Ho hum - another anti-MS rant by another Stallman butt-puppet.
When something new comes along - then let me know. Slashdot hopefully has more to offer than just a repository for negative sentiment regarding MS and commercial software. The world is big - let MS and open source slug it out in the marketplace.
I can think of only a few commercials that were NOT completely stupid over the last 30 years - especially tech companies.
And no I do not care for Apple commercials either....
Do you really think forming a union based on contract law will decrease the divorce rate or assist people who at one time at least want to spend their lives together?
Your quasi-intellectual and modular approach to redefining the family unit cannot cover all the complexities. Tell you what - go and prove to the rest of us that this system works. Walk the walk dude!
What the hell do you think Cisco makes these products for? If they cannot differentiate their hardware from a competitors why buy their stuff? Business look for something called competitive advantage which often devolves into intellectual property - like code for instance.
No one forces you to buy their stuff. You can put linux on commodity hardware and replace all your Cisco gear - then you can feel good about your idealogical purity.
You conclude he is mentally ill on what basis? The fact that he is a bit odd? Under the law mental illness is an inability to distinguish the difference between right and wrong and can be the inability to understand the process of a criminal trial. Contrary to popular opinion such a defense is not often used at trial. That he buried the body and attempted to clean up any evidence of the crime is dispositive in showing that he knew the act was wrong.
The only clue to personality is that Hans was a completely self-centered, smart asshole which does not mean he is not guilty by reason of mental defect.
Hmmm - now you are requiring some sort of conspiracy with multiple perps. How could he have knowledge of the murder and the body burial and NOT be involved in some manner; even assuming another person actually committed the murder. That knowledge alone makes him an accessory at least either before or after the crime.
Your fanboi-ism has blinded you to common sense. I don't care what code he put together - right not he is facing life in prison and deservedly so.
The Liability disclaimer has been gone over in detail so that has been answered.
BSD licensing is the least restrictive or most "Free" license there is since you can do anything you want with the code including improving it and making it proprietary. BSD was developed mainly in academia and thus the freedom to experiment and change for any purpose was the goal. The goal was not to protect the developer's original interest in the code. If your focus is to keep any subsequent code changes open then use the GPL. If offering code for others to do nearly anything they want with it then the BSD license works fine. It really comes down to preference. Although I do not agree with RMS' view that proprietary code is evil, has no place in society and all code should be free as a human right I can understand where the GPL is necessary and desirable.
An above poster stated that GPL code is the purest form of capitalism - this is nonsense. Pure capitalism holds that the businesses with the best code and the ability to protect that code from copying will be in the best position. The GPL levels the playing field for everyone since nothing is proprietary. Remember that Intellectual Property law, although outdated and surely broken, is meant to protect the competitive advantage of company innovation from copycats. Isn't everyone for having more choices rather than less? I see a healthy amount of choice for both single developer and business in the licensing field as well.
The personal experience of an assclown - hardware is hardware fool. I have had my IMAC system board replaced along with PSU after 4 months of use. Happily I had applecare, otherwise I would be really pissed.
The hardware is so superior that Apple only provides 90 days of warrenty. You must be a fanboi.
Your analysis is awful.
Even the FSF knows that much of GPL3's reach will be decided by court cases defining the terms and applicability of the license. So there is a business risk in not being aware of licensing issues and the author is perfectly correct in pointing that out.
The author defines "for-profit" as a company who wishes to utilize software not as an end user but to create a product which will hopefully bring a profit. For-Profit and Not-for-profit organizations refer to legal entities with different structures and tax status. Most hospitals are organized as NPFs - How do you assume they do not have any money; or have less motivation to violate licensing? I would argue that they have more incentive since cost-control is paramount at most NPFs I have been associated with.
Human rights? Are you serious? The author makes a clear distinction between those who use software and those who wish to develop something with it - THIS IS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF THE ARTICLE!
Next paragraph - refer to above. Again usage versus development.
I think we can all agree that corporations would love to do very little work to make a product then issue as proprietary. Why did Stallman want GPL3 in the first place? Because business was working around GPL2 and getting paid well for it. So the FSF designed GPL3 to close the loopholes. Congrats.
The fact that this was modded insightful is a testament to how far/. has fallen in the last 10 years.
A corporate attorney states that businesses which could do certain things under GPL2 cannot do these same things under GPL3 and look at the venom spew. Why all the fuss? He is entirely correct from a legal standpoint to warn business of litigation risk under a clearly more restrictive license.
Business adoption of OS has in the past been facilitated by working around the GPL2 restrictions. How the hell do you build a business advantage over a competitor when you are forced to divulge your developments to everybody?
A previous poster correctly noted that business will be forced to develop everything themselves - or use alternatives which make business sense. How amazing it is when what was a hobby for people becomes mired in profit. This begs a question: will GPL3 ruin open source development in the business world? If they cannot use or protect innovation why would business work in this space?
Is GPL3 a dead end scenario where only the only development is done by hobbyists and business never develop in it? Linux would not be where it is today without business support - IBM for example - so you pay a price for guaranteeing the software itself over all else.
Hasn't Theo De Raadt of OpenBSD been pushing this agenda for a few years now? Well, actually the agenda was for open driver code so that anyone could produce an OS driver for that device. Hopefully this approach can gain some traction.
Just creating junk proprietary drivers is not enough.
Actually from a pure business standpoint MS has dominated the industry BECAUSE of their business tactics. Like it or not they have been hugely profitable and that has a lot to do with the business end. As for your running a business just to teach MS a lesson - THAT is childish and your Board/shareholders will definitely fire you.
You may hate/dislike MS for their business practices but from a pure balance sheet perspective they have been damned effective from the 1980's. All the rest is personal commentary.
Don't believe everything you read - especially allegations in a lawsuit.
Back when Novell took over WordPerfect they had to adapt a fantastic DOS program to a GUI environment. They also decided to make an interoperable suite of products just like Office had started.
Models and openness aside - Novell killed WP by making a buggy and horrid application suite. I still use WP and have since the mid-80's but the first windows-based version of WP was absolute junk. I worked in the legal field at the time and witnessed first-hand how many businesses fled en masse for Office. Office was not perfect, but it was clearly better and business wanted the interoperability and stability (that is relative I know but remember the year) - WP/QuattroPro no longer had it. It sucked so bad many businesses were compelled to switch in order to get work done and by the time Novell dumped WP to Corel the damage was irreversible. Just looking at the market share switch at the time is good proof. Microsoft did nit have to do anything to win this one - all the wounds one the competitor's side were self-inflicted.
I fault Novell for fucking up excellent stand-alone programs which were market dominant at the time. After they had it a few years they drove it into the ground with bad programming and stupidity. You can yell and scream all you want about standards, back then people just wanted apps which worked well and Office did offer features no one else could touch. Novell is just riding the MS monopoly train so it does not have to face up to its own culpability in ruining WP.
What? Bill Gates STOLE from you? Where is the criminal indictment? How did he reach into your wallet exactly?
And don't bring up that Monopoly nonsense either - it is old news and hardly relevant here. Gates was a multi-billionaire before he crushed Netscape.
This entire topic is nothing more than a political turf war. So the new Malaria guy wants to control everything and is running up against other powerful institutions who want to do things their way. So fucking what? This feud will continue.
I for one applaud Gates in setting up the Foundation. The fact that it has huge assets means it can really make a difference. I see few others donating effort and money to alleviate Third World crises. A lot of talk by some rich movie and rock stars but little else. The demographic effects of AIDS and Malaria combined is devastating to many countries in Africa and Asia and the problems are growing worse. W.H.O. may get some past plaudit for smallpox eradication among other historical attempts but it is merely another bureaucracy trying to keep itself relevant. They no longer have the financial muscle to fulfill their mandate - the size of their budget is pitiful considering they cover the world.
Let's assume for fun that you kept that "stolen" money. I'll bet you would not have ever given a cent away for charitable purposes - let alone any in Third World Health issues.
This may well be the biggest load of shite I have ever read. Everything is relative - would you prefer to be below the poverty level in the US or Zimbabwe? Yes there is poverty here in the US but few places on Earth offers better possibilities of changing your circumstances. This is a country for self-made people. And there is an argument to be made that the poor here are vastly better off than in other places.
You see to be saying that anytime somebody works for another person than they are automatically exploited. What manifesto do you subscribe to? Are you arguing for equality of opportunity or equality of results? I just can't see the correlation between corporate profits and the poor or unemployed who likely cannot consume what the business is selling.
Let's make this simple - you do not have a better grasp of legal fundamentals than those who do it for a living. Your assertions regarding motive are so ridiculous as to be farcical. You believed from the beginning that SCO had no case - fine. That just makes you an opinionated asshole. Lawyers get paid to advocate a case for the client but few high profile attorneys will take a shit case since losing in the public eye tarnishes their image. I am reasonably certain that Boies is competitive enough to have thought there was a real chance at winning this case however remote. You, however start with the assumption that there could not possibly be a case to begin with and that lawyers produce sloppier work that coders based on consequences and financial incentives. And we all know that bad code does not exist right?
Law is just about dispute resolution. Period. Now you can have all the philosophical arguments you want on whether the american system works or not but the nuances in cases like these are often so byzantine that very few have a complete grasp of the total picture. Trials exist to find facts and the application of appropriate law to those facts. If you assume that you are smarter and better then that reveals more about you than about your analysis of the case.
why not try debating the counter-argument? Perhaps there might be some valid points here. Then again there may not be but at least look at it dispassionately first.
Slashdot Mirror
Since when is a thumbprint "sensitive personal information"? Must be a slow news day.
Ho hum - another anti-MS rant by another Stallman butt-puppet. When something new comes along - then let me know. Slashdot hopefully has more to offer than just a repository for negative sentiment regarding MS and commercial software. The world is big - let MS and open source slug it out in the marketplace.
I can think of only a few commercials that were NOT completely stupid over the last 30 years - especially tech companies. And no I do not care for Apple commercials either....
Everyone here knows Microsoft cannot innovate!
Proof positive that Nobody is exempt from fucking up. I guess Google programmers no longer walk on water.
Do you really think forming a union based on contract law will decrease the divorce rate or assist people who at one time at least want to spend their lives together? Your quasi-intellectual and modular approach to redefining the family unit cannot cover all the complexities. Tell you what - go and prove to the rest of us that this system works. Walk the walk dude!
The FSF always needs some publicity stunt to justify its existence and keep themselves in the public eye.
This really shows them to be the assclowns everyone was afraid they might be...
Way to go Stallman! Open source moves along without you just fine so continue demonstrating your irrelevence.
That sounds very much like the closed-software model
What the hell do you think Cisco makes these products for? If they cannot differentiate their hardware from a competitors why buy their stuff? Business look for something called competitive advantage which often devolves into intellectual property - like code for instance.
No one forces you to buy their stuff. You can put linux on commodity hardware and replace all your Cisco gear - then you can feel good about your idealogical purity.
You conclude he is mentally ill on what basis? The fact that he is a bit odd? Under the law mental illness is an inability to distinguish the difference between right and wrong and can be the inability to understand the process of a criminal trial. Contrary to popular opinion such a defense is not often used at trial. That he buried the body and attempted to clean up any evidence of the crime is dispositive in showing that he knew the act was wrong.
The only clue to personality is that Hans was a completely self-centered, smart asshole which does not mean he is not guilty by reason of mental defect.
Hmmm - now you are requiring some sort of conspiracy with multiple perps. How could he have knowledge of the murder and the body burial and NOT be involved in some manner; even assuming another person actually committed the murder. That knowledge alone makes him an accessory at least either before or after the crime.
Your fanboi-ism has blinded you to common sense. I don't care what code he put together - right not he is facing life in prison and deservedly so.
The Liability disclaimer has been gone over in detail so that has been answered. BSD licensing is the least restrictive or most "Free" license there is since you can do anything you want with the code including improving it and making it proprietary. BSD was developed mainly in academia and thus the freedom to experiment and change for any purpose was the goal. The goal was not to protect the developer's original interest in the code. If your focus is to keep any subsequent code changes open then use the GPL. If offering code for others to do nearly anything they want with it then the BSD license works fine. It really comes down to preference. Although I do not agree with RMS' view that proprietary code is evil, has no place in society and all code should be free as a human right I can understand where the GPL is necessary and desirable. An above poster stated that GPL code is the purest form of capitalism - this is nonsense. Pure capitalism holds that the businesses with the best code and the ability to protect that code from copying will be in the best position. The GPL levels the playing field for everyone since nothing is proprietary. Remember that Intellectual Property law, although outdated and surely broken, is meant to protect the competitive advantage of company innovation from copycats. Isn't everyone for having more choices rather than less? I see a healthy amount of choice for both single developer and business in the licensing field as well.
The personal experience of an assclown - hardware is hardware fool. I have had my IMAC system board replaced along with PSU after 4 months of use. Happily I had applecare, otherwise I would be really pissed.
The hardware is so superior that Apple only provides 90 days of warrenty. You must be a fanboi.
Do you think you could have outlined the post without the stupid reference to Bill Gates? Oh, I forgot - this is slashdot.
For once it would be nice to have a post without the diatribe.
Your analysis is awful. Even the FSF knows that much of GPL3's reach will be decided by court cases defining the terms and applicability of the license. So there is a business risk in not being aware of licensing issues and the author is perfectly correct in pointing that out. The author defines "for-profit" as a company who wishes to utilize software not as an end user but to create a product which will hopefully bring a profit. For-Profit and Not-for-profit organizations refer to legal entities with different structures and tax status. Most hospitals are organized as NPFs - How do you assume they do not have any money; or have less motivation to violate licensing? I would argue that they have more incentive since cost-control is paramount at most NPFs I have been associated with. Human rights? Are you serious? The author makes a clear distinction between those who use software and those who wish to develop something with it - THIS IS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF THE ARTICLE! Next paragraph - refer to above. Again usage versus development. I think we can all agree that corporations would love to do very little work to make a product then issue as proprietary. Why did Stallman want GPL3 in the first place? Because business was working around GPL2 and getting paid well for it. So the FSF designed GPL3 to close the loopholes. Congrats. The fact that this was modded insightful is a testament to how far /. has fallen in the last 10 years.
A corporate attorney states that businesses which could do certain things under GPL2 cannot do these same things under GPL3 and look at the venom spew. Why all the fuss? He is entirely correct from a legal standpoint to warn business of litigation risk under a clearly more restrictive license.
Business adoption of OS has in the past been facilitated by working around the GPL2 restrictions. How the hell do you build a business advantage over a competitor when you are forced to divulge your developments to everybody?
A previous poster correctly noted that business will be forced to develop everything themselves - or use alternatives which make business sense. How amazing it is when what was a hobby for people becomes mired in profit. This begs a question: will GPL3 ruin open source development in the business world? If they cannot use or protect innovation why would business work in this space?
Is GPL3 a dead end scenario where only the only development is done by hobbyists and business never develop in it? Linux would not be where it is today without business support - IBM for example - so you pay a price for guaranteeing the software itself over all else.
I am sure it is worth it to some.
Hasn't Theo De Raadt of OpenBSD been pushing this agenda for a few years now? Well, actually the agenda was for open driver code so that anyone could produce an OS driver for that device. Hopefully this approach can gain some traction.
Just creating junk proprietary drivers is not enough.
Another company slides into maturity inertia.
ROFL -
Actually from a pure business standpoint MS has dominated the industry BECAUSE of their business tactics. Like it or not they have been hugely profitable and that has a lot to do with the business end. As for your running a business just to teach MS a lesson - THAT is childish and your Board/shareholders will definitely fire you.
You may hate/dislike MS for their business practices but from a pure balance sheet perspective they have been damned effective from the 1980's. All the rest is personal commentary.
Don't believe everything you read - especially allegations in a lawsuit.
Back when Novell took over WordPerfect they had to adapt a fantastic DOS program to a GUI environment. They also decided to make an interoperable suite of products just like Office had started.
Models and openness aside - Novell killed WP by making a buggy and horrid application suite. I still use WP and have since the mid-80's but the first windows-based version of WP was absolute junk. I worked in the legal field at the time and witnessed first-hand how many businesses fled en masse for Office. Office was not perfect, but it was clearly better and business wanted the interoperability and stability (that is relative I know but remember the year) - WP/QuattroPro no longer had it. It sucked so bad many businesses were compelled to switch in order to get work done and by the time Novell dumped WP to Corel the damage was irreversible. Just looking at the market share switch at the time is good proof. Microsoft did nit have to do anything to win this one - all the wounds one the competitor's side were self-inflicted.
I fault Novell for fucking up excellent stand-alone programs which were market dominant at the time. After they had it a few years they drove it into the ground with bad programming and stupidity. You can yell and scream all you want about standards, back then people just wanted apps which worked well and Office did offer features no one else could touch. Novell is just riding the MS monopoly train so it does not have to face up to its own culpability in ruining WP.
WOW - this description sounds like the usual perception of Microsoft around here.
What? Bill Gates STOLE from you? Where is the criminal indictment? How did he reach into your wallet exactly?
And don't bring up that Monopoly nonsense either - it is old news and hardly relevant here. Gates was a multi-billionaire before he crushed Netscape.
This entire topic is nothing more than a political turf war. So the new Malaria guy wants to control everything and is running up against other powerful institutions who want to do things their way. So fucking what? This feud will continue.
I for one applaud Gates in setting up the Foundation. The fact that it has huge assets means it can really make a difference. I see few others donating effort and money to alleviate Third World crises. A lot of talk by some rich movie and rock stars but little else. The demographic effects of AIDS and Malaria combined is devastating to many countries in Africa and Asia and the problems are growing worse. W.H.O. may get some past plaudit for smallpox eradication among other historical attempts but it is merely another bureaucracy trying to keep itself relevant. They no longer have the financial muscle to fulfill their mandate - the size of their budget is pitiful considering they cover the world.
Let's assume for fun that you kept that "stolen" money. I'll bet you would not have ever given a cent away for charitable purposes - let alone any in Third World Health issues.
Motley Fool is authoritative? I have seen better reasoning from crackheads.
This may well be the biggest load of shite I have ever read. Everything is relative - would you prefer to be below the poverty level in the US or Zimbabwe? Yes there is poverty here in the US but few places on Earth offers better possibilities of changing your circumstances. This is a country for self-made people. And there is an argument to be made that the poor here are vastly better off than in other places. You see to be saying that anytime somebody works for another person than they are automatically exploited. What manifesto do you subscribe to? Are you arguing for equality of opportunity or equality of results? I just can't see the correlation between corporate profits and the poor or unemployed who likely cannot consume what the business is selling.
Wow are you full of shit and yourself.
Let's make this simple - you do not have a better grasp of legal fundamentals than those who do it for a living. Your assertions regarding motive are so ridiculous as to be farcical. You believed from the beginning that SCO had no case - fine. That just makes you an opinionated asshole. Lawyers get paid to advocate a case for the client but few high profile attorneys will take a shit case since losing in the public eye tarnishes their image. I am reasonably certain that Boies is competitive enough to have thought there was a real chance at winning this case however remote. You, however start with the assumption that there could not possibly be a case to begin with and that lawyers produce sloppier work that coders based on consequences and financial incentives. And we all know that bad code does not exist right?
Law is just about dispute resolution. Period. Now you can have all the philosophical arguments you want on whether the american system works or not but the nuances in cases like these are often so byzantine that very few have a complete grasp of the total picture. Trials exist to find facts and the application of appropriate law to those facts. If you assume that you are smarter and better then that reveals more about you than about your analysis of the case.
why not try debating the counter-argument? Perhaps there might be some valid points here. Then again there may not be but at least look at it dispassionately first.