The issue of features is one where we (Free Software) will not win.
The average user is simply not looking for more features.
"I can do ethernet channel bonding." is not something that most users want tto hear.
Microsoft will always be one or two steps ahead on any system incompatibility that they label a feature.
Rather than playing them at thier own game, let's get the users thinking about the bigger issues. It won't get us as many people- but those who come along will be better supporters.
I thought the same for many years, but unfortunately that slowly becomes less true.
Microsoft does not suddenly make large changes to the system, rather continually makes small ones, each time adding some "goodie" benefit to associate the change with. In the minds of the public, the two become associated. At the very least, the public does not rebell.
One example of this is Microsoft's signed driver code of Windows 2000. We all know that creating such a policy is wrong, and prevents third parties from entering the hardware market for machines running Microsoft operating systems, yet the public did not see this as a problem.
Similarly, the public has not rebelled against the situation with Windows XP and required registration (as well as mandatory reporting back of what software you have), rather they have either accepted it grugingly, tried to work around it (by use of packet filters and such), or (as Microsoft would like), simply see it as the cost of doing buisness.
The public is, from what I've seen, more like the surf class of olden times, miserable, but for all the evils of the king (Microsoft), this is a reliable leader and they trust it.
Getting these people over to Free operating systems will require a fundamental shift in thinking, one that emphasizes thier freedom. This cannot be a war of features (ie that a GNU/Linux system is better than Microsoft Windows), rather it must be an issue of what freedoms the Microsoft users have lost, and how we can replace the things they "need" from thier old system with equilivant Free utilities.
That is the best way to ensure that the strength of Free Software (and other movements who want to come along) remains strong at its base while still expanding, even if the progress is slow, slow growth of staunch supporters is healthier than fast growth of people comparing application features.
This may not address your current situation, but literate programming can often help reduce bugs and clean up errors found later.
When a programmer is simultaniously coding and documenting thier code, at both the high and low levels, the larger "thought" bugs will decrease in number and severity.
Even if you don't use a literate programming system, often documenting the system before you write it can help make the code more clear.
Many of these patent issues have been taken care of in the IBM Public License in several places inluding the secions on "Grant of Rights", "Requirements" and the "General" section. The GPL takes a more hands off stance while the IBM license states the patent issue several times.
I believe that GPL 3 will fold a number of the IBM Public License concepts as they relate to patents into the GNU General Public License.
This is something we need sooner rather than later, and I'm hopeful that the FSF will recongize this need and make a new GPL soon.
Once this hapens, the ambigious situations like this one will be resolved (though the patent issue will still be there).
1. To test that the binaries are replicatable
The issue is if the binaries that are being
shipped are from the source provided.
Is UL doing something to them? What compile
options are they using? Are they making changes
to the code?
The only way to know is to compare the final
binaries with the provided source and libraries
that is being used on the build system.
2. For security (down the road)
Closely related to the first issue is that
source and binaries are a requirement for a
security analysis. You want to know how the
binaries were built and the best way to ensure
that the binaries you have were built the way
they have been claimed is to compare the source
and build process with the binaries of the
final product.
It's important when doing these kinds of tests as either a developer or user to have both the source and binaries.
"The movie & recording industry are lobbying hard for the Europeans to carry unique source identifiers to aid in combatting privacy. They are also demanding tougher penalties for infringers. It seems the only people who would be hit by the ID code requirement would be the legitimate citizens as the pirates simply wouldn't bother."
The main advantage of these WEB variants is that they use LaTeX rather than TeX, and TeX is far too complicated.
The disadvatage is that WEB and CWEB "know" about the language and can give more information about things like the variables and functions, where in a generic literate programming system, this is either not possible or must be done manually.
When you play the game of working with powerful monpoloies who are known to destroy companies and to unlawfully use thier influence, you should not be any more surprised about them doing the same to you than you would be if you took a canibal to you to a desert island.
That's especially true when a well used and Free alternative to your product exists and is in wide use.
You've expressed a very short term, limited view of the situation.
I'm going to rephrase what you've said "There are non-free programs which some people find useful, therefore non-free applications are allright"
RMS (and I) would say that the applications are useful, and if there are no free versions of them, ones should be made.
From the position of Free Software vs Non-Free Software, the issue is not about price but about liberty. If a given peice of software takes away your liberty, then it has harm.
By advertising non-free software, you are in a way saying that it's okay to harm others.
Now, RMS has not said that we should not discuss non-free software which is popular already. By discussing it he means contrasting free software with it. I can, for example, contrast Open Office with Microsoft Word. But the GNOME project site was showing software in a way that made it difficult to tell what was Free and what wasn't.
In that way, the GNOME developers were advertising the non-free software, and he simply requested that they stop.
Utility, that is finding a program useful, does not change the fact that it's not free.
I may really like a peice of software that does whatever, but if there's no Free version, that should be incentive to write a Free version, not to say "Oh well, I'll forget about freedom when using this program."
That, I believe would be RMS's counter to your argument, and is the same position I take.
I remember not too many years ago when basically everyone in the Linux community liked Red Hat. Even non-Red Hat users who didn't prefer the Red Hat operating system liked the company and the people.
I myself was, for a long time, a staunch supporter of your Red Hat Linux product, but a stronger supporter of Red Hat as a company.
In 1998, Eric Troan said at a public event that IPOing would not seem logical, as Red Hat would have to "answer to investment bankers" and ever since the IPO, the feelings about Red Hat in many people's minds has declined.
Although the number of Red Hat users has increased, the amount of negative things said about Red Hat corporation have also increased (at perhaps a faster rate).
Rather than a symptom of size and success, don't you feel that Red Hat has made some moves which have rubbed the Linux community the wrong way (for instance the recent move to charge for using the automatic update program, the use of an unblessed gcc, the fact that Red Hat promises to release all source that it owns yet owns companies whose source is proprietary)?
What do you think about this?
What steps is Red Hat taking to change its perception in the mind of the Linux community?
- Serge Wroclawski
DXPC, lbxproxy and SSH compression
on
Low-Bandwidth X
·
· Score: 3
There are several programs for this.
lbxproxy works with X. Part of it actually comes with XFree86.
DXPC is an oldie but goodie. It requires you to use it on both server and client end though.
And good old SSH compression is usually good enough. Turn on X forwarding, turn up the compressiona and usually you're good to go.
I haven't found VNC to be very good for bandwidth, but you might want to try a VNC compressor like this.
Her rant almost makes sense. The problem is that the modern distros take care of most of this.
When you get a distro like Progeny Linux out of the box, it looks a certain way. It looks like sawfish with certain theme and GNOME configured a certain way. So what's the big deal? I refuse to believe that just becuase someone is a secretary, that means they must be brain dead and easily overwhelmed (they'll start to cry indeed).
As to her use of Microsoft word... Did anyone else notice the ?s instead of ". That's Micrsoft's embrace on ANSI standard text.
And lastly, if you're not Jewish, don't use the term "Oy Vey". Just don't.
Slashdot Mirror
Just remember that if you signed up with eBay's health insurance, you've probably signed up with the lowest bidder. :)
- Serge Wroclawski
The issue of features is one where we (Free Software) will not win.
The average user is simply not looking for more features.
"I can do ethernet channel bonding." is not something that most users want tto hear.
Microsoft will always be one or two steps ahead on any system incompatibility that they label a feature.
Rather than playing them at thier own game, let's get the users thinking about the bigger issues. It won't get us as many people- but those who come along will be better supporters.
- Serge Wroclawski
I may be insightful, but that doesn't mean I can spell.
- Serge Wroclawski
I thought the same for many years, but unfortunately that slowly becomes less true.
Microsoft does not suddenly make large changes to the system, rather continually makes small ones, each time adding some "goodie" benefit to associate the change with. In the minds of the public, the two become associated. At the very least, the public does not rebell.
One example of this is Microsoft's signed driver code of Windows 2000. We all know that creating such a policy is wrong, and prevents third parties from entering the hardware market for machines running Microsoft operating systems, yet the public did not see this as a problem.
Similarly, the public has not rebelled against the situation with Windows XP and required registration (as well as mandatory reporting back of what software you have), rather they have either accepted it grugingly, tried to work around it (by use of packet filters and such), or (as Microsoft would like), simply see it as the cost of doing buisness.
The public is, from what I've seen, more like the surf class of olden times, miserable, but for all the evils of the king (Microsoft), this is a reliable leader and they trust it.
Getting these people over to Free operating systems will require a fundamental shift in thinking, one that emphasizes thier freedom. This cannot be a war of features (ie that a GNU/Linux system is better than Microsoft Windows), rather it must be an issue of what freedoms the Microsoft users have lost, and how we can replace the things they "need" from thier old system with equilivant Free utilities.
That is the best way to ensure that the strength of Free Software (and other movements who want to come along) remains strong at its base while still expanding, even if the progress is slow, slow growth of staunch supporters is healthier than fast growth of people comparing application features.
- Serge Wroclawski
When a programmer is simultaniously coding and documenting thier code, at both the high and low levels, the larger "thought" bugs will decrease in number and severity.
Even if you don't use a literate programming system, often documenting the system before you write it can help make the code more clear.
- Serge Wroclawski
I think I saw the same thing on an episode of Red Dwarf with Lister playing pool with the planets.
- Serge Wroclawski
I believe that GPL 3 will fold a number of the IBM Public License concepts as they relate to patents into the GNU General Public License.
This is something we need sooner rather than later, and I'm hopeful that the FSF will recongize this need and make a new GPL soon.
Once this hapens, the ambigious situations like this one will be resolved (though the patent issue will still be there).
- Serge Wroclawski
They're two trailors, actually.
;)
So maybe we _should_ all cry for him.
- Serge Wroclawski
No, a GPL application developer will still need this.
I write an application- get a bug report from a UL user.
I test it out- it works for me.
How do I know what thier binaries are? I won't use non-free software nor do I feel obligated to pay them for the use of my own work.
- Serge Wroclawski
Two reasons:
1. To test that the binaries are replicatable
The issue is if the binaries that are being
shipped are from the source provided.
Is UL doing something to them? What compile
options are they using? Are they making changes
to the code?
The only way to know is to compare the final
binaries with the provided source and libraries
that is being used on the build system.
2. For security (down the road)
Closely related to the first issue is that
source and binaries are a requirement for a
security analysis. You want to know how the
binaries were built and the best way to ensure
that the binaries you have were built the way
they have been claimed is to compare the source
and build process with the binaries of the
final product.
It's important when doing these kinds of tests as either a developer or user to have both the source and binaries.
- Serge Wroclawski
"The movie & recording industry are lobbying hard for the Europeans to carry unique source identifiers to aid in combatting privacy. They are also demanding tougher penalties for infringers. It seems the only people who would be hit by the ID code requirement would be the legitimate citizens as the pirates simply wouldn't bother."
There are other, simpler WEB variants as well.
Nuweb works with basically any language.
Noweb is a bit older and written in ICON.
The main advantage of these WEB variants is that they use LaTeX rather than TeX, and TeX is far too complicated. The disadvatage is that WEB and CWEB "know" about the language and can give more information about things like the variables and functions, where in a generic literate programming system, this is either not possible or must be done manually.
- Serge Wroclawski
The ones that got bought up by them.
- Serge Wroclawski
PS Thanks to all those who modded up my previous post... I didn't think it was a flaimbait either.
When you play the game of working with powerful monpoloies who are known to destroy companies and to unlawfully use thier influence, you should not be any more surprised about them doing the same to you than you would be if you took a canibal to you to a desert island.
That's especially true when a well used and Free alternative to your product exists and is in wide use.
- Serge Wroclawski
That's right, for only 78 million you too can pretend to be the leader of the Discordians.
Green apples not included.
- Serge
The card itself requires XFree86 4.2+ and or the current drivers from the GATEOS project at http://gatos.sourceforge.net
There's reported problems with some of the functions like capture working, and I still don't have TV working at all.
It's a nice card in theory, but I'd be a bit wary before jumping out and buying one.
- Serge Wroclawski
David Brin discussed this technology in his book _Earth_ as a substitute for speech recognition.
- Serge Wroclawski
You've expressed a very short term, limited view of the situation.
I'm going to rephrase what you've said "There are non-free programs which some people find useful, therefore non-free applications are allright"
RMS (and I) would say that the applications are useful, and if there are no free versions of them, ones should be made.
From the position of Free Software vs Non-Free Software, the issue is not about price but about liberty. If a given peice of software takes away your liberty, then it has harm.
By advertising non-free software, you are in a way saying that it's okay to harm others.
Now, RMS has not said that we should not discuss non-free software which is popular already. By discussing it he means contrasting free software with it. I can, for example, contrast Open Office with Microsoft Word. But the GNOME project site was showing software in a way that made it difficult to tell what was Free and what wasn't.
In that way, the GNOME developers were advertising the non-free software, and he simply requested that they stop.
Utility, that is finding a program useful, does not change the fact that it's not free.
I may really like a peice of software that does whatever, but if there's no Free version, that should be incentive to write a Free version, not to say "Oh well, I'll forget about freedom when using this program."
That, I believe would be RMS's counter to your argument, and is the same position I take.
- Serge Wroclawski
Is Fred still human while he's shaving?
- Serge Wroclawski
(it's an old Cyc reference)
British Telecom already made such a device in 1998.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1998/40/ns-5698.html
It's not exactly what you talked about, but close enough.
- Serge Wroclawski
Dear Mr. Young,
I remember not too many years ago when basically everyone in the Linux community liked Red Hat. Even non-Red Hat users who didn't prefer the Red Hat operating system liked the company and the people.
I myself was, for a long time, a staunch supporter of your Red Hat Linux product, but a stronger supporter of Red Hat as a company.
In 1998, Eric Troan said at a public event that IPOing would not seem logical, as Red Hat would have to "answer to investment bankers" and ever since the IPO, the feelings about Red Hat in many people's minds has declined.
Although the number of Red Hat users has increased, the amount of negative things said about Red Hat corporation have also increased (at perhaps a faster rate).
Rather than a symptom of size and success, don't you feel that Red Hat has made some moves which have rubbed the Linux community the wrong way (for instance the recent move to charge for using the automatic update program, the use of an unblessed gcc, the fact that Red Hat promises to release all source that it owns yet owns companies whose source is proprietary)?
What do you think about this?
What steps is Red Hat taking to change its perception in the mind of the Linux community?
- Serge Wroclawski
There are several programs for this.
lbxproxy works with X. Part of it actually comes with XFree86.
DXPC is an oldie but goodie. It requires you to use it on both server and client end though.
And good old SSH compression is usually good enough. Turn on X forwarding, turn up the compressiona and usually you're good to go.
I haven't found VNC to be very good for bandwidth, but you might want to try a VNC compressor like this.
- Serge Wroclawski
Her rant almost makes sense. The problem is that the modern distros take care of most of this.
When you get a distro like Progeny Linux out of the box, it looks a certain way. It looks like sawfish with certain theme and GNOME configured a certain way. So what's the big deal? I refuse to believe that just becuase someone is a secretary, that means they must be brain dead and easily overwhelmed (they'll start to cry indeed).
As to her use of Microsoft word... Did anyone else notice the ?s instead of ". That's Micrsoft's embrace on ANSI standard text.
And lastly, if you're not Jewish, don't use the term "Oy Vey". Just don't.
Thank you and goodnight.
- Serge Wroclawski
It all depends on what Blizzard defines as thier realm of trademark. Do they think they own Diablo as it refers to all games with the name Diablo?
Let's not forget people like me who have been playing with juddling Diablos for years. They have been played around the world for centuries.
For information and pictures of the original Diablo games, here's a company which sells some:
http://www.dube.com/diabolo/index.html
- Serge Wroclawski
I think it should be called Es Es Aich.
Open-EsEsAich
But that's just me...
- Serge Wroclawski