Oh, knock it off. The problem with the GPL is that it's prone to proprietary dual-licensing schemes. To contribute to a large GPLed project, it's required that you agree to legal documents whereupon you promise to give away your copyright to the project. They then can dual-license it, or sell per-seat licenses, get rich, while you sit in a corner and suck your thumb, living in your mother's basement, coding for free. At least with the BSD license, the code is yours, wherever and whenever you want it, be it in a community situation or a corporate setting. Hence, "freedom for coders." Your motivation to contribute to a code base should not be a "moral imperative", but a technical decision. I'll leave morality to religious zealots or for fans of personality cults that choose their leader's definition of "freedom." Some coders just happen to think it's to their advantage they can use code that can be made into a proprietary fork. Besides, what is the point of having patches, in Linux, for a lot of shit you don't even have, and will never have? About one or two years ago, major commercial Linux distros were complaining that the kernel was too big.
Fact: the majority of open source project out there with "massive" adoption _do_ _not_ license under GPL or GPL-like terms. They are more like the BSD license. Even Google and Intel release BSDed code. Get real. The FSF religion is in the minority.
In fact, small ISVs probably do not want to develop for Linux, due to "GPL virus fear." I know some like that. Besides, Linux is a PITA, anyways. Too bad there's a lot of hype behind this thing now, instead of BSDs.
Linux is backed up by corporations that work on the same hardware. Consider that Apple, for instance, uses BSD code, because they have exclusive hardware and are not on the same competition niche as vanilla-hardware manufacturers. So, case in point, there is no "highl moral ground" explanation as to why IBM supports the GPL. They just commoditize their complements, as Joel Spolsky wrote.
You neglect the real world cases, where *your* hard FPLed work ends up in a dual-licensed product, where you work for free while other people sell proprietary licenses.
I agree with you that this isn't a free-speech issue, but it is a freedom-of-information issue, in the sense that you can't block a whole country's access to a marvelous technology because some stupid twat went beach-fucking. I bet a judge in the U.S. would probably rule something much more common sense, saying something like: "Well, honey, didnn't your mother teach you not to fuck in public spaces, particularly if host a TV show on MTV?" (which Cicarelli does).
The internet is pushing for a more open transit of information than probably most societies are able to cope with, and it won't take long when the very spirit of this technology is going to clash with governments and institutions around the world. This only happend in Brazil because it has a relatively mature legal system (by comparison with a country, say, where the president renames the month of "January" after his mother's name - I forgot the place). The issue here is that we're going to see more of this from countries around the world. The abuse of power from governments, such as in this case, or in the internet censorship in China, or the way the US President claims he can spy on e-mails (sadly, the U.S. has not been a "beacon of freedom").
I don't see a very bright future for the internet, freedom-wise, unless some truly dispruptive annd freedom-supporting technologies begin to be developed. Us here on Slashdot, we're a tiny minority who find these things a scandal. The rest couldn't possibly care less. For all the Slashdot bashing I see here, I'm glad there's a forum where people flock to, to discuss these issues.
What I have written is nothing but the average opinion of historians. Furthermore, you distort what I said. I have not said every single problem is due to Portugal. However, it is just a fact the the Portugese Court kept Brazil in a very backward state, for too long. Brazilians are mostly not proud of their Portuguese heritage (a famous way of telling jokes in Brazil is the all-pervaise "jokes with a Portuguese man", where the character is invariably very stupid).
Historians normally set an econonomic parallel between Brazil and the Southern U.S.: an economy previously based on plantation, monoculture and slave-labor, that produced a huge disenfranchised population and situation that remains to this day showing the effects of social and economic exclusion (as the world witnessed in the Katrina disaster). It is, however, as if a whole country had adopted that model and kept that state of affairs. On the Western hemisphere, Brazil was the last coutry to abolish slavery. The heirs of slavery can be seen in the black population of Rio's favelas.
There is absolutely no question that the Portuguese rule had nefarious consequences: for instance, the oldest university is South America is the Peruvian National University of San Marcos, founded in 1551. By comparison, Brazil's oldest university is São Paulo's Law School, founded in...1827! Why is that? Because, by decree, universities were not allowed. Likewise, providing education for the general masses was not allowed. Manufacturing was not allowed until the 19th century (I'll leave it as an act of good will in the hope that you seek a furtherance of your education about Brazil, so lacking in substance, that you look it up on books.) The 19th century also saw the influx of million of immigrants form Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, Lebanon, and Japan, mostly, all of whoom helped create a more dynamic economy and a more open society (for instance, 1 in 8 brazilians are of Italian origin; 1% of the population of German origin; there are more Lebanese in Brazil then in Lebanon).
The fact was that the ruling elite was corrupt. Too distant from the Kindgom, too much gold here to be stolen or unaccounted for. How do you explain the fact that, in the 18th century, more gold was extracted from the mines of Ouro Preto than the whole of South America, and yet so little of that has remained in Portugal's hand (the sheer stupidity of the Portuguese court notwithstanding, accumulating debts with the Brittish crown)? The fact is that the Portuguese representatives in Brazil were nothing but generally corrupt. Furthermore, they differed from the common man in that they did not come to Brazil to work, but to plunder and extract. Brazil was, like the U.S. to the pilgrims and early settlers, a fresh new start, but in a depraved way. To treat a country this way leaves it mark. Look at Africa.
It wasn't until the 1930 that Brazil's industrialization took off. In the period of less than 50 years, the country shifted from a rural economy, to a rural nation, producing, during the 70s, growth comparable to today's China. The Cold War also had its ripple effects on Brazil (and the whole of Latin America), further complicating things - but that is the subject for another day.
The Portuguese were not all bad, however. They had a great quality, that set them apart from other European colonizers. They had no such concept of a racial division, or racial pride, as the white colonizers of Africa. Because of that, they produced a racially mixed society, a true melting pot. Although there was and there is racism in Brazil, you never had the sort of institutionalized racism like you had in South Africa or the U.S., with signs saying "whites only." Race relations have always been a lot more fluid in Brazil, and this perhaps is the greatest gift the Portuguese could ever give. Things, however, are changing, because of the large sector of the left are pushing for racial legislation (quotas). A large section of the black intelligentsia if funded by the Ford Foundation, and the Ford Foundation has their own views about what race relations should be.
You see, the thing is Brazil has an extremely convoluted legal jungle. It inherited this Portuguese culture of a love for all things legally convoluted and impenetrable. When Portugal colonized Brazil, for quite sometime the ruling elite was made of pretty much a bunch of aristocratic good-for-nothing lawyers/slackers that graduated from Coimbra University, in Portugal. The basic characteristic of such people were a basic lack of common sense as well as a despise for work. Instead of working, they made laws. And more laws. I mean, Portugal is notorious for having discovered America and then having ended up owing a huge amount of money to the Brits, as foreign debt, losing all the gold they had amassed, right? From that point on, they were basically a fishing village (until they joined the E.U.)
In Brazil, there have been over 3,510,804 norms and regulations published in the last 18 years alone. This averages 534 per day or 783 per work day (source,in Portuguese, here) (If you read Spanish, you read Portugese). Any corporation in Brazil is bound to have a gigantic body of lawyers. The whole system is about to collapse, but there's no sign of a legal reform. There are too many laws, and too many stupid decisions. Until recently, it was possible to maneuver in legal waters to a point that even trivial matters went to the Supreme Court. By trivial, I mean a dog biting the neighbour. Can you even imagine that in the U.S of A.? Also, judges here have too much power, it would seem. Even when they are complete and utter imbecils, as seems to be the case. Were I on a Brazilian blog, BTW, I would not dare say I thought the judge was an imbecil, though.
Also, there is such a thing in the civil code as "the right to one's own image." This means that you have the right to control the use of your image. However, it would seem that fucking in a public beach, when you are a celebrity of sorts would preclude to right to pledge the right to such right. Am I being clear? I mean, there have been all sorts of pornographic interpretation of individual rights. I recently witnessed a complete douchebag seriously threaten with a lawsuit a list moderator. The guy had been expelled because of bad behaviour, but he went on to take legal action on the ground his "right to expression" was being denied. I bet he's got a 50-50 chance of pulling it off, too. All sorts of weird shit like this in Brazil. Another fun one was a judge ruling spam was ok, because it didn't "waste any material resources" (that was circa 1996, though). Oh, yeah, and the Brazilian Constitution does not grant you the right to express yourslef anonymously. Huh.
There have been cases, for instance, of cartoonists being sued because of portraying politicians in what was judged to be "excessive" ridicule. Now, either that is the job of a cartoonist that specializes in political satire or I just really should be just as well living in Iran, Cuba or China. All this means is that Brazil, sadly, has little garantees of real freedom of expression. Just about every newspaper has to waste a huge amount of money and time in courts. I wouldn't say it would be wise to have a blog and express one's opinion as openly as people do in the United States, in Brazil. Chances are, they'll sue your pants off. Unless you are working in a big media outlet, you're dead meat. In a more shameful example, when NYT reporter Larry Rother suggested in an article that Brazil's president had a penchant for heavy drinking, the president and his acolytes considered actually banning Mr. Rother form the country. They went bananas.
We will live yet to see the day when Google gets blocked in Brazil, because they refused to remove a link to press material judged "offensive" to corrupt politicos. You'll see... There'll come a time I'll probably ask for political exile somewhere. When they ask me why, I'll answer: "Because living in Brazil fucks too much with my head and I'll become a mental case, sooner or later."
I think it's time people just abandon such high hopes with this Debian-derived Linux. We have read recently how Debian developers were stalling once again...And Ubuntu depends on Debian. Good luck with that.
Besides, Linux distros, as a whole, are a sort of a mess. If you ever had to buy proprietary software for Linux, you know what I'm talking about - unreliable. You better pray that on your next upgrade your expensive software will work. There are too many differences between distros for ISVs to keep up...
Right now, it seems the best choice for an open source desktop would be PC-BSD, with its install as easy as a Windows or a Mac OS install. PC-BSD, fortunately, is based on FreeBSD and is not a fork or a distro. Just a solution on top of FreeBSD. BSD developers work on the system as a whole. Linux is made of bits and pieces. Some say that it's what makes it evolve faster. I'm not so sure. Of course, we have to keep in mind what firms like IBM invest in Linux development...Apparently, the fallacy that GPL protects your business investment seems to hinder BSD devlopment (20th-century limited material resources type of thinking...)
I've used Debian for over 5 years. I tried Ubuntu. Ubuntu has has too many problems for my taste, like problems in upgrading, documentation problems, etc. I thought the whole Ubuntu experience was disorganized, in fact, and I thought PHP web forums for support was the most pathetic you could get (hey, NNTP is nice!). SuSE and RedHat have per seat licenses, so where do you go for a decent Linux? We're not in 1996 anymore, we expect shit to work.
The whole typical Linux experience that made me switch to OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Mac OS. I am not going back to that ever...
Maybe FSF/GNU had it right to begin with. Maybe it's time to take another look at HURD too.
Maybe it's time you stop the (nice) proselytizing (where are the screenshots, BTW?) and start reading the papers by the microkernel community. Maybe you'll learn why some of them are not working on The HURD, and why even The HURD developers talked about moving to L4, IIRC.
apt-get is not easy. Besides, apt-get sufers from dependency hell. Instead of making things simple, they added yet another layer of complexity (I'm talink about makefiles vs. debs).
PC-BSD, Windows or Macs are easy. You download the package and double-click it to install it. Pronto.
The primary benefit of open source software is that you can be a geek with it. When it doesn't work, you open up the source and muck around. Geeks love that.
No. Adolescents and young adult college students geeks love that. Once you graduate, you are too busy working on your programming to have the time to fix the stupid little problems that crop up in Linux all the time. That, BTW, is one factor explaining why BSDs get less press on blogs, etc. Since the systems work in a more consistent manner, their users are not blogging about their workarounds or political problems so much (oh, the GPL3, the Debian vs. Ubuntu, etc.);
If I have criticisms of OSS, it's related to that. A shiny, "cool" project that relates to Linux as a server will attract a ton of developers, while some dull, routine desktop function that a clerical person needs will attract no one. The result is that Linux is now an outstanding server OS, but a mediocre desktop.
And how do you suppose you'll get vendors to work on a GPL OS?
simply to get the splash-over benefit of the people using OS X and to tempt a few back. I'd rather be using a GPL OS
I'm totally cool with using Mac OS X. First, because in terms of FOSS, I use FreeBSD too, and not Linux (for a variety of reasons - all technical, and one "political" - the license). Since FreeBSD and Apple exchanged code and Apple hired FreeBSD people, I don't think I'm "betraying" anything or anoyone by buying Apple.
This is a very different view from the GPL crowd. From my standpoint, I _want_ open source code to make into proprietary code. I mean, you have to buy a computer, anyways. Nobody is going to give you the hardware.
Besides, if anyone wants to study the code, they can look at Darwin. To a limit, that'll give you an idea on what was done. The particular solution is left to Apple alone to know. Fair enough.
So, us BSD license lovers are different people than GNU folks. I mean, I don't understand the concept of saying something is free and then have this concept narrowly defined, as in my definition of how you can use the freedom. Either you give people the freedom, or you don't. The inherent values of things are not given by what you tell me, but by the things themselves. If you work on a free software project, you can't complain if your code makes into a proprietary solution. If you envy that, than make proprietary software. Instead, on the GNU camp we see Debian cry babies, complaining that Ubuntu developers are getting paid and they're not (or, more recently, Dunc-Tank). For instance, there's inherent value in the freedom of FreeBSD. The fact that Apple has proprietary code in their machines in a way, devalues them. Mac OS X may be better in many ways, but it's not as free as FOSS.
For instance, KDE is cool, very cool. There's inherent value in there, does somethings better than Mac OS. FreeBSD is great, love it better than Debian (yes, I was a zealot). I think it's better that people take good quality open source code and just merge it with their stuff. OpenSSH is everywhere now. A Good Thing. It makes the world a better, safer place. This is really sharing. Like before all this licensing paranoia we all live in nowadays.
I just mean to say that it's very confortable being somewhere between these two worlds. Because dichotomies cease to exist. The false sense of morality ceases to exist. The anger ceases to exist.
If I own my own computer shop, sell 'blank computers'...and sell software separately, for instance, the OS that I will install for them if they buy a system, what draconian terms am I beholden to MS for?
In the (real) scenario I depicted, you already ship machines with the OS installed. Plus, you have them on display, running Windows. Additionally, you have some machines with Linux (and some with Mac OS).
You can't install Microsoft software on a machine with Linux.
Are you saying I have to sign some kind of contract just to sell MS products at my store? This contract says what I can and cannot put on a computer I sell?
Yes, so I'm told. See above.
Note: this refers to MS practices in Brazil, in a major town, in a big shopping mall. I would just love to learn the Microsoft does nothing like that in the U.S. or Europe. Anyone care to share their experiences?
Let me paint you this very real picture (someone I know): you own a computer store. You do have Linux on some machines. Customers come in, they look at it. They're curious. Oh, so this is "Linux" (notice? they've heard of it; they might even know it's open source - the term free software, in English, I'm not so sure is a good one - it sounds unprofessional.). They want to know if they can still have MS Office. Can their kids play games? Windows games?
There's no way you can prove to Joe Dad that he doesn't need Windows, but that he can still have the Windows software he needs. That he will save money, by not having to pay for the expensive MS OS, and that he will gain in security, and save in antivirus software. In fact, your deal with Microsoft may even specify that if you even suggest that, you'll be in breach of contract.
To make matters worse, Microsoft (and Intel, BTW), will shove you a lot of money to promote your store (as long as you flash their brand names), even give you money for advertising.
So, you see, this is not such a simple world where "the best technology wins" or "as long as we have standards." This is much more than that, it's a marketing game. Linux, PC-BSD, etc, will have to start with the corporate desktop, where money matters. Unfortunately, Windows users are in a deadlock, because the FLOSS community has not been able to come up with competitive Office solutions (please, do not say OpenOffice.org is that solution - people who say that have no idea what they're talking about), including integration with the said hypothetical suite.
Yeah. When people say Microsoft is user friendly, what they mean is "it's the only thing I know how to use." Which is easy to explain, once you achieved monopoly status through dirty business practices, and when you give computers to school kids so they can be "indoctrinated" to your stupid, horrible OS (Ok, so Vista's beautiful, I'm glad).
I agree, in part, with you (although I'm sure the Linux fanboy will mod you down).
Mac OS X has a wonderful GUI, there's no point in arguing that. However, it's somewhat overrated. It does have a lot of bells and whistles, but when I first bought my Mac, I didn't really think it was as intuitive as they say. Or functional. For instance, Safari doesn't hava a fullscreen mode (I get around that using Opera). I miss having 4 diffferent desktops I can just switch to using the keyboard, for instance. Etc. (Maybe things I like having in my FreeBSD?)
OTOH, the wide screen definitely helps the usability factor - and this has nothing to do with Aqua vs. KDE. It's a design choice by Apple.
KDE is beautiful and very, very functional. Konqueror simply rocks, I love the way it displays all the documents (like PDFs - although I wish you could actually _read_ a paper's first page by passing the mouse over it). Mac OS X doesn't do that (AFAIK, but I still have to RTFM - but it should do that as default behaviour). KDE is cluttered, but all it takes is some commmon sense in order to provide the user with the "correct minimal."
Now, GNOME is just stupid: outdated human interface guidelines; two bars that just make you waste vertical space; not tweakable enough. And slow (I mean, Object Oriented programming in C has got to be slow, right?). Pretty, but...
I wonder. Does anyone think this is the effect of huge C/C++ projects crumbling under their own weight? Also, how about the documentation? Is the GTK+ documentation adequate (or sufficient)? Wrt GNOME, about a year ago there was a huge brouhaha with ex-OSNews editor Eugenia Loli-Queru when she pointed out that GNOME didn't implement or care about what usability issues put forward by users. Nor patches. GNOME has had a bad attitude problem for years (witness the brawl with OpenBSD; and FreeBSD developers say GNOME developers don't really care much about anything that isn't Linux). Would this be part of the problem in the shortage of developers?
Yes, the expected and canonical "MS sucks and OpenOffice rulez" fanboy response.
Listen, fanboy, if the world looked was anything like those distortion lenses you wear, you would think every suit on Wall Street fired up OpenOffice in the mornings, right? Instead, everybody else, except you and your clique of basement dwellers use the now industry-standard Microsoft format, and for compatibility issues, prefer the MS Word package.
Oh, by the way, than you for your wise advice on 200-plus documents being a complete impossibility on MS Word. I'll remember that, next time I read a PhD theses. I'll just look at it and say: "this is not possible, because Fanboy sait it on Slashdot." Seriously, get a job.
OpenOffice.org has had - what, almost 10 years? - time to play catch-up, but it just didn't. This says something about it, doesn't it? Oh, wait, I forget, you're almost blind.
Slashdot Mirror
BSD code is not public domain. Credit must be given in BSD code. In public domain, it's not necessary.
Oh, knock it off. The problem with the GPL is that it's prone to proprietary dual-licensing schemes.
To contribute to a large GPLed project, it's required that you agree to legal documents whereupon you promise to give away your copyright to the project.
They then can dual-license it, or sell per-seat licenses, get rich, while you sit in a corner and suck your thumb, living in your mother's basement, coding for free.
At least with the BSD license, the code is yours, wherever and whenever you want it, be it in a community situation or a corporate setting. Hence, "freedom for coders." Your motivation to contribute to a code base should not be a "moral imperative", but a technical decision. I'll leave morality to religious zealots or for fans of personality cults that choose their leader's definition of "freedom."
Some coders just happen to think it's to their advantage they can use code that can be made into a proprietary fork. Besides, what is the point of having patches, in Linux, for a lot of shit you don't even have, and will never have? About one or two years ago, major commercial Linux distros were complaining that the kernel was too big.
Fact: the majority of open source project out there with "massive" adoption _do_ _not_ license under GPL or GPL-like terms. They are more like the BSD license. Even Google and Intel release BSDed code. Get real. The FSF religion is in the minority.
In fact, small ISVs probably do not want to develop for Linux, due to "GPL virus fear." I know some like that. Besides, Linux is a PITA, anyways. Too bad there's a lot of hype behind this thing now, instead of BSDs.
Linux is backed up by corporations that work on the same hardware. Consider that Apple, for instance, uses BSD code, because they have exclusive hardware and are not on the same competition niche as vanilla-hardware manufacturers. So, case in point, there is no "highl moral ground" explanation as to why IBM supports the GPL. They just commoditize their complements, as Joel Spolsky wrote.
You neglect the real world cases, where *your* hard FPLed work ends up in a dual-licensed product, where you work for free while other people sell proprietary licenses.
Bullshit. They're lying now, aren't they.
YouTube is blocked for me.
Google has a branch here, as well as a research center.
I agree with you that this isn't a free-speech issue, but it is a freedom-of-information issue, in the sense that you can't block a whole country's access to a marvelous technology because some stupid twat went beach-fucking. I bet a judge in the U.S. would probably rule something much more common sense, saying something like: "Well, honey, didnn't your mother teach you not to fuck in public spaces, particularly if host a TV show on MTV?" (which Cicarelli does).
The internet is pushing for a more open transit of information than probably most societies are able to cope with, and it won't take long when the very spirit of this technology is going to clash with governments and institutions around the world. This only happend in Brazil because it has a relatively mature legal system (by comparison with a country, say, where the president renames the month of "January" after his mother's name - I forgot the place). The issue here is that we're going to see more of this from countries around the world. The abuse of power from governments, such as in this case, or in the internet censorship in China, or the way the US President claims he can spy on e-mails (sadly, the U.S. has not been a "beacon of freedom").
I don't see a very bright future for the internet, freedom-wise, unless some truly dispruptive annd freedom-supporting technologies begin to be developed. Us here on Slashdot, we're a tiny minority who find these things a scandal. The rest couldn't possibly care less. For all the Slashdot bashing I see here, I'm glad there's a forum where people flock to, to discuss these issues.
What I have written is nothing but the average opinion of historians. Furthermore, you distort what I said. I have not said every single problem is due to Portugal. However, it is just a fact the the Portugese Court kept Brazil in a very backward state, for too long. Brazilians are mostly not proud of their Portuguese heritage (a famous way of telling jokes in Brazil is the all-pervaise "jokes with a Portuguese man", where the character is invariably very stupid).
Historians normally set an econonomic parallel between Brazil and the Southern U.S.: an economy previously based on plantation, monoculture and slave-labor, that produced a huge disenfranchised population and situation that remains to this day showing the effects of social and economic exclusion (as the world witnessed in the Katrina disaster). It is, however, as if a whole country had adopted that model and kept that state of affairs. On the Western hemisphere, Brazil was the last coutry to abolish slavery. The heirs of slavery can be seen in the black population of Rio's favelas.
There is absolutely no question that the Portuguese rule had nefarious consequences: for instance, the oldest university is South America is the Peruvian National University of San Marcos, founded in 1551. By comparison, Brazil's oldest university is São Paulo's Law School, founded in...1827! Why is that? Because, by decree, universities were not allowed. Likewise, providing education for the general masses was not allowed. Manufacturing was not allowed until the 19th century (I'll leave it as an act of good will in the hope that you seek a furtherance of your education about Brazil, so lacking in substance, that you look it up on books.) The 19th century also saw the influx of million of immigrants form Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, Lebanon, and Japan, mostly, all of whoom helped create a more dynamic economy and a more open society (for instance, 1 in 8 brazilians are of Italian origin; 1% of the population of German origin; there are more Lebanese in Brazil then in Lebanon).
The fact was that the ruling elite was corrupt. Too distant from the Kindgom, too much gold here to be stolen or unaccounted for. How do you explain the fact that, in the 18th century, more gold was extracted from the mines of Ouro Preto than the whole of South America, and yet so little of that has remained in Portugal's hand (the sheer stupidity of the Portuguese court notwithstanding, accumulating debts with the Brittish crown)? The fact is that the Portuguese representatives in Brazil were nothing but generally corrupt. Furthermore, they differed from the common man in that they did not come to Brazil to work, but to plunder and extract. Brazil was, like the U.S. to the pilgrims and early settlers, a fresh new start, but in a depraved way. To treat a country this way leaves it mark. Look at Africa.
It wasn't until the 1930 that Brazil's industrialization took off. In the period of less than 50 years, the country shifted from a rural economy, to a rural nation, producing, during the 70s, growth comparable to today's China. The Cold War also had its ripple effects on Brazil (and the whole of Latin America), further complicating things - but that is the subject for another day.
The Portuguese were not all bad, however. They had a great quality, that set them apart from other European colonizers. They had no such concept of a racial division, or racial pride, as the white colonizers of Africa. Because of that, they produced a racially mixed society, a true melting pot. Although there was and there is racism in Brazil, you never had the sort of institutionalized racism like you had in South Africa or the U.S., with signs saying "whites only." Race relations have always been a lot more fluid in Brazil, and this perhaps is the greatest gift the Portuguese could ever give. Things, however, are changing, because of the large sector of the left are pushing for racial legislation (quotas). A large section of the black intelligentsia if funded by the Ford Foundation, and the Ford Foundation has their own views about what race relations should be.
You see, the thing is Brazil has an extremely convoluted legal jungle. It inherited this Portuguese culture of a love for all things legally convoluted and impenetrable. When Portugal colonized Brazil, for quite sometime the ruling elite was made of pretty much a bunch of aristocratic good-for-nothing lawyers/slackers that graduated from Coimbra University, in Portugal. The basic characteristic of such people were a basic lack of common sense as well as a despise for work. Instead of working, they made laws. And more laws. I mean, Portugal is notorious for having discovered America and then having ended up owing a huge amount of money to the Brits, as foreign debt, losing all the gold they had amassed, right? From that point on, they were basically a fishing village (until they joined the E.U.)
In Brazil, there have been over 3,510,804 norms and regulations published in the last 18 years alone. This averages 534 per day or 783 per work day (source,in Portuguese, here) (If you read Spanish, you read Portugese). Any corporation in Brazil is bound to have a gigantic body of lawyers. The whole system is about to collapse, but there's no sign of a legal reform. There are too many laws, and too many stupid decisions. Until recently, it was possible to maneuver in legal waters to a point that even trivial matters went to the Supreme Court. By trivial, I mean a dog biting the neighbour. Can you even imagine that in the U.S of A.? Also, judges here have too much power, it would seem. Even when they are complete and utter imbecils, as seems to be the case. Were I on a Brazilian blog, BTW, I would not dare say I thought the judge was an imbecil, though.
Also, there is such a thing in the civil code as "the right to one's own image." This means that you have the right to control the use of your image. However, it would seem that fucking in a public beach, when you are a celebrity of sorts would preclude to right to pledge the right to such right. Am I being clear? I mean, there have been all sorts of pornographic interpretation of individual rights. I recently witnessed a complete douchebag seriously threaten with a lawsuit a list moderator. The guy had been expelled because of bad behaviour, but he went on to take legal action on the ground his "right to expression" was being denied. I bet he's got a 50-50 chance of pulling it off, too. All sorts of weird shit like this in Brazil. Another fun one was a judge ruling spam was ok, because it didn't "waste any material resources" (that was circa 1996, though). Oh, yeah, and the Brazilian Constitution does not grant you the right to express yourslef anonymously. Huh.
There have been cases, for instance, of cartoonists being sued because of portraying politicians in what was judged to be "excessive" ridicule. Now, either that is the job of a cartoonist that specializes in political satire or I just really should be just as well living in Iran, Cuba or China. All this means is that Brazil, sadly, has little garantees of real freedom of expression. Just about every newspaper has to waste a huge amount of money and time in courts. I wouldn't say it would be wise to have a blog and express one's opinion as openly as people do in the United States, in Brazil. Chances are, they'll sue your pants off. Unless you are working in a big media outlet, you're dead meat. In a more shameful example, when NYT reporter Larry Rother suggested in an article that Brazil's president had a penchant for heavy drinking, the president and his acolytes considered actually banning Mr. Rother form the country. They went bananas.
We will live yet to see the day when Google gets blocked in Brazil, because they refused to remove a link to press material judged "offensive" to corrupt politicos. You'll see... There'll come a time I'll probably ask for political exile somewhere. When they ask me why, I'll answer: "Because living in Brazil fucks too much with my head and I'll become a mental case, sooner or later."
I think it's time people just abandon such high hopes with this Debian-derived Linux. We have read recently how Debian developers were stalling once again...And Ubuntu depends on Debian. Good luck with that.
Besides, Linux distros, as a whole, are a sort of a mess. If you ever had to buy proprietary software for Linux, you know what I'm talking about - unreliable. You better pray that on your next upgrade your expensive software will work. There are too many differences between distros for ISVs to keep up...
Right now, it seems the best choice for an open source desktop would be PC-BSD, with its install as easy as a Windows or a Mac OS install. PC-BSD, fortunately, is based on FreeBSD and is not a fork or a distro. Just a solution on top of FreeBSD. BSD developers work on the system as a whole. Linux is made of bits and pieces. Some say that it's what makes it evolve faster. I'm not so sure. Of course, we have to keep in mind what firms like IBM invest in Linux development...Apparently, the fallacy that GPL protects your business investment seems to hinder BSD devlopment (20th-century limited material resources type of thinking...)
I've used Debian for over 5 years. I tried Ubuntu. Ubuntu has has too many problems for my taste, like problems in upgrading, documentation problems, etc. I thought the whole Ubuntu experience was disorganized, in fact, and I thought PHP web forums for support was the most pathetic you could get (hey, NNTP is nice!). SuSE and RedHat have per seat licenses, so where do you go for a decent Linux? We're not in 1996 anymore, we expect shit to work.
The whole typical Linux experience that made me switch to OpenBSD, FreeBSD and Mac OS. I am not going back to that ever...
You have to patch the linux Kernel before it spits out dumps when thing go bump in the night.
Maybe FSF/GNU had it right to begin with. Maybe it's time to take another look at HURD too.
Maybe it's time you stop the (nice) proselytizing (where are the screenshots, BTW?) and start reading the papers by the microkernel community. Maybe you'll learn why some of them are not working on The HURD, and why even The HURD developers talked about moving to L4, IIRC.
apt-get is not easy. Besides, apt-get sufers from dependency hell. Instead of making things simple, they added yet another layer of complexity (I'm talink about makefiles vs. debs).
PC-BSD, Windows or Macs are easy. You download the package and double-click it to install it. Pronto.
The primary benefit of open source software is that you can be a geek with it. When it doesn't work, you open up the source and muck around. Geeks love that.
No. Adolescents and young adult college students geeks love that.
Once you graduate, you are too busy working on your programming to have the time to fix the stupid little problems that crop up in Linux all the time.
That, BTW, is one factor explaining why BSDs get less press on blogs, etc. Since the systems work in a more consistent manner, their users are not blogging about their workarounds or political problems so much (oh, the GPL3, the Debian vs. Ubuntu, etc.);
Really, only $80 ? Well, I'm actually suprised. I haven't used Window since 1995, and I'm not on par with the prices.
However, I believe here in Brazil (where I live), Windows costs more.
If I have criticisms of OSS, it's related to that. A shiny, "cool" project that relates to Linux as a server will attract a ton of developers, while some dull, routine desktop function that a clerical person needs will attract no one. The result is that Linux is now an outstanding server OS, but a mediocre desktop.
And how do you suppose you'll get vendors to work on a GPL OS?
simply to get the splash-over benefit of the people using OS X and to tempt a few back. I'd rather be using a GPL OS
I'm totally cool with using Mac OS X. First, because in terms of FOSS, I use FreeBSD too, and not Linux (for a variety of reasons - all technical, and one "political" - the license). Since FreeBSD and Apple exchanged code and Apple hired FreeBSD people, I don't think I'm "betraying" anything or anoyone by buying Apple.
This is a very different view from the GPL crowd. From my standpoint, I _want_ open source code to make into proprietary code. I mean, you have to buy a computer, anyways. Nobody is going to give you the hardware.
Besides, if anyone wants to study the code, they can look at Darwin. To a limit, that'll give you an idea on what was done. The particular solution is left to Apple alone to know. Fair enough.
So, us BSD license lovers are different people than GNU folks. I mean, I don't understand the concept of saying something is free and then have this concept narrowly defined, as in my definition of how you can use the freedom. Either you give people the freedom, or you don't. The inherent values of things are not given by what you tell me, but by the things themselves. If you work on a free software project, you can't complain if your code makes into a proprietary solution. If you envy that, than make proprietary software. Instead, on the GNU camp we see Debian cry babies, complaining that Ubuntu developers are getting paid and they're not (or, more recently, Dunc-Tank). For instance, there's inherent value in the freedom of FreeBSD. The fact that Apple has proprietary code in their machines in a way, devalues them. Mac OS X may be better in many ways, but it's not as free as FOSS.
For instance, KDE is cool, very cool. There's inherent value in there, does somethings better than Mac OS. FreeBSD is great, love it better than Debian (yes, I was a zealot). I think it's better that people take good quality open source code and just merge it with their stuff. OpenSSH is everywhere now. A Good Thing. It makes the world a better, safer place. This is really sharing. Like before all this licensing paranoia we all live in nowadays.
I just mean to say that it's very confortable being somewhere between these two worlds. Because dichotomies cease to exist. The false sense of morality ceases to exist. The anger ceases to exist.
If I own my own computer shop, sell 'blank computers'...and sell software separately, for instance, the OS that I will install for them if they buy a system, what draconian terms am I beholden to MS for?
In the (real) scenario I depicted, you already ship machines with the OS installed. Plus, you have them on display, running Windows. Additionally, you have some machines with Linux (and some with Mac OS).
You can't install Microsoft software on a machine with Linux.
Are you saying I have to sign some kind of contract just to sell MS products at my store? This contract says what I can and cannot put on a computer I sell?
Yes, so I'm told. See above.
Note: this refers to MS practices in Brazil, in a major town, in a big shopping mall. I would just love to learn the Microsoft does nothing like that in the U.S. or Europe. Anyone care to share their experiences?
Oh boy, are linuxers naive...
n tExpress&file=index&func=display&ceid=29 so their kids can play games. You are not allowed to do that, because Microsoft has you under a draconian contract. You do that, you're dead meat.
Let me paint you this very real picture (someone I know): you own a computer store. You do have Linux on some machines. Customers come in, they look at it. They're curious. Oh, so this is "Linux" (notice? they've heard of it; they might even know it's open source - the term free software, in English, I'm not so sure is a good one - it sounds unprofessional.). They want to know if they can still have MS Office. Can their kids play games? Windows games?
But here's where things start to go wrong: you are not allowed, for instance, to install CodeWeavers http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/ for them to see MS Office inside Linux, or Transgaming's Cedega http://www.transgaming.com/index.php?module=Conte
There's no way you can prove to Joe Dad that he doesn't need Windows, but that he can still have the Windows software he needs. That he will save money, by not having to pay for the expensive MS OS, and that he will gain in security, and save in antivirus software. In fact, your deal with Microsoft may even specify that if you even suggest that, you'll be in breach of contract.
To make matters worse, Microsoft (and Intel, BTW), will shove you a lot of money to promote your store (as long as you flash their brand names), even give you money for advertising.
So, you see, this is not such a simple world where "the best technology wins" or "as long as we have standards." This is much more than that, it's a marketing game. Linux, PC-BSD, etc, will have to start with the corporate desktop, where money matters. Unfortunately, Windows users are in a deadlock, because the FLOSS community has not been able to come up with competitive Office solutions (please, do not say OpenOffice.org is that solution - people who say that have no idea what they're talking about), including integration with the said hypothetical suite.
Yeah. When people say Microsoft is user friendly, what they mean is "it's the only thing I know how to use." Which is easy to explain, once you achieved monopoly status through dirty business practices, and when you give computers to school kids so they can be "indoctrinated" to your stupid, horrible OS (Ok, so Vista's beautiful, I'm glad).
I agree, in part, with you (although I'm sure the Linux fanboy will mod you down).
Mac OS X has a wonderful GUI, there's no point in arguing that. However, it's somewhat overrated. It does have a lot of bells and whistles, but when I first bought my Mac, I didn't really think it was as intuitive as they say. Or functional. For instance, Safari doesn't hava a fullscreen mode (I get around that using Opera). I miss having 4 diffferent desktops I can just switch to using the keyboard, for instance. Etc. (Maybe things I like having in my FreeBSD?)
OTOH, the wide screen definitely helps the usability factor - and this has nothing to do with Aqua vs. KDE. It's a design choice by Apple.
KDE is beautiful and very, very functional. Konqueror simply rocks, I love the way it displays all the documents (like PDFs - although I wish you could actually _read_ a paper's first page by passing the mouse over it). Mac OS X doesn't do that (AFAIK, but I still have to RTFM - but it should do that as default behaviour). KDE is cluttered, but all it takes is some commmon sense in order to provide the user with the "correct minimal."
Now, GNOME is just stupid: outdated human interface guidelines; two bars that just make you waste vertical space; not tweakable enough. And slow (I mean, Object Oriented programming in C has got to be slow, right?). Pretty, but...
I wonder. Does anyone think this is the effect of huge C/C++ projects crumbling under their own weight?
Also, how about the documentation? Is the GTK+ documentation adequate (or sufficient)?
Wrt GNOME, about a year ago there was a huge brouhaha with ex-OSNews editor Eugenia Loli-Queru when she pointed out that GNOME didn't implement or care about what usability issues put forward by users. Nor patches.
GNOME has had a bad attitude problem for years (witness the brawl with OpenBSD; and FreeBSD developers say GNOME developers don't really care much about anything that isn't Linux). Would this be part of the problem in the shortage of developers?
Mod this guy up, somebody.
Yeah. Like you PC. It was free. You just picked it off a store shelf, didn't you?
Oh, you mean like the Seven Step to Enlightenment.
And you're not religious?
Please, inform us.
Yes, the expected and canonical "MS sucks and OpenOffice rulez" fanboy response.
Listen, fanboy, if the world looked was anything like those distortion lenses you wear, you would think every suit on Wall Street fired up OpenOffice in the mornings, right? Instead, everybody else, except you and your clique of basement dwellers use the now industry-standard Microsoft format, and for compatibility issues, prefer the MS Word package.
Oh, by the way, than you for your wise advice on 200-plus documents being a complete impossibility on MS Word. I'll remember that, next time I read a PhD theses. I'll just look at it and say: "this is not possible, because Fanboy sait it on Slashdot." Seriously, get a job.
OpenOffice.org has had - what, almost 10 years? - time to play catch-up, but it just didn't. This says something about it, doesn't it? Oh, wait, I forget, you're almost blind.