Whether keyboard + mouse is better is somewhat determined by the intent of the game.
Do you think aiming a gun at someone's head when they're standing on a platform above and to your right is easy, if you're the one aiming a gun? It's certainly much easier to do accurately with a mouse (for most people). Sure, you're playing a game, your *character* is meant to have those abilities so you the *player* don't have to... but then you also have justification for automatically height adjusting shots for the player who isn't used to aiming, or where the degree of twitch aim the player can muster isn't the primary objective of the game.
It's more freedom because the code can be used in more ways than the GPL code.
Even if someone *did* take the source and use it in their own closed source product, the code is still out there, it's still free, on the MIT license. The source hasn't been closed, it's been incorporated.
Why do you insist that I have a sense of entitlement? How do you know I am planning on violating someone else's license? I have no intention of doing so.
I am just saying, that someone is wanting to release some work to the public, and they want it to be open/free. They look through the various licenses, and see an MIT/BSD license, which is basically "free to use", then they see a GPL license, which is basically "free with conditions". Now that person has put his own time into his work, and if he thinks the GPL license is a better fit for his wishes, then he should absolutely use that license for his work. But he should not consider his work more open than if he'd used the MIT license, by definition it comes with more restrictions.
I personally feel no restriction, because I still have a choice of not using his work. Or am I still somehow saying that I want a handout, in your world?
Correlation is not causation. Skill as a developer is not related to skill in choosing distribution licenses.
But to extend your argument, why do you suppose even better version control systems, AccuRev and ClearCase (before IBM got it), are released under proprietary licenses? Assuming the quality of the product is at all related to the purpose of the license.
Nobody's saying that the GPL doesn't work as it's intended. Obviously, if you include anything with a GPL license in your application, then your application must also be GPL licensed (loosely speaking). The ridiculous part is the sense that you're in the right by restricting the licence choices of your downstream users.
It may be a good idea to build a cooperative community around the software, but the GPL is not an option, let alone a good one. Mr Liu is worried about larger companies getting the software, but if it's GPL licensed, then every owner of his oscilloscope has access to the source code. If he were to go into cooperation with the other developers, then the GPL is possibly the worst license they could pick... based on Mr Liu's reasoning of course.
The whining is tantamount to you creating a chassis for a car, then bitching at the local car-dealership because they refuse to let you sell their cars with your new chassis for your own profit.
I don't get it. You can actually do this. If the dealerships refused to sell you cars at the normal price, then they are probably breaking the law.
The problem is not whether or not I need to use a GPL library, I'm more than happy to continue avoiding them. The problem is not whether you have the right to restrict my choice of license on my own work, the text of the GPL is reasonably clear on that. The problem is the attitude that you think you are doing the right thing by taking away my right to license my own work as I see fit. Really, the problem isn't a big one, but it does make the world a slightly sadder place.
Well, indirectly it makes it easier to write programs, by allowing you to learn from the program's source code.
You're treading a very dangerous line there. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design, you may be infringing on the original copyright if you write a comparable system after having inspected the original source.
It makes it much easier for an amateur community to write programs, based on source code available in the communal pool. Some of that software is actually quite outstanding, sometimes to the point of being best in class.
More often, that software is obviously written by amateurs and is inferior to commercial alternatives. If the few good ideas in the software were available for reuse by the commercial alternative... and all competitors, for that matter... then the quality of every alternative goes up. Users win. If the amateur software is GPL, then users have a choice between a poor piece of software with a few good features, or a more polished alternative which is missing those features. Users lose.
Sure, it's pretty arrogant for the commercial entity to lift the features directly out of the community software. But isn't it also pretty arrogant for the developers of the community software to say you can only have those features if you accept our inferior product? Remember that we're currently talking in the context of "for the benefit of users".
That's actually the point. In the context of an application linking libraries (pointing to the function without copying the function), you're pretty much doing the same thing as the GP's recipe example. But under the GPS, merely linking to a library causes the entire work to be considered derivative of that library.
Note that I'm not debating the validity of the GPL. I'm not going to go violating the GPL because I disagree with it, I'm just saying that you need to call it how it is, and don't try to pretend that the license is more reasonable than reality. And for that matter, you're welcome to find the license perfectly reasonable. I personally think it is the least free license available to a developer.
The GPL doesn't actually do this, though. Instead, I use your GPL code, all of my customers get (access to) both. You get nothing, unless you're a customer, and I don't believe I'm under obligation to sell to you.
I agree, it's kind of against the spirit of the thing, and could be considered morally offensive. But personally, I find it morally offensive that you think you have a right to restrict my choice of licensing for my own labour. I will never willingly make such restriction on you, and when I give my code out I'll freely do so, to try to make the world a better place. So you use the GPL, which will make me sad, but I'll move on.
If you're using a commercial version, then you have a cash hammer. Demand that they update their sources and release you an upgrade, or send your dollars to a consulting company to create the extra one or two features you need as an apache module.
Re:This isn't sensationalist, it's the truth
on
Leaving the GPL Behind
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Take a GPL'd piece of code and remove the GPL - what do you have left?
The GP isn't talking about taking a piece of GPL code and removing the GPL, he's talking about licensing the code BSD, or other free use license. Comparing GPL favourably to vanilla copyright is not only an easy comparison, it's way off topic.
so they insist that the payment to them is that you release any modification to their code like they originally released their code so that others can also benefit from the code (ie GPL).
How is this payment to the original author? Notwithstanding if I provide a service instead of a product, then I never have to release anything... but even if I release a product in a niche market, say controllers in medical hardware, using a hypothetical modified linux kernel. I need to make the source for the modified kernel available to my customers, which they are free to redistribute, but the greater linux kernel community has no such right to the source unless they purchase one of the machines. Unless I voluntarily give back the code, or someone wants to pay me for my time by buying one of my machines, the original author never sees any of my changes.
The number of times I see comments saying that the GPL means people have to give back. This is not, and has never been the case.
Also, how much can you trust closed source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someones copyright?
So, how much can you trust open source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someone's copyright? The answer is usually no, unless you wrote it yourself.
The only conclusion I can come to is that all those who moan about the GPL are those who would rather not pay the author(s) for their work - get something for nothing. Aaaaarrrrrrrrr, Jim Lad...
As a developer, I will never release software under the GPL, but I will release software under actually free licenses like BSD or Apache. Of course, this means that I need to avoid using GPL libraries, because they do not give me the freedom to do what I require with the result of my own effort. Now in your world, this seems to be getting something for nothing, but in my world, it means I am being unreasonably restricted in a way that that would be unimaginable under any other license. Of course, if I find and fix a bug in the non-GPL library that I use, then I will naturally contribute the patch back to the project, and be happy that I could be of help. The GPL library gets no such support from me because I won't use it (if I have any choice).
Just to sum up, I find it completely unreasonable for a GPL library author to request me to release my entire application just because I make use of a supposedly free library. Even the "evil" closed-source commercial proprietary world would rarely put such a restriction on use of a library, and they wouldn't be as brazen as to say they're doing you a favour at the same time.
Now, as someone who moans about the GPL, do I still fit into your world as someone who wants something for nothing?
You missed *rock* bottom. I've had an Australian contract for the past three years while not living in the country, to keep my number when I go back. I'm on a post-paid contract with a minimum spend of $0... although I originally had some issues with charging me for roaming voicemail until I got roaming turned off.
Haven't had to pay anything for most of three years, although that's of course for zero minutes. Only costs 0.5c per second (AUD) when I make calls though, so 10 minutes per month would be AUD3.
You don't really get plans like that any more, that's the other reason I've been holding on to my plan even while out of the country!
You're comparing small apples to big apples. You can't claim your plan is cheaper (better value) just because it costs less. What would your plan cost if it included roughly 2500 minutes of talk time? What about if you add data? Unlimited data?
Personally, I'll be moving back to Australia soon, and the cheapest I can find for data is AUD20 for 1Gb of data (roughly EUR10) per month.
I still remember having a roll of electrical tape confiscated going on to a plane in Australia... apparently tape was only acceptable if it is clear tape.
Because it's harder to tie someone up with clear tape than opaque?
bcause we are sure at a 90-95% confidence level (depending on which particular finding we are discussing).
Isn't that about how sure we were that the sub-prime bubble wasn't going to burst? At least, depending on which particular model we are discussing.
Not that I disagree with you, but questioning the mainstream is not the same as disagreeing with the mainstream. If the truth doesn't stand up to discussion, then I'm not sure whose truth it is...
With all due respect, as someone who works in the music business you're not exactly an impartial commenter. Fair enough, as someone who doesn't know the figures, or even sufficient knowledge of statistics to understand them even if I had them, I'm not either.
It's almost certainly a fact that some people are pirating music instead of buying it. However, it's also almost certainly a fact that if the piracy avenue was not available, then some (most?) of those people would simply do without music. The music industry is not "competing" with free, because it's not a competition. The offerings are not "like for like".
As other people have pointed out, it's more than price, as well. A high quality MP3 is more valuable than a high quality AAC with DRM, because you can use it however you want without having to repurchase the same track. Most companies now seem to be going DRM-free, but for myself it's still not a good option because I don't trust digital-only storage... recently losing several years of digital photographs (and the on-site backup) in a home robbery has made me even more wary.
For me, the CD is still the best value option available... which means that if there aren't enough good tracks on the CD to justify the cost, I just do without. Funnily enough, I haven't bought many mainstream CDs in recent years... purchases have been limited to bands I particularly like (which coincidentally happen to be small-label, but I'd buy them even if they were mainstream non-Sony/BMI), musical scores and compilation CDs.
Finally, you mention in another post that "For every successful artist you know of, there are 10-15 failures." I don't believe this sufficiently quantifies the vast explosion of artists producing work at the moment, documented elsewhere in this story. I would put money on the fact that independent and small labels do not have anything approaching this failure rate, since there are such low cost distribution and advertising avenues that even a "failure" manages to break even, and simply doesn't become a success. There is no compelling need for one success to offset so many failures if you aren't losing so much money on the failures, and the double whammy supporting a huge ecosystem of non-artists inside the label itself... unless they are the failures you refer to;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Whether keyboard + mouse is better is somewhat determined by the intent of the game.
Do you think aiming a gun at someone's head when they're standing on a platform above and to your right is easy, if you're the one aiming a gun? It's certainly much easier to do accurately with a mouse (for most people). Sure, you're playing a game, your *character* is meant to have those abilities so you the *player* don't have to... but then you also have justification for automatically height adjusting shots for the player who isn't used to aiming, or where the degree of twitch aim the player can muster isn't the primary objective of the game.
It's more freedom because the code can be used in more ways than the GPL code.
Even if someone *did* take the source and use it in their own closed source product, the code is still out there, it's still free, on the MIT license. The source hasn't been closed, it's been incorporated.
That's freedom, man.
Why do you insist that I have a sense of entitlement? How do you know I am planning on violating someone else's license? I have no intention of doing so.
I am just saying, that someone is wanting to release some work to the public, and they want it to be open/free. They look through the various licenses, and see an MIT/BSD license, which is basically "free to use", then they see a GPL license, which is basically "free with conditions". Now that person has put his own time into his work, and if he thinks the GPL license is a better fit for his wishes, then he should absolutely use that license for his work. But he should not consider his work more open than if he'd used the MIT license, by definition it comes with more restrictions.
I personally feel no restriction, because I still have a choice of not using his work. Or am I still somehow saying that I want a handout, in your world?
I believe that is the point of Mojo... that is the set of APIs that give access to the phone features.
Check out UFO Alien Invasion. It's still in progress, but it seems a fantastic spiritual successor!
http://ufoai.sourceforge.net/
Correlation is not causation. Skill as a developer is not related to skill in choosing distribution licenses.
But to extend your argument, why do you suppose even better version control systems, AccuRev and ClearCase (before IBM got it), are released under proprietary licenses? Assuming the quality of the product is at all related to the purpose of the license.
Nobody's saying that the GPL doesn't work as it's intended. Obviously, if you include anything with a GPL license in your application, then your application must also be GPL licensed (loosely speaking). The ridiculous part is the sense that you're in the right by restricting the licence choices of your downstream users.
It may be a good idea to build a cooperative community around the software, but the GPL is not an option, let alone a good one. Mr Liu is worried about larger companies getting the software, but if it's GPL licensed, then every owner of his oscilloscope has access to the source code. If he were to go into cooperation with the other developers, then the GPL is possibly the worst license they could pick... based on Mr Liu's reasoning of course.
The whining is tantamount to you creating a chassis for a car, then bitching at the local car-dealership because they refuse to let you sell their cars with your new chassis for your own profit.
I don't get it. You can actually do this. If the dealerships refused to sell you cars at the normal price, then they are probably breaking the law.
The problem is not whether or not I need to use a GPL library, I'm more than happy to continue avoiding them. The problem is not whether you have the right to restrict my choice of license on my own work, the text of the GPL is reasonably clear on that. The problem is the attitude that you think you are doing the right thing by taking away my right to license my own work as I see fit. Really, the problem isn't a big one, but it does make the world a slightly sadder place.
I wish more people got this.
Well, indirectly it makes it easier to write programs, by allowing you to learn from the program's source code.
You're treading a very dangerous line there. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design, you may be infringing on the original copyright if you write a comparable system after having inspected the original source.
It makes it much easier for an amateur community to write programs, based on source code available in the communal pool. Some of that software is actually quite outstanding, sometimes to the point of being best in class.
More often, that software is obviously written by amateurs and is inferior to commercial alternatives. If the few good ideas in the software were available for reuse by the commercial alternative... and all competitors, for that matter... then the quality of every alternative goes up. Users win. If the amateur software is GPL, then users have a choice between a poor piece of software with a few good features, or a more polished alternative which is missing those features. Users lose.
Sure, it's pretty arrogant for the commercial entity to lift the features directly out of the community software. But isn't it also pretty arrogant for the developers of the community software to say you can only have those features if you accept our inferior product? Remember that we're currently talking in the context of "for the benefit of users".
That's actually the point. In the context of an application linking libraries (pointing to the function without copying the function), you're pretty much doing the same thing as the GP's recipe example. But under the GPS, merely linking to a library causes the entire work to be considered derivative of that library.
Note that I'm not debating the validity of the GPL. I'm not going to go violating the GPL because I disagree with it, I'm just saying that you need to call it how it is, and don't try to pretend that the license is more reasonable than reality. And for that matter, you're welcome to find the license perfectly reasonable. I personally think it is the least free license available to a developer.
The nethack license http://www.opensource.org/licenses/nethack.php seems to do this fine, without appearing viral.
The GPL doesn't actually do this, though. Instead, I use your GPL code, all of my customers get (access to) both. You get nothing, unless you're a customer, and I don't believe I'm under obligation to sell to you.
I agree, it's kind of against the spirit of the thing, and could be considered morally offensive. But personally, I find it morally offensive that you think you have a right to restrict my choice of licensing for my own labour. I will never willingly make such restriction on you, and when I give my code out I'll freely do so, to try to make the world a better place. So you use the GPL, which will make me sad, but I'll move on.
Agreed. The GPL seems to be a solution, only if you accept that the actual problem is one worth solving.
If you're using a commercial version, then you have a cash hammer. Demand that they update their sources and release you an upgrade, or send your dollars to a consulting company to create the extra one or two features you need as an apache module.
Take a GPL'd piece of code and remove the GPL - what do you have left?
The GP isn't talking about taking a piece of GPL code and removing the GPL, he's talking about licensing the code BSD, or other free use license. Comparing GPL favourably to vanilla copyright is not only an easy comparison, it's way off topic.
so they insist that the payment to them is that you release any modification to their code like they originally released their code so that others can also benefit from the code (ie GPL).
How is this payment to the original author? Notwithstanding if I provide a service instead of a product, then I never have to release anything... but even if I release a product in a niche market, say controllers in medical hardware, using a hypothetical modified linux kernel. I need to make the source for the modified kernel available to my customers, which they are free to redistribute, but the greater linux kernel community has no such right to the source unless they purchase one of the machines. Unless I voluntarily give back the code, or someone wants to pay me for my time by buying one of my machines, the original author never sees any of my changes.
The number of times I see comments saying that the GPL means people have to give back. This is not, and has never been the case.
Also, how much can you trust closed source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someones copyright?
So, how much can you trust open source software? Can you be sure it isn't infringing someone's copyright? The answer is usually no, unless you wrote it yourself.
The only conclusion I can come to is that all those who moan about the GPL are those who would rather not pay the author(s) for their work - get something for nothing. Aaaaarrrrrrrrr, Jim Lad...
As a developer, I will never release software under the GPL, but I will release software under actually free licenses like BSD or Apache. Of course, this means that I need to avoid using GPL libraries, because they do not give me the freedom to do what I require with the result of my own effort. Now in your world, this seems to be getting something for nothing, but in my world, it means I am being unreasonably restricted in a way that that would be unimaginable under any other license. Of course, if I find and fix a bug in the non-GPL library that I use, then I will naturally contribute the patch back to the project, and be happy that I could be of help. The GPL library gets no such support from me because I won't use it (if I have any choice).
Just to sum up, I find it completely unreasonable for a GPL library author to request me to release my entire application just because I make use of a supposedly free library. Even the "evil" closed-source commercial proprietary world would rarely put such a restriction on use of a library, and they wouldn't be as brazen as to say they're doing you a favour at the same time.
Now, as someone who moans about the GPL, do I still fit into your world as someone who wants something for nothing?
You missed *rock* bottom. I've had an Australian contract for the past three years while not living in the country, to keep my number when I go back. I'm on a post-paid contract with a minimum spend of $0... although I originally had some issues with charging me for roaming voicemail until I got roaming turned off.
Haven't had to pay anything for most of three years, although that's of course for zero minutes. Only costs 0.5c per second (AUD) when I make calls though, so 10 minutes per month would be AUD3.
You don't really get plans like that any more, that's the other reason I've been holding on to my plan even while out of the country!
Good idea regarding population density and distance that coverage requires, but it doesn't explain how Australia fared so much better.
For that matter, in both the high usage and low usage charts, Australia even beat out Japan! For some reason not the medium usage, however.
You're comparing small apples to big apples. You can't claim your plan is cheaper (better value) just because it costs less. What would your plan cost if it included roughly 2500 minutes of talk time? What about if you add data? Unlimited data? Personally, I'll be moving back to Australia soon, and the cheapest I can find for data is AUD20 for 1Gb of data (roughly EUR10) per month.
I still remember having a roll of electrical tape confiscated going on to a plane in Australia... apparently tape was only acceptable if it is clear tape. Because it's harder to tie someone up with clear tape than opaque?
bcause we are sure at a 90-95% confidence level (depending on which particular finding we are discussing).
Isn't that about how sure we were that the sub-prime bubble wasn't going to burst? At least, depending on which particular model we are discussing. Not that I disagree with you, but questioning the mainstream is not the same as disagreeing with the mainstream. If the truth doesn't stand up to discussion, then I'm not sure whose truth it is...
With all due respect, as someone who works in the music business you're not exactly an impartial commenter. Fair enough, as someone who doesn't know the figures, or even sufficient knowledge of statistics to understand them even if I had them, I'm not either.
It's almost certainly a fact that some people are pirating music instead of buying it. However, it's also almost certainly a fact that if the piracy avenue was not available, then some (most?) of those people would simply do without music. The music industry is not "competing" with free, because it's not a competition. The offerings are not "like for like".
As other people have pointed out, it's more than price, as well. A high quality MP3 is more valuable than a high quality AAC with DRM, because you can use it however you want without having to repurchase the same track. Most companies now seem to be going DRM-free, but for myself it's still not a good option because I don't trust digital-only storage... recently losing several years of digital photographs (and the on-site backup) in a home robbery has made me even more wary.
For me, the CD is still the best value option available... which means that if there aren't enough good tracks on the CD to justify the cost, I just do without. Funnily enough, I haven't bought many mainstream CDs in recent years... purchases have been limited to bands I particularly like (which coincidentally happen to be small-label, but I'd buy them even if they were mainstream non-Sony/BMI), musical scores and compilation CDs.
Finally, you mention in another post that "For every successful artist you know of, there are 10-15 failures." I don't believe this sufficiently quantifies the vast explosion of artists producing work at the moment, documented elsewhere in this story. I would put money on the fact that independent and small labels do not have anything approaching this failure rate, since there are such low cost distribution and advertising avenues that even a "failure" manages to break even, and simply doesn't become a success. There is no compelling need for one success to offset so many failures if you aren't losing so much money on the failures, and the double whammy supporting a huge ecosystem of non-artists inside the label itself... unless they are the failures you refer to ;-)
the violence does not change throughout the course of the game.
Giant meteor flying at the world, much? It's natural to peak near the end, that's what they call a finale.