It does not prevent commercial activity, but it does constrain commercial activity and impose legal requirements on adopters. The average Joe without a massive legal department behind him to keep him honest does face an uphill battle if they chose to use or redistribute FOSS components. That being said, because I work for one of the worlds largest corporations with a huge legal staff AND quite possibly the single largest corporate contributor to open source, all of my work is based on open frameworks and FOSS. As a result I get to re-use most of the time instead of re-inventing the wheel at every turn. This is the true benefit of open source. The cost however is not trivial, but it is cheaper than reinventing the wheel once you scale it up. In short, doing it right ain't easy, but it does pay off in the long run.
God-damn, yet another misunderstanding of L/GPL? If I make an app where I can throw birds at pigs that happens to use a GPL'ed JSON library, it doesn't mean that the whole app has to be open-sourced does it?
Compliance has many aspects. If you're redistributing you may simply have to state it and reproduce the copyright statement.
Actually I find the Copy left licences have far more demands than any commercial licence. You can spend huge amounts of time figuring out if you can link or not link, how you must publish the code and how you can distribute the application.
As a commercial software developer myself, I'm glad at least one other person on Slashdot understands this!
For some of us, copyleft code is, by far, the most expensive code there is. In fact, it's pretty much poison.
Which was the intent, free to extend, not so free to commercialize. TANSTAAFL
what ties these two events together, and of course a number of other events, is the diffusion of power, away from the states and the empowerment of individuals, and small groups of individuals, by technology
If you have not already you should read David Brin's Earth. His version of th 21st century with ubiquitous personal media and world wide networking was amazingly prescient.
In fact, every politician and journalist should go out and read this.
"Why should I read this series, especially given that it seems he seems takes an awful lot of time to complete a book".
My answer to everyone who asks is: "Read the first one, then pretend that the author died."
Storm of Swords is definitely in my top 10 list of Fantasy novels, but sadly, in my opinion (and of many others I've talked to), it's all downhill from there.
The appropriate Hitler rant here would be the CEO's of the competitors who have not even managed to compete with the iPad1, and here's Apple shipping version 2 before half the competitors have their tablets shipping.
I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.
I just don't get all this indignation regarding a company that is trying to put out a viable consumer friendly OS for free, while trying to make enough money (in an honest, not privacy invading way) so that it can continue to do so.
Its like being a Canadian entertainer, everyone loves you as long as you're the underdog but as soon as you get a movie or record deal in the US and start making money you have sold out and are now part of the machine.
That's not so bad, but still leaves open the case of there being multiple users sharing a login, one being aware of the setting and the other not. Scarily common.
Imagine if all you could do is run ring 3 code with no in/out - imagine if there was no IO mapped into your address space. Now you can write any code you like that does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL. No screen, no network card, no mouse, no keyboard, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I'd imagine it's pretty easy to secure a machine in that case.
Indeed, back when I did my intelligence indoctrination it was drilled into me that the only way to secure a computer was to put it in a locked room with tempest level isolation. The next step is to remove the power supply and throw away the key.
there's little demand for higher performance apps in the browser
As much as I hate the idea of a browser that is able to run downloaded native binaries, I have to disagree here. In the corporate enterprise world there is a HUGE demand for this since it centralizes and simplifies the software distribution problem.
I'm not sure what the point of this is though, if you're delivering native binaries you might as well just install the application locally. Consider (as the article mentions) a NaCl version of Photoshop. Well, you would have to download the entire app every time you use it? Why not just install Photoshop?
I suspect it's perceived to be easier to users manage and maintain. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I had to point out to my management years ago that any kind of software install is effectively a violation of security. As a vendor it is not a question of IF you violate security, it's a question of HOW.
I suspect that the corporate IT world will come down on end-users who use Chrome like a ton of bricks if this gets any traction.
Slashdot Mirror
It does not prevent commercial activity, but it does constrain commercial activity and impose legal requirements on adopters.
The average Joe without a massive legal department behind him to keep him honest does face an uphill battle if they chose to use or redistribute FOSS components.
That being said, because I work for one of the worlds largest corporations with a huge legal staff AND quite possibly the single largest corporate contributor to open source, all of my work is based on open frameworks and FOSS. As a result I get to re-use most of the time instead of re-inventing the wheel at every turn. This is the true benefit of open source. The cost however is not trivial, but it is cheaper than reinventing the wheel once you scale it up.
In short, doing it right ain't easy, but it does pay off in the long run.
God-damn, yet another misunderstanding of L/GPL? If I make an app where I can throw birds at pigs that happens to use a GPL'ed JSON library, it doesn't mean that the whole app has to be open-sourced does it?
Compliance has many aspects. If you're redistributing you may simply have to state it and reproduce the copyright statement.
Actually I find the Copy left licences have far more demands than any commercial licence. You can spend huge amounts of time figuring out if you can link or not link, how you must publish the code and how you can distribute the application.
As a commercial software developer myself, I'm glad at least one other person on Slashdot understands this!
For some of us, copyleft code is, by far, the most expensive code there is. In fact, it's pretty much poison.
Which was the intent, free to extend, not so free to commercialize. TANSTAAFL
**spoiler**
The robot did it.
what ties these two events together, and of course a number of other events, is the diffusion of power, away from the states and the empowerment of individuals, and small groups of individuals, by technology
If you have not already you should read David Brin's Earth. His version of th 21st century with ubiquitous personal media and world wide networking was amazingly prescient.
In fact, every politician and journalist should go out and read this.
Let's be honest, though; both Apple and Gnome have pretty much the same design approach.
That would be because Gnome is copying OSX, not because of any magical synergy.
"Why should I read this series, especially given that it seems he seems takes an awful lot of time to complete a book".
My answer to everyone who asks is: "Read the first one, then pretend that the author died."
Storm of Swords is definitely in my top 10 list of Fantasy novels, but sadly, in my opinion (and of many others I've talked to), it's all downhill from there.
So write one, it's a free world dude.
Have you actually tried it? My only problem with the iPad + a stylus is that my handwriting sucks, I'm much faster just typing.
This was already made available by the camera kit in version 1. What is lacking is the driver support.
All available from third parties. Welcome to 2010.
Best iPad Stylus Pens Review
WritePad for iPad
The appropriate Hitler rant here would be the CEO's of the competitors who have not even managed to compete with the iPad1, and here's Apple shipping version 2 before half the competitors have their tablets shipping.
When you can run 3D games, a word processor an external monitor and bluetooth keyboard off your cute little kindle get back to me.
Now if only it didn't suck.
I wish someone - even Microsoft - would come up with a decent alternative to Google. Being a monopoly is making them more and more corrupt, and by being the gatekeeper, they now own too much of the internet.
Moammar? Is that you?
Destroying evidence is a crime in the US, too.
Yes, but destroying data is not. The point is that evidence that something was destroyed is not itself evidence of crime.
There's gold in them there FUD!
I just don't get all this indignation regarding a company that is trying to put out a viable consumer friendly OS for free, while trying to make enough money (in an honest, not privacy invading way) so that it can continue to do so.
Its like being a Canadian entertainer, everyone loves you as long as you're the underdog but as soon as you get a movie or record deal in the US and start making money you have sold out and are now part of the machine.
That's not so bad, but still leaves open the case of there being multiple users sharing a login, one being aware of the setting and the other not. Scarily common.
The ability to run these binaries must be explicitly enabled by the user, so no reason to avoid Chrome just yet ;)
Thats true of lots of the most effective attack vectors, the problem is the users.
Imagine if all you could do is run ring 3 code with no in/out - imagine if there was no IO mapped into your address space.
Now you can write any code you like that does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL. No screen, no network card, no mouse, no keyboard, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I'd imagine it's pretty easy to secure a machine in that case.
Indeed, back when I did my intelligence indoctrination it was drilled into me that the only way to secure a computer was to put it in a locked room with tempest level isolation. The next step is to remove the power supply and throw away the key.
Really? Because a little-known piece of computer software called an OPERATING SYSTEM makes native binaries safe THE WHOLE TIME.
ORLY?
there's little demand for higher performance apps in the browser
As much as I hate the idea of a browser that is able to run downloaded native binaries, I have to disagree here. In the corporate enterprise world there is a HUGE demand for this since it centralizes and simplifies the software distribution problem.
Yeah and too much of it can kill you...
Of course that's also true of O2 and H2O.
Why make it secure, when there is money to be made by having it INsecure. Trust Google...
Do not attribute to malice that which is more adequately explained by stupidity.
I'm not sure what the point of this is though, if you're delivering native binaries you might as well just install the application locally. Consider (as the article mentions) a NaCl version of Photoshop. Well, you would have to download the entire app every time you use it? Why not just install Photoshop?
I suspect it's perceived to be easier to users manage and maintain. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I had to point out to my management years ago that any kind of software install is effectively a violation of security. As a vendor it is not a question of IF you violate security, it's a question of HOW.
I suspect that the corporate IT world will come down on end-users who use Chrome like a ton of bricks if this gets any traction.