According to the SciAm article, all they did was measure the quantum state of a cesium atom cloud without disturbing the cloud.
Neither measurement disturbed the delicate entangled state between the light and cesium. But the researchers could use the results to apply a precise magnetic field to the cesium vapor that effectively canceled out the ensemble's original spin state and replaced it with one that corresponded to the polarization of the weak pulse
I don't know why people keep calling it "teleportation" or any other quantum crap. A very simple way of describing what happened is that they figured out a way to beat the uncertainty principle by creating multiple copies of the same information and measuring amplitude and phase of different copies. Because both copies are identical, any information obtained about one copy is valid about the others, so a complete set of parameters can be determined. It should be pointed out that this experiment clearly demonstrates that the uncertainty principle is not some fundamental property of the universe, but rather an artifact of our measurement instruments. This is the very point that Einstein tried so hard to prove back in 1927, and the one so throughly disputed by the evil Niels Bohr. Unfortunately, Bohr won the argument for some reason, perhaps just out of stubbornness, and the present unsightly state of the science of physics resulted. Perhaps now the quantum heretics can be brought back to the one true faith of objective reality!
Probably for the same reason as people keep linking to ten page stories when a one-page ad-free print version is almost always available. They must think we are all easily influenced idiots who want to view ads, get ripped off on every purchase, and be happy about our miserable lives.
Hacking into some system, to install malware or whatever, is already illegal. One wonders why these people are not more often found and thrown in prison. Considering that quite a few of them show advertisements (adware) or contact some global host owned by somebody (spyware) it ought not to be very hard to follow the money and find the culprit. Web sites have ownership, and so are trackable. Companies have ownership, and so can be found. Companies that sell stuff can definitely be found and very easily. Why isn't the police arresting them?
One really great thing about being the President is that if you find yourself doing something illegal, all you have to do is tell congress to make it legal, and then continue doing it. Gosh, I wish I could do that!
I have switched to vi after seeing one of my college professors use it. Watching a vi master edit a source file is a truly breathtaking experience that people who say they do not like vi are certain to have never had. After the experience, the temptation to learn vi is irresistible.
Please do not call cellular technology "viral". Everyone knows that this word is only chosen for its negative connotation. Real viruses can spread accidentally, while a voluntary act is required to make a cell connection. It's such an old, often repeatedargument that it is a wonder that people still fail to understand it!
> So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim?
No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals".
> THe IRA are all Muslim?
First, the IRA is mainly concerned with Britain, and it would indeed be worthwhile to profile for IRA there. They don't care much about attacking the US, so profiling for them here would not be useful. Second, observe that the IRA and Britain are also in a religious conflict. See a pattern here?
> muslim terrorists are a small portion of all terrorists.
How small? So far you have given us the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh. The IRA is not concerned with the US, are not that large in numbers, and don't do nearly as much damage as the muslims do in the middle east. To me it simply looks like you can't count.
> We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black.
Are you saying that the fact that you read the Koran and practice Islam has no effect whatsoever upon your character? I think even muslims will disagree with that.
> if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can > simply pick disaffected white middle-class women
I'm sorry, but I simply can not imagine a white middle-class woman strapping explosives to her chest and trying to take down an airliner. This has never happened so far, so history seems to be on my side.
> Muslims are not terrorists
While it may be true that not all muslims are terrorists, all the terrorists so far have been muslims, so biasing your attention toward them definitely has some merit.
An even better question to ask is why you bother asking. Everybody already knows that the TSA's purpose is not to keep you safe, but to intimidate and harrass you. Whatcha gonna do about it, freedom boy? Sue the government? Ha ha ha. Like that's ever going to happen. Like you have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
> I challenge you to come up with even a single example of something that is > universally accepted as "infectious" or a "disease" where infection is only > possible if the receiver consciously and deliberately "infects" himself.
Consider the following hypothetical scenario: suppose we could find and tag every person who is currently infected with tuberculosis. Assume there are no methods of transmission other than direct contact with an infected person. Round up all these people and place all these infected people into a single building on Easter island. Place signs on this building, advising everyone of what is inside. Once this happens, there is no way for you to become infected unless you deliberately go to Easter island, enter the building, and interact in some way with someone within. In this scenario the disease is only communicable by deliberate self-infection, and yet we would still call it an infectuous disease to differentiate it from non-infectuous diseases, like, say, heart disease, which can not be transmitted from person to person, neither by accident nor deliberate action.
Furthermore; here's a definition of infectuous from Webster's dictionary:
infectuous, adj. 1. likely to cause infection; containing disease-producing organisms or matter. 2. designating a disease caused by infection. 3. tending to spread or to affect others; catching; as, an infectuous laugh. 4. [Obs.], infected with disease.
Take careful note that nowhere does it state that accidental spread is a requirement.
The words is properly used even if only one of these points applies. In my view, all of them apply; 1. GPLed code is certain to cause infection; it contains a "disease-producing" license. 2. GPL is the disease that is caused by being infected by GPLed code. 3. GPLed code tends to spread; check out SourceForge and see how many GPLed projects are created all the time. The disease is spreading. 4. GPLed code is infected with the GPL disease, or, alternatively, GPL is infected with FSF's communist ethics.
Next; consider the word infect:
infect, v.t. 1.to contaminate with a disease-producing organism or matter. 2. to cause to become diseased by bringing into contact with such an organism or matter. 3. to affect or imbue with one's feelings or beliefs; especially, to affect in a harmful or undesirable way; corrupt.
Here intentional infection is explicitly included.
1. You infect your project with the GPL disease when you contaminate it with GPLed code. 2. By bringing your project into contact with GPLed code it becomes diseased with the GPL disease. 3. Is especially applicable. GPL is an ideological disease, affecting software projects in a harmful or undesirable way; corrupting them.
Now you may argue that GPL is not so bad and that its spread is actually beneficial, but you may not argue that GPL is infectuous, because it factually is so.
Finally, the particular word being used is not as important as the meaning it conveys:
> It doesn't change the fact that "viral" was *deliberatedly* choosen for it's negative connotations,
Absolutely. Has it occured to you that I want it to have a negative connotation? If the word did not have one, I would have had to explicitly state that this property of the GPL is BAD.
If you want to continue this argument, argue about the meaning of what I say instead of trying to nitpick (unjustifiably, as I have shown here) a particular choice of word. This is nothing more than an argument by theft of language and I have no interest in continuing the discussion if you have nothing to offer but that.
> But it has everything to do with self-replication. > A virus can reproduce itself in an appropriate medium.
Biological viruses do not self-replicate. They are replicated by the cellular machinery of the host. In other words; they are "BEING REPLICATED BY AN EXTERNAL AGENCY" Or did you fail your biology classes in high school?
> The GPL is a text file. It cannot reproduce itself under any circumstances ever.
First there was one GPL project. A free project used a line from the GPL project and became a GPL project. Another free project used a line from the newly created GPL project and became a GPL project.
First there was one GPL project, at the end there were three. Looks like replication to me.
Finally, language is simply a tool. I use the word "infectuous" or "viral" because everyone would understand what I mean by it; specifically, that anything that uses GPLed code must become GPL and that this is a bad thing. If you don't like my terminology, feel free to invent your own word for it. It would still have the same meaning, and would still have negative connotations, once everyone learned what you mean.
> To misconceive so comprehensively is an achievement that could > only be accomplished by one who sets out to misconceive.]
So you point out that I am mistaken, but present no argument why that is so. That is called "venturing an unsupported opinion" and is usually ignored by its recipients.
> I'm surprised you didn't go for the full monty and also deny the 'deliberate leak' being a misconception.
The license specifically states that distribution of derivative works is not required. They are still covered by the GPL, of course, but nobody is making you give them away to anyone. In fact, I have never heard of anyone stating that modifications must be distributed.
> Lyons: In your view it is unethical for companies to ship code that is not free. > By this logic, is it ethical for someone to "liberate" that code? > > RMS: If you can indeed make that code free software, it would be ethical to do so. > But that is hard. It would mean bringing about a state of affairs where people > can enjoy all the four freedoms without fear. That is usually flat-out impossible > under the current legal system.
Hah! I haven't heard him openly advocate theft before:) But, of course, theft is consistent with his philosophy.
> To liberate the code, if it is possible, would not be theft, any more than > freeing a slave is theft (which is what the slave owner would surely call it).
Property is property. If you allow people to become property, i.e. slaves, then it is most certainly theft to free them. He can call it whatever he wants, it is still a violation of property rights.
> Nor can you transmit the GPL by touching things.
An infectious entity infects by contact; it is irrelevant who initiates the contact. You definitely can transmit the GPL to your code by "touching" it with a piece of GPL code.
> Nor by running a GPL program on your computer.
Nobody is claiming that.
> Acquires...all by itself. The code just goes and gets all GPL-ified, without intervention of a sentient being.
Again, it is irrelevant if the infection is accidental or deliberate. An infectuous disease does not stop being a disease, or infectious, if you know everyone who is infected with it and avoid them. It is the potential for infection that makes a disease infectuous. The GPL does not stop being viral just because you know how not to become infected. You are just preventing the infection by good hygiene practices, when you don't touch that s%&t;) Why is it so hard to get this? The property of being infectuous has NOTHING TO DO WITH CONSCIOUS CHOICE!
> So electrocution is contagious, because if you stick a fork in an outlet, you're going get infected with it.
Whaaat? Electrocution (as in, the result of having electricity pass through your body) is not contagious because you don't get anything from the outlet. Electric current is not a substance, it is the result of movement of individual electrons in a medium. Electrocution kills you not because you get "electricity" into your body, but because the outlet creates a potential difference between two points on your body and allows ions to flow along that potential. The same amount of electrons leaves your body as the amount that enters it. You are not infected because there is nothing in your body as a result of the interaction that wasn't there before.
Then there is the disconnection problem. Once you detach your charred fingers from the outlet, you can't just go electrocute people by touching them. On the other hand, a software project that acquires a piece of GPLed code and is infected by GPL as a result, can now infect other projects with the GPL if they choose to use any code from this one.
> The GPL is designed to prevent commercial exploitation, and it does this > by forcing companies who use it to publish their modifications.
This is not a misconception, it is in the license. If you use GPLed code in your project, you have to GPL the result. Everybody knows that. In fact, this is exactly what GPL is for.
> The objective of the GPL is to prevent the commercial sale of software > in order to produce a gift economy in software development.
> Microsoft makes money by selling software. > Making money by selling software is wrong. > Microsoft is wrong. > You can't sell GPL software. > GPL software is better than Microsoft software.
This is simply an incorrect argument. The correct conclusion is "using GPL software is right", which follows from the second premise. If you disagree that making money from selling software is wrong, as most people do, you will not agree with the conclusion.
> You shouldn't use GPL software unless you contribute to the community in some way.
This is not a misconception. It is what the FSF really wants, as stated in the above "Pragmatic Idealism" essay. The key word here is "shouldn't". They will not prevent you, because they can not, but they will apply all the pressure available to them (mainly social pressure from the community) to ensure that you do indeed contribute. It would a misconception to state that you "can't" use GPL software unless you contribute, but it is perfectly correct to say that the above statement expresses the FSF's intentions.
> Any employee who discovers their employer has modified GPL software and hasn't published those changes should deliberately leak them.
Nobody has this misconception.
> Hacking into websites based on GPL CMSes in order to obtain their unpublished mods is intrinsically ethical.
This is not a misconception. Just because you don't publish your modifications, doesn't mean they aren't covered by the GPL.
> if you can't understand the distinction between a free choice and catching a disease
I am not disputing your distinction. I am calling it irrelevant. You don't call a disease infectious because you can get it by accident. You call it infectuous because you can get it. Likewise, I am not calling GPL viral because you can get infected with it by accident. I am calling it viral, or infectuous, because you can get infected. Whether you get infected intentionally or not has no relevance to the classification. GPL is viral, there is no doubt about it. You can argue that this property is not so bad after all, as you have been doing, but that is a different argument.
> Cookies are not open to anybody but cookie fanatics.
Wrong analogy. Not all free software developers are GPL fanatics. In fact, I would hope that most of them are not.
> You are being silly.
Am I? The GPL and the communist ethic that it promotes (by "communism" I mean a philosophy based on the premise of "from each by ability, to each by need") comprise everything that is wrong with free software today. I would also speculate that they are the reason why Linux is still unusable to regular users. "Linux on the desktop" has been coming for a decade, and it is still coming. Sort of like a succession of five-year plans.
> Them, and anybody else who freely chooses to subscribe to the same ethic.
Exactly! Here's the viral part! You get infected with the "ethic" to go with the license. I don't use the GPL precisely because I loathe and detest its ethic, and would certainly want to do nothing to encourage its continued existence. Because of that, I would never contribute any code to a GPLed project, and I do my best to avoid using them when there are real free software alternatives (=BSD or MIT) available.
>> MS Windows source code does not permit derived works from it > > Nor does GPLed software, unless you return the favor of freeing > your own code for other people to work with.
Exactly! GPLed code is NOT open to anyone but other GPL fanatics. It is NOT open to everyone! I don't see why it is so hard to understand this point. MIT licensed code is open to be used by everyone, so it is open source software. GPLed code is only open to be used by other GPL fanatics, so it is NOT open source software; it is open source only to THAT COMMUNITY.
My complaint is not that GPL people do not give away their code to everyone. Their code isn't my code. My complaint is that they preach the GPL license as something that creates open code, whereas in reality it only creates open code for them.
> Herpes infects hosts which do not deliberately, consciously *CHOOSE* to get herpes.
A disease is not infectious because you can get it accidentally. It is infectious because you can get it, period. The fact that you have to deliberately infect yourself with it is entirely irrelevant.
> The GPL does NOT "infect" any projects where you don't deliberately, consciously CHOOSE to use GPL code.
But those that CHOOSE to use GPL code are infected, and that is precisely what I am saying. Yes, if you don't use GPLed code, then you don't have this problem, but that is not the issue. The issue is that GPL fanatics call GPLed code free and open, when in fact it is NOT. It is only free and open to OTHER GPL fanatics, and that is exactly the complaint.
> What your complaint about GPL being viral realy means is that: > * you want to make your life more convenient by using someone else's code > * but you do not want someone else have same chance making their life more convenient.
You assume that I'm making commercial software. Yes, I do write software that is commercial (one has to make money somehow, after all), but I would not expect to use GPLed code in it. If I decide to include other people's code into that project, my company would have to purchase that code, and that's the way business works. In business, I expect to pay for what I want, since I consequently expect to be paid for what I make.
However, I also write free software, which I release under the MIT license. Because of my severe dislike of FSF's policies, specifically their insistence that selling software is evil and we should all sell only support and customization, I will never release anything I write under the GPL. This means that I can not use any GPLed code in my free software projects. By itself, this is not really a problem; after all, I can't use Microsoft's code in my projects either. The problem is with FSF's hypocrisy in calling GPLed code free and available when it is only available to other GPL fanatics. Saying that GPLed code is available to all is simply not true and spreading this lie only deludes innocent developers into thinking that they release open code for everyone to use, while in reality they are just feeding the evil GPL camp.
> Those who release code under GPL do so (maybe, also, partialy,...) because they do > not like their code to be incorporated into commercial product without either getting > improvements of that commercial product for same "price" (e.i. under GPL conditions) > and/or without sharing part of revenue from that commercial product.
In other words, they do this not to protect their code, but to grab other people's code. By writing ten lines of code that get incorporated into a ten million line project they are claiming that the project should therefore be made available not just to them, but to everyone! Where is fairness in that? Compensation should be given out proportionally to the effort required to create the purchased work, but the GPL fanatic camp is clearly adhering to the entirely different philosophy of "from each by ability, to each by his need". Everyone writes the code as much as he likes, but nobody gets paid except by charity (or by engaging in an entirely different line of business, such as tech support). This is the evil of GPL and this is why people complain about the viral clause.
> So you do not like GPL'ed code. I assume that you also do not like any other proprietary code (except your own).
I have expressed no opinion about GPLed code. I have only expressed my opinion about the GPL license.
> That leaves you with only "few" other places which can makes your coding more > convenient: code licensed under BSD and similar licences.
The "few" should not be in quotes. FSF's brainwashing of developers has indeed been paying off and sane licensing of free software is declining.
> I am developer too. And I too want to make some money from my work.
Well, you better stay away from the GPL then, 'cause you'll never make any money from selling your code that way.
> And while I have all the rights to my code, I certainly do not have right to code > developed by others except those few cases it comes with a licence which gives me some rights.
The purpose of the GPL is precisely to give you the rights to the code developed by others. The code you write yourself needs no such protection, since you already have it. If you uploaded it somewhere, then everyone else can get it as well. What the GPL gives you is the right to own any modifications to your code or any code that uses your code in any way. That code was not written by you, and is not your code, and yet by licen
> Would you cut down on the FUD? If you wrote the code yourself, > you can license it under any and as many licenses as you wnat.
Unless that code just happens to be a part of a project containing GPLed code. Then no, you can't license your code any way you want. That's exactly the complaint about GPL being viral.
> Now, the people you are referring to who write new code and the GPL prevents > them from using other's GPL'd code would imply they do not want to release their > code under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license such as MIT
The MIT license is NOT GPL-compatible! A project containing GPLed code can not be released under the MIT license because it would violate the GPL's viral clause. This is why even free software developers shouldn't touch GPLed code.
> So they're complaining that they can't reuse others' source because > they want to prevent others from reusing their source. How's that for hipocracy?
No, they are complaining about the FSF's claims about how the GPL makes source code free and open, which are where the hypocrisy really is. GPLed code is only available for reuse to those people who want to release all their code as GPL, and that is precisely what makes GPL viral.
> The normal case is that you want to take a GPLed program, and change one line, or a > hundred, but most of the program is the GPLed original. It's 99% theirs, not 99% yours.
It is the normal case for maintainers. Those who call GPL viral, do so because they write new code and the license prevents them from reusing GPLed code.
> You've got your program, and you want to add one GPLed line? > Yeah, you're right, it's going to make you GPL the whole thing.
And that's precisely what we all mean when we say that GPL is viral. It transmits the GPL disease to your code via the GPLed code vector.
> if you don't like the terms, don't use the code.
Well, that's obvious, but that does not mean GPL is not a viral disease; it just means that you can avoid catching it. When we say that GPL is viral, and that it is bad, we mean that it does not allow free use of code, unlike the other, saner licenses, like the MIT license for example. You do not have to explain that we can avoid being infected by GPL code; we know it already. When we say that the GPL is viral, we mean that we won't touch any GPLed code and are explaining why.
> But we didn't want to GPL all million lines of ours. No problem - we ran GPG as a separate executable
Thereby slowing down your program. If GPG were licensed under a sane license, you would not have had to do this. This is precisely why GPL is something that should not be touched, lest such contact encourages its continued existence.
> all other uses of the word "viral" in the history of the word, mean > something completely different. A virus infects other, unrelated things.
So does GPL. GPLed code "infects" your code with the "GPL disease" if you put it there. The fact that you have to consciously include the code in your project is irrelevant; if you know someone has herpes, all you have to do to avoid infection is to not have sex with them. Herpes is still a viral disease, and, by analogy, so is GPL.
> Yet MS Windows doesn't get tagged as "viral" even though its license is infinitely more restrictive.
MS Windows source code does not permit derived works from it. Since you can not make a derived work, you can not infect that derived work with MS code. If you steal the code anyway, then MS will sue you and you will no longer have a project; they will not offer you the code as long as you use their license. This is not "infection", as that would imply transmission of a disease. MS license can not be transmitted to your code, and so is not an infectuous disease.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know why people keep calling it "teleportation" or any other quantum crap. A very simple way of describing what happened is that they figured out a way to beat the uncertainty principle by creating multiple copies of the same information and measuring amplitude and phase of different copies. Because both copies are identical, any information obtained about one copy is valid about the others, so a complete set of parameters can be determined. It should be pointed out that this experiment clearly demonstrates that the uncertainty principle is not some fundamental property of the universe, but rather an artifact of our measurement instruments. This is the very point that Einstein tried so hard to prove back in 1927, and the one so throughly disputed by the evil Niels Bohr. Unfortunately, Bohr won the argument for some reason, perhaps just out of stubbornness, and the present unsightly state of the science of physics resulted. Perhaps now the quantum heretics can be brought back to the one true faith of objective reality!
Probably for the same reason as people keep linking to ten page stories when a one-page ad-free print version is almost always available. They must think we are all easily influenced idiots who want to view ads, get ripped off on every purchase, and be happy about our miserable lives.
Hacking into some system, to install malware or whatever, is already illegal. One wonders why these people are not more often found and thrown in prison. Considering that quite a few of them show advertisements (adware) or contact some global host owned by somebody (spyware) it ought not to be very hard to follow the money and find the culprit. Web sites have ownership, and so are trackable. Companies have ownership, and so can be found. Companies that sell stuff can definitely be found and very easily. Why isn't the police arresting them?
One really great thing about being the President is that if you find yourself doing something illegal, all you have to do is tell congress to make it legal, and then continue doing it. Gosh, I wish I could do that!
I have switched to vi after seeing one of my college professors use it. Watching a vi master edit a source file is a truly breathtaking experience that people who say they do not like vi are certain to have never had. After the experience, the temptation to learn vi is irresistible.
Let us not forget the standard ed editor, the pinnacle of user friendliness! (Or is it sword point? I forget...)
And if you run around town throwing bricks through windows, you will also greatly contribute to the economy by providing many jobs for glassworkers.
Please do not call cellular technology "viral". Everyone knows that this word is only chosen for its negative connotation. Real viruses can spread accidentally, while a voluntary act is required to make a cell connection. It's such an old, often repeated argument that it is a wonder that people still fail to understand it!
> So the Unabomber was Muslim? Timmothy McVeigh is Muslim?
No, but neither were they called terrorists. The term wasn't much in use before 9/11. Before that such people were quite properly called "criminals".
> THe IRA are all Muslim?
First, the IRA is mainly concerned with Britain, and it would indeed be worthwhile to profile for IRA there. They don't care much about attacking the US, so profiling for them here would not be useful. Second, observe that the IRA and Britain are also in a religious conflict. See a pattern here?
> muslim terrorists are a small portion of all terrorists.
How small? So far you have given us the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh. The IRA is not concerned with the US, are not that large in numbers, and don't do nearly as much damage as the muslims do in the middle east. To me it simply looks like you can't count.
> We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black.
Are you saying that the fact that you read the Koran and practice Islam has no effect whatsoever upon your character? I think even muslims will disagree with that.
> if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can
> simply pick disaffected white middle-class women
I'm sorry, but I simply can not imagine a white middle-class woman strapping explosives to her chest and trying to take down an airliner. This has never happened so far, so history seems to be on my side.
> Muslims are not terrorists
While it may be true that not all muslims are terrorists, all the terrorists so far have been muslims, so biasing your attention toward them definitely has some merit.
An even better question to ask is why you bother asking. Everybody already knows that the TSA's purpose is not to keep you safe, but to intimidate and harrass you. Whatcha gonna do about it, freedom boy? Sue the government? Ha ha ha. Like that's ever going to happen. Like you have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
> I challenge you to come up with even a single example of something that is
> universally accepted as "infectious" or a "disease" where infection is only
> possible if the receiver consciously and deliberately "infects" himself.
Consider the following hypothetical scenario: suppose we could find and tag every person who is currently infected with tuberculosis. Assume there are no methods of transmission other than direct contact with an infected person. Round up all these people and place all these infected people into a single building on Easter island. Place signs on this building, advising everyone of what is inside. Once this happens, there is no way for you to become infected unless you deliberately go to Easter island, enter the building, and interact in some way with someone within. In this scenario the disease is only communicable by deliberate self-infection, and yet we would still call it an infectuous disease to differentiate it from non-infectuous diseases, like, say, heart disease, which can not be transmitted from person to person, neither by accident nor deliberate action.
Furthermore; here's a definition of infectuous from Webster's dictionary:
infectuous, adj. 1. likely to cause infection; containing disease-producing organisms or matter. 2. designating a disease caused by infection. 3. tending to spread or to affect others; catching; as, an infectuous laugh. 4. [Obs.], infected with disease.
Take careful note that nowhere does it state that accidental spread is a requirement.
The words is properly used even if only one of these points applies. In my view, all of them apply; 1. GPLed code is certain to cause infection; it contains a "disease-producing" license. 2. GPL is the disease that is caused by being infected by GPLed code. 3. GPLed code tends to spread; check out SourceForge and see how many GPLed projects are created all the time. The disease is spreading. 4. GPLed code is infected with the GPL disease, or, alternatively, GPL is infected with FSF's communist ethics.
Next; consider the word infect:
infect, v.t. 1.to contaminate with a disease-producing organism or matter. 2. to cause to become diseased by bringing into contact with such an organism or matter. 3. to affect or imbue with one's feelings or beliefs; especially, to affect in a harmful or undesirable way; corrupt.
Here intentional infection is explicitly included.
1. You infect your project with the GPL disease when you contaminate it with GPLed code. 2. By bringing your project into contact with GPLed code it becomes diseased with the GPL disease. 3. Is especially applicable. GPL is an ideological disease, affecting software projects in a harmful or undesirable way; corrupting them.
Now you may argue that GPL is not so bad and that its spread is actually beneficial, but you may not argue that GPL is infectuous, because it factually is so.
Finally, the particular word being used is not as important as the meaning it conveys:
> It doesn't change the fact that "viral" was *deliberatedly* choosen for it's negative connotations,
Absolutely. Has it occured to you that I want it to have a negative connotation? If the word did not have one, I would have had to explicitly state that this property of the GPL is BAD.
If you want to continue this argument, argue about the meaning of what I say instead of trying to nitpick (unjustifiably, as I have shown here) a particular choice of word. This is nothing more than an argument by theft of language and I have no interest in continuing the discussion if you have nothing to offer but that.
> But it has everything to do with self-replication.
> A virus can reproduce itself in an appropriate medium.
Biological viruses do not self-replicate. They are replicated by the cellular machinery of the host. In other words; they are "BEING REPLICATED BY AN EXTERNAL AGENCY" Or did you fail your biology classes in high school?
> The GPL is a text file. It cannot reproduce itself under any circumstances ever.
First there was one GPL project.
A free project used a line from the GPL project and became a GPL project.
Another free project used a line from the newly created GPL project and became a GPL project.
First there was one GPL project, at the end there were three. Looks like replication to me.
Finally, language is simply a tool. I use the word "infectuous" or "viral" because everyone would understand what I mean by it; specifically, that anything that uses GPLed code must become GPL and that this is a bad thing. If you don't like my terminology, feel free to invent your own word for it. It would still have the same meaning, and would still have negative connotations, once everyone learned what you mean.
> To misconceive so comprehensively is an achievement that could
:) But, of course, theft is consistent with his philosophy.
> only be accomplished by one who sets out to misconceive.]
So you point out that I am mistaken, but present no argument why that is so. That is called "venturing an unsupported opinion" and is usually ignored by its recipients.
> I'm surprised you didn't go for the full monty and also deny the 'deliberate leak' being a misconception.
The license specifically states that distribution of derivative works is not required. They are still covered by the GPL, of course, but nobody is making you give them away to anyone. In fact, I have never heard of anyone stating that modifications must be distributed.
> Lyons: In your view it is unethical for companies to ship code that is not free.
> By this logic, is it ethical for someone to "liberate" that code?
>
> RMS: If you can indeed make that code free software, it would be ethical to do so.
> But that is hard. It would mean bringing about a state of affairs where people
> can enjoy all the four freedoms without fear. That is usually flat-out impossible
> under the current legal system.
Hah! I haven't heard him openly advocate theft before
> To liberate the code, if it is possible, would not be theft, any more than
> freeing a slave is theft (which is what the slave owner would surely call it).
Property is property. If you allow people to become property, i.e. slaves, then it is most certainly theft to free them. He can call it whatever he wants, it is still a violation of property rights.
> Nor can you transmit the GPL by touching things.
;) Why is it so hard to get this? The property of being infectuous has NOTHING TO DO WITH CONSCIOUS CHOICE!
An infectious entity infects by contact; it is irrelevant who initiates the contact. You definitely can transmit the GPL to your code by "touching" it with a piece of GPL code.
> Nor by running a GPL program on your computer.
Nobody is claiming that.
> Acquires...all by itself. The code just goes and gets all GPL-ified, without intervention of a sentient being.
Again, it is irrelevant if the infection is accidental or deliberate. An infectuous disease does not stop being a disease, or infectious, if you know everyone who is infected with it and avoid them. It is the potential for infection that makes a disease infectuous. The GPL does not stop being viral just because you know how not to become infected. You are just preventing the infection by good hygiene practices, when you don't touch that s%&t
> So electrocution is contagious, because if you stick a fork in an outlet, you're going get infected with it.
Whaaat? Electrocution (as in, the result of having electricity pass through your body) is not contagious because you don't get anything from the outlet. Electric current is not a substance, it is the result of movement of individual electrons in a medium. Electrocution kills you not because you get "electricity" into your body, but because the outlet creates a potential difference between two points on your body and allows ions to flow along that potential. The same amount of electrons leaves your body as the amount that enters it. You are not infected because there is nothing in your body as a result of the interaction that wasn't there before.
Then there is the disconnection problem. Once you detach your charred fingers from the outlet, you can't just go electrocute people by touching them. On the other hand, a software project that acquires a piece of GPLed code and is infected by GPL as a result, can now infect other projects with the GPL if they choose to use any code from this one.
> The GPL is designed to prevent commercial exploitation, and it does this
l , where it is explained how this result is to be achieved through the use of the GPL.
> by forcing companies who use it to publish their modifications.
This is not a misconception, it is in the license. If you use GPLed code in your project, you have to GPL the result. Everybody knows that. In fact, this is exactly what GPL is for.
> The objective of the GPL is to prevent the commercial sale of software
> in order to produce a gift economy in software development.
See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/pragmatic.htm
> Microsoft makes money by selling software.
> Making money by selling software is wrong.
> Microsoft is wrong.
> You can't sell GPL software.
> GPL software is better than Microsoft software.
This is simply an incorrect argument. The correct conclusion is "using GPL software is right", which follows from the second premise. If you disagree that making money from selling software is wrong, as most people do, you will not agree with the conclusion.
> You shouldn't use GPL software unless you contribute to the community in some way.
This is not a misconception. It is what the FSF really wants, as stated in the above "Pragmatic Idealism" essay. The key word here is "shouldn't". They will not prevent you, because they can not, but they will apply all the pressure available to them (mainly social pressure from the community) to ensure that you do indeed contribute. It would a misconception to state that you "can't" use GPL software unless you contribute, but it is perfectly correct to say that the above statement expresses the FSF's intentions.
> Any employee who discovers their employer has modified GPL software and hasn't published those changes should deliberately leak them.
Nobody has this misconception.
> Hacking into websites based on GPL CMSes in order to obtain their unpublished mods is intrinsically ethical.
This is not a misconception. Just because you don't publish your modifications, doesn't mean they aren't covered by the GPL.
> if you can't understand the distinction between a free choice and catching a disease
I am not disputing your distinction. I am calling it irrelevant. You don't call a disease infectious because you can get it by accident. You call it infectuous because you can get it. Likewise, I am not calling GPL viral because you can get infected with it by accident. I am calling it viral, or infectuous, because you can get infected. Whether you get infected intentionally or not has no relevance to the classification. GPL is viral, there is no doubt about it. You can argue that this property is not so bad after all, as you have been doing, but that is a different argument.
> Cookies are not open to anybody but cookie fanatics.
Wrong analogy. Not all free software developers are GPL fanatics. In fact, I would hope that most of them are not.
> You are being silly.
Am I? The GPL and the communist ethic that it promotes (by "communism" I mean a philosophy based on the premise of "from each by ability, to each by need") comprise everything that is wrong with free software today. I would also speculate that they are the reason why Linux is still unusable to regular users. "Linux on the desktop" has been coming for a decade, and it is still coming. Sort of like a succession of five-year plans.
> Them, and anybody else who freely chooses to subscribe to the same ethic.
Exactly! Here's the viral part! You get infected with the "ethic" to go with the license. I don't use the GPL precisely because I loathe and detest its ethic, and would certainly want to do nothing to encourage its continued existence. Because of that, I would never contribute any code to a GPLed project, and I do my best to avoid using them when there are real free software alternatives (=BSD or MIT) available.
>> MS Windows source code does not permit derived works from it
>
> Nor does GPLed software, unless you return the favor of freeing
> your own code for other people to work with.
Exactly! GPLed code is NOT open to anyone but other GPL fanatics. It is NOT open to everyone! I don't see why it is so hard to understand this point. MIT licensed code is open to be used by everyone, so it is open source software. GPLed code is only open to be used by other GPL fanatics, so it is NOT open source software; it is open source only to THAT COMMUNITY.
My complaint is not that GPL people do not give away their code to everyone. Their code isn't my code. My complaint is that they preach the GPL license as something that creates open code, whereas in reality it only creates open code for them.
> Herpes infects hosts which do not deliberately, consciously *CHOOSE* to get herpes.
A disease is not infectious because you can get it accidentally. It is infectious because you can get it, period. The fact that you have to deliberately infect yourself with it is entirely irrelevant.
> The GPL does NOT "infect" any projects where you don't deliberately, consciously CHOOSE to use GPL code.
But those that CHOOSE to use GPL code are infected, and that is precisely what I am saying. Yes, if you don't use GPLed code, then you don't have this problem, but that is not the issue. The issue is that GPL fanatics call GPLed code free and open, when in fact it is NOT. It is only free and open to OTHER GPL fanatics, and that is exactly the complaint.
> What your complaint about GPL being viral realy means is that:
...) because they do
> * you want to make your life more convenient by using someone else's code
> * but you do not want someone else have same chance making their life more convenient.
You assume that I'm making commercial software. Yes, I do write software that is commercial (one has to make money somehow, after all), but I would not expect to use GPLed code in it. If I decide to include other people's code into that project, my company would have to purchase that code, and that's the way business works. In business, I expect to pay for what I want, since I consequently expect to be paid for what I make.
However, I also write free software, which I release under the MIT license. Because of my severe dislike of FSF's policies, specifically their insistence that selling software is evil and we should all sell only support and customization, I will never release anything I write under the GPL. This means that I can not use any GPLed code in my free software projects. By itself, this is not really a problem; after all, I can't use Microsoft's code in my projects either. The problem is with FSF's hypocrisy in calling GPLed code free and available when it is only available to other GPL fanatics. Saying that GPLed code is available to all is simply not true and spreading this lie only deludes innocent developers into thinking that they release open code for everyone to use, while in reality they are just feeding the evil GPL camp.
> Those who release code under GPL do so (maybe, also, partialy,
> not like their code to be incorporated into commercial product without either getting
> improvements of that commercial product for same "price" (e.i. under GPL conditions)
> and/or without sharing part of revenue from that commercial product.
In other words, they do this not to protect their code, but to grab other people's code. By writing ten lines of code that get incorporated into a ten million line project they are claiming that the project should therefore be made available not just to them, but to everyone! Where is fairness in that? Compensation should be given out proportionally to the effort required to create the purchased work, but the GPL fanatic camp is clearly adhering to the entirely different philosophy of "from each by ability, to each by his need". Everyone writes the code as much as he likes, but nobody gets paid except by charity (or by engaging in an entirely different line of business, such as tech support). This is the evil of GPL and this is why people complain about the viral clause.
> So you do not like GPL'ed code. I assume that you also do not like any other proprietary code (except your own).
I have expressed no opinion about GPLed code. I have only expressed my opinion about the GPL license.
> That leaves you with only "few" other places which can makes your coding more
> convenient: code licensed under BSD and similar licences.
The "few" should not be in quotes. FSF's brainwashing of developers has indeed been paying off and sane licensing of free software is declining.
> I am developer too. And I too want to make some money from my work.
Well, you better stay away from the GPL then, 'cause you'll never make any money from selling your code that way.
> And while I have all the rights to my code, I certainly do not have right to code
> developed by others except those few cases it comes with a licence which gives me some rights.
The purpose of the GPL is precisely to give you the rights to the code developed by others. The code you write yourself needs no such protection, since you already have it. If you uploaded it somewhere, then everyone else can get it as well. What the GPL gives you is the right to own any modifications to your code or any code that uses your code in any way. That code was not written by you, and is not your code, and yet by licen
> Would you cut down on the FUD? If you wrote the code yourself,
> you can license it under any and as many licenses as you wnat.
Unless that code just happens to be a part of a project containing GPLed code. Then no, you can't license your code any way you want. That's exactly the complaint about GPL being viral.
> Now, the people you are referring to who write new code and the GPL prevents
> them from using other's GPL'd code would imply they do not want to release their
> code under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license such as MIT
The MIT license is NOT GPL-compatible! A project containing GPLed code can not be released under the MIT license because it would violate the GPL's viral clause. This is why even free software developers shouldn't touch GPLed code.
> So they're complaining that they can't reuse others' source because
> they want to prevent others from reusing their source. How's that for hipocracy?
No, they are complaining about the FSF's claims about how the GPL makes source code free and open, which are where the hypocrisy really is. GPLed code is only available for reuse to those people who want to release all their code as GPL, and that is precisely what makes GPL viral.
> The normal case is that you want to take a GPLed program, and change one line, or a
> hundred, but most of the program is the GPLed original. It's 99% theirs, not 99% yours.
It is the normal case for maintainers. Those who call GPL viral, do so because they write new code and the license prevents them from reusing GPLed code.
> You've got your program, and you want to add one GPLed line?
> Yeah, you're right, it's going to make you GPL the whole thing.
And that's precisely what we all mean when we say that GPL is viral. It transmits the GPL disease to your code via the GPLed code vector.
> if you don't like the terms, don't use the code.
Well, that's obvious, but that does not mean GPL is not a viral disease; it just means that you can avoid catching it. When we say that GPL is viral, and that it is bad, we mean that it does not allow free use of code, unlike the other, saner licenses, like the MIT license for example. You do not have to explain that we can avoid being infected by GPL code; we know it already. When we say that the GPL is viral, we mean that we won't touch any GPLed code and are explaining why.
> But we didn't want to GPL all million lines of ours. No problem - we ran GPG as a separate executable
Thereby slowing down your program. If GPG were licensed under a sane license, you would not have had to do this. This is precisely why GPL is something that should not be touched, lest such contact encourages its continued existence.
> all other uses of the word "viral" in the history of the word, mean
> something completely different. A virus infects other, unrelated things.
So does GPL. GPLed code "infects" your code with the "GPL disease" if you put it there. The fact that you have to consciously include the code in your project is irrelevant; if you know someone has herpes, all you have to do to avoid infection is to not have sex with them. Herpes is still a viral disease, and, by analogy, so is GPL.
> Yet MS Windows doesn't get tagged as "viral" even though its license is infinitely more restrictive.
MS Windows source code does not permit derived works from it. Since you can not make a derived work, you can not infect that derived work with MS code. If you steal the code anyway, then MS will sue you and you will no longer have a project; they will not offer you the code as long as you use their license. This is not "infection", as that would imply transmission of a disease. MS license can not be transmitted to your code, and so is not an infectuous disease.