Most religions would fall over backwards for the chance to teach you about what they believe
Learn some history. Read a little about the people KILLED by the Christian church for early attempts to translate the Bible into accessible languages. (pre-King James)
Sure, that relgion grew out of the paranoid secrecy phase. Maybe Scientology will too.
The one where selling the same thing for less is how to capture a market. The one where QWERTY and VHS beat DVORAK and Beta- where conforming to a suboptimal standard can be better than building an elegant idiosyncrity.
Why not try to be different to stand out from the competition?
Because it'll reduce your adoption rate?
If I'm giving away cars for free, will I have more takers if I also move the accelerator and brake to the steering column?
Gnome has 1 specific giant advantage over the Microsoft Windows GUI: Freeness. That's what attracts the users. Any other significant differences from Windows will just drive them off.
You could reply something like "Maybe Gnome doesn't want to attract Windows users- let them make the desktop that's best for them, disregarding what others may think of it". That would be fine, except that the prominent Gnome spokesmen like Miguel Iczaza portray taking over from Windows as a main goal.
Given that displacing Microsoft is an explicit major goal for Gnome, then any critisms relating to how existing Windows users will perceive it are completely valid.
If I'm a CIT wanting to try Linux desktops for better security, stability, or cost, then those are the only places I want major differences from the Microsoft way. In particular, there should not be any gratuitous GUI changes that'll get my users confused and crying for their Windows back.
Sure, they Segway may still suck, but not because it is hard to drag along.
Actually, the Segway reviews that occured in real life are more pertinent.
They found that although the Segway itself is awesome technology and very cool, safe, and fun, it's just not very useful in modern cities. That's not a direct attack on the Segway's design or abilities, but it points out a large practical barrier towards adoption.
Before the Segway launch, Dean Kamen boasted that future cities would be redesigned to accomodate it... but that's actually a flaw in the middle term, because for a Segway to be useful, cities would have to be redesigned first!
If a product itself is objectively good measured by its own standards, but it doesn't match people's needs or work well with previous investments, then really it's not so good after all.
The spatial Nautilus in Gnome is like that. Although it might be better when examined in a vacum, in the context of switching computer-users over to it, the differences just create problems.
If you actually read the story, you will see that De Icaza is referring to Linux and OSS.
And what GUI does he want that Linux to be running? Gnome of course! Outside of Gnome, Miguel really has no authority to comment- that's the only place he has a leadership role. (I'm counting Mono as part of Gnome, there)
That hardly justifies the enormous scene he is making.
The guy's an opinion columnist. Making scenes is his job. Each month he has to find something to get excited about, regardless of how important it really is. As the deadline creeps up, he starts sorting through ever-smaller Linux problems until he finds one that can squeeze out 500 words.
Under GPL, if something in the code turns out to be patented, you can't distribute it at all.
Nope. Patents aren't even capable of forbidding someone from distributing programs- only running them.
The GPL states: "if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you"... but in most countries, a patent-holder is legally incapable of blocking software distribution.
With patents, you can make as many copies as you want (patents are free from government websites, after all)- you just can't necessarily use them. Only copyrights can prohibit distribution.
PS. You never answered my question about what that one sentence could possibly mean.
I'm sorry, but distributing in source form is not acceptable for a lot of folks who would want to use a LGPL C++ library.
"Cannot" and "not acceptable" are very, very different things... especially in a legal context! The statement was false.
Furthermore, there are other ways to use LGPL with C++, such as "Use a good linker". (Good C++ linkers are exceedingly rare, because there's little demand for them, but they can exist)
It must involve at least two parties, party A and party B.
You're the one oversimplifing, because you said "at least two", but then only used exactly two in your example.
It's better to say that A = original developer (one of him), B = derivative developer (5 of them), C = end user (999999 of them). The GPL gives more freedom to A & C at the expense of B, which is usually more freedom overall.
(Of course, that makes assumptions about the relative populations of ABC, as well as about the quantified values of the freedom each has lost or gained. Your decision about which license produces the greater net freedom must depend on the weight you assign to each of those factors)
it doesn't appear to me that I have taken away anything from X by including a BSD component in my project - X will be in exactly the same state they were in before I chose to do so.
Sure. Exactly the same. Instead of increasing... By declining to increase $SOMETHING when you had the option to do so, the total amount of $SOMETHING is less overall. I think that's obvious.
Suppose I'm a founder of the USA, and I'm recruiting states to join. Should I allow citizens of these new members to own slaves? Or would taking away that freedom increase the level of freedom for everybody?
(That illustrates that a local decrease in freedom between two entities may create an overwhelmingly higher amount in the relationship between others)
It must involve the concept of party A doing something that affects party B in such a way that party B has less of something than he would have if party A would not have done that in the first place.
Nope. You create a false duality: increase or decrease. But in reality there is a third way: do nothing. Neither help nor harm.
And that 3rd option is what the GPL guards against, by encouraging other authors to GPL their own code by offering them a positive incentive to do so.
By examining history, we can see places where either the GPL or BSD license could've done more to increase overall freedom. Linux, for example, is much better as GPL than BSD, as has been proven by the multiple greedy corporations that use Linux in products but Free their changes in exchange. BSD, however, was superior for the Vorbis code.
There's no right answer for all cases, and to claim that such exists is the ultimate oversimplification.
I think this is what my Borg analogy is really driving at
Dump that analogy in the trash alongside the "viral GPL" one. The Borg suck you away with tractor beams and drill through your skull; a virus pierces your cytoplasmic membranes and injects invasive DNA. They're both aggressive, and act without the victim's consent.
The GPL, on the other hand, does nothing unless you willingly decide to modify code supplied under the GPL. If you like Star Trek analogies, then GPL is more like the UFP: if you want access to their technologies, your planet has to join up to the Federation. (They certainly don't go giving away technical secrets willy-nilly! The Prime Directive forbids it)
this limitation is the fact that I must loose my "freedom" (lowercase f) to chose keep any part of my IP private.
Yes, there are positions from which the GPL is less free than BSD. From the viewpoint of one individual author modifying a program, the BSD license gives him more freedom, because he can both use the existing source code and then make a choice about whether or not to release the modified code, or just the executable. The GPL forces that choice.
So to that one author, the GPL makes him less free. However, the freedom the GPL took away from him was freedom to withhold freedom from others. The ability to reduce other people's freedom's is itself a freedom, but one the GPL doesn't allow.
Summarizing BSD vs GPL from different perspectives:
To the original author, the GPL is more free, because she can be confident of seeing the results of anyone modifying her code.
To a derivative author, the BSD is more free, because she can choose whether or not to release the modified source code.
To the end users, GPL is more free, because they will always have the source available. (With BSD, they might or might not get the source)
From the perspective of the software itself, the GPL is more free, because nobody can put her to work in a proprietary product without Freeing it too. (Anthropomorphizing here...)
CPL: If there is something in this software that is patented, and was patented at the time of contribution to the software, this software may still be distributed even if a patent is required to use it.
Can you please point out what section of the CPL you get that from? I just don't see anything resembling your "summary". You seem to say that CPL software which includes a patent can be distributed, but not used... which is rather worthless. When I look at the CPL, it seems to give a license to use the patent.
But what isn't clear is if that license will continue to apply to modified versions. The following sentence seems to take away the patent permission once you modify:
"The patent license shall not apply to any other combinations which include the Contribution."
Or, what else could that sentence possibly mean? Why is it there?
Free as in "Here it is, do what you want", not free as in "Here it is, anything you add has to be free too."
No no no! It now becomes clear that you know nothing about the CPL at all. Please refrain from "explaining" things that you haven't even read.
The CPL contains this statement pertaining to any executable you distribute. "iv) states that source code for the Program is available from such Contributor, and informs licensees how to obtain it in a reasonable manner on or through a medium customarily used for software exchange."
That places the CPL alongside the GPL as requiring that modified versions have source code freely available, unlike the BSD license which permits that code to be withheld.
Keep in mind, the LGPL cannot be used with C++ code without a special clause (see libstdc++ in GCC for more info on this).
Wrong. The LGPL is not incompatible with C++.
You're probably referring to the LGPL requirement that end-users be allowed to replace the LGPLed library in their program with another version of that same library. It has been noted that while this is very easy to accomplish with C DLL or SO files, C++ includes features (like inlining, namemangling, and vtables) which get in the way of that super-easy solution.
However, there are other solutions, which although not completely painless, work fine without adding a special clause. Most obviously, the application can be distributed in source code form. (Which does NOT imply it is made Open Source)
No, you should simply not use Gnome and respect the people who do like the spatial browser.
That sounds so totally wrong... lets see.
Previous versions of the software have worked in a way I like
Current version of the software doesn't work as I like, but can be made to do so by editing a single halfway-hidden config file
So instead of either editing that config, or requesting that the setting be made less hidden, I should simply not use otherwise perfectly fine software.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Clearly, the new interface is not intended to be optional, witness the lack of an easy switch. Furthermore, users already face a learning curve when they have to adapt to the new paradigm and it requires a bit of persistence to 'get' the new way of working.
All of those are design choices, and it's the author's perogative if they want to keep them. However, Petrely, myself, and many others believe choices like that are a mistake. As Petrely listed in the column, many older OSes used spatial-like filemanagers (Mac OS 9 most prominently)- and all of their modern descendants have moved away from the idea.
For a fringe filemanager that has few users but aspires to "taking over the world", it is further important that the learning curve be small and that the behavior resemble those of Mac and Windows.
Because, as you observe, Nick Petrely lost patience trying to get into the "spatial" Nautilus filemanager groove... and there is no reason to assume any other random user will be much more patient than he was.
No, you may use modified GPL binaries internally to your heart's content, and as long as you don't distribute it outside your organization.
That's not what the GPL says. You just wrote "distribution outside your organzation", which implies that it is technically possible to "distribute inside your organization" instead. However, the GPL takes effect whenever any form of "distribution" occurs. The license has no qualifiers for "internal" vs "external" distribution.
you are making it hard to argue that these binaries aren't distributions that fall under the GPL and require source code release, etc.
"distribution" has nothing to do with if money changes hands. All the word means is that something is spread out to multiple different places.
If a multinational corporation wants to send software to each of its 1000s of employees, there is no way to accomplish that without distribution.
It sets a dangerous precedent to allow "an organization" to remove GPL rights from individuals in the organization that receive binaries.
It certainly does. That loophole would allow the GPL to be totally ignored. After all, "an organization" is an incredibly nebulous term. It doesn't have a limited legal definition like "corporation" does. Almost any group of people can be defined as an "organization" as long as there is a straightforward way to check for membership in the group.
For example, all of these things are organizations:
Walmart
The US Army
The US Department of Defense
The citizens of the USA
People of Earth
If you allow one "organization" to internally ignore GPL, where do you draw the line? You can't...
Next thing you know, some company will come out with a front "organization" to which you will agree to belong in order for them to distribute to you binaries that they derived from modified GPL code.
This has happened. They were sued, they settled without making it to court. The organization was a "Quake playing club" that wanted to give their members modified copies of GPL Quake without the source code (they said it would reduce the incidence of cheating).
The GPL specifically disallows the scenario of many employees of a company recieving modified GPL programs, but being forbidden by their boss's order from redistributing those: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
Nontheless, many people believe that the GPL contains an exception to allow "redistribution within an organization", although the license text itself says nothing like that. This belief is primarily butressed by a confusing and inconsistent entry in the GPL FAQ.
That entry states that "use within one organization is not distribution". But that is simply untrue. If I buy a case of Pepsi and send one to each employee, that is distribution. Handing stuff out to each member or placing stuff on each desk is distribution. Passing out 100 copies of a program is distribution, regardless of if I give them to customers or employees.
Breaking evil copyright laws / EULA's is sometimes a bad thing!
You are performing the very common manuver of injecting EULAs into a discussion about copyright, and then treating it as if they were equivalent concepts.
They're not. Copyright is a well-defined government law; EULAs are attempts by corporations to write their own law.
I've read many definitions of "free" on/., such as "free beer", "free liberty", "free bsd", etc. - and I am curious to know which of those definitions is being applied in this case.
But I didn't write "free". I wrote "Free".
The capitalization should've made it as obvious as if I put "Windows" and you wondered if it was a sheet of glass.
The real difference between "free" and "Free" is that the former includes anything available for $0, while the latter only has stuff which the recipient can also redistribute freely. Both BSD and GPL are subsets of the latter.
You have, of course, miststated the BSD/GPL difference above. BSD gives freedom only to the derivative authors. GPL concentrates on giving derivative users freedom, by allowing them to become derivative authors themselves.
I personally have a hard time understanding how GPL supporters can call this "more free" with a straight face.
There is no way one of those can be objectively called "more free" than the other, unless you want to get into philosophical questions like "Is a country where murder is legal more free?" (Hint: No it's not)
However, since the capitalized "Free" is from the FSF trademarked name, the GPL is more "Free" by definition.
So, to reiterate: a virus requires another executable as a host, a worm does not.
That phrasing is still technically incorrect. (Although calling a virus an "unwanted plugin" was even less correct)
Claiming that a virus needs "another executable" for a host implies that a virus itself is an executable. That is false. A virus is a portion of an executable.
Furthermore, as wikipedia says, the virus becomes part of another executable program. Therefore the host is not "another program"; it is the rest of the same program.
These differences are tiny and meaningless to all but the most directly involved (authors of malware or AV). Nonetheless, they are technically errors.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of
patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
Put in other words, that means
We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain
patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
Now, as to the CPL "granting" patent licenses, what does that mean? The CPL says:
This patent license shall apply to the combination of the Contribution and the Program if, at the time the Contribution is added by the Contributor, such addition of the Contribution causes such combination to be covered by the Licensed Patents.
The patent license shall not apply to any other combinations which include the Contribution.
To me, that sounds like you've only got a patent license until you modify the code... and then your new "combination" is infringing again. (But I haven't read the rest of the CPL quite carefully enough to know if there's other wrinkles... such as a special definition of "combination", prehaps)
But from that quick glance, the CPL is less "Free".
possibly THE biggest reason that people are still saying that "Linux is not ready for the desktop" is that the current crop of desktop environments are not up to the Windows par.
Absolutely not. By far, the most-cited reason is lack of 100% Microsoft Office file format compatibility.
Users would tolerate a wide range of flakey environments as long as they can open their Excel attachments.
AC says: Now you have to introduce an exception to this rule for links. This isn't the real world and data can be replicated in more than one place at any one time.
Not necessarily. You just have to make links act less magically. More like the Microsoft "Paste Shortcut" and less like the Unix "ln". Links in a spatial system wouldn't appear to BE the file, they'd POINT TO the file.
Just like an arrow on your desk can point to a pencil, without BEING the pencil.
To enforce the "spatial" metaphor, some cool possibilities of digital data behavior must be foregone.
That's interesting, because it is, by definition, impossible to change the DEFAULT behavior.
Funny. Then how is Petrely able to change the DEFAULT by running GConf? Or more generally, how is it that I've seen dozens of applications with a menu option like "Save as Default"? Are they doing the impossible?
In actuality, you are just confusing multiple kinds of "default". There is "default that came with the Nautilus source code", which is truely unchangable unless you get access to their CVS. Then there is "default each time you open a new Nautilus window", which is actually what I (and others) was talking about.
It's a poor rebuttal. Aside from the obligatory accusation of bias, it mainly focuses on attacking Petrely's understanding of "spatial browser".
Problem: he never used the word "spatial".
Also, when Petrley complains that you need to edit GConf to change the default behavior, instead of finding a prominent checkbox, Jorge (a) lists 3 ways to change the current behavior, and (b) attack's Petrely's technical understanding of GConf. He says that aside from GUI, GConf is nothing like the Windows registry. Well guess what? From the end-user's perspective, the GUI all that matters! If you need to use Registry or GConf to alter a setting, then it's impossible to call that setting easy-to-change.
The oped comes down to a very simple position: when a piece of software first gets a radically different, optional interaction mode, common-sense dictates that the new mode should be OFF by default. To do otherwise will scare users who were accustomed to the existing behavior. (Or at minimum, the checkbox to "Act like the older version" should be prominently placed, such as an option at install)
PS. An additional funny part is that both Nick and Jorge manage to mistate what the motiviation for Gnome was: Nick says "freedom from Windows", Jorge says "kickass desktop"... when in reality it was meant for "freedom from KDE" (as is well-documented historically)
"Spatial" means like how real objects in real space work. It means that simple intuitive rules we've learned about how to handle physical objects will still apply.
For example:
A thing can only be in one place at a time.
You can't see the same thing more than once; if you see two things, they must be different things.
Things don't move around on their own. The pencils in your drawer won't move without you touching them.
Making a computer behave "spatially" means having it obey rules like that, which could prevent users from being surprised by behavior different from what they've learned all their lives.
Of course, whether or not making computer software act this way is beneficial is a separate argument. One could say that limiting data objects to act like physical objects is like cutting the wings off birds.
I assume by 'paper bloggers' you are talking about the author of the article I linked to.
Hello? What does ArsTechnica have to do with paper? "Paper bloggers" can only possibly mean Petrely et al- you know, guys whose scribblings are actually printed out.
Frankly, I can't imagine a person considering Gnome/Linux instead of Windows,
Moreover, I can't even imagine people considering Gnome vs Windows.
Computer users may choose "Linux vs Windows", and then they may choose "Redhat vs SUSE", and maybe later they'll think "KDE vs Gnome"...
But at no point does someone have to choose between Gnome and Windows. Folks still using Windows probably don't know what Gnome is (and shouldn't have to). By the time Gnome is even on your radar screen, you've left Windows far behind.
abirdman is right... you are wrong in so many ways I can't list them all. Let's just do the most obvious:
Read the definition here.
Yes, why don't YOU go and read the definition of terrorism? Here, I'll copy it from that webpage to help you:
"The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
"Premeditated politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents"
Those two definitions for "terrorism" both include violence and political motivation as critical factors. If the political motivation were missing, we'd just call it "murder". And if just the violence were missing, it'd be called "free speech".
That webpage further goes on to define "Cyber-Terrrorism", which I don't agree with because they're making up their own words. But even if I did agree, these German teens wouldn't count, because they weren't "politcally motivated".
Apparently you support this type of action and think the authors of said worms should be regarded as heroes?
No, I think they should be regarded as teenage punks who threaten other people's property for random reasons. In magnitude, the crime is somewhat less severe than hurling a trash barrel through a window, and it should be punished appropriately.
Slashdot Mirror
Most religions would fall over backwards for the chance to teach you about what they believe
Learn some history. Read a little about the people KILLED by the Christian church for early attempts to translate the Bible into accessible languages. (pre-King James)
Sure, that relgion grew out of the paranoid secrecy phase. Maybe Scientology will too.
lot of Native Americans were converted to Christianity. A LOT. Nowhere near as many as were wiped out by disease
Since more than 50% of "Native Americans" were killed by imported disease, that claim is mathematically impossible.
I don't know which economy classes you attended
The one where selling the same thing for less is how to capture a market. The one where QWERTY and VHS beat DVORAK and Beta- where conforming to a suboptimal standard can be better than building an elegant idiosyncrity.
Why not try to be different to stand out from the competition?
Because it'll reduce your adoption rate?
If I'm giving away cars for free, will I have more takers if I also move the accelerator and brake to the steering column?
Gnome has 1 specific giant advantage over the Microsoft Windows GUI: Freeness. That's what attracts the users. Any other significant differences from Windows will just drive them off.
You could reply something like "Maybe Gnome doesn't want to attract Windows users- let them make the desktop that's best for them, disregarding what others may think of it". That would be fine, except that the prominent Gnome spokesmen like Miguel Iczaza portray taking over from Windows as a main goal.
Given that displacing Microsoft is an explicit major goal for Gnome, then any critisms relating to how existing Windows users will perceive it are completely valid.
If I'm a CIT wanting to try Linux desktops for better security, stability, or cost, then those are the only places I want major differences from the Microsoft way. In particular, there should not be any gratuitous GUI changes that'll get my users confused and crying for their Windows back.
Sure, they Segway may still suck, but not because it is hard to drag along.
Actually, the Segway reviews that occured in real life are more pertinent.
They found that although the Segway itself is awesome technology and very cool, safe, and fun, it's just not very useful in modern cities. That's not a direct attack on the Segway's design or abilities, but it points out a large practical barrier towards adoption.
Before the Segway launch, Dean Kamen boasted that future cities would be redesigned to accomodate it... but that's actually a flaw in the middle term, because for a Segway to be useful, cities would have to be redesigned first!
If a product itself is objectively good measured by its own standards, but it doesn't match people's needs or work well with previous investments, then really it's not so good after all.
The spatial Nautilus in Gnome is like that. Although it might be better when examined in a vacum, in the context of switching computer-users over to it, the differences just create problems.
If you actually read the story, you will see that De Icaza is referring to Linux and OSS.
And what GUI does he want that Linux to be running? Gnome of course! Outside of Gnome, Miguel really has no authority to comment- that's the only place he has a leadership role. (I'm counting Mono as part of Gnome, there)
That hardly justifies the enormous scene he is making.
The guy's an opinion columnist. Making scenes is his job. Each month he has to find something to get excited about, regardless of how important it really is. As the deadline creeps up, he starts sorting through ever-smaller Linux problems until he finds one that can squeeze out 500 words.
Under GPL, if something in the code turns out to be patented, you can't distribute it at all.
Nope. Patents aren't even capable of forbidding someone from distributing programs- only running them.
The GPL states: "if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you"... but in most countries, a patent-holder is legally incapable of blocking software distribution.
With patents, you can make as many copies as you want (patents are free from government websites, after all)- you just can't necessarily use them. Only copyrights can prohibit distribution.
PS. You never answered my question about what that one sentence could possibly mean.
I'm sorry, but distributing in source form is not acceptable for a lot of folks who would want to use a LGPL C++ library.
"Cannot" and "not acceptable" are very, very different things... especially in a legal context! The statement was false.
Furthermore, there are other ways to use LGPL with C++, such as "Use a good linker". (Good C++ linkers are exceedingly rare, because there's little demand for them, but they can exist)
It must involve at least two parties, party A and party B.
You're the one oversimplifing, because you said "at least two", but then only used exactly two in your example.
It's better to say that A = original developer (one of him), B = derivative developer (5 of them), C = end user (999999 of them). The GPL gives more freedom to A & C at the expense of B, which is usually more freedom overall.
(Of course, that makes assumptions about the relative populations of ABC, as well as about the quantified values of the freedom each has lost or gained. Your decision about which license produces the greater net freedom must depend on the weight you assign to each of those factors)
it doesn't appear to me that I have taken away anything from X by including a BSD component in my project - X will be in exactly the same state they were in before I chose to do so.
Sure. Exactly the same. Instead of increasing... By declining to increase $SOMETHING when you had the option to do so, the total amount of $SOMETHING is less overall. I think that's obvious.
Suppose I'm a founder of the USA, and I'm recruiting states to join. Should I allow citizens of these new members to own slaves? Or would taking away that freedom increase the level of freedom for everybody?
(That illustrates that a local decrease in freedom between two entities may create an overwhelmingly higher amount in the relationship between others)
It must involve the concept of party A doing something that affects party B in such a way that party B has less of something than he would have if party A would not have done that in the first place.
Nope. You create a false duality: increase or decrease. But in reality there is a third way: do nothing. Neither help nor harm.
And that 3rd option is what the GPL guards against, by encouraging other authors to GPL their own code by offering them a positive incentive to do so.
By examining history, we can see places where either the GPL or BSD license could've done more to increase overall freedom. Linux, for example, is much better as GPL than BSD, as has been proven by the multiple greedy corporations that use Linux in products but Free their changes in exchange. BSD, however, was superior for the Vorbis code.
There's no right answer for all cases, and to claim that such exists is the ultimate oversimplification.
I think this is what my Borg analogy is really driving at
Dump that analogy in the trash alongside the "viral GPL" one. The Borg suck you away with tractor beams and drill through your skull; a virus pierces your cytoplasmic membranes and injects invasive DNA. They're both aggressive, and act without the victim's consent.
The GPL, on the other hand, does nothing unless you willingly decide to modify code supplied under the GPL. If you like Star Trek analogies, then GPL is more like the UFP: if you want access to their technologies, your planet has to join up to the Federation. (They certainly don't go giving away technical secrets willy-nilly! The Prime Directive forbids it)
Yes, there are positions from which the GPL is less free than BSD. From the viewpoint of one individual author modifying a program, the BSD license gives him more freedom, because he can both use the existing source code and then make a choice about whether or not to release the modified code, or just the executable. The GPL forces that choice.
So to that one author, the GPL makes him less free. However, the freedom the GPL took away from him was freedom to withhold freedom from others. The ability to reduce other people's freedom's is itself a freedom, but one the GPL doesn't allow.
Summarizing BSD vs GPL from different perspectives:
PS. The word is "lose".
Can you please point out what section of the CPL you get that from? I just don't see anything resembling your "summary". You seem to say that CPL software which includes a patent can be distributed, but not used... which is rather worthless. When I look at the CPL, it seems to give a license to use the patent.
But what isn't clear is if that license will continue to apply to modified versions. The following sentence seems to take away the patent permission once you modify:
Or, what else could that sentence possibly mean? Why is it there?
Free as in "Here it is, do what you want", not free as in "Here it is, anything you add has to be free too."
No no no! It now becomes clear that you know nothing about the CPL at all. Please refrain from "explaining" things that you haven't even read.
The CPL contains this statement pertaining to any executable you distribute. "iv) states that source code for the Program is available from such Contributor, and informs licensees how to obtain it in a reasonable manner on or through a medium customarily used for software exchange."
That places the CPL alongside the GPL as requiring that modified versions have source code freely available, unlike the BSD license which permits that code to be withheld.
Keep in mind, the LGPL cannot be used with C++ code without a special clause (see libstdc++ in GCC for more info on this).
Wrong. The LGPL is not incompatible with C++.
You're probably referring to the LGPL requirement that end-users be allowed to replace the LGPLed library in their program with another version of that same library. It has been noted that while this is very easy to accomplish with C DLL or SO files, C++ includes features (like inlining, namemangling, and vtables) which get in the way of that super-easy solution.
However, there are other solutions, which although not completely painless, work fine without adding a special clause. Most obviously, the application can be distributed in source code form. (Which does NOT imply it is made Open Source)
CPL is "United Federation Free" - the universe is full of technology, feel free to find and integrate it when the inventor says it's ok
But, the Federation never said it was OK. Their Prime Directive was to stop the sharing of their technology...
That sounds so totally wrong... lets see.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Clearly, the new interface is not intended to be optional, witness the lack of an easy switch. Furthermore, users already face a learning curve when they have to adapt to the new paradigm and it requires a bit of persistence to 'get' the new way of working.
All of those are design choices, and it's the author's perogative if they want to keep them. However, Petrely, myself, and many others believe choices like that are a mistake. As Petrely listed in the column, many older OSes used spatial-like filemanagers (Mac OS 9 most prominently)- and all of their modern descendants have moved away from the idea.
For a fringe filemanager that has few users but aspires to "taking over the world", it is further important that the learning curve be small and that the behavior resemble those of Mac and Windows.
Because, as you observe, Nick Petrely lost patience trying to get into the "spatial" Nautilus filemanager groove... and there is no reason to assume any other random user will be much more patient than he was.
No, you may use modified GPL binaries internally to your heart's content, and as long as you don't distribute it outside your organization.
That's not what the GPL says. You just wrote "distribution outside your organzation", which implies that it is technically possible to "distribute inside your organization" instead. However, the GPL takes effect whenever any form of "distribution" occurs. The license has no qualifiers for "internal" vs "external" distribution.
you are making it hard to argue that these binaries aren't distributions that fall under the GPL and require source code release, etc.
"distribution" has nothing to do with if money changes hands. All the word means is that something is spread out to multiple different places.
If a multinational corporation wants to send software to each of its 1000s of employees, there is no way to accomplish that without distribution.
It certainly does. That loophole would allow the GPL to be totally ignored. After all, "an organization" is an incredibly nebulous term. It doesn't have a limited legal definition like "corporation" does. Almost any group of people can be defined as an "organization" as long as there is a straightforward way to check for membership in the group.
For example, all of these things are organizations:
If you allow one "organization" to internally ignore GPL, where do you draw the line? You can't...
Next thing you know, some company will come out with a front "organization" to which you will agree to belong in order for them to distribute to you binaries that they derived from modified GPL code.
This has happened. They were sued, they settled without making it to court. The organization was a "Quake playing club" that wanted to give their members modified copies of GPL Quake without the source code (they said it would reduce the incidence of cheating).
The GPL specifically disallows the scenario of many employees of a company recieving modified GPL programs, but being forbidden by their boss's order from redistributing those: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
Nontheless, many people believe that the GPL contains an exception to allow "redistribution within an organization", although the license text itself says nothing like that. This belief is primarily butressed by a confusing and inconsistent entry in the GPL FAQ.
That entry states that "use within one organization is not distribution". But that is simply untrue. If I buy a case of Pepsi and send one to each employee, that is distribution. Handing stuff out to each member or placing stuff on each desk is distribution. Passing out 100 copies of a program is distribution, regardless of if I give them to customers or employees.
Breaking evil copyright laws / EULA's is sometimes a bad thing!
You are performing the very common manuver of injecting EULAs into a discussion about copyright, and then treating it as if they were equivalent concepts.
They're not. Copyright is a well-defined government law; EULAs are attempts by corporations to write their own law.
I've read many definitions of "free" on /., such as "free beer", "free liberty", "free bsd", etc. - and I am curious to know which of those definitions is being applied in this case.
But I didn't write "free". I wrote "Free".
The capitalization should've made it as obvious as if I put "Windows" and you wondered if it was a sheet of glass.
The real difference between "free" and "Free" is that the former includes anything available for $0, while the latter only has stuff which the recipient can also redistribute freely. Both BSD and GPL are subsets of the latter.
You have, of course, miststated the BSD/GPL difference above. BSD gives freedom only to the derivative authors. GPL concentrates on giving derivative users freedom, by allowing them to become derivative authors themselves.
I personally have a hard time understanding how GPL supporters can call this "more free" with a straight face.
There is no way one of those can be objectively called "more free" than the other, unless you want to get into philosophical questions like "Is a country where murder is legal more free?" (Hint: No it's not)
However, since the capitalized "Free" is from the FSF trademarked name, the GPL is more "Free" by definition.
So, to reiterate: a virus requires another executable as a host, a worm does not.
That phrasing is still technically incorrect. (Although calling a virus an "unwanted plugin" was even less correct)
Claiming that a virus needs "another executable" for a host implies that a virus itself is an executable. That is false. A virus is a portion of an executable.
Furthermore, as wikipedia says, the virus becomes part of another executable program. Therefore the host is not "another program"; it is the rest of the same program.
These differences are tiny and meaningless to all but the most directly involved (authors of malware or AV). Nonetheless, they are technically errors.
-1: Lying about the GPL
Put in other words, that means
Now, as to the CPL "granting" patent licenses, what does that mean? The CPL says:
The patent license shall not apply to any other combinations which include the Contribution.
To me, that sounds like you've only got a patent license until you modify the code... and then your new "combination" is infringing again. (But I haven't read the rest of the CPL quite carefully enough to know if there's other wrinkles... such as a special definition of "combination", prehaps)
But from that quick glance, the CPL is less "Free".
possibly THE biggest reason that people are still saying that "Linux is not ready for the desktop" is that the current crop of desktop environments are not up to the Windows par.
Absolutely not. By far, the most-cited reason is lack of 100% Microsoft Office file format compatibility.
Users would tolerate a wide range of flakey environments as long as they can open their Excel attachments.
AC says:
Now you have to introduce an exception to this rule for links. This isn't the real world and data can be replicated in more than one place at any one time.
Not necessarily. You just have to make links act less magically. More like the Microsoft "Paste Shortcut" and less like the Unix "ln". Links in a spatial system wouldn't appear to BE the file, they'd POINT TO the file.
Just like an arrow on your desk can point to a pencil, without BEING the pencil.
To enforce the "spatial" metaphor, some cool possibilities of digital data behavior must be foregone.
That's interesting, because it is, by definition, impossible to change the DEFAULT behavior.
Funny. Then how is Petrely able to change the DEFAULT by running GConf? Or more generally, how is it that I've seen dozens of applications with a menu option like "Save as Default"? Are they doing the impossible?
In actuality, you are just confusing multiple kinds of "default". There is "default that came with the Nautilus source code", which is truely unchangable unless you get access to their CVS. Then there is "default each time you open a new Nautilus window", which is actually what I (and others) was talking about.
Here is a decent rebuttal.
It's a poor rebuttal. Aside from the obligatory accusation of bias, it mainly focuses on attacking Petrely's understanding of "spatial browser".
Problem: he never used the word "spatial".
Also, when Petrley complains that you need to edit GConf to change the default behavior, instead of finding a prominent checkbox, Jorge (a) lists 3 ways to change the current behavior, and (b) attack's Petrely's technical understanding of GConf. He says that aside from GUI, GConf is nothing like the Windows registry. Well guess what? From the end-user's perspective, the GUI all that matters! If you need to use Registry or GConf to alter a setting, then it's impossible to call that setting easy-to-change.
The oped comes down to a very simple position: when a piece of software first gets a radically different, optional interaction mode, common-sense dictates that the new mode should be OFF by default. To do otherwise will scare users who were accustomed to the existing behavior. (Or at minimum, the checkbox to "Act like the older version" should be prominently placed, such as an option at install)
PS. An additional funny part is that both Nick and Jorge manage to mistate what the motiviation for Gnome was: Nick says "freedom from Windows", Jorge says "kickass desktop"... when in reality it was meant for "freedom from KDE" (as is well-documented historically)
For example:
Making a computer behave "spatially" means having it obey rules like that, which could prevent users from being surprised by behavior different from what they've learned all their lives.
Of course, whether or not making computer software act this way is beneficial is a separate argument. One could say that limiting data objects to act like physical objects is like cutting the wings off birds.
I assume by 'paper bloggers' you are talking about the author of the article I linked to.
Hello? What does ArsTechnica have to do with paper? "Paper bloggers" can only possibly mean Petrely et al- you know, guys whose scribblings are actually printed out.
Frankly, I can't imagine a person considering Gnome/Linux instead of Windows,
Moreover, I can't even imagine people considering Gnome vs Windows.
Computer users may choose "Linux vs Windows", and then they may choose "Redhat vs SUSE", and maybe later they'll think "KDE vs Gnome"...
But at no point does someone have to choose between Gnome and Windows. Folks still using Windows probably don't know what Gnome is (and shouldn't have to). By the time Gnome is even on your radar screen, you've left Windows far behind.
Read the definition here.
Yes, why don't YOU go and read the definition of terrorism? Here, I'll copy it from that webpage to help you:
Those two definitions for "terrorism" both include violence and political motivation as critical factors. If the political motivation were missing, we'd just call it "murder". And if just the violence were missing, it'd be called "free speech".
That webpage further goes on to define "Cyber-Terrrorism", which I don't agree with because they're making up their own words. But even if I did agree, these German teens wouldn't count, because they weren't "politcally motivated".
Apparently you support this type of action and think the authors of said worms should be regarded as heroes?
No, I think they should be regarded as teenage punks who threaten other people's property for random reasons. In magnitude, the crime is somewhat less severe than hurling a trash barrel through a window, and it should be punished appropriately.