What is most spot on is that the Linux community is not a place where open discussion is valued
I think it's the exact opposite - open discussion is valued. As people have a tendency to get passionate about something they strongly believe in the resulting discussions can get quite heated, but that doesn't mean that they're not open. Various topics surrounding *nix have caused passionate debate since vi vs emacs and Linux is just a part of that tradition. It's also a tradition that doesn't take kindly to ill-informed opinions that have no supporting evidence, so if you do have opinions that are "heretical", then you better be able to back those opinions up - just like any "heretical" opinion in any other branch of Science.
GPL is a socialist economic model and much more onerous and way less free than Apache licenses.
The GPL is a software licence, not an economic model or even a business plan. I'm pretty certain that RMS doesn't consider himself to be socialist (nor is there much that could be considered "Socialist" in the GPL anyway - I don't see any lines in the GPL calling for greater state control of the economy or for "better rights for the worker against his capitalist oppressor". I know some zealots come across as socialist (and they might very well be socialists), but that doesn't make the GPL socialist.
As for it being it being more onerous and less free than the Apache, duh, it's supposed to be more onerous and less free to stop people proprietizing Free software.
I find the GNU prefix a load of gnu sh*t as well. It's just ego talking.
It's worse - it's trying to steal credit for something. GNU/FSF ended up being bystanders in the revolution they helped create (and only helped create - they try to take credit for the whole thing, even though sharing software was a fairly common practice before GNU).
I actually have a lot less respect for GNU/FSF since they launched their GNU prefix campaign.
Just a simple fact: if it weren't for the GNU tools, the Linux kernel would not have been possible at the time.
If it wasn't for Minix, then the Linux Kernel would not have been possible. What if Minix had chosen to use BSD's tools instead?
I say to you... it was the GPL license that gave Linux its edge over BSD... it was politics and idealism... dreaming of a better world. GPL contributed to a sort of common ground between companies... which now happily hack together on common projects (like Linux itself);)
No, it was BSD's legal troubles that gave Linux the edge. If Linus had chosen a different open licence then Linux still would have been a success. Most people just wanted a working, free (primarily free as in beer) *nix on x86 that didn't have any legal questions hanging over it's head. Maybe a few GNU zealots wouldn't have joined in, but then I seem to recall a lot of GNU zealots at the time saying "wait for the HURD", even with Linux's GPL licence. I really doubt the licence choice had that much to do with Linux's success.
I'm not certain how much the "Communist Manifesto" style crap (like your "dreaming of a better world" bit) hurts Linux and the rest of the FOSS community, but I really, really doubt it helps.
GSM - I have family in the UK. Grabbing a new card when I get there for $40 makes a lot of sense over $2 a minute per call
Do you mean $40 for T-Mobile UK SIM card? They're now £5 (~$10), with £5 pounds worth of air time (ie, they're free). And Vodafone are doing free SIM cards if you order them online (at least they were recently) - even if you buy them in a shop they're still only £5. I think pretty much every other provider in the UK is also in that $0-£5 price range. You'd have to look hard to find a UK SIM card for £20, and if you did find such an expensive SIM then you're probably be being ripped off.
Do SIM locked T-Mobile US phones work with a T-Mobile UK SIM card (and vice-versa)?
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If you go back far enough you must accept one of two conclusions: Human kind was started by a great all-knowing being, or, by two monkeys fucking and producing some genetically mutated offspring.
But if you choose option 1, what happens when you go back farther? What is god the mutant offspring of?
If you have a car but never drive on motorways, do you think you should get a rebate on your road tax?
Other than the M6Toll, how many private motorways are there?
That's the biggest problem with the fee - commercial broadcasters do as good a job as the BBC - they've even been known to do a better job and they don't require a special tax. If the BBC were the only broadcasters then maybe you could justify it (though I think even then, the regressiveness of everyone paying the same amount, no matter how much they can afford would be difficult to justify). But the BBC aren't the only broadcasters, and they don't do anything that you can't find on the commercial broadcasters.
Both of which are payed for out of non-regressive taxation. Also, the police don't have commercial competition offering the exact same set of services, nor is it really practical for the police to wear sponsorship advertising.
We don't have a special "book tax" to pay for public libraries, why do we need a separate TV tax to pay for public broadcasting? Channel 4 is public broadcaster, but that survives by commercial advertising, why can't the BBC? Why do we even need public broadcasting? And if we really do need public broadcasting, is it something that is worth invading people's privacy on a massive scale and threating the population with large fines and jail time for?
That must be annoying, but the way I see it, so long as they have one program I enjoy, it's worth $10/month out of my pocket
But for me, one programme doesn't justify $22 a month, nor does any of it justify the heavy fines/jail time. Would you really want every one in America to have to pay $22 a month to PBS, whether they want to or not, no matter if they can afford it or not, or face a $2000 fine, jail time and a criminal record for the crime of watching a non PBS channel without paying for PBS? Does that seem in any way right? Because that's exactly what the Licence Fee is.
Don't forget, there's another non-commercial (in the sense of not being a private company with shareholders) public broadcaster in the UK, that's known for high quality content. However, unlike the BBC, it's payed for out of commercial advertising - Channel 4. So it's not like the BBC's "business model" is the only functioning model for a public broadcaster. However, the BBC's business model is the only one that requires the mass invasions of privacy and the long arm of the law.
Worth the fee to you. I could happily live without any of those programmes and I resent being forced by law to pay for them. If I don't like what's on Sky or cable, then I get the option to not subscribe. With the BBC I don't get that option - either I "subscribe" or I can't legally watch any TV. Arguably, I couldn't even watch YouTube - it's not something thats been tested yet, but I bet it will one day. The BBC has already stated that you need a TV Licence to watch BBC video on the internet (they made a small deal about this during the World Cup that they showed online as well as on TV), it's not that much of a leap for them to say that you need a license to watch non BBC video online as well (afterall, I need a TV Licence to watch non BBC TV).
12 episodes could easily be 2 years worth of episodes. I'm not sure why a series has so few episodes compared to American ones, but that's the way it is.
i'm not offended by paying for programing
I'm not offended by paying for programming (I happily pay for Homechoice/Tiscali TV) - I'm offended by having to pay for channels that I don't want and I'm even more offended that I face the risk of a 1000 pound fine or jail if I want to watch a competitors free to view channel while not paying for those channels that I don't want to watch. At least you get a choice - I have to pay for the BBC if I want to watch any TV.
produce much of their own material without commercial pressure
They don't produce as much as they used to (and a lot of what they commission, they don't own, unlike years past), and a lot of it is still made with ratings pressure (as that's the main way they can show "value for the fee payer") Look at all the main BBC programmes - they all have equivalents on commercial TV. Even the arts and documentary programmes have commercial equivalents. There is very, very little that the BBC does that isn't being done by the commercial broadcasters and what little there is does not justify the fee.
It's not the ownership of the channels or even the multiplexes - it's the ownership if the Electronic Programme Guide. Sky own the EPG on DSAT, so if you want your channel to be seen by DSAT viewers, you have to pay Sky a lot of money, and you're at the their mercy for what channel number you get assigned. For example, a number in the high 200s is almost like not having a number at all - something Channel 5 has found with it's two new channels - some people have not even realized that they're on DSAT because the Sky put the channels in the "junk channel" range. Most of the Freeview lot (and especially the BBC) were at one point even considering launching their services on another satellite, so that they could own the EPG (but it was decided that Freeview was a saner idea).
The only reason why there isn't an uprising is that the Licence fee has been around for so long. If they tried to create the BBC from scratch, including a mandatory license fee, there would be such an uproar that it would make the recent road petition look as small as the recent no to id cards petition. Nor could they possibly justify it, as the BBC doesn't do anything that the commercial broadcasters don't do.
There is also Freeview which is getting increaingly good 40 odd free channels with about 5-10 digital only commercial channels with anything worth watching (Freeview would have died without Aunty comming in an giving the kiss of life, she's rather keen on going digital)
But most of Freeview is commercial channels, who don't get any of the licence fee money (and it seems like a large percentage of Freeview is shopping channels and "phone in and win" channels). The only reason why the BBC and the other Freeview broadcasters are so in to Freeview is that isn't controlled by Sky (or NTL/Virgin - but they're mostly afraid of Sky). They had to rush in and give DTV a kiss of life because ITV so massively screwed up with ON Digital (it's somewhat unsurprising that On Digital failed - who in their right mind would have paid almost as much as a basic Sky/Cable subscription for what was such a paltry line up.)
Never say never - there's no good reason why they can't eventually become advertiser supported, just like Channel 4.
impossible to paint them evil (if you live in the UK)
Well, having a paramiltary wing (in the form of the TV Licencing people) with a database of every house in the country and a fleet of TV Detector vans snooping around people's home looking for unlicenced TVs is fairly evil in my opinion.
The reason they pull videos from YouTube is they can't tell if you've paid for your TV license
They could check your IP address against a geo database - if it looks like you're in the UK, they could let you watch (just like how Google's pay for video only works for people in the US). It's fairly safe to assume that you have a TV Licence (as most households do), plus it would give them weight to their bright idea to change the TV Tax into a Computer Tax.
Without the BBC UK TV would have so many adverts it would suck like American TV.
Nonsense. The amount of commercial time on commercial broadcasters is heavily regulated by Ofcom. If the BBC disappeared it would not make the slightest bit of difference - commercial broadcasters would still only be allowed to show a limted amount of advertising and the cost of advertising would not go up, as advertising costs are already calculated as though the BBC doesn't exist.
Maybe it's to placate the criticism over the Microsoft only iPlayer. If they made the content on iPlayer also available on YouTube (probably with geo locking so that only people in the UK* can watch it) then Mac and Linux people could watch the content as well.
*yeah, I know, proxy servers make such things pointless, but I would still expect them to try.
The bottom line for the BBC is that everyone in the world could download their shows and they'd *still* have enough funding to make the same programs year after year after year.
They'd still have to proove that it's mostly UK Licence fee payers who are getting the benefit. That was one of the major points of the podcast/iPlayer consultation documents, and all the work coming out of BBC Backstage - the Licence Fee payer has to come first.
the way I see it from cross the pond, they pay money for their programing rather than media being paid for by commercials.
It's PBS with a police force, who have a database of every home in the country and everybody who has a TV has to "donate" and everybody has to donate the same amount. They use the database of every home in the country to make sure that pretty much every home has a TV license - if you don't have a licence (and even if you do have one but something went wrong in the bureaucracy) they send you threating letters and/or "send the boys 'round". They also have detector vans patroling the country, looking for stray radiation from unlicensed sets.
Personally I'm rather happy with the Licence Fee For 11 pounds ($21) a month I get 5 TV channels 11 radio channels (all of which are actually worth watching/listening to)
I'm not happy about it, and no, those 5 TV channels and 11 radio stations aren't worth it. More importantly I'm not happy that I have to pay it, even though I don't watch or listen those stations and that if I don't pay it (but still want to watch channels that I do want to watch) I get a 1000 pound fine or go to jail. I'm not happy about what is essentially a regressive tax, that sends poor people to jail (11 pounds a month actually means something to some people in this country - after all we have the worst rate of child poverty in western europe so there are plenty of poor families out there).
I know some people feel they get great value out of the BBC (I'm not one of them), but I will never understand why they feel they have the right to force everyone else with a TV to pay for it - especially as BBC TV doesn't really do anything that commercial televisions doesn't do (it did so in the past, but it hasn't in at least 15 years).
I think they toughened up the laws on stalking a few years back (or at least they talked about it - it's hard to keep track with a government whose policies that are nothing but one knee-jerk reaction action another) after a TV presenter was stalked and killed.
Slashdot Mirror
What is most spot on is that the Linux community is not a place where open discussion is valued
I think it's the exact opposite - open discussion is valued. As people have a tendency to get passionate about something they strongly believe in the resulting discussions can get quite heated, but that doesn't mean that they're not open. Various topics surrounding *nix have caused passionate debate since vi vs emacs and Linux is just a part of that tradition. It's also a tradition that doesn't take kindly to ill-informed opinions that have no supporting evidence, so if you do have opinions that are "heretical", then you better be able to back those opinions up - just like any "heretical" opinion in any other branch of Science.
GPL is a socialist economic model and much more onerous and way less free than Apache licenses.
The GPL is a software licence, not an economic model or even a business plan. I'm pretty certain that RMS doesn't consider himself to be socialist (nor is there much that could be considered "Socialist" in the GPL anyway - I don't see any lines in the GPL calling for greater state control of the economy or for "better rights for the worker against his capitalist oppressor". I know some zealots come across as socialist (and they might very well be socialists), but that doesn't make the GPL socialist.
As for it being it being more onerous and less free than the Apache, duh, it's supposed to be more onerous and less free to stop people proprietizing Free software.
I find the GNU prefix a load of gnu sh*t as well. It's just ego talking.
It's worse - it's trying to steal credit for something. GNU/FSF ended up being bystanders in the revolution they helped create (and only helped create - they try to take credit for the whole thing, even though sharing software was a fairly common practice before GNU).
I actually have a lot less respect for GNU/FSF since they launched their GNU prefix campaign.
Just a simple fact: if it weren't for the GNU tools, the Linux kernel would not have been possible at the time.
... it was the GPL license that gave Linux its edge over BSD ... it was politics and idealism ... dreaming of a better world. ... which now happily hack together on common projects (like Linux itself) ;)
If it wasn't for Minix, then the Linux Kernel would not have been possible. What if Minix had chosen to use BSD's tools instead?
I say to you
GPL contributed to a sort of common ground between companies
No, it was BSD's legal troubles that gave Linux the edge. If Linus had chosen a different open licence then Linux still would have been a success. Most people just wanted a working, free (primarily free as in beer) *nix on x86 that didn't have any legal questions hanging over it's head. Maybe a few GNU zealots wouldn't have joined in, but then I seem to recall a lot of GNU zealots at the time saying "wait for the HURD", even with Linux's GPL licence. I really doubt the licence choice had that much to do with Linux's success.
I'm not certain how much the "Communist Manifesto" style crap (like your "dreaming of a better world" bit) hurts Linux and the rest of the FOSS community, but I really, really doubt it helps.
GSM - I have family in the UK. Grabbing a new card when I get there for $40 makes a lot of sense over $2 a minute per call
Do you mean $40 for T-Mobile UK SIM card? They're now £5 (~$10), with £5 pounds worth of air time (ie, they're free). And Vodafone are doing free SIM cards if you order them online (at least they were recently) - even if you buy them in a shop they're still only £5. I think pretty much every other provider in the UK is also in that $0-£5 price range. You'd have to look hard to find a UK SIM card for £20, and if you did find such an expensive SIM then you're probably be being ripped off.
Do SIM locked T-Mobile US phones work with a T-Mobile UK SIM card (and vice-versa)?
I forgot to add a link
Honestly. . does anyone find these jokes funny anymore?
Seeing as it was modded funny, at least one person does.
What does google have to do with free software?
Well, they fund some of it and they'll host anybody's OSS project for free.
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If you go back far enough you must accept one of two conclusions:
Human kind was started by a great all-knowing being, or, by two monkeys fucking and producing some genetically mutated offspring.
But if you choose option 1, what happens when you go back farther? What is god the mutant offspring of?
I've noticed those on some UK car commercials as well. Not many though - maybe they were recycled American commercials
If you have a car but never drive on motorways, do you think you should get a rebate on your road tax?
Other than the M6Toll, how many private motorways are there?
That's the biggest problem with the fee - commercial broadcasters do as good a job as the BBC - they've even been known to do a better job and they don't require a special tax. If the BBC were the only broadcasters then maybe you could justify it (though I think even then, the regressiveness of everyone paying the same amount, no matter how much they can afford would be difficult to justify). But the BBC aren't the only broadcasters, and they don't do anything that you can't find on the commercial broadcasters.
Both of which are payed for out of non-regressive taxation. Also, the police don't have commercial competition offering the exact same set of services, nor is it really practical for the police to wear sponsorship advertising.
We don't have a special "book tax" to pay for public libraries, why do we need a separate TV tax to pay for public broadcasting? Channel 4 is public broadcaster, but that survives by commercial advertising, why can't the BBC? Why do we even need public broadcasting? And if we really do need public broadcasting, is it something that is worth invading people's privacy on a massive scale and threating the population with large fines and jail time for?
That must be annoying, but the way I see it, so long as they have one program I enjoy, it's worth $10/month out of my pocket
But for me, one programme doesn't justify $22 a month, nor does any of it justify the heavy fines/jail time. Would you really want every one in America to have to pay $22 a month to PBS, whether they want to or not, no matter if they can afford it or not, or face a $2000 fine, jail time and a criminal record for the crime of watching a non PBS channel without paying for PBS? Does that seem in any way right? Because that's exactly what the Licence Fee is.
Don't forget, there's another non-commercial (in the sense of not being a private company with shareholders) public broadcaster in the UK, that's known for high quality content. However, unlike the BBC, it's payed for out of commercial advertising - Channel 4. So it's not like the BBC's "business model" is the only functioning model for a public broadcaster. However, the BBC's business model is the only one that requires the mass invasions of privacy and the long arm of the law.
Worth the fee to you. I could happily live without any of those programmes and I resent being forced by law to pay for them. If I don't like what's on Sky or cable, then I get the option to not subscribe. With the BBC I don't get that option - either I "subscribe" or I can't legally watch any TV. Arguably, I couldn't even watch YouTube - it's not something thats been tested yet, but I bet it will one day. The BBC has already stated that you need a TV Licence to watch BBC video on the internet (they made a small deal about this during the World Cup that they showed online as well as on TV), it's not that much of a leap for them to say that you need a license to watch non BBC video online as well (afterall, I need a TV Licence to watch non BBC TV).
the same 12 episodes repeated over and over again
12 episodes could easily be 2 years worth of episodes. I'm not sure why a series has so few episodes compared to American ones, but that's the way it is.
i'm not offended by paying for programing
I'm not offended by paying for programming (I happily pay for Homechoice/Tiscali TV) - I'm offended by having to pay for channels that I don't want and I'm even more offended that I face the risk of a 1000 pound fine or jail if I want to watch a competitors free to view channel while not paying for those channels that I don't want to watch. At least you get a choice - I have to pay for the BBC if I want to watch any TV.
produce much of their own material without commercial pressure
They don't produce as much as they used to (and a lot of what they commission, they don't own, unlike years past), and a lot of it is still made with ratings pressure (as that's the main way they can show "value for the fee payer") Look at all the main BBC programmes - they all have equivalents on commercial TV. Even the arts and documentary programmes have commercial equivalents. There is very, very little that the BBC does that isn't being done by the commercial broadcasters and what little there is does not justify the fee.
It's not the ownership of the channels or even the multiplexes - it's the ownership if the Electronic Programme Guide. Sky own the EPG on DSAT, so if you want your channel to be seen by DSAT viewers, you have to pay Sky a lot of money, and you're at the their mercy for what channel number you get assigned. For example, a number in the high 200s is almost like not having a number at all - something Channel 5 has found with it's two new channels - some people have not even realized that they're on DSAT because the Sky put the channels in the "junk channel" range. Most of the Freeview lot (and especially the BBC) were at one point even considering launching their services on another satellite, so that they could own the EPG (but it was decided that Freeview was a saner idea).
The only reason why there isn't an uprising is that the Licence fee has been around for so long. If they tried to create the BBC from scratch, including a mandatory license fee, there would be such an uproar that it would make the recent road petition look as small as the recent no to id cards petition. Nor could they possibly justify it, as the BBC doesn't do anything that the commercial broadcasters don't do.
There is also Freeview which is getting increaingly good 40 odd free channels with about 5-10 digital only commercial channels with anything worth watching (Freeview would have died without Aunty comming in an giving the kiss of life, she's rather keen on going digital)
But most of Freeview is commercial channels, who don't get any of the licence fee money (and it seems like a large percentage of Freeview is shopping channels and "phone in and win" channels). The only reason why the BBC and the other Freeview broadcasters are so in to Freeview is that isn't controlled by Sky (or NTL/Virgin - but they're mostly afraid of Sky). They had to rush in and give DTV a kiss of life because ITV so massively screwed up with ON Digital (it's somewhat unsurprising that On Digital failed - who in their right mind would have paid almost as much as a basic Sky/Cable subscription for what was such a paltry line up.)
They never will do ads
Never say never - there's no good reason why they can't eventually become advertiser supported, just like Channel 4.
impossible to paint them evil (if you live in the UK)
Well, having a paramiltary wing (in the form of the TV Licencing people) with a database of every house in the country and a fleet of TV Detector vans snooping around people's home looking for unlicenced TVs is fairly evil in my opinion.
The reason they pull videos from YouTube is they can't tell if you've paid for your TV license
They could check your IP address against a geo database - if it looks like you're in the UK, they could let you watch (just like how Google's pay for video only works for people in the US). It's fairly safe to assume that you have a TV Licence (as most households do), plus it would give them weight to their bright idea to change the TV Tax into a Computer Tax.
Without the BBC UK TV would have so many adverts it would suck like American TV.
Nonsense. The amount of commercial time on commercial broadcasters is heavily regulated by Ofcom. If the BBC disappeared it would not make the slightest bit of difference - commercial broadcasters would still only be allowed to show a limted amount of advertising and the cost of advertising would not go up, as advertising costs are already calculated as though the BBC doesn't exist.
Maybe it's to placate the criticism over the Microsoft only iPlayer. If they made the content on iPlayer also available on YouTube (probably with geo locking so that only people in the UK* can watch it) then Mac and Linux people could watch the content as well.
*yeah, I know, proxy servers make such things pointless, but I would still expect them to try.
The bottom line for the BBC is that everyone in the world could download their shows and they'd *still* have enough funding to make the same programs year after year after year.
They'd still have to proove that it's mostly UK Licence fee payers who are getting the benefit. That was one of the major points of the podcast/iPlayer consultation documents, and all the work coming out of BBC Backstage - the Licence Fee payer has to come first.
the way I see it from cross the pond, they pay money for their programing rather than media being paid for by commercials.
It's PBS with a police force, who have a database of every home in the country and everybody who has a TV has to "donate" and everybody has to donate the same amount. They use the database of every home in the country to make sure that pretty much every home has a TV license - if you don't have a licence (and even if you do have one but something went wrong in the bureaucracy) they send you threating letters and/or "send the boys 'round". They also have detector vans patroling the country, looking for stray radiation from unlicensed sets.
Personally I'm rather happy with the Licence Fee For 11 pounds ($21) a month I get 5 TV channels 11 radio channels (all of which are actually worth watching/listening to)
I'm not happy about it, and no, those 5 TV channels and 11 radio stations aren't worth it. More importantly I'm not happy that I have to pay it, even though I don't watch or listen those stations and that if I don't pay it (but still want to watch channels that I do want to watch) I get a 1000 pound fine or go to jail. I'm not happy about what is essentially a regressive tax, that sends poor people to jail (11 pounds a month actually means something to some people in this country - after all we have the worst rate of child poverty in western europe so there are plenty of poor families out there).
I know some people feel they get great value out of the BBC (I'm not one of them), but I will never understand why they feel they have the right to force everyone else with a TV to pay for it - especially as BBC TV doesn't really do anything that commercial televisions doesn't do (it did so in the past, but it hasn't in at least 15 years).
I think they toughened up the laws on stalking a few years back (or at least they talked about it - it's hard to keep track with a government whose policies that are nothing but one knee-jerk reaction action another) after a TV presenter was stalked and killed.