From the Article: You clearly point out in many interviews and articles you write that you don't associate free software with the open source movement. Why is that?
Why do Interviewers keep asking him the same stupid questions over and over? Those questions are answered by every other interview hes ever done and his speeches. (he has a new one up, btw.)
I wish that sometimes they would target the interviews for people already familiar with Free Software. Most slashdotters know the relationship between GNU and linux, but what about the relationship between GNU and the BSDs. Something like that would be interesting to read about.
Maybe its time for slashdot to have another Ask Stallman. Alot has changed since the last one.
Suggesting that these mod chips are used primarily by "hobbiests" is proof that Slashdotters cannot honestly look this problem in the eye.
I think I can.
-We want to copy. We want the right to copy. -We want a console to play old roms on. We don't care that they aren't in the public domain after 10+ years, because they should be. -We want backups and homebrew too
I think that sums it up.
Re:How many licenses can fit on the head of a pin?
on
PHP Not Moving To The GPL
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Is your beef with the message or the messenger? Freedom according to Stallman is almost exactly the same as freedom according to OSI and according Debian, and debian is a democracy.
It seems that the only Software Freedom people who disagree are the BSD fans.
You can link anything with GPL'ed code as long as it's other GPL (or GPL-equivalent) code.
Almost. Any license less restrictive then the GPL is GPL compatible. The GPL plays nice with BSD style licenses. Thats why code migrates from BSD to GNU/L.
I'll take the BSD license anytime.
I strongly prefer copyleft licenses. It's slightly more restrictive, but the code stays free forever. That makes GPL'ed code "more free" than BSD code, IMO.
How safe will everyone feel once it becomes fashionable to start wearing ski masks around for no reason? If cameras become popular masks may take off, especially among punk kids.
A tool maker should not have any control over the actions of the one using the tool. That is the whole point of Software Freedom.
Imagine those kind of restrictions on physical objects. Imagine people selling shoes that couldn't legally be used to march in a pride parade. Or vegetarian only forks.
Even if a no-army provision was put into the GPL, the US government would just waste money building their own software. Money that otherwise could be used to help people or just not taxed away in the first place.
Yes, we really want everyone to have Software Freedom, not just a chosen few. We cannot control people with software and its wrong to even try.
This is getting offtopic but Blizzard isn't that awesome.
Slashdot got pretty pissed at blizzard about a year ago when they cease and desisted the FreeCraft project. That thread has some other examples of blizzard evil and some slashdoters swore off blizzard products altogether. Their anger was understandable too; FreeCraft was one of the best games FOSS had.
(Freecraft mostly survived as wargus but it looks like the Freecraft media project didn't. )
As much as you linux zealots hate to admit it, Linux is not the most user friendly OS to install and use.
It's not that GNU/linux is hard to install, its that operating systems in general are difficult to install. I bet G/L is *easier* to install than other systems, but I wouldn't know, I've never tried to install XP or OSX.
If all they want to do (or know how to do) is email, IM and download pictures off their cameras, they really don't need the flexibility Linux(or variants) gives them.
If you only need basic functions from G/L then its just as easy as MSW also safer. These days end-users need to be security experts to run MSW safely.
If he wanted to that more completely, he could have gone about patenting his inventions and through that legal ownership making them freely available for all to use.
That is unnecessary. From what i have read, just publishing your idea has the same effect.
Re:The truth is hard to believe
on
Who Wrote Linux?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
A world class operating system started from scratch by a single person, with no commercial incentive?
(anyone bringing up GNU/Linux can bite me. I know the history and respect GNU. It's unweildy)
GNU/Linux really is awkward to say or type. It needs to be abbreviated to have any hope of catching on.
If you wanna say "here's our stand, and we stick by it", I respect that. If you say "any stand but ours is unholy and wrong", then you are attempting to control and I have no use fer ya.
I think that it is wrong to deliberately cripple a tool that otherwise could have been useful, just as some people think its wrong to eat meat. Take some old video games for example; they are a chunk of our culture and in some cases the source is lost. It's not a matter of life or death, but its not nice either.
I wouldn't violate the GPL, as a programmer I respect other coder's work and time. But I also don't buy into the demand that EVERYTHING be GPL's, or whatever license you prefer.
No one is demanding anything, but a time when most software is Free, is a goal the FSF is working toward. I see no problem with that.
1. Linux would have never taken off if it was proprietary. 2. Linus considers freeing linux to be the single best decision he ever made. 3. Linux has made linus millions (as a thank you from redhat). He bought a bigger house.
In the 1950s a hacker was someone who tinkered with electronics and radios. In the 1970s people started getting a hold of computers and tinkering with them. (Ever hear the phrase "computer hacker"? If all hacking happened on computers, "computer hacker" would be redundant.)
The old farts like RMS and ESR make a big deal out of it because they actually remember the 70s. They remember a time when hacking meant play with/tinker. They remember Hollywood getting a hold of the term and raping it.
ESR is our public relations guy. It makes sense that he would be upset about the public associating FOSS with the scum of the earth.
The negative connotation of "hacker" is probably far worse for our image than SCO has been!
One reason the community doesn't care as much about google being free is because its a service, not code being executed locally; google has less potential for malice then an installed program.
IMO the people shouting "free" aren't asking for things for $0. If that is all they are after "piracy" works just as well. IMO they are asking for peer review, no vendor lock in and life for programs after the authors abandon them.
I am sure most of them see it as a joke or some political statement. But the political statement is pretty lame because no one knows what your angry about, "I Made this virus to protest the war?", "I made this virus to protest the the treatment of X", "I Made this virus because I don't like X company". When you get a virus it doesn't seem to spur the ideas that the virus writer wanted to portray.
This is exactly why I don't think that worms are primarily the work of geeks. If it was then they would make statements. We would see stuff like:
1) a worm that deletes harddrives that _don't_ have mp3s, released during the fall of napster.
2) People complain about the commercialization of the web. Someone would use a worm to install ad blocking stuff in IE, to put the advertisers out of business.
but we don't see stuff like that. We see Trojans and spam networks mostly, with the occasional anti-worm.
I don't believe its geek kids just out to do damage either, because they hardly delete harddrives anymore. I think Bruce Perens is right, that its primarily the work of spammers, not crackers or script kiddies.
From ESR not to him.
Raymond is the president of OSI and co-founded it with Bruce Perens.
Raymond winning would be like Bill getting the Microsoft award or RMS getting an award from the FSF.
The root of our disagreement seems to be over the definition of open source. There are 2, you are using one and I am using the other.
What the English words would naturally suggest is that "open source software" is software with sourcecode available.
The Open Source Definition is the definition endorsed by ESR, the guy who coined the term. This definition is almost exactly (but not quite) the same as The Free Software Definition endorsed by RMS, the guy who coined that term.
There are two licenses. One is commercial and the OSI-approved is here.
Commercial is not the opposite of freesource; proprietary is.
Open source or free software?
Same thing. Except in rare cases. The concept of "open source software" is a fork of the concept of "Free software", expect with slightly lower standards. diagram
An evaluation would be nice.
I looked for it on the FSF list of license summaries but didn't see it.
Slashdot Mirror
From the Article:
You clearly point out in many interviews and articles you write that you don't associate free software with the open source movement. Why is that?
Why do Interviewers keep asking him the same stupid questions over and over? Those questions are answered by every other interview hes ever done and his speeches. (he has a new one up, btw.)
I wish that sometimes they would target the interviews for people already familiar with Free Software. Most slashdotters know the relationship between GNU and linux, but what about the relationship between GNU and the BSDs. Something like that would be interesting to read about.
Maybe its time for slashdot to have another Ask Stallman. Alot has changed since the last one.
Suggesting that these mod chips are used primarily by "hobbiests" is proof that Slashdotters cannot honestly look this problem in the eye.
I think I can.
-We want to copy. We want the right to copy.
-We want a console to play old roms on. We don't care that they aren't in the public domain after 10+ years, because they should be.
-We want backups and homebrew too
I think that sums it up.
Is your beef with the message or the messenger? Freedom according to Stallman is almost exactly the same as freedom according to OSI and according Debian, and debian is a democracy.
It seems that the only Software Freedom people who disagree are the BSD fans.
You can link anything with GPL'ed code as long as it's other GPL (or GPL-equivalent) code.
Almost. Any license less restrictive then the GPL is GPL compatible. The GPL plays nice with BSD style licenses. Thats why code migrates from BSD to GNU/L.
I'll take the BSD license anytime.
I strongly prefer copyleft licenses. It's slightly more restrictive, but the code stays free forever. That makes GPL'ed code "more free" than BSD code, IMO.
How safe will everyone feel once it becomes fashionable to start wearing ski masks around for no reason? If cameras become popular masks may take off, especially among punk kids.
A tool maker should not have any control over the actions of the one using the tool. That is the whole point of Software Freedom.
Imagine those kind of restrictions on physical objects. Imagine people selling shoes that couldn't legally be used to march in a pride parade. Or vegetarian only forks.
Even if a no-army provision was put into the GPL, the US government would just waste money building their own software. Money that otherwise could be used to help people or just not taxed away in the first place.
Yes, we really want everyone to have Software Freedom, not just a chosen few. We cannot control people with software and its wrong to even try.
This is getting offtopic but Blizzard isn't that awesome.
Slashdot got pretty pissed at blizzard about a year ago when they cease and desisted the FreeCraft project. That thread has some other examples of blizzard evil and some slashdoters swore off blizzard products altogether. Their anger was understandable too; FreeCraft was one of the best games FOSS had.
(Freecraft mostly survived as wargus but it looks like the Freecraft media project didn't. )
As much as you linux zealots hate to admit it, Linux is not the most user friendly OS to install and use.
It's not that GNU/linux is hard to install, its that operating systems in general are difficult to install. I bet G/L is *easier* to install than other systems, but I wouldn't know, I've never tried to install XP or OSX.
If all they want to do (or know how to do) is email, IM and download pictures off their cameras, they really don't need the flexibility Linux(or variants) gives them.
If you only need basic functions from G/L then its just as easy as MSW also safer. These days end-users need to be security experts to run MSW safely.
Most Linux users (1% of all PC users) don't require slick UI to get their tasks done. Linux users primarily still use the terminal window...
I have to call bullshit on that. Maybe it was true years ago, but today its a stereotype. I use the command line for almost nothing except apt-get.
If he wanted to that more completely, he could have gone about patenting his inventions and through that legal ownership making them freely available for all to use.
That is unnecessary. From what i have read, just publishing your idea has the same effect.
A world class operating system started from scratch by a single person, with no commercial incentive?
;-)
I assume you mean Stallman.
(anyone bringing up GNU/Linux can bite me. I know the history and respect GNU. It's unweildy)
GNU/Linux really is awkward to say or type. It needs to be abbreviated to have any hope of catching on.
If you wanna say "here's our stand, and we stick by it", I respect that. If you say "any stand but ours is unholy and wrong", then you are attempting to control and I have no use fer ya.
I think that it is wrong to deliberately cripple a tool that otherwise could have been useful, just as some people think its wrong to eat meat. Take some old video games for example; they are a chunk of our culture and in some cases the source is lost. It's not a matter of life or death, but its not nice either.
I wouldn't violate the GPL, as a programmer I respect other coder's work and time. But I also don't buy into the demand that EVERYTHING be GPL's, or whatever license you prefer.
No one is demanding anything, but a time when most software is Free, is a goal the FSF is working toward. I see no problem with that.
Three years in a Federal "POUND-ME-IN-THE-ASS" prison. Does that sound pretty messed up to anyone else?
What kind of a country sentences someone to get ass raped anyway? Western civilization should be ashamed of itself.
1. Linux would have never taken off if it was proprietary.
2. Linus considers freeing linux to be the single best decision he ever made.
3. Linux has made linus millions (as a thank you from redhat). He bought a bigger house.
Check out their "Business Station". It doesn't even come with a hard drive and they say the CD drive is for the operating system.
I didn't even know lindows had a live cd.
In the 1950s a hacker was someone who tinkered with electronics and radios. In the 1970s people started getting a hold of computers and tinkering with them. (Ever hear the phrase "computer hacker"? If all hacking happened on computers, "computer hacker" would be redundant.)
The old farts like RMS and ESR make a big deal out of it because they actually remember the 70s. They remember a time when hacking meant play with/tinker. They remember Hollywood getting a hold of the term and raping it.
ESR is our public relations guy. It makes sense that he would be upset about the public associating FOSS with the scum of the earth.
The negative connotation of "hacker" is probably far worse for our image than SCO has been!
If you don't like the licensing terms, then choose Linux. Since that was like kinda of the whole point.
Not many people would find that license too restrictive. Its the BSD licence.
One reason the community doesn't care as much about google being free is because its a service, not code being executed locally; google has less potential for malice then an installed program.
IMO the people shouting "free" aren't asking for things for $0. If that is all they are after "piracy" works just as well. IMO they are asking for peer review, no vendor lock in and life for programs after the authors abandon them.
Maybe poor countries developing Free software is just what we need to keep the GNU/L bloat under control.
Four $25 Amazon.com gift certificates
- Gnome is part of the GNU project.
- The FSF asks us to boycott Amazon.com because of the one click patent.
Practice what you preach Gnome.
I am sure most of them see it as a joke or some political statement. But the political statement is pretty lame because no one knows what your angry about, "I Made this virus to protest the war?", "I made this virus to protest the the treatment of X", "I Made this virus because I don't like X company". When you get a virus it doesn't seem to spur the ideas that the virus writer wanted to portray.
This is exactly why I don't think that worms are primarily the work of geeks. If it was then they would make statements. We would see stuff like:
1) a worm that deletes harddrives that _don't_ have mp3s, released during the fall of napster.
2) People complain about the commercialization of the web. Someone would use a worm to install ad blocking stuff in IE, to put the advertisers out of business.
but we don't see stuff like that. We see Trojans and spam networks mostly, with the occasional anti-worm.
I don't believe its geek kids just out to do damage either, because they hardly delete harddrives anymore. I think Bruce Perens is right, that its primarily the work of spammers, not crackers or script kiddies.
From ESR not to him. Raymond is the president of OSI and co-founded it with Bruce Perens. Raymond winning would be like Bill getting the Microsoft award or RMS getting an award from the FSF.
1. Patent any common technique worms use to spread
2. Sue every microsoftie in Canada
3. Profit
The root of our disagreement seems to be over the definition of open source. There are 2, you are using one and I am using the other.
What the English words would naturally suggest is that "open source software" is software with sourcecode available.
The Open Source Definition is the definition endorsed by ESR, the guy who coined the term. This definition is almost exactly (but not quite) the same as The Free Software Definition endorsed by RMS, the guy who coined that term.
Man, this is a mess.
There are two licenses. One is commercial and the OSI-approved is here.
Commercial is not the opposite of freesource; proprietary is.
Open source or free software?
Same thing. Except in rare cases. The concept of "open source software" is a fork of the concept of "Free software", expect with slightly lower standards. diagram
An evaluation would be nice.
I looked for it on the FSF list of license summaries but didn't see it.