I'd have to agree with that. I get the impression that Stallman has no real interest in windowing systems in general or in desktop environments in particular. But if desktop environments are to be an important component of modern operating systems, his goal of making GNU a completely Free modern operating system requires that it have a desktop environment. So I do think there is some overlap - to fulfill his goal Stallman also needs GNOME to be usable, functional, and ideally popular. But I'll agree - he mainly wants that not for its own sake, but so that GNU will be more complete.
Well, that's pretty much the same as saying "not allowed." I'm also legally allowed to distribute modified copies of Microsoft software if I get their permission. DJB's and Microsoft's licensing allow me the same amount of freedom in this regard. The only difference is that DJB is more likely to grant me an exception (special permission to distribute a particular modified version of the software after he reviews it) than Microsoft is.
They want a desktop environment. He wants a GNU project.
I think it's safe to say that "they" want a GNU project as well. If they didn't, they wouldn't have named their project the "GNU Network Object Model Environment."
I wouldn't really consider it "darn close to 'free'". The entire point of free software is that one can make modifications and distribute a modified version, which djb does not allow in any form - either through distributing the modified version itself or through distributing patches. The only thing he allows is private modification for personal use, which is not free software - I can modify Sun's source-released software for personal use too, but that's certainly not Free.
Stallman agrees with you. This is the reason for the existence of the LGPL - its explicit purpose is to allow people to use Free libraries with Proprietary software, in order to ease people into the Free software world. The only point Stallman is making is that we should keep in mind that the goal is to ease people into the Free software world, not to have them stagnate in a half-Free, half-Proprietary world. Thus, things like the LGPL, win32 ports of GNU software, and so on can be useful, but they should not in themselves be the end goals.
Using free software with a non-free operating system should be viewed as a win, not a loss. More people using free software is a good thing. You start them off slow with a couple of nice applications. Then the user starts looking for free alternatives first before buying something proprietary. From there it's a short hop to running a free system.
I don't think that's an accurate analysis of his views. Stallman does concede that using free software on a non-free operating software is better than using non-free software on that same operating system, and that this can be a way to ease people into a completely free system. He specifically acknowledges this on gnu.org (I can't seem to find the page at the moment, unfortunately), and mentions that as the reason most GNU software has a win32 port. It's also the reason for the existence of the LGPL.
However, Stallman would like this to remain a way to ease people into a completely free system; he doesn't want it to stagnate into nearly everybody using free software on non-free systems, and never making the complete switch to free systems. Thus his reluctance to port GNOME to win32, and his general wariness about using LGPL too extensively.
He's not as one-sided "my way or the highway" as you portray though - if he was, there'd be no official ports of GNU software to win32, and the LGPL wouldn't even exist.
Say what you will about his goals, but at least he's perfectly honest and up-front about them (and everything else), even going so far as to admit that he hasn't been following the GNOME development.
When matriculating at universities it's standard to sign a whole slew of paperwork. An IP contract is probably one of them, and most people probably don't read it.
Well, first of all China has nowhere near 3 billion people. Almost 1 billion is the current number.
Secondly, China is quite a plutocracy itself. It is certainly not communist - there are plenty of private corporations making a great deal of profit (including many in joint ventures with American, Taiwanese, and Japanese companies). If anything it's far worse than in the US - while in the US there's at least some separation between government and corporations, in China the only corporations allowed to exist are those run by Communist Party members and blessed by the government.
Well, since the intent is to physically separate this network from other networks, it would indeed not by "hackable" by the common definition fo the term. The only way to penetrate it would be to breach the physical security (i.e. break into a building and tap a cable), which is more "breaking and entering" than "hacking."
Perhaps you might want to countenance the possibility that one might be more productive doing research on one's own than simply going around commenting on the ways various people need to "STFU."
Apple has explicitly declared that they only support the use of RF licensing in web-standards-related patents. The article Slashdot quoted is over a year old and no longer represents Apple policy.
Ah, sounds rather interesting in that case. The major problem is that this scheme eliminates anybody who cannot accept incoming connections on port 1214, which is a rather large number of high-bandwidth college students who on the current FastTrack network serve as one of the primary groups of content providers. That and the apparent lack of a Windows client.
Where's the breakthrough? The latest news update as of two weeks ago indicates they still haven't found a way around being blocked from the FastTrack network.
Using a drive cache algorithm in firmeware. They're typically trade secrets, but the simplest one would just be "keep reading ahead at the current location." Which is what I meant when I said that the "idle" drive is actually still physically reading in cache. Just because the IDE bus can't control both drives at the same time doesn't mean the drive's firmware can't have it be doing stuff physically.
Well, I won't claim to be an expert on low-level ATA interfaces, but I was under the impression that only the actual reading was limited to one device at a time. Can't the drive fill its onboard buffer from the physical disk using its internal firmware, without any bus intervention? Then couldn't one drive be officially "reading" (i.e. sending data over the bus) while the other is officially "not reading" but still is physically physically reading data off the platters to fill its onboard buffer (all this being done under the control of the firmware)?
Granted, since they're only 2mb buffers this wouldn't be too impressively fast, but it's still something.
While you certainly have some valid complaints, I think this particular fact alone makes it worth quite a bit. Information about laws is quite possibly one of the most important things a government can provide.
I'm not sure; does the US even provide all its laws online?
I find that comment funny considering our relative Slashdot UIDs. =] Not new, but perhaps misremembering some of the details of the t.o fiasco.
Also, It was called system12. He has a new project which also probably won't produce anything called system26 or whatever.
Yeah, I checked some IRC logs of him explaining this (from #kuro5hin on slashnet a while back) and you're correct. He claims (or at least claimed at the time, about a year ago) that VA still owns the system12 domain name and refuses to relinquish it, despite admitting that they have no plans to develop it, which is why he was forced to rename it to system26.
However, he did have the impression that a good deal of his ideas for system12 were silently merged into SourceForge without any credit, and that he was pushed aside. Not having been there I can't say whether this is accurate or not, but he sure seemed angry about it.
Since these new ATA/133 cards are backwards compatible with 33MHz slots, I must assume they found a way to reduce RF interference. The existence of 64-bit PCI slots means that industry has found a way to move 64-bits using the older physical architecture.
It's possible the architecture was changed, though I can't verify this either way. If you've noticed the new AGP slots, they're physically wider than the original ones, but are backwards-compatible with the original cards - they come with the "extra" part covered with a plastic guider so the old cards will fit snugly, which you can remove to insert the newer, wider cards.
Seems that IDE/EIDE drives are the choice for cheap and large. I'm certainly guilty of buying a few. However, I am wondering why fibre channel and SCSI aren't more popular for the desktop?
Seems that you answered your own question there. IDE/EIDE drives are the choice for cheap and large, while SCSI are not. And cheap and large is what is necessary to store gigabytes of audio and video, unless you're wealthy. Very few of us care enough about the extra speed to justify paying $500 for an 80-gig SCSI drive when you can get the same thing in an IDE flavor for $200.
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I'd have to agree with that. I get the impression that Stallman has no real interest in windowing systems in general or in desktop environments in particular. But if desktop environments are to be an important component of modern operating systems, his goal of making GNU a completely Free modern operating system requires that it have a desktop environment. So I do think there is some overlap - to fulfill his goal Stallman also needs GNOME to be usable, functional, and ideally popular. But I'll agree - he mainly wants that not for its own sake, but so that GNU will be more complete.
Well, that's pretty much the same as saying "not allowed." I'm also legally allowed to distribute modified copies of Microsoft software if I get their permission. DJB's and Microsoft's licensing allow me the same amount of freedom in this regard. The only difference is that DJB is more likely to grant me an exception (special permission to distribute a particular modified version of the software after he reviews it) than Microsoft is.
They want a desktop environment. He wants a GNU project.
I think it's safe to say that "they" want a GNU project as well. If they didn't, they wouldn't have named their project the "GNU Network Object Model Environment."
I wouldn't really consider it "darn close to 'free'". The entire point of free software is that one can make modifications and distribute a modified version, which djb does not allow in any form - either through distributing the modified version itself or through distributing patches. The only thing he allows is private modification for personal use, which is not free software - I can modify Sun's source-released software for personal use too, but that's certainly not Free.
Stallman agrees with you. This is the reason for the existence of the LGPL - its explicit purpose is to allow people to use Free libraries with Proprietary software, in order to ease people into the Free software world. The only point Stallman is making is that we should keep in mind that the goal is to ease people into the Free software world, not to have them stagnate in a half-Free, half-Proprietary world. Thus, things like the LGPL, win32 ports of GNU software, and so on can be useful, but they should not in themselves be the end goals.
Using free software with a non-free operating system should be viewed as a win, not a loss. More people using free software is a good thing. You start them off slow with a couple of nice applications. Then the user starts looking for free alternatives first before buying something proprietary. From there it's a short hop to running a free system.
I don't think that's an accurate analysis of his views. Stallman does concede that using free software on a non-free operating software is better than using non-free software on that same operating system, and that this can be a way to ease people into a completely free system. He specifically acknowledges this on gnu.org (I can't seem to find the page at the moment, unfortunately), and mentions that as the reason most GNU software has a win32 port. It's also the reason for the existence of the LGPL.
However, Stallman would like this to remain a way to ease people into a completely free system; he doesn't want it to stagnate into nearly everybody using free software on non-free systems, and never making the complete switch to free systems. Thus his reluctance to port GNOME to win32, and his general wariness about using LGPL too extensively.
He's not as one-sided "my way or the highway" as you portray though - if he was, there'd be no official ports of GNU software to win32, and the LGPL wouldn't even exist.
Say what you will about his goals, but at least he's perfectly honest and up-front about them (and everything else), even going so far as to admit that he hasn't been following the GNOME development.
I think Stallman does recognize this, as evidenced by the nearly ubiquitous Win32 ports of GNU software (see here for a list).
When matriculating at universities it's standard to sign a whole slew of paperwork. An IP contract is probably one of them, and most people probably don't read it.
Well, first of all China has nowhere near 3 billion people. Almost 1 billion is the current number.
Secondly, China is quite a plutocracy itself. It is certainly not communist - there are plenty of private corporations making a great deal of profit (including many in joint ventures with American, Taiwanese, and Japanese companies). If anything it's far worse than in the US - while in the US there's at least some separation between government and corporations, in China the only corporations allowed to exist are those run by Communist Party members and blessed by the government.
Well, since the intent is to physically separate this network from other networks, it would indeed not by "hackable" by the common definition fo the term. The only way to penetrate it would be to breach the physical security (i.e. break into a building and tap a cable), which is more "breaking and entering" than "hacking."
Of course that depends on how you define "project." Anybody can start an "open source project" with 50 lines of code and a sourceforge account.
Perhaps you might want to countenance the possibility that one might be more productive doing research on one's own than simply going around commenting on the ways various people need to "STFU."
Apple has explicitly declared that they only support the use of RF licensing in web-standards-related patents. The article Slashdot quoted is over a year old and no longer represents Apple policy.
Umm, the proliferation of incompatible cabling is quite emphatically a SCSI problem.
Ah, sounds rather interesting in that case. The major problem is that this scheme eliminates anybody who cannot accept incoming connections on port 1214, which is a rather large number of high-bandwidth college students who on the current FastTrack network serve as one of the primary groups of content providers. That and the apparent lack of a Windows client.
Where's the breakthrough? The latest news update as of two weeks ago indicates they still haven't found a way around being blocked from the FastTrack network.
So run a different Gnutella client. Gnucleus is a good Free Software one.
Or download the source code to LimeWire (it is open source you know) and take out the ads.
Using a drive cache algorithm in firmeware. They're typically trade secrets, but the simplest one would just be "keep reading ahead at the current location." Which is what I meant when I said that the "idle" drive is actually still physically reading in cache. Just because the IDE bus can't control both drives at the same time doesn't mean the drive's firmware can't have it be doing stuff physically.
Since HURD is the official kernel of the GNU OS project, isn't "GNU" or "GNU OS" a sufficient name for the operating system?
Well, I won't claim to be an expert on low-level ATA interfaces, but I was under the impression that only the actual reading was limited to one device at a time. Can't the drive fill its onboard buffer from the physical disk using its internal firmware, without any bus intervention? Then couldn't one drive be officially "reading" (i.e. sending data over the bus) while the other is officially "not reading" but still is physically physically reading data off the platters to fill its onboard buffer (all this being done under the control of the firmware)?
Granted, since they're only 2mb buffers this wouldn't be too impressively fast, but it's still something.
Yes, I can access all the laws online.
While you certainly have some valid complaints, I think this particular fact alone makes it worth quite a bit. Information about laws is quite possibly one of the most important things a government can provide.
I'm not sure; does the US even provide all its laws online?
You must be new.
I find that comment funny considering our relative Slashdot UIDs. =] Not new, but perhaps misremembering some of the details of the t.o fiasco.
Also, It was called system12. He has a new project which also probably won't produce anything called system26 or whatever.
Yeah, I checked some IRC logs of him explaining this (from #kuro5hin on slashnet a while back) and you're correct. He claims (or at least claimed at the time, about a year ago) that VA still owns the system12 domain name and refuses to relinquish it, despite admitting that they have no plans to develop it, which is why he was forced to rename it to system26.
However, he did have the impression that a good deal of his ideas for system12 were silently merged into SourceForge without any credit, and that he was pushed aside. Not having been there I can't say whether this is accurate or not, but he sure seemed angry about it.
It's possible the architecture was changed, though I can't verify this either way. If you've noticed the new AGP slots, they're physically wider than the original ones, but are backwards-compatible with the original cards - they come with the "extra" part covered with a plastic guider so the old cards will fit snugly, which you can remove to insert the newer, wider cards.
Seems that IDE/EIDE drives are the choice for cheap and large. I'm certainly guilty of buying a few. However, I am wondering why fibre channel and SCSI aren't more popular for the desktop?
Seems that you answered your own question there. IDE/EIDE drives are the choice for cheap and large, while SCSI are not. And cheap and large is what is necessary to store gigabytes of audio and video, unless you're wealthy. Very few of us care enough about the extra speed to justify paying $500 for an 80-gig SCSI drive when you can get the same thing in an IDE flavor for $200.