"Analogy time! Knives:HTTP/FTP/etc::Guns:P2P. There's plenty of non-infringing (non-murdering) uses for both, but the latter group certainly makes it easier."
So what? In the US, guns are still legal even though don't seem to have ANY legitimate use. The irony is that we are more likely to see P2P banned before guns are. After all, when the NRA comes to protest in numbers on your doorstep, you take notice. When a bunch of iPod toting teens show up, you probably think, "meh".
"There was a guild of canon balls;
Their motto was 'don't tread on me'."
This is probably the best comment on this topic. Not only are *all* encyclopedias just simple gloss-overs of real research but Brittanica is aimed at the early teen market.
The wikipedia oughtn't worry about how traditional encyclopedia's view them. It won't matter in the end -- the wikipedia is free, accessible, pervasive and mainly supported by the people. Those are winning factors everytime.
"The entertainment industry brings in far more capital than a powerstation does."
Are you on drugs? First, comparing the entire entertainment industry to a single powerstation is ingenuine. Secondly, the power industry dwarfs the entertainment industry. Your entire argument is misleading and faulty.
Actually, he was completely justified in saying "no". The parent asked "if anyone" and he replied, using his own personal account to do so. In other words, an opinion was asked and he gave one. No need to specify that it was his opinion -- it is assumed to be his opinion because that is what was asked for and moreso, that's all anyone can ever give -- even expert witnesses only give opinion. It is somewhat foolish to think anyone who doesn't use the "I" vernacular is talking for anyone but themself.
Besides, his response was pretty funny if you read it the right way. It is just very dry, but that's a feature of deadpan, yes?
You, sir, are a magnificent bastard and a glorious ass.
It only sounds resentful if you are looking for resentment. It is a simple matter of fact -- he could not afford it as he and his project are not funded.
Another fact: his lack of funding is contrasted by the fact that others, who are only now investingating issues he has already implemented are well funded.
It is what it is -- factual. So keep your "you got what you asked for" attitude to yourself, thank-you very much.
okay, this is gonna cost me mod status for a real dumb thing but, hell, its Star Trek and star wars!!!.
Further compounding the troll, the.sig actually points to a real Star Trek episode, "The Galileo Seven", Stardate 2822.3, Episode 14 in which we get plenty of Mr. Spock/Yoda-like platitudes.
Enjoy:
---
Spock: I realize that command does have its fascination, even under circumstances such as these, but I neither enjoy the idea of command nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists, and I will do whatever logically needs to be done.
---
McCoy: Life and death are seldom logical.
Spock: But attaining a desired goal always is.
---
Spock: I'm frequently appalled by the low regard you Earthmen have for life.
---
Spock: There are always alternatives.
---
Spock: It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six.
---
Spock: No! Leave me!
---
Spock: By coming back and helping me, you may have destroyed your chances of rescue. The logical thing to do was to leave me.
McCoy: Spock, I'm sick to death of your logic.
---
Spock: Totally illogical, there was no chance.
Scotty: You said there were always alternatives.
Spock: I did? I may have been mistaken.
McCoy: Well at least I lived long enough to hear that.
Maybe so, but Free Pascal still runs on every platform that Delphi does plus many, many that Delphi doesn't even dream of.
I understand your displeasure but, really who cares other than you? So it wasn't a seemless re-compile but non of your options would be. It gets you probably 80% there and its free and it is cross platform.
So, wouldn't it have been easier to port to Free Pascal and impement their versions of overloading isntead of rewriting your application in a completely different language (particularly C++)? If you ported to C++ so that you could target a platform that Free Pascal doesn't support, then surely Delphi wouldn't have been much use to you either (which begs the question as to why you used Delphi to begin with).
I didn't claim that it was a Delphi replacement, but it *IS* a nice, free environment for people who want to use Pascal and a Delphi-like environment.
Google is a public company. Therefore it is RESTRICTED to acting in its own best-interest. At times, it may appear that those interests coincide with the best-interests of society. Appearances can be decieving and even in cases where it is true, it can i) change on a whim, ii) is not based on public set policy.
There is NEVER any reason to applaud a corporation though we must always be viligant to put the smack down on them. Don't worry -- they are merely legal entities -- they don't have feelings.
"The language syntax is semantically compatible with TP 7.0 as well as most versions of Delphi (classes, rtti, exceptions, ansistrings, widestrings, interfaces). Furthermore Free Pascal supports function overloading, operator overloading, global properties and other such features."
There is an associated project that aims to duplicate the VCL called FCL:
I think I see what you are getting at and I don't disgree. But I wonder if I am talking about something at a different level of abstraction. For example, what is the standard module interface that defines the number of monitors attatched and how to interact with them? What is the standard interface that defines video hardware capabilities? Right now its a hodge podge spread out over different services in non-standard ways. Sure, I can define certain capabilities in my X config -- but here too we currently see vendor specific settings for capabilities. Further, what if I don't want to use X, what then? Without standard interfaces we see the same problem solved in different ways time and again. Worse, they are solved using vendor specific implementations. That's not cool.
The point you make about panasonic is what I am getting at: the open source component defines a binary interface which the closed component communicates with. Why not define the open source part ourselves and let the vendors do the other part? After all, we don't want each vendor to have a different proprietary interface to implement the same capabilities, do we?
AFAIK (and I admit the depth of my knowledge on these matters is already showing) the kernel module interfaces are fairly high-level abstract in that they deal with the problem of connecting code to the kernel in a general way. I'm suggesting we need some specific device level abstractions as well, that's all.
That said, I realize that this isn't a magic brush that will somehow fix all the woes we face; as you say, vendors will have to support the interfaces for this to work. Failing that, it is obviously much to our common goal to rather have the source code in those cases so that we can fix their drivers for them. As far as SCSI, isn't todays support an outcome of the fact that the kernel developers eventually adopted a uniform interface to deal with SCSI devives that vendors could code against?
"Why would we want a first class binary-level driver model? So that we can have:
compatibility problems very difficult API maintainence problems closed source drivers introducing OS bugs etc..."
That's precisely why it is needed. We already have compatiblity problems just because each vendor has to reinvent the wheel everytime around. The bugs issue is also a non-starter since with a standard interface you have something with which you can verify the operation of a driver. Even if vendors released source code, without a standard interface it becomes incumbent on the community to rewrite the driver to conformance so that's not really a win situation.
NVidia may have leading support at this time (it was not always that way, recall) but they still aren't releasing their sources. You're just talking about reliance on a particular vendor because their drivers seem to work -- for now. So I don't really see the merit in your objection.
" If there aren't open source drivers that support hardware then we will never be independent of microsoft."
How do you mean? If there are open specifications for driver iterfaces won't that accomplish the same goal? Think of it from the manufacturer's point of view. They already have to conform their drivers to Microsoft's interfaces. You don't just knock off drivers over night, either -- its a big job that is easy to get wrong. So they spend their time making sure that things work on Windows because that's what, 90% of their market? 80%? Its an important chunk of their revenue stream. But the beauty is this: as long as their driver is compatible with the interface, they get a lot of leverage -- they are gauranteed to work in at least the current platform release of windows (and sometimes several generations), their driver is loaded into the kernel (or at least protected space), they can expose controls via automatic hooks directly into existing UI features, and they can get their driver certified. All of which they can do without releasing source code (since they don't want to). That is a high level of operability, integration, compatability all while offering exceptional *trusted* low-level access to hardware. Finally, the consumer only needs to know that the hardware has been certified. Once they see that, they can be confident that they will be able to use that card on their platform with little or no fuss and that their platform will unlock all of the features of the hardware. There is no such equivalent in Linux.
But why can't that be done in Linux? Maybe not in the kernel directly (it ought to be defined there, though, in my opinion) but perhaps in the X server or somewhere. Standard interfaces are just as important as source code and sometimes the need for a standard binary interface exceeds the need for source code. I'm all with you in the desire to have everything source based but even with that, a sophisticated binary interface for video drivers makes sense and is necessary. This is also true for other hardware drivers--audio comes to mind: why does my audigy stutter when I switch to another task on linux? It is butter on Windows so its not the hardware's fault. Its the binary interface and its integration into the kernel that makes the difference. There is no reason why Linux can't offer the same sort of services and experience the same sort of results. Its not a magic Microsoft thing -- hardware support on Linux isn't up to snuff mainly because Linux has yet to fully develop that infrastructure.
Best of all, if Linux creates a model that can become a standard, Microsoft will finally get some competition in the driver model arena. That's how it locks-up and locks-in hardware manufacturers in the first place -- they have the infrastructure and they provide the specs. So having the source code alone won't help relieve us of Microsoft in this case. This is a case where binary interfaces are more important than vendor source code -- specifically because a standard mechanism needs to exist to allow many vendors to participate without becoming dependant on any one vendor's model. The key thing to remember is that we don't need source code to verify that a driver is correct and/or bug free as long as we have a standard interface we can test it against.
"I wonder when Linux users will stop buying hardware that doesn't have published interfaces. "
Can you suggest an affordable, modern, consumer grade performance video card that meets this criteria? No you can't because there aren't any and you know it.
Those are good points. Of course, this could be mitigated if Linux had a first class binary-level driver model (especially for graphics adapters). Even though that still means that open source developers couldn't fix/enhance the drivers, at least they would be able to be independantly verified (and certified) to conform to the interfaces. Microsoft tackled that problem with Windows long ago and it has paid off for them. Even now MS continues to improve its binary driver module. Of course having source code is always preferable but not having the source shouldn't affect interoperation or usability. Indeed, even if sources were always available it would still be a good idea to have standardized driver model (something akin to SNAP, perhaps).
I don't know why I bother to keep on replying, but...
> In contrast, the GPL grants full access to source, so long as all changes are released in turn. That's a noble cause, but it is imposing restrictions that the BSD license does not.
It is not noble--it is practical and it is the basis of the share-and-share-alike principle. Moreso than a restriction, it is a stipulation. That is, while it acts as a restriction, it is imposed as a means to ensure the share-alike-philosophy (and it is assumed that that is all required to ensure such). The problem with calling it "less free" as some are doing is that it all depends on how you measure freedom. If you look at the collective (and include future participants) I claim that the GPL is more free since it ensures that all versions are accessible and not just those that some are willing to share. To me, it seems that the only gaurantee that the BSD license ensures is that those who wish to release closed-source versions of the source can--how that benefits the community is beyond me. I don't want to argue (again) with the BSDers on this point--you folks are entitled to your choices. My original post was predicated on the fact that the OpenCVS page insinuated something about the GPL that was contrary to fact (that it was not FREE).
> It has a restriction. That restriction may serve a good purpose, but it is a restriction nonetheless and hence less free. If it is free enough or actually better or whatever is a matter of opinion. Calling it non free is a bit too much imho, but calling it not free enough, well, I tend to agree there, but I accept that others don't.
Sometimes I wonder at the unsophistication of ideas that exist when it comes to freedom. After all, many minds have wrestled with this over the centuries. Kant seemed to sum it up best but even he came short of a full and final explanation. The short version is that we should all be free enough to do as we will so long as it does not impede the freedom of others to do the same. That's the rub, of course, and it is the very thing that the GPL tries to address. Kant tried to rationalize that need by suggesting that there are essential ethical considerations that were apriori true. Considering the disgareement over these apriori truths, he was seemingly wrong, but he was hitting a nerve since it turns out that every colelctive of individuals tend towards shared value systems (whether political, economic, religious, etc). The issue is defining these value systems but they are there. Sartre furthered the discussion by showing that with freedom is the requisite of responsibility, that the two are part of a single continuum. So we can't avoid the eticial issues if we truly want freedom. I Challenge anyone to name any collective endeaver where this is not true. Free Market System? Hardly--it is one of the most regulated environs around. Free Social system? Har har. Free anything? Its a delusion to think you can have people do what they will without restrictions of any sort. That isn't anarchy (which, as a self-organizing behaviour *must* have internal rules and thus restrictions) but rather despotism.
> How difficult is it for you to do what you said and accept someoen elses choice, even more when that someone is also prepared to do the work for it?
Not at all--I have no intention of ever trying to STOP anyone from doing what they will, but is it too much to allow me to express my opinion on the matter? Is that not a freedom that I am entitled to have?
> I know it is a lto to ask, but would you at least bother to actually read the opencvs homepagge? you may find there is more to it then a licensing issue.
If it wasn't just a license thing, then why not just patch CVS? Why not fork CVS and use the same license? Why not contribute to a project that offers superior services to CVS (say DARCS or the like)? No, it is foremost a licensing issue and you are being disengenious saying otherwise. You may call me impolite if you wish, but I am no more impolite as the insinuation that GPL'd CVS is somehow not FREE.
So "we" should go around saying things like it does on the OpenCVS homepage -- "OpenCVS is a FREE implementation of the Concurrent Versions System". Excuse me, but CVS is already a FREE implementation of the Concurrent Versions System. Are people really that afraid of a superior license? Ok, no flames, I know a lot of folks prefer the BSD license and I respect that but does the desire to support the proprietary software industry really mean that all GPL'd code needs to be ported? That's silly. Cycles are being wasted just so that some jack-ass can come along and close your work up again. BSDers may see that as some kind of freedom but pretty much everyone else sees that as inane.
Slashdot Mirror
"Analogy time! Knives:HTTP/FTP/etc::Guns:P2P. There's plenty of non-infringing (non-murdering) uses for both, but the latter group certainly makes it easier."
So what? In the US, guns are still legal even though don't seem to have ANY legitimate use. The irony is that we are more likely to see P2P banned before guns are. After all, when the NRA comes to protest in numbers on your doorstep, you take notice. When a bunch of iPod toting teens show up, you probably think, "meh".
"There was a guild of canon balls;
Their motto was 'don't tread on me'."
"Will ATI go on to make a LeafGL card that's green?"
Since they are based in Toronto, if they made a LeafGL card, it would be blue.
"Brittanica? You sirs have been trolled."
This is probably the best comment on this topic. Not only are *all* encyclopedias just simple gloss-overs of real research but Brittanica is aimed at the early teen market.
The wikipedia oughtn't worry about how traditional encyclopedia's view them. It won't matter in the end -- the wikipedia is free, accessible, pervasive and mainly supported by the people. Those are winning factors everytime.
"The entertainment industry brings in far more capital than a powerstation does."
Are you on drugs? First, comparing the entire entertainment industry to a single powerstation is ingenuine. Secondly, the power industry dwarfs the entertainment industry. Your entire argument is misleading and faulty.
Actually, he was completely justified in saying "no". The parent asked "if anyone" and he replied, using his own personal account to do so. In other words, an opinion was asked and he gave one. No need to specify that it was his opinion -- it is assumed to be his opinion because that is what was asked for and moreso, that's all anyone can ever give -- even expert witnesses only give opinion. It is somewhat foolish to think anyone who doesn't use the "I" vernacular is talking for anyone but themself.
Besides, his response was pretty funny if you read it the right way. It is just very dry, but that's a feature of deadpan, yes?
"Anyone else think this article sounded a bit more superhero than it turned out to be?"
Well, these are the X men, you know.
You, sir, are a magnificent bastard and a glorious ass.
It only sounds resentful if you are looking for resentment. It is a simple matter of fact -- he could not afford it as he and his project are not funded.
Another fact: his lack of funding is contrasted by the fact that others, who are only now investingating issues he has already implemented are well funded.
It is what it is -- factual. So keep your "you got what you asked for" attitude to yourself, thank-you very much.
okay, this is gonna cost me mod status for a real dumb thing but, hell, its Star Trek and star wars!!!.
.sig actually points to a real Star Trek episode, "The Galileo Seven", Stardate 2822.3, Episode 14 in which we get plenty of Mr. Spock/Yoda-like platitudes.
Further compounding the troll, the
Enjoy:
---
Spock: I realize that command does have its fascination, even under circumstances such as these, but I neither enjoy the idea of command nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists, and I will do whatever logically needs to be done.
---
McCoy: Life and death are seldom logical.
Spock: But attaining a desired goal always is.
---
Spock: I'm frequently appalled by the low regard you Earthmen have for life.
---
Spock: There are always alternatives.
---
Spock: It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six.
---
Spock: No! Leave me!
---
Spock: By coming back and helping me, you may have destroyed your chances of rescue. The logical thing to do was to leave me.
McCoy: Spock, I'm sick to death of your logic.
---
Spock: Totally illogical, there was no chance.
Scotty: You said there were always alternatives.
Spock: I did? I may have been mistaken.
McCoy: Well at least I lived long enough to hear that.
A good story about an interesting individual but where was the "how he does it" part?
m
A quick search reveals:
http://www.optimnem.co.uk/Media.htm
http://www.centreforthemind.com/director/index.cf
I don't know what to think about it, really.
Maybe so, but Free Pascal still runs on every platform that Delphi does plus many, many that Delphi doesn't even dream of.
I understand your displeasure but, really who cares other than you? So it wasn't a seemless re-compile but non of your options would be. It gets you probably 80% there and its free and it is cross platform.
So, wouldn't it have been easier to port to Free Pascal and impement their versions of overloading isntead of rewriting your application in a completely different language (particularly C++)? If you ported to C++ so that you could target a platform that Free Pascal doesn't support, then surely Delphi wouldn't have been much use to you either (which begs the question as to why you used Delphi to begin with).
I didn't claim that it was a Delphi replacement, but it *IS* a nice, free environment for people who want to use Pascal and a Delphi-like environment.
Google is a public company. Therefore it is RESTRICTED to acting in its own best-interest. At times, it may appear that those interests coincide with the best-interests of society. Appearances can be decieving and even in cases where it is true, it can i) change on a whim, ii) is not based on public set policy.
There is NEVER any reason to applaud a corporation though we must always be viligant to put the smack down on them. Don't worry -- they are merely legal entities -- they don't have feelings.
http://www.freepascal.org/
"The language syntax is semantically compatible with TP 7.0 as well as most versions of Delphi (classes, rtti, exceptions, ansistrings, widestrings, interfaces). Furthermore Free Pascal supports function overloading, operator overloading, global properties and other such features."
There is an associated project that aims to duplicate the VCL called FCL:
http://www.freepascal.org/fcl/fcl.html
Finally, there is the related Delphi-like IDE to go with it:
http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/
It's actually quite good.
"Open Sasaparilla?"
I think I see what you are getting at and I don't disgree. But I wonder if I am talking about something at a different level of abstraction. For example, what is the standard module interface that defines the number of monitors attatched and how to interact with them? What is the standard interface that defines video hardware capabilities? Right now its a hodge podge spread out over different services in non-standard ways. Sure, I can define certain capabilities in my X config -- but here too we currently see vendor specific settings for capabilities. Further, what if I don't want to use X, what then? Without standard interfaces we see the same problem solved in different ways time and again. Worse, they are solved using vendor specific implementations. That's not cool.
The point you make about panasonic is what I am getting at: the open source component defines a binary interface which the closed component communicates with. Why not define the open source part ourselves and let the vendors do the other part? After all, we don't want each vendor to have a different proprietary interface to implement the same capabilities, do we?
AFAIK (and I admit the depth of my knowledge on these matters is already showing) the kernel module interfaces are fairly high-level abstract in that they deal with the problem of connecting code to the kernel in a general way. I'm suggesting we need some specific device level abstractions as well, that's all.
That said, I realize that this isn't a magic brush that will somehow fix all the woes we face; as you say, vendors will have to support the interfaces for this to work. Failing that, it is obviously much to our common goal to rather have the source code in those cases so that we can fix their drivers for them. As far as SCSI, isn't todays support an outcome of the fact that the kernel developers eventually adopted a uniform interface to deal with SCSI devives that vendors could code against?
"Why would we want a first class binary-level driver model? So that we can have:
compatibility problems
very difficult API maintainence problems
closed source drivers introducing OS bugs
etc..."
That's precisely why it is needed. We already have compatiblity problems just because each vendor has to reinvent the wheel everytime around. The bugs issue is also a non-starter since with a standard interface you have something with which you can verify the operation of a driver. Even if vendors released source code, without a standard interface it becomes incumbent on the community to rewrite the driver to conformance so that's not really a win situation.
NVidia may have leading support at this time (it was not always that way, recall) but they still aren't releasing their sources. You're just talking about reliance on a particular vendor because their drivers seem to work -- for now. So I don't really see the merit in your objection.
" If there aren't open source drivers that support hardware then we will never be independent of microsoft."
How do you mean? If there are open specifications for driver iterfaces won't that accomplish the same goal? Think of it from the manufacturer's point of view. They already have to conform their drivers to Microsoft's interfaces. You don't just knock off drivers over night, either -- its a big job that is easy to get wrong. So they spend their time making sure that things work on Windows because that's what, 90% of their market? 80%? Its an important chunk of their revenue stream. But the beauty is this: as long as their driver is compatible with the interface, they get a lot of leverage -- they are gauranteed to work in at least the current platform release of windows (and sometimes several generations), their driver is loaded into the kernel (or at least protected space), they can expose controls via automatic hooks directly into existing UI features, and they can get their driver certified. All of which they can do without releasing source code (since they don't want to). That is a high level of operability, integration, compatability all while offering exceptional *trusted* low-level access to hardware. Finally, the consumer only needs to know that the hardware has been certified. Once they see that, they can be confident that they will be able to use that card on their platform with little or no fuss and that their platform will unlock all of the features of the hardware. There is no such equivalent in Linux.
But why can't that be done in Linux? Maybe not in the kernel directly (it ought to be defined there, though, in my opinion) but perhaps in the X server or somewhere. Standard interfaces are just as important as source code and sometimes the need for a standard binary interface exceeds the need for source code. I'm all with you in the desire to have everything source based but even with that, a sophisticated binary interface for video drivers makes sense and is necessary. This is also true for other hardware drivers--audio comes to mind: why does my audigy stutter when I switch to another task on linux? It is butter on Windows so its not the hardware's fault. Its the binary interface and its integration into the kernel that makes the difference. There is no reason why Linux can't offer the same sort of services and experience the same sort of results. Its not a magic Microsoft thing -- hardware support on Linux isn't up to snuff mainly because Linux has yet to fully develop that infrastructure.
Best of all, if Linux creates a model that can become a standard, Microsoft will finally get some competition in the driver model arena. That's how it locks-up and locks-in hardware manufacturers in the first place -- they have the infrastructure and they provide the specs. So having the source code alone won't help relieve us of Microsoft in this case. This is a case where binary interfaces are more important than vendor source code -- specifically because a standard mechanism needs to exist to allow many vendors to participate without becoming dependant on any one vendor's model. The key thing to remember is that we don't need source code to verify that a driver is correct and/or bug free as long as we have a standard interface we can test it against.
"I wonder when Linux users will stop buying hardware that doesn't have published interfaces.
"
Can you suggest an affordable, modern, consumer grade performance video card that meets this criteria? No you can't because there aren't any and you know it.
Those are good points. Of course, this could be mitigated if Linux had a first class binary-level driver model (especially for graphics adapters). Even though that still means that open source developers couldn't fix/enhance the drivers, at least they would be able to be independantly verified (and certified) to conform to the interfaces. Microsoft tackled that problem with Windows long ago and it has paid off for them. Even now MS continues to improve its binary driver module. Of course having source code is always preferable but not having the source shouldn't affect interoperation or usability. Indeed, even if sources were always available it would still be a good idea to have standardized driver model (something akin to SNAP, perhaps).
YAML.org does about the same thing, though its goals are slightly different. XML is still a good idea -- in theory, Marge.
This is a troll? Yet the parent isn't? Bad moderator - no doughnut.
I don't know why I bother to keep on replying, but...
> In contrast, the GPL grants full access to source, so long as all changes are released in turn. That's a noble cause, but it is imposing restrictions that the BSD license does not.
It is not noble--it is practical and it is the basis of the share-and-share-alike principle. Moreso than a restriction, it is a stipulation. That is, while it acts as a restriction, it is imposed as a means to ensure the share-alike-philosophy (and it is assumed that that is all required to ensure such). The problem with calling it "less free" as some are doing is that it all depends on how you measure freedom. If you look at the collective (and include future participants) I claim that the GPL is more free since it ensures that all versions are accessible and not just those that some are willing to share. To me, it seems that the only gaurantee that the BSD license ensures is that those who wish to release closed-source versions of the source can--how that benefits the community is beyond me. I don't want to argue (again) with the BSDers on this point--you folks are entitled to your choices. My original post was predicated on the fact that the OpenCVS page insinuated something about the GPL that was contrary to fact (that it was not FREE).
Greetings and best of luck.
> if you're not part of the "we" then tbh. you have no point talking at all.
I love that version of freedom you are promoting! Anyone is invited as long as they stfu!
Sorry guy, but when an article appears on slashdot I have every right to comment. You don't own the stories, you know.
> It has a restriction. That restriction may serve a good purpose, but it is a restriction nonetheless and hence less free. If it is free enough or actually better or whatever is a matter of opinion. Calling it non free is a bit too much imho, but calling it not free enough, well, I tend to agree there, but I accept that others don't.
Sometimes I wonder at the unsophistication of ideas that exist when it comes to freedom. After all, many minds have wrestled with this over the centuries. Kant seemed to sum it up best but even he came short of a full and final explanation. The short version is that we should all be free enough to do as we will so long as it does not impede the freedom of others to do the same. That's the rub, of course, and it is the very thing that the GPL tries to address. Kant tried to rationalize that need by suggesting that there are essential ethical considerations that were apriori true. Considering the disgareement over these apriori truths, he was seemingly wrong, but he was hitting a nerve since it turns out that every colelctive of individuals tend towards shared value systems (whether political, economic, religious, etc). The issue is defining these value systems but they are there. Sartre furthered the discussion by showing that with freedom is the requisite of responsibility, that the two are part of a single continuum. So we can't avoid the eticial issues if we truly want freedom. I Challenge anyone to name any collective endeaver where this is not true. Free Market System? Hardly--it is one of the most regulated environs around. Free Social system? Har har. Free anything? Its a delusion to think you can have people do what they will without restrictions of any sort. That isn't anarchy (which, as a self-organizing behaviour *must* have internal rules and thus restrictions) but rather despotism.
> How difficult is it for you to do what you said and accept someoen elses choice, even more when that someone is also prepared to do the work for
it?
Not at all--I have no intention of ever trying to STOP anyone from doing what they will, but is it too much to allow me to express my opinion on the matter? Is that not a freedom that I am entitled to have?
> I know it is a lto to ask, but would you at least bother to actually read the opencvs homepagge? you may find there is more to it then a licensing issue.
If it wasn't just a license thing, then why not just patch CVS? Why not fork CVS and use the same license? Why not contribute to a project that offers superior services to CVS (say DARCS or the like)? No, it is foremost a licensing issue and you are being disengenious saying otherwise. You may call me impolite if you wish, but I am no more impolite as the insinuation that GPL'd CVS is somehow not FREE.
So "we" should go around saying things like it does on the OpenCVS homepage -- "OpenCVS is a FREE implementation of the Concurrent Versions System". Excuse me, but CVS is already a FREE implementation of the Concurrent Versions System. Are people really that afraid of a superior license? Ok, no flames, I know a lot of folks prefer the BSD license and I respect that but does the desire to support the proprietary software industry really mean that all GPL'd code needs to be ported? That's silly. Cycles are being wasted just so that some jack-ass can come along and close your work up again. BSDers may see that as some kind of freedom but pretty much everyone else sees that as inane.
I know I'll never see the point of it.