"I don't see why my hardware needs free drivers, why should the hardware manufacturers release specifications? I mean free driver available for my such-and-such hardware just sucks in comparison to the proprietary driver. Why would I want the manufacturer to release the specifications for such-and-such hardware?! So foss developers could release more free drivers that suck even MORE?! PFFT!!"
I'm just amazed at the myopia displayed here from the commentards at slashdot every time I browse over. As another commenter pointed out, the guidelines are simply for distros that want FSF approval. There is no effort to force you not to use proprietary drivers or firmware, only an effort to replace said drivers and firmware with equally-functional or better free drivers and firmware so that you don't have to use the proprietary pieces anymore. If free software developers had listened to "freetards" like you, we would have never had a free compiler, free shell, free browser engines, free windowing server, free office suite, or free window managers. Why should we make GNOME, we have motif? Why open up star office, it's already adequate? Why force a free version of X-server that we can alter and improve, we have an adequate burdened version? Why make a free unix kernel replacement, we already. . . ? And so on. This is the shape of Free and Open Source Software. We push and push and push until we have access to all portions of the system. The power must never be taken away from the user. To allow one organization power to pull support at anytime and cripple any part of a free system could be, at its best, very annoying for a few users and, at its worst, disastrous for the whole.
free-tard: (n) A person with intermediate to high technical knowledge of Free Software systems but distinctly unaware of the advantages for all parts of the system to be free.
Semantics for search engines? You mean like "hunt" engines, "inquest" engines, or "inquiry" engines? Come see the new and exciting functions inherent in the brand new Microsoft "find stuff" engine!
Well I guess if I ever plan on encoding an extensive number of movies and music, I'll just reinstall 7.04.
Hmmm, this couldn't have anything to do with the many applications that do not yet take advantage of the latest kernel features could it? There have been major advancements in kernel development in the last 2 years, too many to list just go here and read a little: http://kerneltrap.org/
From the article: "Ethernet is not optimized to provide the service required for storage and high-performance computing traffic -- speed alone won't cut it, vendors say. Ethernet, which drops packets when traffic congestion occurs, needs to evolve into a low latency, "lossless" transport technology with congestion management and flow control"
Q: Packet loss and traffic congestion are to Ethernet as:
A) blue screens are to Windows
B) registers are to assembly
C) mustard is to sausages
Not at all surprising to me, you missed my point. All that matters is if the actor can perform in the role, a female couldn't play "Bond" and 50 Cent cannot play in many roles in what would be a remake of Shindler's List for obvious reasons but those are matters of race and sex, which is a bit more complicated to change in make-up than age. Besides, age is a lot more difficult to determine than race or sex and would probably be MORE so in 300 years. This can get as complicated as you want but as I had said earlier "it's just a movie", in so far as you're a human being with a so-called life, move on. It wasn't your problem or determination whom would play the characters and it never will be, so watch the movie, like it or don't like it, shut the fuck up and move on.
One caveat for you, using the word caveat does not magically make you look smarter, on the contrary, using it improperly or in a sentence where it's not needed makes you look very stupid. Proof:
". . . releasing software that people can actually use is important. I stopped using Enlightenment a decade ago, around E14, because the new versions weren't stable or releasable."
Actually, this is what is known as a "movie", bpjk. So I guess the more pertinent question is "are they all capable actors?" Anything is possible in a movie, whether they are too young or not is open for debate but again refer to the first sentence. You're worse than a lot of the Trekkies drooling over this. Sure I'm excited but I'm going to take it at base value, it's a movie and it has Nimoy's voice, cool. Always enjoyed the Star Trek movies more anyway. Can't wait.
I'm also not going to get over-critical with this, it's a fucking movie. Get a fucking life.
i have cash to buy any game or album or video i want. but i will pirate them instead of buying, bar only the gaming companies/software houses i respect the most, JUST because this despicable, pathetic act they pulled with this G8 meeting.
ARGHHH!!!
Welcome to the party! The only game I intend to buy this year is Fallout 3.
It has to do with a breech of rights, making it law, so where it is NOT a felony by any means or even a "criminal" case it is still a crime. It's certainly not illicit but still.
I argue that an entity's rights are debatable and not concrete by way of something as faulty as copyright law. A person with a copyright on material has been given monopoly over the item and they may subject whomever they sell the product to, whatever license they choose per use. The problem comes in when one must argue what constitutes use with music. The other concept to take into mind is that she was not (a) making a profit or (b) claiming the material as her own. If this is correct and she was not (a) nor (b) then one must further question the damages imposed upon the woman, 220,000 would be excessive, even for prosecuting a street vendor of "bootleg" music. I would like to see someone make an argument against this. Another interesting viewpoint, though very unpopular, is that she never bought the CD's and should therefore not be subject to the conditions of the license. If I found a knife on the street would I be subject to the original owners contracts with the manufacturer? How is it theft if one found it freely and made no attempt to hide one's acts??
The only "victim" in this story was truth in the Slashdot spiel about it being about some victim.
I think that you, along with a lot of people who are commenting here, are missing the point. The true issue is not whether or not it's a crime or even whether she is "guilty" of breaking the law, the real issue should be whether it should be a crime. I think that the very idea of this being a crime is absurd. Any amount of business where one might expect repayment by the sell of goods is the justification of the total cost of distribution PLUS profits. The proceeds, historically, have gone for the total costs of production of and distribution by the record company, barely any of it goes to compensate the artists or the producers.
Now let's remove the distribution cost and see who needs to be compensated in a world filled with an infinite number of copies of any computer file. The only people that need to be compensated now are the artists, the producers, and (possibly) the talent scouts/ managers.
Record companies are outmoded and they are only fighting for their own survival in a world that no longer needs them with these stupid lawsuits.
Well you have to do deal with both for the moment so we need the so-called megalomaniac known as Stallman. If he just gave up we would be stuck with Microsoft and the other huge corporations that are identical alone.
Have fun with Microsoft owning a piece of your distribution then!
I don't think that I am displaying an attitude. I think that these OSS people who call us, "you people" blame us for all of their problems. I believe that the Free Software/Open Source community need eachother to an extent. You have one group at one end and the other group at the other. I don't think that the FSF is extremist as much as I feel that Microsoft is extremist. The FSF's main concern is that this community does not get barraged by legal battles and, in the end, destroying any shred of credibility that this community has. You can wish all that you want for the FSF and "you people" to go away but there are licensees and copyright holders who do NOT want their IP to be freely available. Political intentions aside I think that the main role FSF are just trying to respect other people's properties and to stay away from them and to make sure that the OSS people respect that too. Apparently you are telling me that you would rather have Microsoft as a bedfellow than the FSF and if that is true I will call you a moron, and it would be true.
You all are speaking as though GNU tools will be the only projects placed under the new GPLv3 licensing.
I think that it is safe to assume that the GNU Desktop, Gnome, will be placed under the new licensing. GPLv3 is also designed to be compatible with Apache, can we expect Apache to be ported to GPLv3? Possibly but not likely. We know that Apache, in the very near future will be using GPLv3 libraries since many of these projects currently under the GPLv2 that are already being used by Apache will want to be compatible with the Apache licensing. Novel can do what they want with MONO, keep it GPLv2, but in the end, in order for them to use a GPLv3 Gnome or a GPLv3 library within Apache they must kill their agreement with Microsoft, create a new one that does not infringe, fork off a myriad of various Free Software applications, or risk being taken to court. Once in court, they will not last very long.
Regarding a Debian only GPLv3, whoever said this is a moron. It would be more expensive than maintaining a GPLv2 only SuSe distro and there is no need to make a GPLv3 only distro since GPLv3 is compatible with GPLv2.
Before I get flamed, let me say that, yes, I hate Novel and Microsoft, I hate NetWare and Windows and I love Free Software but that does not devoid these facts
I, personally, have no doubt that the future of operating systems and most productivity software will be within Free Software. But there is something that subconsciously eludes most of the people here and in most places and it is this: Free SoftwareLinux and LinuxFree Software. Yes Linux is a Free Software kernel and yes it is the term commonly used for the GNU/Linux operating systems but it is NOT Free Software, only OF Free Software.
In the future you will have many more options as to what you would like to run on your computers and most of those options will be Free Software and will likely be very compatible with most other Free Software OS options. Some day the GNU/Linux OS as we know it will no longer exist, there will be another kernel that will fuel the community for the next 30 years and that is par for course for Free Software. No matter what happens it will still be Free Software. . . Almost anything resembling Unix may disappear from what they currently call GNU/Linux and you will not be able to call it GNU OR Linux but one thing will remain the same. It is still Free Software.
For the time being the current most popular Free Software operating system is GNU/Linux and that is the state of things. And it is popular! Don't believe me? The three largest software companies are:
Microsoft
Oracle
Novell
And they are all distributing Linux this year.
If you ignore the Free Software bit, which I try not to, there are two main systems around now--NT and POSIX (and if you are inside of NT with SFU than you are also POSIX compatible, sorta)
How in the hell can any of you talk in definites in an industry shown to be indefinite? How can you give one or two examples/reasons, weak ones at that, and then hyperbolize them into some "universal principle" of the software industry and somehow indicative of the future? You give weak comparisons and draw weaker analogies. I can count but two or three other main replies to this article that make any sense. You should all be hung, drawn, and quartered. Fucking retards, sorry but this shit is stupid!
Firefox is a browser. Stop. Linux is a popular kernel for free software distributions. Stop. How do you begin to compare the two?
Over half of the world hold to the Christian faith, very few people are Atheist. Does that mean that there is some inherent flaw within Atheism?
Most of the world eats meat. Does that mean that Vegetarians need to rethink their approach?
You call Linux developers and free software proponents zealots, look at yourselves! The free software movement is not here to replace your hated OS, it is not here to be the next big thing, or the newest golden child and it most definitely is NOT just GNU/Linux. It was never meant to be the golden child and any one who expected that is clearly dillusional. It is not here for the immediate future, they are not looking at some commercial strategy, they don't need to reinvest in their packaging and they are not interested in competing with a dying operating system.
If you are so convinced that GNU/Linux/BSD/Free Software are not going anywhere and will never go anywhere than stick with your bloody mass of a bullet ridden dying operating system. Free Software is not qualified to compete on those grounds, the same that Microsoft is on. If the market wants to run Free Software, it needs to change the way that it operates or move on. Free Software will not go anywhere, it will still be here no matter what.
Sorry if GNU/Linux is not meeting your expected quotas Mr. CEO's. Let us all strive to do a better job of marketing less this board of the chair of Free Software cancel Linux!
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't see why my hardware needs free drivers, why should the hardware manufacturers release specifications? I mean free driver available for my such-and-such hardware just sucks in comparison to the proprietary driver. Why would I want the manufacturer to release the specifications for such-and-such hardware?! So foss developers could release more free drivers that suck even MORE?! PFFT!!"
I'm just amazed at the myopia displayed here from the commentards at slashdot every time I browse over. As another commenter pointed out, the guidelines are simply for distros that want FSF approval. There is no effort to force you not to use proprietary drivers or firmware, only an effort to replace said drivers and firmware with equally-functional or better free drivers and firmware so that you don't have to use the proprietary pieces anymore. If free software developers had listened to "freetards" like you, we would have never had a free compiler, free shell, free browser engines, free windowing server, free office suite, or free window managers. Why should we make GNOME, we have motif? Why open up star office, it's already adequate? Why force a free version of X-server that we can alter and improve, we have an adequate burdened version? Why make a free unix kernel replacement, we already. . . ? And so on. This is the shape of Free and Open Source Software. We push and push and push until we have access to all portions of the system. The power must never be taken away from the user. To allow one organization power to pull support at anytime and cripple any part of a free system could be, at its best, very annoying for a few users and, at its worst, disastrous for the whole.
free-tard: (n) A person with intermediate to high technical knowledge of Free Software systems but distinctly unaware of the advantages for all parts of the system to be free.
dun dundundun DUN!
Sounds like it has something to do with to whether an application takes advantage of multi-threaded enhancements or how it does.
Semantics for search engines? You mean like "hunt" engines, "inquest" engines, or "inquiry" engines? Come see the new and exciting functions inherent in the brand new Microsoft "find stuff" engine!
Yup, seems that way. Apparently, you're just wasting your time.
Well I guess if I ever plan on encoding an extensive number of movies and music, I'll just reinstall 7.04. Hmmm, this couldn't have anything to do with the many applications that do not yet take advantage of the latest kernel features could it? There have been major advancements in kernel development in the last 2 years, too many to list just go here and read a little: http://kerneltrap.org/
*Browses over to Amazon for a COBOL book and adds a meatgrinder to the shopping cart*
While I'm emulsifying my brain I may as well do the same to my manhood.
Yeah, would wikipedia's definition of truth be considered original research?
I was planning on only downloading music and movies today anyway.
From the article:
"Ethernet is not optimized to provide the service required for storage and high-performance computing traffic -- speed alone won't cut it, vendors say. Ethernet, which drops packets when traffic congestion occurs, needs to evolve into a low latency, "lossless" transport technology with congestion management and flow control"
Q: Packet loss and traffic congestion are to Ethernet as:
A) blue screens are to Windows
B) registers are to assembly
C) mustard is to sausages
Not at all surprising to me, you missed my point. All that matters is if the actor can perform in the role, a female couldn't play "Bond" and 50 Cent cannot play in many roles in what would be a remake of Shindler's List for obvious reasons but those are matters of race and sex, which is a bit more complicated to change in make-up than age. Besides, age is a lot more difficult to determine than race or sex and would probably be MORE so in 300 years. This can get as complicated as you want but as I had said earlier "it's just a movie", in so far as you're a human being with a so-called life, move on. It wasn't your problem or determination whom would play the characters and it never will be, so watch the movie, like it or don't like it, shut the fuck up and move on.
One caveat for you, using the word caveat does not magically make you look smarter, on the contrary, using it improperly or in a sentence where it's not needed makes you look very stupid. Proof:
". . . releasing software that people can actually use is important. I stopped using Enlightenment a decade ago, around E14, because the new versions weren't stable or releasable."
Actually, this is what is known as a "movie", bpjk. So I guess the more pertinent question is "are they all capable actors?" Anything is possible in a movie, whether they are too young or not is open for debate but again refer to the first sentence. You're worse than a lot of the Trekkies drooling over this. Sure I'm excited but I'm going to take it at base value, it's a movie and it has Nimoy's voice, cool. Always enjoyed the Star Trek movies more anyway. Can't wait. I'm also not going to get over-critical with this, it's a fucking movie. Get a fucking life.
i have cash to buy any game or album or video i want. but i will pirate them instead of buying, bar only the gaming companies/software houses i respect the most, JUST because this despicable, pathetic act they pulled with this G8 meeting.
ARGHHH!!! Welcome to the party! The only game I intend to buy this year is Fallout 3.
"A variety of countries, including . . . Europe" Europe isn't yet one country. . . last time I checked, or is the EU THAT powerful already?
The conjunction in "it's awesome" does not have to be "it IS awesome", it can just as well be "it WAS awesome." There ya go.
O/T
SCO vs GNU/Linux is more accurate, even though it isn't.
SCO claimed ownership of UNIX "intellectual property" which, they claimed, was infringed by the GNU/Linux system.
It has to do with a breech of rights, making it law, so where it is NOT a felony by any means or even a "criminal" case it is still a crime. It's certainly not illicit but still. I argue that an entity's rights are debatable and not concrete by way of something as faulty as copyright law. A person with a copyright on material has been given monopoly over the item and they may subject whomever they sell the product to, whatever license they choose per use. The problem comes in when one must argue what constitutes use with music. The other concept to take into mind is that she was not (a) making a profit or (b) claiming the material as her own. If this is correct and she was not (a) nor (b) then one must further question the damages imposed upon the woman, 220,000 would be excessive, even for prosecuting a street vendor of "bootleg" music. I would like to see someone make an argument against this. Another interesting viewpoint, though very unpopular, is that she never bought the CD's and should therefore not be subject to the conditions of the license. If I found a knife on the street would I be subject to the original owners contracts with the manufacturer? How is it theft if one found it freely and made no attempt to hide one's acts??
Well you have to do deal with both for the moment so we need the so-called megalomaniac known as Stallman. If he just gave up we would be stuck with Microsoft and the other huge corporations that are identical alone.
Have fun with Microsoft owning a piece of your distribution then! I don't think that I am displaying an attitude. I think that these OSS people who call us, "you people" blame us for all of their problems. I believe that the Free Software/Open Source community need eachother to an extent. You have one group at one end and the other group at the other. I don't think that the FSF is extremist as much as I feel that Microsoft is extremist. The FSF's main concern is that this community does not get barraged by legal battles and, in the end, destroying any shred of credibility that this community has. You can wish all that you want for the FSF and "you people" to go away but there are licensees and copyright holders who do NOT want their IP to be freely available. Political intentions aside I think that the main role FSF are just trying to respect other people's properties and to stay away from them and to make sure that the OSS people respect that too. Apparently you are telling me that you would rather have Microsoft as a bedfellow than the FSF and if that is true I will call you a moron, and it would be true.
You all are speaking as though GNU tools will be the only projects placed under the new GPLv3 licensing.
I think that it is safe to assume that the GNU Desktop, Gnome, will be placed under the new licensing. GPLv3 is also designed to be compatible with Apache, can we expect Apache to be ported to GPLv3? Possibly but not likely. We know that Apache, in the very near future will be using GPLv3 libraries since many of these projects currently under the GPLv2 that are already being used by Apache will want to be compatible with the Apache licensing. Novel can do what they want with MONO, keep it GPLv2, but in the end, in order for them to use a GPLv3 Gnome or a GPLv3 library within Apache they must kill their agreement with Microsoft, create a new one that does not infringe, fork off a myriad of various Free Software applications, or risk being taken to court. Once in court, they will not last very long.
Regarding a Debian only GPLv3, whoever said this is a moron. It would be more expensive than maintaining a GPLv2 only SuSe distro and there is no need to make a GPLv3 only distro since GPLv3 is compatible with GPLv2.
Before I get flamed, let me say that, yes, I hate Novel and Microsoft, I hate NetWare and Windows and I love Free Software but that does not devoid these facts
I, personally, have no doubt that the future of operating systems and most productivity software will be within Free Software. But there is something that subconsciously eludes most of the people here and in most places and it is this: Free SoftwareLinux and LinuxFree Software. Yes Linux is a Free Software kernel and yes it is the term commonly used for the GNU/Linux operating systems but it is NOT Free Software, only OF Free Software. In the future you will have many more options as to what you would like to run on your computers and most of those options will be Free Software and will likely be very compatible with most other Free Software OS options. Some day the GNU/Linux OS as we know it will no longer exist, there will be another kernel that will fuel the community for the next 30 years and that is par for course for Free Software. No matter what happens it will still be Free Software. . . Almost anything resembling Unix may disappear from what they currently call GNU/Linux and you will not be able to call it GNU OR Linux but one thing will remain the same. It is still Free Software. For the time being the current most popular Free Software operating system is GNU/Linux and that is the state of things. And it is popular! Don't believe me? The three largest software companies are: Microsoft Oracle Novell And they are all distributing Linux this year. If you ignore the Free Software bit, which I try not to, there are two main systems around now--NT and POSIX (and if you are inside of NT with SFU than you are also POSIX compatible, sorta)
How in the hell can any of you talk in definites in an industry shown to be indefinite? How can you give one or two examples/reasons, weak ones at that, and then hyperbolize them into some "universal principle" of the software industry and somehow indicative of the future? You give weak comparisons and draw weaker analogies. I can count but two or three other main replies to this article that make any sense. You should all be hung, drawn, and quartered. Fucking retards, sorry but this shit is stupid!
Firefox is a browser. Stop. Linux is a popular kernel for free software distributions. Stop. How do you begin to compare the two?
Over half of the world hold to the Christian faith, very few people are Atheist. Does that mean that there is some inherent flaw within Atheism?
Most of the world eats meat. Does that mean that Vegetarians need to rethink their approach?
You call Linux developers and free software proponents zealots, look at yourselves! The free software movement is not here to replace your hated OS, it is not here to be the next big thing, or the newest golden child and it most definitely is NOT just GNU/Linux. It was never meant to be the golden child and any one who expected that is clearly dillusional. It is not here for the immediate future, they are not looking at some commercial strategy, they don't need to reinvest in their packaging and they are not interested in competing with a dying operating system.
If you are so convinced that GNU/Linux/BSD/Free Software are not going anywhere and will never go anywhere than stick with your bloody mass of a bullet ridden dying operating system. Free Software is not qualified to compete on those grounds, the same that Microsoft is on. If the market wants to run Free Software, it needs to change the way that it operates or move on. Free Software will not go anywhere, it will still be here no matter what.
Sorry if GNU/Linux is not meeting your expected quotas Mr. CEO's. Let us all strive to do a better job of marketing less this board of the chair of Free Software cancel Linux!