Hi,
At the moment I'm working to set up a Free Software organisation in my country. I, and others, have put a lot of work into it, looking around at other orgs to see how the goods ones are run, etc. One strange thing I've noticed is that in my search, I've found 14 active Free Software orgs in Europe, but not one active OpenSource group.
And now we have this article. The people that have decided to make the effort to turn up such as Stallman, and Loic Dachary are called "OSS advocates". Both are very clear that they do Free Software.
The two terms refer to the same set of licenses (pretty much), but they represent different movements. Freedom isn't a dirty word, and Richard and Loic are representatives of the Free Software movement. Both are busting their asses to give freedom to computer users. A bit of accurate recognition would be good.
This is probably what has been happening to me.
I tried up to -test9, but after a few (2-10) hours, my cpu and disk access would shoot up and RAM usage would slowly increase. I dropped to a tty, typed the username "root", but the cpu load was so hight that login timed out before I was even prompted for a password!
So I had to kill the power on my machine while I could hear that my disk was fully active. I was not a happy camper.
It probably was a startup, y'know, back in the ol' under-water-cable boom of 1999. But then the bubble burst, and all the people that dropped out of college to lay cables on the ocean floor had to find real jobs.
Certainly, but people only have to channel 1% of that to the FSF and we can almost double FSF's annual revenues. Microsoft may not do much with $65M, but FSF could rock their monopoly with it.
For anyone that doesn't know: The Xouvert Project
has been set up to help develop experimental extensions to X in an open way, using Free Software.
(It's not a competing X implementation, it is assistance).
(Jim didn't mention this in his paper)
Stallmann's moral vision... I bet the only software he'll be sending machines is that which is licensed under the GPL, not any kind of BSD-style license... (XFree, GNOME [LGPL]) are also those most in need
yes, and since hiring dyslexic Bradley Kuhn, RMS has gone from Stallman to Stallmann. (see above comment.)
Do you not know that it was Stallman that started GNOME? and it was FSF that wrote the LGPL? and it's FSF that are hosting the Xouvert project to help XFree? and that it was Stallmans idea to change ogg vorbis from GPL to BSD license?
RMS was once asked, since there is a free software song, would there ever be a GNU song?
He said no, GNU is not the point, Free Software is the point.
People like misinterpretting him, or finding small flaws, but don't ignore that he's dedicated his life to giving freedom to computer users.
yup, EFF are also great, but when I can spare cash, it goes to FSF.
They've been busting their asses to give us freedom for 19 years now, and with Bradley Kuhn as the Executive Director, they've gone from strength to strenght.
If fighting for freedom is lunacy, you can download thirteen 2hr lunacy recodings (sounds fun) on the GNU audio page. Well worth a listen, IMO
(and as a european, I'm very glad of all the work that Stallman has done, and the work of Hartmut Pilch of FFII who's work is funded by FSF)
and my.sig:
While our competitors talk around the issue of freedom by discussing the "possible benefits" of "OpenSource techniques" and "Linux-based software", the hardware vendors should be shouting "Free Software" from the rooftops.
With Free Software, the price restrictions drop, and computers become more useful. Hardware vendors don't have to worry if the OS will support their new video card etc. They can hack together their own support.
So anyone can compete, and the software vendors don't hold any controlling cards. I can see why software companies don't get Free Software. They'd have to change their entrenched business models. But hardware companies should be shouting "Users should expect Free Software", and funding FSF, etc.
some people just don't know a good thing when they see it.
First, remember that file formats in general are patentable. The ASF video format is one example.
Some might say: "But that's a binary format."
Doesn't matter. Microsofts Office-xml format has plenty of binary data. They uuencode it so that it's official XML, but it's still encrypted or command content, not cleartext.
What if Microsoft embedded an ASF video in the word format? They'd have to uuencode it first, then stick it in. Would this suddenly make the ASF format non-patented? no. And once parts of a format are patented, you can't recreate the whole format without negotiating a patent deal with the holder.
Yes, the law is an ass. No, you can't circumvent it with clever words.
Previously we could reverse engineer their format and use it. Their work was covered by copyright, no problem once we create our own implementation.
This schema is patented. Patents are an exclusive right to use an idea. Now if you use their format without upholding their conditions, you're a criminal, even if you figured out the format yourself.
By publishing the format, they can cast doubt on anyone that does reverse engineer it. "I bet you read the spec on line".
Also, being able to view the format isn't much use. It's XML, but that doesn't mean it will be meaningful cleartext. They can simply uuencode a big block of binary data, stick it between two tags, and it's valid XML.
Learn from the past. Microsoft are not here to do us favours.
I wonder if there was any input from Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, the guy that wrote the letter to Microsoft, justifying the Free Software in Public Administration bill.
Also, coincidentally, Richard Stallman gave a video-talk in Brazil just 12 days ago.
Free Software and OpenSource are roughly the same thing, but there's no mention of freedom in that article. I just hope they understand the long term benefits of Software Libre.
This is of course great news. Maybe they should talk to Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, the guy that wrote the letter to Microsoft about Peru using Free Software regarding Peru's new "Free Software in Public Administration bill".
Free Software is often better than proprietary software. The OpenSource movement bases it's whole argument on this point. The terms "Free Software" and "OpenSource" usually refer to the same thing, but if people don't value freedom, they won't see a reason not to switch back when a better (low-cost initially) proprietary alternative comes along.
After 24 hours, hits are almost back to their normal rate. For the 24 hour period, here's the final totals:
1333 hits: homepage.
256 hits: photo of me.
62 hits: my FAQ.
56 hits: french translation.
Ok. It's exactly 8 hours since my original post. I've looked at the logs a bit more. First an update, then some funny things I've noticed.
I've now received 792 hits since my first post. Latest:
16:00 -> 17:00 : 54 hits
17:00 -> 18:00 : 109 hits
18:00 -> 18:46 : 75 hits
So hits are increasing again, not sure why. Might be because my post is now score:4.
I have three documents linked from near the top of my webpage. Of the 792 people that visited my site today:
110 people decided to look at my photo of me (which isn't a photo).
12 people looked at the french translation of my site (which isn't in french)
17 people looked at my FAQ (which doesn't contain any questions that are frequently asked).
I find the number of people looking at my photo pretty strange.
Anyway, I live in the GMT timezone and it's pint o'clock. So I'm out of here.
Okay, it's been a good morning. My site usually gets 20 unique hits per day but in the 6 hours since I posted that comment, I've received 586 unique hits.
All times are GMT: I posted my first comment at 10:46 11:00 -> 12:00 : 51 hits 12:00 -> 13:00 : 86 hits 13:00 -> 14:00 : 172 hits 14:00 -> 15:00 : 174 hits 15:00 -> 16:00 : 64 hits 16:00 -> 16:48 : 33 hits
My comment started at score:2 because I have Excellent karma. It was quickly modded Flamebait, but this had no noticeble affect on hits. It was then modded repeatedly and waivered between score:2 and score:4, always "Funny". I think the surge of hits i received from 13:00 -> 15:00GMT was from America waking up and this this story being near the top of the slashdot front page. Hit are slowing now, I suppose fewer new people are reading the story. In total, my post was modded Funny at least 8 times, Overrated at least 4 times, and Flamebait at least 3 times.
My confession is that the first "Anonymous Coward" that replied to my post was in fact me. After my post was modded flamebait, I thought I'd try social engineering. Could I make people think my post was funny simply by saying so? It appears the answer is yes. (or maybe my post really was funny.) Note that I don't have any ads on my page, so hits were not getting me cash or anything.
> Without some form of income, I'll soon have to cut back > my work on Free Software to work on flipping burgers.
At the moment, I volunteer ~50 hours a week to Free Software projects. Occasionally I get paid to update Free manuals or to give talks about Free Software.
I had a full time job until about 2 months ago, but I suddenly quit without much of a safety net. I figure if I work hard enough, I will get paid to do what I love.
Free Software often has support for proprietary systems, GNU Emacs runs on MS-Windows. This is not the issue.
> A step back from what?
We have a complete Free OS and we have tonnes of Free Software. Some people will run proprietary on top of that Free OS. We can accept it but why should we be promoting proprietary software?
Yes, Perens used 3-D drivers as his excuse for proprietary software, but he did not limit his distribution of proprietary software to 3-Drivers. What else will he add?
Slashdot Mirror
Hi,
At the moment I'm working to set up a Free Software organisation in my country. I, and others, have put a lot of work into it, looking around at other orgs to see how the goods ones are run, etc. One strange thing I've noticed is that in my search, I've found 14 active Free Software orgs in Europe, but not one active OpenSource group.
And now we have this article. The people that have decided to make the effort to turn up such as Stallman, and Loic Dachary are called "OSS advocates". Both are very clear that they do Free Software.
The two terms refer to the same set of licenses (pretty much), but they represent different movements. Freedom isn't a dirty word, and Richard and Loic are representatives of the Free Software movement. Both are busting their asses to give freedom to computer users. A bit of accurate recognition would be good.
A full discussion of the pre-empt problem can be found here:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/1679
This is probably what has been happening to me.
I tried up to -test9, but after a few (2-10) hours, my cpu and disk access would shoot up and RAM usage would slowly increase. I dropped to a tty, typed the username "root", but the cpu load was so hight that login timed out before I was even prompted for a password!
So I had to kill the power on my machine while I could hear that my disk was fully active. I was not a happy camper.
After the last article about Linus, I was expecting "Beaver as hood ornament"
It probably was a startup, y'know, back in the ol' under-water-cable boom of 1999. But then the bubble burst, and all the people that dropped out of college to lay cables on the ocean floor had to find real jobs.
> $65M is chump change for microsoft
Certainly, but people only have to channel 1% of that to the FSF and we can almost double FSF's annual revenues. Microsoft may not do much with $65M, but FSF could rock their monopoly with it.
For anyone that doesn't know:
The Xouvert Project
has been set up to help develop experimental extensions to X in an open way, using Free Software.
(It's not a competing X implementation, it is assistance).
(Jim didn't mention this in his paper)
Stallmann's moral vision ... I bet the only software he'll be sending machines is that which is licensed under the GPL, not any kind of BSD-style license ... (XFree, GNOME [LGPL]) are also those most in need
yes, and since hiring dyslexic Bradley Kuhn, RMS has gone from Stallman to Stallmann. (see above comment.)
Do you not know that it was Stallman that started GNOME? and it was FSF that wrote the LGPL? and it's FSF that are hosting the Xouvert project to help XFree? and that it was Stallmans idea to change ogg vorbis from GPL to BSD license?
RMS was once asked, since there is a free software song, would there ever be a GNU song?
He said no, GNU is not the point, Free Software is the point.
People like misinterpretting him, or finding small flaws, but don't ignore that he's dedicated his life to giving freedom to computer users.
yup, EFF are also great, but when I can spare cash, it goes to FSF.
.sig:
They've been busting their asses to give us freedom for 19 years now, and with Bradley Kuhn as the Executive Director, they've gone from strength to strenght.
If fighting for freedom is lunacy, you can download thirteen 2hr lunacy recodings (sounds fun) on the GNU audio page. Well worth a listen, IMO
(and as a european, I'm very glad of all the work that Stallman has done, and the work of Hartmut Pilch of FFII who's work is funded by FSF)
and my
While our competitors talk around the issue of freedom by discussing the "possible benefits" of "OpenSource techniques" and "Linux-based software", the hardware vendors should be shouting "Free Software" from the rooftops.
With Free Software, the price restrictions drop, and computers become more useful. Hardware vendors don't have to worry if the OS will support their new video card etc. They can hack together their own support.
So anyone can compete, and the software vendors don't hold any controlling cards. I can see why software companies don't get Free Software. They'd have to change their entrenched business models. But hardware companies should be shouting "Users should expect Free Software", and funding FSF, etc.
some people just don't know a good thing when they see it.
First, remember that file formats in general are patentable. The ASF video format is one example.
Some might say: "But that's a binary format."
Doesn't matter. Microsofts Office-xml format has plenty of binary data. They uuencode it so that it's official XML, but it's still encrypted or command content, not cleartext.
What if Microsoft embedded an ASF video in the word format?
They'd have to uuencode it first, then stick it in. Would this suddenly make the ASF format non-patented? no. And once parts of a format are patented, you can't recreate the whole format without negotiating a patent deal with the holder.
Yes, the law is an ass. No, you can't circumvent it with clever words.
Previously we could reverse engineer their format and use it. Their work was covered by copyright, no problem once we create our own implementation.
This schema is patented. Patents are an exclusive right to use an idea. Now if you use their format without upholding their conditions, you're a criminal, even if you figured out the format yourself.
By publishing the format, they can cast doubt on anyone that does reverse engineer it. "I bet you read the spec on line".
Also, being able to view the format isn't much use. It's XML, but that doesn't mean it will be meaningful cleartext. They can simply uuencode a big block of binary data, stick it between two tags, and it's valid XML.
Learn from the past. Microsoft are not here to do us favours.
I wonder if there was any input from Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, the guy that wrote the letter to Microsoft, justifying the Free Software in Public Administration bill.
Also, coincidentally, Richard Stallman gave a video-talk in Brazil just 12 days ago.
Free Software and OpenSource are roughly the same thing, but there's no mention of freedom in that article. I just hope they understand the long term benefits of Software Libre.
This is of course great news. Maybe they should talk to Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez, the guy that wrote the letter to Microsoft about Peru using Free Software regarding Peru's new "Free Software in Public Administration bill".
Free Software is often better than proprietary software. The OpenSource movement bases it's whole argument on this point. The terms "Free Software" and "OpenSource" usually refer to the same thing, but if people don't value freedom, they won't see a reason not to switch back when a better (low-cost initially) proprietary alternative comes along.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Stallmans recent video talk at a brazillian Free Software conference.
> Emacs? *Everyone* knows that vi is the one true editor
You will out grow vi.
After 24 hours, hits are almost back to their normal rate. For the 24 hour period, here's the final totals:
1333 hits: homepage.
256 hits: photo of me.
62 hits: my FAQ.
56 hits: french translation.
Ok. It's exactly 8 hours since my original post. I've looked at the logs a bit more. First an update, then some funny things I've noticed.
I've now received 792 hits since my first post. Latest:
16:00 -> 17:00 : 54 hits
17:00 -> 18:00 : 109 hits
18:00 -> 18:46 : 75 hits
So hits are increasing again, not sure why. Might be because my post is now score:4.
I have three documents linked from near the top of my webpage. Of the 792 people that visited my site today:
110 people decided to look at my photo of me (which isn't a photo).
12 people looked at the french translation of my site (which isn't in french)
17 people looked at my FAQ (which doesn't contain any questions that are frequently asked).
I find the number of people looking at my photo pretty strange.
Anyway, I live in the GMT timezone and it's pint o'clock. So I'm out of here.
Okay, it's been a good morning. My site usually gets 20 unique hits per day but in the 6 hours since I posted that comment, I've received 586 unique hits.
All times are GMT:
I posted my first comment at 10:46
11:00 -> 12:00 : 51 hits
12:00 -> 13:00 : 86 hits
13:00 -> 14:00 : 172 hits
14:00 -> 15:00 : 174 hits
15:00 -> 16:00 : 64 hits
16:00 -> 16:48 : 33 hits
My comment started at score:2 because I have Excellent karma. It was quickly modded Flamebait, but this had no noticeble affect on hits. It was then modded repeatedly and waivered between score:2 and score:4, always "Funny". I think the surge of hits i received from 13:00 -> 15:00GMT was from America waking up and this this story being near the top of the slashdot front page. Hit are slowing now, I suppose fewer new people are reading the story. In total, my post was modded Funny at least 8 times, Overrated at least 4 times, and Flamebait at least 3 times.
My confession is that the first "Anonymous Coward" that replied to my post was in fact me. After my post was modded flamebait, I thought I'd try social engineering. Could I make people think my post was funny simply by saying so? It appears the answer is yes. (or maybe my post really was funny.) Note that I don't have any ads on my page, so hits were not getting me cash or anything.
All very interesting to me.
ya bastard (but thanks for reading to the end of the page)
(note to others: link pointed out a now-fixed incorrect spelling)
> Without some form of income, I'll soon have to cut back
> my work on Free Software to work on flipping burgers.
At the moment, I volunteer ~50 hours a week to Free Software projects. Occasionally I get paid to update Free manuals or to give talks about Free Software.
I had a full time job until about 2 months ago, but I suddenly quit without much of a safety net. I figure if I work hard enough, I will get paid to do what I love.
Thanks guys :)
Just out of interest, since I posted that comment, I've gotten just under one hit per minute (51 hits in 56 minutes). I'm still laughing.
Personal homepages are fine, except when people feel the need to plug them at every available opertunity. Very annoying.
There are ogg recordings of 12 of his speeches from the last 3 years on the GNU philosophy audio page.
Also note that the issue of the name "GNU/Linux" is not about credit (more explanation here)
And an explanation of the fiasco regarding Stallman being asked to talk at a "Linux User Group" is available here.
I must have missed that "or as little as $10".
If it has a minimum cost, making "uncontrolled" copies of it will be a criminal act. This is terrible.
Free Software often has support for proprietary systems, GNU Emacs runs on MS-Windows. This is not the issue.
> A step back from what?
We have a complete Free OS and we have tonnes of Free Software. Some people will run proprietary on top of that Free OS. We can accept it but why should we be promoting proprietary software?
Yes, Perens used 3-D drivers as his excuse for proprietary software, but he did not limit his distribution of proprietary software to 3-Drivers. What else will he add?
I think an important Perens quote from the article is:
"UserLinux would only depart from Debian for software that is not open source"
so, UserLinux will be Debian + proprietary software. A dissapointing step back in my opinion.