Re:Same old GNU/God Complex
on
Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 1
Yep. RMS seems to have different standards for documents as for code. The GNU "FDL" is widely considered non-free, and addresses issues he doesn't seem to care about when it comes for code e.g. the FDL has lots of clauses to stop you misrepresenting the author's views, but the GPL has no such protection. So I could (for example) make a version of emacs that chucks out racist insults, and though I have to put in the source that I changed the files, there's no way the end users would know it wasn't RMS's work. Jorg (sp?) Schillig has been bitten by this, with some distro including a buggy modified version of cdrecord that people then blamed his for, and though he claims that's violating the gpl his argument is very dodgy and not accepted by most people. Maybe he doesn't think free writing is as important as free code?
FreeBSD would probably never have started without the FSF and the GNU project. FSF wrote letters to the BSD people encouraging them to free up their code, and they did, but they hadn't been showing any sign of doing it before that point. FreeBSD people claim that they don't care much about licensing issues, just making the best software, so it's quite likely the whole project and even the modern (2- or 3-term) BSD license wouldn't exist.
You don't get enough testing that way. Say some obscure package off disk 11 gets upgraded. Now, do they really have the manpower to ensure that hasn't broken some other obscure package off disk 10? For every single package, and every version? No, of course they don't. Wheras when they do a release, they only have to test that all of the packages in the release work together (which is easier because it mostly just means install all packages and then test each package, there's a few packages where some are known-incompatible so you have to test for each possible version but that's all). And therafter you know when you install that version that whatever package combination you select, it will work.
You clearly didn't read it. It's "You may distribute this under the GPL v2 or any *later* version". So it's up to the distributer whether they use V2, even if V3 is now around. You go by the COPYING file included with the distribution.
Why? Did you have an actual problem with 2.2? Or did you ditch Debian because it was making your e-penis feel small? It's rock solid stable, which is more than I can say for most 2.4 and every 2.6 release I've ever tried? They believe in stability, really do. If you know what you're doing they support going up to 2.4 and probably 2.6, but if you don't know how to and don't even read the help screen, it makes sense for debian to assume you don't know what you're doing.
Re:the code of conduct for free software distribut
on
Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 1
Wouldn't putting it in the public domain be better for reference implementations like that?
On the last thing, it shows that they're the good guys. "We're opening our specs right up. If microsoft want to release windows for the PS3, we're letting them". Doesn't that make him sound like a nice guy?
Rather "you'll buy the gas tank separately". And if gas tanks doubled in capacity every 6 months while staying the same size and price that's what some car manufacturers would do. Whatever size hard drive they ship will be tiny within a year or two. Rather than having to bring out a new PS3 box each year, they can keep selling the same PS3 boxes and just sell an external hard drive at capacities that change every six months. It makes sense.
On the serious side, this is probably what sony wants to avoid. A lot of people were devoted to hacking the current consoles to run linux on them - and incidentally opened it up for piracy along the way. If it runs linux from day 1 there will be less people working to crack it. Won't hurt the big piracy orgs, but could stop a few of the smaller ones.
Re:When four corners is too much
on
Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 1
WRT 3 you forget that the FSF started the whole movement. They have a legitimate claim to be the heart of the free software movement.
Maybe it's because hackers care more about stopping other hackers going to prison and getting laws changed than writing software, important as the latter still is?
Re:I refer you to a very old post I wrote
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Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 1
How about stored in a company's data warehouse while there are plenty of able coders who would love to work on it if only they could? I think it's possible for software to be lacking freedom
I have been among those criticising debian for its long release cycles, but the big advantage of them was that releases weren't released until they were done. If there were that big breakages, why didn't they leave it frozen until they were fixed?
I don't think testing all the way along is the answer, that way nothing would get done. It's great that Debian has a period devoted solely to testing before the distribution gets released, it means things get fixed. It's hard to be motivated about fixing things that are probably never going to be released (because there will be a new version before the actual release)
Unfortunately I can't argue for the unconstitutionality of these laws since we don't have a constitution here, but this copyright extension thing is stupid. Really stupid. We only just got Elvis in the public domain (is he even there yet?) from years and years ago. The UK even retroactively takes things out of the public domain, so if this passes we could lose that. (copy as much as you can, now, while you can).
Go on then, tell me the difference between apple's non-monopoly on the large capacity portable music player and MS's monopoly on the desktop operating system. Go on, try and find one bit of difference.
Yet in every "ipod killer" thread we see someone saying "It's not ipod, it's itms, you have to make an online store that will beat itms before your player will succeed"
Why do you say "add podcasting"? That's exactly the kind of thinking - add the in thing of the moment to the player proper - that got it this bloated and confusing in the first place. Let media player play the media and let a podcasting program do the podcasting.
The US won't be compelled to intervene. It will intervene or not based on political considerations. I sincerely hope that the US wouldn't intervene. The last thing we need is a nuclear war. Though at the same time they can't admit they wouldn't intervene, or Taiwan will be invaded right away.
You mean it's not just leaking out from all the créme bruleé?
Re:Which distros can resize partitions?
on
Test Driving Linux
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· Score: 1
That's pretty much impossible since it's impossible to move the start of a filesystem (at least an ext3 one, if the NTFS partition is at the end of the disk it might work). If the "gap" is big enough that you can shrink the NTFS partition, make a new ext3 partition in the gap, move everything from the existing ext3 partition to the new one, delete the old ext3 partition and expand the new one to the end of the disk you can do that, or you could try some sort of shuffling approach.
Hmm. Have you tried a recent Mandrake/Mandriva install disk? They partition fairly sensibly if you say "do it automatically", and would probably be smart enough to detect and erase an empty partition and set up a linux partition layout there.
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Yep. RMS seems to have different standards for documents as for code. The GNU "FDL" is widely considered non-free, and addresses issues he doesn't seem to care about when it comes for code e.g. the FDL has lots of clauses to stop you misrepresenting the author's views, but the GPL has no such protection. So I could (for example) make a version of emacs that chucks out racist insults, and though I have to put in the source that I changed the files, there's no way the end users would know it wasn't RMS's work. Jorg (sp?) Schillig has been bitten by this, with some distro including a buggy modified version of cdrecord that people then blamed his for, and though he claims that's violating the gpl his argument is very dodgy and not accepted by most people. Maybe he doesn't think free writing is as important as free code?
FreeBSD would probably never have started without the FSF and the GNU project. FSF wrote letters to the BSD people encouraging them to free up their code, and they did, but they hadn't been showing any sign of doing it before that point. FreeBSD people claim that they don't care much about licensing issues, just making the best software, so it's quite likely the whole project and even the modern (2- or 3-term) BSD license wouldn't exist.
You don't get enough testing that way. Say some obscure package off disk 11 gets upgraded. Now, do they really have the manpower to ensure that hasn't broken some other obscure package off disk 10? For every single package, and every version? No, of course they don't. Wheras when they do a release, they only have to test that all of the packages in the release work together (which is easier because it mostly just means install all packages and then test each package, there's a few packages where some are known-incompatible so you have to test for each possible version but that's all). And therafter you know when you install that version that whatever package combination you select, it will work.
You clearly didn't read it. It's "You may distribute this under the GPL v2 or any *later* version". So it's up to the distributer whether they use V2, even if V3 is now around. You go by the COPYING file included with the distribution.
Why? Did you have an actual problem with 2.2? Or did you ditch Debian because it was making your e-penis feel small? It's rock solid stable, which is more than I can say for most 2.4 and every 2.6 release I've ever tried? They believe in stability, really do. If you know what you're doing they support going up to 2.4 and probably 2.6, but if you don't know how to and don't even read the help screen, it makes sense for debian to assume you don't know what you're doing.
Wouldn't putting it in the public domain be better for reference implementations like that?
Ha. It's more like "drive a campervan to work every day, after all you might want it some time"
On the last thing, it shows that they're the good guys. "We're opening our specs right up. If microsoft want to release windows for the PS3, we're letting them". Doesn't that make him sound like a nice guy?
Rather "you'll buy the gas tank separately". And if gas tanks doubled in capacity every 6 months while staying the same size and price that's what some car manufacturers would do. Whatever size hard drive they ship will be tiny within a year or two. Rather than having to bring out a new PS3 box each year, they can keep selling the same PS3 boxes and just sell an external hard drive at capacities that change every six months. It makes sense.
On the serious side, this is probably what sony wants to avoid. A lot of people were devoted to hacking the current consoles to run linux on them - and incidentally opened it up for piracy along the way. If it runs linux from day 1 there will be less people working to crack it. Won't hurt the big piracy orgs, but could stop a few of the smaller ones.
WRT 3 you forget that the FSF started the whole movement. They have a legitimate claim to be the heart of the free software movement.
Maybe it's because hackers care more about stopping other hackers going to prison and getting laws changed than writing software, important as the latter still is?
How about stored in a company's data warehouse while there are plenty of able coders who would love to work on it if only they could? I think it's possible for software to be lacking freedom
I don't think testing all the way along is the answer, that way nothing would get done. It's great that Debian has a period devoted solely to testing before the distribution gets released, it means things get fixed. It's hard to be motivated about fixing things that are probably never going to be released (because there will be a new version before the actual release)
Unfortunately I can't argue for the unconstitutionality of these laws since we don't have a constitution here, but this copyright extension thing is stupid. Really stupid. We only just got Elvis in the public domain (is he even there yet?) from years and years ago. The UK even retroactively takes things out of the public domain, so if this passes we could lose that. (copy as much as you can, now, while you can).
Maybe the RIAA required Apple to provide them with purchase information as a condition of licensing their music to them?
Go on then, tell me the difference between apple's non-monopoly on the large capacity portable music player and MS's monopoly on the desktop operating system. Go on, try and find one bit of difference.
Yet in every "ipod killer" thread we see someone saying "It's not ipod, it's itms, you have to make an online store that will beat itms before your player will succeed"
Why do you say "add podcasting"? That's exactly the kind of thinking - add the in thing of the moment to the player proper - that got it this bloated and confusing in the first place. Let media player play the media and let a podcasting program do the podcasting.
The US won't be compelled to intervene. It will intervene or not based on political considerations. I sincerely hope that the US wouldn't intervene. The last thing we need is a nuclear war. Though at the same time they can't admit they wouldn't intervene, or Taiwan will be invaded right away.
You mean it's not just leaking out from all the créme bruleé?
That's pretty much impossible since it's impossible to move the start of a filesystem (at least an ext3 one, if the NTFS partition is at the end of the disk it might work). If the "gap" is big enough that you can shrink the NTFS partition, make a new ext3 partition in the gap, move everything from the existing ext3 partition to the new one, delete the old ext3 partition and expand the new one to the end of the disk you can do that, or you could try some sort of shuffling approach.
Hmm. Have you tried a recent Mandrake/Mandriva install disk? They partition fairly sensibly if you say "do it automatically", and would probably be smart enough to detect and erase an empty partition and set up a linux partition layout there.
I think it's what used to be MadrakeMove. Mandrake has always been the distribution I'd recommend to newbies.
If you put export restrictions like that on it you're violating EU law.