The point is being made on your original comment... and my first reply referencing the LGPL was perhaps worded sloppily. Your comment:
BSD uses huge amounts of GPL-licensed software, so there's no substantial difference. In fact, BSD will be using GPLv3-licensed software, unless they intend on taking over their own fork of GCC (a monumental task which would substantially harm their ability to support BSD itself)..
I took it you were implying that the compiled code they produce with the GCC would be have to be compliant with GPLv3 because GCC is GPLv3. Perhaps I misread you. I was trying to say since the compiled code is linked to LGPL'd implementations of the C and C++ libraries (using GCC) this isn't necessarily so. And yes BSD and many others use the GCC (and variants), even some programming stuff for Windows (say in a Cygwin environment) but they are not always producing GPLv3 licensed software. Unless the license on those standard libraries changes, I don't see how this would affect BSD anyway.:)
This is sophomoric reasoning at best. With the GPL, code contributed by a commercial company can be taken and sold by anyone anyways. It doesn't matter whether the end result leads to contributed code being used by someone else and the source closed or left open; the code can still be used by someone else, including their competitors, reducing potential profits by the commercial company. So this argument is moot. It holds no water. Companies will work and contribute to open source and GPL open source projects as long as there is incentive to do so. And I am just pointing out that I don't think GPL open source is a necessary requirement to support open source.
Other have pointed out that with respect to Apple, they have indeed contributed back to BSD. So I will assume that you are misinformed on that front.
By the way, I own several boxes, none of which run BSD or Apple. Licensed Windows XP Pro and Kubuntu Linux, thank you very much. I would like to see Linux flourish. I am just concerned that outdated ideology may threaten that.
I believe GCC is under the LGPL so your point about it is moot. (In Slashdot tradition, please slag the living crap out of me if you think I am wrong.) Unless Stallman moves to change the nature of the LGPL which is entirely possible.
I guess no one if they wanted to could write a Samba-like app for BSD? And please refrain from the juvenile "well if you think it is so easy, you do it" kind of crap. The point is, if someone wants to, they can. Complacency and pride has killed more than one software project/product. Ask Novell and maybe Corel about that.
Really, the only reason Linux/GNU software is where it is at today is because of commercial software and hardware companies. You can wear rose coloured glasses and talk 'lovey-dovey' about the hoards of volunteers, but Linus himself would have to work on predominantly 'commercial' software projects if his employer didn't think it was in their interest to have him work on kernel projects. The much vaunted open source alternative to MS Office is financed mostly by Sun and other companies. Even Ubuntu, everyone's darling of Linux distros right now would be nothing if commercial money weren't behind it to help in its financing. Shuttleworth wouldn't be able to keep the thing financed for a long time if he didn't form a company to provide commercial support options to it. Ubuntu wouldn't have the look and direction without him. And we have all seen how well he fits in with Stallman's thinking vis a vie mp3 support etc. and all the other GPL purists out there.
As much as the idealogues don't want to admit, people need to put food on the table and to pay the rent. Much (not all) of the most useful contributions to Linux/Gnu wouldn't be possible without commercial companies paying people to create the code for it. E.g. Sun, IBM, Redhat, Novell, and scores of others. Look at all the promising software projects that have died out because the original and most inspired stakeholders/developers have eventually realized that they have to spend their time elsewhere to have a family life as well as to make a living. The database tool Tora is a good example (the latest release is a year and a half old). If you can't program for your Linux/Gnu project during working hours you have to do it during 'non-working hours'... and you can't have a life outside that since it is time consuming. Most people want a 'life' and a family. The Linux/Gnu project is then tossed aside (maybe not happily, but it is still tossed)... Except if you are paid to do it during the daytime by the 'evil' commercial companies. Yes, the projects are open source. But the only ones that don't eventually die are the ones that companies help pay people to continue.
Stallman has hinted that there are more changes to GPL coming. Times have changed, and people playing with this license should be careful not to bite the hand that feeds GNU/Linux. Apple has shown that it is very possible to make some very good things from BSD.
However it raises more questions. Like if younger people are buying more old Pink Floyd albums (errr... CDs), why is HMV charging $10 dollars more than newer CDs? After 30 years on the market you would think that 'Dark Side of the Moon' or the 'Led Zepplin' CDs had made their money and maybe could be reduced to the price of say, a CD produced in 2007?
And for those who don't know, HMV is the Canadian equivalent of, for example, the chain of Virgin record stores. In fact, HMV recently took over the Virgin location on the corner of Burrard and Robson in downtown Vancouver.
Bah!! There is enough info and history about Sony doing this. If someone has their computer (or whatever) screw up because they bought some root-kit-ish containing Sony product, then they deserve what they get. A lawsuit is not needed. Just stop buying their crap.
According to this link found in the article from the grandparent's link about the freight tunnels, and to your Wikipedia link, the tunnels are actually one and the same.
North America (U.S.A. and Canada anyway). For some reason the half hour TV "info-mercial" producers here seem to think that people hawking cheap kitchen "aids" and vacuum storage systems (for example) are more appealing and will sell more if they have either a Cockney or Australian accent.
If they say they don't believe in evolution... in my books they already look bad. But not being American I don't count. And this makes sense in a way as most Americans don't believe in evolution. This is another of those things that help explain to the world how the U.S. could elect George Bush. This is not meant as a 'dig' or troll. Where most of the people in other developed countries believe in evolution, and believe correctly that most of the people in other developed countries believe in evolution, it doesn't hold true with America and Americans (glad to see that Americans hang in there solidly with the Turkish educational system when it comes to biology... now that is a 'dig'). And the rest of the world doesn't understand that, since their only view of America is through (mostly) Los Angeles and New York based media outlets.
You mean to teach people with such crippled intellect and no social or emotional control that they would take from or harm people for their own fun... well to teach them that there is no consequence to their actions? Good idea, that'll stop them.
Please, pull your head out of your ass. The lack of oxygen is causing brain damage. You are confusing a nice ideas with the reality of human nature. There will always be asshats who don't and won't care about others, will take from others or harm others to satisfy their own pleasures, and only avoid these avenues when they cause discomfort for themselves. So good idea, let's remove consequences for bad behaviour.
I just had a thought about this. Sometimes maintainers stop maintaining. Then what does the company do. They don't want to maintain some third party software. That is why they got third party software... because they didn't want to write it themselves. So the idea that open source is beneficial because you can modify it yourself if you want is moot.
Some companies just want to work on their core competencies and that is that. If they make business software that runs on an enterprise Java server that is what they want to do. They don't want to be experts at programming and maintaining enterprise Java servers. A for profit company is more likely to stay in business over the long term as the maintainers have a motive to keep it going... money (even if they get bought out by another company the product if worth paying for will survive).
A good example of a really good product languishing is Tora (the open source toadish oracle client). The original programmer and maintainer went to work for Quest. Tora is still there, but it languished for a while and still isn't commercial grade like Toad is. So companies just go and buy Toad. (Toad is a brand name now... Quest retired the original meaning of toolkit for oracle btw). That might be one good reason other than the tired "management can't blame anyone" argument. There has to be more to it than that. After all, I do believe that there are a lot of good open source tools out there. The guarantee that they will stay out there a long time... and stay 'good' out there a long time is less certain.
Please don't hand pick applications as counter arguments. It is late and I am tired and speaking in general terms. We know there are some projects that are out there that meet the out there for a long time and good requirement. Like OO, and MySQL, and JBoss. These are backed by companies that sell support for them and have the for profit motivation to keep doing so. Not everything in open source software can survive by the 'sell support' option. I don't think even MS makes much money selling support for their 'Office' software.
As unpopular as it might be around here... just trying to play devils advocate and figure out what other possible problems PHBs have with open source. Half of the solution is figuring out the problem.
Nice try dope. Next time try using that mushy grey stuff in your head for more than stopping your skull from imploding. Saying I was no fan of Redhat support implies that I had tried it. Having tried it implies that I paid for it because they don't give it for free.
Or maybe people should go back to the root of the word and spell it 'cheque' (like everywhere else outside of the U.S.A.) instead of spelling foe-net-ti-clee.:)
They said security updates for one year... not support. I know some people like Redhat support... but I was no fan of it. Mind you, aside from installation support, Microsoft doesn't really do anything for their customers. Except let me see... FREE security updates for their products. hmmmm... yes I think Ubuntu does that too... free security updates. Ah well... nice try Redhat.
or downloads... I am downloading Silent Hunter IV from ubisoft. 3.8 Gig. It has taken about 5 hours so far on my DSL connection in St. Louis and has about 2.5 hours to go. Were I still living in Vancouver, this would have been finished at least 3 hours ago. Probably more. This is ridiculous. My ISP goes through ATT.
being a CIO in government does not mean you are king of all you survey, it's about consensus building,
Bullshit. Being a 'chief' anywhere means you are where the buck stops. Managing by consensus is not managing. It is herding cats, and that can't be done. Someone needs to make a final decision and that is why you hire a chief. You can take all the advice around you, but someone ultimately has to make the decision. If they didn't want that, they wouldn't hire a chief.
I'd be interested if they said artificial cartilage. I had arthroscopic surgery on my right elbow 10 years ago... I'd like them to have been able to replace the cartilage they removed. Might not hurt as much now.
Same thing as twinning the Port Mann and upgrading the road system for all the trucks going to the container ports within the GVRD and leaving only two lane blacktop from Alberta to the lower mainland that those same trucks have to negotiate through the Rocky Mountains. Following and or dodging trucks on two lane blacktop is not often fun... and then winter comes. The B.C. government doesn't do much for anything outside the lower mainland. It's OK to twin roads to ski resorts but... So the fact that they don't 'get' the fact that having to drive from 100 Mile House say to Kamloops to recycle your PC is ridiculous doesn't surprise me.
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You will make a fine lawyer. Three cheers for the legal system. A wake will be held on Tuesday for the Justice System.
The point is being made on your original comment... and my first reply referencing the LGPL was perhaps worded sloppily. Your comment:
I took it you were implying that the compiled code they produce with the GCC would be have to be compliant with GPLv3 because GCC is GPLv3. Perhaps I misread you. I was trying to say since the compiled code is linked to LGPL'd implementations of the C and C++ libraries (using GCC) this isn't necessarily so. And yes BSD and many others use the GCC (and variants), even some programming stuff for Windows (say in a Cygwin environment) but they are not always producing GPLv3 licensed software. Unless the license on those standard libraries changes, I don't see how this would affect BSD anyway. :)
So what do you link to? The compiler or the libraries?
This is sophomoric reasoning at best. With the GPL, code contributed by a commercial company can be taken and sold by anyone anyways. It doesn't matter whether the end result leads to contributed code being used by someone else and the source closed or left open; the code can still be used by someone else, including their competitors, reducing potential profits by the commercial company. So this argument is moot. It holds no water. Companies will work and contribute to open source and GPL open source projects as long as there is incentive to do so. And I am just pointing out that I don't think GPL open source is a necessary requirement to support open source.
Other have pointed out that with respect to Apple, they have indeed contributed back to BSD. So I will assume that you are misinformed on that front.
By the way, I own several boxes, none of which run BSD or Apple. Licensed Windows XP Pro and Kubuntu Linux, thank you very much. I would like to see Linux flourish. I am just concerned that outdated ideology may threaten that.
I think no. More companies can be formed like yours. Therefore even though there are fewer employees, there are more companies...
I believe GCC is under the LGPL so your point about it is moot. (In Slashdot tradition, please slag the living crap out of me if you think I am wrong.) Unless Stallman moves to change the nature of the LGPL which is entirely possible.
I guess no one if they wanted to could write a Samba-like app for BSD? And please refrain from the juvenile "well if you think it is so easy, you do it" kind of crap. The point is, if someone wants to, they can. Complacency and pride has killed more than one software project/product. Ask Novell and maybe Corel about that.
Really, the only reason Linux/GNU software is where it is at today is because of commercial software and hardware companies. You can wear rose coloured glasses and talk 'lovey-dovey' about the hoards of volunteers, but Linus himself would have to work on predominantly 'commercial' software projects if his employer didn't think it was in their interest to have him work on kernel projects. The much vaunted open source alternative to MS Office is financed mostly by Sun and other companies. Even Ubuntu, everyone's darling of Linux distros right now would be nothing if commercial money weren't behind it to help in its financing. Shuttleworth wouldn't be able to keep the thing financed for a long time if he didn't form a company to provide commercial support options to it. Ubuntu wouldn't have the look and direction without him. And we have all seen how well he fits in with Stallman's thinking vis a vie mp3 support etc. and all the other GPL purists out there.
As much as the idealogues don't want to admit, people need to put food on the table and to pay the rent. Much (not all) of the most useful contributions to Linux/Gnu wouldn't be possible without commercial companies paying people to create the code for it. E.g. Sun, IBM, Redhat, Novell, and scores of others. Look at all the promising software projects that have died out because the original and most inspired stakeholders/developers have eventually realized that they have to spend their time elsewhere to have a family life as well as to make a living. The database tool Tora is a good example (the latest release is a year and a half old). If you can't program for your Linux/Gnu project during working hours you have to do it during 'non-working hours'... and you can't have a life outside that since it is time consuming. Most people want a 'life' and a family. The Linux/Gnu project is then tossed aside (maybe not happily, but it is still tossed)... Except if you are paid to do it during the daytime by the 'evil' commercial companies. Yes, the projects are open source. But the only ones that don't eventually die are the ones that companies help pay people to continue.
Stallman has hinted that there are more changes to GPL coming. Times have changed, and people playing with this license should be careful not to bite the hand that feeds GNU/Linux. Apple has shown that it is very possible to make some very good things from BSD.
I wonder how much of the money now is going to the bands. Or whether the record companies are using this as a complete cash cow.
This article from the Globe and Mail provides some more interesting insight into why they are doing this.
However it raises more questions. Like if younger people are buying more old Pink Floyd albums (errr... CDs), why is HMV charging $10 dollars more than newer CDs? After 30 years on the market you would think that 'Dark Side of the Moon' or the 'Led Zepplin' CDs had made their money and maybe could be reduced to the price of say, a CD produced in 2007?
And for those who don't know, HMV is the Canadian equivalent of, for example, the chain of Virgin record stores. In fact, HMV recently took over the Virgin location on the corner of Burrard and Robson in downtown Vancouver.
Bah!! There is enough info and history about Sony doing this. If someone has their computer (or whatever) screw up because they bought some root-kit-ish containing Sony product, then they deserve what they get. A lawsuit is not needed. Just stop buying their crap.
Well I can remember a few of my brother's farts nearly knocking me out... but this is ridiculous.
According to this link found in the article from the grandparent's link about the freight tunnels, and to your Wikipedia link, the tunnels are actually one and the same.
I think this needs to be reclassified as the 'brown net'.
Aberdeen didn't want to lower themselves that far.
North America (U.S.A. and Canada anyway). For some reason the half hour TV "info-mercial" producers here seem to think that people hawking cheap kitchen "aids" and vacuum storage systems (for example) are more appealing and will sell more if they have either a Cockney or Australian accent.
If they say they don't believe in evolution... in my books they already look bad. But not being American I don't count. And this makes sense in a way as most Americans don't believe in evolution. This is another of those things that help explain to the world how the U.S. could elect George Bush. This is not meant as a 'dig' or troll. Where most of the people in other developed countries believe in evolution, and believe correctly that most of the people in other developed countries believe in evolution, it doesn't hold true with America and Americans (glad to see that Americans hang in there solidly with the Turkish educational system when it comes to biology... now that is a 'dig'). And the rest of the world doesn't understand that, since their only view of America is through (mostly) Los Angeles and New York based media outlets.
You mean to teach people with such crippled intellect and no social or emotional control that they would take from or harm people for their own fun ... well to teach them that there is no consequence to their actions? Good idea, that'll stop them.
Please, pull your head out of your ass. The lack of oxygen is causing brain damage. You are confusing a nice ideas with the reality of human nature. There will always be asshats who don't and won't care about others, will take from others or harm others to satisfy their own pleasures, and only avoid these avenues when they cause discomfort for themselves. So good idea, let's remove consequences for bad behaviour.
I just had a thought about this. Sometimes maintainers stop maintaining. Then what does the company do. They don't want to maintain some third party software. That is why they got third party software... because they didn't want to write it themselves. So the idea that open source is beneficial because you can modify it yourself if you want is moot.
Some companies just want to work on their core competencies and that is that. If they make business software that runs on an enterprise Java server that is what they want to do. They don't want to be experts at programming and maintaining enterprise Java servers. A for profit company is more likely to stay in business over the long term as the maintainers have a motive to keep it going... money (even if they get bought out by another company the product if worth paying for will survive).
A good example of a really good product languishing is Tora (the open source toadish oracle client). The original programmer and maintainer went to work for Quest. Tora is still there, but it languished for a while and still isn't commercial grade like Toad is. So companies just go and buy Toad. (Toad is a brand name now... Quest retired the original meaning of toolkit for oracle btw). That might be one good reason other than the tired "management can't blame anyone" argument. There has to be more to it than that. After all, I do believe that there are a lot of good open source tools out there. The guarantee that they will stay out there a long time... and stay 'good' out there a long time is less certain.
Please don't hand pick applications as counter arguments. It is late and I am tired and speaking in general terms. We know there are some projects that are out there that meet the out there for a long time and good requirement. Like OO, and MySQL, and JBoss. These are backed by companies that sell support for them and have the for profit motivation to keep doing so. Not everything in open source software can survive by the 'sell support' option. I don't think even MS makes much money selling support for their 'Office' software.
As unpopular as it might be around here... just trying to play devils advocate and figure out what other possible problems PHBs have with open source. Half of the solution is figuring out the problem.
Nice try dope. Next time try using that mushy grey stuff in your head for more than stopping your skull from imploding. Saying I was no fan of Redhat support implies that I had tried it. Having tried it implies that I paid for it because they don't give it for free.
Or maybe people should go back to the root of the word and spell it 'cheque' (like everywhere else outside of the U.S.A.) instead of spelling foe-net-ti-clee. :)
They said security updates for one year... not support. I know some people like Redhat support... but I was no fan of it. Mind you, aside from installation support, Microsoft doesn't really do anything for their customers. Except let me see... FREE security updates for their products. hmmmm... yes I think Ubuntu does that too... free security updates. Ah well... nice try Redhat.
or downloads... I am downloading Silent Hunter IV from ubisoft. 3.8 Gig. It has taken about 5 hours so far on my DSL connection in St. Louis and has about 2.5 hours to go. Were I still living in Vancouver, this would have been finished at least 3 hours ago. Probably more. This is ridiculous. My ISP goes through ATT.
Bullshit. Being a 'chief' anywhere means you are where the buck stops. Managing by consensus is not managing. It is herding cats, and that can't be done. Someone needs to make a final decision and that is why you hire a chief. You can take all the advice around you, but someone ultimately has to make the decision. If they didn't want that, they wouldn't hire a chief.
I'd be interested if they said artificial cartilage. I had arthroscopic surgery on my right elbow 10 years ago... I'd like them to have been able to replace the cartilage they removed. Might not hurt as much now.
Same thing as twinning the Port Mann and upgrading the road system for all the trucks going to the container ports within the GVRD and leaving only two lane blacktop from Alberta to the lower mainland that those same trucks have to negotiate through the Rocky Mountains. Following and or dodging trucks on two lane blacktop is not often fun... and then winter comes. The B.C. government doesn't do much for anything outside the lower mainland. It's OK to twin roads to ski resorts but... So the fact that they don't 'get' the fact that having to drive from 100 Mile House say to Kamloops to recycle your PC is ridiculous doesn't surprise me.