If your attitude towards your software's users is this hostile why bother even releasing it, under the GPL or any other license? By releasing it you're, as the GP post pointed out, only going to sour people's impression of open source software or software in general.
I have to disagree here. A release in the OSS world in no way means that the software is ready for use by consumers. If you don't release it, it isn't actually open source, since the only one available to develop your project is you. Holding off a release until it is polished enough to be used by consumers would likely mean that the software would never be released.
Releasing software to fellow developers is an essential step for all open source projects. No one knows about unreleased software sitting on some guys private hard drive, and thus, no other developers can help developing it.
If everyone followed your advice, there wouldn't be any open source software around.
Give only green stripes and a complete hang if using _both_ DVI and VGA outputs at the same time (oh my god, we never though that could happen!).
Don't you understand? All Linux guys are poor and none of them can afford dual displays, so why care about implementing it in the driver. If they would become rich enough to afford buying a second monitor, they'd quickly buy Vista too. Everybody knows that nobody in their right mind uses Linux unless they can't afford to buy Windows.</sarcasm>
Places that make absolutely no sense, such as storing wireless settings. There is no reason that action should require admin privileges and thus a prompt.
Actually, wireless settings are systemwide settings, and would probably require a prompt even in Linux.
Um.... reality check here. Linux has about 1% of the desktop market.
I don't think the GP meant the desktop. There are other sectors where Linux is much more prevalent. A good example is HPC, High-Performance Computing, where Linux powers 75% of the systems on the TOP500 list.
I still wonder what you mean with your "dependency hell" comment. I never had such problems since Fedora started including Yum, as Yum resolves dependencies and installs them as necessary.
If you have an AFS client, take a look in/afs. It contains a lot more than just universities (I know you said at the very least). And there are those that do not list their sites in the public AFS directory, so the number of sites that use it is actually larger.
If you think the shares of a company going open about something like this would tank, I would like to see what would be the result...
..if/when this hushed-up information leaks out anyway. Keeping it quiet could make sense in the short term, but would it really make sense in the long term too? But of course, publicly traded corporations only care about their next quarter...
to date novell never made this claim and has made no indecation that it would
I guess that you are referring to the "We supply the only safe F/OSS". No they never made the claim outright, but the patent agreement sends that message anyway. Their friend, Steve Ballmer, made the claim outright when he mentioned the "undisclosed balance-sheet liability" of all non-Novell F/OSS.
Or is this another one of those not following the dialog things?
Maybe, maybe not. To me, sometimes your sentences make no sense. That could be because I am not a native speaker of English, but it could also mean that you are second rate in your sentence construction (just like your spelling).
It is hurting all the people who believe the world would be a better place if more people used opensource stuff
Open source, or rather free software. is of little value if devices can only run versions of the software approved by the vendor. The value of free software is also decreased if one vendor is the "safe vendor" while the rest of the community is "unsafe".
If the police arested you tomarrow for a crime you didn't commit yet but because they saw you talking to someone who might let you do a crime, you would be outraged (and rightfully so). Now add to it the fact that the crime you commited isn't even a crime yet-someone is working on make it against the law. Tell me how rediculaous and outragous that sounds. Yet it is exactly what people are trying to do with novell.
No, nobody have done anything to Novell yet. We have simply been discussing what could happen to Novell if the anti-Novell clause is put into the GPLv3 and much free software, including all GNU software is relicensed under the GPLv3.
Yes, certain people have been investigating if Novell has violated the GPLv2, and concluded that they probably haven't. I really don't see where your crime analogy fits. Nobody have sued Novell for violating a clause in the GPLv3 (which would make your analogy correct), since it isn't published yet, and since no software is licensed under it yet.
The idea that a license in simular spirit can be so radicly different that it isn't compatible with the previous version
Actually, you are just plain wrong. The GPLv3 doesn't have to be radically different from the GPLv2 to be incompatible. Just the tinyest added restriction would make it incompatible, since the GPLv2 forbids that. The GPLv3 exists to close certain loopholes that people have used to violate the four freedoms while still complying with the letter of the license. Since closing these loopholes would mean adding certain restrictions, it was given that they would be incompatible. A license can only be compatible with GPLv2 if it contain the same restrictions or any subset of them (including none of them).
Good, so you know I am biased toward free software
No, rather the opposite. Your use of the words socialist and virally in the context of the GPL make you sound like Steve Ballmer, who is hardly a friend of free software.
It is laughable that the Anti Tivo clause in the gplv3 as it is currently writen, doesn't even stop the tivo situation from happening.
Why not? And if you "know" that it won't, why not voice this concern with the FSF, I think they world be happy if you tell them this. Unless of course you really want the DRM clause to be taken out, or at least be non-effective.
You just claimed that FOSS supporters are trying to asert claims that don't even exist yet for actions that have never happened.
I don't know where I wrote that.
I will tell what I would do, go back to microsoft.
By all means, please do. And remember to bend over when Billy G comes over for some late night fun.
I have had to explain this several times as well as point them to other sites. explaining it.
Explanations does not seem to be one of your strong points.
Ah, but by default Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu et al do not ship with anything but Free software [ubuntu.com]. If you want things like Flash, media codecs, etc. you have to figure out how to set them up yourself, or use a helper script like EasyUbuntu [freecontrib.org].
In the next version though, Ubuntu will ship with proprietary software.
It's funny you didn't say RHEL instead of Fedora. I wonder why. Oh that's right, you have to *pay* for it. Does that mean Red Hat doesn't support FOSS either? I'm just so confused.
Red Hat does support F/OSS. First, they contribute to a fairly large number of F/OSS projects, and second, they put up all source RPMs for their enterprise distribution on their FTP site, which is what CentOS and ScientificLinux use to build their distributions.
I plugged in my USB thumb drive for the first time yesterday and all of a sudden a dialog box popped up asking what I wanted to do (Open the folder, etc.) and I was AMAZED! I never told it I would have USB thumbdrives. I never put in any obscure automount commands. I didn't have to do a dmesg to see what the device connected as followed by a mount/dev/sdc1/mnt/usb_drive. It just worked. Same with my sound card, video card, network card, monitor, mouse, and keyboard.
FYI, Fedora also does this. It does not ask what to do with the device though, it just puts an icon on the desktop.
End users don't care about OSS or proprietary, they care that they can't watch their DVD of season 1 of oww my balls on their new computer, while Billy with the Windows PC next door can.
Then I suggest those users go to Windows and enjoy bending over for Bill Gates when he comes to have some fun.
some people (myself included) couldn't give a damn is the software is free as in beer/speach/viewing or not. Some people just want their computers to work, work well, and with no more than a trivial amount of work to get them working.
There already is an operating system suitable for people like you. It's called Windows.
What it does make sense to be though, is afraid of change, and afraid of sticking your foot into something you don't know or understand.
That's the essence of the problem. They have once scaled the learning curve of Windows, and feel comfortable in their knowledge of this system. They don't want to again become newbies that understand little or nothing about the system.
Anyone connected with normal software would be either a) downloading the file and/or b) providing parts of that file to others. No one connects to a swarm just to "hang out". They are only targeting people connected to swarms that are sharing copyrighted works. I'd say the media companies method is sound, and accurate - if you're going to pretend to engage in illegal activity, you have to expect people to treat you like a criminal.
Did you read the article? I agree with the gist of your comment, but there are problems with this approach. From the article:
One easy way to make somebody look likea bittorrenter would be to get them to go to a website with the code <img src="http://tracker.com:12345/announce?info_hash=5 79CC43E4D66D35AE22312985EA04275939AB477&peer_id=as dfasdfadfasdf&amp;port=12434&compact=1"/>. They'd be on the tracker, and BayTSP would see their IP address, and might send them an infringement notice.
Linux and open source/free software is biggest in the Scandinavian countries
Meaning F/OSS has 0.0001% in Europe on average, but 0.001% in Scandinavia? No, not really that bad, but using the word biggest to measure usage of F/OSS in Scandinavia seems to imply that usage is fairly large, which isn't the case. Most people above 30 probably have no idea about what Linux is, unless they work in the computer business (or have children that use it - my parents are obviously aware of its existence). Many even have a problem understanding the difference between the computer itself and Windows. To them, Windows is the computer, so the notion of using another operating system on their PC* doesn't make sense to them. I have more hopes regarding young people (
* = The reason I wrote PC is that most people are aware of Macs, even though they may not know a lot about them. The notion that "Windows is the PC" still holds, because Macs look different and obviously are a totally different computer, making the use of another operating system less strange. Just like mobile phones have different user interfaces. It is the idea that the same computer can run different operating systems that is confusing to these people.
But it may change with the official support for Open standard/format that I've seen in recent call of tenders. Microsoft will clearly lose a big advantage.
But now Office Open XML is an "open standard", so nobody have to switch.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I have to disagree here. A release in the OSS world in no way means that the software is ready for use by consumers. If you don't release it, it isn't actually open source, since the only one available to develop your project is you. Holding off a release until it is polished enough to be used by consumers would likely mean that the software would never be released.
Releasing software to fellow developers is an essential step for all open source projects. No one knows about unreleased software sitting on some guys private hard drive, and thus, no other developers can help developing it.
If everyone followed your advice, there wouldn't be any open source software around.
Don't you understand? All Linux guys are poor and none of them can afford dual displays, so why care about implementing it in the driver. If they would become rich enough to afford buying a second monitor, they'd quickly buy Vista too. Everybody knows that nobody in their right mind uses Linux unless they can't afford to buy Windows.</sarcasm>
Good point!
Ahh, I see.
Networkmanager in Linux does not require root privileges to do that.I know, I use it myself (but actually didn't think of it at the time, if I had, I would have mentioned it in my post).
Actually, wireless settings are systemwide settings, and would probably require a prompt even in Linux.
I don't think the GP meant the desktop. There are other sectors where Linux is much more prevalent. A good example is HPC, High-Performance Computing, where Linux powers 75% of the systems on the TOP500 list.
I still wonder what you mean with your "dependency hell" comment. I never had such problems since Fedora started including Yum, as Yum resolves dependencies and installs them as necessary.
If you have an AFS client, take a look in /afs. It contains a lot more than just universities (I know you said at the very least). And there are those that do not list their sites in the public AFS directory, so the number of sites that use it is actually larger.
AFS? This system is used by several large sites, such as universities (including mine), governmental and corporate sites.
..if/when this hushed-up information leaks out anyway. Keeping it quiet could make sense in the short term, but would it really make sense in the long term too? But of course, publicly traded corporations only care about their next quarter...
I guess that you are referring to the "We supply the only safe F/OSS". No they never made the claim outright, but the patent agreement sends that message anyway. Their friend, Steve Ballmer, made the claim outright when he mentioned the "undisclosed balance-sheet liability" of all non-Novell F/OSS.
Or is this another one of those not following the dialog things?Maybe, maybe not. To me, sometimes your sentences make no sense. That could be because I am not a native speaker of English, but it could also mean that you are second rate in your sentence construction (just like your spelling).
It is hurting all the people who believe the world would be a better place if more people used opensource stuffOpen source, or rather free software. is of little value if devices can only run versions of the software approved by the vendor. The value of free software is also decreased if one vendor is the "safe vendor" while the rest of the community is "unsafe".
If the police arested you tomarrow for a crime you didn't commit yet but because they saw you talking to someone who might let you do a crime, you would be outraged (and rightfully so). Now add to it the fact that the crime you commited isn't even a crime yet-someone is working on make it against the law. Tell me how rediculaous and outragous that sounds. Yet it is exactly what people are trying to do with novell.No, nobody have done anything to Novell yet. We have simply been discussing what could happen to Novell if the anti-Novell clause is put into the GPLv3 and much free software, including all GNU software is relicensed under the GPLv3.
Yes, certain people have been investigating if Novell has violated the GPLv2, and concluded that they probably haven't. I really don't see where your crime analogy fits. Nobody have sued Novell for violating a clause in the GPLv3 (which would make your analogy correct), since it isn't published yet, and since no software is licensed under it yet.
The idea that a license in simular spirit can be so radicly different that it isn't compatible with the previous versionActually, you are just plain wrong. The GPLv3 doesn't have to be radically different from the GPLv2 to be incompatible. Just the tinyest added restriction would make it incompatible, since the GPLv2 forbids that. The GPLv3 exists to close certain loopholes that people have used to violate the four freedoms while still complying with the letter of the license. Since closing these loopholes would mean adding certain restrictions, it was given that they would be incompatible. A license can only be compatible with GPLv2 if it contain the same restrictions or any subset of them (including none of them).
No, rather the opposite. Your use of the words socialist and virally in the context of the GPL make you sound like Steve Ballmer, who is hardly a friend of free software.
It is laughable that the Anti Tivo clause in the gplv3 as it is currently writen, doesn't even stop the tivo situation from happening.Why not? And if you "know" that it won't, why not voice this concern with the FSF, I think they world be happy if you tell them this. Unless of course you really want the DRM clause to be taken out, or at least be non-effective.
You just claimed that FOSS supporters are trying to asert claims that don't even exist yet for actions that have never happened.I don't know where I wrote that.
I will tell what I would do, go back to microsoft.By all means, please do. And remember to bend over when Billy G comes over for some late night fun.
I have had to explain this several times as well as point them to other sites. explaining it.Explanations does not seem to be one of your strong points.
When was the last time you tried a modern Linux distribution?
There is considerably more noise about Windows Vista. Why don't you go there, if media noise (read hype) is all that you care about?
In the next version though, Ubuntu will ship with proprietary software.
The equivalent of Apt-get in modern Red Hat distros and derivatives is Yum.
Red Hat does support F/OSS. First, they contribute to a fairly large number of F/OSS projects, and second, they put up all source RPMs for their enterprise distribution on their FTP site, which is what CentOS and ScientificLinux use to build their distributions.
FYI, Fedora also does this. It does not ask what to do with the device though, it just puts an icon on the desktop.
Then I suggest those users go to Windows and enjoy bending over for Bill Gates when he comes to have some fun.
There already is an operating system suitable for people like you. It's called Windows.
That's the essence of the problem. They have once scaled the learning curve of Windows, and feel comfortable in their knowledge of this system. They don't want to again become newbies that understand little or nothing about the system.
Did you read the article? I agree with the gist of your comment, but there are problems with this approach. From the article:
One easy way to make somebody look likea bittorrenter would be to get them to go to a website with the code <img src="http://tracker.com:12345/announce?info_hash=They are probably referring to the fact that Bill Gates refused to make a statement about the Russian school teacher (wasn't he a headmaster?).
Meaning F/OSS has 0.0001% in Europe on average, but 0.001% in Scandinavia? No, not really that bad, but using the word biggest to measure usage of F/OSS in Scandinavia seems to imply that usage is fairly large, which isn't the case. Most people above 30 probably have no idea about what Linux is, unless they work in the computer business (or have children that use it - my parents are obviously aware of its existence). Many even have a problem understanding the difference between the computer itself and Windows. To them, Windows is the computer, so the notion of using another operating system on their PC* doesn't make sense to them. I have more hopes regarding young people (
* = The reason I wrote PC is that most people are aware of Macs, even though they may not know a lot about them. The notion that "Windows is the PC" still holds, because Macs look different and obviously are a totally different computer, making the use of another operating system less strange. Just like mobile phones have different user interfaces. It is the idea that the same computer can run different operating systems that is confusing to these people.
But now Office Open XML is an "open standard", so nobody have to switch. :)