But that's EXACTLY the problem- it is REALLY a violation of the GPL to forbid people to distribute copies of the software. That is a far more serious offense than, say, charging money for the software.
Calling it beta testing is frankly bullshit- WHAT Free software is really, truly 'done'? What proprietary software is? The whole concept falls apart. In regards to Free software there is NO SUCH THING as 'beta'. It is ALL like a growing organism as opposed to a manufactured product. There is also NO distinction between 'consumer' and 'producer'. The GPL uses legal, binding language to establish this state of affairs and there isn't a word wasted. It doesn't HAVE to define 'beta' software: software is software to the GPL. Calling it beta doesn't stop it being software and turn it into, for instance, office supplies, staplers, ballpoint pens. It is GPLED SOFTWARE, and to effectively forbid the distribution of copies AT ANY level would mean losing the right to distribute the GPLed software at all.
Read that again. "To effectively forbid the distribution of copies AT ANY level would mean losing the right to distribute the GPLed software at all." If you give a copy of GPLed code to YOUR EMPLOYEE and he wants to distribute his copy on the internet, your only recourse is to forbid your employee from doing so- meaning that he cannot legally comply with your restriction and the GPL at the same time- meaning that he can't legally produce GPLed code under those conditions! (normal companies treat GPL coding as a public process in the first place, making it a nonissue whether the person posts their code or not).
Your employee might have no reason to want to post their first draft of modifications to GPLed code on the internet. But you as an employer CANNOT FORBID them to do so without placing them in a situation where they can't legally work on GPL code at all- if they can't distribute, they don't have rights, and if they don't have rights they have no business making modifications for eventual distribution. You can't set up sweatshops for hacking on GPLed code- the license doesn't allow it.
If they did this they would render themselves legally unable to release anything, EVEN THEIR OWN CODE, under the GPL.
It's quite clearcut: the GPL is not compatible with freedom-restricting licenses. If you break the rules you lose the ability to distribute legally under the GPL.
Now, IF it was all their own code (which it ain't), this wouldn't stop them because then they'd have the ability to release under some other license- dual-licensing.
But in any situation where you're both restricting access in ways incompatible with the GPL, and licensing under the GPL, you're only causing your GPL licensing to self-destruct. It's not legal even if it's your own stuff- you're contradicting yourself by trying to GPL and also trying to restrict or put on additional EULAs and such things.
Speaking as an ex-MP3.com musician, I have to say that your spinning any Michael Robertson company as MORE competent than a random group of unemployed, smelly hackers with short attention spans... is very funny:)
Lindows will be far more useful dead than alive- or at least the brainless, shambling semblance of life you're likely to see. Haven't you ever seen a con man before?
Plus, Robertson would be a great test case for the GPL, because he is an idiot- he has really no clue for what is legal and what is not. He's capable of going into a GPL lawsuit that he can't win. That's the ideal test case for GPL licensing- against an idiot who thinks he can spin the facts with publicity.
Reading people's reports on the ending was enough to make me go out and read the screenplay for the movie (gotta love the internet...) and I have to agree: truly vicious ending. Evil evil twists.
However...
It is NOT a cooler ending than the ending of 'Brazil'.
And this is because the point Evangelion makes is much less interesting than the point Brazil makes. It's NOT that hard to use art to cut away a person's foundations- you just make them identify and then put the protagonist through a lot. It's much more interesting to give a sharp twist, not to the viewer's self-worth, but to their view of reality and the value of sanity, which of course is the brilliance of the every-bit-as-shattering ending of Brazil.
I draw a distinction between what Yahoo's done, and the supermarket sales-tracking cards.
Locally, we have a Shaw's. They use a card. They also really get off on playing with the prices of 2-liters of Coke, which I like to buy. So: when it's under a dollar, I'll buy. *kaching!* on the card. When they're getting delusions of grandeur and trying to mark it up to a buck forty- it can ROT on the shelf, I won't touch it. I'll wait until it's under a dollar again- invariably with the card and all. *kaching!*
The price ALWAYS comes back down to what I want it to be, when I do this. The most I have to wait is a couple weeks. Why?
Their use of the card is a tighter feedback loop, telling them what's selling and what's not. Which means, if anyone actually gets off their butts and chooses to send them a message by boycotting or simply not buying something because the price is extortionate (this Shaw's is the ONLY supermarket within a half-hour drive, so they WANT to be extortionate, all they can), the message gets through with more impact when it's relayed through their card.
Getting spammed is useless- there's nothing you can do actively within the context of that which will help you. The supermarket card things are a lot less useless because you can EXPLOIT them to manipulate the supermarket. If you're getting stuff that you value and you want to not be jerked around pricewise, use the card and pointedly avoid buying stuff that's 'experimentally' priced high! If they want data of that kind GIVE it to them. Make them go 'whoa! abort! X% of people won't bite at this price!'. Take advantage of, not 'yada yada low prices' but the ability to manipulate the supermarket by punishing them when they try to jack prices up again.
That _is_ interesting. Wonder if the judge in the antitrust case would have an opinion on Microsoft requiring that all OEM data files can only use the Microsoft middleware?
I believe this also conflicts with something Quicktime does: I don't like it, but it can create a small file on the desktop that's little more than an ad to 'upgrade to Quicktime Pro!'. This file must associate to Quicktime, of course- and hence violates Microsoft's guidelines...
I take it there was no objection to this suggestion that Microsoft was controlling the prosecution? Funny, one would think that was more improper than the prosecution soliciting advice from Microsoft competitors:D
Whoa- the Free in Free Software has this much to do with being zero cost- it's about liberating software IDEAS and presenting no barrier whatever to people being able to use them. It's 'language-izing' software, hopefully to the point where it's completely fluid and if you see an 'eloquent' expression of software, you can take from it and learn from it and use what you want of it.
This doesn't mean you can't still do things that are worth paying for- hell, I could carry heavy boxes for you and that'd be worth paying for, and some software writing is decidedly heavy lifting. But it does mean that it is not acceptable to disdain people who do not pay money for software- and totally not acceptable to devise ways to use money as a condition for being able to use the software.
For this reason it's hard to see how Free software can be anything other than free- if you're talking about 'develop something for me!' you're talking about a person's labor and effort, which is distinct. The resulting software, once devised, can well be Free without changing the fact that you needed to bargain with someone in order to get them to produce it.
As for selling Linux to the mainstream: this is not a software marketing job. It is a public relations job- even a political/ideological job. It calls for a manifesto more than a salesman. Rather than selling people on a value proposition, you are trying to persuade them that what they THINK they are paying for isn't what they're really paying for- that they've a perfect right to use software as if it was language and slice and dice it as they please, and when they pay for software what they're really paying for is the result of someone who 'speaks software' far better than they can. They're paying for a process, not a product. Software isn't an object. It's a verb- and a temporary adaptation to a given set of technological circumstances- a Rosetta Stone embodying an idea in statements that have functional effect. It's far more like language than manufacturing.
Selling this concept to the mainstream would mean convincing them that they might have expressions of their own- even if it's as simple as changing the color of their title-bar, or putting up wallpaper. The point at which a 'mainstream' person goes 'it looks like the walls of my room are painted... THIS color' and puts in their OWN data to set the color of the window border, is the point at which they begin 'speaking software' rather than always assuming they must get someone else to do it for them.
If software is 'functional ideas' are you arguing that people should not have a right to have ideas without paying for them?
Is that the attitude we're supposed to have in the FREE software community? Free as in 'nothing is stopping you from having this'? Would you rather there was an understanding that you should only have 'software expressions of ideas' if you satisfy someone else's condition by paying them?
That is of course the slippery slope leading directly to a condition of proprietary software.
Nobody is OBLIGED to help Mandrake. Bluntly, it's not my job as a free software developer to help them get money. It is my job as a free software developer to extend to them, and anyone else of like spirit, permission to use my software ideas to develop their software ideas and so on. It is my job to give them PERMISSION to build on what I do- permission that under copyright is not automatically given.
The whole POINT is that they are expected to be able to freely use what I put out there! Why on earth should they, simply because they call themselves a business, be given MORE than what any free software developer has? This is being unclear on the concept.
When you say what the community 'should' be about: sharing to make better is your privilege, you may also share stuff and make it worse if that pleases you. Sharing to contribute is very important but to what, specifically, are you referring? Sharing to learn from is very important if you wish to learn. But 'not mooching'? Your whole perspective here is terribly wrong.
Your whole perspective on what it means to 'support' the 'cause' is terribly wrong.
The river is to drink from. Cup your hand and grab all you want. Watch carefully and see if you can spot the hole left by what you have taken from it...
Now, let's have no more of this bad attitude towards people who are thirsty and want to drink from the river. The more the merrier.
Absolutely. However- I'm not sure artistic expression translates to a 'GPL' type way, simply because IT ALREADY IS at least partially open. The fact that the content industry wants to change this shouldn't distract you from the reality of it.
This isn't an abstract comment- I'm soaking in it;) for example: I make music and distribute it online. I use Ampcast for this- they let me m produce very high quality CDs. At that page, near the bottom, you'll find a tune called 'Horse'. (At the moment, their streaming software is sometimes broken by VBR mp3s, so only the download link works. If you _do_ download it and put up with the site-registering, maybe you could rate the tune while you're at it? It'd be a help)
The reason I point out 'Horse' in spite of knowing there's technical glitches with the streaming versions, is it helps to make my point. Horse is off an album dedicated to animal themes expressed in music. I wanted to do something big, maybe a bit grandiose, reminiscent of schoolgirl horse obsessions and that kind of exaggerated lushness and grandness. There's music out there which is like this- namely, Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother", which has parts that were literally called 'theme from an imaginary western' by the band as they were doing it. I think they in turn were drawing from movie soundtracks. It was the mood and sweep of this music I wanted, not an exact cloning. I ended up using similar but different chords- intentionally making the progression go somewhere else, using strings and piano to give an upward swoop to the progression, and laying down possibly the best guitar solo I've ever played, which thanks to the chords has lots of David Gilmour flavor (not an easy thing!). The result is 'Horse'- and while it plainly 'feels' like Atom Heart Mother, it just as plainly IS NOT.
This is permissible already. George Harrison got in trouble for (inadvertently) copying 'He's So Fine' almost exactly- had he changed the basic melody of the hook, the lawsuit would have been a nonissue. So- where is the need for a GPL-type license when you CAN ALREADY take and modify melodies?
I can see that it gets more complicated when you are dealing with, say, Puff Daddy heavily sampling the Police's "Every Breath You Take"- taking and making use of someone else's actual recording, with their playing and sound engineering as well as just the notes and rhythms. Wanting a license that will permit this as well is reasonable. But how many people consider just asking? Is your ability to use someone else's RECORDING so compellingly important that it needs to be covered by a license to protect your rights? When you can 'cop' the feel of the music, change some things, and be home free?
That said, I have heard some disturbing things- having trouble finding it, but I've heard of jazz recording sessions where a soloist would be stopped during improvisation if they quoted the intellectual property of a representative of an IP holder. Like *tweet!* "That's too much like 'Kind Of Blue', outta the pool!". I wish I could find the reference to this: if this sort of thing actually becomes common, it'd be a big problem. I'm _sure_ I ran across this somewhere, but now I can't find it. Well... good! Means it's not a problem yet;)
You know, the really sick part is, with all the talk of facial damage modelling, Britney broke out from the usual teen idol pack by flirting with the taboo of abuse... 'Sometimes I run, Sometimes I hide, Sometimes I'm scared of you, But all
I really want to do is hold you tight, Treat you right.'
Who else wondered if the Britney game involved the facial damage modelling?:)
No, sometimes it's desirable, but only with certain sorts of games.
I have the flight sim 'X-Plane'. The way I 'play' X-Plane is by using its plane designer (it models all planes with blade element modeling, no lookup tables) to invent new and untried planes. I design them as best I can and then I take the prototypes out for test flights and try to come back alive:) this is the gamey part, as the demands made on such a test pilot can be absurd. To make it more interesting, X-Plane also models issues like directional stability, laminar flow pockets on airfoils, making it all too possible to build a really unforgiving plane. In the case of X-Plane the way I play it, literally the more realism the better- the whole fun of it is thinking of aircraft design concepts and then having to deal with unforeseen weak points, such as flying the plane out of an airport with moderate gusty winds, or landing it.
But then, there are a lot of action games where realism is simply not going to be fun. Doomlike games with damage modelling can be like that- if a leg wound slows you down in a 'deathmatch' situation you might as well have been just plain blown up- being slowed down and weaker is not going to add any fun or interest to the game unless there's a strategic aspect to it, and if there was, you wouldn't be in first-person perspective.
I guess there's a distinction between gameplay consequence realism, and eye candy realism. If I'm playing Marathon, I'd be delighted to have more realistic explosions! At the same time I might use them with the mod I made where you can fire grenades 6 a second and they go off like missiles... because it's fun to create absurd amounts of make-things-go-boom, even though it's totally unrealistic. And if you're doing so, it's fun to make the BOOMS realistic, as long as there's still a game there.
Acknowledged. The trouble with empowering people is that a lot of people are idiots:)
It's a balance that has to be struck between acknowledging people are idiots- and treating them like it, notably by completely depriving them of the ability to communicate and do this kind of thing. Since radio has been consolidated into small numbers of corporate stations controlling entire radio markets, to some extent it forces idiots to nevertheless try to assert their perceived right to their own radio community, to local independent radio.
If they could do this WITHOUT being technical idiots, it would be terrific...
My notion of GNU Radio would be simple and inexpensive free FM BROADCASTING. Of course, the FCC has issues with that... if you pay attention to the micropower FM scene, it's actually quite similar to what GNU stands for. It's about empowering people.
The catch is, it's pretty easy to screw up an adjacent station if your signal is screwy and out of spec.
The low-power FM movement is worth your attention- if you're even reading this article you probably 'get' the importance of micro/local broadcasting. It should come as no surprise that corporate radio has been using Congress and the government to try to stamp out even the possibility of people using local FM broadcasting to provide alternatives- it mirrors what other content industries have been doing with more Slashdot attention. In December 2000 Congress passed an appropriations bill with a rider that was snuck in to halve the number of low power FM licenses the FCC could legally issue. Not only was corporate radio behind this- NPR also supported the illegalization of low power FM broadcasting. McCain (R-AZ) has introduced a bill to counter this and support low power FM again. Furthermore, on February 8, 2002, the Court Of Appeals struck down language in this anti-LPFM act which had prohibited the FCC from issuing a license to anyone who had ever previously been involved with pirate radio. The court held that this was unconstitutional. (funny how both in the judiciary and Congress, these guys are forced to deal with all types of injustice and power grabs, not just the sorts that are close to the hearts of Slashdotters;) )
These people are the other side of the coin: transmitters from microwatt to 500 watts and kits for all kinds of nifty things like subcarrier decoders, shortwave, the aviation band etc. I don't know anything about them but their catalog but it would make any true geek absolutely drool, with all the build-it-yourself devices to do arcane and amusing things, and the flashy computerised rackmountable transmitters. Too cool.
No, it's actually a weird provision because free licenses don't necessarily REQUIRE that... the rest of that point specifies that it's about software DISTRIBUTED WITH software under the license. That is not the interesting part of what MS is doing: it's a bit meaningless. Somebody's not reading for comprehension, in Redmond.
Fine. Then why is their license exactly and precisely as viral as the GPL?
Let's see them start to USE BSD-style licensing on their own stuff- then I'll believe you.
They MUST like the GPL- they are soaking in it! They are using exactly and precisely the same 'viral' mechanism to propagate a license provision that the GPL does. It's a perfect mirror image.
Absolutely. Good call. This is very similar to what they're doing with their Shared Source licensing.
Microsoft have figured out what bit of the GPL to embrace and extend. They won't embrace freedom, they won't embrace allowing people to sublicense and fork and get things out of their control- but they have figured out viral licensing, and THAT is what they are embracing and extending.
This is the strongest possible validation of the strategic importance of the GPL's viral nature- Microsoft is copying it, and their licensing is now completely opposite in intent but absolutely and exactly as viral as the GPL is. They now are using the 'anti-GPL'. Opposite but equal. Exactly as capable of 'infecting' code and even programmers who've seen it. And exactly the same approach must be taken by open source coders (to prevent legal exposure) as the MS coders have been taking with the GPL- don't even look at it, or you may end up in court some day proving you aren't infringing.
The only way to cut down the effectiveness of the MS viral licensing would be to also cut down the effectiveness of the GPL. And if MS strengthens their viral license, the GPL is strengthened in turn, as it is analogous.
It's kinda cool, actually:) as long as you are OK with never seeing 'Microsoft shared source'. And since when have we been able to use Microsoft source in a free/libre way, anyhow?
Personally, I am _delighted_ to see that the area of Free Software, which I personally write code in and contribute to, the SPECIFIC LICENSE that I like best, is also the single license that upsets and frightens Microsoft the worst.
Suck it down, Bill! To observe what scares you the worse and learn from that is also a form of reverse engineering. This should motivate people to use the GPL more. Or do you not think Microsoft is capable of effective threat assessment?
There's a defense strategy against this in nature, and it doesn't demand that the victim be tougher in any way than the attacker.
It's called 'mobbing'.
Crows hate owls and hawks and cannot possibly ever hope to win a fight with one, no matter how many crows there are. So, rather than hiding, if crows see a hawk, they will fly around it at a safe distance and SCREAM at it. Caw! Caw! More crows will come and join. If the hawk goes for any one crow, goodbye crow, and the rest will scream even worse. Result: good luck finding prey with a lot of crows tirelessly screaming around you, hawk!
Thus, the hawk is 'mobbed' by crows, and that is the defense I mean.
I read this story in Salon, from a link on CNet. The first thing I thought of was 'slashdot oughta cover this!', and then when I came to Slashdot, it was the top story. Good job, all the people who no doubt all submitted it at once... because nothing quite rivals Slashdot as a 'mobbing site'. Many, many people read Slashdot- many people who are NOT FOND OF BARRATRY.
The fact is, as things stand right now, legal attacks of this nature ARE beyond what most people can withstand, whether they are justified or not: it's unsurprising that people are forced to settle because they cannot destroy their lives just to be an example.
That's why 'mobbing', like crows mobbing hawks, is the best answer: if you have no defense and can't possibly win a fight, it CAN still be possible to make things so unpleasant for an attacker that it gives up. I would love to see this 'petswarehouse' guy bankrupt: judging from the Salon story, I think he is a danger to society, all the more because his behavior may be imitated by others realizing, "Hey, you don't HAVE to be a multinational corporation to wreck ordinary people's lives with baseless lawsuits!".
I am no more capable of this than the original victims were: but I hope I have expressed the 'mobbing' defense adequately that it may turn out useful. People do this already- the point is, rather than being whiny bitches who can't win, they are sounding the alarm in a disorganized but determined way, about a deadly threat.
Slashdot Mirror
Calling it beta testing is frankly bullshit- WHAT Free software is really, truly 'done'? What proprietary software is? The whole concept falls apart. In regards to Free software there is NO SUCH THING as 'beta'. It is ALL like a growing organism as opposed to a manufactured product. There is also NO distinction between 'consumer' and 'producer'. The GPL uses legal, binding language to establish this state of affairs and there isn't a word wasted. It doesn't HAVE to define 'beta' software: software is software to the GPL. Calling it beta doesn't stop it being software and turn it into, for instance, office supplies, staplers, ballpoint pens. It is GPLED SOFTWARE, and to effectively forbid the distribution of copies AT ANY level would mean losing the right to distribute the GPLed software at all.
Read that again. "To effectively forbid the distribution of copies AT ANY level would mean losing the right to distribute the GPLed software at all." If you give a copy of GPLed code to YOUR EMPLOYEE and he wants to distribute his copy on the internet, your only recourse is to forbid your employee from doing so- meaning that he cannot legally comply with your restriction and the GPL at the same time- meaning that he can't legally produce GPLed code under those conditions! (normal companies treat GPL coding as a public process in the first place, making it a nonissue whether the person posts their code or not).
Your employee might have no reason to want to post their first draft of modifications to GPLed code on the internet. But you as an employer CANNOT FORBID them to do so without placing them in a situation where they can't legally work on GPL code at all- if they can't distribute, they don't have rights, and if they don't have rights they have no business making modifications for eventual distribution. You can't set up sweatshops for hacking on GPLed code- the license doesn't allow it.
It's quite clearcut: the GPL is not compatible with freedom-restricting licenses. If you break the rules you lose the ability to distribute legally under the GPL.
Now, IF it was all their own code (which it ain't), this wouldn't stop them because then they'd have the ability to release under some other license- dual-licensing.
But in any situation where you're both restricting access in ways incompatible with the GPL, and licensing under the GPL, you're only causing your GPL licensing to self-destruct. It's not legal even if it's your own stuff- you're contradicting yourself by trying to GPL and also trying to restrict or put on additional EULAs and such things.
Lindows will be far more useful dead than alive- or at least the brainless, shambling semblance of life you're likely to see. Haven't you ever seen a con man before?
Plus, Robertson would be a great test case for the GPL, because he is an idiot- he has really no clue for what is legal and what is not. He's capable of going into a GPL lawsuit that he can't win. That's the ideal test case for GPL licensing- against an idiot who thinks he can spin the facts with publicity.
However...
It is NOT a cooler ending than the ending of 'Brazil'.
And this is because the point Evangelion makes is much less interesting than the point Brazil makes. It's NOT that hard to use art to cut away a person's foundations- you just make them identify and then put the protagonist through a lot. It's much more interesting to give a sharp twist, not to the viewer's self-worth, but to their view of reality and the value of sanity, which of course is the brilliance of the every-bit-as-shattering ending of Brazil.
Locally, we have a Shaw's. They use a card. They also really get off on playing with the prices of 2-liters of Coke, which I like to buy. So: when it's under a dollar, I'll buy. *kaching!* on the card. When they're getting delusions of grandeur and trying to mark it up to a buck forty- it can ROT on the shelf, I won't touch it. I'll wait until it's under a dollar again- invariably with the card and all. *kaching!*
The price ALWAYS comes back down to what I want it to be, when I do this. The most I have to wait is a couple weeks. Why?
Their use of the card is a tighter feedback loop, telling them what's selling and what's not. Which means, if anyone actually gets off their butts and chooses to send them a message by boycotting or simply not buying something because the price is extortionate (this Shaw's is the ONLY supermarket within a half-hour drive, so they WANT to be extortionate, all they can), the message gets through with more impact when it's relayed through their card.
Getting spammed is useless- there's nothing you can do actively within the context of that which will help you. The supermarket card things are a lot less useless because you can EXPLOIT them to manipulate the supermarket. If you're getting stuff that you value and you want to not be jerked around pricewise, use the card and pointedly avoid buying stuff that's 'experimentally' priced high! If they want data of that kind GIVE it to them. Make them go 'whoa! abort! X% of people won't bite at this price!'. Take advantage of, not 'yada yada low prices' but the ability to manipulate the supermarket by punishing them when they try to jack prices up again.
I believe this also conflicts with something Quicktime does: I don't like it, but it can create a small file on the desktop that's little more than an ad to 'upgrade to Quicktime Pro!'. This file must associate to Quicktime, of course- and hence violates Microsoft's guidelines...
What's wrong with them both smacking Microsoft? You'd prefer if they took turns? :D
I take it there was no objection to this suggestion that Microsoft was controlling the prosecution? Funny, one would think that was more improper than the prosecution soliciting advice from Microsoft competitors :D
This doesn't mean you can't still do things that are worth paying for- hell, I could carry heavy boxes for you and that'd be worth paying for, and some software writing is decidedly heavy lifting. But it does mean that it is not acceptable to disdain people who do not pay money for software- and totally not acceptable to devise ways to use money as a condition for being able to use the software.
For this reason it's hard to see how Free software can be anything other than free- if you're talking about 'develop something for me!' you're talking about a person's labor and effort, which is distinct. The resulting software, once devised, can well be Free without changing the fact that you needed to bargain with someone in order to get them to produce it.
As for selling Linux to the mainstream: this is not a software marketing job. It is a public relations job- even a political/ideological job. It calls for a manifesto more than a salesman. Rather than selling people on a value proposition, you are trying to persuade them that what they THINK they are paying for isn't what they're really paying for- that they've a perfect right to use software as if it was language and slice and dice it as they please, and when they pay for software what they're really paying for is the result of someone who 'speaks software' far better than they can. They're paying for a process, not a product. Software isn't an object. It's a verb- and a temporary adaptation to a given set of technological circumstances- a Rosetta Stone embodying an idea in statements that have functional effect. It's far more like language than manufacturing.
Selling this concept to the mainstream would mean convincing them that they might have expressions of their own- even if it's as simple as changing the color of their title-bar, or putting up wallpaper. The point at which a 'mainstream' person goes 'it looks like the walls of my room are painted... THIS color' and puts in their OWN data to set the color of the window border, is the point at which they begin 'speaking software' rather than always assuming they must get someone else to do it for them.
Define 'mooch'.
If software is 'functional ideas' are you arguing that people should not have a right to have ideas without paying for them?
Is that the attitude we're supposed to have in the FREE software community? Free as in 'nothing is stopping you from having this'? Would you rather there was an understanding that you should only have 'software expressions of ideas' if you satisfy someone else's condition by paying them?
That is of course the slippery slope leading directly to a condition of proprietary software.
Nobody is OBLIGED to help Mandrake. Bluntly, it's not my job as a free software developer to help them get money. It is my job as a free software developer to extend to them, and anyone else of like spirit, permission to use my software ideas to develop their software ideas and so on. It is my job to give them PERMISSION to build on what I do- permission that under copyright is not automatically given.
The whole POINT is that they are expected to be able to freely use what I put out there! Why on earth should they, simply because they call themselves a business, be given MORE than what any free software developer has? This is being unclear on the concept.
When you say what the community 'should' be about: sharing to make better is your privilege, you may also share stuff and make it worse if that pleases you. Sharing to contribute is very important but to what, specifically, are you referring? Sharing to learn from is very important if you wish to learn. But 'not mooching'? Your whole perspective here is terribly wrong.
Your whole perspective on what it means to 'support' the 'cause' is terribly wrong.
The river is to drink from. Cup your hand and grab all you want. Watch carefully and see if you can spot the hole left by what you have taken from it...
Now, let's have no more of this bad attitude towards people who are thirsty and want to drink from the river. The more the merrier.
This isn't an abstract comment- I'm soaking in it ;) for example: I make music and distribute it online. I use Ampcast for this- they let me m produce very high quality CDs. At that page, near the bottom, you'll find a tune called 'Horse'. (At the moment, their streaming software is sometimes broken by VBR mp3s, so only the download link works. If you _do_ download it and put up with the site-registering, maybe you could rate the tune while you're at it? It'd be a help)
The reason I point out 'Horse' in spite of knowing there's technical glitches with the streaming versions, is it helps to make my point. Horse is off an album dedicated to animal themes expressed in music. I wanted to do something big, maybe a bit grandiose, reminiscent of schoolgirl horse obsessions and that kind of exaggerated lushness and grandness. There's music out there which is like this- namely, Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother", which has parts that were literally called 'theme from an imaginary western' by the band as they were doing it. I think they in turn were drawing from movie soundtracks. It was the mood and sweep of this music I wanted, not an exact cloning. I ended up using similar but different chords- intentionally making the progression go somewhere else, using strings and piano to give an upward swoop to the progression, and laying down possibly the best guitar solo I've ever played, which thanks to the chords has lots of David Gilmour flavor (not an easy thing!). The result is 'Horse'- and while it plainly 'feels' like Atom Heart Mother, it just as plainly IS NOT.
This is permissible already. George Harrison got in trouble for (inadvertently) copying 'He's So Fine' almost exactly- had he changed the basic melody of the hook, the lawsuit would have been a nonissue. So- where is the need for a GPL-type license when you CAN ALREADY take and modify melodies?
I can see that it gets more complicated when you are dealing with, say, Puff Daddy heavily sampling the Police's "Every Breath You Take"- taking and making use of someone else's actual recording, with their playing and sound engineering as well as just the notes and rhythms. Wanting a license that will permit this as well is reasonable. But how many people consider just asking? Is your ability to use someone else's RECORDING so compellingly important that it needs to be covered by a license to protect your rights? When you can 'cop' the feel of the music, change some things, and be home free?
That said, I have heard some disturbing things- having trouble finding it, but I've heard of jazz recording sessions where a soloist would be stopped during improvisation if they quoted the intellectual property of a representative of an IP holder. Like *tweet!* "That's too much like 'Kind Of Blue', outta the pool!". I wish I could find the reference to this: if this sort of thing actually becomes common, it'd be a big problem. I'm _sure_ I ran across this somewhere, but now I can't find it. Well... good! Means it's not a problem yet ;)
Who else wondered if the Britney game involved the facial damage modelling? :)
I have the flight sim 'X-Plane'. The way I 'play' X-Plane is by using its plane designer (it models all planes with blade element modeling, no lookup tables) to invent new and untried planes. I design them as best I can and then I take the prototypes out for test flights and try to come back alive :) this is the gamey part, as the demands made on such a test pilot can be absurd. To make it more interesting, X-Plane also models issues like directional stability, laminar flow pockets on airfoils, making it all too possible to build a really unforgiving plane. In the case of X-Plane the way I play it, literally the more realism the better- the whole fun of it is thinking of aircraft design concepts and then having to deal with unforeseen weak points, such as flying the plane out of an airport with moderate gusty winds, or landing it.
But then, there are a lot of action games where realism is simply not going to be fun. Doomlike games with damage modelling can be like that- if a leg wound slows you down in a 'deathmatch' situation you might as well have been just plain blown up- being slowed down and weaker is not going to add any fun or interest to the game unless there's a strategic aspect to it, and if there was, you wouldn't be in first-person perspective.
I guess there's a distinction between gameplay consequence realism, and eye candy realism. If I'm playing Marathon, I'd be delighted to have more realistic explosions! At the same time I might use them with the mod I made where you can fire grenades 6 a second and they go off like missiles... because it's fun to create absurd amounts of make-things-go-boom, even though it's totally unrealistic. And if you're doing so, it's fun to make the BOOMS realistic, as long as there's still a game there.
It's a balance that has to be struck between acknowledging people are idiots- and treating them like it, notably by completely depriving them of the ability to communicate and do this kind of thing. Since radio has been consolidated into small numbers of corporate stations controlling entire radio markets, to some extent it forces idiots to nevertheless try to assert their perceived right to their own radio community, to local independent radio.
If they could do this WITHOUT being technical idiots, it would be terrific...
My notion of GNU Radio would be simple and inexpensive free FM BROADCASTING. Of course, the FCC has issues with that... if you pay attention to the micropower FM scene, it's actually quite similar to what GNU stands for. It's about empowering people.
The catch is, it's pretty easy to screw up an adjacent station if your signal is screwy and out of spec.
The low-power FM movement is worth your attention- if you're even reading this article you probably 'get' the importance of micro/local broadcasting. It should come as no surprise that corporate radio has been using Congress and the government to try to stamp out even the possibility of people using local FM broadcasting to provide alternatives- it mirrors what other content industries have been doing with more Slashdot attention. In December 2000 Congress passed an appropriations bill with a rider that was snuck in to halve the number of low power FM licenses the FCC could legally issue. Not only was corporate radio behind this- NPR also supported the illegalization of low power FM broadcasting. McCain (R-AZ) has introduced a bill to counter this and support low power FM again. Furthermore, on February 8, 2002, the Court Of Appeals struck down language in this anti-LPFM act which had prohibited the FCC from issuing a license to anyone who had ever previously been involved with pirate radio. The court held that this was unconstitutional. (funny how both in the judiciary and Congress, these guys are forced to deal with all types of injustice and power grabs, not just the sorts that are close to the hearts of Slashdotters ;) )
These people are the other side of the coin: transmitters from microwatt to 500 watts and kits for all kinds of nifty things like subcarrier decoders, shortwave, the aviation band etc. I don't know anything about them but their catalog but it would make any true geek absolutely drool, with all the build-it-yourself devices to do arcane and amusing things, and the flashy computerised rackmountable transmitters. Too cool.
Yeah. What kind of a loser are you to be discovering slashdot _that_ early? ;)
No, it's actually a weird provision because free licenses don't necessarily REQUIRE that... the rest of that point specifies that it's about software DISTRIBUTED WITH software under the license. That is not the interesting part of what MS is doing: it's a bit meaningless. Somebody's not reading for comprehension, in Redmond.
Let's see them start to USE BSD-style licensing on their own stuff- then I'll believe you.
They MUST like the GPL- they are soaking in it! They are using exactly and precisely the same 'viral' mechanism to propagate a license provision that the GPL does. It's a perfect mirror image.
Just so y'all are clear...
Microsoft have figured out what bit of the GPL to embrace and extend. They won't embrace freedom, they won't embrace allowing people to sublicense and fork and get things out of their control- but they have figured out viral licensing, and THAT is what they are embracing and extending.
This is the strongest possible validation of the strategic importance of the GPL's viral nature- Microsoft is copying it, and their licensing is now completely opposite in intent but absolutely and exactly as viral as the GPL is. They now are using the 'anti-GPL'. Opposite but equal. Exactly as capable of 'infecting' code and even programmers who've seen it. And exactly the same approach must be taken by open source coders (to prevent legal exposure) as the MS coders have been taking with the GPL- don't even look at it, or you may end up in court some day proving you aren't infringing.
The only way to cut down the effectiveness of the MS viral licensing would be to also cut down the effectiveness of the GPL. And if MS strengthens their viral license, the GPL is strengthened in turn, as it is analogous.
It's kinda cool, actually :) as long as you are OK with never seeing 'Microsoft shared source'. And since when have we been able to use Microsoft source in a free/libre way, anyhow?
"Then they fight you"
Personally, I am _delighted_ to see that the area of Free Software, which I personally write code in and contribute to, the SPECIFIC LICENSE that I like best, is also the single license that upsets and frightens Microsoft the worst.
Suck it down, Bill! To observe what scares you the worse and learn from that is also a form of reverse engineering. This should motivate people to use the GPL more. Or do you not think Microsoft is capable of effective threat assessment?
No way. I release using the GPL, do you? I wouldn't go along with that. It's an invitation to get jerked around.
Is it a sole proprietorship? Don't assume it's a corporation or something.
It's called 'mobbing'.
Crows hate owls and hawks and cannot possibly ever hope to win a fight with one, no matter how many crows there are. So, rather than hiding, if crows see a hawk, they will fly around it at a safe distance and SCREAM at it. Caw! Caw! More crows will come and join. If the hawk goes for any one crow, goodbye crow, and the rest will scream even worse. Result: good luck finding prey with a lot of crows tirelessly screaming around you, hawk!
Thus, the hawk is 'mobbed' by crows, and that is the defense I mean.
I read this story in Salon, from a link on CNet. The first thing I thought of was 'slashdot oughta cover this!', and then when I came to Slashdot, it was the top story. Good job, all the people who no doubt all submitted it at once... because nothing quite rivals Slashdot as a 'mobbing site'. Many, many people read Slashdot- many people who are NOT FOND OF BARRATRY.
The fact is, as things stand right now, legal attacks of this nature ARE beyond what most people can withstand, whether they are justified or not: it's unsurprising that people are forced to settle because they cannot destroy their lives just to be an example.
That's why 'mobbing', like crows mobbing hawks, is the best answer: if you have no defense and can't possibly win a fight, it CAN still be possible to make things so unpleasant for an attacker that it gives up. I would love to see this 'petswarehouse' guy bankrupt: judging from the Salon story, I think he is a danger to society, all the more because his behavior may be imitated by others realizing, "Hey, you don't HAVE to be a multinational corporation to wreck ordinary people's lives with baseless lawsuits!".
I am no more capable of this than the original victims were: but I hope I have expressed the 'mobbing' defense adequately that it may turn out useful. People do this already- the point is, rather than being whiny bitches who can't win, they are sounding the alarm in a disorganized but determined way, about a deadly threat.