LGPL isn't the same as a BSD permissive-style license, so they couldn't do the same thing here as they did for the foundation of their OS. LGPL origionally stood for "Library GPL" because it allows other non-free programmes to use the library without being subject to the requirements of the (L)GPL
As far as I know, however, any changes or improvements made to the LGPL'ed programme itself must be distributed Freely, with source, if it is to be distributed at all.
KDE open-sourced KHTML. Apple didn't have a choice in the matter.
Nonsense. KHTML is LGPL. Apple could have used the libraries without contributing anything back.
Well, I can't claim to be an expert on the LGPL, but Wikipedia would seem to be in contradiction with you, and while I don't trust Wikipedia implicitly, I trust it more than random internet guy.
The LGPL places copyleft restrictions on the program itself but does not apply these restrictions to other software that merely links with the program. There are, however, certain other restrictions on this software.
Further...
The main difference between the GPL and the LGPL is that the latter can be linked to (in the case of a library, 'used by') a non-(L)GPLed program, which may be free software or proprietary software.[1] This non-(L)GPLed program can then be distributed under any chosen terms if it is not a derivative work. If it is a derivative work, then the terms must allow "modification for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications."
So it looks like the LGPL forces them to release the changes made to KHTML, but allows them to link to it from non-free applications (Safari)
As for why other platforms adopted it, perhaps its the fact that one of the big changes that apple made was to abstract the use of widget a bit, to allow for more toolkits than just QT to be used (like, say, theirs?), making it more viable on other platforms.
Default third party software? I smell antitrust...
IIRC, a big part of the anti-trust cases was that when they added those features, they were "built in" to the OS, that (sometimes undocumented) APIs has been adjusted to favour MS products, and that they were abusing their positions with OEMs by trying to force them to respect MS's bundling and sell MS software and ONLY MS software.
Sometimes, all it would take is a little careful design of exising features. Take the window-exposing feature, for example. Windows already has a feature (Alt+Tab) that does this - it just isn't all that great at exposing all of the windows at once. As long as you allow others the same access to documented APIs, and allow OEMs to customize the OSes that they ship on their computers, theres no reason why they couldn't improve the default Alt+Tab window viewer.
Better yet, make it a plug-in system like Compiz/Compiz-Fusion on Linux, that way, third parties can also publish/release/sell their own plugins using the default framework, or even modify the ones that ships with it. As long as MS doesn't demand that you can only install plug-ins that have been digitally signed by MS at $100 a pop, that is.
IMO There should really only be one version for the desktop. You can introduce others for servers, subnotebooks, phones, etc, but for the love of god, just have the one for the desktop - It should do everything that you want it to do, no restrictions. It's pretty bad when even the techies start to lose track of what features all the various versions have (or should I say don't have).
3) An expose function that is actually useful
Sorry that it's not OSX. Also, third party software.
4) Multiple desktops
Again, third party software. Supposed to be one of the advantages of Windows, you know.
Third party software is great, I agree. It's supposed to be one of the strengths of Linux as well, what with all those developers scratching all those itches and whatnot. Yet you'll notice that the "user-friendly" distros include these kinds of features anyways. A Desktop OS should be providing a good default experience. The fact that users could go and download extra tools is no reason not to provide a good experience out of the box.
If you really want to take your excuse for missing functionality/usability to its extreme, you might as well only give the user a home folder, vi, bash, lynx, wget and a README file telling them how to download third party applications. There will be a very few users out there to whom this sounds really appealing, but the vast majority of people just want a good computing experience right after they bring their computer home from the store.
Certainly, lets let users replace or augment functionality with third-party software, but that's no excuse for not providing usable defaults.
Of course the world isn't independent of the US dollar. The world also isn't independent of the Euro, either, or just about any other currency, for that matter. Isn't that the whole point of this globalization thing -- that people rely on each other, that no one is wholly isolated anymore?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but your response makes it sound as if you're arguing that the world is uniquely dependant on the US dollar, which just isn't the case.
because the situation is similar to the road system -- where if one major artery is backed up, all connected roads will also have problems. - of-course they conveniently omit the fact that the Internet is designed to route around damaged/congested areas.
They also leave out another obvious notion. When a road is backed up, the solution is not to limit the number of cars that are allowed on the road, or to impose rules limiting each family to one car. When a road is backed up, you widen the road.
You get the extra value of being able to carry it around on a thumb drive in your pocket wherever you go, search the whole book instantly, and a host of other advantages of computerized viewing, such as zooming in for those with poor eyesight.
Yet because you're worried that you'll look like a dork when you go to the park, it shouldn't cost more than 10% of the paper version?
You certainly have the right not to buy the books at that price, but I doubt that so many people will share your sentiments that they will be forced to lower their price to a tenth of the cost of the 'physical thing'.
If you link your own private code to a GPL'd library or even use a GPL'd compiler you are not legally compelled to make your own private code public. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was talking about strictly in-house, private code that no-one outside of a single company will ever interact with. I missed an 'A' in front of the 'GPL' once, but I prefaced my remarks by stating that I was talking about the AGPL.
I'm talking about code that is used to serve web applications to the public. Let's say, as an example, that gmail used GPL'ed code - they wouldn't have to share the code with gmail users. However, if they used AGPL'ed code, it's my understanding that they would have to. This is exactly why I was trying to make the distinction between the GPL and the AGPL.
The GNU AGPL is similar to the GNU General Public License, except that it has an additional section to cover use over a computer network. It closes what is commonly known as the Application service provider loophole of the GNU General Public License. The additional section requires that the complete source code be made available to any network user of the AGPLed work, typically a web application.
The next legal fight could be an attempt to force release of proprietary server code due to some part of the output of the server constituting a "work" generated by open source components on the server.
Well, clearly not. A reading of the GPL will generally show that the 'output' of a program isn't covered by the license unless, say, the output of that program reproduces part of itself or another GPLed work, for example. IANAL, but isn't this exactly the kind of thing that the Affero GPL is supposed to cover? When you use GPL'ed code to provide a web service, you have to provide the source code that runs that service to all users. From what I understand, if you incorporate GPL'ed code into traditional software, the resulting programme has to be GPL'ed - so would the same rule apply for service based web-apps that extend or include Affero GPL'ed code?
so there's a chance that they're planning to introduce a few incompatibilities. They may very well be, but I suspect he was referring to the incompatibilities that have already been introduced by Vista that make the upgrade path from XP kind of rocky.
Re:something going mainstream does not become bad
on
The Rise of Geekdom
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· Score: 1
My point is not that those people have left the sub-culture, never to return. My point is that digg has been ruined. Sure there's still slashdot; no subculture is *completely* wiped out by the attention of the mainstream. The subset of "original" geeks may not shrivel and die, but what has happened to places like digg makes it harder for that original set to congregate and express themselves. It makes it harder for the group to retain its own identity when hallmarks of that group are taken over and changed/wrecked by mainstream adoption.
Re:something going mainstream does not become bad
on
The Rise of Geekdom
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· Score: 1
now, if a set of behaviours you are practicing now is good, the SAME set is gonna keep on being the same. A set of behaviours will only be unaffected if those behaviours do not rely on other people in the community. A person's ability to solve differential equations will not be harmed by widespread adoption of geek culture, but parts of the culture that involve music, literature, hell - just talking to others, will be changed for the worse.
you are talking about what happens when other people start adding to the set and rename the new resulting set the same. this doesnt change anything, your particular set is gonna stay the same. Oh yes it will. You're still thinking on an individual level, but thats not really much of a culture, now is it? Those other people can destroy parts of the culture that they most readily adopt. As an example, look at digg. It actually started out as a fairly technical site, and people were able to have technical conversations on it. Slowly, though, more and more "geek chic" types started showing up, and nowadays you can't have that same discussion. The technical people are now drowned out by pictures of admiral ackbar saying "its a trap" that get 500+ diggs, or are simply ignored.
Under such conditions, I suspect that many of the more technically minded people simply stopped using digg, because they found that they no longer *could* use it - not really. This is a perfect example of the destructive effects that the kind of noise that I mentioned in my previous posts can have. What was once a good tech news site is now the internet equivalent of the "pull my finger" gag.
Re:something going mainstream does not become bad
on
The Rise of Geekdom
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"Use of computer" is hardly a culture in its own right. What I was arguing was that geek culture - what is now the lifestyle and mindset of technology, math, and science, not just their general application - may very well be overwhelmed with junk rip-offs if it becomes big enough to merit attention. If you think that geek culture is immune from this because it doesn't involve "financial aspects", brace yourself. If no one has found a way to monetize it yet (and I'm by NO means saying no one has), they will soon enough, and the big content/media/retail companies, like vultures, will follow shorty thereafter.
In the case of mom and pops, its easy to ignore them, as they don't hold sway over powerful forces that can influence culture. Big companies looking for the Next Big Thing to exploit are another matter. It's this form of mainstream adoption that causes the signal-to-noise ratio to fall. Over time, the culture identity can be destroyed, as up-and-commers are not often introduced to the "real thing".
It's happened to me before, and I generally don't quit; I try to find the quality amongst the garbage rather than leaving. But as time goes on, fewer and fewer people try to do their own thing, and more often they just try to imitate the emergent monocolture. In the case of music, interesting bands abandon their own style in order to match the 'norm' so that they can be more popular, and make money. I believe this is called "Selling Out". New artists do much the same thing, but maybe *their* contract requires them to produce 5 identical sounding albums.
Not only does the new attention not contribute anything, it can actively errode the existing culture - and fast. This kind of cycle isn't usually broken until people are bored with the culture, and move on to something else.
Re:something going mainstream does not become bad
on
The Rise of Geekdom
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· Score: 4, Insightful
While it does seem sad that some people should define themselves merely as 'different' at any expsnse, there are other, more legitimate reasons why the mainstream - whatever that may be - can be argued to be unappealing.
The problem is that once something goes mainstream, the quality of the content that makes up that culture begins to decline rapidly. People interested in making money enter the game, and try to squeeze out those who are genuinely interested in making something neat. It's happened again and again as various niche cultures are thrust into the mainstream consciousness. For every real, interesting work/artist/idea there are 10 cheap knockoffs being peddled by media/retail companies.
Music is a perfect example; every time a new genre becomes popular, imitation bands are "discovered" by all the recording companies, and they flood the market with dozens of identical-sounding bands until what was appealing about the culture is eroded by bottom-dollar competition and fear of experimentation with something that already "works".
censor, n. One who is empowered to examine manuscripts before they are committed to the press, and to forbid their publication if they contain anything obnoxious. [1913 Webster]
I'd say microsoft is pretty empowered and willing to forbid "publication" over msn of anythning that they find obnoxious. It also seems clear at this point that they find youtube links (or any form of competition, really) to be obnoxious.
Not everyone wants faster CPUs. Faster CPUs are only important in some situations.
Okay, that might not have been the best example, but it seems to me a common one that is raised in cases where that reasoning doesn't always apply - where there is a benefit to faster CPUs. I've seen that argument for years about home computers, but surprise surprise, people find new uses for having a more powerful processor in modern computers. People can now play complex games, watch movies, make movies, etc... There was a time not too long ago when computers would have struggled to play a youtube video.
Thus there is still a need for the curmudgeons that can build a system that has only 100 bytes of RAM and a 50kHz CPU and always will be.
I don't really see this as curmudgeony as much as I see it as practical. Sometimes all you need is 100 bytes of RAM.
But the submitter seems to be saying flat out that all this ubiquitous computing stuff is useless, and you should all just get a desktop instead. Instead of saying "be practical, use the right tool for the right job", the message seems to be the rather subjective notion that "This ubiquitous computing is nonsense; it can't possibly do anything new of value, or do anything better than a desktop PC, so just get a Desktop PC."
Nonsense. Just like with more powerful processors in home PCs, someone will think of something, if they haven't already.
Horses were good enough for getting around with until someone came up with the idea of a car. I don't know why the idea that things are 'good enough' is so prevalent - complacency and familiarity maybe? This question smacks of sentiments like "in my day, we only got 3 TV stations - and we were GLAD for it". Some curmudgeon could start this conversation about any topic, really. What about CPUs - aren't they fast enough?
I could go on, but I think my post is already good enough.
There was some Sci-Fi story on that topic, the engineer is trying to figure out how to communicate enough with a far away space ship to solve some problem, when his phone-gossip wife gives him the solution: Just keep talking, all the time.
It was a short story by Isaac Asimov called "My Son, the Physicist". It's from 1962, and I'd certainly consider it politically incorrect; whether that's good or bad is an individual determination.
For many applications, the libraries do everything you need. For everything else, you'd like to generate the commonplace code from your glade design and then customize the small portions that are unique.
I agree, there are some things that UI builders are not that good at. AFAIK, though, you can access the various elements of the UI through the GladeXML object that is returned when you load a.glade file. Why not just use the glade library to load the glade file, then use GladeXML's get_widget command to retrieve various elements that you want to customize.
Maybe I'm missing simething, but what kind of modifications you can make when you have the source code that you can't make otherwise? Or is it more an ease-of-midification idea?
The fact that there are work-arounds for all of these things doesn't negate the fact that they were locked down in the first place.
The iTunes DRM is roughly equivalant to a false positive for piracy in Windows Genuine Advantage. They've purchased the product, but now there are these digital hand-cuffs keeping them from using it. I doubt anyone saying that "false positives in WGA aren't too bad - there are work arounds. [link]" would get modded up too far, though.
I know way more GNOME users than KDE users (I prefer GNOME myself (I guess I don't know:P)), so I can't really put a lot of stock in your anecdotal evidence, either.
Slashdot Mirror
LGPL isn't the same as a BSD permissive-style license, so they couldn't do the same thing here as they did for the foundation of their OS. LGPL origionally stood for "Library GPL" because it allows other non-free programmes to use the library without being subject to the requirements of the (L)GPL
As far as I know, however, any changes or improvements made to the LGPL'ed programme itself must be distributed Freely, with source, if it is to be distributed at all.
KDE open-sourced KHTML. Apple didn't have a choice in the matter.
Nonsense. KHTML is LGPL. Apple could have used the libraries without contributing anything back.
Well, I can't claim to be an expert on the LGPL, but Wikipedia would seem to be in contradiction with you, and while I don't trust Wikipedia implicitly, I trust it more than random internet guy.
Further...
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License
So it looks like the LGPL forces them to release the changes made to KHTML, but allows them to link to it from non-free applications (Safari)
As for why other platforms adopted it, perhaps its the fact that one of the big changes that apple made was to abstract the use of widget a bit, to allow for more toolkits than just QT to be used (like, say, theirs?), making it more viable on other platforms.
Swing and a miss...
Default third party software? I smell antitrust...
IIRC, a big part of the anti-trust cases was that when they added those features, they were "built in" to the OS, that (sometimes undocumented) APIs has been adjusted to favour MS products, and that they were abusing their positions with OEMs by trying to force them to respect MS's bundling and sell MS software and ONLY MS software.
Sometimes, all it would take is a little careful design of exising features. Take the window-exposing feature, for example. Windows already has a feature (Alt+Tab) that does this - it just isn't all that great at exposing all of the windows at once. As long as you allow others the same access to documented APIs, and allow OEMs to customize the OSes that they ship on their computers, theres no reason why they couldn't improve the default Alt+Tab window viewer.
Better yet, make it a plug-in system like Compiz/Compiz-Fusion on Linux, that way, third parties can also publish/release/sell their own plugins using the default framework, or even modify the ones that ships with it. As long as MS doesn't demand that you can only install plug-ins that have been digitally signed by MS at $100 a pop, that is.
2) Only two versions. Home and Pro.
Who cares? Just buy the version you want.
IMO There should really only be one version for the desktop. You can introduce others for servers, subnotebooks, phones, etc, but for the love of god, just have the one for the desktop - It should do everything that you want it to do, no restrictions. It's pretty bad when even the techies start to lose track of what features all the various versions have (or should I say don't have).
3) An expose function that is actually useful
Sorry that it's not OSX. Also, third party software.
4) Multiple desktops
Again, third party software. Supposed to be one of the advantages of Windows, you know.
Third party software is great, I agree. It's supposed to be one of the strengths of Linux as well, what with all those developers scratching all those itches and whatnot. Yet you'll notice that the "user-friendly" distros include these kinds of features anyways. A Desktop OS should be providing a good default experience. The fact that users could go and download extra tools is no reason not to provide a good experience out of the box.
If you really want to take your excuse for missing functionality/usability to its extreme, you might as well only give the user a home folder, vi, bash, lynx, wget and a README file telling them how to download third party applications. There will be a very few users out there to whom this sounds really appealing, but the vast majority of people just want a good computing experience right after they bring their computer home from the store.
Certainly, lets let users replace or augment functionality with third-party software, but that's no excuse for not providing usable defaults.
Of course the world isn't independent of the US dollar. The world also isn't independent of the Euro, either, or just about any other currency, for that matter. Isn't that the whole point of this globalization thing -- that people rely on each other, that no one is wholly isolated anymore?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but your response makes it sound as if you're arguing that the world is uniquely dependant on the US dollar, which just isn't the case.
because the situation is similar to the road system -- where if one major artery is backed up, all connected roads will also have problems. - of-course they conveniently omit the fact that the Internet is designed to route around damaged/congested areas.
They also leave out another obvious notion. When a road is backed up, the solution is not to limit the number of cars that are allowed on the road, or to impose rules limiting each family to one car. When a road is backed up, you widen the road.
You get the extra value of being able to carry it around on a thumb drive in your pocket wherever you go, search the whole book instantly, and a host of other advantages of computerized viewing, such as zooming in for those with poor eyesight.
Yet because you're worried that you'll look like a dork when you go to the park, it shouldn't cost more than 10% of the paper version?
You certainly have the right not to buy the books at that price, but I doubt that so many people will share your sentiments that they will be forced to lower their price to a tenth of the cost of the 'physical thing'.
I'm talking about code that is used to serve web applications to the public. Let's say, as an example, that gmail used GPL'ed code - they wouldn't have to share the code with gmail users. However, if they used AGPL'ed code, it's my understanding that they would have to.
This is exactly why I was trying to make the distinction between the GPL and the AGPL.
From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License )
My point is not that those people have left the sub-culture, never to return. My point is that digg has been ruined. Sure there's still slashdot; no subculture is *completely* wiped out by the attention of the mainstream. The subset of "original" geeks may not shrivel and die, but what has happened to places like digg makes it harder for that original set to congregate and express themselves. It makes it harder for the group to retain its own identity when hallmarks of that group are taken over and changed/wrecked by mainstream adoption.
Under such conditions, I suspect that many of the more technically minded people simply stopped using digg, because they found that they no longer *could* use it - not really. This is a perfect example of the destructive effects that the kind of noise that I mentioned in my previous posts can have. What was once a good tech news site is now the internet equivalent of the "pull my finger" gag.
"Use of computer" is hardly a culture in its own right. What I was arguing was that geek culture - what is now the lifestyle and mindset of technology, math, and science, not just their general application - may very well be overwhelmed with junk rip-offs if it becomes big enough to merit attention. If you think that geek culture is immune from this because it doesn't involve "financial aspects", brace yourself. If no one has found a way to monetize it yet (and I'm by NO means saying no one has), they will soon enough, and the big content/media/retail companies, like vultures, will follow shorty thereafter.
In the case of mom and pops, its easy to ignore them, as they don't hold sway over powerful forces that can influence culture. Big companies looking for the Next Big Thing to exploit are another matter. It's this form of mainstream adoption that causes the signal-to-noise ratio to fall. Over time, the culture identity can be destroyed, as up-and-commers are not often introduced to the "real thing".
It's happened to me before, and I generally don't quit; I try to find the quality amongst the garbage rather than leaving. But as time goes on, fewer and fewer people try to do their own thing, and more often they just try to imitate the emergent monocolture. In the case of music, interesting bands abandon their own style in order to match the 'norm' so that they can be more popular, and make money. I believe this is called "Selling Out". New artists do much the same thing, but maybe *their* contract requires them to produce 5 identical sounding albums.
Not only does the new attention not contribute anything, it can actively errode the existing culture - and fast. This kind of cycle isn't usually broken until people are bored with the culture, and move on to something else.
While it does seem sad that some people should define themselves merely as 'different' at any expsnse, there are other, more legitimate reasons why the mainstream - whatever that may be - can be argued to be unappealing.
The problem is that once something goes mainstream, the quality of the content that makes up that culture begins to decline rapidly. People interested in making money enter the game, and try to squeeze out those who are genuinely interested in making something neat. It's happened again and again as various niche cultures are thrust into the mainstream consciousness. For every real, interesting work/artist/idea there are 10 cheap knockoffs being peddled by media/retail companies.
Music is a perfect example; every time a new genre becomes popular, imitation bands are "discovered" by all the recording companies, and they flood the market with dozens of identical-sounding bands until what was appealing about the culture is eroded by bottom-dollar competition and fear of experimentation with something that already "works".
What are you, some kind of language fundamentalist?
I don't really see this as curmudgeony as much as I see it as practical. Sometimes all you need is 100 bytes of RAM.
But the submitter seems to be saying flat out that all this ubiquitous computing stuff is useless, and you should all just get a desktop instead. Instead of saying "be practical, use the right tool for the right job", the message seems to be the rather subjective notion that "This ubiquitous computing is nonsense; it can't possibly do anything new of value, or do anything better than a desktop PC, so just get a Desktop PC."
Nonsense. Just like with more powerful processors in home PCs, someone will think of something, if they haven't already.
"It was good enough for the PC generation."
Horses were good enough for getting around with until someone came up with the idea of a car. I don't know why the idea that things are 'good enough' is so prevalent - complacency and familiarity maybe? This question smacks of sentiments like "in my day, we only got 3 TV stations - and we were GLAD for it". Some curmudgeon could start this conversation about any topic, really. What about CPUs - aren't they fast enough?
I could go on, but I think my post is already good enough.
So if there was a pope who secretly didn't believe in their religion, then Catholicism would stop being a religion until he was replaced?
Whatever it started out as, there are now a lot of people for whom this is a religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Son,_the_Physicist
I agree, there are some things that UI builders are not that good at. AFAIK, though, you can access the various elements of the UI through the GladeXML object that is returned when you load a
Maybe I'm missing simething, but what kind of modifications you can make when you have the source code that you can't make otherwise? Or is it more an ease-of-midification idea?
The fact that there are work-arounds for all of these things doesn't negate the fact that they were locked down in the first place.
The iTunes DRM is roughly equivalant to a false positive for piracy in Windows Genuine Advantage. They've purchased the product, but now there are these digital hand-cuffs keeping them from using it. I doubt anyone saying that "false positives in WGA aren't too bad - there are work arounds. [link]" would get modded up too far, though.
I don't know how to break it to you, but you've got the wrong country.
Stats are a funny thing. For example, the 2007 Desktop Linux survey showed more people using GNOME than KDE.
:P)), so I can't really put a lot of stock in your anecdotal evidence, either.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8454912761.html
I know way more GNOME users than KDE users (I prefer GNOME myself (I guess I don't know
Meh, just use whatever you prefer.