Personally, I would prefer if all software that I purchased came with the source code (and the means to rebuild it) - because this gives me the freedom to fix bugs or make enhancements myself (and also to pay someone else to do it, i.e. to avoid vendor lock-in). It's an important freedom to have, **but** it's a big jump to then say that not only should I have the freedom to see and modify the source, but I should be able to share the whole source - even the parts I didn't write myself - with anyone I want to, without permission from or kickbacks to the original author(s). That is certainly nice, but it's not a "freedom" so much as it is a privilege.
While I agree with what you're saying, I think it's also important to be pragmatic. Should software freedom only be limited to software writers? Because those are the only ones that will benefit from access to and being able to modify source code that can not be redistributed.
Example: In Norway sometime after the "DeCSS" case they applied a law that basically said it was legal to circumvent copy protection schemes, but illegal to help others do so. Creating DeCSS would be interpreted as the former, distributing it to others as the latter. So in effect, they've actually made DeCSS illegal. In my opinion, that defeats the whole purpose of the freedom to circumvent the copy protection, as very few will be able to do that from scratch without help from others.
So in other words, the only way to allow non-techies the privilege of open source is if that source can be redistributed with modifications.
They also manage to have acceleration in linux with both VDPAU and VAAPI.
Yeah, I see how this is supposed to work, especially the VAAPI part. I am amazed at what Linux can do these days.
To actually think, here I am thinking that it's Linux' fault that they don't have the proper API for Adobe to use, when in reality Linux enables them to use, wait for it: Solar Cooking and Food Drying to achieve hardware acceleration of H.264 media! Who can match that? At the time of writing you're voted "3, Informative," so it must be true. Linux is freaking awesome.
I'd say we have roughly the same in Norway, where it's called "forvaring" (literally "containment") http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forvaring (*). The Norwegian law is meant to "protect society from dangerous persons likely to recommit a crime."
I think the main difference between the Norwegian law and the law talked about here is that the former law must be applied in the form of a sentence that must be made by a judge (instead of e.g. regular jail time) and can thus be appealed. Criminals fear the containment sentence, because living with the uncertainty of not knowing when you became a free man again is a lot harder on the mind than an immediate longer but regular jail sentence.
If they're going to change to date versioning, they should do it properly: Use yyyy.[m]m as the main kernel number, but since older stable kernels gets maintained you'd need an additional.s[table] number at the end, e.g. 2008.07.2 (second stable release for kernel released in july 08).
The problem with the stable number is that it defeats the whole purpose of using dates in the first place, as now the date only tells when the kernel was _first_ released, not when it was updated (how usefull is that?).
So do it properly, use a scheme like: yyyy.[m]m.yymmdd, where the last yymmdd is the actual release date. This creates names like:
2008.7.080710 -> Kernel released 10th july 08 2008.9.080902 -> Kernel released 2nd sept 08 2008.7.080904 -> Kernel originally released in july updated 4th september
With this scheme you can look at the version number and instantly know a) when the kernel was originally released (ca), and b) when it was last updated with bugfixes. (This does not work if there is more than one mayor release in a single month, but with release cycles > 2 months that's not going to happen anyway.)
It may not look pretty, but it's informative and usefull. My.02 anyway.
On the newnorwegian page on Wikipedia it says "rumour has it.." regards to the Emacs story, but I've been on a couple of Trolltech presentations, and on one of them there was a developer who presented the history up til now about Trolltech, and it was in this presentation he took the time to explain the q-prefix.
So unless their marketing department has the developers conspire to make everyone believe this story, it's propably true;-)
For those that don't know: It's Qt, not QT. It's not an acronym, it's pronounced "cute."
One of the guys from trolltech once told me that when they created the library(-ies) they needed a prefix for all the functions. The letter 'Q' was chosen as it was the most appealing / best looking letter in emacs at the time (which was the head developers favourite editor).
So what can you do on the Moon that would make it so fabulously valuable? Beats me. The only unique resources the Moon has (exceedingly low temperatures in the shade, unbelievably good vacuum) you can also get in orbit, where you don't have to worry about any gravity at all, and can build eight-mile wide factories out of gossamer and shoe strings, if you want. Helium-3. Lots on the moon, little on Earth. Can be used to build fusion reactors.
If people click on the article and immediatly click on the print version, they still get some ad-revenue. If people only use the print version they don't get those, and they might either put ads in the print version or remove it all together. And as you say, finding the print version is very easy, so personally that extra click doesn't really bother me.
I know you're kidding, but just a quick comment on that: Bottled water. Don't know how the water quality in the states are, but in Norway we have very high quality on the water that comes out of the tap. Personally I can't tell the difference between tap-water and bottled water if they're the same temperature. When Norwegian companies started selling bottled water, they we're laughed at. "There's no way you can compete with something that's free, that's just ridiculous." Today it's a strong business.
As for the movie/music industry: Service. Download all you want from itunes without DRM for $10 a month? Hell yes. There's no way TPB could compete with THAT, because the service you receive is so much better it would be well worth the price. A service is something people are willing to pay for, even though that same service could be received for free (by e.g. washing your own car etc).
I like Suse. I've used it for years. I use OpenSuse and hope it will keep itself clear of that but I'm looking for alternatives. Ubuntu has a chance but anything that puts GNOME first is crap. I don't like Mono or the rest of Miguel's M$ fan-boyism. I don't want M$ crap in my life and haven't had it there for years. You don't need to use GNOME to use ubuntu, just use Kubuntu instead. You get all the goodness of ubuntu plus KDE.
The bulk of society is motivated by "what they can get" out of something. Even those who would claim that what they are doing is for spiritual reasons are motivated by the expectation that they'll get something in return in the afterlife. Hoping people will do things out of good for the society is what communism is all about. Unfortunately, the last few decades of experimentation in communism have made it clear that those who would govern society in this manner are motived entire by... you guess it... greed. Well I wasn't trying to defend communism, guess my point of view didn't come out well.
What I meant to say was that if people/corporations would be allowed to "steal" from each other (meaning patents weren't there to protect you), that would lead to greater progression of science and technology than with patent protection.
I'm not saying money should not be a factor of motivation for people, by all means. I'm just saying that we don't need the patent system, or more specifically: Science doesn't need the patent system. Not only does it not need it, it would be better off without it.
R&D costs money and time. There's no way to get around that. The hope is not that each and every R&D project will return a profit. It's that if you have 10 R&D projects, maybe 9 of them will lose money and 1 of them will be a huge winner. It's a very strong argument. Yes, but you don't need patents for something to be a huge winner. You don't need patents to make a huge profit from a breakthrough. You do need patents if you wan't to create a monopoly and maximize your profits, but if that's all patents bring to the table, I really can't see the point. Corporations are still eager to innovate, profits are profits. They just don't get the monopoly they do now.
What bugs me about patents is the difference from copyright law: With copyright law two people can accidentally own the copyright on two identical creative works, as long as they are created independently of each other (meaning they didn't copy off each other), and as long as they can actually prove they didn't copy off each other. With patents, you are simply granted a monopoly, final. Doesn't matter if someone came up with the same thing without copying off your work, the monopoly is there, end of story. I just can't see what that is supposed to be good for.
Times have changed, we live in the information age now. I can't see how sitting on a specific idea is going to be the best use of it for the solver. If I get a great idea for e.g. a new product, I can contact a mayor international corporation and have them mass produce my product and sell it all over the world (if it's that good). Hardly the situation in ancient times, were the best option was to not tell anyone your secrets in order to create a small local monopoly for your services (which you alone performed).
I agree that the original incentive for patents was noble, but they simply do not fit into todays fast moving society. Well it does if you want to maximize profits for an indivdual or (more likely) some big corporation. But if the goal is the progression of science, the idea of patents are, pardon the pun, "ancient."
That's a fair point, and it makes you wonder why patents exist at all. Personally I'd like to see patents disappear all together, I can't really see how celebrating those who do things out of greed is supposed to be good for society. The argument is that "if it weren't for patents, people wouldn't invest so much time and energy into science, and thus the progression of science would hurt." So they're saying that no one is willing to take a risc if they're not guaranteed to get their investment back? Yeah right, doing R&D never guarantees that anyway, so that's a pretty poor argument. What's left is people that will only put out the effort if they have a chance of getting rich in return, these are the people society is putting its money on. I think science would progress faster if no one we're allowed to use a spesific implementation exclusively. With e.g. copyright you're still allowed to write and publish the same text as your neighbour as long you can prove you didn't *copy* that specific text (ie no prior knowledge of your neighbours text). With patents, you simply own the implementation, final. Copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, fine. Patents? Can't see it helping.
(No, I am not endorsing patents on algorithms. RSA shouldn't have been patentable. It's just shortened patent periods is not a reasonable compromise, and far from 'Insightful') I agree completely. Programming is math, and patenting math is meaningless and definitely does not help the progression of science. Saying that patent laws should be rewritten as a "compromise" does not make the original idea of software patents any better.
The only still-extant reason for downloading is that it takes so long for films to get from the cinema to DVD. If they did simultaneous releases, then I would expect to see piracy fall a lot. Mind you, I'd also expect to see most cinemas go out of business...
How is buying a DVD comparable to going to the cinema? They're completely different things, when you go to the cinema you're going out, when you buy a DVD and see it at home you're still at home. I'm not saying one is superior to the other, I'm just saying they're completly different. When you're watching it at home you can informally watch it with your friends and throw out comments, talk, rewind to point out a detail you catched or whatever. When you go to the cinema you're paying for the experience of going to the cinema, which is completly different (more formal, store-made popcorn, bigger screen, more people, talking about and getting excited about the movie while you're waiting for it to start and so on). It's like saying people will stop going to the theatre if they can watch the play at home, ignoring the fact that going to the theatre (or cinema in this case) is an experience in it self.
You're probably just joking, but just to be clear, in 1991 the web didn't even exist (or hardly existed). Trying to predict how the future will look like is awfully hard, especially in an advancing field as IT. V2 worked great for many years, but not as good now, so I'd say it's more appropriate to call it an update rather than a fix for an originally "faulty" version.
So hopefully the third version will be used for at least 15 years ahead, when a new updated is prompted, in order to include "use by AI's" or "use through telepathy" or whatever that no one managed to predict this time.
This is a not a program you can change if it's broken, this is a license that could possibly have far reaching effect on the nature of free software. The last license was released over 15 years ago, you want to make it right so that v3 can last another 15 years or more. The license is complicated, and quite political, there are no easy answers.
Pluss, they want to take their time so that anyone who wants can voice their oppinion and be heard. Why rush it? Let them take their time and make it right, the first time.
I was wondering: Can you actually sell ubuntu CDs that you download?
I know how the GPL works, but in the case of Redhat, you have e.g. CentOS which is their enterprise product stripped away for trademarked logos and stuff in order to be able to redistribute it. So I was wondering if perhaps the same would go for selling downloaded ubuntu CDs, that you're not allowed if you don't strip away that kind of content first?
(That's probably a tough question, I'll take guessing and hearsay a plenty.)
That's actually kinda funny, where I presently work, there's one guy in the office who's a total "segmentor." He gets the job done (as far as I know), he's a nice guy, causes no trouble, but socially he's totally aloof, doesn't even eat lunch with the rest of us.
Personally I like integrating, but not too much though, you don't always work with people you share anything significant with (except a job of course). Not being social at all has to be pretty sucky over time, seeing how you spend so much time at work.
From the comment section:
Submitted by kyrvin on March 3, 2007 - 8:59am.
Clause two in the Device User License Agreement states:... You are not authorized to modify or to create derivative work on the Device, except as permitted in a separate license agreement that accompanies the Software's source code....
Qtopia is GPL-ed in the Community edition of Greenphone. Making synchronisation software, or combining other free software solution on Greenphone is explicitly alowed by GPL. Software with a GPL compliant licence is allowed. The site greenphone-wiki.org show how to put Python on the Greenphone. Python license is compatible with the GPL, according to the Free Software Foundation. Trolltech endorse such initiatives. Please visit: http://greenphone-wiki.org/
Some parts are not GPL-ed. This is because of telephone regulators and operators. Even if the science department at different operators says that they understand that open source is secure, Business people and lawyers don't understand that. Business people and lawyers seem to believe that open source is an open door. In almost all countries, operators and even regulators expect that some parts, especially the communication stack, is proprietary software. So the GSM stuff are closed downs. Trolltech has made the Safe eXecution Environment (SXE) to address this fear, allowing remote installation of software in a secure sandbox environment. For net installation without the SXE, iPKG is used.
According to engineers in other companies trying to sell free software ready GSM devices, they struggle with exactly the same issues. They need to ship proprietary blobs because of regulators and/or operators. It's almost the same problem we know from the wifi-blobs we know on laptop chip. Trolltech are happy with everyone who address this blob issues with the right authorities. To even address this further, we recently joined the Free Software Foundation Europes Fellowship Raffle 2007 at FOSDEM, donating a Greenphone:
Knut Yrvin Community Manager Trolltech ASA I was at a demonstration of the greenphone held by Yrvin recently, and I asked him if I could compile my own custom kernel on it and stuff like that, and he said sure, in fact they want us to.
The wording in the license is bad he admitted, but he basically said it was just politics.
From http://www.metalinker.org/implementation.html:
Download Metalinks with these programs... GetRight (Windows) is a Download Manager that supports Metalink. FlashGot (Cross platform, Open Source) is a Firefox extension that integrates with around 30 Download Managers and supports Metalink with wxDownload Fast, Speed Download, and GetRight 5.2d and later. aria2 (Unix/Windows, Open Source) is a high speed download utility that supports segmented downloads, BitTorrent, and Metalink (HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent integrated) from the command line. Speed Download (Mac) is a slick Download Manager with fast downloads & P2P filesharing. It integrates with popular Mac browsers like Safari, Camino, & Firefox (along with 5 others). wxDownload Fast (Mac/Unix/Windows, Open Source) supports Metalink. Free Download Manager (Windows) unreleased BETA supports Metalink. Orbit Downloader (Windows) is a new download manager with interesting P2P features. SmartFTP (Windows), an excellent FTP client on Windows, supports Metalink for adding files to a transfer queue and checksum verification (no acceleration). Phex (Mac/Unix/Windows) is a Gnutella P2P client that can export Metalinks.
...
If you like Metalink, request support in these clients on their forums or bug trackers:
CuteFTP is a Windows GUI FTP client. Bouncer (Open Source) powers downloads for various projects like Mozilla. A patch for Metalink generation has been submitted by Bram Neijt but not yet integrated. cURL (Cross platform, Open Source) an interface for libcurl would be cool. Anyone up for writing one? Shareaza (Open Source) would be great as well. Opera is a great standards compliant browser that's always adding new features. Current threads: 1, 2, 3 Firefox (Open Source) is pretty neat too. So looks like we need to wait alittle.
Yes, I recommend everyone to do this. I also recommend everyone to change the apperance of their face with plastic surgery once a year, just in case. Also, only use rental cars, and change these just as often. Only pay by cash, change what appartment you're living in as often as you can. Sleep with a gun underneath your pillow, have few friends, and don't tell them much about yourself. It's all about protecting yourself from the government, we're all suspects until proven guilty after all.
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Personally, I would prefer if all software that I purchased came with the source code (and the means to rebuild it) - because this gives me the freedom to fix bugs or make enhancements myself (and also to pay someone else to do it, i.e. to avoid vendor lock-in). It's an important freedom to have, **but** it's a big jump to then say that not only should I have the freedom to see and modify the source, but I should be able to share the whole source - even the parts I didn't write myself - with anyone I want to, without permission from or kickbacks to the original author(s). That is certainly nice, but it's not a "freedom" so much as it is a privilege.
While I agree with what you're saying, I think it's also important to be pragmatic. Should software freedom only be limited to software writers? Because those are the only ones that will benefit from access to and being able to modify source code that can not be redistributed.
Example: In Norway sometime after the "DeCSS" case they applied a law that basically said it was legal to circumvent copy protection schemes, but illegal to help others do so. Creating DeCSS would be interpreted as the former, distributing it to others as the latter. So in effect, they've actually made DeCSS illegal. In my opinion, that defeats the whole purpose of the freedom to circumvent the copy protection, as very few will be able to do that from scratch without help from others.
So in other words, the only way to allow non-techies the privilege of open source is if that source can be redistributed with modifications.
They also manage to have acceleration in linux with both VDPAU and VAAPI.
Yeah, I see how this is supposed to work, especially the VAAPI part. I am amazed at what Linux can do these days.
To actually think, here I am thinking that it's Linux' fault that they don't have the proper API for Adobe to use, when in reality Linux enables them to use, wait for it: Solar Cooking and Food Drying to achieve hardware acceleration of H.264 media! Who can match that? At the time of writing you're voted "3, Informative," so it must be true. Linux is freaking awesome.
I'd say we have roughly the same in Norway, where it's called "forvaring" (literally "containment") http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forvaring (*). The Norwegian law is meant to "protect society from dangerous persons likely to recommit a crime."
Google translate will have to do: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fno.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FForvaring&sl=no&tl=en
I think the main difference between the Norwegian law and the law talked about here is that the former law must be applied in the form of a sentence that must be made by a judge (instead of e.g. regular jail time) and can thus be appealed. Criminals fear the containment sentence, because living with the uncertainty of not knowing when you became a free man again is a lot harder on the mind than an immediate longer but regular jail sentence.
*) The wikipedia article links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_commitment as the English version, but the Norwegian law also applies to sane persons, so I think that link is incorrect.
If they're going to change to date versioning, they should do it properly: Use yyyy.[m]m as the main kernel number, but since older stable kernels gets maintained you'd need an additional .s[table] number at the end, e.g. 2008.07.2 (second stable release for kernel released in july 08).
The problem with the stable number is that it defeats the whole purpose of using dates in the first place, as now the date only tells when the kernel was _first_ released, not when it was updated (how usefull is that?).
So do it properly, use a scheme like: yyyy.[m]m.yymmdd, where the last yymmdd is the actual release date. This creates names like:
2008.7.080710 -> Kernel released 10th july 08
2008.9.080902 -> Kernel released 2nd sept 08
2008.7.080904 -> Kernel originally released in july updated 4th september
With this scheme you can look at the version number and instantly know a) when the kernel was originally released (ca), and b) when it was last updated with bugfixes. (This does not work if there is more than one mayor release in a single month, but with release cycles > 2 months that's not going to happen anyway.)
It may not look pretty, but it's informative and usefull. My .02 anyway.
On the newnorwegian page on Wikipedia it says "rumour has it.." regards to the Emacs story, but I've been on a couple of Trolltech presentations, and on one of them there was a developer who presented the history up til now about Trolltech, and it was in this presentation he took the time to explain the q-prefix.
So unless their marketing department has the developers conspire to make everyone believe this story, it's propably true ;-)
For those that don't know: It's Qt, not QT. It's not an acronym, it's pronounced "cute."
One of the guys from trolltech once told me that when they created the library(-ies) they needed a prefix for all the functions. The letter 'Q' was chosen as it was the most appealing / best looking letter in emacs at the time (which was the head developers favourite editor).
Thus Qt became the name.
Helium-3. Lots on the moon, little on Earth. Can be used to build fusion reactors.
http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/041126084122.6pp9f0wx.html "The moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of Helium 3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth," Kalam said.
If people click on the article and immediatly click on the print version, they still get some ad-revenue. If people only use the print version they don't get those, and they might either put ads in the print version or remove it all together. And as you say, finding the print version is very easy, so personally that extra click doesn't really bother me.
I know you're kidding, but just a quick comment on that: Bottled water. Don't know how the water quality in the states are, but in Norway we have very high quality on the water that comes out of the tap. Personally I can't tell the difference between tap-water and bottled water if they're the same temperature. When Norwegian companies started selling bottled water, they we're laughed at. "There's no way you can compete with something that's free, that's just ridiculous." Today it's a strong business.
As for the movie/music industry: Service. Download all you want from itunes without DRM for $10 a month? Hell yes. There's no way TPB could compete with THAT, because the service you receive is so much better it would be well worth the price. A service is something people are willing to pay for, even though that same service could be received for free (by e.g. washing your own car etc).
What I meant to say was that if people/corporations would be allowed to "steal" from each other (meaning patents weren't there to protect you), that would lead to greater progression of science and technology than with patent protection.
I'm not saying money should not be a factor of motivation for people, by all means. I'm just saying that we don't need the patent system, or more specifically: Science doesn't need the patent system. Not only does it not need it, it would be better off without it. R&D costs money and time. There's no way to get around that. The hope is not that each and every R&D project will return a profit. It's that if you have 10 R&D projects, maybe 9 of them will lose money and 1 of them will be a huge winner. It's a very strong argument. Yes, but you don't need patents for something to be a huge winner. You don't need patents to make a huge profit from a breakthrough. You do need patents if you wan't to create a monopoly and maximize your profits, but if that's all patents bring to the table, I really can't see the point. Corporations are still eager to innovate, profits are profits. They just don't get the monopoly they do now.
What bugs me about patents is the difference from copyright law: With copyright law two people can accidentally own the copyright on two identical creative works, as long as they are created independently of each other (meaning they didn't copy off each other), and as long as they can actually prove they didn't copy off each other. With patents, you are simply granted a monopoly, final. Doesn't matter if someone came up with the same thing without copying off your work, the monopoly is there, end of story. I just can't see what that is supposed to be good for.
Times have changed, we live in the information age now. I can't see how sitting on a specific idea is going to be the best use of it for the solver. If I get a great idea for e.g. a new product, I can contact a mayor international corporation and have them mass produce my product and sell it all over the world (if it's that good). Hardly the situation in ancient times, were the best option was to not tell anyone your secrets in order to create a small local monopoly for your services (which you alone performed).
I agree that the original incentive for patents was noble, but they simply do not fit into todays fast moving society. Well it does if you want to maximize profits for an indivdual or (more likely) some big corporation. But if the goal is the progression of science, the idea of patents are, pardon the pun, "ancient."
That's a fair point, and it makes you wonder why patents exist at all. Personally I'd like to see patents disappear all together, I can't really see how celebrating those who do things out of greed is supposed to be good for society. The argument is that "if it weren't for patents, people wouldn't invest so much time and energy into science, and thus the progression of science would hurt." So they're saying that no one is willing to take a risc if they're not guaranteed to get their investment back? Yeah right, doing R&D never guarantees that anyway, so that's a pretty poor argument. What's left is people that will only put out the effort if they have a chance of getting rich in return, these are the people society is putting its money on. I think science would progress faster if no one we're allowed to use a spesific implementation exclusively. With e.g. copyright you're still allowed to write and publish the same text as your neighbour as long you can prove you didn't *copy* that specific text (ie no prior knowledge of your neighbours text). With patents, you simply own the implementation, final. Copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, fine. Patents? Can't see it helping.
The only still-extant reason for downloading is that it takes so long for films to get from the cinema to DVD. If they did simultaneous releases, then I would expect to see piracy fall a lot. Mind you, I'd also expect to see most cinemas go out of business...
How is buying a DVD comparable to going to the cinema? They're completely different things, when you go to the cinema you're going out, when you buy a DVD and see it at home you're still at home. I'm not saying one is superior to the other, I'm just saying they're completly different. When you're watching it at home you can informally watch it with your friends and throw out comments, talk, rewind to point out a detail you catched or whatever. When you go to the cinema you're paying for the experience of going to the cinema, which is completly different (more formal, store-made popcorn, bigger screen, more people, talking about and getting excited about the movie while you're waiting for it to start and so on). It's like saying people will stop going to the theatre if they can watch the play at home, ignoring the fact that going to the theatre (or cinema in this case) is an experience in it self.
You're probably just joking, but just to be clear, in 1991 the web didn't even exist (or hardly existed). Trying to predict how the future will look like is awfully hard, especially in an advancing field as IT. V2 worked great for many years, but not as good now, so I'd say it's more appropriate to call it an update rather than a fix for an originally "faulty" version.
So hopefully the third version will be used for at least 15 years ahead, when a new updated is prompted, in order to include "use by AI's" or "use through telepathy" or whatever that no one managed to predict this time.
This is a not a program you can change if it's broken, this is a license that could possibly have far reaching effect on the nature of free software. The last license was released over 15 years ago, you want to make it right so that v3 can last another 15 years or more. The license is complicated, and quite political, there are no easy answers.
Pluss, they want to take their time so that anyone who wants can voice their oppinion and be heard. Why rush it? Let them take their time and make it right, the first time.
I was wondering: Can you actually sell ubuntu CDs that you download?
I know how the GPL works, but in the case of Redhat, you have e.g. CentOS which is their enterprise product stripped away for trademarked logos and stuff in order to be able to redistribute it. So I was wondering if perhaps the same would go for selling downloaded ubuntu CDs, that you're not allowed if you don't strip away that kind of content first?
(That's probably a tough question, I'll take guessing and hearsay a plenty.)
I see. I blame the summary *whistle*
I now realize I need to find a short, catchy anthem for my future start-up.
That's actually kinda funny, where I presently work, there's one guy in the office who's a total "segmentor." He gets the job done (as far as I know), he's a nice guy, causes no trouble, but socially he's totally aloof, doesn't even eat lunch with the rest of us.
Personally I like integrating, but not too much though, you don't always work with people you share anything significant with (except a job of course). Not being social at all has to be pretty sucky over time, seeing how you spend so much time at work.
Clause two in the Device User License Agreement states:
You are not authorized to modify or to create
derivative work on the Device, except as permitted
in a separate license agreement that accompanies
the Software's source code.
Qtopia is GPL-ed in the Community edition of Greenphone. Making synchronisation software, or combining other free software solution on Greenphone is explicitly alowed by GPL. Software with a GPL compliant licence is allowed. The site greenphone-wiki.org show how to put Python on the Greenphone. Python license is compatible with the GPL, according to the Free Software Foundation. Trolltech endorse such initiatives. Please visit: http://greenphone-wiki.org/
Some parts are not GPL-ed. This is because of telephone regulators and operators. Even if the science department at different operators says that they understand that open source is secure, Business people and lawyers don't understand that. Business people and lawyers seem to believe that open source is an open door. In almost all countries, operators and even regulators expect that some parts, especially the communication stack, is proprietary software. So the GSM stuff are closed downs. Trolltech has made the Safe eXecution Environment (SXE) to address this fear, allowing remote installation of software in a secure sandbox environment. For net installation without the SXE, iPKG is used.
According to engineers in other companies trying to sell free software ready GSM devices, they struggle with exactly the same issues. They need to ship proprietary blobs because of regulators and/or operators. It's almost the same problem we know from the wifi-blobs we know on laptop chip. Trolltech are happy with everyone who address this blob issues with the right authorities. To even address this further, we recently joined the Free Software Foundation Europes Fellowship Raffle 2007 at FOSDEM, donating a Greenphone:
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/raffle_200
I hope this clears things up.
Best regards
Knut Yrvin
Community Manager Trolltech ASA I was at a demonstration of the greenphone held by Yrvin recently, and I asked him if I could compile my own custom kernel on it and stuff like that, and he said sure, in fact they want us to.
The wording in the license is bad he admitted, but he basically said it was just politics.
GetRight (Windows) is a Download Manager that supports Metalink.
FlashGot (Cross platform, Open Source) is a Firefox extension that integrates with around 30 Download Managers and supports Metalink with wxDownload Fast, Speed Download, and GetRight 5.2d and later.
aria2 (Unix/Windows, Open Source) is a high speed download utility that supports segmented downloads, BitTorrent, and Metalink (HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent integrated) from the command line.
Speed Download (Mac) is a slick Download Manager with fast downloads & P2P filesharing. It integrates with popular Mac browsers like Safari, Camino, & Firefox (along with 5 others).
wxDownload Fast (Mac/Unix/Windows, Open Source) supports Metalink.
Free Download Manager (Windows) unreleased BETA supports Metalink.
Orbit Downloader (Windows) is a new download manager with interesting P2P features.
SmartFTP (Windows), an excellent FTP client on Windows, supports Metalink for adding files to a transfer queue and checksum verification (no acceleration).
Phex (Mac/Unix/Windows) is a Gnutella P2P client that can export Metalinks.
If you like Metalink, request support in these clients on their forums or bug trackers:
CuteFTP is a Windows GUI FTP client.
Bouncer (Open Source) powers downloads for various projects like Mozilla. A patch for Metalink generation has been submitted by Bram Neijt but not yet integrated.
cURL (Cross platform, Open Source) an interface for libcurl would be cool. Anyone up for writing one?
Shareaza (Open Source) would be great as well.
Opera is a great standards compliant browser that's always adding new features. Current threads: 1, 2, 3
Firefox (Open Source) is pretty neat too. So looks like we need to wait alittle.
That's pretty informative, too bad I don't have mod points.
Yes, I recommend everyone to do this. I also recommend everyone to change the apperance of their face with plastic surgery once a year, just in case. Also, only use rental cars, and change these just as often. Only pay by cash, change what appartment you're living in as often as you can. Sleep with a gun underneath your pillow, have few friends, and don't tell them much about yourself. It's all about protecting yourself from the government, we're all suspects until proven guilty after all.
You mean like this?
This really has nothing to do with the discussion, just pointing it out for laughs if anyone's interested.