Between free-software activists that boycott conferences and pieces of technologies, and rednecks that think it's OK for America to bomb the shit out of the rest of the world in the name of their freedom, the difference is none.
I really respect people that work for open source projects, because they are doing it out of passion. But unfortunately some people like to poison the waters for everybody, invoking reasons like the preservation of freedom, when in reality such things are done out of vanity (it's great after all not waisting the air that you breathe, being on your high horse, looking down on others who just "don't get it").
Miguel de Icaza has done a great job with Mono, and with Gnome, and most people criticizing him don't realize the effort it takes to have such accomplishments. Such effort can only come out of passion, and without Ximian, Linux would be in a poor shape today. And sure the end result could be the injection of proprietary pieces in open-source products, but to think about it seems really stupid to me, since copyright and patent laws can change, and technology is the only one responsible for the evolution of our race.
I don't think that Free/Open source software will eliminate the business of selling copies of commercial software.
If anything it will be the software as a service model (Google, Amazon) that will do that.
Proponents of Free Software are right to say that Free software is better as a development methodology, but what everybody fails to realize is that Free Software failed to invent equivalent economic models in which businesses can make money.
Without money, developers are not paid to work on software. And let us face it... consultancy usually sucks. And the successful examples of Open Source projects have had to discover valid business models that unfortunately cannot be replicated so easily... sure Firefox makes money from being an affiliate to Google, but I have more chances of selling copies of my pet projects than doing that.
And people, when growing up, have a somewhat painful realization... you can buy more freedom with money than what you could earn with zealotry.
There is a significant difference between Scala and Erlang.
Erlang uses green threads. And green threads have advantages and disadvantages over native threads.
For instance Erlang is bad at IO but on the other hand it can spawn millions of threads, something that the JVM has a hard time doing because native threads are limited by the kernel.
I think not... as Alan Kay said, most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.
The problem with being paid for developing software is that you're always implementing someone else's idea and most times the only motivation for going further is your monthly salary because commercial projects are usually boring as hell, and slaves are needed.
Open-source projects are the next best thing to having your own startup in Sillicon Valey, and not everyone is blessed with the privilege of living in an area where new ideas can thrive.
Actually I'm using Pidgin on both Windows and Mac OS X (Adium). And Adium is quite nice since it has integration with Cocoa and Growl.
And it's a lot more usable compared to Yahoo's client, the de-facto standard here in Romania. Pidgin clients are not bloated with useless pieces of shit that take up resources and distract me... and best of all, it supports multiple protocols.
Besides Firefox, the Linux kernel and OpenOffice, I think Pidgin is one of the most useful pieces of open-source ever written.
SUN is not closing parts of MySQL, instead it is introducing new features in MySQL Enterprise, a product which always had extra features.
Not to mention that SUN is not the only one doing interesting things with MySQL... for example at the conference I saw a presentation on Maria, a MyIsam-based storage engine that supports transactions.
Also, the features in MySQL Enterprise can (at least currently) be enjoyed by most developers using alternatives...
1) the hot backup of myisam tables will be available in the open-source version 2) the smart load balancer is a MySQL Proxy configured with filtering scripts that you can write yourself in Lua 3) profiling can be done efficiently with Sun's DTrace
Disclaimer: I am currently attending the MySQL conference, but I am not affiliated with Sun in any way.
And when I'll have a Mac OS X that will work "OUT-OF-THE-FUCKING-BOX" on my current hardware and with legal permissions too, then we'll talk about Mac OS vs Linux. Until then please acknowledge the fact that what makes Mac OS X great is the open-source software that it ships with.
MS's complaint isn't with Open Source (tm). From all 3 official shared source licenses only MS-PL can be OSI-certified under the current Open Source definion... and that's also questionable considering the blurry distinction between source code and object code that it makes.
They've made source code available (shared source, etc). We, as engineers, like clear definitions. What would happen if half of the chemical industry started to use the word proton to denote a neutron, and vice-versa ?
Open Source is not a synonym to "source code available" by any stretch of imagination, and it didn't had an exact meaning until it was properly defined in 1998 in response to Netscape's release of the Navigator source code. Until you can prove otherwise, open source is defined by OSI, and the Shared Source licenses are largely incompatible.
They released rotor for *BSD. First of all, the star prefix of *BSD is to denote the various distributions based on a BSD kernel (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc...) There is only one BSD license, and you can view a sample here.
Microsoft released Rotor under the Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure License, and its in no way a BSD-style license or an Open Source license, as defined by OSI.
Their complaint is with the viral nature of the GPL (something many people are concerned with). Only leaches that want to use other people's work without giving back are concerned with the GPL.
And the GPL is a copyright license, and only redistributes have to be concerned with it. End-users (those people that actually use the software) are unrestricted by the GPL.
I'd copy and paste the Linux list from Distrowatch, but they only list top 100. You only need to list Red Hat Enterprise (versions 3,4 and 5), Debian (Sarge and Etch), Ubuntu (Dapper and Feisty), OpenSuse (10, 10.1, 10.2), Suse Enterprise 10, Fedora (5,6 and 7) and Gentoo... and you've got 99% of all Linux users.
Besides... any open-source application can be compiled to run on all the distributions listed. You can't say that about Windows.
You can never tell a person: "I am forcing you to use your liberties! You are legally required to go out and protest!" The best you can ever do is provide them with the opportunity to protest, and hope that they choose to use their liberties soundly. Exactly, and nobody is forcing you to use GPL ver.3 software either.
If we allow people to use a firearm, we bestow upon them rights. If we require them to use firearms or purchase them, it is not a right, but a requirement. Requirements on the usage of freedom make something inherent un-free. Nobody is forced (or restricted) to use GPL software in a certain way or for certain purposes. The restrictions only apply to redistribution of said software with or without modifications.
If we allow people to use a firearm, we bestow upon them rights. If we require them to use firearms or purchase them, it is not a right, but a requirement. Requirements on the usage of freedom make something inherent un-free. It really depends on who you are talking about... gun owners (i.e. end-users) versus weapon factories (i.e. software/hardware distributors).
Your analogy stinks as bad as your understanding of the GPL.
Of all the things going on in the world and the country, if you actually care about this, you shouldn't be allowed to vote. It's common knowledge that if everybody had perfect rational, democracy would not be possible. People need stupid things to care about, and of course everyone should be allowed to vote. Stupid reasons can turn out to be pretty important in the end.
If anything, you need serious bitchslapping for trying to take away a fundamental freedom in every democracy.
Turning away a deal with a devil that'll plop you tons of cash in your pocket to help fuel future R&D... You forget that it's the community that does the actual R&D... and Novell, Xandros and Linspire will feel this when major projects start going GPL3, and they are left behind with old forks that need maintenance.
That's what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you;)
That is, supposing it gets the 10% market share from IE, and not from Firefox, for example. The world is not black and white, and most likely market share will be taken from both sides. All that matters is that IExplorer's market share will certainly drop a little more.
Losing market share doesn't really matter for Firefox as long as it has a loyal user-base and as long as web standards continue to thrive.
Canonical and Red Hat are companies that may change their priorities... always remember that.
The Linux community is already consolidated around community-driven distributions like Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu (it is community-driven), and I don't have any doubts that the Ubuntu community will do the right thing and fork Ubuntu should the worst happens... because after all, in the words of Richard Stallman, we want software that's FREE, not 80% free.
Microsoft are not the biggest worry when it comes to patents... The difference between Microsoft and patent trolls is that Microsoft has a long time strategy. They definitely have a plan to completely destroy the current Free Software movement, or turn it to their advantage.
In contrast patent trolls are in it only for quick money grabs.
I don't mean to sound ignorant or naive, but isn't this just what businesses do? I don't mean to offend you, but you are ignorant. When "businesses" sell other people's work, then "businesses" should respect those other people that worked so hard on the products.
If someone is choosing GPL, that someone does it so that everybody can use that software and profit from it. And if some business messes with the GPL and with the wishes of the people using it... it is only fair to screw them back;)
Otherwise some day there will be nobody left to fight.
No, none of the companies agreed that MS patents are being violated. Oh yeah, lets violate the spirit of the GPL instead. Lets screw all those that worked so hard on the software we sell.
These fringe players have nothing to lose. They loose that part of the community that wants Freedom. Even one good software developer or package maintainer that leaves the community of Linspire/Freespire is a very high price to pay.
When the wind changes, they go off in a different direction. Of course they do... after all, they are a company that needs to earn money. And a smart company like SUN is giving customers what they want, instead of using empty threats about patents and other sorts of IP... which they can do, especially because they also have an impressive patents portfolio;)
license-set-ignorant developers who choose GPL simply because that's what they've heard is "the open source license" I choose GPL not because I'm ignorant, and that's a big offense from your part [troll]. I am using GPL because I'm releasing code for the good of myself... and we live in capitalism after all. GPL allows me to get back the improvements done by the community that's willing to use and improve my product... thus everybody wins (except predators that make money on the back of other people and companies).
And btw, GPL is *not* "the open source license". It is the genuine Free Software license;) And that's because it promotes Freedom, not convenience. And before you start moaning and bitching about the limited freedom it provides, well, I don't consider it freedom having the power to take somebody else's freedom away.
Develop something equivalently cool and useful for Eclipse, where there are no worries of this happening. JUnit has integration with all major Java IDEs, including Eclipse. TestNG also has Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA integration.
In the Java ecosystem there are tons of plugins, even for commercial IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA. That's why I will always choose Java over.NET
> Apart from this, the legal status of EULAs is doubtsome in most of Europe. > Some say the EULA is a contract. I ask, where is the signature ? > Can I negotiate the contract with my local reseller ? > The EULA is probably not valid in many countries.
You're missing an important point... the software is protected by copyright law. Without a license agreement, nothing else gives you the right to use that software. That's why the GPL works for example... without agreeing to the GPL's terms, you have no right to use the software.
So if the EULA is invalid in your country, but the copyright laws are... then you are forbidden to use that software;)
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, some people live in lala land.
Between free-software activists that boycott conferences and pieces of technologies, and rednecks that think it's OK for America to bomb the shit out of the rest of the world in the name of their freedom, the difference is none.
I really respect people that work for open source projects, because they are doing it out of passion. But unfortunately some people like to poison the waters for everybody, invoking reasons like the preservation of freedom, when in reality such things are done out of vanity (it's great after all not waisting the air that you breathe, being on your high horse, looking down on others who just "don't get it").
Miguel de Icaza has done a great job with Mono, and with Gnome, and most people criticizing him don't realize the effort it takes to have such accomplishments. Such effort can only come out of passion, and without Ximian, Linux would be in a poor shape today. And sure the end result could be the injection of proprietary pieces in open-source products, but to think about it seems really stupid to me, since copyright and patent laws can change, and technology is the only one responsible for the evolution of our race.
I don't think that Free/Open source software will eliminate the business of selling copies of commercial software.
If anything it will be the software as a service model (Google, Amazon) that will do that.
Proponents of Free Software are right to say that Free software is better as a development methodology, but what everybody fails to realize is that Free Software failed to invent equivalent economic models in which businesses can make money.
Without money, developers are not paid to work on software. And let us face it ... consultancy usually sucks. And the successful examples of Open Source projects have had to discover valid business models that unfortunately cannot be replicated so easily ... sure Firefox makes money from being an affiliate to Google, but I have more chances of selling copies of my pet projects than doing that.
And people, when growing up, have a somewhat painful realization ... you can buy more freedom with money than what you could earn with zealotry.
A picture only takes a few moments to create. But creating good software is one of the most difficult tasks of humanity.
When you've put thousands of hours of work into a project, do you really want to give it away for free without even getting credit for it?
How's the stupid?
There is a significant difference between Scala and Erlang.
Erlang uses green threads. And green threads have advantages and disadvantages over native threads.
For instance Erlang is bad at IO but on the other hand it can spawn millions of threads, something that the JVM has a hard time doing because native threads are limited by the kernel.
Just like any other developer?
I think not ... as Alan Kay said, most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.
The problem with being paid for developing software is that you're always implementing someone else's idea and most times the only motivation for going further is your monthly salary because commercial projects are usually boring as hell, and slaves are needed.
Open-source projects are the next best thing to having your own startup in Sillicon Valey, and not everyone is blessed with the privilege of living in an area where new ideas can thrive.
How would you now when something is similar to GoogleOS? Have you seen GoogleOS?
Actually I'm using Pidgin on both Windows and Mac OS X (Adium). And Adium is quite nice since it has integration with Cocoa and Growl.
... and best of all, it supports multiple protocols.
And it's a lot more usable compared to Yahoo's client, the de-facto standard here in Romania. Pidgin clients are not bloated with useless pieces of shit that take up resources and distract me
Besides Firefox, the Linux kernel and OpenOffice, I think Pidgin is one of the most useful pieces of open-source ever written.
SUN is not closing parts of MySQL, instead it is introducing new features in MySQL Enterprise, a product which always had extra features.
... for example at the conference I saw a presentation on Maria, a MyIsam-based storage engine that supports transactions.
...
Not to mention that SUN is not the only one doing interesting things with MySQL
Also, the features in MySQL Enterprise can (at least currently) be enjoyed by most developers using alternatives
1) the hot backup of myisam tables will be available in the open-source version
2) the smart load balancer is a MySQL Proxy configured with filtering scripts that you can write yourself in Lua
3) profiling can be done efficiently with Sun's DTrace
Disclaimer: I am currently attending the MySQL conference, but I am not affiliated with Sun in any way.
The AIR SDK, which includes the necessary tools to package the application, is also part of the development environment.
Well, having a Hackintosh is pretty illegal.
And when I'll have a Mac OS X that will work "OUT-OF-THE-FUCKING-BOX" on my current hardware and with legal permissions too, then we'll talk about Mac OS vs Linux.
Until then please acknowledge the fact that what makes Mac OS X great is the open-source software that it ships with.
What would happen if half of the chemical industry started to use the word proton to denote a neutron, and vice-versa ?
Open Source is not a synonym to "source code available" by any stretch of imagination, and it didn't had an exact meaning until it was properly defined in 1998 in response to Netscape's release of the Navigator source code.
Until you can prove otherwise, open source is defined by OSI, and the Shared Source licenses are largely incompatible. They released rotor for *BSD. First of all, the star prefix of *BSD is to denote the various distributions based on a BSD kernel (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc...)
There is only one BSD license, and you can view a sample here.
Microsoft released Rotor under the Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure License, and its in no way a BSD-style license or an Open Source license, as defined by OSI. Their complaint is with the viral nature of the GPL (something many people are concerned with). Only leaches that want to use other people's work without giving back are concerned with the GPL.
And the GPL is a copyright license, and only redistributes have to be concerned with it.
End-users (those people that actually use the software) are unrestricted by the GPL.
Besides
You can't say that about Windows.
The restrictions only apply to redistribution of said software with or without modifications. If we allow people to use a firearm, we bestow upon them rights. If we require them to use firearms or purchase them, it is not a right, but a requirement. Requirements on the usage of freedom make something inherent un-free. It really depends on who you are talking about
Your analogy stinks as bad as your understanding of the GPL.
People need stupid things to care about, and of course everyone should be allowed to vote.
Stupid reasons can turn out to be pretty important in the end.
If anything, you need serious bitchslapping for trying to take away a fundamental freedom in every democracy.
That's what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you
All that matters is that IExplorer's market share will certainly drop a little more.
Losing market share doesn't really matter for Firefox as long as it has a loyal user-base and as long as web standards continue to thrive.
Canonical and Red Hat are companies that may change their priorities ... always remember that.
... because after all, in the words of Richard Stallman, we want software that's FREE, not 80% free.
The Linux community is already consolidated around community-driven distributions like Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu (it is community-driven), and I don't have any doubts that the Ubuntu community will do the right thing and fork Ubuntu should the worst happens
What are you reading Slashdot then ? :)
Don't you know ? Here be geeks
They definitely have a plan to completely destroy the current Free Software movement, or turn it to their advantage.
In contrast patent trolls are in it only for quick money grabs.
So yeah, keep saying that to yourself.
When "businesses" sell other people's work, then "businesses" should respect those other people that worked so hard on the products.
If someone is choosing GPL, that someone does it so that everybody can use that software and profit from it.
And if some business messes with the GPL and with the wishes of the people using it
Otherwise some day there will be nobody left to fight.
Lets screw all those that worked so hard on the software we sell. These fringe players have nothing to lose. They loose that part of the community that wants Freedom.
Even one good software developer or package maintainer that leaves the community of Linspire/Freespire is a very high price to pay.
So shut the fuck up.
And a smart company like SUN is giving customers what they want, instead of using empty threats about patents and other sorts of IP
I am using GPL because I'm releasing code for the good of myself
GPL allows me to get back the improvements done by the community that's willing to use and improve my product
And btw, GPL is *not* "the open source license". It is the genuine Free Software license
And that's because it promotes Freedom, not convenience.
And before you start moaning and bitching about the limited freedom it provides, well, I don't consider it freedom having the power to take somebody else's freedom away.
TestNG also has Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA integration.
In the Java ecosystem there are tons of plugins, even for commercial IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA.
That's why I will always choose Java over
> Apart from this, the legal status of EULAs is doubtsome in most of Europe.
... the software is protected by copyright law. Without a license agreement, nothing else gives you the right to use that software. ... without agreeing to the GPL's terms, you have no right to use the software.
... then you are forbidden to use that software ;)
> Some say the EULA is a contract. I ask, where is the signature ?
> Can I negotiate the contract with my local reseller ?
> The EULA is probably not valid in many countries.
You're missing an important point
That's why the GPL works for example
So if the EULA is invalid in your country, but the copyright laws are