Well, both the GIMP/and/ Photoshop are for more than "touching up images".. However, I thought it would conserve space if I didn't sound like I was trying to plug the hell out of both of them.:)
I haven't used MacOS in a while.. From what I remember, it's not nearly as bad as Windows, though I'd prefer something else myself. I just figured if Red Hat ran fine on a box with 16 megs of EDO, and a 166mhz Pentium (no, not II, III, Xeon, or even Celeron.. just Pentium.. don't be surprised, it's still using EDO for the love a..:), then I can't really see the incentive to upgrade from 128 megs of SDRAM and a 500mhz Pentium III to anything higher unless you absolutely/must/ have Win2k.. =P
Therefore.. I'd bet you're right. Which was my point exactly, really.:)
A lot of the features the GIMP lacks is due to nifty patents. Mind you, I'm not exactly "knocking" Photoshop, per se.. and I won't even begin to claim myself as a graphics professional, but aside from the really really serious stuff, the GIMP will handle most of your graphics needs (the other general alternative being Paint Shop Pro, which cute though it may be, lacks a lot of the more useful features of Photoshop, and so is rather pointless except for the low end.. certainly not worth the money for it - which is why I don't even bother to compare PSP with GIMP:).
Besides, I think the chances of the GIMP being "on par" by the time GNU/Linux storms the desktop are fairly good, which is why I like it as my example.:)
People in other countries watch American TV? Must be some new kind of torture..
Besides, neither of the two examples you listed had anything to do with the media. I'm sure a few people outside of the States consider that awful show with Chuck Norris to be some kind of documentary but I, for one, am not buying it.
Software price crash? I'm not so sure.. Well, depends on how you look at it. My favorite example for why software companies should fear GNU/Linux is the GIMP. Bye bye Adobe Photoshop. That won't be a price crash (ugh.. hundreds of dollars to touch up images?), it will be a total switchover from one product to another.:) It depends on the software, I suppose.. But still, it would be more of a drop than a/crash/..
The only crash I might suspect would be in the hardware end of the computer industry. After all, the Wintel connection will be for naught if Microsoft bites the GNU/Linux bullet. I mean, if you don't constantly have OS upgrades that are totally monolithic and suck ever-increasing amounts of resources, what's the incentive to upgrade your hardware? Mind you, I'm talking about the desktop. Scientists and other people who require/extreme/ computing power will always need more.. Richard Stallman in particular finds less and less of a need to upgrade all the time as hardware gets more powerful and his computing needs stay around the same. Hardcore gamers might find fault in my theory, but not all end-users are hardcore gamers.:)
Basically, if you run an OS that actually bothers to manage memory efficiently (contraty to the belief of the Windows-lovers I've met in my time, that is/not/ one of them) you eventually get to a point where getting the latest badass processor just isn't that big a deal. Therefore, in order for, say, Intel, to get you to go buy one, it has to be just a/little/ less than $500 or so.
Ha! At least I qualify my statements. I never claimed to be some "big expert" in Finnish law.. not like you apparently are in American law.
"In Finland, judges are allowed and _expected_ to use common sense; not a common thing in the States."
That's the ignorant thing I've ever heard in my life (well, not really, but it has some ranking there).. The Judicial Branch of the U.S. government is actually one of the best places to look for intelligent decisions. Can you even begin to/imagine/ all of the idiotic laws the U.S. would have if the Judicial Branch didn't rule against them? Ha! Of course, it seems interesting that the people with the most "well-researched" opinions on American law (or the U.S. in general) can't even speak proper English.
The stuff in between is even less worthy of remark..
"But you're american, and there this kind of thing would surely happen. - USA created Bill, Finland created Linus -"
How in the hell does that register in someone's brain? Is Linus the leader of the Finns? heh. Besides, Linus isn't all that remarkable if you don't consider his programming ability. If not for Richard Stallman (or is he Finnish too? yeah right) Linus wouldn't have had a GCC to play with, would never have thought of something like the GPL (if you disagree on/that/ point, perhaps you should do more research on how their political viewpoints differ as far as software is concerned), and it's really doubtful he'd have put together an entire OS by himself without the help of the FSF. By then we'd all be using some flavor of BSD, anyway. heh! As much as I love Linus, all he is is a really good hacker. We have Stallman to thank for the current state of affairs in the software community, for it was his philosophy, whether you agree with it or not, that set it all into motion. And he's.. oh no! American! He's even an atheist. Scary.
At any rate, the U.S. has many people living in it. Rating an entire country by one person is biggotry of the highest order. I'm moving to Canada.. permanently.. as soon as possible. Why? Because I don't think Canada sucks just because I hate Alanis Morisette. heh!
Slight exaggeration doesn't even -begin- to cover what you said in the first paragraph if you are talking about the U.S. heh. More like some things blown wildly out of proportion and others total fabrications.:) Makes me wonder what sort of things most people -really- think about the U.S., since I know a lot of total -fools- who think we still ride horses to school/work in Texas. Gaahh! The idiocy.
My making light (that is, making humorous [!?] comments) about the subject is my usual style of reaction with regards to something so patently ridiculous as that law seems to be from what that article suggested. To be honest, I wouldn't move or give up programming, I'd try to get the law changed. At any rate, if that article is indeed accurate as far as that goes, "suck" doesn't even -begin- to describe that law.
And yeah, even though your comments in your first paragraph were a little "off", every country has a good number of incredibly stupid laws, past and present (ugh.. CDA.. blah!).
Thankfully AOL is about the/last/ damn thing I think about when I hear the phrase "you've got mail".. Usually what comes to mind is a) I've got bills or b) I've got a letter from my favorite girl or c) something I ordered from Amazon just arrived. That's such a bland and generic "trademark" I want to scream at them for even thinking they could protect it, or register it, or anything else. I think we should go back to public beatings. Take the entire AOL legal department, their CEO, and all of their networking "gurus".. and beat them senseless. Well, no not really.. but I do wish Americans would stop using their horrible service and switch over to a/real/ ISP so we can be rid of these idiots.
"The decisive second reading of the Bill cites the offence as a catch-all "Causing danger to data processing systems". Under the terms of the new law this will be punishable by fines or by prison terms of up to two years. It is hoped to get the amendment into law as quickly as possible."
Maybe Linus moved to the U.S. because he peered into the future and knew this was coming.. Or, ah, maybe not.. Soo! Is it just me, or could just about any program "cause danger to data processing systems"? Does this thing have a provision for whether or not it was even intentional!? I mean, what if what you have is a program with a bug in it? Even if you didn't mean for the program to have a bug, before you even get it through the debugger you've committed a crime! At least, that's how it appears from that article. If I were Finnish, I'd be moving out of the country or giving up the idea of becoming a programmer. Ha!
I wonder how many software companies have the same view as Oracle? It's not really something I've followed up on because most companies seem to be rather self-serving, and I only know of a few companies (Oracle, Red Hat) and non-profit organizations (Free Software Foundation) who appear strongly against patents.. Unfortunately, any one of them by themselves isn't likely to change a whole lot (because I doubt Microsoft really wants to abolish software patents:).. Have these different companies ever tried working together on applying pressure on this issue, or even talked with each other about doing so? It seems like that's what is really needed: a concentrated effort by several companies working together to lobby against these silly patent laws.
Companies that appeal to the advanced user (i.e., hacker) would use such a tactic, because obviously a hacker wouldn't have much trouble playing with his new Linux box (not that most such individuals couldn't put together their own, anyway).. However, companies like Dell try to appeal to the average end-user, not the hacker.. Therefore, including official documentation, an official CD with the Red Hat distro on it (not unlike they do with Windows), and being able to tell the consumer that they have official support because it is the official product seems the way to go..
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about how to run a business, don't own RHAT stock, and don't track their activities, so please be very gentle with me.:)
I always thought that the way Red Hat would make its dough was by signing deals with major computer makers.. After all, they could download whatever Linux OS they damn well pleased, and most would want to put the most popular distro on their computers. However, without permission from Red Hat, they are not allowed to call the distro on their computers Official Red Hat Linux. Therefore they would have to sign a deal with Red Hat that allows them to use the name. If Red Hat was smart, they'd charge the big bucks (or at least enough to make a profit in the long run) for each preinstalled system with their distro on it.
Obviously the sales of their distro directly to the end-user without the benefit of a computer maker middle-man are going to drop like a rock when preinstalled Linux desktops (desktop meaning "with modem" in this case) are churned out by the major computer companies.. And, like others, I don't really buy into this "they're going to make their money doing support" thing all that much. However, doesn't the example in the preceding paragraph seem a little bit more viable to anyone?
Besides, I would think that the computer companies would want to include Red Hat's nifty little guides along with the computer system, too. Again, they would need to sign a deal with Red Hat (and probably pay a pretty penny for each copy).
I'm not sure that I follow.. Red Hat would become the next Microsoft? They might find that a little difficult to do, given the nature of their product. It's not like they have a proprietary OS they can use as a leverage to screw us. And they're not exactly the only distro maker in town. There will always be competition in the distro field.. Sure the "little guys" (otherwise known as those who make "suck" distros) will fall, but those that fill a niche will thrive and compete. Due to the nature of the GPL, competition will remain on an even playing field.
Disclaimer: I like GNU/Linux and the GPL. However, I'm/not/ trying to bait anyone.:)
Isn't the case supposed to be about the state of affairs when the trial first started? In that case, no OS you could possibly name would come even near qualifying as "competition" in the eyes of the average end-user (and no, most end-users are not hackers, for those with very odd perceptions indeed).
As far as *BSD competing for the.. desktop? The BSD brothers are direct descendants from the original UNIX. The first of those three projects began in what, 1991? I think if they were going to capture the desktop of all places, they'd have "caught fire" by now. In the very early 90's NetBSD was certainly more functional than GNU/Linux, if only for the fact that the kernel had just been written, while UNIX code has been around for quite some time.
GNU/Linux still isn't much of a threat to the desktop market. Most Linux "desktops" I know of that are made by a computer company that your average end-user would even know about (that is to say, VA and Penguin Computing do/not/ count) don't even have modems on the things thanks to silly "Winmodem" policies (just see Dell's site for an excellent example).
GNU/Linux and *BSD are making significant inroads on the server side, and GNU/Linux is shaping up to take on the desktop.. But it's not happening.. yet. The hardware companies will have to fall further into line first. And they're, quite honestly, being sissies right now for the most part. Afraid to get into the pool because the water might be too cold.
It's more like a jacuzzi, though, if you ask me.:)
Whether or not they could do that would depend on the nature of the changes/additions they made to the Debian distro. If the software they bundled into it was/completely/ separate, I could see that. However, you simply can't have non-GPL'ed stuff as a part of GPL'ed stuff, or vice versa. You can't really segregrate the two (GPL and non-GPL) without having completely separate programs. If that was the case, however, it would seem to make more sense if they simply limited-beta test released some of their software that they ported to GNU/Linux rather than doing so with the entire distro.
I think that makes sense. However, it is very early. Polite responses only, please, as a result of those facts.:)
I think it's kind of obvious that it was a blatant violation of the GPL, and therefore very illegal (that's why we care), so I leave you simply with this:
You ever wonder why the Linux kernel is released either as "stable" or "devel"? It's so people know that the "devel" release is still in "development" and may contain "a few" bugs (i.e., it is probably a little "unstable"). So if you get a beta (or devel) distro, you know it's not meant for widespread use yet. Well, unless you are a fool. But you can't fool-proof everything, you know.
"Can this be read as "all third parties except third party contract beta-testers" ? "
I kind of doubt it, but I assume you were being sarcastic..?
"It sounds like a company could permanently lose the right to do anything with a GPL'd program if there was any slip-up in complying with the license. And presumably anyone who contributed code would be able to apply for an injunction."
"Seems a bit extreme to me."
Sounds reasonable to me. I believe Stallman was rather serious about keeping his software free, and that section is about as threatening as a license can get to a lawyer's eyes. I haven't been keeping up with this as well as I could have, but I'm sure if Corel's legal department had taken just a glance at the GPL before this fiasco, they would have strongly recommended against any silly sublicense to beta testers (or recommended against developing this software at all.. lawyer's seem to like to play it safe, unless they are coming from a position of dominance).
If I were Stallman, I'd want to put the hurt on someone who tried to rip off software protected by my license too. Thus, putting a clause into the license that's a little more than just a "slap on the wrist" would act as a deterrent. However, if Corel doesn't back off and such a thing was enforced against them, it would only create bad PR. On the other hand, other companies wouldn't be very likely to follow their "lead" and try to rip us off, but then again, they'd probably be too frightened to get anywhere near developing GPL'ed stuff (a la advice from their legal department). Well, some might just proceed with a little more intelligence, but at least a few would get turned off by it. I don't know. I'm not a fortune teller.:)
While I don't exactly like IDEs all that much, much less "a highly graphical interface that eliminates the need for employing older command-line tools." (If I wanted a pretty GUI to keep me away from my computer, I'd use MacOS, damnit. As far as debuggers go, I'm still pretty happy with gdb), since my favorite girl's name is Jessilin, an IDE named "Jessie" seems pretty cool (should have been spelled "Jessi", though, IMO:).
Why would Stallman bitch about Red Hat? The last I heard, he was concerned about Intel and Netscape investing in them, but thought that they were making good decisions so far.. coming more and more in line with the free software community. Therefore, I fail to see what inspired that comment.. Care to enlighten?
By the way, Corel would be competition to Red Hat, not VA. VA puts Linux on their computers, not make their own distro (the standard distro on their comps happens to be Red Hat.. surprise surprise..).
It can't fill a niche when it's not there to fill it. And honestly, while a user-friendly Debian-based distro could be cool, I don't think Corel should be who makes it. I don't think Corel's products are all that worthwhile, and hardly requisites. Others may disagree, but the point is, it's obvious these people don't need to be the ones who make Debian user-friendly.
You/can/ charge for GPL'ed software. I could put a copy of Red Hat Linux 6.0 onto a CD-ROM, then turn around and charge $500 for it. Sure, you'd be stupid to buy it, but there would be nothing illegal involved in such an exchange. I could even take said Red Hat distro, modify to suit my heart's desire, and not make a public release. The GPL doesn't force you to distribute, it simply places certain restrictions on how it may be distributed (that is, you have to make the source available to those you give the program to). I could force people to pay me that same $500 for a copy. You'd still be stupid to buy it, but since I could not change the license, once you got a copy, you could set up a public ftp site to distribute it for no cost.
Point is, this isn't about charging for a copy of the software.. It's about the licensing. You can't take GPL'ed stuff and claim it as your own IP, or even make any change whatsoever to its licensing. Once GPL'ed, forever GPL'ed. For those of you too used to BSD-style licensing, this may be a foreign concept, being unable to make the software proprietary. But.. there it is.
"I don't understand these people who think that everything linux should be open sourced... the attitude that if its not GLP compliant it's not Linux."
That's really vague.. do you mean Linux as in the kernel, the GNU/Linux system, or software for the GNU/Linux system? I'm all for calling GNU/Linux by the name of Linux just for brevity's sake, but at least I'm not ambiguous about it.
"I could understand if it was software that was being released. Its not... its a distro..."
Are you attempting to assert than an operating system or a distribution of an operating system are not software? That it is actually hardware? I'm not sure that I follow/that/ particular comment very far.. After all, I can't put my new nifty Xeon processor into Linux, because it is software, not a physical manifestation.
"and the quote goes... "Linux is a kernel. Everything else in the distro is frills". "
If you say so. Try using the Linux kernel and nothing else.. then try to accomplish something. Linux is indeed just the kernel. Then you have GNU. GNU is your operating system. Linux is the kernel that "makes things happen". Everything else besides Linux/and/ GNU is frills. GNU/Linux is what you need to be able to do stuff.. The other stuff bundled up with the distribution are frills.
"Its not like corel is developing thier own closed source linux kernel. Just let them beta test."
Even if they were, I don't think it would be widely accepted unless Linus accepted it, despite the GPL. Development forks aren't always good.
In short.. If you modify the base GNU/Linux system, if you distribute the system, you have to do so under the terms of the GPL. You can not alter/any/ GPL'ed programs (or even not change them and do the following, for that matter), rerelease them, and do so under any other license. And if you think Linux is the only GPL'ed piece of software in a GNU system or any of the various distributions, you are sorely, and I mean/sorely/ mistaken.
"Open source licensing: Who knew it could be so complicated? Definitely not Corel Corp."
Obviously.
"Some open source and Linux advocates are outraged that Corel's beta Linux distribution agreement violates the GNU Public License (GPL) in several respects."
Some?
"Some open source advocates argue though that since the Corel release is a beta, and not a public release, it can be considered "internal only," meaning the GPL does not apply."
Well, IANAL, but what the GPL applies to is distribution. I do not believe it makes a distinction between "internal" or "external". If they are going to give us a copy of their distro, they can't attach extra licensing stuff to it. We are not their employees, so even if the "select few" only get to see it, it's still distribution. How they bind down their employees from distributing modified GPL'ed stuff would be a much more interesting topic to explore, in my opinion.
" "As we've stated on previous occasions, Corel has every intention of honoring the GNU GPL obligations once we begin distribution of Corel Linux later this year..." "
So, you can honor it when you want to honor it? I think your view is a little "off".
" "...This beta testing program for Linux, however, does not signal the commencement of the distribution of Corel Linux, but rather the contracting of third party testing services..." "
Hmm. Distribution: 1. to give out in shares 2. to spread out.. This sounds a little like distribution. They "give out" copies of the program? Whether or not you are contracting "third party" help, you are still/distributing/ GPL'ed stuff.. therefore it is to be under the GPL license, not their own, or even a weird hybrid.
"Is that enough? Raymond doesn't think so. He believes that the beta should be under GPL and the other appropriate licenses. As he succinctly puts it, "They'll get toasted over this, and deserve it." "
Damn right. I'm with ESR on this one. Who needs another pointless distro, anyway? Stick to the ones that actually fill a niche.
"As Corel is discovering, making the jump from traditional commercial software practices and licenses to an open source model is harder to make then they might have thought. It's a lesson all companies moving to open source would be wise to heed."
While a lot of people would say that now is the time to test the GPL out in court, I don't think this scenario is really for the best, although it was bound to happen eventually. Companies are out to make money, free software is a new market companies have to adapt to, fight off, or get trampled by, and the GPL doesn't allow for money-making.. at least in the traditional sense conceptualized by "big business". And all this kind of friction between companies and the free software community is going to produce is bad PR relations, and a sense of bitterness on more than a few sides. I was going to add more to that, but I forgot what I was going to say.:)
I believe there's a very good reason Richard Stallman wanted to continue using the term "free software".. because other available terms were even more ambiguous or had some other disadvantage tied in with their usage. "Open source" doesn't really imply much of/anything/ that people associate with it these days.. except that it's, well, open source.
All open source means is that you get the source code, not just the binary. That's it. Software that is "open source" could be like BSD or X stuff. Sure, you could make changes to the code, but later someone could modify it themselves and instead of sharing with everyone else as you might have done, they could make it proprietary. Just like you can do with BSD itself (I personally think its funny the three BSD projects do all this work and some of the people on them think its cool that there are commercial derivatives..). Life is not a popularity contest and there is nothing unique, special, or even original about the licensing for BSD or X. Nothing at all.
Then you have stuff like the NPL or the even weirder license from Sun. Netscape Public License.. not only is it GPL-incompatible, but you can even make all these great changes so Netscape can bundle it up into a proprietary package no one can have the source to.. Yeah!
Most software companies in particular have very little to gain by supporting Linux. Take for example, Adobe Photoshop. Who needs to buy that if they can get the GIMP for free? Or Paint Shop Pro? Or any other image manipulation program? GIF Construction Set? Get whirlGIF. You sure as hell won't need WinZip, or anything else of the sort. Face it, most software companies who make Windows stuff make overpriced software to do a ridiculously simple job. Most UNIX types take zipping and unzipping files for grant, although Windows users are expected to pay for that priviledge. If World Domination(tm) does indeed occur, most software companies with products that perform similar purposes as GPL'ed ones will have to adapt or die.. and fast.
Hardware companies, especially those like Dell, only see it as a way to increase their profits by diving into new and untapped markets. You have to do this constantly if you're a hardware company as big as Dell, or else you risk tapping the market you're already in to such a degree that it's almost impossible to grow.
Therefore, anyone who thinks a company would be interested in free software for its own sake is either completely mad or has found a unique case. Businesses are here to make money. That's what a business does. That's what a business will always do, until they fail. Otherwise they would be non-profit organizations.
Companies with a moral? Oh please. There are a few who might actually have a clue, but even then, how much of their "moral identity" is inseparable from their vision of a profitable venture? Some companies have found that supporting free software is in their best interests.. financially. What these companies do is a new market.
Sun has never cared about anything other than hype and money. You don't have to go any farther than Java to realize this. They insisted it would take over the world then and there. But did Java live up to the hype? Well, yeah, it would run on just about anything, but the performance was so bad.. who the hell cared? Now it just kills the load time of several Web pages authored by people who think to be a kick ass designer you have to plop 5 megs of "high tech" junk onto each page. Sun is just here to make money, as clearly evidenced by their crazed overcapitalization of Java. Is it a mature technology yet? No. Do tons of people write Java applications anyway? Yes. Does Java have tons of Java applications of their own, all with the word "Java" in it? Yes. As I said.. Just here to make money. Anything else.. has nothing to do with them. Don't consider them in terms of friend or enemy, because their only friend is themselves and their only enemies are those that threaten their current or potential market share.
That's the corporate mindset as I've percieved it, anyway. Perhaps you think differently than I do..?
You want to talk about a waste of money (well, not really, but it reminded me of this anyway, so whatever:).. I read in Inquest a long while back about this Illuminati tournament.. When it got down to the two finalists, one guy told the other he would pay him 50 bucks or so to throw the match. Then he played that card that lets you go back on your word while your opponent still has to honor his side of the bargain, and the move was ruled legal.:)
What better game can you think of that actually says you can cheat if you can get away with it?
No, they're not. They are derivatives of BSD. BSD is a derivative of UNIX. Bust out your history book, you troll.
"Now follow that argument to its logical conclusion and tell me I'm not using Linux, I'm using Debian."
Someone as ignorant as you can use Debian? Wow. I'm impressed. Or perhaps you're just misrepresenting. At any rate, Debian is not an operating system. Debian is a distribution of an operating system. That system is the GNU/Linux system. Thus, you are using Linux, because that is the kernel of the system. UNIX is an OS, not a distribution. BSD is an OS, not a distribution of UNIX, but rather a derivative thereof. FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD are OSes, not distributions of BSD, but rather derivatives thereof.
Now ask yourself: If you were smart, would you have to post anonymously to keep people from knowing who it was who made comments as stupid as yours are?
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Well, both the GIMP /and/ Photoshop are for more than "touching up images".. However, I thought it would conserve space if I didn't sound like I was trying to plug the hell out of both of them. :)
I haven't used MacOS in a while.. From what I remember, it's not nearly as bad as Windows, though I'd prefer something else myself. I just figured if Red Hat ran fine on a box with 16 megs of EDO, and a 166mhz Pentium (no, not II, III, Xeon, or even Celeron.. just Pentium.. don't be surprised, it's still using EDO for the love a.. :), then I can't really see the incentive to upgrade from 128 megs of SDRAM and a 500mhz Pentium III to anything higher unless you absolutely /must/ have Win2k.. =P
Therefore.. I'd bet you're right. Which was my point exactly, really. :)
A lot of the features the GIMP lacks is due to nifty patents. Mind you, I'm not exactly "knocking" Photoshop, per se.. and I won't even begin to claim myself as a graphics professional, but aside from the really really serious stuff, the GIMP will handle most of your graphics needs (the other general alternative being Paint Shop Pro, which cute though it may be, lacks a lot of the more useful features of Photoshop, and so is rather pointless except for the low end.. certainly not worth the money for it - which is why I don't even bother to compare PSP with GIMP :).
Besides, I think the chances of the GIMP being "on par" by the time GNU/Linux storms the desktop are fairly good, which is why I like it as my example. :)
People in other countries watch American TV? Must be some new kind of torture..
Besides, neither of the two examples you listed had anything to do with the media. I'm sure a few people outside of the States consider that awful show with Chuck Norris to be some kind of documentary but I, for one, am not buying it.
Software price crash? I'm not so sure.. Well, depends on how you look at it. My favorite example for why software companies should fear GNU/Linux is the GIMP. Bye bye Adobe Photoshop. That won't be a price crash (ugh.. hundreds of dollars to touch up images?), it will be a total switchover from one product to another. :) It depends on the software, I suppose.. But still, it would be more of a drop than a /crash/..
The only crash I might suspect would be in the hardware end of the computer industry. After all, the Wintel connection will be for naught if Microsoft bites the GNU/Linux bullet. I mean, if you don't constantly have OS upgrades that are totally monolithic and suck ever-increasing amounts of resources, what's the incentive to upgrade your hardware? Mind you, I'm talking about the desktop. Scientists and other people who require /extreme/ computing power will always need more.. Richard Stallman in particular finds less and less of a need to upgrade all the time as hardware gets more powerful and his computing needs stay around the same. Hardcore gamers might find fault in my theory, but not all end-users are hardcore gamers. :)
Basically, if you run an OS that actually bothers to manage memory efficiently (contraty to the belief of the Windows-lovers I've met in my time, that is /not/ one of them) you eventually get to a point where getting the latest badass processor just isn't that big a deal. Therefore, in order for, say, Intel, to get you to go buy one, it has to be just a /little/ less than $500 or so.
Ha! At least I qualify my statements. I never claimed to be some "big expert" in Finnish law.. not like you apparently are in American law.
"In Finland, judges are allowed and _expected_ to use common sense; not a common thing in the States."
That's the ignorant thing I've ever heard in my life (well, not really, but it has some ranking there).. The Judicial Branch of the U.S. government is actually one of the best places to look for intelligent decisions. Can you even begin to /imagine/ all of the idiotic laws the U.S. would have if the Judicial Branch didn't rule against them? Ha! Of course, it seems interesting that the people with the most "well-researched" opinions on American law (or the U.S. in general) can't even speak proper English.
The stuff in between is even less worthy of remark..
"But you're american, and there this kind of thing would surely happen. - USA created Bill, Finland created Linus -"
How in the hell does that register in someone's brain? Is Linus the leader of the Finns? heh. Besides, Linus isn't all that remarkable if you don't consider his programming ability. If not for Richard Stallman (or is he Finnish too? yeah right) Linus wouldn't have had a GCC to play with, would never have thought of something like the GPL (if you disagree on /that/ point, perhaps you should do more research on how their political viewpoints differ as far as software is concerned), and it's really doubtful he'd have put together an entire OS by himself without the help of the FSF. By then we'd all be using some flavor of BSD, anyway. heh! As much as I love Linus, all he is is a really good hacker. We have Stallman to thank for the current state of affairs in the software community, for it was his philosophy, whether you agree with it or not, that set it all into motion. And he's.. oh no! American! He's even an atheist. Scary.
At any rate, the U.S. has many people living in it. Rating an entire country by one person is biggotry of the highest order. I'm moving to Canada.. permanently.. as soon as possible. Why? Because I don't think Canada sucks just because I hate Alanis Morisette. heh!
Slight exaggeration doesn't even -begin- to cover what you said in the first paragraph if you are talking about the U.S. heh. More like some things blown wildly out of proportion and others total fabrications. :) Makes me wonder what sort of things most people -really- think about the U.S., since I know a lot of total -fools- who think we still ride horses to school/work in Texas. Gaahh! The idiocy.
My making light (that is, making humorous [!?] comments) about the subject is my usual style of reaction with regards to something so patently ridiculous as that law seems to be from what that article suggested. To be honest, I wouldn't move or give up programming, I'd try to get the law changed. At any rate, if that article is indeed accurate as far as that goes, "suck" doesn't even -begin- to describe that law.
And yeah, even though your comments in your first paragraph were a little "off", every country has a good number of incredibly stupid laws, past and present (ugh.. CDA.. blah!).
Thankfully AOL is about the /last/ damn thing I think about when I hear the phrase "you've got mail".. Usually what comes to mind is a) I've got bills or b) I've got a letter from my favorite girl or c) something I ordered from Amazon just arrived. That's such a bland and generic "trademark" I want to scream at them for even thinking they could protect it, or register it, or anything else. I think we should go back to public beatings. Take the entire AOL legal department, their CEO, and all of their networking "gurus".. and beat them senseless. Well, no not really.. but I do wish Americans would stop using their horrible service and switch over to a /real/ ISP so we can be rid of these idiots.
"The decisive second reading of the Bill cites the offence as a catch-all "Causing danger to data processing systems". Under the terms of the new law this will be punishable by fines or by prison terms of up to two years. It is hoped to get the amendment into law as quickly as possible."
Maybe Linus moved to the U.S. because he peered into the future and knew this was coming.. Or, ah, maybe not.. Soo! Is it just me, or could just about any program "cause danger to data processing systems"? Does this thing have a provision for whether or not it was even intentional!? I mean, what if what you have is a program with a bug in it? Even if you didn't mean for the program to have a bug, before you even get it through the debugger you've committed a crime! At least, that's how it appears from that article. If I were Finnish, I'd be moving out of the country or giving up the idea of becoming a programmer. Ha!
I wonder how many software companies have the same view as Oracle? It's not really something I've followed up on because most companies seem to be rather self-serving, and I only know of a few companies (Oracle, Red Hat) and non-profit organizations (Free Software Foundation) who appear strongly against patents.. Unfortunately, any one of them by themselves isn't likely to change a whole lot (because I doubt Microsoft really wants to abolish software patents :).. Have these different companies ever tried working together on applying pressure on this issue, or even talked with each other about doing so? It seems like that's what is really needed: a concentrated effort by several companies working together to lobby against these silly patent laws.
Companies that appeal to the advanced user (i.e., hacker) would use such a tactic, because obviously a hacker wouldn't have much trouble playing with his new Linux box (not that most such individuals couldn't put together their own, anyway).. However, companies like Dell try to appeal to the average end-user, not the hacker.. Therefore, including official documentation, an official CD with the Red Hat distro on it (not unlike they do with Windows), and being able to tell the consumer that they have official support because it is the official product seems the way to go..
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about how to run a business, don't own RHAT stock, and don't track their activities, so please be very gentle with me. :)
I always thought that the way Red Hat would make its dough was by signing deals with major computer makers.. After all, they could download whatever Linux OS they damn well pleased, and most would want to put the most popular distro on their computers. However, without permission from Red Hat, they are not allowed to call the distro on their computers Official Red Hat Linux. Therefore they would have to sign a deal with Red Hat that allows them to use the name. If Red Hat was smart, they'd charge the big bucks (or at least enough to make a profit in the long run) for each preinstalled system with their distro on it.
Obviously the sales of their distro directly to the end-user without the benefit of a computer maker middle-man are going to drop like a rock when preinstalled Linux desktops (desktop meaning "with modem" in this case) are churned out by the major computer companies.. And, like others, I don't really buy into this "they're going to make their money doing support" thing all that much. However, doesn't the example in the preceding paragraph seem a little bit more viable to anyone?
Besides, I would think that the computer companies would want to include Red Hat's nifty little guides along with the computer system, too. Again, they would need to sign a deal with Red Hat (and probably pay a pretty penny for each copy).
I'm not sure that I follow.. Red Hat would become the next Microsoft? They might find that a little difficult to do, given the nature of their product. It's not like they have a proprietary OS they can use as a leverage to screw us. And they're not exactly the only distro maker in town. There will always be competition in the distro field.. Sure the "little guys" (otherwise known as those who make "suck" distros) will fall, but those that fill a niche will thrive and compete. Due to the nature of the GPL, competition will remain on an even playing field.
Or did I miss something?
Disclaimer: I like GNU/Linux and the GPL. However, I'm /not/ trying to bait anyone. :)
Isn't the case supposed to be about the state of affairs when the trial first started? In that case, no OS you could possibly name would come even near qualifying as "competition" in the eyes of the average end-user (and no, most end-users are not hackers, for those with very odd perceptions indeed).
As far as *BSD competing for the.. desktop? The BSD brothers are direct descendants from the original UNIX. The first of those three projects began in what, 1991? I think if they were going to capture the desktop of all places, they'd have "caught fire" by now. In the very early 90's NetBSD was certainly more functional than GNU/Linux, if only for the fact that the kernel had just been written, while UNIX code has been around for quite some time.
GNU/Linux still isn't much of a threat to the desktop market. Most Linux "desktops" I know of that are made by a computer company that your average end-user would even know about (that is to say, VA and Penguin Computing do /not/ count) don't even have modems on the things thanks to silly "Winmodem" policies (just see Dell's site for an excellent example).
GNU/Linux and *BSD are making significant inroads on the server side, and GNU/Linux is shaping up to take on the desktop.. But it's not happening.. yet. The hardware companies will have to fall further into line first. And they're, quite honestly, being sissies right now for the most part. Afraid to get into the pool because the water might be too cold.
It's more like a jacuzzi, though, if you ask me. :)
Whether or not they could do that would depend on the nature of the changes/additions they made to the Debian distro. If the software they bundled into it was /completely/ separate, I could see that. However, you simply can't have non-GPL'ed stuff as a part of GPL'ed stuff, or vice versa. You can't really segregrate the two (GPL and non-GPL) without having completely separate programs. If that was the case, however, it would seem to make more sense if they simply limited-beta test released some of their software that they ported to GNU/Linux rather than doing so with the entire distro.
I think that makes sense. However, it is very early. Polite responses only, please, as a result of those facts. :)
I think it's kind of obvious that it was a blatant violation of the GPL, and therefore very illegal (that's why we care), so I leave you simply with this:
You ever wonder why the Linux kernel is released either as "stable" or "devel"? It's so people know that the "devel" release is still in "development" and may contain "a few" bugs (i.e., it is probably a little "unstable"). So if you get a beta (or devel) distro, you know it's not meant for widespread use yet. Well, unless you are a fool. But you can't fool-proof everything, you know.
"Can this be read as "all third parties except third party contract beta-testers" ? "
I kind of doubt it, but I assume you were being sarcastic..?
"It sounds like a company could permanently lose the right to do anything with a GPL'd program if there was any slip-up in complying with the license. And presumably anyone who contributed code would be able to apply for an injunction."
"Seems a bit extreme to me."
Sounds reasonable to me. I believe Stallman was rather serious about keeping his software free, and that section is about as threatening as a license can get to a lawyer's eyes. I haven't been keeping up with this as well as I could have, but I'm sure if Corel's legal department had taken just a glance at the GPL before this fiasco, they would have strongly recommended against any silly sublicense to beta testers (or recommended against developing this software at all.. lawyer's seem to like to play it safe, unless they are coming from a position of dominance).
If I were Stallman, I'd want to put the hurt on someone who tried to rip off software protected by my license too. Thus, putting a clause into the license that's a little more than just a "slap on the wrist" would act as a deterrent. However, if Corel doesn't back off and such a thing was enforced against them, it would only create bad PR. On the other hand, other companies wouldn't be very likely to follow their "lead" and try to rip us off, but then again, they'd probably be too frightened to get anywhere near developing GPL'ed stuff (a la advice from their legal department). Well, some might just proceed with a little more intelligence, but at least a few would get turned off by it. I don't know. I'm not a fortune teller. :)
And, once and for all, IANAL!
While I don't exactly like IDEs all that much, much less "a highly graphical interface that eliminates the need for employing older command-line tools." (If I wanted a pretty GUI to keep me away from my computer, I'd use MacOS, damnit. As far as debuggers go, I'm still pretty happy with gdb), since my favorite girl's name is Jessilin, an IDE named "Jessie" seems pretty cool (should have been spelled "Jessi", though, IMO :).
Why would Stallman bitch about Red Hat? The last I heard, he was concerned about Intel and Netscape investing in them, but thought that they were making good decisions so far.. coming more and more in line with the free software community. Therefore, I fail to see what inspired that comment.. Care to enlighten?
By the way, Corel would be competition to Red Hat, not VA. VA puts Linux on their computers, not make their own distro (the standard distro on their comps happens to be Red Hat.. surprise surprise..).
It can't fill a niche when it's not there to fill it. And honestly, while a user-friendly Debian-based distro could be cool, I don't think Corel should be who makes it. I don't think Corel's products are all that worthwhile, and hardly requisites. Others may disagree, but the point is, it's obvious these people don't need to be the ones who make Debian user-friendly.
You /can/ charge for GPL'ed software. I could put a copy of Red Hat Linux 6.0 onto a CD-ROM, then turn around and charge $500 for it. Sure, you'd be stupid to buy it, but there would be nothing illegal involved in such an exchange. I could even take said Red Hat distro, modify to suit my heart's desire, and not make a public release. The GPL doesn't force you to distribute, it simply places certain restrictions on how it may be distributed (that is, you have to make the source available to those you give the program to). I could force people to pay me that same $500 for a copy. You'd still be stupid to buy it, but since I could not change the license, once you got a copy, you could set up a public ftp site to distribute it for no cost.
Point is, this isn't about charging for a copy of the software.. It's about the licensing. You can't take GPL'ed stuff and claim it as your own IP, or even make any change whatsoever to its licensing. Once GPL'ed, forever GPL'ed. For those of you too used to BSD-style licensing, this may be a foreign concept, being unable to make the software proprietary. But.. there it is.
And yes, as always, IANAL!
"I don't understand these people who think that everything linux should be open sourced... the attitude that if its not GLP compliant it's not Linux."
That's really vague.. do you mean Linux as in the kernel, the GNU/Linux system, or software for the GNU/Linux system? I'm all for calling GNU/Linux by the name of Linux just for brevity's sake, but at least I'm not ambiguous about it.
"I could understand if it was software that was being released. Its not... its a distro..."
Are you attempting to assert than an operating system or a distribution of an operating system are not software? That it is actually hardware? I'm not sure that I follow /that/ particular comment very far.. After all, I can't put my new nifty Xeon processor into Linux, because it is software, not a physical manifestation.
"and the quote goes... "Linux is a kernel. Everything else in the distro is frills". "
If you say so. Try using the Linux kernel and nothing else.. then try to accomplish something. Linux is indeed just the kernel. Then you have GNU. GNU is your operating system. Linux is the kernel that "makes things happen". Everything else besides Linux /and/ GNU is frills. GNU/Linux is what you need to be able to do stuff.. The other stuff bundled up with the distribution are frills.
"Its not like corel is developing thier own closed source linux kernel. Just let them beta test."
Even if they were, I don't think it would be widely accepted unless Linus accepted it, despite the GPL. Development forks aren't always good.
In short.. If you modify the base GNU/Linux system, if you distribute the system, you have to do so under the terms of the GPL. You can not alter /any/ GPL'ed programs (or even not change them and do the following, for that matter), rerelease them, and do so under any other license. And if you think Linux is the only GPL'ed piece of software in a GNU system or any of the various distributions, you are sorely, and I mean /sorely/ mistaken.
"Open source licensing: Who knew it could be so complicated? Definitely not Corel Corp."
Obviously.
"Some open source and Linux advocates are outraged that Corel's beta Linux distribution agreement violates the GNU Public License (GPL) in several respects."
Some?
"Some open source advocates argue though that since the Corel release is a beta, and not a public release, it can be considered "internal only," meaning the GPL does not apply."
Well, IANAL, but what the GPL applies to is distribution. I do not believe it makes a distinction between "internal" or "external". If they are going to give us a copy of their distro, they can't attach extra licensing stuff to it. We are not their employees, so even if the "select few" only get to see it, it's still distribution. How they bind down their employees from distributing modified GPL'ed stuff would be a much more interesting topic to explore, in my opinion.
" "As we've stated on previous occasions, Corel has every intention of honoring the GNU GPL obligations once we begin distribution of Corel Linux later this year..." "
So, you can honor it when you want to honor it? I think your view is a little "off".
" "...This beta testing program for Linux, however, does not signal the commencement of the distribution of Corel Linux, but rather the contracting of third party testing services..." "
Hmm. Distribution: 1. to give out in shares 2. to spread out.. This sounds a little like distribution. They "give out" copies of the program? Whether or not you are contracting "third party" help, you are still /distributing/ GPL'ed stuff.. therefore it is to be under the GPL license, not their own, or even a weird hybrid.
"Is that enough? Raymond doesn't think so. He believes that the beta should be under GPL and the other appropriate licenses. As he succinctly puts it, "They'll get toasted over this, and deserve it." "
Damn right. I'm with ESR on this one. Who needs another pointless distro, anyway? Stick to the ones that actually fill a niche.
"As Corel is discovering, making the jump from traditional commercial software practices and licenses to an open source model is harder to make then they might have thought. It's a lesson all companies moving to open source would be wise to heed."
While a lot of people would say that now is the time to test the GPL out in court, I don't think this scenario is really for the best, although it was bound to happen eventually. Companies are out to make money, free software is a new market companies have to adapt to, fight off, or get trampled by, and the GPL doesn't allow for money-making.. at least in the traditional sense conceptualized by "big business". And all this kind of friction between companies and the free software community is going to produce is bad PR relations, and a sense of bitterness on more than a few sides. I was going to add more to that, but I forgot what I was going to say. :)
I believe there's a very good reason Richard Stallman wanted to continue using the term "free software".. because other available terms were even more ambiguous or had some other disadvantage tied in with their usage. "Open source" doesn't really imply much of /anything/ that people associate with it these days.. except that it's, well, open source.
All open source means is that you get the source code, not just the binary. That's it. Software that is "open source" could be like BSD or X stuff. Sure, you could make changes to the code, but later someone could modify it themselves and instead of sharing with everyone else as you might have done, they could make it proprietary. Just like you can do with BSD itself (I personally think its funny the three BSD projects do all this work and some of the people on them think its cool that there are commercial derivatives..). Life is not a popularity contest and there is nothing unique, special, or even original about the licensing for BSD or X. Nothing at all.
Then you have stuff like the NPL or the even weirder license from Sun. Netscape Public License.. not only is it GPL-incompatible, but you can even make all these great changes so Netscape can bundle it up into a proprietary package no one can have the source to.. Yeah!
Most software companies in particular have very little to gain by supporting Linux. Take for example, Adobe Photoshop. Who needs to buy that if they can get the GIMP for free? Or Paint Shop Pro? Or any other image manipulation program? GIF Construction Set? Get whirlGIF. You sure as hell won't need WinZip, or anything else of the sort. Face it, most software companies who make Windows stuff make overpriced software to do a ridiculously simple job. Most UNIX types take zipping and unzipping files for grant, although Windows users are expected to pay for that priviledge. If World Domination(tm) does indeed occur, most software companies with products that perform similar purposes as GPL'ed ones will have to adapt or die.. and fast.
Hardware companies, especially those like Dell, only see it as a way to increase their profits by diving into new and untapped markets. You have to do this constantly if you're a hardware company as big as Dell, or else you risk tapping the market you're already in to such a degree that it's almost impossible to grow.
Therefore, anyone who thinks a company would be interested in free software for its own sake is either completely mad or has found a unique case. Businesses are here to make money. That's what a business does. That's what a business will always do, until they fail. Otherwise they would be non-profit organizations.
Companies with a moral? Oh please. There are a few who might actually have a clue, but even then, how much of their "moral identity" is inseparable from their vision of a profitable venture? Some companies have found that supporting free software is in their best interests.. financially. What these companies do is a new market.
Sun has never cared about anything other than hype and money. You don't have to go any farther than Java to realize this. They insisted it would take over the world then and there. But did Java live up to the hype? Well, yeah, it would run on just about anything, but the performance was so bad.. who the hell cared? Now it just kills the load time of several Web pages authored by people who think to be a kick ass designer you have to plop 5 megs of "high tech" junk onto each page. Sun is just here to make money, as clearly evidenced by their crazed overcapitalization of Java. Is it a mature technology yet? No. Do tons of people write Java applications anyway? Yes. Does Java have tons of Java applications of their own, all with the word "Java" in it? Yes. As I said.. Just here to make money. Anything else.. has nothing to do with them. Don't consider them in terms of friend or enemy, because their only friend is themselves and their only enemies are those that threaten their current or potential market share.
That's the corporate mindset as I've percieved it, anyway. Perhaps you think differently than I do..?
You want to talk about a waste of money (well, not really, but it reminded me of this anyway, so whatever :).. I read in Inquest a long while back about this Illuminati tournament.. When it got down to the two finalists, one guy told the other he would pay him 50 bucks or so to throw the match. Then he played that card that lets you go back on your word while your opponent still has to honor his side of the bargain, and the move was ruled legal. :)
What better game can you think of that actually says you can cheat if you can get away with it?
No, they're not. They are derivatives of BSD. BSD is a derivative of UNIX. Bust out your history book, you troll.
"Now follow that argument to its logical conclusion and tell me I'm not using Linux, I'm using Debian."
Someone as ignorant as you can use Debian? Wow. I'm impressed. Or perhaps you're just misrepresenting. At any rate, Debian is not an operating system. Debian is a distribution of an operating system. That system is the GNU/Linux system. Thus, you are using Linux, because that is the kernel of the system. UNIX is an OS, not a distribution. BSD is an OS, not a distribution of UNIX, but rather a derivative thereof. FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD are OSes, not distributions of BSD, but rather derivatives thereof.
Now ask yourself: If you were smart, would you have to post anonymously to keep people from knowing who it was who made comments as stupid as yours are?