Oh, ditzy me for pointing out that linux is broken all the time. Must be my fault, even though I I never had the same problems with upgrading servers running bsd.
Is it "demanding" too much to ask that the latest linux at least provide the same level of usability as creaky old XP? Or even Win9x? Silly me, I'll try to scale back my expectations to something more reasonable. Maybe an etch-a-sketch?
Am I "lazy" because I wasted a week trying half a dozen different distros, multiple installs, when first OpenSuse, then Fedora, flaked out on updates? Gee, what do you expect - that I should try every single distro before complaining? And why is it wrong to complain that updates seem to break things all the time? Or that a printer that says it supports linux sometimes does, most of the time doesn't depending on which distro and which point in the update cycle I'm at?
Was Linus out of order when he complained about the crappy decisions being taken by OpenSuse, and that they should do the world a favour and just kill themselves?
People need stuff that actually works. You have a problem when "free" is just another word for crappy software that will cost you an arm and a leg in wasted time and strain your credulity.
Or does wanting something that works more often than not make me a ditz?
Just go to the FSF site and read the 4 freedoms graphic - permissive licenses such as MIT and Apache meet the criteria better than the GPL ever did. The GPL imposes restrictions that add requirements to use cases.
For example, you are not free to use the code in any way you want # 1 on the list.
Peak never had a license to the software. So, since they didn't have a license to use it, any use was a violation of copyright.
Also, all but the simplest programs are modified by running them - that's a simple fact that you can't get around. Variables and pointers to variables are modified at runtime. Everyone has the right to do so..
In addition, if the modified program is transformative in nature, it's covered by fair use - see todays' closing arguments in the first portion of Oracle v Google.
Sorry, but you need to re-read the judgment - MAI never had a license to run the software in the first place - they were piggy-backing on their client's license. Apples vs Oranges. So, want to try for a third strike?
"You are trapped in a world populated by malevolent smart devices.
Go [N]orth [S]outh [East] [W]est. [I]nventory. s[P]eak. [R]eboot.
[N]North
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that..."
You want detail, I'll give you detail. OpenSuse 12.1 was a stinking pile of crap that failed both the in-place upgrade and the install from scratch - in both cases, refusing to migrate emails properly - a problem that they did not even acknowledge existed, because they had an automatic migration tool - that didn't work! Multiple attemts at manually migrating failed, including after multiple fresh re-installs. Overall much more sluggish. Additionally, trying to load the debug version of KDE killed the machine - so another reinstall from scratch, another failed mail migration, more bugs... so that was it.
Figured I'd downgrade to 11.0 - oops - no update repos available - discontinued, silly me! Sorry, OpenSuse, time to move on.
Next up - Fedora 16... after getting rid of some of the default junk, it worked fine for a few weeks, then an update caused it to sometimes fail to boot. Further updates caused more instability, and finally, it wouldn't boot at all. Reinstalled from scratch - 4 times - each time with the same results after updating. Buh-bye!
Next - Slackware. Downloaded the ISO, looked for the update repo - it no longer exists. All there is is a page saying that it's being redone and should up up soon - the same page I saw 6 months ago. Slackware is not resting for the pines. Officially dead. Move on.
Next - Debian. Download the first 4 DVDs of Debian Testing, installed. Memory corruption errors in Iceweasel and Icedove. Problems with desktop themes, etc. Not one is easy on the eyes. Bye, y'all!
Next - dig up my emergency KNOPPIX disk (can you tell I'm getting a bit cheesed off here?) My ancient copy boots fine, but no persistent storage, but I can use it to download Fedora 17 beta.
Next - Fedora 17 Beta doesn't finish booting - complains about my USB devices (2 usb hubs in twin 26" LCDs, in addition to the usual usb ports and printer, key, etc). Another case of bug regressions.
Considered Mint - but they haven't yet figured out which of 3 idfferent directions they're going to ultimately go with, so too unstable. Ubuntu? $DIETY no, they already a long history of failed updates and upgrades, and are totally unresponsive to users. Mandriva? At death's door. Again...
Next - Download Windows 8 Preview (getting really desperate at this point to get something that just WORKS!!!). Sucks even worse than I could have believed possible. I mean, I knew it was bad, but not this bad!
Next - back to KNOPPIX, download KNOPPIX 6.7, boots fine. A new type of video corruption that I've never seen before - turns out I'm not the only one. "knoppix no3d" takes care of that, mostly. We may have a "sort of" keeper, except that my linux-compatible printer once again isn't.
So... after 15 years of using linux as my primary, and often exclusive OS, I throw in the towel. It will NEVER be ready for prime time at this rate. Not in 100 years.
Dig up old XP install disk, install XP, split the 2 hard drives into 8 primary partitions, formatted as HPFS. Works like a charm, programs work much faster than I'm used to under linux, and this is before I install the right video drivers. Boot back into knoppix, enable a persistent overlay on/dev/sda1, so I can still boot knoppix from dvd but run it from the persistent image on the hard drive - works fine, saves data such as bookmarks on exit, etc. Only real bugs left are video corruption and lack of 2-screen support. Fix 2-screen support using a one-line xrandr shell script. Still no linux support for my linux-compatible printer. Oh well, it works fine under Windows.
So, for the first time in 15 years, I have a linux system that won't get any updates until a new release of KNOPPIX comes out, and that will also be a boot-from-dvd-only-run-and-save-data-to-hd - and you want to know something? It's better than wasting my time dealing with all the crap when things go bad under linux.
For you, yes. But Photoshop is not the reason for most people.
Almost everyone has their own "Photoshop" - a program that is only available under Windows or a Mac. Witness how many people are still dual-booting. If dual-booting and VMs were rendered impossible, the number of linux installs would plummet.
Maybe we need to plan a "year of the Linux desktop" to get people to migrate...
... to Apple? Because that's what people want - something that works, not something you have to make a hobby of just to keep running between distro-hops.
And then there's the problem of distros breaking on upgrades, and the prevalent WORKS_FOR_ME && WONT_FIX responses towards bugs, the really lousy bug-reporting scheme (I tried it with KDE, my cpu went to 100% and never even loaded the desktop, requiring a reinstall from scratch).
Then there's the lack of social skills among the "self-anointed." Plus their childish insistence on labeling it GNU/linux (do you call it a Firestone/Mustang)? Or M$. Yes, we see what you did there, and no, after the 5,000th time, it's just stupid.
Pointing out the problems invariably gets you labeled as a shill, an astroturfer, or worse.
Pointing out the problems with the GPL - or worse, pointing out that the GPL doesn't even respect the 4 freedoms listed on the home page of the FSF - brings out people who blindly repeat what "everyone who really is a true believer knows."
It's not a religion or a cult, but you could have fooled me.
I know, it feels like tilting at whindmills... or working in the Fox Fact-Free Zone.
Just look at the mess of the "latest and greatest" video card support from 2 weeks ago. Stability problems, locking up, memory corruption, across-the-board lack of functionality... this all points to a serious design flaw in the kernel itself. Every cpu since the 386 has supported 4 "rings", or levels of access and process/memory protection. Why implementers only use two of them, and insist on running graphics drivers in the kernel is a holdover from the past when context switches were more expensive in terms of "wall clock time".
People also forget that one of the reasons that DOS was a $15 billion product was because they bent over to maintain backward compatibility between versions. There was even code to make sure that newer versions of DOS specifically didn't break SimCity.
We hear all the screaming about how "Linux needs games", "Linux needs applications" (and not just clone-wanna-be work-alikes) but nobody's doing the dirty work. Everyone's just playing around with making a "shinier desktop experience." A lot of that has to do with the problems with interacting with gpl-licensed code. Nobody wants the headaches from the zealot hordes.
Actually, it does - see Goolab v Nintendo. You can in fact modify the in-memory image of software - even proprietary closed-source software - without violating the rights granted by law to the copyright holder. Any attempt by an EULA to say otherwise is void and without effect, since it goes beyond the scope of what's permitted under restrictions that copyright holders are granted by copyright law.
Please get your facts straight - the courts also said "no". Goolab v Nintendo. Nintendo paid $15 million because Goolab WAS allowed to modify proprietary code in ram.
Read that license. The same one that makes it an "authorized copy" makes it an "unauthorized copy" as soon as you decide to futz with it.
No it doesn't. At no point do you modify the original binary image stored on disk - and that's the only copy that you have to distribute. The GPL is a distribution license, no an end-use license.
I'm even free to futz with the copy on disk, provided I don't distribute it, but that's another issue entirely.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
So think carefully - if I only distribute unmodified copies of the program in binary form, I am fully in compliance with the restrictions of the gpl. How I run the program is not restricted, and since I am not modifying the program as it resides on the disk drive (the "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression" that are covered by copyright), but only the in-memory image, which I am permitted to do under both copyright law and court precedent.
To the extent that you or anyone else argues that modifying the in-memory copy is "creating a derived work", you are wrong - while it may be "derived" in the common-sense meaning of the term, that is not within the meaning or scope of copyright law, and ultimately it's the law that applies.
Simply put, copyright only applies to the copy on the hard disk since it is stored in a fixed tangible medium of expression. The ram copy might be a "tangible medium of expression", but it is not "fixed", so you are free to mod it at will. Both the courts and the Constitution say so. Any restriction in a license that attempts to say otherwise is void.
The worst part is when they add in automatic re-ordering. You buy some crap, stick it in the fridge, try it a few weeks later, decide you don't like it, and throw it out. 2 days later, you look in the fridge, and the damn fridge has ordered you a refill of the same crap. So you immediately thruw it out.
Now the *smart* fridge lays in a huge order of crap because you obviously can't get enough of it. And since your birthday is coming up, your smartfridge *suggests* to your friends that you'd really like some presents that mesh with your new-found zeal for crap, and a crap-themed party. So you all end up at some restaurant where you're all secretly grossed out eating the crap, but nobody wants to hurt each others feelings and say "this is crap!" and you don't want to hurt theirs either.
After a few weeks w/o eating anything much, because there's only crap left in the fridge, even though you throw it out every day, your smarttoilet notifies your insurer that you're losing weight, and there must be something wrong with you. You get an email saying that your insurance premiums have now doubled, and that you are required to submit daily test results from your smarttoilet to maintain coverage.
In frustration, you flush the crap from the smartfridge down the smarttoilet, which obviously can't handle it - collaborating with the smartfidge, they come to the conclusion that if you're flushing your favourite crap down the toilet, you might be a danger to yourself or others, notifies the police and locks all the doors.
During your psychiatric evaluation, you refuse to eat crap, even though the smartfidge has reported that you LOVE crap. The shrinks label you as being uncooperative and possibly schizo, since you are obviously not the same crap-loving person you were before you "lost it." They recommend you be held indefinitely for your own protection.
The judge agrees. In frustration, you shout out "Would YOU eat this crap???" The judge says, "of course I do, every day." After all, he's seen too many consequences of rage against the machine to know that resistance is futile. He eats the crap the fridge serves every day, because he knows who the real overlords are.
Everything in the home just works, leave it the fuck alone. Why the hell do I need an embedded computer in a coffee pot or a fridge magnet. If the pot holds a hot liquid, it works. Fridge magnet stick to the fridge, done. Those things do their job with zero setup and maintenance. Now I need to setup network+power for all this shit? Integrating disparate systems in an industrial settings is hard enough, I don't want to come home and do work all over again just to have some coffee. Of course you'll need the inevitable antivirus, firewall, and automatic s/w updates for...a coffee pot.
Wow - someone didn't get their morning cup of coffee, hmmm?:-)
Seriously though, I agree 100%. Next thing you know people will want the toilet to wipe their butts and flush itself.
It's an authorized copy. You're allowed to make it as per the license. Once it's in ram, it can be modified as per copyright law, which makes it clear that the copy in ram is not protected from modification since it is not "fixed in a tangible medium of expression", and in fact almost every program WILL be modified by running it - you have variables that have to be modified to do anything, such as set up a system call, write a value, do a loop.
The confusion arises because there are two separate issues - the license to the original, and the use of the in-memory copy. Where the license to the original allows a single copy of it to be loaded into memory, so as long as the original is validly licensed, you can load ONE copy into ram. Licenses that don't place restrictions on the number of copies that can be loaded into ram, such as the gpl, don't even face this restriction.
So, now that you have a legit image in ram, can you modify it? Of course - just running the program w/o any patches will modify the in-memory image of it if it does anything, such as input or output, or a loop, or pretty much anything else but a bunch of NOPs.
So the question is, can you patch the in-memory image with additional functionality, or remove or alter existing functionality - and Goolab v Nintendo says yes, you can.
"But isn't the in-memory image protected from modification by copyright?"
What is copyright? Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship <b>fixed in a tangible medium of expression.</b>
As long as you don't create a new copy of the code "fixed in a tangible medium of expression", you have not violated copyright law. So, as long as you don't save that in-memory image to disk or any other method that results in a copy "fixed in tangible medium of expression", you have not violated the authors' rights under copyright law.
It's really not all that complicated.
In fact, when it comes to programs that do something but don't have any runtime-modified variables, I've only written one program that didn't actually have any local variables that were modified at run-time - and it was just to patch a bios at runtime for one program - 12 bytes of assembler.
It's funny, things like food, shelter, and medical treatment are all more important than code, but nobody is advocating that the people who labour to produce these things shouldn't be properly compensated, or that they should all be free for everyone.
The other thing is that he can't code for s***. Both the current GCC and Emacs were actually forks written by others (EGCS and Xemacs) because they got fed up with Stallman and his crap. To save face, in both cases he had to "bless" both forks as the official versions.
Of course, he's never properly explained why he's not allowed to use a web browser on the Internet either. Or why the GPL violates the 4 freedoms listed on the fsf home page (in a graphic so that it's not indexed).
So explain why linux usage went from 2.5% a decade ago to under 1.5% now, if linux is oh so great?
And why you can't even give it away?
I bought a multi-function printer that said on the box that it was supported by linux. It wasn't - not unless you were running one specific version of one specific distro. The lack of a proper and stable ABI in linux is a serious design flaw, which is why everything breaks all the time, and why energy that could be devoted to improving the desktop instead goes to fixing the latest set of incompatibilties.
The other problem is licensing - it discourages investment that could fix some of these problems. You know - money to pay for the stuff nobody wants to do, like fixing the 136 memory leaks in firefox. Can't do that because they have to stick with a stupid "rapid release" schedule.
You still don't get it - copyright law says you do NOT create a derivative work until the "work" is fixed in some permanent media, such as saved to hard disk or DVD or other permanent storage. Neither the GPL nor any other license can get around what copyright law allows.
What is copyright? Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works.
The key word is FIXED. Saving to ram is not FIXED - it's transient. Patching in ram is not a violation of the copyright act, never was, and since it's part of the original Constitution, unless and until you can amend the Constitution, never will be.
So bring it on - the only "half-assed" here is you refusing to read up even a teeny tiny bit on copyright law and court decisions, and "talking out of your nether regions", to put it politely.
So, to summarize:
1. Ship unmodified binary;
2.
Load binary image into ram;
3. Patch binary image in ram with proprietary code - no "derived work" under copyright law since copyright only covers the actual image on disk - "fixed in a permanent medium" - not a transient copy loaded into ram.
4.
When someone wrongfully complains "you're violating the license", point out that you do not ship modified binaries, nor is the ram image "fixed in a tangible meadium of expression" such as print, hd, or other non-transient storage, as required within the meaning of the copyright act;
5. If they sue, counter-sue and demand demand their copyrights be assigned as part of any settlement;
6. PROFIT!
Now note that since there is no "derivative work" within the meaning of the copyright act, there is no requirement to ship the source for any in-memory patches. Any attempt to impose such a requrement through some modification of the license is outside the scope of the law, the same as you can't make a license to own a slave.
The GPL won't be around by the end of the decade, because it really is "holed below the waterline" and even version 3 fails to address this gaping hole. And with the availability of hypervisors and gobs of cheap ram, it's no big deal to patch binaries on the fly and cache them in memory.
So anyone can take the kernel, or an open-source database, or even closed-source code (as per Goolab v Nintendo, where Nintendo had to pony up $15 million), and patch it in ram. As long as you hold a valid license to the original, the in-ram copy is perfectly legit, and you can patch it as mutch as you want gratis of any requirement to ship the code for the patches.
Instead of a big war, each country could send two young representatives. They fight to the death and the last one standing gets the gold medal.
Instead of sending kids who are full of "vinegar and piss" and don't know any better off to die, why not send the people who are so eager to send others off to die for profit instead?
"It is said that this was due to the ability yadda yadda yadda..."
Riiiighhhttttt.... "it is said" is about as authoritative as "magical religious thinking". None of this has anything to do with the majority of the people being born right-handed, and certainly has nothing to do with swords. Even your [citation needed] statement that it was enacted as law to make travel easier has NOTHING to do with swords. So, totally bogus.
Also, the claim about horse carriage drivers drove on the left so they could "look down to see that you were passing the other driver's wheels" is also bogus - by then it would be too late, even if both wagons were only travelling at 3 mph. Do you need to do this to drive a car? Of course not. It's all obviously post-hoc fantasy rationalizing. Then again, I doubt most slashdotters have ever ridden a horse. If you spend any time looking down, you're doing it wrong, and neither you nor the horse is really going to enjoy the ride.
The only shill here is you - I've been using linux since slackware 3x, and finally decided this month that it's simply not worth wasting any more of my time as a primary OS, not when every update breaks something. So I dug out the old XP disk, and all my problems disappeared. Right now, I use a knoppix disk to surf the net, set to save a persistent overlay image of my data on one drive, because this way no update can hose my data like opensuse did, or render the machine unbootable, like fedora did, or leak memory like crazy, like both fedora and debian did.
All linux distros are ultimately craptops in comparison. And that's sad. 15 years using linux, and in the end it was a waste of time and energy. So when people ask, now I tell them to get a mac, or if its a server, to run freebsd, which doesn't curl up in an ugly ball and die when you have to log in remotely to a machine 500 miles away and upgrade from, for example, version 4.7 to version 7.0 without rebooting more than once, and works with no problems after, so the machine is off-line less than 30 seconds total.
It makes even the latest linux look like a consumer-level toy OS in comparison, and until everyone takes the need for a stable ABI and a proper upgrade process as the absolute minimum, that won't change.
It's not dubious in any shape, matter, or form. NO license can over-ride copyright law and court jurisprudence, just like you can't have a license that states you'll give your firtst-born up as a slave.
The Game Genie decision is 100% applicable. The GPL is holed below the water-line and won't last out the decade.
You should actually READ the GPL - you have a license to distribute with every copy. The GPL can't over-ride that by saying you can't exercise your legal right to modify a copy in RAM - not only that, but it makes absolutely NO mention of it - it specifically limits itself to your rights and obligations wrt distributing MODIFIED versions of the code.
Distributing both the unmodified code (say, for example, the kernel), and patches to modify a copy of it ONLY in memory is allowed because copyright laws do not apply to works NOT in a fixed medium.
Such a "combined work" is free of any copyright considerations until such time as you save it to a fixed medium, which won't happen when done my way. You're free to create such "derived works" in memory - you change the in-memory image every time you run a program that does anything, since you have to set some variables, if only a pointer to a buffer .
Since the GPL (all versions) can only apply to the distribution of modified works saved in a FIXED MEDIUM, you're free to distribute both the original unmodified work, with the source, and only the binary of any hypervisor and patch code that only affects the in-memory copy.
You may not like it, but copyright law isn't patent law. Programs protected by copyright cannot place limitations on what you do with the in-memory image. Now, if you then save that in-memory image to a hard disk or CD, then THAT copy becomes a derived work within the jurisdiction of copyright. The easiest way to avoid even the possibility of that happening is to simply run without swap. Linux works better, and faster, w/o swap, and this has been the case with systems since well before linux. Swap is a nasty hack that is no longer needed.
Search the FSFE Europe archives (I lost the link when my stupid linux upgrade to opensuse 12.1 crapped everything out, installing from scratch didn't work, and switching to Fedora, then Debian, then a few others all proved to be just as buggy in their own ways). He stated that people should give away copies of proprietary programs because the authors deserved such treatment.
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Oh, ditzy me for pointing out that linux is broken all the time. Must be my fault, even though I I never had the same problems with upgrading servers running bsd.
Is it "demanding" too much to ask that the latest linux at least provide the same level of usability as creaky old XP? Or even Win9x? Silly me, I'll try to scale back my expectations to something more reasonable. Maybe an etch-a-sketch?
Am I "lazy" because I wasted a week trying half a dozen different distros, multiple installs, when first OpenSuse, then Fedora, flaked out on updates? Gee, what do you expect - that I should try every single distro before complaining? And why is it wrong to complain that updates seem to break things all the time? Or that a printer that says it supports linux sometimes does, most of the time doesn't depending on which distro and which point in the update cycle I'm at?
Was Linus out of order when he complained about the crappy decisions being taken by OpenSuse, and that they should do the world a favour and just kill themselves? People need stuff that actually works. You have a problem when "free" is just another word for crappy software that will cost you an arm and a leg in wasted time and strain your credulity.
Or does wanting something that works more often than not make me a ditz?
Just go to the FSF site and read the 4 freedoms graphic - permissive licenses such as MIT and Apache meet the criteria better than the GPL ever did. The GPL imposes restrictions that add requirements to use cases. For example, you are not free to use the code in any way you want # 1 on the list.
Peak never had a license to the software. So, since they didn't have a license to use it, any use was a violation of copyright.
Also, all but the simplest programs are modified by running them - that's a simple fact that you can't get around. Variables and pointers to variables are modified at runtime. Everyone has the right to do so..
In addition, if the modified program is transformative in nature, it's covered by fair use - see todays' closing arguments in the first portion of Oracle v Google.
Sorry, but you need to re-read the judgment - MAI never had a license to run the software in the first place - they were piggy-backing on their client's license. Apples vs Oranges. So, want to try for a third strike?
How about a video game?
"You are trapped in a world populated by malevolent smart devices. ..."
Go [N]orth [S]outh [East] [W]est. [I]nventory. s[P]eak. [R]eboot.
[N]North
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that
You want detail, I'll give you detail. OpenSuse 12.1 was a stinking pile of crap that failed both the in-place upgrade and the install from scratch - in both cases, refusing to migrate emails properly - a problem that they did not even acknowledge existed, because they had an automatic migration tool - that didn't work! Multiple attemts at manually migrating failed, including after multiple fresh re-installs. Overall much more sluggish. Additionally, trying to load the debug version of KDE killed the machine - so another reinstall from scratch, another failed mail migration, more bugs ... so that was it.
Figured I'd downgrade to 11.0 - oops - no update repos available - discontinued, silly me! Sorry, OpenSuse, time to move on.
Next up - Fedora 16 ... after getting rid of some of the default junk, it worked fine for a few weeks, then an update caused it to sometimes fail to boot. Further updates caused more instability, and finally, it wouldn't boot at all. Reinstalled from scratch - 4 times - each time with the same results after updating. Buh-bye!
Next - Slackware. Downloaded the ISO, looked for the update repo - it no longer exists. All there is is a page saying that it's being redone and should up up soon - the same page I saw 6 months ago. Slackware is not resting for the pines. Officially dead. Move on.
Next - Debian. Download the first 4 DVDs of Debian Testing, installed. Memory corruption errors in Iceweasel and Icedove. Problems with desktop themes, etc. Not one is easy on the eyes. Bye, y'all!
Next - dig up my emergency KNOPPIX disk (can you tell I'm getting a bit cheesed off here?) My ancient copy boots fine, but no persistent storage, but I can use it to download Fedora 17 beta.
Next - Fedora 17 Beta doesn't finish booting - complains about my USB devices (2 usb hubs in twin 26" LCDs, in addition to the usual usb ports and printer, key, etc). Another case of bug regressions.
Considered Mint - but they haven't yet figured out which of 3 idfferent directions they're going to ultimately go with, so too unstable. Ubuntu? $DIETY no, they already a long history of failed updates and upgrades, and are totally unresponsive to users. Mandriva? At death's door. Again ...
Next - Download Windows 8 Preview (getting really desperate at this point to get something that just WORKS!!!). Sucks even worse than I could have believed possible. I mean, I knew it was bad, but not this bad!
Next - back to KNOPPIX, download KNOPPIX 6.7, boots fine. A new type of video corruption that I've never seen before - turns out I'm not the only one. "knoppix no3d" takes care of that, mostly. We may have a "sort of" keeper, except that my linux-compatible printer once again isn't.
So ... after 15 years of using linux as my primary, and often exclusive OS, I throw in the towel. It will NEVER be ready for prime time at this rate. Not in 100 years.
Dig up old XP install disk, install XP, split the 2 hard drives into 8 primary partitions, formatted as HPFS. Works like a charm, programs work much faster than I'm used to under linux, and this is before I install the right video drivers. Boot back into knoppix, enable a persistent overlay on /dev/sda1, so I can still boot knoppix from dvd but run it from the persistent image on the hard drive - works fine, saves data such as bookmarks on exit, etc. Only real bugs left are video corruption and lack of 2-screen support. Fix 2-screen support using a one-line xrandr shell script. Still no linux support for my linux-compatible printer. Oh well, it works fine under Windows.
So, for the first time in 15 years, I have a linux system that won't get any updates until a new release of KNOPPIX comes out, and that will also be a boot-from-dvd-only-run-and-save-data-to-hd - and you want to know something? It's better than wasting my time dealing with all the crap when things go bad under linux.
Almost everyone has their own "Photoshop" - a program that is only available under Windows or a Mac. Witness how many people are still dual-booting. If dual-booting and VMs were rendered impossible, the number of linux installs would plummet.
So what you're really saying is that linux is for the mentally disturbed. Got it.
... to Apple? Because that's what people want - something that works, not something you have to make a hobby of just to keep running between distro-hops.
And then there's the problem of distros breaking on upgrades, and the prevalent WORKS_FOR_ME && WONT_FIX responses towards bugs, the really lousy bug-reporting scheme (I tried it with KDE, my cpu went to 100% and never even loaded the desktop, requiring a reinstall from scratch).
Then there's the lack of social skills among the "self-anointed." Plus their childish insistence on labeling it GNU/linux (do you call it a Firestone/Mustang)? Or M$. Yes, we see what you did there, and no, after the 5,000th time, it's just stupid.
Pointing out the problems invariably gets you labeled as a shill, an astroturfer, or worse.
Pointing out the problems with the GPL - or worse, pointing out that the GPL doesn't even respect the 4 freedoms listed on the home page of the FSF - brings out people who blindly repeat what "everyone who really is a true believer knows."
It's not a religion or a cult, but you could have fooled me.
I know, it feels like tilting at whindmills ... or working in the Fox Fact-Free Zone.
Just look at the mess of the "latest and greatest" video card support from 2 weeks ago. Stability problems, locking up, memory corruption, across-the-board lack of functionality ... this all points to a serious design flaw in the kernel itself. Every cpu since the 386 has supported 4 "rings", or levels of access and process/memory protection. Why implementers only use two of them, and insist on running graphics drivers in the kernel is a holdover from the past when context switches were more expensive in terms of "wall clock time".
People also forget that one of the reasons that DOS was a $15 billion product was because they bent over to maintain backward compatibility between versions. There was even code to make sure that newer versions of DOS specifically didn't break SimCity.
We hear all the screaming about how "Linux needs games", "Linux needs applications" (and not just clone-wanna-be work-alikes) but nobody's doing the dirty work. Everyone's just playing around with making a "shinier desktop experience." A lot of that has to do with the problems with interacting with gpl-licensed code. Nobody wants the headaches from the zealot hordes.
Actually, it does - see Goolab v Nintendo. You can in fact modify the in-memory image of software - even proprietary closed-source software - without violating the rights granted by law to the copyright holder. Any attempt by an EULA to say otherwise is void and without effect, since it goes beyond the scope of what's permitted under restrictions that copyright holders are granted by copyright law.
Please get your facts straight - the courts also said "no". Goolab v Nintendo. Nintendo paid $15 million because Goolab WAS allowed to modify proprietary code in ram.
No it doesn't. At no point do you modify the original binary image stored on disk - and that's the only copy that you have to distribute. The GPL is a distribution license, no an end-use license.
I'm even free to futz with the copy on disk, provided I don't distribute it, but that's another issue entirely.
So think carefully - if I only distribute unmodified copies of the program in binary form, I am fully in compliance with the restrictions of the gpl. How I run the program is not restricted, and since I am not modifying the program as it resides on the disk drive (the "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression" that are covered by copyright), but only the in-memory image, which I am permitted to do under both copyright law and court precedent.
To the extent that you or anyone else argues that modifying the in-memory copy is "creating a derived work", you are wrong - while it may be "derived" in the common-sense meaning of the term, that is not within the meaning or scope of copyright law, and ultimately it's the law that applies.
Simply put, copyright only applies to the copy on the hard disk since it is stored in a fixed tangible medium of expression. The ram copy might be a "tangible medium of expression", but it is not "fixed", so you are free to mod it at will. Both the courts and the Constitution say so. Any restriction in a license that attempts to say otherwise is void.
Now the *smart* fridge lays in a huge order of crap because you obviously can't get enough of it. And since your birthday is coming up, your smartfridge *suggests* to your friends that you'd really like some presents that mesh with your new-found zeal for crap, and a crap-themed party. So you all end up at some restaurant where you're all secretly grossed out eating the crap, but nobody wants to hurt each others feelings and say "this is crap!" and you don't want to hurt theirs either.
After a few weeks w/o eating anything much, because there's only crap left in the fridge, even though you throw it out every day, your smarttoilet notifies your insurer that you're losing weight, and there must be something wrong with you. You get an email saying that your insurance premiums have now doubled, and that you are required to submit daily test results from your smarttoilet to maintain coverage.
In frustration, you flush the crap from the smartfridge down the smarttoilet, which obviously can't handle it - collaborating with the smartfidge, they come to the conclusion that if you're flushing your favourite crap down the toilet, you might be a danger to yourself or others, notifies the police and locks all the doors.
During your psychiatric evaluation, you refuse to eat crap, even though the smartfidge has reported that you LOVE crap. The shrinks label you as being uncooperative and possibly schizo, since you are obviously not the same crap-loving person you were before you "lost it." They recommend you be held indefinitely for your own protection.
The judge agrees. In frustration, you shout out "Would YOU eat this crap???" The judge says, "of course I do, every day." After all, he's seen too many consequences of rage against the machine to know that resistance is futile. He eats the crap the fridge serves every day, because he knows who the real overlords are.
Wow - someone didn't get their morning cup of coffee, hmmm? :-)
Seriously though, I agree 100%. Next thing you know people will want the toilet to wipe their butts and flush itself.
It's an authorized copy. You're allowed to make it as per the license. Once it's in ram, it can be modified as per copyright law, which makes it clear that the copy in ram is not protected from modification since it is not "fixed in a tangible medium of expression", and in fact almost every program WILL be modified by running it - you have variables that have to be modified to do anything, such as set up a system call, write a value, do a loop.
The confusion arises because there are two separate issues - the license to the original, and the use of the in-memory copy. Where the license to the original allows a single copy of it to be loaded into memory, so as long as the original is validly licensed, you can load ONE copy into ram. Licenses that don't place restrictions on the number of copies that can be loaded into ram, such as the gpl, don't even face this restriction.
So, now that you have a legit image in ram, can you modify it? Of course - just running the program w/o any patches will modify the in-memory image of it if it does anything, such as input or output, or a loop, or pretty much anything else but a bunch of NOPs.
So the question is, can you patch the in-memory image with additional functionality, or remove or alter existing functionality - and Goolab v Nintendo says yes, you can.
"But isn't the in-memory image protected from modification by copyright?"
The Constitution says no
As long as you don't create a new copy of the code "fixed in a tangible medium of expression", you have not violated copyright law. So, as long as you don't save that in-memory image to disk or any other method that results in a copy "fixed in tangible medium of expression", you have not violated the authors' rights under copyright law.
It's really not all that complicated.
In fact, when it comes to programs that do something but don't have any runtime-modified variables, I've only written one program that didn't actually have any local variables that were modified at run-time - and it was just to patch a bios at runtime for one program - 12 bytes of assembler.
It's funny, things like food, shelter, and medical treatment are all more important than code, but nobody is advocating that the people who labour to produce these things shouldn't be properly compensated, or that they should all be free for everyone.
The other thing is that he can't code for s***. Both the current GCC and Emacs were actually forks written by others (EGCS and Xemacs) because they got fed up with Stallman and his crap. To save face, in both cases he had to "bless" both forks as the official versions.
Of course, he's never properly explained why he's not allowed to use a web browser on the Internet either. Or why the GPL violates the 4 freedoms listed on the fsf home page (in a graphic so that it's not indexed).
So explain why linux usage went from 2.5% a decade ago to under 1.5% now, if linux is oh so great?
And why you can't even give it away?
I bought a multi-function printer that said on the box that it was supported by linux. It wasn't - not unless you were running one specific version of one specific distro. The lack of a proper and stable ABI in linux is a serious design flaw, which is why everything breaks all the time, and why energy that could be devoted to improving the desktop instead goes to fixing the latest set of incompatibilties.
The other problem is licensing - it discourages investment that could fix some of these problems. You know - money to pay for the stuff nobody wants to do, like fixing the 136 memory leaks in firefox. Can't do that because they have to stick with a stupid "rapid release" schedule.
And then you wonder why people opt for a mac?
You still don't get it - copyright law says you do NOT create a derivative work until the "work" is fixed in some permanent media, such as saved to hard disk or DVD or other permanent storage. Neither the GPL nor any other license can get around what copyright law allows.
The key word is FIXED. Saving to ram is not FIXED - it's transient. Patching in ram is not a violation of the copyright act, never was, and since it's part of the original Constitution, unless and until you can amend the Constitution, never will be.
So bring it on - the only "half-assed" here is you refusing to read up even a teeny tiny bit on copyright law and court decisions, and "talking out of your nether regions", to put it politely.
So, to summarize:
1. Ship unmodified binary;
2. Load binary image into ram;
3. Patch binary image in ram with proprietary code - no "derived work" under copyright law since copyright only covers the actual image on disk - "fixed in a permanent medium" - not a transient copy loaded into ram.
4. When someone wrongfully complains "you're violating the license", point out that you do not ship modified binaries, nor is the ram image "fixed in a tangible meadium of expression" such as print, hd, or other non-transient storage, as required within the meaning of the copyright act;
5. If they sue, counter-sue and demand demand their copyrights be assigned as part of any settlement;
6. PROFIT!
Now note that since there is no "derivative work" within the meaning of the copyright act, there is no requirement to ship the source for any in-memory patches. Any attempt to impose such a requrement through some modification of the license is outside the scope of the law, the same as you can't make a license to own a slave.
The GPL won't be around by the end of the decade, because it really is "holed below the waterline" and even version 3 fails to address this gaping hole. And with the availability of hypervisors and gobs of cheap ram, it's no big deal to patch binaries on the fly and cache them in memory.
So anyone can take the kernel, or an open-source database, or even closed-source code (as per Goolab v Nintendo, where Nintendo had to pony up $15 million), and patch it in ram. As long as you hold a valid license to the original, the in-ram copy is perfectly legit, and you can patch it as mutch as you want gratis of any requirement to ship the code for the patches.
Instead of sending kids who are full of "vinegar and piss" and don't know any better off to die, why not send the people who are so eager to send others off to die for profit instead?
Riiiighhhttttt .... "it is said" is about as authoritative as "magical religious thinking". None of this has anything to do with the majority of the people being born right-handed, and certainly has nothing to do with swords. Even your [citation needed] statement that it was enacted as law to make travel easier has NOTHING to do with swords. So, totally bogus.
Also, the claim about horse carriage drivers drove on the left so they could "look down to see that you were passing the other driver's wheels" is also bogus - by then it would be too late, even if both wagons were only travelling at 3 mph. Do you need to do this to drive a car? Of course not. It's all obviously post-hoc fantasy rationalizing. Then again, I doubt most slashdotters have ever ridden a horse. If you spend any time looking down, you're doing it wrong, and neither you nor the horse is really going to enjoy the ride.
All linux distros are ultimately craptops in comparison. And that's sad. 15 years using linux, and in the end it was a waste of time and energy. So when people ask, now I tell them to get a mac, or if its a server, to run freebsd, which doesn't curl up in an ugly ball and die when you have to log in remotely to a machine 500 miles away and upgrade from, for example, version 4.7 to version 7.0 without rebooting more than once, and works with no problems after, so the machine is off-line less than 30 seconds total.
It makes even the latest linux look like a consumer-level toy OS in comparison, and until everyone takes the need for a stable ABI and a proper upgrade process as the absolute minimum, that won't change.
It's not dubious in any shape, matter, or form. NO license can over-ride copyright law and court jurisprudence, just like you can't have a license that states you'll give your firtst-born up as a slave.
The Game Genie decision is 100% applicable. The GPL is holed below the water-line and won't last out the decade.
You should actually READ the GPL - you have a license to distribute with every copy. The GPL can't over-ride that by saying you can't exercise your legal right to modify a copy in RAM - not only that, but it makes absolutely NO mention of it - it specifically limits itself to your rights and obligations wrt distributing MODIFIED versions of the code.
Distributing both the unmodified code (say, for example, the kernel), and patches to modify a copy of it ONLY in memory is allowed because copyright laws do not apply to works NOT in a fixed medium.
Such a "combined work" is free of any copyright considerations until such time as you save it to a fixed medium, which won't happen when done my way. You're free to create such "derived works" in memory - you change the in-memory image every time you run a program that does anything, since you have to set some variables, if only a pointer to a buffer .
Since the GPL (all versions) can only apply to the distribution of modified works saved in a FIXED MEDIUM, you're free to distribute both the original unmodified work, with the source, and only the binary of any hypervisor and patch code that only affects the in-memory copy.
You may not like it, but copyright law isn't patent law. Programs protected by copyright cannot place limitations on what you do with the in-memory image. Now, if you then save that in-memory image to a hard disk or CD, then THAT copy becomes a derived work within the jurisdiction of copyright. The easiest way to avoid even the possibility of that happening is to simply run without swap. Linux works better, and faster, w/o swap, and this has been the case with systems since well before linux. Swap is a nasty hack that is no longer needed.
Search the FSFE Europe archives (I lost the link when my stupid linux upgrade to opensuse 12.1 crapped everything out, installing from scratch didn't work, and switching to Fedora, then Debian, then a few others all proved to be just as buggy in their own ways). He stated that people should give away copies of proprietary programs because the authors deserved such treatment.