Linux is ugly and Emacs is useless on 99.999% of computers because of the Lack of a meta key.
While I understand that you're saying this mostly to prove a point, hoping to get literary style plus points with your contrast sway, I hardly think what you're saying is accurate. Beauty for me is what works, and from where I am, I'm pretty okay with what I use. I for one use GNU/Linux for my desktop setup. It's highly functional, minimalist, really fast, and not ugly at all. See what I mean. (That's just to show what I run in one screenshot. Normally, I separate all that into multiple desktops (which is hardly as easy to work out in other OSes), so my workplace is nicely set up.) If you know what you want, there's nothing to stop you from getting it with GNU/Linux.
Also, your comment on Emacs is ridiculous. 1.) The lack of the meta key to which you refer is greatly exagerrated. On PCs, which no doubt constitute the huge majority of computers nowadays, it's often the ALT key. 2.) You can press escape to invoke the same function as with the meta key (i.e. esc-x does the same thing as M-x) And 3.) anyway, the "meta key" can be mapped to any other key convenient for you.
RMS even said, "If you have anything on your computer, you should be free at least to make a copy and send it to your friend," he says. "Anyone who tries to stop you doing that, that's tyranny, that's oppression. When you start telling people it's forbidden to share with your neighbour, nothing less than pervasive fear can enforce that. We're going to see a war on copyright like the war on drugs. They're public enemies: the public should rise up and put an end to them."
As you see, what you're saying is true. Even the creator of the GPL agrees. There has been and continuous to be exploitation on various levels. But what you fail to see is that the freedom introduced by the GPL is a means of escaping that exploitation and moving into a freer society.
You're saying that the GPL is evil because it still restricts what you can do with software. But the GPL presents a _choice_. You cannot force an author to release his/her work to the public without first acknowledging that he has his own freedom of choice to decide what to do with it in the first place. If you want to gain freedom, you also have to let people know that you are willing to respect theirs.
Stallman also said, "I'm not trying to give users what they want, I'm trying to give them freedom, which they can then accept or reject. If people don't want freedom, they may be out of luck with me, but I won't allow them to define for me what is right, what is worth spending my life for." Though his views are hard-headed and his insistence blunt, he still acknowledges that the users ultimately have choice. In doing that, he also strengthens his stand that he himself possesses the freedom of choice, and should be respected when he exercises it to help those who share his beliefs in whatever way he can. In the same way, you also have a choice. You can choose not to support the GPL if it doesn't make sense to you. (Try doing what RMS did, build with your own philosophy from what you have (in his case, from scratch).) But you will acknowledge that everyone else has his/her own freedom too.
As for me, I believe that for society to work, there are concepts that as yet have to be accepted. I acknowledge your point, but I hold my own ideas. I believe that proprietary software and software patenting is wrong and therefore, from where I am, the GPL makes a whole lot of sense. I will continue to work with what I have (hey, CS is still lots of fun the way it is^_^) and continue to express my beliefs, push awareness, and strive for acceptance.
I agree with you to some extent. I for one would like to see complete _mutual_ freedom exercised, especially in CS development. I believe that people should be free to make use of whatever knowledge and resources they gain for their own use. But with the kind of _society_ and _government_ we have today, a system that opens everything to that can only lead to anarachy, which I would rather not have. And so I go with society to avoid conflict and instead develop my skills and exercise my freedoms in ways that would befit the kind of society I am part of. I see the GPL as Right and Good, and so I will support it, as I do freedom.
I really do not see your point. Why do you keep on insisting on getting your every wish when such will so obviously conflict with the interests of other people? This has nothing to do with the GPL anymore. You're complaining because a certain license provision doesn't accomodate your wants? Go look for satisfaction yourself elsewhere then. It makes sense for a lot of people; if it doesn't to you, you can't just keep on bashing. Other people see this as truth. Accept that. It's as simple as that. A world with your idea of freedom implemented would be quite chaotic.
The point stands, the GPL provides a very explicit set of rules for the software it guards. The mentioned groups (Cisco, etc) ignored those rules, of which I'm sure they were very well aware, so the FSF has to enforce those to maintain the rights and freedoms of the authors and the community. That was the original point, before you dragged it away with your complaints.
Now stop your whining and do something productive.
I actually haven't gone that far with Linux on Crusoes, but from what I've seen, it's not that bad. Putting aside the lack of ACPI support kernel-level, hardware itself works out for low power consumption quite well (at least better than regular Intel PIIs). Yes, it's a pity that Transmeta/Fujitsu don't do more to provide hardware support for Linux, especially since both have otherwise been participative in the whole Linux hype. (Fujitsu has, at least. AFAIK, Torvalds used to hack at Transmeta, not officially for Linux then, nothing more.) I don't believe Linus worked kernel-level at Transmeta, or on 32-bit x86 at that.
On the bright side, there's ACPI4Linux, which aims to provide a better power management interface between the kernel/OS and BIOS. Last I heard, they have quite active development (acpi at sourceforge).
Also, I have no preference for wide-screen laptops. I'm all for portability (light, small, thin, long battery life) The laptops I've been eyeing for a while are the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series (10", anyone? ^_^) (mostly on Crusoes), the new (anticipated) Crusoe line of 11.3" ones (mostly 6 hours min), and the Compaq Armada M300 (11.3", really cheap (USD 250), 3 lbs., too bad it's PIII-500 only).
Actually, Transmeta does deliver pretty okay products. Yes, I know, you'll say with processors, Intel pretty much beat them up after releasing the low-power Centrinos. But they were actually one of the first guys to go for in power-efficient processing. They did mobile computing a lot of good. The very first laptops that really caught my attention were the low-power Crusoe-run Twinhead notebooks. 6 hours on 300 MHz was pretty amazing a few years back. They still do nice jobs now and then (see a nice article here). I still drool over the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series, most of which run on the Crusoe. I for one go for portability as the first priority for laptops. (I can always just ssh into my main box if I needed anything other than emacs.)
They also have a number of impressive cluster servers. Again, having low power consumption is making their high-performance servers look good, even among today's Blades.
Any innovations are still welcome. At the very least, it's nice to know there are projects who keep Intel working on new ways to be better.:)
I see your point, but why do you complain? There are a lot of licenses to choose from. In choosing the GPL, the author maintains that he would like to see his work stay free in every way. It is his right to do that, and as so, he must be respected.
You say that there is no sin in making money out of software. Yes, that is true. Red Hat does that in the GPL way, and they're doing technology a lot of good. But what constitutes "trade secrets" is debatable. It is not right for software to be held solely as the property of an individual or group because software is an highly abstract product of human intellect. Restricting its use simply cripples it. And that restriction is highly impractical anyway. Why hide something that's obviously so easy to copy? (extremely put)(just being sarcastic; not my ultimate stand)
I hold this as my opinion. There is nothing wrong with the FSF's "use of legal force" to uphold the GPL. If they didn't do that, then what's the point of the GPL? The GPL is meant to pave the way for a world of software freedom, but it must be enforced, because at present, the conditions for that freedom simply do not exist, given current copyright and patent laws. With closed proprietary formats, who can be sure that the Windows source doesn't contain code stolen from Free Software? I wouldn't put it past Microsoft.
From where I stand, I think you're thinking of freedom as being your own convenience to do whatever you want, which sadly can not be universal freedom. Taken extremely, this is the same reason why software piracy exists.
I also wrote to Forbes. I hope our views are at least read.
---
This is in response to the article "Linux Hit Men" (http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/14/cz_dl_1014linksy s.html) published by Forbes.
I must say, I find your descriptions and reports of the Free Software Foundation quite unfair. From what I've read in your article, you do not seem to be fully aware of what the FSF has accomplished and stands for. Granted that the organization's views and measures are somewhat blunt and tend to be taken as extremist behaviour or zealotry, that does not make them any less valid. I think you are missing the point of their efforts.
The Free Software Foundation has been a chief driving force in supporting Free (or Open Source) Software. It is their main stand that software should have no owners for it to be fully made use of and developed. Free in this sense means Freedom, and not zero cost. As a means for the vision of Software Freedom to be realized, they have shunned proprietary software and have taken the effort to develop free alternatives from scratch. As closed software vendors make use of software patents and copyright laws to legally restrict the exploitation of their precious code, the FSF employs the powers of the General Public License (GPL) and its derivatives to make sure that the technology and knowledge they have created and have freely made available to the people _stays_ that way, and to prevent any group or individuals from exploiting these technologies and restricting developments from the public.
It is the vision of the FSF that society be freed from the restrictions of closed software and software patents, but as laws today still support these practices, the FSF has to be vigilant in enforcing the GPL to make sure that the rights and freedom of the Free Software community are upheld, especially in the case of the Linux kernel.
In the cases you have mentioned in your article, it seems that the only ways the mentioned companies could have ended up facing the FSF's legal teeth is in their ignorance (and lack of foresight) regarding the GPL's legal requirements, which is inexcusable for those in their position, or otherwise, in their plain disrespect thereof. In any case, it is the FSF's responsibility to uphold the rights of those involved in the development of Free Software.
Your reports, including the suggestion that we in the community purposely let code licensed with the GPL "infect" commercial software, enabling us to pursue legal means of exploitation later, are extremely unfair and show your ignorance of the situation, as well as your insensitivity and disrespect for our rights. Seeing how people of your stature and visibility could be so irresponsible, and that your published statements may foster false malicious ideas of Free Software and the community among your readers, I am greatly sadded at this and hereby protest your unjust publication.
1.) I did say I use screen to manage my work environment sometimes. (And yes, I run bash, links, and irssi for their respective purposes.)
2.) But then again, Emacs _does_ have a pretty nifty interface, and when you're used to it, not only can you do _ANYTHING_, you actually look for ways to do _EVERYTHING_ in it.
This isn't something to which I'd expect everyone to relate, of course. But you'd know what I mean if you can relate.
But while that's this _is_ in fact what I use, that's not my point. --> 3.) My point was to emphasize the efficiency and productivity value of text-based programs. Flashy GUI and multiple desktops is _not_ everything, and in some cases, a text-based environment is sufficient, even superior to it.
What defines usability and efficiency is up to the individual geek, of course, so I'm not claiming what I have to be the One True Way.
Contrary to what you may think, X GUI is _not_ everything. I cannot think of any alternative scheme (except maybe VNC, which is rather slow) to screen + Emacs. I start a screen session on my terminal at home, then go to school, ssh into my box, reconnect to my screen, and copy class notes from there. It's really fast, and I can get anything I need (on my box, that is) from anywhere in the world (with net access).
Also, for my purposes), Emacs is practically everything. IDE, IRC client, mail client, browser, shell... etc. Heck, you can even run vim on it. It's meant to be run once and kept up. Extremely put, Emacs is an almighty OS running on top of GNU/Linux. +)
Oh yeah, and Emacs on X is a nice bonus, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, your comment on Emacs is ridiculous. 1.) The lack of the meta key to which you refer is greatly exagerrated. On PCs, which no doubt constitute the huge majority of computers nowadays, it's often the ALT key. 2.) You can press escape to invoke the same function as with the meta key (i.e. esc-x does the same thing as M-x) And 3.) anyway, the "meta key" can be mapped to any other key convenient for you.
I actually agree. But read on.
RMS even said, "If you have anything on your computer, you should be free at least to make a copy and send it to your friend," he says. "Anyone who tries to stop you doing that, that's tyranny, that's oppression. When you start telling people it's forbidden to share with your neighbour, nothing less than pervasive fear can enforce that. We're going to see a war on copyright like the war on drugs. They're public enemies: the public should rise up and put an end to them."
As you see, what you're saying is true. Even the creator of the GPL agrees. There has been and continuous to be exploitation on various levels. But what you fail to see is that the freedom introduced by the GPL is a means of escaping that exploitation and moving into a freer society.
You're saying that the GPL is evil because it still restricts what you can do with software. But the GPL presents a _choice_. You cannot force an author to release his/her work to the public without first acknowledging that he has his own freedom of choice to decide what to do with it in the first place. If you want to gain freedom, you also have to let people know that you are willing to respect theirs.
Stallman also said, "I'm not trying to give users what they want, I'm trying to give them freedom, which they can then accept or reject. If people don't want freedom, they may be out of luck with me, but I won't allow them to define for me what is right, what is worth spending my life for." Though his views are hard-headed and his insistence blunt, he still acknowledges that the users ultimately have choice. In doing that, he also strengthens his stand that he himself possesses the freedom of choice, and should be respected when he exercises it to help those who share his beliefs in whatever way he can. In the same way, you also have a choice. You can choose not to support the GPL if it doesn't make sense to you. (Try doing what RMS did, build with your own philosophy from what you have (in his case, from scratch).) But you will acknowledge that everyone else has his/her own freedom too.
As for me, I believe that for society to work, there are concepts that as yet have to be accepted. I acknowledge your point, but I hold my own ideas. I believe that proprietary software and software patenting is wrong and therefore, from where I am, the GPL makes a whole lot of sense. I will continue to work with what I have (hey, CS is still lots of fun the way it is^_^) and continue to express my beliefs, push awareness, and strive for acceptance.
I agree with you to some extent. I for one would like to see complete _mutual_ freedom exercised, especially in CS development. I believe that people should be free to make use of whatever knowledge and resources they gain for their own use. But with the kind of _society_ and _government_ we have today, a system that opens everything to that can only lead to anarachy, which I would rather not have. And so I go with society to avoid conflict and instead develop my skills and exercise my freedoms in ways that would befit the kind of society I am part of. I see the GPL as Right and Good, and so I will support it, as I do freedom.
I really do not see your point. Why do you keep on insisting on getting your every wish when such will so obviously conflict with the interests of other people? This has nothing to do with the GPL anymore. You're complaining because a certain license provision doesn't accomodate your wants? Go look for satisfaction yourself elsewhere then. It makes sense for a lot of people; if it doesn't to you, you can't just keep on bashing. Other people see this as truth. Accept that. It's as simple as that. A world with your idea of freedom implemented would be quite chaotic.
The point stands, the GPL provides a very explicit set of rules for the software it guards. The mentioned groups (Cisco, etc) ignored those rules, of which I'm sure they were very well aware, so the FSF has to enforce those to maintain the rights and freedoms of the authors and the community. That was the original point, before you dragged it away with your complaints.
Now stop your whining and do something productive.
I actually haven't gone that far with Linux on Crusoes, but from what I've seen, it's not that bad. Putting aside the lack of ACPI support kernel-level, hardware itself works out for low power consumption quite well (at least better than regular Intel PIIs). Yes, it's a pity that Transmeta/Fujitsu don't do more to provide hardware support for Linux, especially since both have otherwise been participative in the whole Linux hype. (Fujitsu has, at least. AFAIK, Torvalds used to hack at Transmeta, not officially for Linux then, nothing more.) I don't believe Linus worked kernel-level at Transmeta, or on 32-bit x86 at that.
On the bright side, there's ACPI4Linux, which aims to provide a better power management interface between the kernel/OS and BIOS. Last I heard, they have quite active development (acpi at sourceforge).
Also, I have no preference for wide-screen laptops. I'm all for portability (light, small, thin, long battery life) The laptops I've been eyeing for a while are the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series (10", anyone? ^_^) (mostly on Crusoes), the new (anticipated) Crusoe line of 11.3" ones (mostly 6 hours min), and the Compaq Armada M300 (11.3", really cheap (USD 250), 3 lbs., too bad it's PIII-500 only).
Actually, Transmeta does deliver pretty okay products. Yes, I know, you'll say with processors, Intel pretty much beat them up after releasing the low-power Centrinos. But they were actually one of the first guys to go for in power-efficient processing. They did mobile computing a lot of good. The very first laptops that really caught my attention were the low-power Crusoe-run Twinhead notebooks. 6 hours on 300 MHz was pretty amazing a few years back. They still do nice jobs now and then (see a nice article here). I still drool over the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series, most of which run on the Crusoe. I for one go for portability as the first priority for laptops. (I can always just ssh into my main box if I needed anything other than emacs.)
:)
They also have a number of impressive cluster servers. Again, having low power consumption is making their high-performance servers look good, even among today's Blades.
Any innovations are still welcome. At the very least, it's nice to know there are projects who keep Intel working on new ways to be better.
Now about that silly name...
I see your point, but why do you complain? There are a lot of licenses to choose from. In choosing the GPL, the author maintains that he would like to see his work stay free in every way. It is his right to do that, and as so, he must be respected. You say that there is no sin in making money out of software. Yes, that is true. Red Hat does that in the GPL way, and they're doing technology a lot of good. But what constitutes "trade secrets" is debatable. It is not right for software to be held solely as the property of an individual or group because software is an highly abstract product of human intellect. Restricting its use simply cripples it. And that restriction is highly impractical anyway. Why hide something that's obviously so easy to copy? (extremely put)(just being sarcastic; not my ultimate stand) I hold this as my opinion. There is nothing wrong with the FSF's "use of legal force" to uphold the GPL. If they didn't do that, then what's the point of the GPL? The GPL is meant to pave the way for a world of software freedom, but it must be enforced, because at present, the conditions for that freedom simply do not exist, given current copyright and patent laws. With closed proprietary formats, who can be sure that the Windows source doesn't contain code stolen from Free Software? I wouldn't put it past Microsoft. From where I stand, I think you're thinking of freedom as being your own convenience to do whatever you want, which sadly can not be universal freedom. Taken extremely, this is the same reason why software piracy exists.
I also wrote to Forbes. I hope our views are at least read.
y s.html) published by Forbes.
---
This is in response to the article "Linux Hit Men" (http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/14/cz_dl_1014links
I must say, I find your descriptions and reports of the Free Software Foundation quite unfair. From what I've read in your article, you do not seem to be fully aware of what the FSF has accomplished and stands for. Granted that the organization's views and measures are somewhat blunt and tend to be taken as extremist behaviour or zealotry, that does not make them any less valid. I think you are missing the point of their efforts.
The Free Software Foundation has been a chief driving force in supporting Free (or Open Source) Software. It is their main stand that software should have no owners for it to be fully made use of and developed. Free in this sense means Freedom, and not zero cost. As a means for the vision of Software Freedom to be realized, they have shunned proprietary software and have taken the effort to develop free alternatives from scratch. As closed software vendors make use of software patents and copyright laws to legally restrict the exploitation of their precious code, the FSF employs the powers of the General Public License (GPL) and its derivatives to make sure that the technology and knowledge they have created and have freely made available to the people _stays_ that way, and to prevent any group or individuals from exploiting these technologies and restricting developments from the public.
It is the vision of the FSF that society be freed from the restrictions of closed software and software patents, but as laws today still support these practices, the FSF has to be vigilant in enforcing the GPL to make sure that the rights and freedom of the Free Software community are upheld, especially in the case of the Linux kernel.
In the cases you have mentioned in your article, it seems that the only ways the mentioned companies could have ended up facing the FSF's legal teeth is in their ignorance (and lack of foresight) regarding the GPL's legal requirements, which is inexcusable for those in their position, or otherwise, in their plain disrespect thereof. In any case, it is the FSF's responsibility to uphold the rights of those involved in the development of Free Software.
Your reports, including the suggestion that we in the community purposely let code licensed with the GPL "infect" commercial software, enabling us to pursue legal means of exploitation later, are extremely unfair and show your ignorance of the situation, as well as your insensitivity and disrespect for our rights. Seeing how people of your stature and visibility could be so irresponsible, and that your published statements may foster false malicious ideas of Free Software and the community among your readers, I am greatly sadded at this and hereby protest your unjust publication.
See the mplayer features. Note: needs libdvdread and libdvdcss. Figure it out. =) Mostly, frustrations can be fixed by awareness.
1.) I did say I use screen to manage my work environment sometimes. (And yes, I run bash, links, and irssi for their respective purposes.)
2.) But then again, Emacs _does_ have a pretty nifty interface, and when you're used to it, not only can you do _ANYTHING_, you actually look for ways to do _EVERYTHING_ in it.
This isn't something to which I'd expect everyone to relate, of course. But you'd know what I mean if you can relate.
But while that's this _is_ in fact what I use, that's not my point. -->
3.) My point was to emphasize the efficiency and productivity value of text-based programs. Flashy GUI and multiple desktops is _not_ everything, and in some cases, a text-based environment is sufficient, even superior to it.
What defines usability and efficiency is up to the individual geek, of course, so I'm not claiming what I have to be the One True Way.
Contrary to what you may think, X GUI is _not_ everything. I cannot think of any alternative scheme (except maybe VNC, which is rather slow) to screen + Emacs. I start a screen session on my terminal at home, then go to school, ssh into my box, reconnect to my screen, and copy class notes from there. It's really fast, and I can get anything I need (on my box, that is) from anywhere in the world (with net access).
Also, for my purposes), Emacs is practically everything. IDE, IRC client, mail client, browser, shell... etc. Heck, you can even run vim on it. It's meant to be run once and kept up. Extremely put, Emacs is an almighty OS running on top of GNU/Linux. +)
Oh yeah, and Emacs on X is a nice bonus, of course.
Kudos to RMS.