I couldn't possibly agree less. One thing I like especially about linux is freedom of choice. I positively *love* having dozens of browsers available. I like having a gazillion of different toolkits at my command, also as a developer. I like being able to chose from a plethora of window managers.
And even more important: I like being able to chose from a wealth of linux distributions, each one taylored to different needs, so that I can choose the right one for me without having to flame about that stupid thing being designed for n00bs/geeks/servers/games/whatever. Instead I get what I need and ignore the rest. That is what I hate about Window$. It is made to fit the needs of one specific group: The people who just want to Run That Damn Thing (tm). This is the lowest common denominator. If I want to go beyond that in Windows I suddenly find myself doing things of a crypticality-level far greater than anything I ever did to my linux system.
Imagine if Bruce Perens' UserLinux came with nvidia and ati's binary drivers and automatically installed them during the distro installation. Currently no distro that I know of does this, the drivers must be manually installed.
Okay, so what if I don't want them stinkin' nvidia and ati binary drivers? I severely dislike my computer forcing anything on me (except perhaps basics such as glibc or XFree).
One could argue that in most cases you have to do the same thing in Windows, but in Windows all that requires is double clicking an install file. In Linux you have to usually exit X, check dependencies, and all kinds of other cryptic stuff.
The downside to this is when it doesn't work. When I last installed windows on my box, I spent several hours installing seven different versions of the nvidia graphics drivers. No logs, no error messages, the stupid thing just hung in the middle of boot. I had to dig out an installation disk from once upon a time and install an obscure, old (prob'ly buggy) version until it worked. I still don't know what went wrong. With linux I could have resorted to the open-source nvidia-without-3d driver. Doesn't accelerate well, but actually works.
Finally, the one thing that we most need that a standardized distro can provide, is a standardized directory layout. None of this/usr/bin or/bin or/var/usr/bin confusion. If one distro took over by having all the features that desktop Linux needed, which in my view is basically Fedora to unify toolkit look across gtk, gtk2, and qt, but with better hardware detection (ala binary non OSS drivers) and better package management (ala automatically installed apt-get), the standardized directory layout would encourage more Linux ports of games.
I'm curious. What is/var/usr/bin supposed to be? The standardized directory layout has been there for ages, it's just that no one cared to follow it. It's called the FHS (filesystem hierarchy standard). Check it out, it does what you want.
As for one distro having all the features users need, what users? Newbies will have different needs than die-hard geeks have. My first linux distribution was SuSE. As long as I left the system under YaST's control, everything was bliss. Then I developed some courage and tried to update the thing online. Half of the update RPMs failed for some obscure reason (often involving dependencies).
So I switched to Debian, which is generally seen as having better dependancy handling than SuSE, but is less comfortable. Updates with Debian were smooooth. The installation procedure reminded me of FreeBSD, though. Definitely not ready for the desktop. Plus, Debian's stable packages are old. So I tried the move to unstable. Suddenly I was left with a system that was somehow broken in new and interesting ways.
So my next move was to Gentoo. The first time I tried it, the installation proc
Think about the following: (a) the human brain scales without problems to many millions of neurons, (b) it has parallelism unreached by any computer - anytime (c) it exceeds the reliability of unix - my brain hasn't crashed for decades (d) it can be used to build clusters - those are called teams.
Clearly, this could not have been possible without access to the original unix sources. Therefore SCO has intellectual property in everybody's dna and all derivative work.
So let's just hope they don't realize this and claim our immortal souls and our first-born children... Or maybe they could declare us invalid...
Your understanding of the GPL seems to be severely flawed. But then again...
DISCLAIMER: I Am Not A Lawyer, so my understanding of the GPL or any outher legal matter might be even more flawed and my opinions on legal matters as expressed below are not legal advice.
I am going to give you a CD. It has one track on it and the rest is empty, ready for more sessions. But if you add another track to it, you have to give it back to me, and make it available for anybody else I give this CD too. You may not sell the CD to anybody or profit in any way other than the cost of the medium.
With that argument you totally miss the point of the GPL. Your example is about distributing two tracks unrelated on the same medium. IIRC, the GPL expressly allows that. But for the sake of discussion, I'll assume (for the rest of this post) that you made a correct point.
See all those restrictions? See, that's not a gift. You don't own that CD. You can't even use that CD in some of the ways you might want to. You are not FREE. I have granted you the rights to listen to it, but told you what you can and can't do with it.
So what? I can use that CD in any way I want to, as long as I don't distribute it or a modified version of it. Consider a typical shrink-wrap-EULA-CD for a moment. You give me a CD. Accompanying the CD is a contract in fine print that says that I
cannot give this CD to anybody else
cannot add the track I want to add
cannot flange, then phase your track and give it
to my friend who would laugh his ass of
and cannot do a gazillion of other things useful or not
Honestly: Which CD do I like better? Clearly the GPL'd one. And stop to whine. Naturally it's not a gift. Nobody has ever, ever said Linux or gcc or emacs or whatever was a gift! No, really. Go, check the GNU homepage. They don't lie to you, so there's no need to get shitty about all that marvelous software not being a gift. Because it's not. And you knew it. So don't whine about it. Okay?
How is this different from copyright? Because you can give it to more people? Because I say you can change it and you don't have to clear it with me? I am still imposing restrictions on your use. And it may be a very happy hippy thing to prevent people from benefitting from other people's public works, but the fact is that you won't benefit from them anyway.
It's not so. I won't go into detail, because the rest of this thread makes it clear that the GPL is copyright with additional rights for the licensee. So what if you impose restrictions on my use? First, you don't. Use is unrestricted. Then, your restrictions on my redistribution and modifications is utterly okay for me. It's your software. I never said that by downloading it or paying someone to burn it on CD and print a beautiful manual it became mine. You worked for it. You decide how I can redistribute and modify it. If you decide that I can only give other people copies if I first stand on my head and blow my nose, then so be it. If I don't like those restrictions, I will simply not redistribute or modify your software. As for the alleged fact that I won't benefit of my work anyway, how about Linus Torvalds? I lost track somehow when he left Transmeta, but do you think those hired him simply because he was such a cool guy? No thought that Linux could have had to do with it? Okay, they didn't pay him for Linux but it surely opened some doors for him. So, how's that not profiting?
If you can get something for free, or you can pay for something, which do you do? Do you pay $1 to download Kazaa Lite, or get it free from the website? Do you buy Linux on CD, or tie up sunett's ftp? Sure, some people might, but in no case is anybody getting rich off SELLING free software. The GPL's major selling point as a license -- "protecting developers rights to make money off of their hard work" -- is a tot
Upon reading the interview (too tired to read the study), it will become clear, that the alleged invalidity of the GPL concerns mostly the no warranty part and some other minor concerns.
Also, it's worth noting this study was funded by the VSI, a german alliance of closed-source software companys.
DISCLAIMER:
IANAL (yet - I am a law student), so the following is not legal advice -- go ask a lawyer if you want to know for sure.
Germany follows the continental-european tradition of the droit d'auteur (Author's right). This means not the right to draw benefits from a specific work but rather the right of the author to his work. The assignment of copyright - as done in the US and even required by the FSF - is impossible under german legislation.
What is possible is for the owner of the Author's Right to grant Usage Rights to others, meaning he allows others to exercise certain rights over his work.
The GPL seems to me (where it concerns redistribution) to be such a case, where the original author offers to grant an irrevocable, royalty-free Usage Right to anyone who wants to exercise it.
As for the modifications: Modification of a work by the holder of a Usage Right is not allowed according to 39 I UrhG, UNLESS otherwise agreed upon.
So it seems the legal constuction employed is totally different from the one in countries with an anglo-saxon Copyright tradition, but the spirit of the GPL holds true (apart from liability problems. I did not read the study, just the interview).
The bottom line is that SCO's argument about 1 copy allowed -> GPL allows more -> GPL is invalid is bullshit in Germany like in any other part of the world.
Else, if the Author cannot waive his rights (which is correct), how could anyone make copies, even if they only intend to distribute it and hand him all the cash? (which clearly is incorrect)
P.S.: I am from germany, so please excuse my strange English and my awful (esp. legal) vocabulary.
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I couldn't possibly agree less. One thing I like especially about linux is freedom of choice. I positively *love* having dozens of browsers available. I like having a gazillion of different toolkits at my command, also as a developer. I like being able to chose from a plethora of window managers.
And even more important: I like being able to chose from a wealth of linux distributions, each one taylored to different needs, so that I can choose the right one for me without having to flame about that stupid thing being designed for n00bs/geeks/servers/games/whatever. Instead I get what I need and ignore the rest. That is what I hate about Window$. It is made to fit the needs of one specific group: The people who just want to Run That Damn Thing (tm). This is the lowest common denominator. If I want to go beyond that in Windows I suddenly find myself doing things of a crypticality-level far greater than anything I ever did to my linux system.
Okay, so what if I don't want them stinkin' nvidia and ati binary drivers? I severely dislike my computer forcing anything on me (except perhaps basics such as glibc or XFree).
The downside to this is when it doesn't work. When I last installed windows on my box, I spent several hours installing seven different versions of the nvidia graphics drivers. No logs, no error messages, the stupid thing just hung in the middle of boot. I had to dig out an installation disk from once upon a time and install an obscure, old (prob'ly buggy) version until it worked. I still don't know what went wrong. With linux I could have resorted to the open-source nvidia-without-3d driver. Doesn't accelerate well, but actually works.
I'm curious. What is /var/usr/bin supposed to be? The standardized directory layout has been there for ages, it's just that no one cared to follow it. It's called the FHS (filesystem hierarchy standard). Check it out, it does what you want.
As for one distro having all the features users need, what users? Newbies will have different needs than die-hard geeks have. My first linux distribution was SuSE. As long as I left the system under YaST's control, everything was bliss. Then I developed some courage and tried to update the thing online. Half of the update RPMs failed for some obscure reason (often involving dependencies).
So I switched to Debian, which is generally seen as having better dependancy handling than SuSE, but is less comfortable. Updates with Debian were smooooth. The installation procedure reminded me of FreeBSD, though. Definitely not ready for the desktop. Plus, Debian's stable packages are old. So I tried the move to unstable. Suddenly I was left with a system that was somehow broken in new and interesting ways.
So my next move was to Gentoo. The first time I tried it, the installation proc
In fact, they own all of us...
Think about the following: (a) the human brain scales without problems to many millions of neurons, (b) it has parallelism unreached by any computer - anytime (c) it exceeds the reliability of unix - my brain hasn't crashed for decades (d) it can be used to build clusters - those are called teams.
Clearly, this could not have been possible without access to the original unix sources. Therefore SCO has intellectual property in everybody's dna and all derivative work.
So let's just hope they don't realize this and claim our immortal souls and our first-born children... Or maybe they could declare us invalid...
Your understanding of the GPL seems to be severely flawed. But then again...
DISCLAIMER: I Am Not A Lawyer, so my understanding of the GPL or any outher legal matter might be even more flawed and my opinions on legal matters as expressed below are not legal advice.
With that argument you totally miss the point of the GPL. Your example is about distributing two tracks unrelated on the same medium. IIRC, the GPL expressly allows that. But for the sake of discussion, I'll assume (for the rest of this post) that you made a correct point.
So what? I can use that CD in any way I want to, as long as I don't distribute it or a modified version of it. Consider a typical shrink-wrap-EULA-CD for a moment. You give me a CD. Accompanying the CD is a contract in fine print that says that I
Honestly: Which CD do I like better? Clearly the GPL'd one. And stop to whine. Naturally it's not a gift. Nobody has ever, ever said Linux or gcc or emacs or whatever was a gift! No, really. Go, check the GNU homepage. They don't lie to you, so there's no need to get shitty about all that marvelous software not being a gift. Because it's not. And you knew it. So don't whine about it. Okay?
It's not so. I won't go into detail, because the rest of this thread makes it clear that the GPL is copyright with additional rights for the licensee. So what if you impose restrictions on my use? First, you don't. Use is unrestricted. Then, your restrictions on my redistribution and modifications is utterly okay for me. It's your software. I never said that by downloading it or paying someone to burn it on CD and print a beautiful manual it became mine. You worked for it. You decide how I can redistribute and modify it. If you decide that I can only give other people copies if I first stand on my head and blow my nose, then so be it. If I don't like those restrictions, I will simply not redistribute or modify your software. As for the alleged fact that I won't benefit of my work anyway, how about Linus Torvalds? I lost track somehow when he left Transmeta, but do you think those hired him simply because he was such a cool guy? No thought that Linux could have had to do with it? Okay, they didn't pay him for Linux but it surely opened some doors for him. So, how's that not profiting?
Upon reading the interview (too tired to read the study), it will become clear, that the alleged invalidity of the GPL concerns mostly the no warranty part and some other minor concerns.
Also, it's worth noting this study was funded by the VSI, a german alliance of closed-source software companys.
DISCLAIMER: IANAL (yet - I am a law student), so the following is not legal advice -- go ask a lawyer if you want to know for sure.
Germany follows the continental-european tradition of the droit d'auteur (Author's right). This means not the right to draw benefits from a specific work but rather the right of the author to his work. The assignment of copyright - as done in the US and even required by the FSF - is impossible under german legislation.
What is possible is for the owner of the Author's Right to grant Usage Rights to others, meaning he allows others to exercise certain rights over his work.
The GPL seems to me (where it concerns redistribution) to be such a case, where the original author offers to grant an irrevocable, royalty-free Usage Right to anyone who wants to exercise it.
As for the modifications: Modification of a work by the holder of a Usage Right is not allowed according to 39 I UrhG, UNLESS otherwise agreed upon.
So it seems the legal constuction employed is totally different from the one in countries with an anglo-saxon Copyright tradition, but the spirit of the GPL holds true (apart from liability problems. I did not read the study, just the interview).
The bottom line is that SCO's argument about 1 copy allowed -> GPL allows more -> GPL is invalid is bullshit in Germany like in any other part of the world.
Else, if the Author cannot waive his rights (which is correct), how could anyone make copies, even if they only intend to distribute it and hand him all the cash? (which clearly is incorrect)
P.S.: I am from germany, so please excuse my strange English and my awful (esp. legal) vocabulary.