I suggest you look into the history of TrustE's privacy seal. Also consider how much weight you give to the phrase "audited by a big 5 accounting firm." If you associate yourself with click through licenses, you'll end up like them -- with a name of mud. For people to listen to you, for you to have any influence at all, people like me have to care about your opinion so that people who pick licenses will listen to what you say.
I believe that all licenses that restrict what a person does with the software, as opposed to focusing only on the right to redistribute, are inherinently weak. This is because Title 17 of the US Code specifically gives the copyright holder control over some kinds of copying, but doesn't mention use.
So if you want people to care about your opinion, make this clear: no contract with the individual is required to enforce federal law. Timothy McVeigh wasn't convicted because he clicked on "I will not blow up buildings" when he bought the fertilizer; the same applies to copyright violations. Tell whoever is interested in click-through provisions that the OSI will regard such a requirement as admission by the licensor that the license exceeds the control granted in Title 17, and that it will never come under OSI's consideration because of that weak legal standing.
I have also noticed the atrophy of the ability to plan in my friends who have cell phones. I generally don't use one (occasionally activate a pre-paid mobile for long driving trips, should there be an emergency), and it is impossible to meet anyone anymore. They like to just say "meet me on 6th street in some bar" and then you are supposed to go to 6th, call them, find out what bar they went to on the spur of the moment, realize their habits have so atrophied they can't even tell you where they are in the bar, go to the bar and call them AGAIN, so you can locate them by the ringing phone.
It's disgusting, really. I think some of my friends have almost completely lost the ability to plan more than 30 minutes ahead. They live 30 minutes (including a shower) from school and work, and any agreement to do anything that requires more than a half an hour preparation (such as meeting at a place an hour's drive away) requires constant communication, calling them to tell "you should be on the road now" or asking them to call you as they leave, or something like that.
There has been some confusion on your statement in the UL teleconference to the effect that while source code would be available to meet the requirements of the GPL, "binaries would not be freely available."
Could you clarify what that means ? Is it possible that UL will distribute only source, or only distribute source and binaries to it's member companies ? (Who will then be responsible for making sure they meet the license requirements on software which is in their distributions ?) Surely UL or it's members don't intend to distribute binaries compiled from GPL code and assert the recipent can't re-distribute them ?
The GPL prevents someone who receives the code under the GPL from re-distributing it with more restrictions than the GPL.
On the other hand, the GPL is not designed specificall to "prevent big corporations from making money"; I think RMS and the GNU supporters want people to make money writing Free Software, because then those people will write more. However, the GPL is a license focused on freedom, it is not a business plan.
If you read the whole GPL, you will find that it says that you cannot distribute it with additional restrictions on the recipient. Which is what one would be doing if they took a copy of GPL'd code, and passed it on with the restriction that the user could only install it on one machine.
So the GPL does make no claims as to running the program, but it also says that you can't redistribute it with additional restrictions.
I think that had Linux been under a BSD style license, it would have been less successful. You can search out the opinions of Linus on the matter on groups.google.
The GPL made writing code a social action -- you could guarantee that your code would always be free, and no one else would ever be confronted with the a myterious black box they couldn't screw with, that contained your stuff. It is about making technology open and transparent.
On the other hand, if it truly is "the software that counts", why didn't BSD win out over Linux ? Isn't BSD generally conceeded to have many benefits and higher qualities than Linux ?
Of course, someone like cheapbytes can by any UnitedLinux CD and sell other UnitedLinux CDs (as long as all the software they are redistributing is GNU/BSD/Other Free Software), right ?
So how is United Linux going to enforce this "per seat" license ?
If I buy a one-seat license and install it on every computer in my house, my company, and my mom's house, and they take me to court, I'll point to the provision in the GPL which says that the works may not be re-distributed with "further" restrictions.
You say that you write GPL'd software and that you have no problem with the software being charged for "under a different license." The "charged for" doesn't matter here, it's the "under a different license." If that different license is more restrictive than the GPL, then it is in direct conflict with the GPL.
So it is not true that "All the GPL says is that if you distribute binaries containing GPL'd code, you must make the source code for those GPL'd binaries available under the GPL I am still free to distribute any binaries I created for a fee, as long as I give you the source under the GPL." The GPL has the additional restrictions of not allowing re-distribution under a more restrictive license, it guarantees the software will stay free as long as it is still a derived work of yours.
If such is your wish, you can directly license the software under a license which allows the re-distribution under restrictive terms; the BSDL is such a license. Or you could force the company in question to buy a separate license from you (presuming you are the sole author, or all author's aggree to re-license); this would make you more money.
The circle I'm trying to square is the maker of original software that
wishes to devote their working life to the production of high-quality, well
documented programs which are distributed in source form.
That's a vague and very encompassing discription. I think of many plans which
would count under that, and doom you to bankruptcy today; and I'm sure that if
everyone wrote code under the GPL, there would be other and different ways to
fail and succeed at that task.
You seem to think that the only way to make money is off of the copyright
priviledge. In fact, that's simply not the case, and it's simply not the case
that most people writing code today live off of that.
The bottom line is that there are lots of companies making money by selling
closed-source programs and none doing it with open-source programs (not
libraries) that I know of.
First of all, I'm not talking about open source, I'm talking about Free
Software, specifically under the GPL. Secondly, it's not an axiom or law of
nature that their have to be lots of companies making a killing selling
software. (It's not an axiom that you don't die bankrupt, either.)
Also, why do you exclude libraries ?
I simply do not see the distinction between being paid to write software and
making money selling software;; if I make enough money selling software I'll
hire someone to do the sales for me, that doesn't mean that I'm no longer making
money from selling the software. In the corporate setting my wages pay for the
code I've sold to the company that week, or in expectation of software I will
sell to them during my period of employment. It's still making money from
selling my work.
The last case, where you make money from selling your work, doesn't depend on
copyright at all.
Let's take the example of someone who writes, say, software that tracks every
train Burlington Northern owns and operates, and can display it on a big map and
you can click on it to see the cargo, etc. That person is getting paid to write
software. If congress repeals all copyright law, their job is still safe,
because BN still needs that software -- regardless of whether they are an actual
employee of BN, or of a contractor, or whatever. The market for that software
is still there. There is no other customer, and no one would pirate it, because
no one else has Burlington Northerns' rail network.
On the other hand, there are programmers whose job is dependent on copyrights.
Say, a guy who is working for Quicken putting in new features. If copyright
vanishes, a couple of people just through their cracked Quicken.iso's on
gnutella, the profit from that edition is gone. Quicken might not go bankrupt
immediately, hell, maybe they would thrash around writing new versions on a
short release cycle and trying to squeeze something out of each release, selling
support and customizations to big firms, and they might even survive. But the
shrink wrapped box in Best Buy is history.
My point is that the percentage of people who jobs will actually change if
copyright disappears is smaller than you think -- something like 10% to 50%, I
don't know. But most people would keep on working. I've written software
professionally since 1996, getting paid every year, and not one lick of it ever
comes under copyright -- it's not distributed to other places at all. That is
actually the majority of software jobs out there.
me:if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except
through RIAA style locks on all digital devices,
You: That is not the cost. That is the cost of forcing users the pay for
every copy of a work that they have for personal use. The pirating issue is just
an excuse to squeeze more cash out of non-pirates in the same way that region
codes on DVD's are just a cartel's way of fixing prices. Users have never had
free rein to distribute to others without permission and that seems fair enough
to me.
The hell that is not cost. If you have some scheme of running an industry that
has been knocked into a cocked hat, and your solution is that the next CD drive
I buy has a digital key in it and won't play my CDs, then I am damn sure paying
a cost and subsidizing your broken money making scheme, as sure as the sugar
tariff makes me subsidize beat farmers, as sure as the expensive gas that has
ten percent ethanol means I am subsidizing ADM, etc, etc.
Here's some more security related examples: one time the ranchers down here in
Texas had a broken-ass way of branding cattle but not fencing off land (it wasn'
t broken-ass to begin with, but hey, the world changed, just like it's changing
for you and me) and to stop brand modification and cattle rustling they had to
form posses which swept through innocent people's property, shoving their
winchester's in their faces and sometimes taking their honestly owned but
unbranded livestock. Those people were paying a to subsidize the big rancher's
inability to figure out how to make a living in a changing world.
At times various countries (notably Germany in the 20's and 30's) tried to pay
for all radio stations with a tax on radios, based on the number of vacuum
tubes. Needless to say, that system gradually fell apart, not the least because
people bought radios from other countries and smuggled them in. Anyone who ever
missed a train because the customs guy was searching their bag for a
non-existent radio paid a subsidy to the idiotic radio scheme.
The problem for your hypothetical programmer who wants to devote his life to
writing a beautiful piece of software and then extract money from every person
who ever uses it, is that his "posses" and "customs men" (i.e, the copyright
enforcers) may not even make the scheme work for a little while.
In practice RMS has made it clear that pressure will be brought to bear on
anyone that does not accept the three principles of freedom to modify, freedom
to distribute, and free access to source code; My beef is with the second one
of these, and only the second . ..
GNU can never take over the industry as it can not sustain the industry's
basic unit - the programmer - in any numbers.
Well, I explained above that most or many programmers are sustained in a way
entirely orthagonal to copyright and thus the GPL. What will happen is that
those programmers who most directly depend on freedom-limiting plans of making
money (like your plan of making money by limiting people's second freedom) will
find their money supply drying up. There are lots of other ways to make money.
It is likely that a lot more software will be written by people who are not
primarily software writers, but other engineers or professionals trying to get
their primary job done (this isn't due purely to social/GPL related reasons;
this is also due to technical shifts in the rise of powerful but easy to learn
languages, GUI programming tools like that HP labview crap I hate, etc). The
large corporate houses will go the way of Enron and SCO, for the most part.
On the other hand, some places like IBM, will survive just fine -- they make
money for making things work, not just for selling Title 17 rights.
In general, society will stop putting as much money into the production of
software. However, the collapse of the big houses will be matched by the rise
of small companies and individual consultants who can do amazing things because
they have knowledge of and access to an emmense body of work. In the end,
although less money total will be going into the sector of software production,
I think more money total will end up in the pockets of programmers; the
corporate overhead will disappear out of the industry entirely.
Let me try another one of my overblown and ineffective analogies.
If someone in 1900 invented steam powered digging robots, and went down to
Panama all by his lonesome and dug a canal, so that he could charge fees to
ships and become a billionaire, would his twenty years hard work in the jungle
fixing rusty robots be rewarded with a lifetime of ease ?
No, because Teddy Roosevelt would send down the marines and take that canal,
just like he took Panama itself to build it in the first place.
Does this mean that no canals happen ? No, canals just aren't built that way.
Just because your awesome work of beautiful CAD tool programming will never make
the writer a dime, doesn't mean that the GPL is invalidated, or that somehow all
the GNU people just aren't acknowledging realities of the world, or whatever. It just means that some naive and romantic vision of the way things happen in the real world turned out not to be true.
It just means that you found another way to waste your life, out of the
thousands that already exist, like killing yourself on whiskey while writing the great american novel, like playing clubs for free drinks until the big break finally comes, etc, etc.
The truth is that even in the corporate world very few people do what you described.
"So are you saying that the way things are done at the moment is as good as it can get and there's nothing FSF, RMS, Linus, or anyone can do about it? If so I think you might be right."
No, that's not what I am saying. Things are not good at the moment, but they getting better, largely due to the efforts of those people. When I said "few people do what you described" what I meant was few people spent years writing some CAD program and then made money off of it. Instead, they get paid, and in fact the company has revenue, through out the entire process. The type of work you are trying to preserve simply never existed in the first place.
Hundreds of thousands of people are paid to write software, but actually very few make money selling software.
"A lot of people write books but no one expects them to do it for free . . . "
I took the liberty of bolding "selling" in my original quote. In the original statement, what I meant was the many people were paid to write software, and few derived that income as a result of copyright law. The complete repeal of Title 17, which would also make the GPl invalid, would destroy less than half of all software jobs, maybe much less.
If you want to survive in the digital age by writing useful software, you have to talk to people, convince them it is useful, convince them to believe you by having your previous predictions of useful products come out true, be attentive to their needs, etc.
"And where does the money appear in this?"
If you have nothing they want to pay you for, you will have to go into another line of work besides computers. This is true now, and it will be true after the GPL takes over, and after copyright law is reformed or eliminated.
society is under no obligation to subsidize your particular work-alone style of software production with a monopoly;
"I'm not asking for subsidy, I'm asking for pay. A susidy implies that the cost outweighs the value; that's not what I'm talking about at all."
Outweighing the value is exactly what I am talking about. Why should the entire nation be prevented from doing certain things with computers (i.e, distributing what you wrote) ? Normally one should think that the entire nation would benefit, because a new business was created. But the costs are no longer trivial; if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices, are we getting our money's worth for your business ? No.
if society could and did want to, it's a bad way to make software so we shouldn't;
"On the contrary, it's the best way to make new software with totally new ideas and approaches."
If it was a totally new idea and approach, the GPL wouldn't even come into it -- you would put your totally new code under whatever license you chose to. But like someother people who like to beef about "totally new," you really want to stand on the shoulders of giants by using their code, but not pay them by respecting their licenses. So you are raising all kinds of FUD about the fall of economy, which is really just the (possible) fall of your business, in an attempt to scare people into not licensing under the GPL.
finally, it is your job to figure out how to make a living, just because you presented an implausible plan for it doesn't reflect any fault of the GNU project.
"In the framework of the topic (RMS's issues with Bitkeeper) the GNU project IS the problem. The implausability is caused by RMS's insistance that providing the source code must include giving the right to profit from that source code. This is the killer for any real industry of independant programmers who wish to live off their work while allowing their users to have control of the software they have bought for their own use."
RMS and his followers will build a complete system of computing in which everyone can access the source code. Some people will make money in the that separate ecosystem. If you can't figure out how to, don't write new code by extending GNU code. If all your customers leave you for the FSF/GNU world, well, write better shit and charge less and bring them back. Or look at the people making money in the FSF world and emulate them. But don't simply try to talk the FSF people out of doing it, because it's a waste of time, it won't work.
"I can make money designing colour schemes for houses; why am I to be denied the ability to make money from desiging and writing software simply because I think the user should get the source code?"
There are some ways to make money designing color schemes for houses. But you can't force people to buy them at the point of a gun, and you may find it difficult to stop the neighbors from painting their house the same way. Similarly, you are not being denied the ability to make money from designing and writing software any more than you are being denied the ability to make money mining astroids. The details of both schemes are up to you. Just because it's hard to get metals from astroids, doesn't mean it's smart for you to find the miner's equivalent of a slashdot web board and start trying to convince them not to dig metal on earth, to preserve your job.
I posted this response logged in, so you could email me if you wish; I'm interested in continuing the discussion. My ideas about how the industry will look in a few years when GNU is really taking over have been through a lot of arguments like this, and I am actively trying to learn the skills and come up with ideas to prosper in the (g)new era, and I'd be happy to share my ideas.
The reason GPL was chosen for the linux kernel did not have anything to do with productivity, and it had a lot to do with freedom.
Read these posts by the man himself:
"The point about the GPL (for me) is the continual improvements it allows by everybody." http://groups.google.com/groups?selm= acjbbg%242fq% 241%40penguin.transmeta.com&output=gplain
"I happen to believe that for stuff that I've done for my own enjoyment and made available to others because I like to, I want to always have the ability to decide to follow somebody elses fork of my work instead. The GPL gives me that. I have the right to say 'I don't _have_ to be the driver - I can decide to be a follower too'." http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9gpio 5%24a8%2 41%40cesium.transmeta.com&output=gplain
"However, I'm also idealistic. Not the rabid, frothing at the mouth, bomb-throwing crazy type idealist, but instead the type that thinks that the software world is better off with easy and free access to sources. Because that's what _I_ wanted to have when I started, and I couldn't have it.
So having the choice between the BSD license and the GPL, I actually think that the BSD license is a lot clearer and in some respects better, and in a perfect world I'd use that instead. BUT! I also think that the GPL is more conductive to making the world more like the place I would prefer."
I'm not going to even try to make those links real clickable links; I's tried it before with the google links with lots of percent signs, and it never works.
The reason why tracking directory changes isn't in there is that most projects don't need that. By the time a project does need it, the developers have been using CVS for a while, and think according to it's limitations, and arrange their projects accordingly.
The question is, what features of CVS were considered lacking for this particular project, i.e., the linux kernel ?
Parenthetically, I'd like to note that in my (limited) experience, people who resist CVS usually just don't want to learn the new tool and see it as interfering in their normal work by making them type bureaucratic commands before editting files (not true, this is a false perception derived from other version management systems) or they just don't want to really collaborate at all, and the objections to CVS are a way to say "I really don't want to work that closely with you."
Obviously the last case doesn't apply to Linus:)
We can also be confident Linus is not rejecting CVS from a position of ignorance. Go to groups.google.com and do the search on "author:Linus author:Torvalds cvs" and you can see his comments on the subject; he describes using CVS for work, and specific objections such as the ease of finding changes related only to a specific set of committs, stuff about branching, etc.
However, in the limited search through the usenet postings I've done, I didn't see him ask for a feature that simply can't be done with CVS. Those things are complecated, and you might end up writing a little bash alias/function to automatically construct some of the weirder commands, but they are not impossible; I'm an idiot and I've figured out how do keep multiple branches and merge a successful one back into the main tree. You just print out the big manual/guide by Pers Cederqvist and read the first 20 to 30 pages to get started, and after that look things up.
There is one thing that you do need to think about beforehand, and that is a scheme for branch naming and tagging (which are different things). If you have some type of system by which you give an easy to figure out tag to the point where you start a branch it makes it easier to go to the end of the branch and get a diff against the root of that branch, thus seeing all changes associated with that branch. People who use CVS for big things can describe their schemes.
The one issue which I am not sure about CVS handling, is keeping multiple respositories on different machines and synching between them in a truly distributed fasion. If it's possible it would consist of some kludge like putting the kernel CVS repository under CVS control in a separate repository. But I am not entirely sure that is something you want to do in CVS anyway. If I wanted to hack on a code base for an extented period while away from net connectivity to the repository, I would copy the repository to my machine, disconnect and hack away. If I did minor changes and never needed to commit to my local copy, upon re-connecting I would point my working directory back at the real repository (this consists of running a little recursive perl script that edits the right places in all the CVS/Root and CVS/Repository files, lots of people have had to do this and you can find different tools to do that) and updating and committing. If I made a series of commits while away, and new branchs and etc, then it would be complecated and you would end up with various perl scripts wrapping around lots of getting stuff from various tags in one repository and committing to the other, a real pain. Those scripts would essentially add those functionalities to CVS, maybe even more difficult than putting it into CVS directly.
But the point is it is possible. And if someone of Linus's stature asks for something in CVS, he's likely to get it. So I'm still disappointed in the current state of affairs. However, I am sure that many free software advocates are embarassed by the uproar and what it implies about the current state of CVS, and like me, are poking through the old posts to see what needs to be fixed or enhanced. The end result of all this will be good.
I believe that no one who has a life will remember any of them.
I sincerely hope the viral GPL destroys all copyright, and with robots that can make other robots to do all our work for us, there is infinite wealth and the end of scarcity. When you can tell robots to build other robots to start mining and build other robots to start machining and have a spaceship to check out mars in a couple of years, who the fuck is going to read about history ?
Why do you think that RMS is setting up a false delimma ? It is unlikely that the FSF intends to become in any way involved in the linux kernel, except through public dicourse when issues of freedom are raised. They have their own kernel they have been working on for quiet some time. The possibility of an Bitkeeper to CVS gateway machine was brought up in the context of other, non-FSF kernel developers, who might object to using non-free software. RMS mentioned he could not help these soulmates, because it would involve compromising his principles.
It's a valid point. He's just emphasizing the need to compartmentalize Linus's use of non-free software to keep it from contaminating more kernel developer's, and necessity that the person who does that be willing to run non-free software himself. A side issue, really, but valid.
I don't see why this is labeled flamebait. I disagree with the post, but the link is informative and worth discussing. I prefer to answer this post rather than censor it by modding it down (not that I can moderate anyway, having been $rtbl'd long ago).
I don't think that RMS proposes deciding the name based on line counts. I think he sees GNU as worthy of the name because of the central importance of the GNU tools. In any case, he might object to using the RedHat distribution as the benchmark, probably he would like you to use debian. Also, there are more GPL'd lines of code than all other licenses put together.
Finally, RMS is not insisting on the GNU purely to give props to individuals; he's insisting on it because it spreads the meme of freedom.
Parenthetically, I'd like to add that mozilla is a bloated and over-engineered piece of shit, inspite of the fact that I'm using it right now. I use the best browser out of all the free ones, better non-free ones (such as opera) will never get installed on my machine unless I absolutely have no choice.
And just to repeat myself, the above post is not flamebait and is worthy of reading and contains a cool link.
If we adopt "GNU" just to put RMS and others on a pedestal it will be a mistake, nice to RMS and company but not what they want.
The reason to emphasize GNU is to emphasize freedom. If GNU is just a club of good coders, then sure, give 'em credit where credit is due, but it wouldn't be worth getting into a tizzy over.
But for me and many others GNU is not just those people (whom we may not like anyway). It symbolizes the ideal that artificial constraints should not encumber what you do with YOUR computer. And that's important. Stallman's criticisms, coupled as they are with Linus's use of Bitkeeper and the creeping of non-free software into the kernel, seem valid to me. Perhaps it's because I've read more of his stuff and heard him speak, but I don't see the "recoginize me! name it after me!" childish stuff other people seem to see in this.
It's partly a matter of respect, but I think that is also one of the most distracting and harmful aspects of it. Some people react to being asked to "respect" others as a football or soccer team being requested to cheer for the other side. They will be incredibly affronted and verbally attack.
The real reason is that GNU represents and advertises the freedom issue. It's like asking people to remember what was signed on the 4th of July, by refering to it as Independence Day, instead of just thoughtlessly pigging out on beer and hotdogs on "the 4th."
If the people who object so strenuously considered themselves part of the GNU movement, by virtue of using the tools and supporting the ideals, then this distracting issue of egos and preceived egos would be eliminated. The problem is partly that these folks see "GNU" and "them", a small bunch of smelly people with strange political beliefs in Massachusetts. They don't see "GNU" as "us", and incredibly diverse and numerous movement worldwide, of people who are concerned with the freedom to do as they wish with software.
One doesn't have to swear loyalty to me to be a traitor. They can swear loyalty to some third ideal, allow us to trust them for it, and then disregard their obligations and walk away.
Of course, nobody here actually swore loyalty to anything. But the group (kernel developers), and specifically Linus, were somehow represented as being in favor of a free and open way of developing software. So it is a bit disconcerting to discover them advocating the use of a non-free revision control system, on the basis of technical superiority, when it is clear that free systems are at least sufficient (and unlike the non-free one, can be improved.)
I'm not looking for a guilty party here. (If I was it might be me, for projecting my own wishes on to other people's behaviour.) Much of Linus' and the other developer's "public image" (which includes my perceptions of their committment to free software) is outside of their control. Reporters write whatever sounds cool and isn't provably false. Free software zealots get excited and vastly over estimate the size and following of their movement. Etc. I'm not suggesting that Linus Torvalds, or anyone else, lied to me.
I'm just saying that I know what they are now. And that is a bunch of technically excellent (better than me) software creators, who no more give a shit about my freedom than the people who built China's firewall. I guess if China's firewall ran on linux, they'd brag about it.
It's the same problem with downloadable binary-only applications, downloadable binary-only printer drivers, and all other non-free software.
That is, you can't fix things; if you do manage to fix or enhance things, you can't re-distribute it thus helping your neighbors. In your own mind, think of every argument you ever used against non-free software, and just apply it . . . see ?
Look at nvidia's binary only modules. They won't release the source because much of the speed comes from the implementation of certain functions in the driver, and they don't want their competitors to copy those parts. Thus, the nvidia cards are really just a big expensive hardware key for the driver (ok this hardware key really crunches polygons too). People who think of themselves as advocating free software and linux will vigourously defend that, using all the standard arguments used to defend proprietary software: nvidia did a great job and deserves a return on the investment, competitors would "steal" the product of nvidia's sweat, etc, etc. All it takes is a little hardware key to make them forget the whole point of the movement.
That's why I'm on RMS's side in these GNU/Linux debates. The people who just like cool technology are always potential traitors, look at how many of them purchased OS X compputers just because it was better. If linux is going to be at the core of a system that allows ordinary, everyday people cheap access to power and the ability to do what companies do for millions, then freedom has to be a major focus. Otherwise the revolution will be hijacked.
I'm gut-wrenchingly disappointed with the whole Bitbanger or whatever thing, as well as the proliferation of binary only firmware and drivers. I feel like I now need to find a dedicated group of people, maybe debian, and figure out a list of "white" hardware that has free drivers, see if they want to fork the linux tree or work within that community, or even switch to FreeBSD under it's newer and freer license, etc. It's like fucking 1994 all over again.
I will never again trust the people who are not freedom fanatics.
At some point you packet nazis are going to have to throw in the towel.
If you want to control the behaviour of people and what data they transmit, you will have to come out of the server room, don the brown shirt and black boots, and stamp your way into the cubicles and stand guard over the shoulder of each and every peasant. Of course, you will only be able to guard one peasant at a time, and therein lies your defeat, because there are more of us than you.
Universities blocking known ports didn't kill napster or file sharing. Blocking connection initiation from one side or the other just lead to people soaking up even more bandwidth with polling from the inside and "push" mechanisms. Firewalls were invented to fight the flat nature of the internet, and now so many apps and protocols take them into account and route around, through or over them that they aren't seen as a henderence at all. All your attempts to stop humanity from having the free exchange of information are doomed.
What the hell will you do when IPv6 comes out ?
Unless you are willing to spend about 1/4 of all the cpu horsepower on the internet running systems like this, you are doomed, and you are probably doomed anyway.
My advice: give up. As long as that weird IRC server that has compiled-in packet flooders that suddenly appeared on your machine isn't deleteing any of your data, just share and let it be. Open all your ports. Give accounts to street urchins, or make a standard account "street" passwd "urchin". Run a wireless access point with password "passwd". Try to back up your files often enough to recover from their mistakes that fuck your box. Just bite the bullet and dive into the new century.
Because eventually all of our personal hardware will just be little nodes and bits of a giant cloud of humanities collective investment in computing; the filesystem will be a giant freenet or plan9 kfs type thing that doesn't care when your disk breaks, the cpu cycles will be swapped around according to need. A reputation based system will penalize you by not offering you the use of cloud unless you contribute to it, so you will WANT all those other people running shit on your box, because you need the currency to buy space to hold your backups.
YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. Your current fumbling efforts to compartmentalize your assets while leaving just enough of a window through the wall for you to reach out and grab some of the goodies are futile attempts to remain in a pre-cyberspace society.
Shouldn't the payee be the other account on the other side of the transaction ? In other words, the 4th field in their standard layout.
Transactions have to go from one account to another. It's that double entry accounting bullshit . . . you have to kind of buy into it, and it's probably overhyped as a solution, but it definitely is not just a line in a spreadsheet indicating a person or company's name.
I use gnucash, not even the latest version, and I just added a description a transaction. I have used it for more than a year, through several versions, and it has always had that giant blank "description" field sitting right there in the register window.
Or am I somehow completely misunderstanding what you mean by "add a description to a transaction" ?
My objections to gnucash are that it requires too many librarys for functions that I never use due to in the integration with gnome, and that it doesn't have a text-only mode of interfacing with it.
I would rather have 56k and be able to go a mile or two. If everyone could get devices of that range, we'd have to have each device have a lower bandwidth so we wouldn't crowd each other out; but more importantly peer-to-peer ad-hoc networks could give some telecos a run for their money.
Heck, I'd settle for 14.4k or 9600. Who the hell wants 1000 MB/s when you can only talk to yourself ?
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest you look into the history of TrustE's privacy seal. Also consider how much weight you give to the phrase "audited by a big 5 accounting firm." If you associate yourself with click through licenses, you'll end up like them -- with a name of mud. For people to listen to you, for you to have any influence at all, people like me have to care about your opinion so that people who pick licenses will listen to what you say.
I believe that all licenses that restrict what a person does with the software, as opposed to focusing only on the right to redistribute, are inherinently weak. This is because Title 17 of the US Code specifically gives the copyright holder control over some kinds of copying, but doesn't mention use.
So if you want people to care about your opinion, make this clear: no contract with the individual is required to enforce federal law. Timothy McVeigh wasn't convicted because he clicked on "I will not blow up buildings" when he bought the fertilizer; the same applies to copyright violations. Tell whoever is interested in click-through provisions that the OSI will regard such a requirement as admission by the licensor that the license exceeds the control granted in Title 17, and that it will never come under OSI's consideration because of that weak legal standing.
I have also noticed the atrophy of the ability to plan in my friends who have cell phones. I generally don't use one (occasionally activate a pre-paid mobile for long driving trips, should there be an emergency), and it is impossible to meet anyone anymore. They like to just say "meet me on 6th street in some bar" and then you are supposed to go to 6th, call them, find out what bar they went to on the spur of the moment, realize their habits have so atrophied they can't even tell you where they are in the bar, go to the bar and call them AGAIN, so you can locate them by the ringing phone.
It's disgusting, really. I think some of my friends have almost completely lost the ability to plan more than 30 minutes ahead. They live 30 minutes (including a shower) from school and work, and any agreement to do anything that requires more than a half an hour preparation (such as meeting at a place an hour's drive away) requires constant communication, calling them to tell "you should be on the road now" or asking them to call you as they leave, or something like that.
It's not a good part of modern society.
This is some funny shit.
Any more code examples ?
There has been some confusion on your statement in the UL teleconference to the effect that while source code would be available to meet the requirements of the GPL, "binaries would not be freely available."
Could you clarify what that means ? Is it possible that UL will distribute only source, or only distribute source and binaries to it's member companies ? (Who will then be responsible for making sure they meet the license requirements on software which is in their distributions ?) Surely UL or it's members don't intend to distribute binaries compiled from GPL code and assert the recipent can't re-distribute them ?
In tcsh:
;
/home/*", to see who the disk pigs are.
alias dusort 'du -s \!* | sort -r -n | awk '"'"'{sum+=$1;printf("%9d %9d %s\n",sum,$1,$2)}'"'
In bash (or zsh):
function dusort ()
{
du -s "$@" | sort -r -n |
awk '{sum+=$1;printf("%9d %9d %s\n",sum,$1,$2)}'
}
An example way to invoke it is "dusort
You should read the GPL.
The GPL prevents someone who receives the code under the GPL from re-distributing it with more restrictions than the GPL.
On the other hand, the GPL is not designed specificall to "prevent big corporations from making money"; I think RMS and the GNU supporters want people to make money writing Free Software, because then those people will write more. However, the GPL is a license focused on freedom, it is not a business plan.
If you read the whole GPL, you will find that it says that you cannot distribute it with additional restrictions on the recipient. Which is what one would be doing if they took a copy of GPL'd code, and passed it on with the restriction that the user could only install it on one machine.
So the GPL does make no claims as to running the program, but it also says that you can't redistribute it with additional restrictions.
I think that had Linux been under a BSD style license, it would have been less successful. You can search out the opinions of Linus on the matter on groups.google.
The GPL made writing code a social action -- you could guarantee that your code would always be free, and no one else would ever be confronted with the a myterious black box they couldn't screw with, that contained your stuff. It is about making technology open and transparent.
On the other hand, if it truly is "the software that counts", why didn't BSD win out over Linux ? Isn't BSD generally conceeded to have many benefits and higher qualities than Linux ?
Of course, someone like cheapbytes can by any UnitedLinux CD and sell other UnitedLinux CDs (as long as all the software they are redistributing is GNU/BSD/Other Free Software), right ?
So how is United Linux going to enforce this "per seat" license ?
If I buy a one-seat license and install it on every computer in my house, my company, and my mom's house, and they take me to court, I'll point to the provision in the GPL which says that the works may not be re-distributed with "further" restrictions.
You say that you write GPL'd software and that you have no problem with the software being charged for "under a different license." The "charged for" doesn't matter here, it's the "under a different license." If that different license is more restrictive than the GPL, then it is in direct conflict with the GPL.
So it is not true that "All the GPL says is that if you distribute binaries containing GPL'd code, you must make the source code for those GPL'd binaries available under the GPL I am still free to distribute any binaries I created for a fee, as long as I give you the source under the GPL." The GPL has the additional restrictions of not allowing re-distribution under a more restrictive license, it guarantees the software will stay free as long as it is still a derived work of yours.
If such is your wish, you can directly license the software under a license which allows the re-distribution under restrictive terms; the BSDL is such a license. Or you could force the company in question to buy a separate license from you (presuming you are the sole author, or all author's aggree to re-license); this would make you more money.
That's a vague and very encompassing discription. I think of many plans which would count under that, and doom you to bankruptcy today; and I'm sure that if everyone wrote code under the GPL, there would be other and different ways to fail and succeed at that task.
You seem to think that the only way to make money is off of the copyright priviledge. In fact, that's simply not the case, and it's simply not the case that most people writing code today live off of that.
The bottom line is that there are lots of companies making money by selling closed-source programs and none doing it with open-source programs (not libraries) that I know of.
First of all, I'm not talking about open source, I'm talking about Free Software, specifically under the GPL. Secondly, it's not an axiom or law of nature that their have to be lots of companies making a killing selling software. (It's not an axiom that you don't die bankrupt, either.) Also, why do you exclude libraries ?
I simply do not see the distinction between being paid to write software and making money selling software;; if I make enough money selling software I'll hire someone to do the sales for me, that doesn't mean that I'm no longer making money from selling the software. In the corporate setting my wages pay for the code I've sold to the company that week, or in expectation of software I will sell to them during my period of employment. It's still making money from selling my work.
The last case, where you make money from selling your work, doesn't depend on copyright at all.
Let's take the example of someone who writes, say, software that tracks every train Burlington Northern owns and operates, and can display it on a big map and you can click on it to see the cargo, etc. That person is getting paid to write software. If congress repeals all copyright law, their job is still safe, because BN still needs that software -- regardless of whether they are an actual employee of BN, or of a contractor, or whatever. The market for that software is still there. There is no other customer, and no one would pirate it, because no one else has Burlington Northerns' rail network.
On the other hand, there are programmers whose job is dependent on copyrights. Say, a guy who is working for Quicken putting in new features. If copyright vanishes, a couple of people just through their cracked Quicken .iso's on
gnutella, the profit from that edition is gone. Quicken might not go bankrupt
immediately, hell, maybe they would thrash around writing new versions on a
short release cycle and trying to squeeze something out of each release, selling
support and customizations to big firms, and they might even survive. But the
shrink wrapped box in Best Buy is history.
My point is that the percentage of people who jobs will actually change if copyright disappears is smaller than you think -- something like 10% to 50%, I don't know. But most people would keep on working. I've written software professionally since 1996, getting paid every year, and not one lick of it ever comes under copyright -- it's not distributed to other places at all. That is actually the majority of software jobs out there.
me:if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices,
You: That is not the cost. That is the cost of forcing users the pay for every copy of a work that they have for personal use. The pirating issue is just an excuse to squeeze more cash out of non-pirates in the same way that region codes on DVD's are just a cartel's way of fixing prices. Users have never had free rein to distribute to others without permission and that seems fair enough to me.
The hell that is not cost. If you have some scheme of running an industry that has been knocked into a cocked hat, and your solution is that the next CD drive I buy has a digital key in it and won't play my CDs, then I am damn sure paying a cost and subsidizing your broken money making scheme, as sure as the sugar tariff makes me subsidize beat farmers, as sure as the expensive gas that has ten percent ethanol means I am subsidizing ADM, etc, etc.
Here's some more security related examples: one time the ranchers down here in Texas had a broken-ass way of branding cattle but not fencing off land (it wasn' t broken-ass to begin with, but hey, the world changed, just like it's changing for you and me) and to stop brand modification and cattle rustling they had to form posses which swept through innocent people's property, shoving their winchester's in their faces and sometimes taking their honestly owned but unbranded livestock. Those people were paying a to subsidize the big rancher's inability to figure out how to make a living in a changing world.
At times various countries (notably Germany in the 20's and 30's) tried to pay for all radio stations with a tax on radios, based on the number of vacuum tubes. Needless to say, that system gradually fell apart, not the least because people bought radios from other countries and smuggled them in. Anyone who ever missed a train because the customs guy was searching their bag for a non-existent radio paid a subsidy to the idiotic radio scheme.
The problem for your hypothetical programmer who wants to devote his life to writing a beautiful piece of software and then extract money from every person who ever uses it, is that his "posses" and "customs men" (i.e, the copyright enforcers) may not even make the scheme work for a little while.
In practice RMS has made it clear that pressure will be brought to bear on anyone that does not accept the three principles of freedom to modify, freedom to distribute, and free access to source code; My beef is with the second one of these, and only the second . . .
GNU can never take over the industry as it can not sustain the industry's basic unit - the programmer - in any numbers. Well, I explained above that most or many programmers are sustained in a way entirely orthagonal to copyright and thus the GPL. What will happen is that those programmers who most directly depend on freedom-limiting plans of making money (like your plan of making money by limiting people's second freedom) will find their money supply drying up. There are lots of other ways to make money. It is likely that a lot more software will be written by people who are not primarily software writers, but other engineers or professionals trying to get their primary job done (this isn't due purely to social/GPL related reasons; this is also due to technical shifts in the rise of powerful but easy to learn languages, GUI programming tools like that HP labview crap I hate, etc). The large corporate houses will go the way of Enron and SCO, for the most part. On the other hand, some places like IBM, will survive just fine -- they make money for making things work, not just for selling Title 17 rights.
In general, society will stop putting as much money into the production of software. However, the collapse of the big houses will be matched by the rise of small companies and individual consultants who can do amazing things because they have knowledge of and access to an emmense body of work. In the end, although less money total will be going into the sector of software production, I think more money total will end up in the pockets of programmers; the corporate overhead will disappear out of the industry entirely.
Let me try another one of my overblown and ineffective analogies.
If someone in 1900 invented steam powered digging robots, and went down to Panama all by his lonesome and dug a canal, so that he could charge fees to ships and become a billionaire, would his twenty years hard work in the jungle fixing rusty robots be rewarded with a lifetime of ease ?
No, because Teddy Roosevelt would send down the marines and take that canal, just like he took Panama itself to build it in the first place.
Does this mean that no canals happen ? No, canals just aren't built that way. Just because your awesome work of beautiful CAD tool programming will never make the writer a dime, doesn't mean that the GPL is invalidated, or that somehow all the GNU people just aren't acknowledging realities of the world, or whatever. It just means that some naive and romantic vision of the way things happen in the real world turned out not to be true.
It just means that you found another way to waste your life, out of the thousands that already exist, like killing yourself on whiskey while writing the great american novel, like playing clubs for free drinks until the big break finally comes, etc, etc.
"So are you saying that the way things are done at the moment is as good as it can get and there's nothing FSF, RMS, Linus, or anyone can do about it? If so I think you might be right." No, that's not what I am saying. Things are not good at the moment, but they getting better, largely due to the efforts of those people. When I said "few people do what you described" what I meant was few people spent years writing some CAD program and then made money off of it. Instead, they get paid, and in fact the company has revenue, through out the entire process. The type of work you are trying to preserve simply never existed in the first place.
Hundreds of thousands of people are paid to write software, but actually very few make money selling software.
"A lot of people write books but no one expects them to do it for free . . . "
I took the liberty of bolding "selling" in my original quote. In the original statement, what I meant was the many people were paid to write software, and few derived that income as a result of copyright law. The complete repeal of Title 17, which would also make the GPl invalid, would destroy less than half of all software jobs, maybe much less.
If you want to survive in the digital age by writing useful software, you have to talk to people, convince them it is useful, convince them to believe you by having your previous predictions of useful products come out true, be attentive to their needs, etc.
"And where does the money appear in this?"
If you have nothing they want to pay you for, you will have to go into another line of work besides computers. This is true now, and it will be true after the GPL takes over, and after copyright law is reformed or eliminated.
society is under no obligation to subsidize your particular work-alone style of software production with a monopoly;
"I'm not asking for subsidy, I'm asking for pay. A susidy implies that the cost outweighs the value; that's not what I'm talking about at all."
Outweighing the value is exactly what I am talking about. Why should the entire nation be prevented from doing certain things with computers (i.e, distributing what you wrote) ? Normally one should think that the entire nation would benefit, because a new business was created. But the costs are no longer trivial; if the monopoly on copyright for your code is not enforcable except through RIAA style locks on all digital devices, are we getting our money's worth for your business ? No.
if society could and did want to, it's a bad way to make software so we shouldn't;
"On the contrary, it's the best way to make new software with totally new ideas and approaches."
If it was a totally new idea and approach, the GPL wouldn't even come into it -- you would put your totally new code under whatever license you chose to. But like someother people who like to beef about "totally new," you really want to stand on the shoulders of giants by using their code, but not pay them by respecting their licenses. So you are raising all kinds of FUD about the fall of economy, which is really just the (possible) fall of your business, in an attempt to scare people into not licensing under the GPL.
finally, it is your job to figure out how to make a living, just because you presented an implausible plan for it doesn't reflect any fault of the GNU project.
"In the framework of the topic (RMS's issues with Bitkeeper) the GNU project IS the problem. The implausability is caused by RMS's insistance that providing the source code must include giving the right to profit from that source code. This is the killer for any real industry of independant programmers who wish to live off their work while allowing their users to have control of the software they have bought for their own use."
RMS and his followers will build a complete system of computing in which everyone can access the source code. Some people will make money in the that separate ecosystem. If you can't figure out how to, don't write new code by extending GNU code. If all your customers leave you for the FSF/GNU world, well, write better shit and charge less and bring them back. Or look at the people making money in the FSF world and emulate them. But don't simply try to talk the FSF people out of doing it, because it's a waste of time, it won't work.
"I can make money designing colour schemes for houses; why am I to be denied the ability to make money from desiging and writing software simply because I think the user should get the source code?"
There are some ways to make money designing color schemes for houses. But you can't force people to buy them at the point of a gun, and you may find it difficult to stop the neighbors from painting their house the same way. Similarly, you are not being denied the ability to make money from designing and writing software any more than you are being denied the ability to make money mining astroids. The details of both schemes are up to you. Just because it's hard to get metals from astroids, doesn't mean it's smart for you to find the miner's equivalent of a slashdot web board and start trying to convince them not to dig metal on earth, to preserve your job.
I posted this response logged in, so you could email me if you wish; I'm interested in continuing the discussion. My ideas about how the industry will look in a few years when GNU is really taking over have been through a lot of arguments like this, and I am actively trying to learn the skills and come up with ideas to prosper in the (g)new era, and I'd be happy to share my ideas.
The reason GPL was chosen for the linux kernel did not have anything to do with productivity, and it had a lot to do with freedom.
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Read these posts by the man himself:
"The point about the GPL (for me) is the continual improvements it allows by everybody."
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm
"I happen to believe that for stuff that I've done for my own enjoyment and made available to others because I like to, I want to always have the ability to decide to follow somebody elses fork of my work instead. The GPL gives me that. I have the right to say 'I don't _have_ to be the
driver - I can decide to be a follower too'."
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9gpi
"However, I'm also idealistic. Not the rabid, frothing at the mouth, bomb-throwing crazy type idealist, but instead the type that thinks that the software world is better off with easy and free access to sources. Because that's what _I_ wanted to have when I started, and I couldn't have it.
So having the choice between the BSD license and the GPL, I actually think that the BSD license is a lot clearer and in some respects better, and in a perfect world I'd use that instead. BUT! I also think that the GPL is more conductive to making the world more like the place I would prefer."
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=acjbbg%242
I'm not going to even try to make those links real clickable links; I's tried it before with the google links with lots of percent signs, and it never works.
The question is, what features of CVS were considered lacking for this particular project, i.e., the linux kernel ?
Parenthetically, I'd like to note that in my (limited) experience, people who resist CVS usually just don't want to learn the new tool and see it as interfering in their normal work by making them type bureaucratic commands before editting files (not true, this is a false perception derived from other version management systems) or they just don't want to really collaborate at all, and the objections to CVS are a way to say "I really don't want to work that closely with you."
Obviously the last case doesn't apply to Linus :)
We can also be confident Linus is not rejecting CVS from a position of ignorance. Go to groups.google.com and do the search on "author:Linus author:Torvalds cvs" and you can see his comments on the subject; he describes using CVS for work, and specific objections such as the ease of finding changes related only to a specific set of committs, stuff about branching, etc.
However, in the limited search through the usenet postings I've done, I didn't see him ask for a feature that simply can't be done with CVS. Those things are complecated, and you might end up writing a little bash alias/function to automatically construct some of the weirder commands, but they are not impossible; I'm an idiot and I've figured out how do keep multiple branches and merge a successful one back into the main tree. You just print out the big manual/guide by Pers Cederqvist and read the first 20 to 30 pages to get started, and after that look things up.
There is one thing that you do need to think about beforehand, and that is a scheme for branch naming and tagging (which are different things). If you have some type of system by which you give an easy to figure out tag to the point where you start a branch it makes it easier to go to the end of the branch and get a diff against the root of that branch, thus seeing all changes associated with that branch. People who use CVS for big things can describe their schemes.
The one issue which I am not sure about CVS handling, is keeping multiple respositories on different machines and synching between them in a truly distributed fasion. If it's possible it would consist of some kludge like putting the kernel CVS repository under CVS control in a separate repository. But I am not entirely sure that is something you want to do in CVS anyway. If I wanted to hack on a code base for an extented period while away from net connectivity to the repository, I would copy the repository to my machine, disconnect and hack away. If I did minor changes and never needed to commit to my local copy, upon re-connecting I would point my working directory back at the real repository (this consists of running a little recursive perl script that edits the right places in all the CVS/Root and CVS/Repository files, lots of people have had to do this and you can find different tools to do that) and updating and committing. If I made a series of commits while away, and new branchs and etc, then it would be complecated and you would end up with various perl scripts wrapping around lots of getting stuff from various tags in one repository and committing to the other, a real pain. Those scripts would essentially add those functionalities to CVS, maybe even more difficult than putting it into CVS directly.
But the point is it is possible. And if someone of Linus's stature asks for something in CVS, he's likely to get it. So I'm still disappointed in the current state of affairs. However, I am sure that many free software advocates are embarassed by the uproar and what it implies about the current state of CVS, and like me, are poking through the old posts to see what needs to be fixed or enhanced. The end result of all this will be good.
I believe that no one who has a life will remember any of them.
I sincerely hope the viral GPL destroys all copyright, and with robots that can make other robots to do all our work for us, there is infinite wealth and the end of scarcity. When you can tell robots to build other robots to start mining and build other robots to start machining and have a spaceship to check out mars in a couple of years, who the fuck is going to read about history ?
Bring it on.
Why do you think that RMS is setting up a false delimma ? It is unlikely that the FSF intends to become in any way involved in the linux kernel, except through public dicourse when issues of freedom are raised. They have their own kernel they have been working on for quiet some time. The possibility of an Bitkeeper to CVS gateway machine was brought up in the context of other, non-FSF kernel developers, who might object to using non-free software. RMS mentioned he could not help these soulmates, because it would involve compromising his principles.
It's a valid point. He's just emphasizing the need to compartmentalize Linus's use of non-free software to keep it from contaminating more kernel developer's, and necessity that the person who does that be willing to run non-free software himself. A side issue, really, but valid.
I don't see why this is labeled flamebait. I disagree with the post, but the link is informative and worth discussing. I prefer to answer this post rather than censor it by modding it down (not that I can moderate anyway, having been $rtbl'd long ago).
I don't think that RMS proposes deciding the name based on line counts. I think he sees GNU as worthy of the name because of the central importance of the GNU tools. In any case, he might object to using the RedHat distribution as the benchmark, probably he would like you to use debian. Also, there are more GPL'd lines of code than all other licenses put together.
Finally, RMS is not insisting on the GNU purely to give props to individuals; he's insisting on it because it spreads the meme of freedom.
Parenthetically, I'd like to add that mozilla is a bloated and over-engineered piece of shit, inspite of the fact that I'm using it right now. I use the best browser out of all the free ones, better non-free ones (such as opera) will never get installed on my machine unless I absolutely have no choice.
And just to repeat myself, the above post is not flamebait and is worthy of reading and contains a cool link.
If we adopt "GNU" just to put RMS and others on a pedestal it will be a mistake, nice to RMS and company but not what they want.
The reason to emphasize GNU is to emphasize freedom. If GNU is just a club of good coders, then sure, give 'em credit where credit is due, but it wouldn't be worth getting into a tizzy over.
But for me and many others GNU is not just those people (whom we may not like anyway). It symbolizes the ideal that artificial constraints should not encumber what you do with YOUR computer. And that's important. Stallman's criticisms, coupled as they are with Linus's use of Bitkeeper and the creeping of non-free software into the kernel, seem valid to me. Perhaps it's because I've read more of his stuff and heard him speak, but I don't see the "recoginize me! name it after me!" childish stuff other people seem to see in this.
It's partly a matter of respect, but I think that is also one of the most distracting and harmful aspects of it. Some people react to being asked to "respect" others as a football or soccer team being requested to cheer for the other side. They will be incredibly affronted and verbally attack.
The real reason is that GNU represents and advertises the freedom issue. It's like asking people to remember what was signed on the 4th of July, by refering to it as Independence Day, instead of just thoughtlessly pigging out on beer and hotdogs on "the 4th."
If the people who object so strenuously considered themselves part of the GNU movement, by virtue of using the tools and supporting the ideals, then this distracting issue of egos and preceived egos would be eliminated. The problem is partly that these folks see "GNU" and "them", a small bunch of smelly people with strange political beliefs in Massachusetts. They don't see "GNU" as "us", and incredibly diverse and numerous movement worldwide, of people who are concerned with the freedom to do as they wish with software.
Of course, nobody here actually swore loyalty to anything. But the group (kernel developers), and specifically Linus, were somehow represented as being in favor of a free and open way of developing software. So it is a bit disconcerting to discover them advocating the use of a non-free revision control system, on the basis of technical superiority, when it is clear that free systems are at least sufficient (and unlike the non-free one, can be improved.)
I'm not looking for a guilty party here. (If I was it might be me, for projecting my own wishes on to other people's behaviour.) Much of Linus' and the other developer's "public image" (which includes my perceptions of their committment to free software) is outside of their control. Reporters write whatever sounds cool and isn't provably false. Free software zealots get excited and vastly over estimate the size and following of their movement. Etc. I'm not suggesting that Linus Torvalds, or anyone else, lied to me.
I'm just saying that I know what they are now. And that is a bunch of technically excellent (better than me) software creators, who no more give a shit about my freedom than the people who built China's firewall. I guess if China's firewall ran on linux, they'd brag about it.
It's the same problem with downloadable binary-only applications, downloadable binary-only printer drivers, and all other non-free software.
That is, you can't fix things; if you do manage to fix or enhance things, you can't re-distribute it thus helping your neighbors. In your own mind, think of every argument you ever used against non-free software, and just apply it . . . see ?
Look at nvidia's binary only modules. They won't release the source because much of the speed comes from the implementation of certain functions in the driver, and they don't want their competitors to copy those parts. Thus, the nvidia cards are really just a big expensive hardware key for the driver (ok this hardware key really crunches polygons too). People who think of themselves as advocating free software and linux will vigourously defend that, using all the standard arguments used to defend proprietary software: nvidia did a great job and deserves a return on the investment, competitors would "steal" the product of nvidia's sweat, etc, etc. All it takes is a little hardware key to make them forget the whole point of the movement.
That's why I'm on RMS's side in these GNU/Linux debates. The people who just like cool technology are always potential traitors, look at how many of them purchased OS X compputers just because it was better. If linux is going to be at the core of a system that allows ordinary, everyday people cheap access to power and the ability to do what companies do for millions, then freedom has to be a major focus. Otherwise the revolution will be hijacked.
I'm gut-wrenchingly disappointed with the whole Bitbanger or whatever thing, as well as the proliferation of binary only firmware and drivers. I feel like I now need to find a dedicated group of people, maybe debian, and figure out a list of "white" hardware that has free drivers, see if they want to fork the linux tree or work within that community, or even switch to FreeBSD under it's newer and freer license, etc. It's like fucking 1994 all over again.
I will never again trust the people who are not freedom fanatics.
If you want to control the behaviour of people and what data they transmit, you will have to come out of the server room, don the brown shirt and black boots, and stamp your way into the cubicles and stand guard over the shoulder of each and every peasant. Of course, you will only be able to guard one peasant at a time, and therein lies your defeat, because there are more of us than you.
Universities blocking known ports didn't kill napster or file sharing. Blocking connection initiation from one side or the other just lead to people soaking up even more bandwidth with polling from the inside and "push" mechanisms. Firewalls were invented to fight the flat nature of the internet, and now so many apps and protocols take them into account and route around, through or over them that they aren't seen as a henderence at all. All your attempts to stop humanity from having the free exchange of information are doomed.
What the hell will you do when IPv6 comes out ?
Unless you are willing to spend about 1/4 of all the cpu horsepower on the internet running systems like this, you are doomed, and you are probably doomed anyway.
My advice: give up. As long as that weird IRC server that has compiled-in packet flooders that suddenly appeared on your machine isn't deleteing any of your data, just share and let it be. Open all your ports. Give accounts to street urchins, or make a standard account "street" passwd "urchin". Run a wireless access point with password "passwd". Try to back up your files often enough to recover from their mistakes that fuck your box. Just bite the bullet and dive into the new century.
Because eventually all of our personal hardware will just be little nodes and bits of a giant cloud of humanities collective investment in computing; the filesystem will be a giant freenet or plan9 kfs type thing that doesn't care when your disk breaks, the cpu cycles will be swapped around according to need. A reputation based system will penalize you by not offering you the use of cloud unless you contribute to it, so you will WANT all those other people running shit on your box, because you need the currency to buy space to hold your backups.
YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. Your current fumbling efforts to compartmentalize your assets while leaving just enough of a window through the wall for you to reach out and grab some of the goodies are futile attempts to remain in a pre-cyberspace society.
Shouldn't the payee be the other account on the other side of the transaction ? In other words, the 4th field in their standard layout.
Transactions have to go from one account to another. It's that double entry accounting bullshit . . . you have to kind of buy into it, and it's probably overhyped as a solution, but it definitely is not just a line in a spreadsheet indicating a person or company's name.
Have a few screen shots:
http://www.gnucash.org/images/gnome-1.6/savings-jo urnal.gif
http://www.gnucash.org/images/gnome-1.6/savings-do uble.gif
Or am I somehow completely misunderstanding what you mean by "add a description to a transaction" ?
My objections to gnucash are that it requires too many librarys for functions that I never use due to in the integration with gnome, and that it doesn't have a text-only mode of interfacing with it.
I would rather have 56k and be able to go a mile or two. If everyone could get devices of that range, we'd have to have each device have a lower bandwidth so we wouldn't crowd each other out; but more importantly peer-to-peer ad-hoc networks could give some telecos a run for their money.
Heck, I'd settle for 14.4k or 9600. Who the hell wants 1000 MB/s when you can only talk to yourself ?
But this business advertises itself as being "on the foreskin of technology."