I always said that 'The Matrix' is a very good science fiction movie, when compared to other science fiction movies. However, it still has a long way to go to be a science fiction movie as good as I feel would be possible. This applies especially to the treatment of topics like perception, free will, consciousness et al, which the film touches but does not go far enough in handling them.
My perception of what science fiction should really be like are the books of Stanislaw Lem. In his 1969 book 'Summa Technologiae', for example, he explains the concept of virtual reality. The Futurological Congress also touches upon this topic, but even goes a little further in that it describes a world where there is not one but many levels of nested virtual realities. Also very interesting is the book 'Dialogues', in which he, among other questions, discusses whether machines can be concious. The book was written in the 1960's. By far his best book, imho, is Fiasco. That's a book I'd like to see a film based on!
This is perhaps the millionthst time I explain this:
The thing that people claiming that BSD is more free than GPL overlook is this: every freedom has an adverse side to it. Let's look at it.
What does making a piece of software proprietary (which BSD allows) mean? It means restricting its use, i.e. taking away freedom from other people, just like kidnapping somebody means taking away his freedom to go wherever he wants to, just like killing a man means taking away all his freedoms.
In other words: in a world where everybody has every freedom, kidnapping and even murder would be absolutely legal. On the other hand, it means that anybody can be stripped of any freedom by anybody else at any time, which is obviously not what man wants, hence the invention of law.
What we now face is the choice between two freedoms: the freedom to restrict somebody elses use of a piece of software and the freedom to use software unrestricted (with the restriction of not having the freedom to take away this freedom from somebody else). The latter is what the GPL provides and I'd choose it over the former any day.
As far as I understand it, the RSA software will not be released as Free Software (am I wrong?). If this is in fact the case, then RedHat is actively supporting the development of proprietary software. The question is: is this a Good Thing? I seriously doubt it.
I have notices that a lot of people these days use to include some Echelon keywords at the end of their mails, supposedly to fool Echelon into thinking that the mail is 'interesting', thus overloading the system. I find this practice funny at best but certainly not effective since any mediocre programmer can filter out mails containing a lot of suspicious words in its last lines.
I have two more practical (i.e. more Echelon-fooling, though less convenient) suggestions to make:
1) Include suspicious words in the actual mail text, but don't overdo it. Two or three words per mail should do. Reading the text will only be a little more difficult.
2) When writing mails which do really contain suspicious words, write them in the last line of the mail and only use their numbers (i.e. the first word would be 0, the second 1,...) in the actual text. This will make Echelon think the words are only included to fool it. To make it even more tricky, you could sometimes use letters or even the spelled numbers (one, two,...) instead of the numbers.
If we have a lot of people doing 1 and 2 and a lot of other people using the old a-lot-of-suspicious-words-in-the-last-lines Echelon should be pretty distracted.
Sorry, Mr. mazpaz, but I'm afraid the G4 doesn't really qualify as a supercomputer these days. 10 years ago, yes, but today, no. Hey, my HP48 outperforms an ENIAC easily. Is it a supercomputer now?
Don't get me wrong: The G4 is certainly a superb CPU and I love AltiVec. I wish a had a G4, I just don't want one from Apple.
Apple is using Microsoft tactics even though they are not nearly in a Microsoft (== monopoly) position. I don't want to image the things they'd pull had they won the desktop war. Not that I like Microsoft or their tactics...
Sorry, but I fail to see how they have declared war on anyone. They are not depriving you of the right to say anything, they are just taking away their citizen's right to read/hear it.
Given the source of a driver it is fairly trivial to make it run on any system for a sufficiently talented programmer. As a matter of fact, most drivers for the HURD are actually taken from the Linux kernel and some drivers in the Linux kernel are taken from *BSD.
On the other hand: As you might recall, Linux is a multi-platform operating system and I would not consider an Intel-only driver a full blown driver, so given a GPL-covered Windows driver (could you only cite one such driver???) I would have to convert it to the Linux driver interface anyway to make it run on my working machine, which happens to be an Alpha.
It is plain obvious that UDI is not going to help the Free Software movement, as RMS already pointed out long ago (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/udi.html).
The tragic is that now, it's not even going to help Linux any more. Which is the most used *NIX on Intel platforms? Right, it's Linux. So, if a hardware vendor faces the choice of writing a driver for an Intel *NIX platform, which one is it going to be? Right, Linux! If Linux implements UDI, it's just giving them one more excuse of not GPL'ing the driver.
The only possibility this could help Linux (not Free Software) is that Microsoft implements UDI as its primary driver API. However, this is not going to happen.
this fact being that free software authors have always had the opportunity to make money, namely by writing proprietary software and getting paid for it.
the main reasons why they wrote free software nonetheless being because (a) they needed a certain piece of software (scratching their itch), because (b) it is fun and because of (c) peer recognition.
let's look at each of these in turn, taking into account the fact that now money is in the game:
(a) money doesn't change anything here. if i need something, i'll write it. writing something else for money doesn't make my need go away.
(c) peer recognition was always in favor of the leaders of big projects (rms for gcc, emacs, linus for linux, miguel for gnome,...) rather than the little contributors. nonetheless, most free software authors have refrained from starting 'big' projects and most of the 'big' projects started lately have failed, because of lack of competence (jos, berlin, freedows,...). if money makes competent programmers start big projects, i don't see why this is a bad thing. if it makes incompetent programmers start big projects, i fail to see the loss, too.
(b) how can money be a substitute for fun???
based on these observations, i predict that pretty much nothing will change.
Could someone please explain to me why this posting gets rated -1 (flamebait)? This poor AC was just stating that he did not find South Park funny without using rude language or insulting anyone. What's the problem?
I personally love South Park but this posting deserves more than a -1.
it does not matter whether someone has to claim it in court or simply write a cease and desist letter. fact is that Apple CAN, under some circumstances, make you stop using the code, without you doing anything wrong and without any actual proof that the code violates some patents or copyrights. as for the possibility of writing a work-around: well, the free software community has written a work-around for windows (it's called linux). does that make windows Open Source?
regarding the GPL: the GPL has no clause about a lawsuit against the original author because such lawsuits are irrelevant. only the outcome of such lawsuits matter! should the supreme court rule that some code in GCC violates some patent then US law automatically forbids the use of this code without a licence for this patent. the GPL does not need to state that explicitly.
does the fact that it is hard for a company like Apple to release code as true Open Source mean that we should thankfully accept their non Open Source contributions and pretend they are Open Source? i think not.
bye schani
It's a flaw in the GPL, not the APSL
on
APSL 1.1 Released
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· Score: 1
you are absolutely right that the APSL protects the original author (in this case Apple, and not the free software community) more than the GPL. it does so, however, at the expense of the licencees, which, in this case, makes it non Open Source.
9.1 Infringement. If any portion of, or functionality implemented by, the Original Code becomes the subject of a claim of infringement, Apple may, at its option: (a) attempt to procure the rights necessary for Apple and You to continue using the Affected Original Code; (b) modify the Affected Original Code so that it is no longer infringing; or (c) suspend Your rights to use, reproduce, modify, sublicense and distribute the Affected Original Code until a final determination of the claim is made by a court or governmental administrative agency of competent jurisdiction and Apple lifts the suspension as set forth below.
this means, in other words, that if someone claims that any part of the source infringes on his copyright or patents, then apple has the right to suspend your use of this piece of code. note that it is not necessary that this someone actually proves that the code infringes! all apple needs to take the code away from you is to find someone willing to CLAIM an infringement. then apple can suspend your rights until the case is settled, which can take a very long time, as we all know.
what i wanted to say is that hackers basically don't care what free software licence a product is using, as long as it's free software. if they like the product, see a problem with it and feel like it, they contribute. if i were into e.g. Perl, i would not mind contributing, even though i don't like Perl's licence (Artistic) as much as the GPL. i know, i know, it's also GPL'ed. it was all but an example.
as for your question: i can tell you for sure that i would not have a problem adding a feature someone wanted who dislikes me and even attacks me (verbally), as long as there is a reason for the feature and as long as it is technically sound. this is all i care about. sympathy doesn't play a role. of course, if i had two technically equivalent feature proposals, i would probably tend towards the person not hating me. after all, we're all humans.:-)
as for the bickering: i believe that disputes are not bad but indeed good things as long as they are based on reason and constructivity. comments like '{ESR,RMS} is an asshole' could of course be deleted without harming the free software community in the least.
hmmm. how come you think i'm long haired? did a little research, ha? (i am indeed:-))
as for darwin: i will not code for it, for three reasons:
1. it is not free software (or open source software, whatever you happen to call it and whatever ESR happens to say).
2. most of has already been free software for a long time (MACH, BSD).
3. it is technically inferior. believe me. i worked with NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP for quite a while. the design of the kernel is basically this (i'm not making this up):
microkernels (like MACH) have the advantage that they can be used in very modular ways. this is demonstrated by the HURD, for example. the downside is that they are slow. monolithic kernels (like Linux and BSD) have the advantage that they are fast but the disadvantage that they are not as flexible as microkernels.
now what would be better than to combine the two principles? this is what NeXT did and what Apple has bought and is now advancing. what they got is basically this: a slow microkernel (MACH) on the bottom and an inflexible monolithic kernel (BSD) on the top. the result is a system that is slow as hell (compared to linux) and not any bit more flexible than a standard monolithic UNIX. sorry, NeXT Inc., you fucked this one up badly.
i don't think that 'we' are our worst enemies. at least not if you define 'we' as the hacker community. by this i mean not the community of people TALKING about writing code but the community of people WRITING code which i consider myself an (insignificant but what the hell) member.
i for myself don't care about people having nothing better to do than to rant on slashdot about who is right or who is wrong. no matter what they say, it won't make me stop coding. do you think it will stop RMS, ESR, Linus, Alan,... just to name a few? i don't. not in a million years.
there are three reasons why i don't agree with this article:
1. i don't think that the release of mozilla and a lot of other products are related to the renamer to 'open source'. nor do i believe that the respective licences would not have come into existence would it still be called free software by most people. i believe ESR would rather have them release it under the GPL but those companies (Netscape, Troll,...) just would not do it.
2. don't fight ESR. oppose what he says. stand up for the term 'free software'. argue. but don't fight. and especially don't fight ESR. don't mistake me: i'm not on ESR's side in the open source - free software dispute. i'm on RMS's. but it's not like this dispute would end if ESR would shut up.
3. i believe that most new projects will still choose the GPL or a BSD licence. the only projects with new licences are 'converted' proprietary products.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you feel about the fact the fact that there is not one C++ compiler in existance that implements the whole C++ standard?
bye
schani
My perception of what science fiction should really be like are the books of Stanislaw Lem. In his 1969 book 'Summa Technologiae', for example, he explains the concept of virtual reality. The Futurological Congress also touches upon this topic, but even goes a little further in that it describes a world where there is not one but many levels of nested virtual realities. Also very interesting is the book 'Dialogues', in which he, among other questions, discusses whether machines can be concious. The book was written in the 1960's. By far his best book, imho, is Fiasco. That's a book I'd like to see a film based on!
This is perhaps the millionthst time I explain this:
The thing that people claiming that BSD is more free than GPL overlook is this: every freedom has an adverse side to it. Let's look at it.
What does making a piece of software proprietary (which BSD allows) mean? It means restricting its use, i.e. taking away freedom from other people, just like kidnapping somebody means taking away his freedom to go wherever he wants to, just like killing a man means taking away all his freedoms.
In other words: in a world where everybody has every freedom, kidnapping and even murder would be absolutely legal. On the other hand, it means that anybody can be stripped of any freedom by anybody else at any time, which is obviously not what man wants, hence the invention of law.
What we now face is the choice between two freedoms: the freedom to restrict somebody elses use of a piece of software and the freedom to use software unrestricted (with the restriction of not having the freedom to take away this freedom from somebody else). The latter is what the GPL provides and I'd choose it over the former any day.
bye
schani
As far as I understand it, the RSA software will not be released as Free Software (am I wrong?). If this is in fact the case, then RedHat is actively supporting the development of proprietary software. The question is: is this a Good Thing? I seriously doubt it.
bye
schani
I have notices that a lot of people these days use to include some Echelon keywords at the end of their mails, supposedly to fool Echelon into thinking that the mail is 'interesting', thus overloading the system. I find this practice funny at best but certainly not effective since any mediocre programmer can filter out mails containing a lot of suspicious words in its last lines.
...) in the actual text. This will make Echelon think the words are only included to fool it. To make it even more tricky, you could sometimes use letters or even the spelled numbers (one, two, ...) instead of the numbers.
I have two more practical (i.e. more Echelon-fooling, though less convenient) suggestions to make:
1) Include suspicious words in the actual mail text, but don't overdo it. Two or three words per mail should do. Reading the text will only be a little more difficult.
2) When writing mails which do really contain suspicious words, write them in the last line of the mail and only use their numbers (i.e. the first word would be 0, the second 1,
If we have a lot of people doing 1 and 2 and a lot of other people using the old a-lot-of-suspicious-words-in-the-last-lines Echelon should be pretty distracted.
bye
schani
I'll tell you why Linux is better for me than FreeBSD: Linux runs on my Alpha, FreeBSD doesn't.
bye
schani
Sorry, Mr. mazpaz, but I'm afraid the G4 doesn't really qualify as a supercomputer these days. 10 years ago, yes, but today, no. Hey, my HP48 outperforms an ENIAC easily. Is it a supercomputer now?
Don't get me wrong: The G4 is certainly a superb CPU and I love AltiVec. I wish a had a G4, I just don't want one from Apple.
Just for the record: I'm an Alpha user.
bye
schani
Apple is using Microsoft tactics even though they are not nearly in a Microsoft (== monopoly) position. I don't want to image the things they'd pull had they won the desktop war. Not that I like Microsoft or their tactics...
bye
schani
Sorry, but I fail to see how they have declared war on anyone. They are not depriving you of the right to say anything, they are just taking away their citizen's right to read/hear it.
bye
schani
Given the source of a driver it is fairly trivial to make it run on any system for a sufficiently talented programmer. As a matter of fact, most drivers for the HURD are actually taken from the Linux kernel and some drivers in the Linux kernel are taken from *BSD.
On the other hand: As you might recall, Linux is a multi-platform operating system and I would not consider an Intel-only driver a full blown driver, so given a GPL-covered Windows driver (could you only cite one such driver???) I would have to convert it to the Linux driver interface anyway to make it run on my working machine, which happens to be an Alpha.
bye
schani
It is plain obvious that UDI is not going to help the Free Software movement, as RMS already pointed out long ago (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/udi.html).
The tragic is that now, it's not even going to help Linux any more. Which is the most used *NIX on Intel platforms? Right, it's Linux. So, if a hardware vendor faces the choice of writing a driver for an Intel *NIX platform, which one is it going to be? Right, Linux! If Linux implements UDI, it's just giving them one more excuse of not GPL'ing the driver.
The only possibility this could help Linux (not Free Software) is that Microsoft implements UDI as its primary driver API. However, this is not going to happen.
bye
schani
this fact being that free software authors have always had the opportunity to make money, namely by writing proprietary software and getting paid for it.
...) rather than the little contributors. nonetheless, most free software authors have refrained from starting 'big' projects and most of the 'big' projects started lately have failed, because of lack of competence (jos, berlin, freedows, ...). if money makes competent programmers start big projects, i don't see why this is a bad thing. if it makes incompetent programmers start big projects, i fail to see the loss, too.
the main reasons why they wrote free software nonetheless being because (a) they needed a certain piece of software (scratching their itch), because (b) it is fun and because of (c) peer recognition.
let's look at each of these in turn, taking into account the fact that now money is in the game:
(a) money doesn't change anything here. if i need something, i'll write it. writing something else for money doesn't make my need go away.
(c) peer recognition was always in favor of the leaders of big projects (rms for gcc, emacs, linus for linux, miguel for gnome,
(b) how can money be a substitute for fun???
based on these observations, i predict that pretty much nothing will change.
bye
schani
Could someone please explain to me why this posting gets rated -1 (flamebait)? This poor AC was just stating that he did not find South Park funny without using rude language or insulting anyone. What's the problem?
I personally love South Park but this posting deserves more than a -1.
it does not matter whether someone has to claim it in court or simply write a cease and desist letter. fact is that Apple CAN, under some circumstances, make you stop using the code, without you doing anything wrong and without any actual proof that the code violates some patents or copyrights. as for the possibility of writing a work-around: well, the free software community has written a work-around for windows (it's called linux). does that make windows Open Source?
regarding the GPL: the GPL has no clause about a lawsuit against the original author because such lawsuits are irrelevant. only the outcome of such lawsuits matter! should the supreme court rule that some code in GCC violates some patent then US law automatically forbids the use of this code without a licence for this patent. the GPL does not need to state that explicitly.
bye
schani
does the fact that it is hard for a company like Apple to release code as true Open Source mean that we should thankfully accept their non Open Source contributions and pretend they are Open Source? i think not.
bye
schani
you are absolutely right that the APSL protects the original author (in this case Apple, and not the free software community) more than the GPL. it does so, however, at the expense of the licencees, which, in this case, makes it non Open Source.
9.1 Infringement. If any portion of, or functionality implemented by, the Original Code
becomes the subject of a claim of infringement, Apple may, at its option: (a) attempt to
procure the rights necessary for Apple and You to continue using the Affected Original
Code; (b) modify the Affected Original Code so that it is no longer infringing; or (c)
suspend Your rights to use, reproduce, modify, sublicense and distribute the Affected
Original Code until a final determination of the claim is made by a court or
governmental administrative agency of competent jurisdiction and Apple lifts the
suspension as set forth below.
this means, in other words, that if someone claims that any part of the source infringes on his copyright or patents, then apple has the right to suspend your use of this piece of code. note that it is not necessary that this someone actually proves that the code infringes! all apple needs to take the code away from you is to find someone willing to CLAIM an infringement. then apple can suspend your rights until the case is settled, which can take a very long time, as we all know.
bye
schani
what i wanted to say is that hackers basically don't care what free software licence a product is using, as long as it's free software. if they like the product, see a problem with it and feel like it, they contribute. if i were into e.g. Perl, i would not mind contributing, even though i don't like Perl's licence (Artistic) as much as the GPL. i know, i know, it's also GPL'ed. it was all but an example.
:-)
as for your question: i can tell you for sure that i would not have a problem adding a feature someone wanted who dislikes me and even attacks me (verbally), as long as there is a reason for the feature and as long as it is technically sound. this is all i care about. sympathy doesn't play a role. of course, if i had two technically equivalent feature proposals, i would probably tend towards the person not hating me. after all, we're all humans.
as for the bickering: i believe that disputes are not bad but indeed good things as long as they are based on reason and constructivity. comments like '{ESR,RMS} is an asshole' could of course be deleted without harming the free software community in the least.
bye
schani
hmmm. how come you think i'm long haired? did a little research, ha? (i am indeed :-))
as for darwin: i will not code for it, for three reasons:
1. it is not free software (or open source software, whatever you happen to call it and whatever ESR happens to say).
2. most of has already been free software for a long time (MACH, BSD).
3. it is technically inferior. believe me. i worked with NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP for quite a while. the design of the kernel is basically this (i'm not making this up):
microkernels (like MACH) have the advantage that they can be used in very modular ways. this is demonstrated by the HURD, for example. the downside is that they are slow. monolithic kernels (like Linux and BSD) have the advantage that they are fast but the disadvantage that they are not as flexible as microkernels.
now what would be better than to combine the two principles? this is what NeXT did and what Apple has bought and is now advancing. what they got is basically this: a slow microkernel (MACH) on the bottom and an inflexible monolithic kernel (BSD) on the top. the result is a system that is slow as hell (compared to linux) and not any bit more flexible than a standard monolithic UNIX. sorry, NeXT Inc., you fucked this one up badly.
bye
schani
i don't think that 'we' are our worst enemies. at least not if you define 'we' as the hacker community. by this i mean not the community of people TALKING about writing code but the community of people WRITING code which i consider myself an (insignificant but what the hell) member.
... just to name a few? i don't. not in a million years.
i for myself don't care about people having nothing better to do than to rant on slashdot about who is right or who is wrong. no matter what they say, it won't make me stop coding. do you think it will stop RMS, ESR, Linus, Alan,
bye
schani
there are three reasons why i don't agree with this article:
...) just would not do it.
1. i don't think that the release of mozilla and a lot of other products are related to the renamer to 'open source'. nor do i believe that the respective licences would not have come into existence would it still be called free software by most people. i believe ESR would rather have them release it under the GPL but those companies (Netscape, Troll,
2. don't fight ESR. oppose what he says. stand up for the term 'free software'. argue. but don't fight. and especially don't fight ESR. don't mistake me: i'm not on ESR's side in the open source - free software dispute. i'm on RMS's. but it's not like this dispute would end if ESR would shut up.
3. i believe that most new projects will still choose the GPL or a BSD licence. the only projects with new licences are 'converted' proprietary products.
bye
schani