No, I'm not defending anyone. And you are confused about your terms. There is no difference between corporate freedom, individual freedom, or any other kind of freedom. There is only freedom. And you are willing to sacrifice some of it in order to make others behave like you want them to. For shame, fascist pig.
You may be willing to do that, and that's your choice. But don't pretend it has anything to do with freedom.
Then you've bought into the GNU propaganda worse than anybody. This has nothing to do with software patents, and no, the GPL is no more immune to patent violations than any other license. Why would it be?
No, 1 and 2 still don't sound at all similar, so your argument fails. "You may change this source code however you like" is completely the opposite of "Users are forbidden to change the software in any way." In fact, if you got the closed source program with BSD code in it, you could just go back to the original code and make your own changes, if you were inclined to do so. So your freedoms, and the freedoms of the end users who receive the closed source binaries are exactly the same.
In fact, as you have it, 3 is still just a variation on 2. "You may not, unless..." Granted, it's significantly less restrictive than a closed source license, but do not forget that you are sacrificing some of your freedom by using GPL code. You have to decide for yourself whether the benefit makes it worth it.
Right, I said that above. It pays to read the whole thread before going off half cocked. Of course you have the right do whatever you want with your Tivo. But they have the right to build it in any way they want so as to make it hard for you. As I said above, would storing the OS in ROM violate the GPL 3? What about using security screws on the case? Threatening to terminate the warranty if the case is opened? It gets kind of ridiculous.
Not really. No matter what the license is, you still have the ability to take it apart and hack on it until you get it working. They just don't have to make that easy for you.
Well, under the GPL version 3, they would. Personally, I think that's excessive. I mean, would storing the GNU utilities in ROM violate the license? At any rate, it restricts their freedom without affecting yours. Remember, you're just as free to mess around with your Tivo as you would be if it were completely closed source. But that's not a freedom guaranteed by the license--it's guaranteed by the fact that you bought it and it is now your private property. It may be easier or harder for you to see any results from your activity, but that has nothing to do with freedom per se.
3. You assert that providing software under the BSD license is the "best" choice since it allows maximal freedom, including freedom to change the license (given 1)... 6. By allowing software to be relicensed using the BSD license, you are using the freedom to invoke 5 on a particular piece of software as an advantage, despite claiming that you would never want software to be less free. This could cause an overall more unfree software climate.
I never said BSD was the best license. I just said it was more free than the GPL. Some people may prefer the GPL, and that's fine. I don't, but I respect their rights to use whatever license they wish.
And your last argument is a straw man. I never said I'd "never want software to be less free". I want people to have the maximum amount of freedom to do as they please with my work. Whether that's change it and re-release it, or put it in a closed source program, or even modify it and release it under the GPL. When I release software under the BSDL, I'm saying that I don't care what you do with it, as long as you give credit where credit is due. That's all. I'm not interested in the "overall... free[dom]" of the "software climate" (although I do feel that the BSDL benefits the community on a greater scale than does the GPL--but that's a separate debate).
Ah, I didn't realize civilized discussion was déclassé.
How are my messages "derogatory or otherwise inflammatory"? Because I don't agree with you? Because I actually have an opinion that I am trying to defend?
Personally, I don't think Tivo's rights should trump yours any more than the other way around. But you're not interested in the terms of the GPL anymore. You're not even interested in the notion of freedom. You just want Tivo to do whatever you think they should do, because of your personal notion of what's fair.
I'm not even complaining about the GPL. Tivo followed the terms of the GPL, and you should absolutely have any rights that the GPL provides you. Why do you suddenly think you're entitled to more than that? Because you think it's not fair?
Tivo chose to use it, and now they're seeing the results of that decision. It'll certainly wake up other companies to the realities of using GPL software. Apparently, when the authors of the GPL see something they don't like, they see fit to change the rules and further restrict freedom in the name of promoting freedom. It's a lie. The only freedom is what you're permitted.
Stop confusing your unfettered ability to take apart your toys with freedom. You can say the GPL is the best license for whatever reason. But you cannot say it promotes freedom. Read through it some time, and count the number of "you may not"s. You're just fooling yourself if you somehow believe "you may not" grants you more rights.
No, the GPL is designed to prevent people from using your software in a manner that you feel is unfair. Just call a spade a spade, and we have no dispute.
Well put. I agree completely with that--except about preferring the GPL to the BSDL. I think more people end up benefiting from the use of the BSDL rather than the GPL. I enjoy my Tivo and Mac OS X, thanks to open source software. But I've never been worried about the future of OS X due to licensing issues. I honestly expected the day to come however when the GPL would bite Tivo on the ass. As a result a product that I and many others enjoy using, in part because of its open source nature (and resultant "hackability") could be significantly changed or removed from the market completely, thanks to the vitriolic anti-corporate stance of the authors of the GPL. And it is anti-corporate. You can talk about how you think software companies should do business, and that would be a valid subject for debate, but it's not how they currently do business. And the GPL is designed to be incompatible with that method--intentionally so.
I resent being called a troll just for having an unpopular opinion. How would you like it if I said "never respond to an obstinate asshole and all that..."
In general I think software wants to have a certain purpose, wants to be used.
Actually, software just hates to be anthropomorphized.
As far as I see it, Tivo violates the GPL and they should publish the source code. It's a simple as that. If they didn't like to publish the code, they should not have used it. The Tivo users lost freedom because Tivo violated the GPL license.
Then you have no idea what you're talking about. The issue here is not publication of source code. The issue is that version 3 of the GPL requires hardware that GPL software runs on to not prevent tampering or modifying the finished product. This has nothing to do with source code availability, so you can stop mindlessly parroting the party line.
I don't see how you can claim that since that certain someone didn't gain or lose any freedom in the process. When you opt to use the GPL-ed software you have a freedom to use it. You should give that same freedom to others. It's as simple as that. Take it or leave it.
When you modify GPL software, you must distribute it under the same license. You cannot prohibit users down the line from doing the same things you did, but you also cannot permit them to do things you couldn't do. In other words, your options are fewer--in fact, you have no options. If you don't see that as restricting your freedom, then you are very confused about your terms. Sadly, I think most GPL advocates are as well.
Well, that's why I said "attempt" to prevent you from hacking their product. You're just as free to attempt to bypass those countermeasures. Why should you get freedoms that Tivo can't have? Because you bought the product? When you bought it, you knew what the restrictions, both legal and technological, on it were. You chose to buy it anyway. Asking for anything else is just greedy. You can use your Tivo in any way you see fit and in any manner you are capable of. I don't understand why Tivo should be required to help you do so, however.
You're not interested in freedom. Sometimes real freedom leads to results you won't like. You just want to play pretend hacker with your toys.
Let me give you an example. Say you have three available software licenses for source code.
1) You may change this software however you like and do whatever you want with the result.
2) You may not change this software in any way.
3) You may not change this software in any way, unless you use this license for the resulting software.
You are trying to tell me that 3 is "more free" than 1. In reality, it's just a variation on 2, the most restrictive license possible. I'd accept the argument that it promotes open source, but stop conflating source code availability with freedom. Under license 3, the price of that particular freedom is somebody else's freedom. You may not care because you end up benefiting in some cases, but there is a freedom cost.
Incidentally, as this all relates to Tivo--I'd be willing to bet they won't use any new GPL material in their new systems. In fact, they'll probably remove whatever GPL material they already have as they migrate to a closed source system. Once bitten, twice shy. So, the net result is a loss of freedom, I guess you'd say. Way to go, freedom advocates.
I "cut him down" because my whole point was that Tivo cannot take away your freedoms. They may not give you any new freedoms, but they can't take away anything you already have. You may ask, what about your right to hack your Tivo? I'd respond, what about their right to attempt to prevent their product from being hacked? They are equivalent freedoms. You may not like their rights, and may in fact prefer to deprive them of those rights. And that's fine, but don't say you're promoting freedom. You're forcing Tivo to do something they didn't want to do in order to be granted a license to use your software. Force is antithetical to freedom. The "why" doesn't really matter.
Again, your argument about enslavement suffers from the same fallacy. Nobody can enslave you and remove your rights, any more than someone can remove your rights to use software that you have a license for. Your rights are still there no matter what anyone else does. In fact, that analogy is not very good at all, because when software is released it is copied. One person may do something with the software, and it has no bearing whatsoever on what you choose to do with it.
To sum up, yes, I personally am opposed to both the effect and the intent of the GPL. But that's not really relevant here. Even if I were in favor of using the GPL--to promote open source for example--I would still take exception to the notion that the GPL provides freedom, but the BSD license does not. It's the other way around. The GPL may have other benefits, but promoting freedom isn't one of them. Freedom means the ability to do whatever you want with software, even something other people may not like. When you cannot do that, it is because your freedom is restricted.
I believe in the BSD license because I believe that for something to be truly free, it must not be encumbered in any way. Credit is fine (although I'd accept the argument that works in the public domain are "more free" than BSD licensed works), because it doesn't take away the essential freedom to do essentially whatever you want with software. Any further restrictions, though, are just not free.
Ah. Pure freedom isn't freedom. You make my point better than I ever could have.
As for free software being made proprietary... That's just not the case. Free software stays free. You still have the choice to use the free alternative, if it works better for you. You can expand it, rewrite it, do whatever you like with it. That's why it's free software. And, frankly, if you're not free to do with it as you please--even if that means incorporating it into closed source software--it's a lie to call it free. You may not like what other people do with it, but hey, that's the price of freedom. People won't always do things you like. As I said before, you could call use of the GPL promoting open source, or anti-corporate, or whatever the ideology du jour is. But it's a perversion of the term "free" to use it in this context.
And I don't see what software patents have to do with anything. This is not a discussion about patent reform, it's about software licensing.
OK, I'll bite. Exactly how does the BSD license allow you to take away someone else's freedom? That's like saying that performing a Shakespeare play somehow prevents other people from performing it. The people who put on the specific performance may say what can and can't be done with a specific performance (e.g. whether it can be recorded, the recording distributed, etc.), which is the way it always has been. Anyone else can still go back to the original and create a new performance. The BSD license is essentially the same thing as having works in the public domain (except that you are required to credit the author). The point of the public domain is that works are free for all comers to use as they wish. This has been the case as long as copyright has existed. Saying that you can somehow take away somebody else's freedom by using works in the public domain, or under the BSD license, is pure doublespeak.
In fact, the GPL is really what takes away your freedom. It essentially says that if you want to create a derivative work, you must abide by certain restrictions. What this effectively does is grant certain rights to the recipients of derivative works in exchange for certain restrictions on freedom to create those derivative works. Not as sexy sounding as "preserving freedom", I suppose.
You may support the use of the GPL based on your wanting to promote open source, or your wanting to prevent people from profiting from your work, or a multitude of other reasons. But it is duplicitous to say the GPL preserves freedom.
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength." To that I would add, "Restrictions are Rights."
May I call your attention to the following part of my original post:
Interestingly, my QWERTY typing speed improved somewhat as well, because I realized how often I had been glancing at the keys while I typed, out of sheer force of habit from when I was learning to type. I quickly broke that habit, and my typing speed went up maybe 20%.
First paragraph, last two sentences. Go up and look at it right now to verify. I'll wait.
Okay, are we clear now? Good.
I'm not even going to bother arguing with you on your other point. Your simplistic belief about the nature of the brain is clearly unshakable. Good for you for having conviction.
Fine, yes. You got me. I made it all up. I decided to lie to a completely anonymous group of people about a subject that is of very little importance in a manner that benefits nobody.
I'm not even sure how to respond to overeducated pablum like this. Cognitive processing layers? Instruction routing? Give me a break. When I'm sitting at a keyboard I put myself in the mode for that keyboard layout, and I just start typing without really thinking about the individual actions involved. The letters somehow still come out. However, you completely missed the point. The reason my typing speed improved was because when I started typing Dvorak on a QWERTY keyboard, it called my attention to a bad habit that had been slowing my typing down, both in QWERTY and Dvorak. I corrected the problem, and my typing speed improved.
I find it incredible that with all of your supposed education in neuroscience, you are seemingly devoid of reading comprehension skills. Furthermore, your apparent belief that the brain is merely some sort of complicated flowchart is outright bizarre.
You don't need a Dvorak keyboard anymore. Just change the settings in the OS. Ah, but what about the keycaps, you ask? Leave 'em as they are. I started using Dvorak about seven or eight years ago, and when I did I got a programmable keyboard. I was never quite as fast using Dvorak as I was with QWERTY, but I persevered. When I eventually got a Mac, the programmable keyboard wouldn't work with it, so I just used a QWERTY keyboard and remapped it within the OS. Within two weeks my typing speed in Dvorak significantly improved, since I could no longer fall back on looking at the keys as a crutch. When I didn't know where a key was exactly, I would start hitting around near it until I found it. I think the learned muscle memory from that experience was a far better teacher than having the keycaps. Interestingly, my QWERTY typing speed improved somewhat as well, because I realized how often I had been glancing at the keys while I typed, out of sheer force of habit from when I was learning to type. I quickly broke that habit, and my typing speed went up maybe 20%.
I ultimately stopped using Dvorak because it was too much of a pain to reconfigure the keyboard all of the time when getting a new game or something. I doubt I'll go back at this point, since I currently make my living using Avid and I know all of the Avid commands I regularly use by their letter and keyboard position. I could remap them, I suppose, but after all the fun I had trying to use Emacs with a Dvorak layout, I'm not sure I find the advantages of Dvorak compelling enough to bother.
I seem to recall that Leisure Suit Larry 1 did this. And it's not like it was the only Sierra game where you could easily get the game into an unwinnable state. I remember that Space Quest 1 had a particularly obnoxious example. A guy would come along early in the game and offer to trade you something for one of your items. If you said yes the first time, you wouldn't get the jetpack, so you could complete the game all the way to the end when you'd suddenly need the jetpack to solve the last puzzle. Of course, you'd have no idea that you missed it way back in the beginning, so you'd probably have to ask someone for the solution, then play the whole game again, making sure you get the jetpack. But don't refuse to trade him twice, or you don't get diddly squat and lose anyway. I always thought this was a particularly stupid, unfair puzzle.
But then again, I don't worry about getting banned.
A few years ago my brother and I were screwing around on my private server (not even a dedicated server, I was running the host on my local machine) and as a result they thought he was cheating and banned his WON ID. The appeals process for this? None. They wouldn't even respond to my emails asking why he was banned. It's a pretty crappy way to treat your customers, I think.
Furthermore, the cheat detection process isn't perfect. There are going to be some false positives. Once, my CPU speed had somehow gotten misreported in Windows, completely unbeknownst to me. As a result, Half-Life ran exceptionally fast for me, some five times faster than normal. Granted, I didn't get banned for cheating (as soon as I realized the problem I rebooted and that took care of it), but it made me nervous that whether I could play the game I had purchased was completely at their whim.
I understand the benefits of their anti-cheating policy, but the implementation is extremely poor. Even if you never cheat, you could well get burned sooner or later.
A bunch of my computers once got infected with Chernobyl, and it proceeded to trash the BIOS on two or three machines. I was pretty pissed about potentially having to replace these motherboards, so I said screw that and got an EPROM writer. With the latest version of the BIOS from the manufacturer, I flashed me up a few EPROMS and plugged 'em in. Suckers booted right up, and since the only way to erase them was with UV light, they were completely immune to BIOS attacking viruses thereafter.
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Tivo shill?
No, I'm not defending anyone. And you are confused about your terms. There is no difference between corporate freedom, individual freedom, or any other kind of freedom. There is only freedom. And you are willing to sacrifice some of it in order to make others behave like you want them to. For shame, fascist pig.
You may be willing to do that, and that's your choice. But don't pretend it has anything to do with freedom.
Then you've bought into the GNU propaganda worse than anybody. This has nothing to do with software patents, and no, the GPL is no more immune to patent violations than any other license. Why would it be?
No, 1 and 2 still don't sound at all similar, so your argument fails. "You may change this source code however you like" is completely the opposite of "Users are forbidden to change the software in any way." In fact, if you got the closed source program with BSD code in it, you could just go back to the original code and make your own changes, if you were inclined to do so. So your freedoms, and the freedoms of the end users who receive the closed source binaries are exactly the same.
In fact, as you have it, 3 is still just a variation on 2. "You may not, unless..." Granted, it's significantly less restrictive than a closed source license, but do not forget that you are sacrificing some of your freedom by using GPL code. You have to decide for yourself whether the benefit makes it worth it.
Right, I said that above. It pays to read the whole thread before going off half cocked. Of course you have the right do whatever you want with your Tivo. But they have the right to build it in any way they want so as to make it hard for you. As I said above, would storing the OS in ROM violate the GPL 3? What about using security screws on the case? Threatening to terminate the warranty if the case is opened? It gets kind of ridiculous.
Not really. No matter what the license is, you still have the ability to take it apart and hack on it until you get it working. They just don't have to make that easy for you.
Well, under the GPL version 3, they would. Personally, I think that's excessive. I mean, would storing the GNU utilities in ROM violate the license? At any rate, it restricts their freedom without affecting yours. Remember, you're just as free to mess around with your Tivo as you would be if it were completely closed source. But that's not a freedom guaranteed by the license--it's guaranteed by the fact that you bought it and it is now your private property. It may be easier or harder for you to see any results from your activity, but that has nothing to do with freedom per se.
3. You assert that providing software under the BSD license is the "best" choice since it allows maximal freedom, including freedom to change the license (given 1)
6. By allowing software to be relicensed using the BSD license, you are using the freedom to invoke 5 on a particular piece of software as an advantage, despite claiming that you would never want software to be less free. This could cause an overall more unfree software climate.
I never said BSD was the best license. I just said it was more free than the GPL. Some people may prefer the GPL, and that's fine. I don't, but I respect their rights to use whatever license they wish.
And your last argument is a straw man. I never said I'd "never want software to be less free". I want people to have the maximum amount of freedom to do as they please with my work. Whether that's change it and re-release it, or put it in a closed source program, or even modify it and release it under the GPL. When I release software under the BSDL, I'm saying that I don't care what you do with it, as long as you give credit where credit is due. That's all. I'm not interested in the "overall... free[dom]" of the "software climate" (although I do feel that the BSDL benefits the community on a greater scale than does the GPL--but that's a separate debate).
Ah, I didn't realize civilized discussion was déclassé.
How are my messages "derogatory or otherwise inflammatory"? Because I don't agree with you? Because I actually have an opinion that I am trying to defend?
I think you're the troll here.
Personally, I don't think Tivo's rights should trump yours any more than the other way around. But you're not interested in the terms of the GPL anymore. You're not even interested in the notion of freedom. You just want Tivo to do whatever you think they should do, because of your personal notion of what's fair.
I'm not even complaining about the GPL. Tivo followed the terms of the GPL, and you should absolutely have any rights that the GPL provides you. Why do you suddenly think you're entitled to more than that? Because you think it's not fair?
Tivo chose to use it, and now they're seeing the results of that decision. It'll certainly wake up other companies to the realities of using GPL software. Apparently, when the authors of the GPL see something they don't like, they see fit to change the rules and further restrict freedom in the name of promoting freedom. It's a lie. The only freedom is what you're permitted.
Stop confusing your unfettered ability to take apart your toys with freedom. You can say the GPL is the best license for whatever reason. But you cannot say it promotes freedom. Read through it some time, and count the number of "you may not"s. You're just fooling yourself if you somehow believe "you may not" grants you more rights.
No, the GPL is designed to prevent people from using your software in a manner that you feel is unfair. Just call a spade a spade, and we have no dispute.
Well put. I agree completely with that--except about preferring the GPL to the BSDL. I think more people end up benefiting from the use of the BSDL rather than the GPL. I enjoy my Tivo and Mac OS X, thanks to open source software. But I've never been worried about the future of OS X due to licensing issues. I honestly expected the day to come however when the GPL would bite Tivo on the ass. As a result a product that I and many others enjoy using, in part because of its open source nature (and resultant "hackability") could be significantly changed or removed from the market completely, thanks to the vitriolic anti-corporate stance of the authors of the GPL. And it is anti-corporate. You can talk about how you think software companies should do business, and that would be a valid subject for debate, but it's not how they currently do business. And the GPL is designed to be incompatible with that method--intentionally so.
I resent being called a troll just for having an unpopular opinion. How would you like it if I said "never respond to an obstinate asshole and all that..."
In general I think software wants to have a certain purpose, wants to be used.
Actually, software just hates to be anthropomorphized.
As far as I see it, Tivo violates the GPL and they should publish the source code. It's a simple as that. If they didn't like to publish the code, they should not have used it. The Tivo users lost freedom because Tivo violated the GPL license.
Then you have no idea what you're talking about. The issue here is not publication of source code. The issue is that version 3 of the GPL requires hardware that GPL software runs on to not prevent tampering or modifying the finished product. This has nothing to do with source code availability, so you can stop mindlessly parroting the party line.
I don't see how you can claim that since that certain someone didn't gain or lose any freedom in the process. When you opt to use the GPL-ed software you have a freedom to use it. You should give that same freedom to others. It's as simple as that. Take it or leave it.
When you modify GPL software, you must distribute it under the same license. You cannot prohibit users down the line from doing the same things you did, but you also cannot permit them to do things you couldn't do. In other words, your options are fewer--in fact, you have no options. If you don't see that as restricting your freedom, then you are very confused about your terms. Sadly, I think most GPL advocates are as well.
Don't be scared of freedom. It won't bite.
Well, that's why I said "attempt" to prevent you from hacking their product. You're just as free to attempt to bypass those countermeasures. Why should you get freedoms that Tivo can't have? Because you bought the product? When you bought it, you knew what the restrictions, both legal and technological, on it were. You chose to buy it anyway. Asking for anything else is just greedy. You can use your Tivo in any way you see fit and in any manner you are capable of. I don't understand why Tivo should be required to help you do so, however.
You're not interested in freedom. Sometimes real freedom leads to results you won't like. You just want to play pretend hacker with your toys.
Let me give you an example. Say you have three available software licenses for source code.
1) You may change this software however you like and do whatever you want with the result.
2) You may not change this software in any way.
3) You may not change this software in any way, unless you use this license for the resulting software.
You are trying to tell me that 3 is "more free" than 1. In reality, it's just a variation on 2, the most restrictive license possible. I'd accept the argument that it promotes open source, but stop conflating source code availability with freedom. Under license 3, the price of that particular freedom is somebody else's freedom. You may not care because you end up benefiting in some cases, but there is a freedom cost.
Incidentally, as this all relates to Tivo--I'd be willing to bet they won't use any new GPL material in their new systems. In fact, they'll probably remove whatever GPL material they already have as they migrate to a closed source system. Once bitten, twice shy. So, the net result is a loss of freedom, I guess you'd say. Way to go, freedom advocates.
I "cut him down" because my whole point was that Tivo cannot take away your freedoms. They may not give you any new freedoms, but they can't take away anything you already have. You may ask, what about your right to hack your Tivo? I'd respond, what about their right to attempt to prevent their product from being hacked? They are equivalent freedoms. You may not like their rights, and may in fact prefer to deprive them of those rights. And that's fine, but don't say you're promoting freedom. You're forcing Tivo to do something they didn't want to do in order to be granted a license to use your software. Force is antithetical to freedom. The "why" doesn't really matter.
Again, your argument about enslavement suffers from the same fallacy. Nobody can enslave you and remove your rights, any more than someone can remove your rights to use software that you have a license for. Your rights are still there no matter what anyone else does. In fact, that analogy is not very good at all, because when software is released it is copied. One person may do something with the software, and it has no bearing whatsoever on what you choose to do with it.
To sum up, yes, I personally am opposed to both the effect and the intent of the GPL. But that's not really relevant here. Even if I were in favor of using the GPL--to promote open source for example--I would still take exception to the notion that the GPL provides freedom, but the BSD license does not. It's the other way around. The GPL may have other benefits, but promoting freedom isn't one of them. Freedom means the ability to do whatever you want with software, even something other people may not like. When you cannot do that, it is because your freedom is restricted.
I believe in the BSD license because I believe that for something to be truly free, it must not be encumbered in any way. Credit is fine (although I'd accept the argument that works in the public domain are "more free" than BSD licensed works), because it doesn't take away the essential freedom to do essentially whatever you want with software. Any further restrictions, though, are just not free.
Ah. Pure freedom isn't freedom. You make my point better than I ever could have.
As for free software being made proprietary... That's just not the case. Free software stays free. You still have the choice to use the free alternative, if it works better for you. You can expand it, rewrite it, do whatever you like with it. That's why it's free software. And, frankly, if you're not free to do with it as you please--even if that means incorporating it into closed source software--it's a lie to call it free. You may not like what other people do with it, but hey, that's the price of freedom. People won't always do things you like. As I said before, you could call use of the GPL promoting open source, or anti-corporate, or whatever the ideology du jour is. But it's a perversion of the term "free" to use it in this context.
And I don't see what software patents have to do with anything. This is not a discussion about patent reform, it's about software licensing.
Thank you for that succinct yet effective response.
May I ask what flavor the Kool-Aid was?
OK, I'll bite. Exactly how does the BSD license allow you to take away someone else's freedom? That's like saying that performing a Shakespeare play somehow prevents other people from performing it. The people who put on the specific performance may say what can and can't be done with a specific performance (e.g. whether it can be recorded, the recording distributed, etc.), which is the way it always has been. Anyone else can still go back to the original and create a new performance. The BSD license is essentially the same thing as having works in the public domain (except that you are required to credit the author). The point of the public domain is that works are free for all comers to use as they wish. This has been the case as long as copyright has existed. Saying that you can somehow take away somebody else's freedom by using works in the public domain, or under the BSD license, is pure doublespeak.
In fact, the GPL is really what takes away your freedom. It essentially says that if you want to create a derivative work, you must abide by certain restrictions. What this effectively does is grant certain rights to the recipients of derivative works in exchange for certain restrictions on freedom to create those derivative works. Not as sexy sounding as "preserving freedom", I suppose.
You may support the use of the GPL based on your wanting to promote open source, or your wanting to prevent people from profiting from your work, or a multitude of other reasons. But it is duplicitous to say the GPL preserves freedom.
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength." To that I would add, "Restrictions are Rights."
May I call your attention to the following part of my original post:
Interestingly, my QWERTY typing speed improved somewhat as well, because I realized how often I had been glancing at the keys while I typed, out of sheer force of habit from when I was learning to type. I quickly broke that habit, and my typing speed went up maybe 20%.
First paragraph, last two sentences. Go up and look at it right now to verify. I'll wait.
Okay, are we clear now? Good.
I'm not even going to bother arguing with you on your other point. Your simplistic belief about the nature of the brain is clearly unshakable. Good for you for having conviction.
Fine, yes. You got me. I made it all up. I decided to lie to a completely anonymous group of people about a subject that is of very little importance in a manner that benefits nobody.
I'm not even sure how to respond to overeducated pablum like this. Cognitive processing layers? Instruction routing? Give me a break. When I'm sitting at a keyboard I put myself in the mode for that keyboard layout, and I just start typing without really thinking about the individual actions involved. The letters somehow still come out. However, you completely missed the point. The reason my typing speed improved was because when I started typing Dvorak on a QWERTY keyboard, it called my attention to a bad habit that had been slowing my typing down, both in QWERTY and Dvorak. I corrected the problem, and my typing speed improved.
I find it incredible that with all of your supposed education in neuroscience, you are seemingly devoid of reading comprehension skills. Furthermore, your apparent belief that the brain is merely some sort of complicated flowchart is outright bizarre.
You don't need a Dvorak keyboard anymore. Just change the settings in the OS. Ah, but what about the keycaps, you ask? Leave 'em as they are. I started using Dvorak about seven or eight years ago, and when I did I got a programmable keyboard. I was never quite as fast using Dvorak as I was with QWERTY, but I persevered. When I eventually got a Mac, the programmable keyboard wouldn't work with it, so I just used a QWERTY keyboard and remapped it within the OS. Within two weeks my typing speed in Dvorak significantly improved, since I could no longer fall back on looking at the keys as a crutch. When I didn't know where a key was exactly, I would start hitting around near it until I found it. I think the learned muscle memory from that experience was a far better teacher than having the keycaps. Interestingly, my QWERTY typing speed improved somewhat as well, because I realized how often I had been glancing at the keys while I typed, out of sheer force of habit from when I was learning to type. I quickly broke that habit, and my typing speed went up maybe 20%.
I ultimately stopped using Dvorak because it was too much of a pain to reconfigure the keyboard all of the time when getting a new game or something. I doubt I'll go back at this point, since I currently make my living using Avid and I know all of the Avid commands I regularly use by their letter and keyboard position. I could remap them, I suppose, but after all the fun I had trying to use Emacs with a Dvorak layout, I'm not sure I find the advantages of Dvorak compelling enough to bother.
This is not Digg and that sort of behavior is not acceptable here.
And don't even think about using your ID as a metric of how cool you are, especially if it's over 100000.
I seem to recall that Leisure Suit Larry 1 did this. And it's not like it was the only Sierra game where you could easily get the game into an unwinnable state. I remember that Space Quest 1 had a particularly obnoxious example. A guy would come along early in the game and offer to trade you something for one of your items. If you said yes the first time, you wouldn't get the jetpack, so you could complete the game all the way to the end when you'd suddenly need the jetpack to solve the last puzzle. Of course, you'd have no idea that you missed it way back in the beginning, so you'd probably have to ask someone for the solution, then play the whole game again, making sure you get the jetpack. But don't refuse to trade him twice, or you don't get diddly squat and lose anyway. I always thought this was a particularly stupid, unfair puzzle.
But then again, I don't worry about getting banned.
A few years ago my brother and I were screwing around on my private server (not even a dedicated server, I was running the host on my local machine) and as a result they thought he was cheating and banned his WON ID. The appeals process for this? None. They wouldn't even respond to my emails asking why he was banned. It's a pretty crappy way to treat your customers, I think.
Furthermore, the cheat detection process isn't perfect. There are going to be some false positives. Once, my CPU speed had somehow gotten misreported in Windows, completely unbeknownst to me. As a result, Half-Life ran exceptionally fast for me, some five times faster than normal. Granted, I didn't get banned for cheating (as soon as I realized the problem I rebooted and that took care of it), but it made me nervous that whether I could play the game I had purchased was completely at their whim.
I understand the benefits of their anti-cheating policy, but the implementation is extremely poor. Even if you never cheat, you could well get burned sooner or later.
A bunch of my computers once got infected with Chernobyl, and it proceeded to trash the BIOS on two or three machines. I was pretty pissed about potentially having to replace these motherboards, so I said screw that and got an EPROM writer. With the latest version of the BIOS from the manufacturer, I flashed me up a few EPROMS and plugged 'em in. Suckers booted right up, and since the only way to erase them was with UV light, they were completely immune to BIOS attacking viruses thereafter.
Word hit the streets after several mangers of the IE division posted on the IE blog.
It's official--IE7 is the web browser used by Jesus!
The GPL requires that all components of the program are to be Free
I love the inherent hypocrisy of the GPL.
We will permit absolutely nothing but that which falls into our definition of freedom!