For more background information on this shooting, watch and/or hear Giuliana Sgrena's most recent discussion of the topic on the Wednesday, April 27, 2005 edition of Democracy Now!
The effect of proprietary software is to trade away freedoms in exchange for convenience--a genuinely self-centered framing of the argument. Other concerns (such as respecting software freedom, understanding why things are the way they are) fall aside and are generally ridiculed (such as why free software OSes don't come with MP3 players and encoders). How can it be "silly" for someone running different hardware to look at the proprietary MacOS and ask for it for their hardware? I'm not asking this because I want MacOS or because I think MacOS is good, but within the limits of allowable debate concerning proprietary software, it seems reasonable to me for people to want what is merely recent and well-advertised.
Flash is not a replacement, at best it's addition.
on
OpenLaszlo 3.0 Announced
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I dislike how little control users have over how Flash appears and works -- there are very good reasons why I use user stylesheets and set the font size on my browser so I can read text. There's also the problem of not having a free software Flash player which can play the Flash data people commonly use.
Too many times I've seen webpages where Flash is used as a replacement for what is done better with (X)HTML+CSS instead of as an augmentation for (X)HTML+CSS. Even Javascript is sometimes unnecessarily used or no alternative means of access is provided for those who don't have Javascript or don't want to use it because of various security problems.
I'm fully aware of the differences between the two movements, and what the GNU Project stands for. Your article is not informative for anyone who read what I linked to.
Modulo any clauses I haven't read closely enough, I see this new law as possibly serving two audiences -- it can be used to allow hiding certain scenes in movies, be they scenes that contain nudity, foul language, violence, or anything else deemed objectionable. It can also be used to hide scenes that *do not* contain these things. So we have an odd bedfellows situation: both those who, for instance, want to keep views of women's breasts off of their TVs and those who only want to see women's breasts are served by the same law and the same list of indices describing where one can find such images.
Throughout the question, we can see that letting people do things which can be shown to be unethical, costly, and dismissive of freedoms we ought to cherish (such as freedom of speech) are considered "harangu[ing]" or "obnoxious", and yet nothing proprietors do is framed in that way.
I hope this doesn't mean that it's okay for them to deny me the freedom to share and modify. I hope this isn't yet another attempt to frame the debate so that the onus of responsibility is on me to justify myself without requiring business to justify treating me this way. Sharing and modifying is how computing worked since long before the free software community began, proprietary software is actually rather new, but that zeitgeist has been lost in large part. If it weren't for the free software community, we wouldn't have wonderful things like GNU/Linux systems.
I don't teach people about open source because that movement was built to cater primarily to business, and I'm interested in speaking to all computer users, not just businesses. I teach people about software freedom and related matters on my radio talk show (Digital Citizen, every other Wednesday on WEFT 90.1 FM from 8-10p) and I take calls. If you're in the Champaign, IL area then, I invite you to tune in and join the discussion. I don't think of open source as an enemy, I think of open source as a newer spin-off that loses a great deal of power in its argument by dropping any talk about freedom. One practical freedom that movement doesn't push for is private derivatives (making a copy of a program's source code, changing it to meet one's needs, and using it privately without telling anyone else it exists), something I've used a lot to solve my own computing problems.
I do this work for my radio show because I take threats including DRM, software patents, and so-called "trusted computing" (which the FSF refers to as "treacherous computing") seriously. The mainstream media never discusses these issues from the user's point of view, if they discuss them at all. Their focus invariably encourages the user to take the business perspective and ignore what these ideas mean for them. I think these topics deserve serious inquiry and challenge. Software freedom addresses these issues head-on and provides a viable path for us to be able to compete on the quality of the good or service provided, respecting the idea that what separates us from a dog-eat-dog jungle is working together and helping each other when we need help.
Ah, then they should be more clear about that. The way they have worded this is very poor.
They should also use the word "proprietary" because "commercial" does not mean what they think it means. The GNU GPL is a commercial license because GPL-covered works are distributed as part of a business, just ask Red Hat or IBM.
I have seen RMS speak in public and have watched first hand as he acted beligerant, abrasive, and attempted to derail the whole thing any time someone disagreed with him by arguing pointlessly over semantics again and again rather than actually providing logical premises for most of the conclusions that he posited.
Please do tell us where we can find recordings, transcripts, or other descriptions of these arguments, I would love to read them and learn more about exactly what was asked and what RMS said in response.
Many open source conferenecs[sic] [...]
Is this one of the "semantic" points you refer to--getting the name of the movement and its philosophy wrong? RMS didn't start the open source movement and he has spent considerable time telling people he has nothing to do with that movement. A major chunk of his speech on how the GNU Project began is a patient explanation of the relationship his movement, the free software movement, has to the open source movement. He started the free software movement over a decade before the open source movement began. The two movements stand for different philosophies. And that essay shows that RMS is remarkably respectful when discussing the differences, unlike the Open Source Initiative which reduces the free software movement to "ideological tub-thumping" in its FAQ.
LUGs don't often invite him to speak because RMS will insist that the group change its name before he'll even consider it.
And why should he choose to attend a group which chooses to give far more credit to one man and that man's project than that project is due while simultaneously giving no credit at all to the GNU Project which has had such a tremendous effect? I happened to give LUGRadio another listen today and the people who host that show got into this argument on the show. Apparently they didn't realize how they shot down their own logic when one of them gave a list of 3 or 4 things RMS had contributed (an incomplete list to be sure) and then insisted that RMS would be exerting power over them if he were to reject their request for an interview on the basis that they give the GNU Project no credit (and give "Linux" all the credit). RMS has the right to determine where he will speak and there's no reasonable explanation for not giving GNU its fair share of credit. He would be endorsing the view to give Linux all the credit if he attends and speaks. RMS has already addressed this issue in some detail, with far better logic, and again, quite respectfully; far more respectfully than you or the LUGRadio people appear to have done:
"Is it true, as Barr writes, that some people see these actions as an ``application of force'' comparable with Microsoft's monopoly power? Probably so. Declining an invitation is not coercion, but people who are determined to believe that the entire system is ``Linux'' sometimes develop amazingly distorted vision. To make that name appear justified, they must see molehills as mountains and mountains as molehills. If you can ignore the facts and believe that Linus Torvalds developed the whole system starting in 1991, or if you can ignore your ordinary principles of fairness and believe that Torvalds should get the sole credit even though he didn't do that, it's a small step to believe that I owe you a speech when you ask.
Just consider: the GNU Project starts developing an operating system, and years later Linus Torvalds adds one important piece. The GNU Project says, ``Please give our project equal mention,'' but Linus says, ``Don't give them a share of the credit; call the whole thing after my name alone!'' Now envision the mindset of a person who can look at these events and accuse the GNU Project of egotism. It takes strong
It appears to either be inconsistently licensed or that the copyright holders of Rekall don't understand what the GNU General Public License actually says.
The license section on the about page says that Rekall is licensed under the GPL but also includes:
"The original authors of rekall (Mike Richardson and John Dean), and theKompany.com retain the right to use the Rekall codebase commercially, that is, to use code from rekall in other, non-GPL'd products."
There is no such right or power as what they describe. Rekall is distributed to me under the GNU GPL. If their GPL contains language to the above effect, the work is inconsistently licensed which means I cannot leverage anything the GPL grants because it disallows adding terms more restrictive than what the GPL says.
But if the GPL they use is not inconsistently licensed to me, I could distribute a Rekall derivative under the GPL. If I distribute a Rekall derivative under the GNU GPL, they don't have any power to distribute my changes under any license other than the GPL. I retain a copyright to my code and I'm licensing it to everyone (including Mike Richardson, John Dean, and theKompany.com) under the GPL. Distributing my code under any other license would constitute copyright infringement.
You're trying to chastise the idealism of the man who proved by existence that his idealism was practical. Twenty years of history would seem to suggest such admonition is unwise.
You are not in the same position with non-free software as you are with free software. Free software can be fixed by the user themselves (obviously, this requires skill) or by hiring someone to do the work. If those dormant Sourceforge projects are not developing fast enough for you, you can do something about that.
Freedom is not the same as skill. This is not about getting people to do your work for you any time you want it done without paying them to do it (if that's the level of support you want, pay a programmer and get them to work on your schedule with your priorities in mind). And this is not about "OSS" which RMS does not represent and has taken much effort to distinguish himself from. It's about the pragmatic idealism which the open source movement rejects, giving users the freedom to decide how their software is improved.
It means that you should consider another line of work that doesn't make you do unethical things to make a living. There's nothing "interesting" about posing an argument that frames the debate as though you can do nothing but program computers to write non-free software.
He's talking about the kernel, hence he respects the name it was given--Linux. He asks people to do the same when speaking of the OS in which the Linux kernel is most commonly used so that both projects get a share of the credit--GNU/Linux.
Yes, the proprietary masters have laid out a big enough tent where all can lose their freedom; no need to choose between them. It's sad how this framing of the debate helps perpetuate people's ignorance of software freedom: Run what you want, the "Linux [sic]" OS, and debating over price. It's no wonder people play right into the hands of the proprietors. Even the supposedly more educated readers of/. don't bother to acknowledge anything but that framing of the debate.
You who support running "Linux" will never gain the popularity you seek against a series of proprietors willing to lower their price to free. You're virtually handing them the argument by framing the debate in terms any proprietor can compete with instead of recognizing the trap this poses for users in the long term.
I didn't say anything about using the Nikon SDK because one doesn't need to. Money talks and thanks to many lucrative years of denying users their software freedom, Adobe is wealthy enough to negotiate a license that meets their desires as well as Nikon's desire for secrecy. Part of that license can include per-copy payments to Nikon, thus every paid Photoshop license includes a fee for software the user may never use.
But all of that is besides the point and immaterial. The important issue is not how these companies ought to try and squeeze more money out of you, but that a proprietor's desire should be subordinate to what the public wants. I doubt that the public wants to be treated in the way these companies have exhibited thus far.
I don't know what software Adobe has written regarding this, but the way I figure it, that is irrelevant. The DMCA is not what stops Adobe from providing their users with the kind of access to Nikon raw images that their Nikon-using Photoshop users may want, although I experience a good schadenfreude laugh at Adobe's expense when I read people make the argument that Adobe is somehow disadvantaged by the DMCA here.
Adobe can use some of the money from distributing proprietary software (ill-gotten gain, in my opinion) to negotiate a binary-only proprietary copy of a Nikon library to link to Photoshop which would allow Photoshop users to decrypt the Nikon raw white balance segment that is encrypted.
Nikon and Adobe both walk away getting what they want: Nikon's encryption is no less "secure" than it was before (how this works can be hidden from hidden from everyone, including Adobe), and Adobe gets to supply plug-and-play functionality to their users. Meanwhile, and more importantly, their users are left without their software freedom, and no ability to easily deal with Nikon raw images in other programs. Those users are paying their money in exchange for a loss of their software freedom and complete control over their images. If Adobe complains about not wanting to ship software under its name without full and complete source code to that program so they can inspect, modify, and even share it should the need arise, I'll get another schadenfreude chuckle at Adobe's expense because I want software freedom too. The only difference is I don't want to hoarde it from others.
To me, these are all excellent reasons to avoid or stop doing business with both Adobe and Nikon. Run the GIMP, use some other brand of camera that will give you the unencumbered raw functionality you want, and retain full control over your photos. The dcraw website hosts a list of cameras it will work with. Surely some camera on that list will meet one's needs without going to Nikon.
I think you mean a proprietary license, not a commercial license. The GNU General Public License (one of MySQL's licenses), as well as PostgreSQL and Firebird's licenses are all bases for doing business, hence they are already commercial licenses. Firebird and PostgreSQL are also licensed under a free software licenses--the Mozilla Public License and a variation on the 3-clause BSD license, respectively.
Where did you get the idea this agreement exists? What exactly does this agreement say? What evidence is there to show that Tridgell agreed to its terms or did something that required complying with such a clause or be liable for losing a copyright infringement lawsuit?
I'm suspect that Tridgell, who appears to be quite dedicated to software freedom, would realize the implications of agreeing to such a thing and therefore not agree to it.
People are bound to ask about where the list came from because you are objecting to the wrong thing. This isn't about DOS apps printing in Virtual PC, this is about something far more common.
If you don't know where the pretty printer list came from and you don't care, then you didn't actually tackle the problem I addressed in the overmoderated grandparent's post. That post tries to convince us that typing in something technical (an IP address or a Windows share reference) is user-friendly. It's not and anyone who thinks it is isn't aware of how much easier it ought to be (think Zeroconf/Rendevous). No user should have to type in anything to get their printer set up if their printer will respond to a signal and identify its make and model.
I've set up my Brother HL-1270N on Microsoft Windows and MacOS X using two different means of connection: a network and connected directly to the machine. Both OSes over both connections required typing something in (Microsoft Windows also required loading drivers). None of that should be necessary and none of it was significantly better than what I had to do under Fedora Core 3 or Ubuntu GNU/Linux.
Software proprietors do this too. MacOS X's printer interface doesn't autoconfigure as much as it should and it doesn't keep up with network changes. When a laptop user goes from home to work their default printer (and printer selection) should automatically change.
Instead, Apple develops so-called "sexy" programs in other areas--there is no free software video editor that can do what iMovie does (although some are in development and I wouldn't be surprised if one became competitive someday).
If Apple follows the path NeXT did, Apple will focus its development on things that run atop an aging and increasingly out of date OS. NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP (which, contrary to the name, was not "open source") were both built to feature the web development kit and various other "sexy" programs that ran on the BSD-based OS that received no significant attention. There were no improvements to the lower level parts of these OSes that can compare to the developments of the Linux kernel or the various GNU programs on which so many operating systems depend.
No, Adobe wouldn't need to reverse engineer anything to make their proprietary software compatible with Nikon's encrypted white balance segment of the raw files. There actually aren't any adverse implications for Adobe in this situation.
Adobe need only negotiate a license for a proprietary binary-only software which they could link into Photoshop or call as needed. Thus, Nikon and Adobe can continue to screw users out of their freedoms and their money while these proprietors retain their secrets.
Please don't forget how Adobe used the DMCA to arrest and detain Sklyarov. The public's real problem with Adobe should center on Adobe treats their users and that they back laws which are unhelpful to the free software community.
Please explain what is illegitimate about reverse engineering Bitkeeper's network protocol in an effort to distribute a free software program which is network-compatible with the proprietary Bitkeeper program.
Providing an IP address, a printer share name, or any other such thing is not "easy". Non-administrative users don't want to learn what that means or why they need it (think Havoc Pennington's comment on what "PCM" means).
A far more reasonable interface for most users is what ESR described in his essay: let the machine search the LAN and any local interface, then prepare a pretty iconified list of printers, and allow the user to determine which printer is the one they want to print to (and which printer is the default for when they don't specify a printer).
This is simplicity for the user, the interface that really counts.
Slashdot Mirror
For more background information on this shooting, watch and/or hear Giuliana Sgrena's most recent discussion of the topic on the Wednesday, April 27, 2005 edition of Democracy Now!
Didn't someone forsee this and use KHTML licensing to try and avoid this?
Or is this a complaint on technical grounds--Apple is diverging too far in its KHTML fork for the original KHTML fork to use it?
Or something else?
The effect of proprietary software is to trade away freedoms in exchange for convenience--a genuinely self-centered framing of the argument. Other concerns (such as respecting software freedom, understanding why things are the way they are) fall aside and are generally ridiculed (such as why free software OSes don't come with MP3 players and encoders). How can it be "silly" for someone running different hardware to look at the proprietary MacOS and ask for it for their hardware? I'm not asking this because I want MacOS or because I think MacOS is good, but within the limits of allowable debate concerning proprietary software, it seems reasonable to me for people to want what is merely recent and well-advertised.
I dislike how little control users have over how Flash appears and works -- there are very good reasons why I use user stylesheets and set the font size on my browser so I can read text. There's also the problem of not having a free software Flash player which can play the Flash data people commonly use.
Too many times I've seen webpages where Flash is used as a replacement for what is done better with (X)HTML+CSS instead of as an augmentation for (X)HTML+CSS. Even Javascript is sometimes unnecessarily used or no alternative means of access is provided for those who don't have Javascript or don't want to use it because of various security problems.
I'm fully aware of the differences between the two movements, and what the GNU Project stands for. Your article is not informative for anyone who read what I linked to.
Modulo any clauses I haven't read closely enough, I see this new law as possibly serving two audiences -- it can be used to allow hiding certain scenes in movies, be they scenes that contain nudity, foul language, violence, or anything else deemed objectionable. It can also be used to hide scenes that *do not* contain these things. So we have an odd bedfellows situation: both those who, for instance, want to keep views of women's breasts off of their TVs and those who only want to see women's breasts are served by the same law and the same list of indices describing where one can find such images.
Throughout the question, we can see that letting people do things which can be shown to be unethical, costly, and dismissive of freedoms we ought to cherish (such as freedom of speech) are considered "harangu[ing]" or "obnoxious", and yet nothing proprietors do is framed in that way.
I hope this doesn't mean that it's okay for them to deny me the freedom to share and modify. I hope this isn't yet another attempt to frame the debate so that the onus of responsibility is on me to justify myself without requiring business to justify treating me this way. Sharing and modifying is how computing worked since long before the free software community began, proprietary software is actually rather new, but that zeitgeist has been lost in large part. If it weren't for the free software community, we wouldn't have wonderful things like GNU/Linux systems.
I don't teach people about open source because that movement was built to cater primarily to business, and I'm interested in speaking to all computer users, not just businesses. I teach people about software freedom and related matters on my radio talk show (Digital Citizen, every other Wednesday on WEFT 90.1 FM from 8-10p) and I take calls. If you're in the Champaign, IL area then, I invite you to tune in and join the discussion. I don't think of open source as an enemy, I think of open source as a newer spin-off that loses a great deal of power in its argument by dropping any talk about freedom. One practical freedom that movement doesn't push for is private derivatives (making a copy of a program's source code, changing it to meet one's needs, and using it privately without telling anyone else it exists), something I've used a lot to solve my own computing problems.
I do this work for my radio show because I take threats including DRM, software patents, and so-called "trusted computing" (which the FSF refers to as "treacherous computing") seriously. The mainstream media never discusses these issues from the user's point of view, if they discuss them at all. Their focus invariably encourages the user to take the business perspective and ignore what these ideas mean for them. I think these topics deserve serious inquiry and challenge. Software freedom addresses these issues head-on and provides a viable path for us to be able to compete on the quality of the good or service provided, respecting the idea that what separates us from a dog-eat-dog jungle is working together and helping each other when we need help.
Ah, then they should be more clear about that. The way they have worded this is very poor.
They should also use the word "proprietary" because "commercial" does not mean what they think it means. The GNU GPL is a commercial license because GPL-covered works are distributed as part of a business, just ask Red Hat or IBM.
Please do tell us where we can find recordings, transcripts, or other descriptions of these arguments, I would love to read them and learn more about exactly what was asked and what RMS said in response.
Is this one of the "semantic" points you refer to--getting the name of the movement and its philosophy wrong? RMS didn't start the open source movement and he has spent considerable time telling people he has nothing to do with that movement. A major chunk of his speech on how the GNU Project began is a patient explanation of the relationship his movement, the free software movement, has to the open source movement. He started the free software movement over a decade before the open source movement began. The two movements stand for different philosophies. And that essay shows that RMS is remarkably respectful when discussing the differences, unlike the Open Source Initiative which reduces the free software movement to "ideological tub-thumping" in its FAQ.
And why should he choose to attend a group which chooses to give far more credit to one man and that man's project than that project is due while simultaneously giving no credit at all to the GNU Project which has had such a tremendous effect? I happened to give LUGRadio another listen today and the people who host that show got into this argument on the show. Apparently they didn't realize how they shot down their own logic when one of them gave a list of 3 or 4 things RMS had contributed (an incomplete list to be sure) and then insisted that RMS would be exerting power over them if he were to reject their request for an interview on the basis that they give the GNU Project no credit (and give "Linux" all the credit). RMS has the right to determine where he will speak and there's no reasonable explanation for not giving GNU its fair share of credit. He would be endorsing the view to give Linux all the credit if he attends and speaks. RMS has already addressed this issue in some detail, with far better logic, and again, quite respectfully; far more respectfully than you or the LUGRadio people appear to have done:
It appears to either be inconsistently licensed or that the copyright holders of Rekall don't understand what the GNU General Public License actually says.
The license section on the about page says that Rekall is licensed under the GPL but also includes:
There is no such right or power as what they describe. Rekall is distributed to me under the GNU GPL. If their GPL contains language to the above effect, the work is inconsistently licensed which means I cannot leverage anything the GPL grants because it disallows adding terms more restrictive than what the GPL says.
But if the GPL they use is not inconsistently licensed to me, I could distribute a Rekall derivative under the GPL. If I distribute a Rekall derivative under the GNU GPL, they don't have any power to distribute my changes under any license other than the GPL. I retain a copyright to my code and I'm licensing it to everyone (including Mike Richardson, John Dean, and theKompany.com) under the GPL. Distributing my code under any other license would constitute copyright infringement.
You're trying to chastise the idealism of the man who proved by existence that his idealism was practical. Twenty years of history would seem to suggest such admonition is unwise.
You are not in the same position with non-free software as you are with free software. Free software can be fixed by the user themselves (obviously, this requires skill) or by hiring someone to do the work. If those dormant Sourceforge projects are not developing fast enough for you, you can do something about that.
Freedom is not the same as skill. This is not about getting people to do your work for you any time you want it done without paying them to do it (if that's the level of support you want, pay a programmer and get them to work on your schedule with your priorities in mind). And this is not about "OSS" which RMS does not represent and has taken much effort to distinguish himself from. It's about the pragmatic idealism which the open source movement rejects, giving users the freedom to decide how their software is improved.
It means that you should consider another line of work that doesn't make you do unethical things to make a living. There's nothing "interesting" about posing an argument that frames the debate as though you can do nothing but program computers to write non-free software.
He's talking about the kernel, hence he respects the name it was given--Linux. He asks people to do the same when speaking of the OS in which the Linux kernel is most commonly used so that both projects get a share of the credit--GNU/Linux.
Time to read the GNU/Linux naming FAQ, perhaps.
The FSF, which has a very good grasp of American copyright law, maintains that setting conditions for merely running the software is outside the powers of a copyright holder in most circumstances. The early revisions of the Apple Public Source License were criticized on this basis, noting the cruel irony that would result if trying to make a free software license resulted in extending copyright power.
Yes, the proprietary masters have laid out a big enough tent where all can lose their freedom; no need to choose between them. It's sad how this framing of the debate helps perpetuate people's ignorance of software freedom: Run what you want, the "Linux [sic]" OS, and debating over price. It's no wonder people play right into the hands of the proprietors. Even the supposedly more educated readers of /. don't bother to acknowledge anything but that framing of the debate.
You who support running "Linux" will never gain the popularity you seek against a series of proprietors willing to lower their price to free. You're virtually handing them the argument by framing the debate in terms any proprietor can compete with instead of recognizing the trap this poses for users in the long term.
I didn't say anything about using the Nikon SDK because one doesn't need to. Money talks and thanks to many lucrative years of denying users their software freedom, Adobe is wealthy enough to negotiate a license that meets their desires as well as Nikon's desire for secrecy. Part of that license can include per-copy payments to Nikon, thus every paid Photoshop license includes a fee for software the user may never use.
But all of that is besides the point and immaterial. The important issue is not how these companies ought to try and squeeze more money out of you, but that a proprietor's desire should be subordinate to what the public wants. I doubt that the public wants to be treated in the way these companies have exhibited thus far.
I don't know what software Adobe has written regarding this, but the way I figure it, that is irrelevant. The DMCA is not what stops Adobe from providing their users with the kind of access to Nikon raw images that their Nikon-using Photoshop users may want, although I experience a good schadenfreude laugh at Adobe's expense when I read people make the argument that Adobe is somehow disadvantaged by the DMCA here.
Adobe can use some of the money from distributing proprietary software (ill-gotten gain, in my opinion) to negotiate a binary-only proprietary copy of a Nikon library to link to Photoshop which would allow Photoshop users to decrypt the Nikon raw white balance segment that is encrypted.
Nikon and Adobe both walk away getting what they want: Nikon's encryption is no less "secure" than it was before (how this works can be hidden from hidden from everyone, including Adobe), and Adobe gets to supply plug-and-play functionality to their users. Meanwhile, and more importantly, their users are left without their software freedom, and no ability to easily deal with Nikon raw images in other programs. Those users are paying their money in exchange for a loss of their software freedom and complete control over their images. If Adobe complains about not wanting to ship software under its name without full and complete source code to that program so they can inspect, modify, and even share it should the need arise, I'll get another schadenfreude chuckle at Adobe's expense because I want software freedom too. The only difference is I don't want to hoarde it from others.
Both Adobe and Nikon are treating their customers like dirt and it's always a good time to remind Adobe that it was wrong to have Sklyarov arrested, detained, and subject to an "agreement"..
To me, these are all excellent reasons to avoid or stop doing business with both Adobe and Nikon. Run the GIMP, use some other brand of camera that will give you the unencumbered raw functionality you want, and retain full control over your photos. The dcraw website hosts a list of cameras it will work with. Surely some camera on that list will meet one's needs without going to Nikon.
I think you mean a proprietary license, not a commercial license. The GNU General Public License (one of MySQL's licenses), as well as PostgreSQL and Firebird's licenses are all bases for doing business, hence they are already commercial licenses. Firebird and PostgreSQL are also licensed under a free software licenses--the Mozilla Public License and a variation on the 3-clause BSD license, respectively.
Where did you get the idea this agreement exists? What exactly does this agreement say? What evidence is there to show that Tridgell agreed to its terms or did something that required complying with such a clause or be liable for losing a copyright infringement lawsuit?
I'm suspect that Tridgell, who appears to be quite dedicated to software freedom, would realize the implications of agreeing to such a thing and therefore not agree to it.
As it stands, Tridge has said he was not a licensee of the Bitkeeper program. Furthermore, I have no reason to believe he's lying.
People are bound to ask about where the list came from because you are objecting to the wrong thing. This isn't about DOS apps printing in Virtual PC, this is about something far more common.
If you don't know where the pretty printer list came from and you don't care, then you didn't actually tackle the problem I addressed in the overmoderated grandparent's post. That post tries to convince us that typing in something technical (an IP address or a Windows share reference) is user-friendly. It's not and anyone who thinks it is isn't aware of how much easier it ought to be (think Zeroconf/Rendevous). No user should have to type in anything to get their printer set up if their printer will respond to a signal and identify its make and model.
I've set up my Brother HL-1270N on Microsoft Windows and MacOS X using two different means of connection: a network and connected directly to the machine. Both OSes over both connections required typing something in (Microsoft Windows also required loading drivers). None of that should be necessary and none of it was significantly better than what I had to do under Fedora Core 3 or Ubuntu GNU/Linux.
Software proprietors do this too. MacOS X's printer interface doesn't autoconfigure as much as it should and it doesn't keep up with network changes. When a laptop user goes from home to work their default printer (and printer selection) should automatically change.
Instead, Apple develops so-called "sexy" programs in other areas--there is no free software video editor that can do what iMovie does (although some are in development and I wouldn't be surprised if one became competitive someday).
If Apple follows the path NeXT did, Apple will focus its development on things that run atop an aging and increasingly out of date OS. NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP (which, contrary to the name, was not "open source") were both built to feature the web development kit and various other "sexy" programs that ran on the BSD-based OS that received no significant attention. There were no improvements to the lower level parts of these OSes that can compare to the developments of the Linux kernel or the various GNU programs on which so many operating systems depend.
No, Adobe wouldn't need to reverse engineer anything to make their proprietary software compatible with Nikon's encrypted white balance segment of the raw files. There actually aren't any adverse implications for Adobe in this situation.
Adobe need only negotiate a license for a proprietary binary-only software which they could link into Photoshop or call as needed. Thus, Nikon and Adobe can continue to screw users out of their freedoms and their money while these proprietors retain their secrets.
Please don't forget how Adobe used the DMCA to arrest and detain Sklyarov. The public's real problem with Adobe should center on Adobe treats their users and that they back laws which are unhelpful to the free software community.
Please explain what is illegitimate about reverse engineering Bitkeeper's network protocol in an effort to distribute a free software program which is network-compatible with the proprietary Bitkeeper program.
Providing an IP address, a printer share name, or any other such thing is not "easy". Non-administrative users don't want to learn what that means or why they need it (think Havoc Pennington's comment on what "PCM" means).
A far more reasonable interface for most users is what ESR described in his essay: let the machine search the LAN and any local interface, then prepare a pretty iconified list of printers, and allow the user to determine which printer is the one they want to print to (and which printer is the default for when they don't specify a printer).
This is simplicity for the user, the interface that really counts.