Thank God, the Windows Registry is the dumbest fucking idea Microsoft ever had. (...) Text config files are infinitely to be preferred over such a thing. (...)
How so? WindowsME, for instance, allowed system "rollbacks", with click, click, click. How is that "terrible"? Text config files makes it harder to use advanced techniques such as AI, don't you think? It's nice that kudzu and libdiscover use XML...makes everything easier and has totally changed the Linux installation process. One of these days, people are going to have to leave the 70s behind...
All this is _provable_. Speed of an interface can be modeled using the GOMS framework.
Nice to know. Now, a question for Novell and GNOME: How can they expect to win on the desktop when they don't invest a single penny on usability studies, having something reminiscent of the human interface guidelines of MacOS 7 or 8? When Eugenia Loli-Queru complained on OSNews about Gnome, she got seriously burned...
Yeah, you know, the problem is that you're hypothesizing, besides stating the obvious, beaten-to-death follow-up argument against the BSDL. The reality is that the told a True Story (TM) about Real Code (TM). And what you say might as well be a non-sequitur, because a company might not touch GPL code in the first place.
No enterprise will achieve full Free *Nix migration (*) unless they solve the whole puzzle. That puzzle is called "workflow management", which is the process through which an enterpise integrates all their document workflow, substituting paper for eletronic formats. The reason enterprises stick to the Windows platform is mostly because of MSOffice. Microsoft realizes this, so recently they decided to turn it into an open standard, because they were afraid of the Massachussets' state ruling against closed formats.
You need to seemlessly integrate and import any Microsoft format they may have. You need to have applications that integrate seamlessly with your office software. Anyone who's seen this kind of software on Windows knows what I'm talking about (stuff like OnBase, Meridian, etc.) You need to be able to write applications that integrate with the desktop. This is something MFC allows. you can have great interoperability among third-party softwares. You can just drag-and-drop widgets and custom-built GUIs that will work seemlessly with your document management software. That way I can, for instance, independently develop a software for medical clinics that will just couple with their content management software, which could potentially cause a sprint for open formats/FOSS solutions.
OpenOffice is a small first step to achieve that kind of document integration, But then you look at Novell and RedHat. One's betting on Mono. Its competitor invests in Java. There's also the issue of KDE and GNOME. What's the commonality here, what's the standard? None. That's why so many developers turned to Java. Truth be said, Miguel de Icaza already envisioned these problems when he chose to develop Mono. Mono aims to achieve cross-operating-system compatibility, and this probably is the quantum leap. Once you get to the point where you get a Windows developer to make software that runs on Free unix, than you've crossed the invisible line. You've assimiliated them. Sadly, because RedHat competes with Novell, it boycotts Mono and pushes Java. I don't believe anything will be achieved with Java, in that sense. It's been around for a while now, and we didn't see enterprise level integration software, except for OpenOffice.
Too many people in the open source community care about such things as servers, operating systems, etc (system-level software) and miss a huge window of opportunity on other types of software. This is probably because they don't know the needs today's corporations. And there's the license problem (some won't touch the GPL with a flagpole). You can't sell something the customer doesn't want. Except if you're Microsoft.
Yeah, and the only project I know that turned into a GPL project because of a GPL library is the "widely known and used" (*) CLISP implementation of Common Lisp (read about the imbrogliohere).
Now some would consider that real evidence that the GPL stimulates people to merge their code because of contagion, wouldn't they, as opposed to something like BSD sockets. Right?
Please explain how this conflicts with the parents claim that "it isn't "linux" binairy. it's a ELF or a.out binairy... yet another standard" ? And please explain what the "Linux fanboy" was supposed to learn from this ?
As I said, the GPL is advantageous to you, you being the sole author. However, should anyone else contribute, they would have to: 1) Fill in paper work granting you their copyright (something you should require, in case you dual-license); 2) Just feel smug and content that you'll be the one making dough with it when you license it under a proprietary wrapper. Everybody else is allowed to just chip in and help, but they can't do the same. Talk about saints... However, as you said, none of this applies because you're the sole author. Which again leads me to ask: what's the point of using the GPL license, if nobody's going to get their contributions accepted? Why are you making the source code public? Do you want to help, but not be helped? And if you help yourself making hard cash with the dual-license, you won't let others do it? The only logic I see, is a flawed logic. You're the one wanting to give away without getting anything back since you don't accept contributions and you release under the GPL.
A prudent approach, in my opinion, is to assume that you aren't allowed to dual-license contributions if you're the original author
You're entirely right that a lot of licenses should be really MPL-like, definitely not the GPL. This just shows the ignorance regarding the licenses. Law firms, ahoy! What I meant was that dual-licensing is happening all over! Small projects wanna do it. Large projects do it. MySQL does it. AFAIK, the only big projects that are carefull are OO.org and the FSF. They demmand that you fill a paper form and snail-mail it giving up on your copyright. I agree that that the prudent approach is that of not assuming you can dual-license, but a lot of people are assuming the contrary, either due to unfairness or ignorance (the hype and noise around GNU, Linux and the GPL). People need to be conscious about what they're getting into if they contribute to a project. Is it serious? Or are they going to dual-license it and just say "thanks very much for your code", or simply turn it closed-source once they think it's good enough? My point was that the BSD license levels the playing field for everybody. Either that or the LGPL. Projects like JBoss use the LGPL because they want the reciprocity that it provides. However, the FSF actively plays against the the LGPL and they renamed it to "Lesser GPL." This license is adequate for libraries, though. I guess we can assume from this discussion that there are a lot more subtleties to licensing than people assume. Knee-jerk reactions defending the GPL just won't cut it. I prefer the simple, time honoured, tributary to the hacker spirit, court-tested, pro free-software/pro-proprietary approach (the +/+ approach) - the BSD License The other licenses aren't as flexible, or as simple to work with, or as tested.
So what are you saying exactly? That you use the GPL because: Since, through experience, I've learned that the number of quality patches or significant contributions is virtually non-existant 1) No one contributes anyway (...) a potential submitter doesn't know in advance what my general philosophy/policy on contributions is 2) You wanna screw people over by forking their contributions with not even explaining what your policy is (not only it's unethical, might get you a lawsuit)? Gee, that was a really good defense of the GPL. The GPL doesn't stop free-loaders. On the contrary. Free-loaders fork in-house, you never even hear about it.
Linux fanboys are getting to be really uneducated nowadays. One of these days, they'll say that Linux has nothing to do with Unix. Allow me to educate the fanboy a little with documentation from the FreeBSD project: Why use (what are) a.out and ELF executable formats?
So there is a nice, selfish reason to write open sourced code. The code got written on company time, but because anyone can use it for anything, that means I can use it for anything. And since I wrote it, it's designed exactly the way I want it to be.
I think your is a nice testimonial of the BSD license. You're allowed, without hindrance, to reuse your code and other's code, to your company's advantage, in fact any company you work at, without any potential liability springing from any legal blunders involved in the GPL affecting you or any company you work for.
(...) After a cycle or two of trying to keep the patchsets private (...) they may (...) contribute them so they no longer have the costs of maintaining the patchset (effectively a private fork) themselves.
The same exact argument can be made for the BSD license: maintance of the patchset in sync with the original project becomes so costly, it is to your advantage to contribute.
What differentiates the GPL and the BSD license is that, having contributed with the original authors they are the ones who sell the software. You cannot do it, legally. Who's being taken as mugs? What you're saying, if I understand you correctly, is that you think this is fine, because: 1) the code was GPLed, therefore you're allowed to fork it in-house (althought let's wait and see what the GPL v 3.0 will say about this); 2) It is only fair to the original author that he retains the right to fork the code proprietarily, you as a contributor retaining the right to use the code, even fork it in-house, as long as you contribute back (as the GPL demmands) should you distribute it. To that I say, no, it is not fair play that they can dual-license your code, but you can't. As I said, fair play is only garanteed by the BSD license.
OTOH, I think, on the whole, the GPL is largely untested. Only larger projects demmand that you give up your copyright. For the ones that don't, it remains to be seen the legal hurdles the GPL entails if one claims and proves to have contributed to a project that has been dual-licensed. Lawyers would love the myriad mini-SCO-like allegations of people suing the dual-licensing forker. Which is why some make money selling books about the GPL, where the BSDL never grabbed their attention. It moves the industry, makes money go 'round, just like the lawsuits against physicians in America.
By and large, the dual-licensing aspects of the GPL is an unforseen collateral effect. It is a way to appropriate the other's code and make money from it, while removing their right to compete. It is a devilish game-of-life algorithm. The BSD license, on the whole, forces you to think if what you want is to really contribute to a collective body of work that will spread in a huge universe of things, software, devices and protocols, to the benefit of all, or do you just want to fuck people over by releasing a proprietary fork while you feed on their work and leave them foodless.
Being the sole author or my software allows me to dual license it. If somebody wants to use my code in a closed-source project, I can grant them a seperate license in exchange for a fee.
And that is why anyone with half a brain should never contribute to your project, because that would mean you take their code too, and sell it, while they can't do it.
And in GPLing a project that no one should contribute too, defeats the purpose of the GPL. So the GPL, by allowing a dual-license trap, is the smartest choice for the developer dual-licensing, but the dumbest choice for the contributors, who must, in practice must assign their copyright to others.
First, AFAIK, there's no such thing as a "profile" in the above mentioned case. Google for the opinion of the experts. Second, let me start by saying that even the mention of such a topic in this context - i.e., an article about a bright 10-year old girl from Pakhistan - is highly offensive. I sure hope she doesn't wander into Slashdotland to read this crap. I sure hope this doesn't degenerate more. This smells of racism. What twisted mind could even associate little Arfa with anything like that is something that escapes my comprehension. Have you no feelings for children? Are you so isolated in a cubicle you can't recognize a wonderful child when you see one? Have you ever considered this will be archived? That words can hurt people's feelings, the damage you can do with words? I shouldn't even post, as I feed you trolls. So, lest you think both of you can get away with such sickly posts and behaviour, I dennounce you. You disgust me. Deeply. Let it be said that not all posters here on slashdot are capable of such behavior, and let's appologize.
I think it's marvelous that this kid is so into it, I think she's had wonderful support from her environment. I also think it's great she's "starting her professional life" with C#, not C.
Luckily, Seymour Papert's dream is alive and thriving, and not everyone treats kids as stupid little people. See Squeakland. They're using Squeak Smalltalk in an environment where "(...) kids in fifth and sixth grade learn to simulate gravity and use differential equations in a context much different from most math taught today." There's more here: http://www.squeakland.org/school/HTML/essays/essay s.html and specially the essay How We Learn
I know this will probably fall under "whining", but I wish there was more hand-holding in the Dirac documentation. Not that there isn't plenty, but I think they could fulfill a somewhat "educational" role there, too, in the sense of bringing people "up to speed", as it were, on the techniques involved.
They do offer some pointers, but still, stuff like wavelets is not your everyday applied math, is it? (Maybe it is, in DSP, I wouldn't know).
What do you think? Have you looked at the documentation? What's your estimate in terms of courses you have to take in order to contribute on Dirac? After Calculus and Linear Algebra, what else?
The BBC is funded by a tax that's mandated on all TV sets in the country and the collection and monitoring process is more than a little nasty--harassement and patrolling vans that can catalog not only that you or I are watching TV, but what we are watching.
Paranoia and/or breaches of privacy notwithstanding, if what you said is really true, I do think it's absolutely correct that a public television chooses the Open Source path. It makes perfect sense. So, IMHO, the tax is totally justified, it seems.
Sure there are successes like Mozilla Firefox, Apache, KDE, Gnome, the Linux kernel, etc., but for every success there are hundreds of completely useless failures out there.
You're right, but the same probably happens with the hundreds or thousands of start-ups that never get off the ground in non-FOSS world. You just see them in FOSS, that's all...
The company couldn't sell the software without abiding by the GPL, but for the example, it was intended to be internal software, not for sale.
Yes, we agree on that. Also, the GPL is clearly advantageous for a company like MySQL where: 1) they wrote the code; 2) by submitting code to them you agree with the implicit caveat that you give up your copyright (or, this is done explicitely via paper trail, like in the case of OpenOffice or the FSF).
But let's suppose you fork a GPL project. Then, can a dual-license scheme be created? Is there a legal loophole? Most likely, it can't be forked and be dual-licensed again. So dual-licensing is only allowed for the original creator of the original code base. This scheme entails that everyone else will submit code for free that will be incorporated in the code base, to be re-released under a proprietary license.
I say this is a trap, and it was unforseen by the FSF. If you're MySQL, for example, it's a great thing. If you're Joe Coder the community contributor, you're a fool, because someone's using your code to license a proprietary product while you the author can't. There's no such thing with the BSD license. The same rules apply equally accross the board to everyone.
I acquire a copy of your GPL licensed software for use in my project. As long as my project is used internally in my company and not redistributed, i dont have to GPL my changes or additions. However, it remains to be seen if that stands in court unless your project specifically demmanded that copyright rights are given up through a submission form. This means paper trail. Agreeing with the BSD license, the submitter automatically understands that code may incorporated under a proprietary form. When you submit code under the GPL, your intention is the opposite: you do not expect it to be bundled and sold by a third party under a proprietary license. This is the reason Stallman never accepted XEmacs as a legit fork, because they refused to submit the paper trail. These dual-licensing schemes have not been tested in court, and they probably don't stand a chance, unless they have a thorough paper for every patch. The Linux kernel people are improving trackability because of this. Legislation, however, varies between countries, and electronic submissions signatures, for instance, may not be a legally viable alternative in your country. All this spells: liability.
that's a lies. The oppsite is true. If you later try to makes proprietary verions of that GPL program, you have to strip out anything that's not your.
You're absolutely right. In fact, this is why big projects like OpenOffice.org demmand that you do this: "How to submit code to OpenOffice.org We ask that all code submitted to OpenOffice.org be submitted via Issue Tracker . In your submission please list "Issue Type" as PATCH. Your code will be sent to the committer for the appropriate project.
1. Submit a filled-out copy of the Joint Copyright Assignment form (JCA); we have a PDF version you may print out. We explain our reasons for requiring the JCA in the Licensing FAQ. The FAQ further explain the use and advantages of using this license.
2. In order for your code to be committed to the source tree:
1. Your Joint Copyright Assignment form must have been received. This Assignment covers all submissions of code.
2. The committer must approve your code for submission." This from http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.htm l
This is also the reason Stallman never accepted the Emacs fork XEmacs as legit, because he demmanded a slew of paper trail.
Theres a whole bunch of companies playing the dual-licensing game (you eith GPL or you buy a proprietary license), or playing the game the OP said (waiting to be bought out by a larger company). The dual-licensing game is IMHO relying on a probable GPL loophole and, AFAIK hasn't been legally tested.
Here's what www.mysql.org proposes: http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/opens ource-license.html "You are allowed to copy MySQL binaries and source code, but when you do so, the copies will fall under the GPL license." (...) we recommend the commercial license to all commercial and government organizations. This frees you from the broad and strict requirements of the GPL license. To all free software enthusiasts we recommend our products under the GPL license. We believe that MySQL AB is one of the world's largest companies that offers all its software under the GPL license."
So, what you have here is a company recommending the commercial license, with the explicit proviso that all your code contributions will be incorporated under the GPL, with the implicit caveat that your code will be sold under their proprietary licensing scheme. And if you read that, and contributed, it's kind of hard to argue in court that it wasn't what you meant to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank God, the Windows Registry is the dumbest fucking idea Microsoft ever had. (...)
Text config files are infinitely to be preferred over such a thing. (...)
How so? WindowsME, for instance, allowed system "rollbacks", with click, click, click. How is that "terrible"?
Text config files makes it harder to use advanced techniques such as AI, don't you think? It's nice that kudzu and libdiscover use XML...makes everything easier and has totally changed the Linux installation process.
One of these days, people are going to have to leave the 70s behind...
All this is _provable_. Speed of an interface can be modeled using the GOMS framework.
Nice to know. Now, a question for Novell and GNOME: How can they expect to win on the desktop when they don't invest a single penny on usability studies, having something reminiscent of the human interface guidelines of MacOS 7 or 8?
When Eugenia Loli-Queru complained on OSNews about Gnome, she got seriously burned...
You just made that nick up, "dedazo", right. That was rectal...
Yeah, you know, the problem is that you're hypothesizing, besides stating the obvious, beaten-to-death follow-up argument against the BSDL. The reality is that the told a True Story (TM) about Real Code (TM).
And what you say might as well be a non-sequitur, because a company might not touch GPL code in the first place.
No enterprise will achieve full Free *Nix migration (*) unless they solve the whole puzzle. That puzzle is called "workflow management", which is the process through which an enterpise integrates all their document workflow, substituting paper for eletronic formats. The reason enterprises stick to the Windows platform is mostly because of MSOffice. Microsoft realizes this, so recently they decided to turn it into an open standard, because they were afraid of the Massachussets' state ruling against closed formats.
You need to seemlessly integrate and import any Microsoft format they may have. You need to have applications that integrate seamlessly with your office software. Anyone who's seen this kind of software on Windows knows what I'm talking about (stuff like OnBase, Meridian, etc.) You need to be able to write applications that integrate with the desktop. This is something MFC allows. you can have great interoperability among third-party softwares. You can just drag-and-drop widgets and custom-built GUIs that will work seemlessly with your document management software. That way I can, for instance, independently develop a software for medical clinics that will just couple with their content management software, which could potentially cause a sprint for open formats/FOSS solutions.
OpenOffice is a small first step to achieve that kind of document integration, But then you look at Novell and RedHat. One's betting on Mono. Its competitor invests in Java. There's also the issue of KDE and GNOME. What's the commonality here, what's the standard? None. That's why so many developers turned to Java. Truth be said, Miguel de Icaza already envisioned these problems when he chose to develop Mono. Mono aims to achieve cross-operating-system compatibility, and this probably is the quantum leap. Once you get to the point where you get a Windows developer to make software that runs on Free unix, than you've crossed the invisible line. You've assimiliated them.
Sadly, because RedHat competes with Novell, it boycotts Mono and pushes Java. I don't believe anything will be achieved with Java, in that sense. It's been around for a while now, and we didn't see enterprise level integration software, except for OpenOffice.
Too many people in the open source community care about such things as servers, operating systems, etc (system-level software) and miss a huge window of opportunity on other types of software. This is probably because they don't know the needs today's corporations. And there's the license problem (some won't touch the GPL with a flagpole). You can't sell something the customer doesn't want. Except if you're Microsoft.
LOL :-) /. discussion:
Well, I've said this before in another
The real difference between the GPL and the BSDL is that one's from Massachussets and the other's from California!
Yeah, and the only project I know that turned into a GPL project because of a GPL library is the "widely known and used" (*) CLISP implementation of Common Lisp (read about the imbroglio here).
;-)
Now some would consider that real evidence that the GPL stimulates people to merge their code because of contagion, wouldn't they, as opposed to something like BSD sockets. Right?
(*) It is widely used, but just by lispers
Please explain how this conflicts with the parents claim that "it isn't "linux" binairy. it's a ELF or a.out binairy... yet another standard" ? And please explain what the "Linux fanboy" was supposed to learn from this ?
It doesn't conflict. You need more coffee.
As I said, the GPL is advantageous to you, you being the sole author. However, should anyone else contribute, they would have to:
1) Fill in paper work granting you their copyright (something you should require, in case you dual-license);
2) Just feel smug and content that you'll be the one making dough with it when you license it under a proprietary wrapper. Everybody else is allowed to just chip in and help, but they can't do the same. Talk about saints...
However, as you said, none of this applies because you're the sole author. Which again leads me to ask: what's the point of using the GPL license, if nobody's going to get their contributions accepted? Why are you making the source code public? Do you want to help, but not be helped? And if you help yourself making hard cash with the dual-license, you won't let others do it? The only logic I see, is a flawed logic. You're the one wanting to give away without getting anything back since you don't accept contributions and you release under the GPL.
A prudent approach, in my opinion, is to assume that you aren't allowed to dual-license contributions if you're the original author
You're entirely right that a lot of licenses should be really MPL-like, definitely not the GPL. This just shows the ignorance regarding the licenses. Law firms, ahoy!
What I meant was that dual-licensing is happening all over! Small projects wanna do it. Large projects do it. MySQL does it. AFAIK, the only big projects that are carefull are OO.org and the FSF. They demmand that you fill a paper form and snail-mail it giving up on your copyright.
I agree that that the prudent approach is that of not assuming you can dual-license, but a lot of people are assuming the contrary, either due to unfairness or ignorance (the hype and noise around GNU, Linux and the GPL).
People need to be conscious about what they're getting into if they contribute to a project. Is it serious? Or are they going to dual-license it and just say "thanks very much for your code", or simply turn it closed-source once they think it's good enough?
My point was that the BSD license levels the playing field for everybody. Either that or the LGPL. Projects like JBoss use the LGPL because they want the reciprocity that it provides. However, the FSF actively plays against the the LGPL and they renamed it to "Lesser GPL." This license is adequate for libraries, though.
I guess we can assume from this discussion that there are a lot more subtleties to licensing than people assume. Knee-jerk reactions defending the GPL just won't cut it.
I prefer the simple, time honoured, tributary to the hacker spirit, court-tested, pro free-software/pro-proprietary approach (the +/+ approach) - the BSD License The other licenses aren't as flexible, or as simple to work with, or as tested.
So what are you saying exactly? That you use the GPL because:
Since, through experience, I've learned that the number of quality patches or significant contributions is virtually non-existant
1) No one contributes anyway
(...) a potential submitter doesn't know in advance what my general philosophy/policy on contributions is
2) You wanna screw people over by forking their contributions with not even explaining what your policy is (not only it's unethical, might get you a lawsuit)?
Gee, that was a really good defense of the GPL.
The GPL doesn't stop free-loaders. On the contrary. Free-loaders fork in-house, you never even hear about it.
Linux fanboys are getting to be really uneducated nowadays. One of these days, they'll say that Linux has nothing to do with Unix.
Allow me to educate the fanboy a little with documentation from the FreeBSD project: Why use (what are) a.out and ELF executable formats?
So there is a nice, selfish reason to write open sourced code. The code got written on company time, but because anyone can use it for anything, that means I can use it for anything. And since I wrote it, it's designed exactly the way I want it to be.
I think your is a nice testimonial of the BSD license. You're allowed, without hindrance, to reuse your code and other's code, to your company's advantage, in fact any company you work at, without any potential liability springing from any legal blunders involved in the GPL affecting you or any company you work for.
(...) After a cycle or two of trying to keep the patchsets private (...) they may (...) contribute them so they no longer have the costs of maintaining the patchset (effectively a private fork) themselves.
The same exact argument can be made for the BSD license: maintance of the patchset in sync with the original project becomes so costly, it is to your advantage to contribute.
What differentiates the GPL and the BSD license is that, having contributed with the original authors they are the ones who sell the software. You cannot do it, legally. Who's being taken as mugs? What you're saying, if I understand you correctly, is that you think this is fine, because: 1) the code was GPLed, therefore you're allowed to fork it in-house (althought let's wait and see what the GPL v 3.0 will say about this); 2) It is only fair to the original author that he retains the right to fork the code proprietarily, you as a contributor retaining the right to use the code, even fork it in-house, as long as you contribute back (as the GPL demmands) should you distribute it. To that I say, no, it is not fair play that they can dual-license your code, but you can't. As I said, fair play is only garanteed by the BSD license.
OTOH, I think, on the whole, the GPL is largely untested. Only larger projects demmand that you give up your copyright. For the ones that don't, it remains to be seen the legal hurdles the GPL entails if one claims and proves to have contributed to a project that has been dual-licensed. Lawyers would love the myriad mini-SCO-like allegations of people suing the dual-licensing forker. Which is why some make money selling books about the GPL, where the BSDL never grabbed their attention. It moves the industry, makes money go 'round, just like the lawsuits against physicians in America.
By and large, the dual-licensing aspects of the GPL is an unforseen collateral effect. It is a way to appropriate the other's code and make money from it, while removing their right to compete. It is a devilish game-of-life algorithm. The BSD license, on the whole, forces you to think if what you want is to really contribute to a collective body of work that will spread in a huge universe of things, software, devices and protocols, to the benefit of all, or do you just want to fuck people over by releasing a proprietary fork while you feed on their work and leave them foodless.
Apparently, Zonk is a huge fan of Natalie Portman.
Being the sole author or my software allows me to dual license it. If somebody wants to use my code in a closed-source project, I can grant them a seperate license in exchange for a fee.
And that is why anyone with half a brain should never contribute to your project, because that would mean you take their code too, and sell it, while they can't do it.
And in GPLing a project that no one should contribute too, defeats the purpose of the GPL. So the GPL, by allowing a dual-license trap, is the smartest choice for the developer dual-licensing, but the dumbest choice for the contributors, who must, in practice must assign their copyright to others.
Only the BSD license allows fair play.
Software standards such as Apache or Linux
Linux is not a "standard." POSIX is a standard, which Unixes (Linux too) follow.
First, AFAIK, there's no such thing as a "profile" in the above mentioned case. Google for the opinion of the experts.
Second, let me start by saying that even the mention of such a topic in this context - i.e., an article about a bright 10-year old girl from Pakhistan - is highly offensive. I sure hope she doesn't wander into Slashdotland to read this crap.
I sure hope this doesn't degenerate more. This smells of racism. What twisted mind could even associate little Arfa with anything like that is something that escapes my comprehension. Have you no feelings for children? Are you so isolated in a cubicle you can't recognize a wonderful child when you see one? Have you ever considered this will be archived? That words can hurt people's feelings, the damage you can do with words? I shouldn't even post, as I feed you trolls.
So, lest you think both of you can get away with such sickly posts and behaviour, I dennounce you. You disgust me. Deeply.
Let it be said that not all posters here on slashdot are capable of such behavior, and let's appologize.
we just don't give nine year olds enough credit.
y s.html and specially the essay How We Learn
:-)
I think it's marvelous that this kid is so into it, I think she's had wonderful support from her environment. I also think it's great she's "starting her professional life" with C#, not C.
Luckily, Seymour Papert's dream is alive and thriving, and not everyone treats kids as stupid little people. See Squeakland. They're using Squeak Smalltalk in an environment where "(...) kids in fifth and sixth grade learn to simulate gravity and use differential equations in a context much different from most math taught today." There's more here: http://www.squeakland.org/school/HTML/essays/essa
This is so much better than Turtle walking!
I know this will probably fall under "whining", but I wish there was more hand-holding in the Dirac documentation. Not that there isn't plenty, but I think they could fulfill a somewhat "educational" role there, too, in the sense of bringing people "up to speed", as it were, on the techniques involved.
They do offer some pointers, but still, stuff like wavelets is not your everyday applied math, is it? (Maybe it is, in DSP, I wouldn't know).
What do you think? Have you looked at the documentation? What's your estimate in terms of courses you have to take in order to contribute on Dirac? After Calculus and Linear Algebra, what else?
The BBC is funded by a tax that's mandated on all TV sets in the country and the collection and monitoring process is more than a little nasty--harassement and patrolling vans that can catalog not only that you or I are watching TV, but what we are watching.
Paranoia and/or breaches of privacy notwithstanding, if what you said is really true, I do think it's absolutely correct that a public television chooses the Open Source path. It makes perfect sense.
So, IMHO, the tax is totally justified, it seems.
Sure there are successes like Mozilla Firefox, Apache, KDE, Gnome, the Linux kernel, etc., but for every success there are hundreds of completely useless failures out there.
You're right, but the same probably happens with the hundreds or thousands of start-ups that never get off the ground in non-FOSS world. You just see them in FOSS, that's all...
The company couldn't sell the software without abiding by the GPL, but for the example, it was intended to be internal software, not for sale.
Yes, we agree on that. Also, the GPL is clearly advantageous for a company like MySQL where: 1) they wrote the code; 2) by submitting code to them you agree with the implicit caveat that you give up your copyright (or, this is done explicitely via paper trail, like in the case of OpenOffice or the FSF).
But let's suppose you fork a GPL project. Then, can a dual-license scheme be created? Is there a legal loophole? Most likely, it can't be forked and be dual-licensed again. So dual-licensing is only allowed for the original creator of the original code base. This scheme entails that everyone else will submit code for free that will be incorporated in the code base, to be re-released under a proprietary license.
I say this is a trap, and it was unforseen by the FSF. If you're MySQL, for example, it's a great thing. If you're Joe Coder the community contributor, you're a fool, because someone's using your code to license a proprietary product while you the author can't. There's no such thing with the BSD license. The same rules apply equally accross the board to everyone.
I acquire a copy of your GPL licensed software for use in my project. As long as my project is used internally in my company and not redistributed, i dont have to GPL my changes or additions.
However, it remains to be seen if that stands in court unless your project specifically demmanded that copyright rights are given up through a submission form. This means paper trail.
Agreeing with the BSD license, the submitter automatically understands that code may incorporated under a proprietary form. When you submit code under the GPL, your intention is the opposite: you do not expect it to be bundled and sold by a third party under a proprietary license. This is the reason Stallman never accepted XEmacs as a legit fork, because they refused to submit the paper trail.
These dual-licensing schemes have not been tested in court, and they probably don't stand a chance, unless they have a thorough paper for every patch. The Linux kernel people are improving trackability because of this. Legislation, however, varies between countries, and electronic submissions signatures, for instance, may not be a legally viable alternative in your country. All this spells: liability.
that's a lies. The oppsite is true. If you later try to makes proprietary verions of that GPL program, you have to strip out anything that's not your.
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s ource-license.html
You're absolutely right. In fact, this is why big projects like OpenOffice.org demmand that you do this:
"How to submit code to OpenOffice.org
We ask that all code submitted to OpenOffice.org be submitted via Issue Tracker . In your submission please list "Issue Type" as PATCH. Your code will be sent to the committer for the appropriate project.
1. Submit a filled-out copy of the Joint Copyright Assignment form (JCA); we have a PDF version you may print out. We explain our reasons for requiring the JCA in the Licensing FAQ. The FAQ further explain the use and advantages of using this license.
2. In order for your code to be committed to the source tree:
1. Your Joint Copyright Assignment form must have been received. This Assignment covers all submissions of code.
2. The committer must approve your code for submission." This from http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.ht
This is also the reason Stallman never accepted the Emacs fork XEmacs as legit, because he demmanded a slew of paper trail.
Theres a whole bunch of companies playing the dual-licensing game (you eith GPL or you buy a proprietary license), or playing the game the OP said (waiting to be bought out by a larger company). The dual-licensing game is IMHO relying on a probable GPL loophole and, AFAIK hasn't been legally tested.
Here's what www.mysql.org proposes: http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/open
"You are allowed to copy MySQL binaries and source code, but when you do so, the copies will fall under the GPL license." (...) we recommend the commercial license to all commercial and government organizations. This frees you from the broad and strict requirements of the GPL license.
To all free software enthusiasts we recommend our products under the GPL license. We believe that MySQL AB is one of the world's largest companies that offers all its software under the GPL license."
So, what you have here is a company recommending the commercial license, with the explicit proviso that all your code contributions will be incorporated under the GPL, with the implicit caveat that your code will be sold under their proprietary licensing scheme. And if you read that, and contributed, it's kind of hard to argue in court that it wasn't what you meant to do.