Ok, so libpng is BSD. Your favorite software monopoly on image manipulation software comes out with libpng+ (...) It reads png just fine, but saves png+
What are you talking about, fo fsck's sake? If it saves "png+" then it's a non-standard format and the majority of the products on the market won't open it.
Then, if you care at all about OSS, you use Firefox or another OSS software that opens it.
You confuse standards with implementations. This is a issue that has absolutely nothing to do with licensing. For instance, you could write freelibpng+ that reverse-engineered png+
Whenever IBM sells software, it does so under a proprietary license. Where IBM and Free Software meet is the hardware market. IBM sells hardware. Stop being naive.
These aren't some small changes to standard software that give a "small edge". These are HUGE, mission-critical systems hand-tailored to fit the company's business processes.
Consider the effect on the Linux kernel: already some companies are complaining that it is too big, because every little single hardware that runs it contributes back to the tree. Than you have a huge code swelling of pieces that are, by and large, wholly uninteresting, except for niche markets. I think it's a disadvantage brought on by the GPL.
Actually, most companies don't care! (...) the BSD and GPL licenses are functionally equivalent. They're functionally equivalent for now, but this is because you can develop code in-house using the GPL for your competitive advantage if you don't release them (GPL FAQ here).This is poised for change in version 3.0. The reality of the GPL is that it is being widely deployed by companies dual-licensing. That is, they release GPLed code, often with shoddy documentation, and propose to you the alternative of opting for a proprietary licensing scheme. My understanding of what this scheme means is that, in the end, you end up developing code for free for an enterprise that will license that code under a proprietary license. Exactly how these companies will disentangle GPL code contributions made by others and sell you a proprietary license is something I don't quite understand. Maybe there's a legal, untested, loophole. There's gotta be something, since so many software houses are doing it. Maybe the loophole is the above item of the FAQ above: the company apropriates GPL code and develops it in-house, but for a contractor. Under the puported forthcoming changes in v 3.0, will you not be able to develop in-house code without giving back. This will push people who are clients of those software houses to two choices: either choose a pure proprietary license, no longer a twin tributary and heir of the GPL code, or the truly viral v. 3.0. You are back to square 1. But if you have the option of a truly viral license, why would you choose the proprietary one? This means both loose. All this means the GPL is a confusing model. It lends itself to dual-licensing, something the BSD licese aborts by creation. There are no legal loopholes in the BSDL.
However, for big corporations, the reasoning is completely different. The GPL is a big thing for them, but not because of dual-licensing. By commoditizing the complements fo their products (i.e., what they really sell you is hardware, but it runs on Linux - a formulation first written by Joel Spolsky on the now-famous Strategy Letter V), they get garantees that the competitor won't simply incorporate changes. Also, it's a great scheme because it cuts down the cost of development, by getting contributions from the community. Please notice that, whenever, e,g, IBM sells software, it's under a proprietary license (e.g., WebSphere). Either that, or they sell per-seat licenses (e.g. RedHat). For small independent software vendors, it takes away any competitive advantage you might otherwise aggregate to a client. This is a very important factor, because the BSD allows you to contribute and benefit from a free code base, and still use your software talent to your benefit. There are some real-world scenarios where the Human Factor may actually work against you (I'll come back to that bellow).
So you see, there's absolutely nothing to do with freedom when companies selling per-seat licenses and/or hardware defend the GPL. Don't believe their PR department, please. Why do companies take BSD code and often don't give anything back. This has more to do with corporate culture. Linux is all about PR and evangelizing. The BSD people always were hackers, before everything else. They only cared about coding, maybe that was their mistake. And finally, the last aspect I see regarding the GPL is the human factor. A very real world political one, but that's not so evident in the USA, because there's a stronger business culture there. But in my country (Brazil) the government often is the biggest contractor. I've seen the Free Software community be maneuvered by a government
Shitty code "as you say" will be replaced by better code - thats the beauty of OpenSource.
You sound overly enthusiastic. I'm more skeptical, because things don't happen via magic spells. There are design decisions to be made, and one might exclude the other. If you end up with only one product, you may regret it later. Also, I'm a bit skeptical with hacks instead of designs, and a lot of what you see in free software projects is hacks. Software monoculture is bad, even free software monoculture.
I make a living of it...therefor Im entirely convinced!
I think it's fantastic that the tool suits your needs to that point. However, this is detrimental to the other people who developed proprietary software. In the end, everybody might be losing something. But only time will tell. In the case you mention, it seems that people responsible for the proprietary software did not take customers seriously. It's up to them to face the competition.
The big companies see us as potential customers as long as Blender where inferior to their software, but now as it has grown bigger...
It'll drive people out of business. You'll have a monolithically huge pile of code which you'll think is great, until people start doing shitty development, and then it'll fork, restart everything again from the ground up. Then, some of those previously commercial software will be relicensed under the GPL. There will be about 3 or 4 of those, but the community will not have the manpower and the expertise to work on those projects (not everybody is that good with huge matrix calculations and geometry, particularly Blender user types). They will stall or crawl. Believe me, that's what happened to Mathematical softwares (granted, there was the difference that back in those days, computers weren't so widespread and you would only get to use powerful, e.g., Axiom graphics of expensive workstations).
Now ask yourself what happens if C becomes the standard way of doing what A did?
If that happens, it means your software didn't address the needs of people. If you really care about A, you'll stick with it. Otherwise, it's like assuming, for instance, the OpenBSD community gives a shit about what Microsoft does. D you imagine they whine on misc@openbsd that there's no MSOffice for them? Also, in your scheme of things, you don't consider the possibility that D evolves from D and re-seeds A. In Biology, it's called speciation, selection, survival of the fittest and mutation. These are facts of life. But the/great/ thing in software is that, under a free license, your code doesn't die.
Linux, in contrast, thanks to the GPL, by *forcing* returns to the community, even if a particular user (by which I mean company)'s motives are greed, will use that greed against it *for the good of the community nonetheless* (GPL enforcement is VERY important here).
The GPL protects big corporations because they know that enhancements made will not be incorporated in a proprietary system by their competitors. These big corporations backing Linux do not make money from software, and when they do, it's under a proprietary license (WebSphere comes to mind).
The GPL protects some businesses because they can offer an alternative proprietary licensing. Which means their livelihood comes from proprietary schemes.
The GPL does absolutely nothing to the independent software vendor, who must taylor code to different needs. This is the rest of us not currently employed by a big corporation selling hardware, or selling Linux under licensing restrictions similar to Microsoft. This myth of kids hacking at night at the Linux kernel is, we know, a myth. Apparently, they're largely a group of people paid to work at it by corporations of the kind mentioned above (or form academia).
The free software community has been brain washed and is largely uncapable of analysing when the GPL makes sense.
shows how the BSD license can foster a lack of 'progress' as improvements are not required to be contributed back to the community.
No, the 2nd generation is not screwed, because the original codebase is there. This is a cognitive distortion. In some cases, it's called envy... It's true that ideally all improvements should be merged back. In the Real World (TM), where it's very hard to survive on free software alone, a compromise may be necessary. Meaning the BSD license can provide a baseline of code that can be improved in-house. OTOH, fact is, BSD code is everywhere (protocols, for instance). So the advantages of BSD are not just theoretical. And you might not consider "progress" if company X takes top-quality code but, personally, for things like internet protocols, I'd rather they'd do it.
Actually they're all dead or dying because computers have gotten too cheap. Why buy a horribly expensive Sun or SGI box when you can run Linux or BSD on a commodity PC server?
Exactly. The Linux crowd is hopelessly brain washed by Big Iron PR departments. We will all have to live with PCs, won't we? I hope not...
The thing is, at some point the value of the codebase is greater than the cost of giving up some of your rights in order to use it. When that happens then the GPL has a major, major advantage in that it creates a feedback loop.
This is laughable, but of course, it's been moderated up by/. knee-jerk meme replicators.
I don't think your "feedback loop" has any slight evidence of existing. In a recent economics paper here) "Harvard Business School professors Pankaj Ghemawat and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell (...) chose to explore the fundamental competitive dynamics question: Will OSS ever displace traditional software from its market leadership position? (...) Our main result is that in the absence of cost asymmetries and as long as Windows has a first-mover advantage (a larger installed base at time zero), Linux never displaces Windows of its leadership position."
Of course, you can say what you want, and if it pleases the Linux fanboys, you get modded up and your Karma explodes! Yay!
Also, read up on the commoditization of Linux and how it relates to IBM, HP, etc ("Smart companies try to commoditize their products' complements.") here
the GPL is a primary motivator for people who want to be able to share software but protect it from blood suckers who want to profit from their hard work without giving anything back.
Wrong. Please think. How is IBM not exploiting Linux developers? IBM makes money from hardware. Linux software is just a complement to IBM products. Same goes with HP and others, including Sun and OpenSolaris.
IBM and other corporations have, IMHO, more exploited than contributed. Millions in research to retrofit Linux in new Big Iron, that's all. Important? Yes. More to IBM than anyone else. And what you get? Linux on Big Iron. It's funny how what goes aroung comes around, isn't it?
Do you really think substantial research, the kind that DARPA did, or the kind Xerox Parc was doing in the 80s was done in IBM, HP, etc?
To quote: Once again: demand for a product increases when the price of its complements decreases. In general, a company's strategic interest is going to be to get the price of their complements as low as possible. Please read Joel Spolsky's famous Strategy Letter V http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLet terV.html)
I don't know of any major corporation which has made significant donations back to the BSD core.
When you wrote your diatribe, did you leave out Apple because of ignorance or on purpose? You can read about Apple code filtering back to FreeBSD here.
but: It has been my observation that the BSD source base has been relatively stagnant over more than a decade.
OK, now we know for a fact that you're a troll.
Would you care to rephrase it as "It has been my observation that the design of Unix has not changed in any fundamental way (etc.)"? It would make you look smarter...
But open source advocates don't see this. They want to pretend that the free software movement and open source movement share a common philosophy despite that never having been the case.
Is that a fact? It doesn't seem that way from what we know of the Unix history. It seems to me there was a free software Unix before the "Free Software Movement." Everybody that read about it or lived it says so? Why don't you?
You take everything out of context. Please understand Stallman's context when he "invented" Free Software (working in the AI lab, the Symbolics ibroglio, etc).
Yes, but this might change in v 3.0, right? So there's no garantee...
The reality I've seen is that GPL lends itself to politics... I don't mean that in an abstract way. I mean real-world politicking, ass-kissing and what not. At least, I've seen a lot of that from the Free Software crowd in Brazil (I was once on the Themes Committee of the Forum mentioned in the ESR article). I've seen a couple guys open quite successful consulting firms and drop their old jobs, once the current (corrupt, it seems) leftist party ruling Brazil won the elections... The GPL would mean my code would get incorporated automatically and used by parasites, who would then get government contracts because they are, after all, parasites (and Free Software is all the hype with the lefties, betting their egos swollen with Lessig and Maddog massages). The BSD means I control the code, and it can be advanced in-house to my advantage, so projects can win based on merit. Not filthy ass-kissing low-life politics. You see, I have a very different view on Free Software. Also, ain't it funny how the GPL can make you dual-license your stuff? You license something under the GPL, don't even document it properly, then propose "support" or a proprietary licensing (I'm sure you're aware of some 2-3 big projects who chose that path). That is so dishonest.
It doesn't change the fact that, under say a BSD license, the code base would still be there for everyone. Your argument is highly flawed, because a company like Micro$oft would not choose GPL in the first place. Therefore, you have no contribution anyhow and your hypothesis is totally void of a probability of even coming into being. However, because the BSD license is unobtrusive, you have a higher probability that at least some code would merge back to the code base. We've seen this with Apple and FreeBSD. (I wish I knew some Bayesian theory, it can probably be explained with that;-)) Anyhow, wether they merge back the code they evolved or not is completely irrelevant to you because your code is still there. So, unless we factor in pyschological, moral, or political factors, the GPL makes less sense than the BSD license. You have to understand the setting in which Stallman nurtured his idea of the Free Software movement. He was working in the MIT AI lab, they wanted to make money with Lisp machines, Symbolics came in and hired the best hackers of the lab under NDAs (Symbolics is a great lesson on failure, greed, and the Lisp Machine war probably hurt software development more than we can fathom) and Stallman was alone, the lab was torn apart, all the knowledge there under a NDA hood...And then the AT&T licensing problem with Unix...Back then, "everything was Free Software", there wasn't a need for licenses. But society changed, laws changed, corporations changed. And the hacker mentality gave in to the dot-com bubble and nowadays, those insane patents and lawsuits. The BSD license represents the really true, free, "do what you like" mentality. I believe it's a terrible misjudgement to expect every community to behave like the Linux community. Some communities don't: the BSD community, the Forth community (still in a wonderful hacker mindset), the Lisp community, the Delphi community, the Java community, etc., they're all very different and relate different to the issues of proprietary/free software.
For blind users, I would use a joystick providing accelerating sound pitch and changing sound pitch as I approached certain "zones". These zones could correlate spatially to screen regions where one would have basic functionalities: a zone for applications, a zone for documents.
The sound pitch would change correspondingly. It could indicate closer/farther. A voice synth would report applications as joystick cursor flies over it.
Otherwise, semantic data would be extracted from semantic-web-enabled browser. This data would be voice synthesized.
My gues on deaf users is that they can basically use what we use. However, I know from a lady psychologist that there are some cognitive differences between hearing and signing people. Metaphors, for example, she tells me is a hard-won acquisition. These cognitive differences would have to be taken into account. Perhaps, a very clear visual metaphor would be in order (like the "file" metaphor that's very hidden nowadays).
OpenBSD people evidently do what they do because they hate Linux
My impression from openbsd@misc is that nothing could be farther from the truth. They don't give a shit about Linux, it's not on their radar screen. It's as if Linux was this Unix clone made by a dutch fellow and copied by this finnish teenager who hadn't kissed a girl yet.
The more I think about it, the more I think this is exactly why I _LIKE_ Linux.
As Linus said: "Perfection is the enemy of good"
Well, good for you. Now you head off to Secunia and do a search for "Linux kernel".
Linux Kernel "ptrace()" and "mmap()" Vulnerabilities 2005-06-09 Linux Kernel Hyper-Threading Support Information Disclosure 2005-05-23 Linux Kernel pktcdvd and raw device Block Device Vulnerabilities 2005-05-17 Linux Kernel ELF Core Dump Privilege Escalation Vulnerability 2005-05-12 Linux Kernel Local Denial of Service Vulnerabilities 2005-05-02 Linux Kernel "is_hugepage_only_range()" Denial of Service 2005-04-04 Linux Kernel Multiple Vulnerabilities 2005-03-29 Linux Kernel Two Vulnerabilities 2005-03-18 Linux Kernel PPP Server Denial of Service Vulnerability 2005-03-16 Linux Kernel "sys_epoll_wait()" Function Integer Overflow 2005-03-15 Linux Kernel Multiple Vulnerabilities 2005-02-16 Linux Kernel Memory Disclosure and Privilege Escalation 2005-02-15 Linux Kernel NTFS Unspecified Denial of Service 2005-02-07 Linux Kernel Page Fault Handler Privilege Escalation 2005-01-13 Linux Kernel Multiple Vulnerabilities 2005-01-11
All these, just this year...
Then you go and do a search for OpenBSD, or any BSD. See how well the reality of vulnerabilities stacks up against good programming practices you're being so quick to dismiss as "an example of how to code in CS class."
In fact, better education for some Linux programmers does not seem to be such a bad idea...I've even seen a presentation by an IBM kernel guy saying the philosophy was "code fast, relase early, bugs will get fixed by 'the many eyes'". To me, that's just a lazy engineer. In college, at least, you have to work hard to understanding the algebraic specification of a data structure, or to formally check an algorithm...In the "real world", code monkeys break it, and security guys fix it, but not by a pro-active stance, like OpenBSD. It's called creating a problem and selling a solution.
As for Windows,they're pouring billions in security, and they've hired some of the best brains in the industry.
In Linus lalaland, we have security problems and hype, but that's generally regarded as OK, and everything, just everything Torvalds says is taken to be correct.
The only reason Linux works so well out-of-the-box is because Linux developers lay their moral sense aside and started to accept binary drivers in the kernel.
In doing this, they erode the very foundation of our community.
Where the hell were the Linux developers or the Linux community when OpenBSD lead a campaign to get specs for wireless chipsets?
I think you've made a very good point. However, the nature of "possession" in the "virtual world" is unclear. Whereas you control, say, your car, I'm not so sure you can control what is linked/pushed/or downloaded. That is to say, information flow is different than driving a car in terms of materiality and possession. Information flow presuposes copies or access to data in some form. These are the very entities and acts that make this flow possible.
Peer-2-peer tecnologies only highlight these issues. Worms and viruses, it seems, only prove the opposite view you're arguing, i.e., the user can't entirely control some events at his computer. At least for those users that are not in a highly secured setting (which very few of us are - is the military?)
On the other hand, I'm not quite sure what we're discussing here on/., if it's this particular case (which I haven't read) or the principle that a counter-argument must be construed against the allegation that viewing constitutes possession, which to me, as a generality seems to be right (although the particulars of each case need to be considered).
I say this because, at the most extreme limit, your argument could go so far as to serve a particular political view: "Oh, there's this political site in your cache. Therefore, you must go to jail." Which I guess is what the communist party in China will be up to someday soon. Who watches the watchmen?
It's not like this case is going to the Supreme Court, but it opens an interesting precendent.
Fact is, the more people get on line, the more of human stuff we'll see, psychopathology and all. I don't feel I need to be restrained because a neighbour does.
Consider newsbots...a user downloads massive quantities of material with a software. He doesn't know what he downloaded until he looks/hears it, because the whole point of newsbots is automation.
And, I haven't read the case the case, but what is the user supposed to do about cache/swap/temporary folder?
If this story about not allowing people to run MacOS on non-Apple hardware is really true, this will mean that, apparently, Apple is chronically disabled in its capabilites for marketing strategies and will never get it right. Just look at the recent developments: first, they release the MacMini. Now, it'll adopt Intel chips - which translates as - don't buy a MacMini, because Mac OS X will run on Intel. But look closer: no, you won't be able to install it on standard hardware, only Apple hardware. How fucked-up can your World Dominance strategy get? Steve Jobs only seems to target the North-American and the European markets. He doesn't really get it that the PC-clone markets are everywhere, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and that in all those fringe markets, as well as all the important ones, there's a Windows OS in a PC-clone. Apple will, once again, miss a window of opportunity. Apple just never learns, it always wants to be the sofisticated desert for the rich people of Suburbia, never the staple item for the masses, sitting on filthy shops in São Paulo or Beijing. Always the dame, never the fun-giving whore. Steve Jobs is clueless...
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Ok, so libpng is BSD. Your favorite software monopoly on image manipulation software comes out with libpng+ (...) It reads png just fine, but saves png+
What are you talking about, fo fsck's sake? If it saves "png+" then it's a non-standard format and the majority of the products on the market won't open it.
Then, if you care at all about OSS, you use Firefox or another OSS software that opens it.
You confuse standards with implementations. This is a issue that has absolutely nothing to do with licensing. For instance, you could write freelibpng+ that reverse-engineered png+
Whenever IBM sells software, it does so under a proprietary license. Where IBM and Free Software meet is the hardware market. IBM sells hardware. Stop being naive.
These aren't some small changes to standard software that give a "small edge". These are HUGE, mission-critical systems hand-tailored to fit the company's business processes.
Consider the effect on the Linux kernel: already some companies are complaining that it is too big, because every little single hardware that runs it contributes back to the tree. Than you have a huge code swelling of pieces that are, by and large, wholly uninteresting, except for niche markets.
I think it's a disadvantage brought on by the GPL.
The fundamental difference between the GPL and the BSD lincese is that:
One is from California, and the other is from Massachusetts.
Actually, most companies don't care! (...) the BSD and GPL licenses are functionally equivalent.
They're functionally equivalent for now, but this is because you can develop code in-house using the GPL for your competitive advantage if you don't release them (GPL FAQ here).This is poised for change in version 3.0.
The reality of the GPL is that it is being widely deployed by companies dual-licensing. That is, they release GPLed code, often with shoddy documentation, and propose to you the alternative of opting for a proprietary licensing scheme.
My understanding of what this scheme means is that, in the end, you end up developing code for free for an enterprise that will license that code under a proprietary license. Exactly how these companies will disentangle GPL code contributions made by others and sell you a proprietary license is something I don't quite understand. Maybe there's a legal, untested, loophole. There's gotta be something, since so many software houses are doing it. Maybe the loophole is the above item of the FAQ above: the company apropriates GPL code and develops it in-house, but for a contractor.
Under the puported forthcoming changes in v 3.0, will you not be able to develop in-house code without giving back. This will push people who are clients of those software houses to two choices: either choose a pure proprietary license, no longer a twin tributary and heir of the GPL code, or the truly viral v. 3.0. You are back to square 1. But if you have the option of a truly viral license, why would you choose the proprietary one? This means both loose.
All this means the GPL is a confusing model. It lends itself to dual-licensing, something the BSD licese aborts by creation. There are no legal loopholes in the BSDL.
However, for big corporations, the reasoning is completely different. The GPL is a big thing for them, but not because of dual-licensing. By commoditizing the complements fo their products (i.e., what they really sell you is hardware , but it runs on Linux - a formulation first written by Joel Spolsky on the now-famous Strategy Letter V), they get garantees that the competitor won't simply incorporate changes. Also, it's a great scheme because it cuts down the cost of development, by getting contributions from the community. Please notice that, whenever, e,g, IBM sells software, it's under a proprietary license (e.g., WebSphere). Either that, or they sell per-seat licenses (e.g. RedHat).
For small independent software vendors, it takes away any competitive advantage you might otherwise aggregate to a client. This is a very important factor, because the BSD allows you to contribute and benefit from a free code base, and still use your software talent to your benefit. There are some real-world scenarios where the Human Factor may actually work against you (I'll come back to that bellow).
So you see, there's absolutely nothing to do with freedom when companies selling per-seat licenses and/or hardware defend the GPL. Don't believe their PR department, please.
Why do companies take BSD code and often don't give anything back. This has more to do with corporate culture. Linux is all about PR and evangelizing. The BSD people always were hackers, before everything else. They only cared about coding, maybe that was their mistake.
And finally, the last aspect I see regarding the GPL is the human factor. A very real world political one, but that's not so evident in the USA, because there's a stronger business culture there. But in my country (Brazil) the government often is the biggest contractor. I've seen the Free Software community be maneuvered by a government
Shitty code "as you say" will be replaced by better code - thats the beauty of OpenSource.
You sound overly enthusiastic. I'm more skeptical, because things don't happen via magic spells. There are design decisions to be made, and one might exclude the other. If you end up with only one product, you may regret it later.
Also, I'm a bit skeptical with hacks instead of designs, and a lot of what you see in free software projects is hacks.
Software monoculture is bad, even free software monoculture.
I make a living of it...therefor Im entirely convinced!
I think it's fantastic that the tool suits your needs to that point. However, this is detrimental to the other people who developed proprietary software. In the end, everybody might be losing something. But only time will tell.
In the case you mention, it seems that people responsible for the proprietary software did not take customers seriously. It's up to them to face the competition.
The big companies see us as potential customers as long as Blender where inferior to their software, but now as it has grown bigger...
It'll drive people out of business. You'll have a monolithically huge pile of code which you'll think is great, until people start doing shitty development, and then it'll fork, restart everything again from the ground up.
Then, some of those previously commercial software will be relicensed under the GPL. There will be about 3 or 4 of those, but the community will not have the manpower and the expertise to work on those projects (not everybody is that good with huge matrix calculations and geometry, particularly Blender user types). They will stall or crawl.
Believe me, that's what happened to Mathematical softwares (granted, there was the difference that back in those days, computers weren't so widespread and you would only get to use powerful, e.g., Axiom graphics of expensive workstations).
Now ask yourself what happens if C becomes the standard way of doing what A did?
/great/ thing in software is that, under a free license, your code doesn't die.
If that happens, it means your software didn't address the needs of people. If you really care about A, you'll stick with it.
Otherwise, it's like assuming, for instance, the OpenBSD community gives a shit about what Microsoft does. D you imagine they whine on misc@openbsd that there's no MSOffice for them?
Also, in your scheme of things, you don't consider the possibility that D evolves from D and re-seeds A.
In Biology, it's called speciation, selection, survival of the fittest and mutation. These are facts of life. But the
Linux, in contrast, thanks to the GPL, by *forcing* returns to the community, even if a particular user (by which I mean company)'s motives are greed, will use that greed against it *for the good of the community nonetheless* (GPL enforcement is VERY important here).
The GPL protects big corporations because they know that enhancements made will not be incorporated in a proprietary system by their competitors. These big corporations backing Linux do not make money from software, and when they do, it's under a proprietary license (WebSphere comes to mind).
The GPL protects some businesses because they can offer an alternative proprietary licensing. Which means their livelihood comes from proprietary schemes.
The GPL does absolutely nothing to the independent software vendor, who must taylor code to different needs. This is the rest of us not currently employed by a big corporation selling hardware, or selling Linux under licensing restrictions similar to Microsoft. This myth of kids hacking at night at the Linux kernel is, we know, a myth. Apparently, they're largely a group of people paid to work at it by corporations of the kind mentioned above (or form academia).
The free software community has been brain washed and is largely uncapable of analysing when the GPL makes sense.
Stop lying to yourselves. Use the BSD license.
shows how the BSD license can foster a lack of 'progress' as improvements are not required to be contributed back to the community.
No, the 2nd generation is not screwed, because the original codebase is there. This is a cognitive distortion. In some cases, it's called envy...
It's true that ideally all improvements should be merged back. In the Real World (TM), where it's very hard to survive on free software alone, a compromise may be necessary. Meaning the BSD license can provide a baseline of code that can be improved in-house. OTOH, fact is, BSD code is everywhere (protocols, for instance). So the advantages of BSD are not just theoretical.
And you might not consider "progress" if company X takes top-quality code but, personally, for things like internet protocols, I'd rather they'd do it.
Actually they're all dead or dying because computers have gotten too cheap. Why buy a horribly expensive Sun or SGI box when you can run Linux or BSD on a commodity PC server?
Exactly. The Linux crowd is hopelessly brain washed by Big Iron PR departments.
We will all have to live with PCs, won't we? I hope not...
The thing is, at some point the value of the codebase is greater than the cost of giving up some of your rights in order to use it. When that happens then the GPL has a major, major advantage in that it creates a feedback loop.
/. knee-jerk meme replicators.
This is laughable, but of course, it's been moderated up by
I don't think your "feedback loop" has any slight evidence of existing. In a recent economics paper here) "Harvard Business School professors Pankaj Ghemawat and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell (...) chose to explore the fundamental competitive dynamics question: Will OSS ever displace traditional software from its market leadership position? (...) Our main result is that in the absence of cost asymmetries and as long as Windows has a first-mover advantage (a larger installed base at time zero), Linux never displaces Windows of its leadership position."
Of course, you can say what you want, and if it pleases the Linux fanboys, you get modded up and your Karma explodes! Yay!
Also, read up on the commoditization of Linux and how it relates to IBM, HP, etc ("Smart companies try to commoditize their products' complements.") here
the GPL is a primary motivator for people who want to be able to share software but protect it from blood suckers who want to profit from their hard work without giving anything back.
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Wrong. Please think. How is IBM not exploiting Linux developers? IBM makes money from hardware. Linux software is just a complement to IBM products. Same goes with HP and others, including Sun and OpenSolaris.
IBM and other corporations have, IMHO, more exploited than contributed. Millions in research to retrofit Linux in new Big Iron, that's all. Important? Yes. More to IBM than anyone else. And what you get? Linux on Big Iron. It's funny how what goes aroung comes around, isn't it?
Do you really think substantial research, the kind that DARPA did, or the kind Xerox Parc was doing in the 80s was done in IBM, HP, etc?
To quote: Once again: demand for a product increases when the price of its complements decreases. In general, a company's strategic interest is going to be to get the price of their complements as low as possible. Please read Joel Spolsky's famous Strategy Letter V http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLe
I don't know of any major corporation which has made significant donations back to the BSD core.
When you wrote your diatribe, did you leave out Apple because of ignorance or on purpose?
You can read about Apple code filtering back to FreeBSD here.
but: It has been my observation that the BSD source base has been relatively stagnant over more than a decade.
OK, now we know for a fact that you're a troll.
Would you care to rephrase it as "It has been my observation that the design of Unix has not changed in any fundamental way (etc.)"? It would make you look smarter...
But open source advocates don't see this. They want to pretend that the free software movement and open source movement share a common philosophy despite that never having been the case.
Is that a fact? It doesn't seem that way from what we know of the Unix history. It seems to me there was a free software Unix before the "Free Software Movement." Everybody that read about it or lived it says so? Why don't you?
You take everything out of context. Please understand Stallman's context when he "invented" Free Software (working in the AI lab, the Symbolics ibroglio, etc).
You're just a Linux fanboy TROLL.
Yes, but this might change in v 3.0, right? So there's no garantee...
The reality I've seen is that GPL lends itself to politics... I don't mean that in an abstract way. I mean real-world politicking, ass-kissing and what not. At least, I've seen a lot of that from the Free Software crowd in Brazil (I was once on the Themes Committee of the Forum mentioned in the ESR article).
I've seen a couple guys open quite successful consulting firms and drop their old jobs, once the current (corrupt, it seems) leftist party ruling Brazil won the elections...
The GPL would mean my code would get incorporated automatically and used by parasites, who would then get government contracts because they are, after all, parasites (and Free Software is all the hype with the lefties, betting their egos swollen with Lessig and Maddog massages).
The BSD means I control the code, and it can be advanced in-house to my advantage, so projects can win based on merit. Not filthy ass-kissing low-life politics. You see, I have a very different view on Free Software.
Also, ain't it funny how the GPL can make you dual-license your stuff? You license something under the GPL, don't even document it properly, then propose "support" or a proprietary licensing (I'm sure you're aware of some 2-3 big projects who chose that path). That is so dishonest.
It doesn't change the fact that, under say a BSD license, the code base would still be there for everyone. ;-)) Anyhow, wether they merge back the code they evolved or not is completely irrelevant to you because your code is still there.
Your argument is highly flawed, because a company like Micro$oft would not choose GPL in the first place. Therefore, you have no contribution anyhow and your hypothesis is totally void of a probability of even coming into being. However, because the BSD license is unobtrusive, you have a higher probability that at least some code would merge back to the code base. We've seen this with Apple and FreeBSD. (I wish I knew some Bayesian theory, it can probably be explained with that
So, unless we factor in pyschological, moral, or political factors, the GPL makes less sense than the BSD license.
You have to understand the setting in which Stallman nurtured his idea of the Free Software movement. He was working in the MIT AI lab, they wanted to make money with Lisp machines, Symbolics came in and hired the best hackers of the lab under NDAs (Symbolics is a great lesson on failure, greed, and the Lisp Machine war probably hurt software development more than we can fathom) and Stallman was alone, the lab was torn apart, all the knowledge there under a NDA hood...And then the AT&T licensing problem with Unix...Back then, "everything was Free Software", there wasn't a need for licenses. But society changed, laws changed, corporations changed. And the hacker mentality gave in to the dot-com bubble and nowadays, those insane patents and lawsuits.
The BSD license represents the really true, free, "do what you like" mentality.
I believe it's a terrible misjudgement to expect every community to behave like the Linux community. Some communities don't: the BSD community, the Forth community (still in a wonderful hacker mindset), the Lisp community, the Delphi community, the Java community, etc., they're all very different and relate different to the issues of proprietary/free software.
Hi --
For blind users, I would use a joystick providing accelerating sound pitch and changing sound pitch as I approached certain "zones". These zones could correlate spatially to screen regions where one would have basic functionalities: a zone for applications, a zone for documents.
The sound pitch would change correspondingly. It could indicate closer/farther. A voice synth would report applications as joystick cursor flies over it.
Otherwise, semantic data would be extracted from semantic-web-enabled browser. This data would be voice synthesized.
My gues on deaf users is that they can basically use what we use. However, I know from a lady psychologist that there are some cognitive differences between hearing and signing people. Metaphors, for example, she tells me is a hard-won acquisition. These cognitive differences would have to be taken into account. Perhaps, a very clear visual metaphor would be in order (like the "file" metaphor that's very hidden nowadays).
there clear and concise man pages
Oh, man, BSD man pages are perfect, just what man pages should be.
OpenBSD people evidently do what they do because they hate Linux
My impression from openbsd@misc is that nothing could be farther from the truth. They don't give a shit about Linux, it's not on their radar screen.
It's as if Linux was this Unix clone made by a dutch fellow and copied by this finnish teenager who hadn't kissed a girl yet.
The more I think about it, the more I think this is exactly why I _LIKE_ Linux.
As Linus said: "Perfection is the enemy of good"
Well, good for you. Now you head off to Secunia and do a search for "Linux kernel".
Linux Kernel "ptrace()" and "mmap()" Vulnerabilities 2005-06-09
Linux Kernel Hyper-Threading Support Information Disclosure 2005-05-23
Linux Kernel pktcdvd and raw device Block Device Vulnerabilities 2005-05-17
Linux Kernel ELF Core Dump Privilege Escalation Vulnerability 2005-05-12
Linux Kernel Local Denial of Service Vulnerabilities 2005-05-02
Linux Kernel "is_hugepage_only_range()" Denial of Service 2005-04-04
Linux Kernel Multiple Vulnerabilities 2005-03-29
Linux Kernel Two Vulnerabilities 2005-03-18
Linux Kernel PPP Server Denial of Service Vulnerability 2005-03-16
Linux Kernel "sys_epoll_wait()" Function Integer Overflow 2005-03-15
Linux Kernel Multiple Vulnerabilities 2005-02-16
Linux Kernel Memory Disclosure and Privilege Escalation 2005-02-15
Linux Kernel NTFS Unspecified Denial of Service 2005-02-07
Linux Kernel Page Fault Handler Privilege Escalation 2005-01-13
Linux Kernel Multiple Vulnerabilities 2005-01-11
All these, just this year...
Then you go and do a search for OpenBSD, or any BSD. See how well the reality of vulnerabilities stacks up against good programming practices you're being so quick to dismiss as "an example of how to code in CS class."
In fact, better education for some Linux programmers does not seem to be such a bad idea...I've even seen a presentation by an IBM kernel guy saying the philosophy was "code fast, relase early, bugs will get fixed by 'the many eyes'". To me, that's just a lazy engineer. In college, at least, you have to work hard to understanding the algebraic specification of a data structure, or to formally check an algorithm...In the "real world", code monkeys break it, and security guys fix it, but not by a pro-active stance, like OpenBSD. It's called creating a problem and selling a solution.
As for Windows,they're pouring billions in security, and they've hired some of the best brains in the industry.
In Linus lalaland, we have security problems and hype, but that's generally regarded as OK, and everything, just everything Torvalds says is taken to be correct.
The only reason Linux works so well out-of-the-box is because Linux developers lay their moral sense aside and started to accept binary drivers in the kernel.
In doing this, they erode the very foundation of our community.
Where the hell were the Linux developers or the Linux community when OpenBSD lead a campaign to get specs for wireless chipsets?
Mod me a troll, but I wanna know.
I think you've made a very good point. However, the nature of "possession" in the "virtual world" is unclear. Whereas you control, say, your car, I'm not so sure you can control what is linked/pushed/or downloaded. That is to say, information flow is different than driving a car in terms of materiality and possession. Information flow presuposes copies or access to data in some form. These are the very entities and acts that make this flow possible.
/., if it's this particular case (which I haven't read) or the principle that a counter-argument must be construed against the allegation that viewing constitutes possession, which to me, as a generality seems to be right (although the particulars of each case need to be considered).
Peer-2-peer tecnologies only highlight these issues. Worms and viruses, it seems, only prove the opposite view you're arguing, i.e., the user can't entirely control some events at his computer. At least for those users that are not in a highly secured setting (which very few of us are - is the military?)
On the other hand, I'm not quite sure what we're discussing here on
I say this because, at the most extreme limit, your argument could go so far as to serve a particular political view: "Oh, there's this political site in your cache. Therefore, you must go to jail." Which I guess is what the communist party in China will be up to someday soon. Who watches the watchmen?
It's not like this case is going to the Supreme Court, but it opens an interesting precendent.
Fact is, the more people get on line, the more of human stuff we'll see, psychopathology and all. I don't feel I need to be restrained because a neighbour does.
Consider newsbots...a user downloads massive quantities of material with a software. He doesn't know what he downloaded until he looks/hears it, because the whole point of newsbots is automation.
And, I haven't read the case the case, but what is the user supposed to do about cache/swap/temporary folder?
If this story about not allowing people to run MacOS on non-Apple hardware is really true, this will mean that, apparently, Apple is chronically disabled in its capabilites for marketing strategies and will never get it right.
Just look at the recent developments: first, they release the MacMini. Now, it'll adopt Intel chips - which translates as - don't buy a MacMini, because Mac OS X will run on Intel. But look closer: no, you won't be able to install it on standard hardware, only Apple hardware.
How fucked-up can your World Dominance strategy get?
Steve Jobs only seems to target the North-American and the European markets. He doesn't really get it that the PC-clone markets are everywhere, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and that in all those fringe markets, as well as all the important ones, there's a Windows OS in a PC-clone.
Apple will, once again, miss a window of opportunity. Apple just never learns, it always wants to be the sofisticated desert for the rich people of Suburbia, never the staple item for the masses, sitting on filthy shops in São Paulo or Beijing. Always the dame, never the fun-giving whore. Steve Jobs is clueless...