ethically and intellectually challenged. The FSF talked to NeXT and NeXT shipped complete corresponding source code afterwards. I doubt NeXT changed their mind without running it past the lawyers first.
None of these things are your fault but nowhere on that page do I see anything that would explain why Apple is so far behind its competitors in enterprise offerings for hardware or software. I'm surprised Apple's proprietary software is so incapable of scaling out well and has been this poor for so long.
Take the appalling lack of bugfixes in some of their software: login restrictions don't work as advertised with Active Directory or Open Directory (and verified by an Apple employee). This has been going on for 2 major versions of the OS (10.5 and 10.6) at least. Service ACLs are sort of a clever workaround but no real substitute for the functionality one is supposed to get with allow/deny groups (which actually seems like a neat feature!). Workgroup Manager (which you'll use a lot if you configure OD stuff) is needlessly hard to use because its interface is pretty much amateur hour. WGM still has display bugs (don't resize that window too large or too small, and don't expect to easily see nested group relationships); you can never really add AD computer objects to OD groups reliably even though one would expect that if the computer is running and set to connect to the OD server in question, the OD server could interrogate the client to get whatever information it needs to be a first-class member of an OD group. Some of the things Apple implements with OD are nice: a single simple approach to app configuration details (plists) but there's much missing and this hasn't changed in years.
Apple has no serious package management system. I get better package management from my free software systems I run at home. Apple's packages aren't terribly useful to upgrade versions cleanly, track what's installed, allow integration with local configuration data, and a host of other things I can do with FLOSS package managers. MacOS users still think that proper app management can result from dragging something to the trash but there's no accounting for anything outside the appwrapper in this scenario. Relying on app developers to supply an uninstall method strikes me as unwise.
Printer management on MacOS for enterprises continues to unimpress me: version after version I see no major changes here. To fully set up a printer and its PPD options (printer trays, duplexing, etc.) one must either configure the PPD ahead of time and use some other tool to put it into place (radmind, static imaging, a package deployment system: you'll probably end up using static imaging plus a system Apple doesn't supply highlighting the incompleteness of Apple's approach), or one must configure the PPD on the client in place (via Apple Remote Desktop or scripting). Cleanly pushing down complete printer configs with PPDs/drivers is still not an option for MacOS and by now it should be. CUPS is still excellent for what it does (and still free software!) but deploying printer config entries is typical enterprise work and this needs a lot of development work on Apple's part to be taken more seriously.
And then there's the server hardware: always a joke. Xserves were never really that great when compared to what one could get at the time with garden-variety PC servers. Even if you thought Xserves were adequate (I know no admin well-versed in PC hardware who thinks this) Xserves went away leaving the non-rackmountable Mac Pro and the Mini with two harddrives. The Mini "server" offers no way to get to the drives without powering the Mini down. Minis are still hard to disassemble to get to the hard drive, so plan on downtime and frustration as you open the case. This is what Apple seriously offers for server use. Then Xserves became a third-party offering with some degree of Apple blessing (I'm guessing). This simply doesn't instill confidence that Apple cares about enterprise support. This progression makes me think Apple is trying hard to walk away from enterprise use without coming clean with their users and saying so. I suspect Apple wants each MacOS user to be managed by Apple (like iOS devices are) and that's not the ki
There's no need to choose between boycotting the manufacturer and criminal prosecution. Both are available to all of us and both should be used.
"The computers have already sold" makes it sound like future sales with keyloggers are impossible. Samsung is not the only organization who can do this either.
And the Europeans who "did it better" did it without government contractors? You left out any backing for your lame dig there.
Then you shouldn't have any problem listing these things in detail. I doubt what you're saying is true. I think it's far more likely Eben Moglen's description is the case: (paraphrased) announce GPLv4 and people will love GPLv3 like a brother. This is what happened with GPLv2: when it was announced work began on GPLv3, suddenly GPLv2 was loved.
Some of what Apple does reveals Apple to be just another proprietor who built their fortunes on free software: they know they can't go far without software freedom, and they want to treat the free software community as a market, but they don't want to behave as a member of the free software community.
As for being "quite happy to contribute to GCC", that simply is not true. NeXT committed copyright infringement and GCC's copyright holder (FSF) compelled them to comply with GCC's license (GPLv2). Bradley Kuhn describes it succinctly, "Apple lawyers have a pathological hatred of GPL, which he believes comes directly down from Steve Jobs, who began his dislike of GPL when he tried, while at NeXT, to distribute a proprietary front-end for GCC for Objective-C." and Richard Stallman talks of this in the essay Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism explaining why GCC can compile Objective-C:
NeXT was lucky they were dealing with a copyright holder who (then as now) seeks compliance with the license above monetary compensation and court appearances. NeXT was also lucky that, at the time, they were able to correct their illegality outside the spotlight of publicity. Apple owns NeXT now and we're talking about the same person in charge at both companies. Apple would go on to commit copyright infringement against the FSF again in May 2010 distributing GNU Go in violation of the GPL (by adding additional restrictions on top of GPLv2 which that license disallows) but that time chose to cease distributing GNU Go.
If that's so, and I have no objection to what you're saying (the NeXT/GCC affair demonstrates why Bradley Kuhn says "Apple lawyers have a pathological hatred of GPL"): should free software hackers consider forking CUPS or keeping track of the latest GPL'd version of CUPS with an eye toward forking should CUPS' license become non-free? Apple owns CUPS now so I think it's reasonable to wonder about the future of the print system a lot of free software distributions have become dependent upon.
With all the level-headed commentary correcting the parent post (in just about every thread on this story), how did the parent post avoid getting moderated down to zero as a troll or flamebait? The parent post so thoroughly misunderstands relevant issues at hand here ("open source" versus free software, misunderstanding commercialism, saying GPL'd software is as "bad" as proprietary software, etc.) yet the parent post shows up as +3 Insightful (and went to +4 Insightful in the time I wrote this post). I know /. moderation is unreliable but I guess I would have liked to see something closer to the truth than that.
This is the difference between free and proprietary software: Apple's software is proprietary—you have no way to restrict Apple from using their power to "kill" (their term) applications on your computer. If Android is free software—software which respects your freedom to control your computer—it's up to you to make things better by hacking software or getting more knowledgeable people involved. Free software lets you choose to remove the code that grants Google app-killing power (or have someone remove app-killing code on your behalf) leaving you free to independently determine what programs to run no matter who calls those programs "malware". After all, if it's your computer you should determine what you want running on that computer. Given this understanding, I don't see the hypocrisy. I also don't see the problem in jailbreaking an iPhone other than doing business with Apple in the first place (one should not reward one's "jailer").