How on earth does the GPL "not count" as IP protection. It is a license on IP which dictates exactly what you can and cannot do with the IP.
The GPL is fundamentally no different than any other license or EULA in that it makes demands on the user in exchange for giving access to the information. Perhaps you find those demands more agreeable than, say, closed-source commercial software licensing. That's valid, but it doesn't change the fact that the GPL relies on IP protection to enforce its terms.
If there were no IP protection laws, the GPL could not exist.
And believe me, if there were no IP protection the GPL would have just as much reason to exist as it does now. Anyone who was involved in software in the late '70s and early '80s has first hand knowledge of what the software world would be like without solid and well-understood IP law backing it. Before the law caught up with the software age, we lived in a world of dongles and sales contracts and heinous hardware protection schemes. They all sought to fill the vacuum left in the absence of strong IP protection.
No IP protection leads to secrecy and contracts, not to a world of sharing where programmers live off nuts and berries and give away the product of their labor.
My own experiences with the WiSIP match yours. It's a terrible bit of firmware in an underpowered phone. I recently saw this phone which might be a better option, but I haven't picked one up yet.
I would hope not, for their sake. That phone is a zyxel, not a pulver -- pulver is just another one of the rebadgers. It's also one of the shittiest pieces of equipment I've ever owned. I documented my experiences with it at http://slacker.com/~nugget/asterisk3.php
When you conribute to either a BSD or GPL licensed product there is nothing anyone can ever do that will make it not remain open source. It's not possuible to un-GPL or un-BSD a piece of code.
Your fears are met and accomodated by both licenses.
"Piracy" has meant the misappropriate of intellectual property for over 200 years. It's a bit foolish to blame current content producers for a definition of a word which predates them by over a century. Movies didn't even exist when society decided that piracy meant what it means.
Rather it's the pirates who are playing a game of redefinitions in an effort to avoid being the connotations of otherwise valid words to use in this case like "piracy" and "theft". "sharing" is a much more cuddly word to use, for sure, but it's hardly what's taking place.
When the hell did you last check, then, 1720? The use of the word "piracy" in reference to the infringement of intellectual property dates back to at least 1771 according to the Oxford English
Dictionary:
2. fig. The appropriation and reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority; infringement of the rights conferred by a patent or copyright.
1771 LUCKOMBE Hist. Print. 76 They..would suffer by this act of piracy, since it was likely to prove a very bad edition. 1808 Med. Jrnl. XIX. 520 He is charged with 'Literary Piracy', and an 'unprincipled suppression of the source from whence he drew his information'. 1855 BREWSTER Newton I. iv. 71 With the view of securing his invention of the telescope from foreign piracy.
Perhaps it's time to accept the fact that language is constantly evolving and embrace this usage of the word piracy which has enjoyed popular use for over 200 years now.
You're right: It is not theft, it's piracy. It has been called that since 1771, well over one hundred years before "the content industry" got skin in the game.
You don't get to just change the meaning of the word just because you'd prefer to paint the activity in softer terms.
I'm sure this falls under the category of pirating (lovely word, should I get an eyepatch and a parrot?).
Use of the word "piracy" in reference to the infringement of intellectual property dates back to at least 1771 according to the Oxford English
Dictionary [Ref]:
2. fig. The appropriation and reproduction of an invention or work of another
for one's own profit, without authority; infringement of the rights conferred
by a patent or copyright.
1771 LUCKOMBE Hist. Print. 76 They..would suffer by this act of piracy, since
it was likely to prove a very bad edition. 1808 Med. Jrnl. XIX. 520 He is
charged with 'Literary Piracy', and an 'unprincipled suppression of the source
from whence he drew his information'. 1855 BREWSTER Newton I. iv. 71 With the
view of securing his invention of the telescope from foreign piracy.
After over 200 years of accepted usage of the word in this manner I think it's time to just come to grips with the fact that stealing software and music is in fact called "piracy".
This is retroactive justification and doesn't agree with the facts of the matter. In reality, not even the wildly-successful (for a third party candidate) Perot meets the test for inclusion in the debate. Perot's presence in the debates was only due to a behind-the-scenes deal between the Republicans and Democrats that specifically included him. It seems that both of the major parties wanted Perot included because they believed that his presence would "steal" more votes from the other side.
The rules set in place by the CDP when they took control over the debates (resulting in the League of Women Voters to withdrawl in protest) would not have allowed Perot in the debate then or now at the level of popularity he enjoyed.
Perot's support was at similar levels in 1996 but he was blocked from the debates then, also by agreement between the two major parties.
I find it curious that you've decided that I'm an "urbanite" simply by trying to drag you a bit closer to a balanced statement. But, if you want, there are plenty of reasons beyond the sampling I chose.
For instance while many can point to housing costs and taxes as aspects of life which are more expensive in large cities, it's also true that salaries for the most part will rise to meet those costs. They have to. All the while, however, there are a multitude of costs we all bear which do not rise to meet the regional cost of living. Thinks like saving for your retirement.
While it's true that my mortgage was really low when I lived in Oneonta, Alabama it was also true that my earning potential was similarly constrained. I never had any trouble making my rent but I can assure you that the years I lived in a small town I was unable to maximize my annual IRA and 401K contributions like I've been able to do since having moved to a larger city.
My mortgage here is a lot more too, but I'm building a lot more equity too. Cars and electronics have a lower "real" cost if you live in a major metro area where incomes and costs are above the national average. Those cool tech toys we all love cost less relatively for me now than they did when I lived in a small town.
t sounds like you telecommute, so there's no real reason to live in a large city.
This is only true if you do nothing but work and your job is 100% secure and satisfying.
If you do expect to spend some of your life doing things outside of work, or if you can concieve of perhaps someday having a different job then the decision is far less polarized.
Small towns don't usually have 24 hour chinese food delivery, job opportunities, or a large singles community for dating or marriage opportunities.
Just as if I said the sky is red and you corrected me and said it was blue. That is also a matter of symantics. I used the word incorrectly.
No, this would be a disagreement on the color of the sky, which is a fact which can be observed and either confirmed or denied. It is not incorrect usage of the word "red" to say that the sky is red. It is simply the statement of a falsehood. (Assuming the sky is blue as your scenario describes)
Additionally, it's hard to take you seriously as you explain to us the meaning of a word which you cannot even spell.
Reminds me of the time a cow-orker of mine was locked out of the server room for a week because he cut his finger and couldn't use the fingerprint scanner while it healed.:)
I'm aware of that. However, the original code, potentially unmaintained, steadily depreciates in value. Try compiling a gopher server anymore (last time I tried, two years ago, I couldn't find one that built out-of-box on my system any more).
So your argument is what, exactly? That BSD licensed gopher servers have fallen into disrepair because they have been crowded out by all the wildly-successful closed-source gopher server products on the market? Microsoft's ActiveGopher XP Pro, Novell's GopherWare, and NullSoft's CADDYshack have ruined any chance of an opensource gopher server?
I don't doubt that most or all of the gopher server code in the world has suffered from neglect. I have no idea how you have come to believe that this is because the BSD license is commercial-friendly. Gopher is irrelevant because it's irrelevant and this would be just as true if all those projects had been GPL'd.
The entire thread has been about the BSD license. Do you mean to tell me that this whole time you've had no idea that we've been discussing the BSD license even after having quoted the fscking thing in support of your argument?
Since you seem to need it spelled out, here's the conversation you just participated in:
In comment 9743150, toonerh made the statement that "Code migrates from BSD to Linux (but not Linux to BSD) because of GPL."
Pieroxy replied with "That's why they say it's more free. Oh wait..." implying that this action really meant that BSD licensed code was not more free. The "it's" in this sentence clearly refers to the BSD license.
You replied to this with your regrettable 'Well that depends what you mean by "free"'. starting us down this whole discussion about BSD licensed code and whether or not it's possible to redefine the word "free" in such a way as to make the GPL's claims of freedom make sense.
In short, it's all we've ever been talking about. The fact that you quoted the license a few posts back and now claim to have no idea that we've been discussing it is curious.
If you were so quick to jump into a discussion without even taking the time to determine what was being discussed, perhaps you're the one who was just "spoiling for a fight."
While literally correct I think we both know that these clauses of the BSD have absolutely nothing to do with your original or followup points on the issue. Your previous posts in this thread clearly demonstrate that you did not have this in mind when you started your rant.
Unless you now mean to tell me that when you mentioned a person who "contributes back to the common cause" you were actually talking about the vitally important act of including a copyright notice with the closed-source derivative.
You were whinging about how awful it is that BSD licensed code can be used in ways which would be prevented by the GPL and casting such use in a bad light using the emotionally charged and inaccurate word "misappropriate" to somehow imply that using BSD licensed code in exactly the manner in which it is licensed is somehow wrong.
Really what I am asking for is for you to pull your head out of your attitude and admit to your misguided bias.
We aren't talking about your code, we're talking about BSD licensed code. I didn't ask how it was possible to misappropriate your code. I asked how it was possible to misappropriate BSD licensed code. It is not a misuse of BSD licensed code to use it in a manner which IgnoramusMaximus disapproves. That's not a valid argument.
The BSD license permits use in a closed-source project. by definition this is not a misappropriation of the code. It's a legitimate use which is permitted by the license.
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How on earth does the GPL "not count" as IP protection. It is a license on IP which dictates exactly what you can and cannot do with the IP.
The GPL is fundamentally no different than any other license or EULA in that it makes demands on the user in exchange for giving access to the information. Perhaps you find those demands more agreeable than, say, closed-source commercial software licensing. That's valid, but it doesn't change the fact that the GPL relies on IP protection to enforce its terms.
If there were no IP protection laws, the GPL could not exist.
And believe me, if there were no IP protection the GPL would have just as much reason to exist as it does now. Anyone who was involved in software in the late '70s and early '80s has first hand knowledge of what the software world would be like without solid and well-understood IP law backing it. Before the law caught up with the software age, we lived in a world of dongles and sales contracts and heinous hardware protection schemes. They all sought to fill the vacuum left in the absence of strong IP protection.
No IP protection leads to secrecy and contracts, not to a world of sharing where programmers live off nuts and berries and give away the product of their labor.
My own experiences with the WiSIP match yours. It's a terrible bit of firmware in an underpowered phone. I recently saw this phone which might be a better option, but I haven't picked one up yet.
I would hope not, for their sake. That phone is a zyxel, not a pulver -- pulver is just another one of the rebadgers. It's also one of the shittiest pieces of equipment I've ever owned. I documented my experiences with it at http://slacker.com/~nugget/asterisk3.php
Yeah, that must really suck -- but this is the part where we all take notice of the fact that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
When you conribute to either a BSD or GPL licensed product there is nothing anyone can ever do that will make it not remain open source. It's not possuible to un-GPL or un-BSD a piece of code.
Your fears are met and accomodated by both licenses.
"Piracy" has meant the misappropriate of intellectual property for over 200 years. It's a bit foolish to blame current content producers for a definition of a word which predates them by over a century. Movies didn't even exist when society decided that piracy meant what it means.
Rather it's the pirates who are playing a game of redefinitions in an effort to avoid being the connotations of otherwise valid words to use in this case like "piracy" and "theft". "sharing" is a much more cuddly word to use, for sure, but it's hardly what's taking place.
Yay cows.
Seriously, though. I want a version of CVS that does $Moo$.
You're right: It is not theft, it's piracy. It has been called that since 1771, well over one hundred years before "the content industry" got skin in the game.
You don't get to just change the meaning of the word just because you'd prefer to paint the activity in softer terms.
Use of the word "piracy" in reference to the infringement of intellectual property dates back to at least 1771 according to the Oxford English Dictionary [Ref]:
After over 200 years of accepted usage of the word in this manner I think it's time to just come to grips with the fact that stealing software and music is in fact called "piracy".This is retroactive justification and doesn't agree with the facts of the matter. In reality, not even the wildly-successful (for a third party candidate) Perot meets the test for inclusion in the debate. Perot's presence in the debates was only due to a behind-the-scenes deal between the Republicans and Democrats that specifically included him. It seems that both of the major parties wanted Perot included because they believed that his presence would "steal" more votes from the other side.
The rules set in place by the CDP when they took control over the debates (resulting in the League of Women Voters to withdrawl in protest) would not have allowed Perot in the debate then or now at the level of popularity he enjoyed.
Perot's support was at similar levels in 1996 but he was blocked from the debates then, also by agreement between the two major parties.
An iPod costs $400 to a guy earning $30,000 in Mississippi and an iPod costs $400 to a guy earning $130,000 in New York City.
Sure, the guy in Mississippi only pays $230 in rent, but that iPod costs the same.
I find it curious that you've decided that I'm an "urbanite" simply by trying to drag you a bit closer to a balanced statement. But, if you want, there are plenty of reasons beyond the sampling I chose.
For instance while many can point to housing costs and taxes as aspects of life which are more expensive in large cities, it's also true that salaries for the most part will rise to meet those costs. They have to. All the while, however, there are a multitude of costs we all bear which do not rise to meet the regional cost of living. Thinks like saving for your retirement.
While it's true that my mortgage was really low when I lived in Oneonta, Alabama it was also true that my earning potential was similarly constrained. I never had any trouble making my rent but I can assure you that the years I lived in a small town I was unable to maximize my annual IRA and 401K contributions like I've been able to do since having moved to a larger city.
My mortgage here is a lot more too, but I'm building a lot more equity too. Cars and electronics have a lower "real" cost if you live in a major metro area where incomes and costs are above the national average. Those cool tech toys we all love cost less relatively for me now than they did when I lived in a small town.
That's still a long way off from "...there no real reason to live in a large city."
This is only true if you do nothing but work and your job is 100% secure and satisfying.
If you do expect to spend some of your life doing things outside of work, or if you can concieve of perhaps someday having a different job then the decision is far less polarized. Small towns don't usually have 24 hour chinese food delivery, job opportunities, or a large singles community for dating or marriage opportunities.
Slashdot is not green. It's teal. #006666. It's equal parts blue and green.
They sell the boards bare or in little cases.
Soekris boxes are exactly what you're looking for. They're cheap, stable, low power, interface-rich and run FreeBSD like a dream. They're super boxes.
it's a chord instead of a dedicated key, but Fn-Delete does this.
No, this would be a disagreement on the color of the sky, which is a fact which can be observed and either confirmed or denied. It is not incorrect usage of the word "red" to say that the sky is red. It is simply the statement of a falsehood. (Assuming the sky is blue as your scenario describes)
Additionally, it's hard to take you seriously as you explain to us the meaning of a word which you cannot even spell.
Reminds me of the time a cow-orker of mine was locked out of the server room for a week because he cut his finger and couldn't use the fingerprint scanner while it healed. :)
So your argument is what, exactly? That BSD licensed gopher servers have fallen into disrepair because they have been crowded out by all the wildly-successful closed-source gopher server products on the market? Microsoft's ActiveGopher XP Pro, Novell's GopherWare, and NullSoft's CADDYshack have ruined any chance of an opensource gopher server?
I don't doubt that most or all of the gopher server code in the world has suffered from neglect. I have no idea how you have come to believe that this is because the BSD license is commercial-friendly. Gopher is irrelevant because it's irrelevant and this would be just as true if all those projects had been GPL'd.
Since you seem to need it spelled out, here's the conversation you just participated in:
In comment 9743150, toonerh made the statement that "Code migrates from BSD to Linux (but not Linux to BSD) because of GPL."
Pieroxy replied with "That's why they say it's more free. Oh wait..." implying that this action really meant that BSD licensed code was not more free. The "it's" in this sentence clearly refers to the BSD license.
You replied to this with your regrettable 'Well that depends what you mean by "free"'. starting us down this whole discussion about BSD licensed code and whether or not it's possible to redefine the word "free" in such a way as to make the GPL's claims of freedom make sense.
In short, it's all we've ever been talking about. The fact that you quoted the license a few posts back and now claim to have no idea that we've been discussing it is curious.
If you were so quick to jump into a discussion without even taking the time to determine what was being discussed, perhaps you're the one who was just "spoiling for a fight."
While literally correct I think we both know that these clauses of the BSD have absolutely nothing to do with your original or followup points on the issue. Your previous posts in this thread clearly demonstrate that you did not have this in mind when you started your rant.
Unless you now mean to tell me that when you mentioned a person who "contributes back to the common cause" you were actually talking about the vitally important act of including a copyright notice with the closed-source derivative.
You were whinging about how awful it is that BSD licensed code can be used in ways which would be prevented by the GPL and casting such use in a bad light using the emotionally charged and inaccurate word "misappropriate" to somehow imply that using BSD licensed code in exactly the manner in which it is licensed is somehow wrong.
Really what I am asking for is for you to pull your head out of your attitude and admit to your misguided bias.
The BSD license permits use in a closed-source project. by definition this is not a misappropriation of the code. It's a legitimate use which is permitted by the license.