I guess you are from US. Yahoo messenger(or even msn) wouldnt be very popular there. But thats not the case in other parts of world. Where I know(India and now Middle east) yahoo and msn are extremely popular and AIM is virtually absent. And regarding your comment on not using yahoo, its a fine idea but not practical IMHO . Because people use it and if you need to chat with them, you have to use it(or something like gaim which speaks that protocol). Also, I dont think yahoo protocol is inferior comparing to msn and all. It has some cool features like offline messaging and "invisible mode" which seems to be absent in others (atleast msn, I dont know about AIM).
>Look at the average user of free software. They most likely use a mix of free and non-free software. They usually pick the best tool for the job and go with it.
Speak for yourself !. If you are talking about the "average user", the statment could be correct. But when you speak about the average "free software user", the "best tool for the job" mantra is simply not true. Most of the free software users I know(including me) has a distinct bias towards the free(speech) softwares and they prefer to avoid using proprietery software as much as possible. Atleast follow through slashdot discussions (especially "ask slashdot") and you will understand this fact.
There is a very positive thing about GNU and Free software in general with regards to the unique business model evolved based upon that. The highly decentralized and ditributed business model, where the company is more like a community(e.g, RedHat) in contrast to the highly centralised and often monopolistic(e.g Microsoft) ones is an amazing acheivment. The symbiotic relation between the business entities and communities is an incredible positive outcome of the free software movement. The distributed and decentralized way of business makes it inherently more transperant and accountable than the shady business practice followed otherwise. Free software based business model put forward a viable and ethical business alternative. IMHO, as free software movement becomes more and more in to mainstream, this symbiotic business model will get more acceptablity. RMS deserves a huge chunk of credit for his pioneering work towards this. Kudos to RMS !!
Why dont you configure samba as PDC and use LDAP for all the authentication purpose?. I found it a robust solution. The beuty is that you can use it as a back end for any services/servers which requires authentication and can act as a truly single source of authentication. All the requirements you mentioned is possible with this.
Shutting down services is not the answer for abuse of the system by some bad elements. The dangerous aspect of this is that, So called "abuses" of chat is applicable to irc and many other applications as well. There is also abuse of the systems in these applications too. So they could use the same argument to shut down any of these . On the contray if somebody is genuinely interested in stoping the abuse , they should look for serious level of parental level cotroll. Because perception of "morality" widely varies and whats acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to others.
Even though this is not at all perfect and what we all would like to have ultimately, this itself have debunked some myths.
Myth #1 Only "big lobbyist" groups like RIAA and "big money" have the capacity to lobby effectively and change laws.
Myth #2 Software programmers , especially FLOSS people can be only arm chair activists and not real activists.
Myth #3 European politicians are completely sold out to bug business corporations and are there to protect their interst only.
In short this one incident shows that small groups like free software activists and other groups CAN make a lot of change if they shed off the cynisism and coplacency and start to act. European activists really took the matter and ACTED rather than being cynical and complacent(yah, weird coexistence of 2 bad characters) like US counterparts. If they continue to do like this, more success is sure. This should be a real boost for all the activists and they should be able to work more vigorously for the next steps. I wish US people take a clue from this incident.
>It was postponed so that more political capital could be gained from its acceptance Honestly, I dont think this is the reason and I have not found any article/report poiting to that. On the contray many reports were poiting to the other way.If you have any link to substantiate it , I would appreciate.
I am not denying the fact that its better to have a huge organization. But when thats NOT the case, live with it. Cooperate with everyone who share your idea/goal in atleast this matter and move forward. It makes sense than waiting forever for the "huge organization" which may not be the case in real life. But in your case, you have followed exactly what I have meant and I appreciate that indeed. On the other hand, it seems to me that parent posteer has not followed this way and thats why I posted the my opinion.
Before you troll, just compare with a typical big business/RIAA mode "lobbying" and what this guy has done. He has followed a plain and transperant way and has tried to convince the leaders in a perfectly democratic way for a genuine purpose. On the contray, big business "lobbying" is often non-transperant and undemocratic.They shower millions in to the party fund(and often personal pockets of leaders) and then manage to have totally stupid laws like DMCA.
Re:Lobbying w/out FFS europe?
on
Lobbying For Linux
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
>without having to adopt the FFS mantra?
Why you have to follow entire "fsf mantra" to fight softwre patents ? If you see that software patents are dangerous and to be opposed , then cooperate with EVERYONE who share that view. You can never get somebody with which you agree 100% and in all the issues. People disagree a lot. But often they find common goals and move united. Even FSF and open source movement cooperate a lot in many areas despite having some fundamental ideological differences.
>"Law, technology and ethics are not in sync right now,"
This one sentence sums it up well. Despite the massive propoganda , people are not convinced by RIAA arguments and they dont find anything wrong in sharing things they possess. These file sharers are not "crminals" as RIAA says. They are just normal human beings who are not convinced by RIAA arguments, period.
You are wrong ! The IT departments dont patch their system not because they are stupid, but they are realistic. Microsoft patches are notorious to break existing applications and needs thorough testing on test machines. This is not a simple task. You have to simulate the server set up in test machines and apply the patches after ensuring everything is OK . Then you need to restart the machine in most of the case. Which is just not acceptable in busy servers. Last time when I applied an MSblast patch on a windows XP machine of my friend, it asked to reboot. On the contray, I applied openssh patch on 3 servers yesterday. All it took for me was 15 minute and no rebooting or any other issue. In short, MS should make PATCH MANAGEMENT SIMPLE and transperant like this to expect people to apply it.
First of all, I have utmost respect to BSD lecense and all the softwares released under that license as they are perfect Free(speech) softwares. But I have to say that it doesnt help to perpetuate the freedom(I know its not meant to be like that..). And this IMHO, is the reason why BSD systems didnt achieve the commercial success linux enjoyed. Average deveopers think like this "I can give the source code , but you too should do that". Business firms are even more paranoid. IBM cant think of making some modifications to FreeBSD only to see that SUN makes some twists and outperforms the IBM version and vice versa. As GPL better fits with this philosophy, it became success. Just go through sourceforge or freshmeat and see whats the proportion of BSD and GPL license there . You can find that even developers who use BSD systems for development tend to release their code under GPL. You might say that "I am glad when more and more people use it , I dont mind whether its proprietory or free". But MOST of the people dont think like this. They think like this "microsoft taking my code and later screwing us up ?????? No way !!!!".
>Claiming they will would be like claiming "IBM is going to die" in 1990.
Good point. But have you ever thought why IBM didnt die ? as one IBM Vice president(sorry cant point a link now) had put it "they had almost run out of business". But then they realised the problems and made revolutionary changes in their business strategy and revamped the company. Foremost being the adoption of linux and opensource. In other words, they could read the writings on the wall. On the contray, SUN couldnt not do that. They didnt realise the strength of open source movement and its flagship product, Linux. In fact , sun became success when they emraced first generation of "open source" movement , i.e TCP/IP, internet and other open standards(where IBM had failed) . But they failed miserably to do the follow up and embrace the second generation of open source movement, which is Linux and Free softwares. And IBM on the other hand jumped in and joined the band wagon. Untill and unless SUN makes radical changes again in their business strategy, they are going to be the next DEC. Everyone will have greate words about them but still dead.
You dont understand the basic idea behind these goverments shift. They are going after Free/Open source softwares not just because they find it as the "best tool for the job". Instead many of them being democratic governments are going after TRANSEPRANCY and ACCOUNTABILITY. Proprietery software are not transperant inherently. Nobody knows what is there inside (may be spyware , backdoors... anything could be there). Any government which belives its actions should be transperant to the public can't use proprietory software for that reason alone. And this is the main reason why "zealots" demand for mandatory free software usage in government.
One thing good about this entire issue of Eola patent is that it is likely to expose the danger of software patents and more people would become aware of it. Since microsoft, not any free software project is the victim, even PHBs would find it easy to understand
In fact, there is nothing to be confused and we can continue to be happy. As besides the fact that micrsoft got a small pinch, this one case exposes the stupidity of software patents again and again. Since the victim is microsoft and not some Free software project, more and more people will be able to understand it.
What I find interesting in all patent infringment cases are when companies like microsoft get screwed literally and totally unjustifiably, they just put the blame on the SPECIFIC INCIDENT and not the fundamental issues with software patents. They all know that software patents are benefecial for big players in the long run despite of occasional set backs like this. So when cases like this expose the inherent problem with software patents also, they are carefull not to denounce software patents. In the long run small firms and Free software community are the one who loose out of software patents.
What guaranty you have that american firms like Microsoft is not placing back doors in their software ? Why do you assume that indian firms are more likely to put back doors in the software ? All the proprietery softwares are inherently vulnerable to this issue. Whether its american or indian doenst matter. The funniest part is that most of the third world and euorpean countries are thinking about open source at varying degree which effectively make it impossible to have back door and US is the only major country without any open source initiative.
I dont know what you mean by "Professional" artists. But I can tell you that there wont be any dearth for good artists, music or musicians even without copyright or anything like that. How many of the Van Gogue paintings were copyrighted to him? how much he made out of it ? what about bethovan ? what about all other great artists and musicians ? They may not be "professional" but they came up with wonderfull piece of art/work. And this will continue to be the case as long as human beings exists in this world. There is nothing like "end of music/musician" or "end of art/artists" with end of copyright. Art emerge out of human instinct and interests. SO IT WILL BE there.On the other hands "artists" like Britney spears and jennifer lopez would be thrown in to garbage as soon as guys like RIAA perishes. Becauses these are not artists but some artificial entities created by RIAA and the supporting media.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you are from US. Yahoo messenger(or even msn) wouldnt be very popular there. But thats not the case in other parts of world. Where I know(India and now Middle east) yahoo and msn are extremely popular and AIM is virtually absent. And regarding your comment on not using yahoo, its a fine idea but not practical IMHO . Because people use it and if you need to chat with them, you have to use it(or something like gaim which speaks that protocol). Also, I dont think yahoo protocol is inferior comparing to msn and all. It has some cool features like offline messaging and "invisible mode" which seems to be absent in others (atleast msn, I dont know about AIM).
US too is a democracy right ?
>Look at the average user of free software. They most likely use a mix of free and non-free software. They usually pick the best tool for the job and go with it.
Speak for yourself !. If you are talking about the "average user", the statment could be correct. But when you speak about the average "free software user", the "best tool for the job" mantra is simply not true. Most of the free software users I know(including me) has a distinct bias towards the free(speech) softwares and they prefer to avoid using proprietery software as much as possible. Atleast follow through slashdot discussions (especially "ask slashdot") and you will understand this fact.
I use yahoo messenger linux version and it doenst have any ad with it.
There is a very positive thing about GNU and Free software in general with regards to the unique business model evolved based upon that. The highly decentralized and ditributed business model, where the company is more like a community(e.g, RedHat) in contrast to the highly centralised and often monopolistic(e.g Microsoft) ones is an amazing acheivment. The symbiotic relation between the business entities and communities is an incredible positive outcome of the free software movement. The distributed and decentralized way of business makes it inherently more transperant and accountable than the shady business practice followed otherwise. Free software based business model put forward a viable and ethical business alternative. IMHO, as free software movement becomes more and more in to mainstream, this symbiotic business model will get more acceptablity. RMS deserves a huge chunk of credit for his pioneering work towards this. Kudos to RMS !!
Why dont you configure samba as PDC and use LDAP for all the authentication purpose?. I found it a robust solution. The beuty is that you can use it as a back end for any services/servers which requires authentication and can act as a truly single source of authentication. All the requirements you mentioned is possible with this.
Shutting down services is not the answer for abuse of the system by some bad elements. The dangerous aspect of this is that, So called "abuses" of chat is applicable to irc and many other applications as well. There is also abuse of the systems in these applications too. So they could use the same argument to shut down any of these . On the contray if somebody is genuinely interested in stoping the abuse , they should look for serious level of parental level cotroll. Because perception of "morality" widely varies and whats acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to others.
Even though this is not at all perfect and what we all would like to have ultimately, this itself have debunked some myths.
Myth #1 Only "big lobbyist" groups like RIAA and "big money" have the capacity to lobby effectively and change laws.
Myth #2 Software programmers , especially FLOSS people can be only arm chair activists and not real activists.
Myth #3 European politicians are completely sold out to bug business corporations and are there to protect their interst only.
In short this one incident shows that small groups like free software activists and other groups CAN make a lot of change if they shed off the cynisism and coplacency and start to act. European activists really took the matter and ACTED rather than being cynical and complacent(yah, weird coexistence of 2 bad characters) like US counterparts. If they continue to do like this, more success is sure. This should be a real boost for all the activists and they should be able to work more vigorously for the next steps. I wish US people take a clue from this incident.
>It was postponed so that more political capital could be gained from its acceptance
Honestly, I dont think this is the reason and I have not found any article/report poiting to that. On the contray many reports were poiting to the other way.If you have any link to substantiate it , I would appreciate.
I am not denying the fact that its better to have a huge organization. But when thats NOT the case, live with it. Cooperate with everyone who share your idea/goal in atleast this matter and move forward. It makes sense than waiting forever for the "huge organization" which may not be the case in real life. But in your case, you have followed exactly what I have meant and I appreciate that indeed. On the other hand, it seems to me that parent posteer has not followed this way and thats why I posted the my opinion.
>The only way you opne source/anti-patent people can outlobby the lobbyists it to use the "typical big business/RIAA mode"
Wrong! Even without following "typical big business/RIAA mode", they were successful so far. Thats why the voting was postponed more than once.
Before you troll, just compare with a typical big business/RIAA mode "lobbying" and what this guy has done. He has followed a plain and transperant way and has tried to convince the leaders in a perfectly democratic way for a genuine purpose. On the contray, big business "lobbying" is often non-transperant and undemocratic .They shower millions in to the party fund(and often personal pockets of leaders) and then manage to have totally stupid laws like DMCA.
>without having to adopt the FFS mantra?
Why you have to follow entire "fsf mantra" to fight softwre patents ? If you see that software patents are dangerous and to be opposed , then cooperate with EVERYONE who share that view. You can never get somebody with which you agree 100% and in all the issues. People disagree a lot. But often they find common goals and move united. Even FSF and open source movement cooperate a lot in many areas despite having some fundamental ideological differences.
>"Law, technology and ethics are not in sync right now,"
This one sentence sums it up well. Despite the massive propoganda , people are not convinced by RIAA arguments and they dont find anything wrong in sharing things they possess. These file sharers are not "crminals" as RIAA says. They are just normal human beings who are not convinced by RIAA arguments, period.
You are wrong ! The IT departments dont patch their system not because they are stupid, but they are realistic. Microsoft patches are notorious to break existing applications and needs thorough testing on test machines. This is not a simple task. You have to simulate the server set up in test machines and apply the patches after ensuring everything is OK . Then you need to restart the machine in most of the case. Which is just not acceptable in busy servers. Last time when I applied an MSblast patch on a windows XP machine of my friend, it asked to reboot. On the contray, I applied openssh patch on 3 servers yesterday. All it took for me was 15 minute and no rebooting or any other issue. In short, MS should make PATCH MANAGEMENT SIMPLE and transperant like this to expect people to apply it.
MPAA/RIAA can't convince their own people to stop "piracy". Then how do they expect millions of people to stop it?
First of all, I have utmost respect to BSD lecense and all the softwares released under that license as they are perfect Free(speech) softwares. But I have to say that it doesnt help to perpetuate the freedom(I know its not meant to be like that..). And this IMHO, is the reason why BSD systems didnt achieve the commercial success linux enjoyed. Average deveopers think like this "I can give the source code , but you too should do that". Business firms are even more paranoid. IBM cant think of making some modifications to FreeBSD only to see that SUN makes some twists and outperforms the IBM version and vice versa. As GPL better fits with this philosophy, it became success. Just go through sourceforge or freshmeat and see whats the proportion of BSD and GPL license there . You can find that even developers who use BSD systems for development tend to release their code under GPL. You might say that "I am glad when more and more people use it , I dont mind whether its proprietory or free". But MOST of the people dont think like this. They think like this "microsoft taking my code and later screwing us up ?????? No way !!!!".
>Claiming they will would be like claiming "IBM is going to die" in 1990.
Good point. But have you ever thought why IBM didnt die ? as one IBM Vice president(sorry cant point a link now) had put it "they had almost run out of business". But then they realised the problems and made revolutionary changes in their business strategy and revamped the company. Foremost being the adoption of linux and opensource. In other words, they could read the writings on the wall. On the contray, SUN couldnt not do that. They didnt realise the strength of open source movement and its flagship product, Linux. In fact , sun became success when they emraced first generation of "open source" movement , i.e TCP/IP, internet and other open standards(where IBM had failed) . But they failed miserably to do the follow up and embrace the second generation of open source movement, which is Linux and Free softwares. And IBM on the other hand jumped in and joined the band wagon. Untill and unless SUN makes radical changes again in their business strategy, they are going to be the next DEC. Everyone will have greate words about them but still dead.
You dont understand the basic idea behind these goverments shift. They are going after Free/Open source softwares not just because they find it as the "best tool for the job". Instead many of them being democratic governments are going after TRANSEPRANCY and ACCOUNTABILITY. Proprietery software are not transperant inherently. Nobody knows what is there inside (may be spyware , backdoors... anything could be there). Any government which belives its actions should be transperant to the public can't use proprietory software for that reason alone. And this is the main reason why "zealots" demand for mandatory free software usage in government.
One thing good about this entire issue of Eola patent is that it is likely to expose the danger of software patents and more people would become aware of it. Since microsoft, not any free software project is the victim, even PHBs would find it easy to understand
So what ?? Even Scott Macnealy is not a microsoft fan. But now he is in bed with SCO to screw up Free softwre community and linux.
In fact, there is nothing to be confused and we can continue to be happy. As besides the fact that micrsoft got a small pinch, this one case exposes the stupidity of software patents again and again. Since the victim is microsoft and not some Free software project, more and more people will be able to understand it.
What I find interesting in all patent infringment cases are when companies like microsoft get screwed literally and totally unjustifiably, they just put the blame on the SPECIFIC INCIDENT and not the fundamental issues with software patents. They all know that software patents are benefecial for big players in the long run despite of occasional set backs like this. So when cases like this expose the inherent problem with software patents also, they are carefull not to denounce software patents. In the long run small firms and Free software community are the one who loose out of software patents.
What guaranty you have that american firms like Microsoft is not placing back doors in their software ? Why do you assume that indian firms are more likely to put back doors in the software ? All the proprietery softwares are inherently vulnerable to this issue. Whether its american or indian doenst matter. The funniest part is that most of the third world and euorpean countries are thinking about open source at varying degree which effectively make it impossible to have back door and US is the only major country without any open source initiative.
I dont know what you mean by "Professional" artists. But I can tell you that there wont be any dearth for good artists, music or musicians even without copyright or anything like that. How many of the Van Gogue paintings were copyrighted to him? how much he made out of it ? what about bethovan ? what about all other great artists and musicians ? They may not be "professional" but they came up with wonderfull piece of art/work. And this will continue to be the case as long as human beings exists in this world. There is nothing like "end of music/musician" or "end of art/artists" with end of copyright. Art emerge out of human instinct and interests. SO IT WILL BE there.On the other hands "artists" like Britney spears and jennifer lopez would be thrown in to garbage as soon as guys like RIAA perishes. Becauses these are not artists but some artificial entities created by RIAA and the supporting media.