Blaming lawyers for our troubles is short-sighted. The number of opportunities in law is actually going down, and the typical advice for people who want to go to law school these days is don'tbother. That doesn't sound like some dystopian future world where lawyers would be in high demand suing each other into oblivion.
If your anger should be directed somewhere, it should be directed at the wealthiest 10% of america, who own 72% of it's wealth. Which would be fine (after all, there's nothing inherently wrong with being rich), except they also don't pay their fair share of taxes either, which means cutbacks in education, social services, and so on. They will use their considerable political influence to continue that things continue the way they are, and of course, they've managed to drill into people's heads that more taxes == evil, so you have people frothing at the mouth and protesting against their own best interest.
If I sell software with anything like a typical commercial license and I decide to stop supporting it, you're SOL. With the GPL, at least you have the source and can spend money to hire someone to support it.
The GPL emphasizes code freedom over developer freedom. Take a look at Question 6 of the Commercial License page for MySQL:
Q6: What is Sun's commercial license for MySQL software?
A: Sun offers a commercial license for all of its MySQL software that is embedded in or bundled with another application. The commercial license allows OEMs, ISVs and VARs to distribute commercial binaries of MySQL software with their own commercial software without subjecting that software to the GPL and its requirement to distribute source code.
Emphasis mine. If MySQL had been BSD licensed, Monty Program AB could continue to offer a similar service for MariaDB, even though it was not the primary copyright holder of MySQL's codebase. Of course, said commercial software would have to have the BSD license included somewhere in their documentation, per the BSD license's second clause, but this is likely to be far more agreeable than the GPL's onerous requirements.
As far as the trademark is concerned, if I own BobSQL, you can't call your own database BobSQL regardless of how either one is licensed.
You are precisely correct. However, I feel that too many GPL advocates don't think about the ramifications of having to discard the brand associated with the code. "Oh we'll fork it and everything will be fine" is naive, since you now have to "get the word out" about the forked project all over again. And this is only if the copyright holders have abandoned the project, if they continue to develop it, you are now effectively competing against your old established codebase and have more to prove.
Looking back over my original post, however, it does look like I put the branding issues and the 'commercial closed source' issue under the same umbrella, though I meant differently (see: singular use of the word "disadvantage") My apologies.
...except that if Oracle owns the copyrights to MySQL, they can close source future versions of MySQL and/or let mainline development languish. I don't know if they also own the name "MySQL" but if they do they can forbid any forks of MySQL from being called "MySQL" as well.
Of course, the existing source will live forever, but any forks will not have the advantage of the "MySQL" brand name or the ability to dual-license the code for situations where more restrictive licensing might be desired by their customers.
It's kind of surprising how few people realize this disadvantage of the GPL. Keep that in mind the next time you use it on a project.
By all means, let the tomboy developers enjoy working on their thing, and let everyone who likes it use it, but I could think about a couple of things I'd like those 40MBs used for other than Mono
It's a victory for great free software applications that just so happen to use Mono. Mono often gets treated as a second class citizen because of its Microsoft roots, with zealots not wanting Microsoft's "unholy embrace" on Linux, whatever that's supposed to mean. Thankfully, there are sane people to defend it and because of this developers don't have to worry about their software not being included in a default install because they just so happened to pick Mono.
This is a victory for Free Software advocates over Free Software zealots. Congrats to the debian team for doing the right thing, even if it might be unpopular with the crazies.
I know you love shoe-horning in "capitalism good government bad" bullshit in every single one of your posts, but I'm curious as to what exactly the FDA did in your hypothetical situation that you imply was worthy of blame?
You're thinking about this the wrong way. Forget running Windows apps, why not have killer apps that are native to Linux and people would switch just to run, other stuff be damned.
Considering the fact that the team size is around 10 or so at this point, and it is one programmer with no other responsibilities while the rest of the team multitasks, I say yes.
Worst of all: from the video it appears there is literally zero innovation in the gameplay, its just adhd shooting and running with the same futuristic weapons all over again.
How exactly do you innovate a competitive first person shooter? Give it some weird play mechanic which never ends up being fun at all? Give it realistic weapons and a reload button? Come up with some uber-complicated gametype that nobody will play anyway because it's too complicated and doesn't play well? Add vehicles and turn it into a bad version of Battlefield 1942 instead of a bad version of Quake?
I like simple first person shooters. Years later, I'm still waiting for something to out-Doom Doom 2 or out-quake Quake 3 Arena/Quake Live. That said, Nexuiz isn't a bad game because it doesn't innovate, it's a bad game because it falls into the trap most simple first person shooters fall into, in that instead of refining their core gameplay into something simple, fun, balanced and deep, they just throw a bunch of random content into a box and hope some of it sticks without caring about how it'll play long term.
It's not just the open source projects doing this either, look at how many people are still playing Unreal Tournament 99 and take a look at what they're actually playing (usually autosniper FFA or instagib CTF). Compare this and the number of people still playing the dozens of unforgettable quake clones that came out in the late 90's to the number of people playing Quake 3 Arena in one of it's various incarnations (Original game and Quake Live).
Nexuiz might have enough content for a game, but in terms of gameplay it's not even close to out Quakeing Quake. And that's why it's not noteworthy, not because it's "not innovative", whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean in this context.
It's far easier in theory than it is in practice. In practice, it takes way more skill and is a far deeper game than any popular game that has come after it.
Don't pirate and don't show your support for piracy-backed causes. You can't control how everyone else behaves, but just because others don't compensate content makers in exchange for the ability to enjoy said content doesn't mean that it gives you an excuse to do the same thing. And just because you aren't satisfied with conditions X, Y and Z that the content is licensed to you isn't an excuse to pirate either, you can either play by their rules or take your ball and go home. It's their content, not yours.
Piracy isn't going away, if its a real problem then the solution is to change the business model. Its the only solution. You cannot stop piracy. It doesn't matter how wrong, immoral, whatever you may think it is, the fact remains it is not going away.
Of course their business models will change because of how big piracy is these days. However, you seem to make the assumption that it will change for the better. What will you do when games are done with mass appeal in mind so they can recoup the most from piracy losses? And then treat the PC as a second class citizen to further limit their losses? Or store so much on a remote server that it can't possibly be emulated as is the case of MMORPG's? Or if your favorite PC publishers close up shop or go multi-platform with gimped PC ports because their game was so widely pirated on PC they felt burned (see: Crytek, Epic)?
The tiny fraction of the market that can pirate will continue to do so, regardless of the measures taken against it.
And said hardcore gamer/tech savvy gamers will find less and less games targeted at them. As mentioned before, there's your shift in the market you so badly wanted, make games so casual or server-oriented enough that losses from piracy are kept proportionally at a minimum.
I think it does in aggregate. I know that for plenty of things I've pirated, I've ended up generating revenue for the people involved. For instance, I pirate a lot of books. If I like a book and it's something I think I'll want later, I'll go out and buy the dead tree version.
You are in the minority. Loss of revenue to piracy is a real problem and trying to justify piracy by saying that you ended up buying the product later isn't an excuse.
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Blaming lawyers for our troubles is short-sighted. The number of opportunities in law is actually going down, and the typical advice for people who want to go to law school these days is don't bother. That doesn't sound like some dystopian future world where lawyers would be in high demand suing each other into oblivion.
If your anger should be directed somewhere, it should be directed at the wealthiest 10% of america, who own 72% of it's wealth. Which would be fine (after all, there's nothing inherently wrong with being rich), except they also don't pay their fair share of taxes either, which means cutbacks in education, social services, and so on. They will use their considerable political influence to continue that things continue the way they are, and of course, they've managed to drill into people's heads that more taxes == evil, so you have people frothing at the mouth and protesting against their own best interest.
Beautifully put.
The GPL emphasizes code freedom over developer freedom. Take a look at Question 6 of the Commercial License page for MySQL:
Q6: What is Sun's commercial license for MySQL software?
A: Sun offers a commercial license for all of its MySQL software that is embedded in or bundled with another application. The commercial license allows OEMs, ISVs and VARs to distribute commercial binaries of MySQL software with their own commercial software without subjecting that software to the GPL and its requirement to distribute source code.
Emphasis mine. If MySQL had been BSD licensed, Monty Program AB could continue to offer a similar service for MariaDB, even though it was not the primary copyright holder of MySQL's codebase. Of course, said commercial software would have to have the BSD license included somewhere in their documentation, per the BSD license's second clause, but this is likely to be far more agreeable than the GPL's onerous requirements.
You are precisely correct. However, I feel that too many GPL advocates don't think about the ramifications of having to discard the brand associated with the code. "Oh we'll fork it and everything will be fine" is naive, since you now have to "get the word out" about the forked project all over again. And this is only if the copyright holders have abandoned the project, if they continue to develop it, you are now effectively competing against your old established codebase and have more to prove.
Looking back over my original post, however, it does look like I put the branding issues and the 'commercial closed source' issue under the same umbrella, though I meant differently (see: singular use of the word "disadvantage") My apologies.
...except that if Oracle owns the copyrights to MySQL, they can close source future versions of MySQL and/or let mainline development languish. I don't know if they also own the name "MySQL" but if they do they can forbid any forks of MySQL from being called "MySQL" as well.
Of course, the existing source will live forever, but any forks will not have the advantage of the "MySQL" brand name or the ability to dual-license the code for situations where more restrictive licensing might be desired by their customers.
It's kind of surprising how few people realize this disadvantage of the GPL. Keep that in mind the next time you use it on a project.
Do you ever wonder why there are so few women in the Open Source world?
Open up a shell and type in: $ man mt
It's a victory for great free software applications that just so happen to use Mono. Mono often gets treated as a second class citizen because of its Microsoft roots, with zealots not wanting Microsoft's "unholy embrace" on Linux, whatever that's supposed to mean. Thankfully, there are sane people to defend it and because of this developers don't have to worry about their software not being included in a default install because they just so happened to pick Mono.
Also, how was my original post Flamebait?
This is a victory for Free Software advocates over Free Software zealots. Congrats to the debian team for doing the right thing, even if it might be unpopular with the crazies.
Who says the killer app has to come from a developer of expensive proprietary software? Apache certainly didn't.
I know you love shoe-horning in "capitalism good government bad" bullshit in every single one of your posts, but I'm curious as to what exactly the FDA did in your hypothetical situation that you imply was worthy of blame?
You're thinking about this the wrong way. Forget running Windows apps, why not have killer apps that are native to Linux and people would switch just to run, other stuff be damned.
It's been done before, (why else do you think linux servers are so popular?) but it's about time the Linux desktop had its own killer app.
2/10
Considering the fact that the team size is around 10 or so at this point, and it is one programmer with no other responsibilities while the rest of the team multitasks, I say yes.
Sorry about that, somehow I posted that as AC instead of under my original handle.
World of Goo and Narbaculer Drop weren't badly done Quake clones.
Emphasis on "badly done" because if it was actually a well done Quake Clone I'd be playing the shit out of it.
How exactly do you innovate a competitive first person shooter? Give it some weird play mechanic which never ends up being fun at all? Give it realistic weapons and a reload button? Come up with some uber-complicated gametype that nobody will play anyway because it's too complicated and doesn't play well? Add vehicles and turn it into a bad version of Battlefield 1942 instead of a bad version of Quake?
I like simple first person shooters. Years later, I'm still waiting for something to out-Doom Doom 2 or out-quake Quake 3 Arena/Quake Live. That said, Nexuiz isn't a bad game because it doesn't innovate, it's a bad game because it falls into the trap most simple first person shooters fall into, in that instead of refining their core gameplay into something simple, fun, balanced and deep, they just throw a bunch of random content into a box and hope some of it sticks without caring about how it'll play long term.
It's not just the open source projects doing this either, look at how many people are still playing Unreal Tournament 99 and take a look at what they're actually playing (usually autosniper FFA or instagib CTF). Compare this and the number of people still playing the dozens of unforgettable quake clones that came out in the late 90's to the number of people playing Quake 3 Arena in one of it's various incarnations (Original game and Quake Live).
Nexuiz might have enough content for a game, but in terms of gameplay it's not even close to out Quakeing Quake. And that's why it's not noteworthy, not because it's "not innovative", whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean in this context.
It's far easier in theory than it is in practice. In practice, it takes way more skill and is a far deeper game than any popular game that has come after it.
They've updated the toturial a few days ago to be far less patronizing and far better at picking out how 'good' you're supposed to be.
I've observed the exact same thing. Thank you.
So is Legaltorrents. Hrm, I wonder why TPB is on trial and Legaltorrents is not...
Yes, after reading your reply to mine you do appear to be on point.
My apologies, it's just that /. is so filled with people with such juvenile attitudes towards piracy that you're right, it WAS what I expected to read.
Don't pirate and don't show your support for piracy-backed causes. You can't control how everyone else behaves, but just because others don't compensate content makers in exchange for the ability to enjoy said content doesn't mean that it gives you an excuse to do the same thing. And just because you aren't satisfied with conditions X, Y and Z that the content is licensed to you isn't an excuse to pirate either, you can either play by their rules or take your ball and go home. It's their content, not yours.
Of course their business models will change because of how big piracy is these days. However, you seem to make the assumption that it will change for the better. What will you do when games are done with mass appeal in mind so they can recoup the most from piracy losses? And then treat the PC as a second class citizen to further limit their losses? Or store so much on a remote server that it can't possibly be emulated as is the case of MMORPG's? Or if your favorite PC publishers close up shop or go multi-platform with gimped PC ports because their game was so widely pirated on PC they felt burned (see: Crytek, Epic)?
And said hardcore gamer/tech savvy gamers will find less and less games targeted at them. As mentioned before, there's your shift in the market you so badly wanted, make games so casual or server-oriented enough that losses from piracy are kept proportionally at a minimum.
You seem to have the misguided belief that people who aren't willing to pay for media content are still somehow entitled to it.
Three out of thousands doesn't invalidate his point.
You are in the minority. Loss of revenue to piracy is a real problem and trying to justify piracy by saying that you ended up buying the product later isn't an excuse.