I wonder how they plan to get the hardware specifications for the necessary drivers from Apple. Booting Linux is not very useful, if you can't access most of the peculiar hardware in the iPhone.
- However, many hospitals / organizations duplicate functionality, which is the "more waste" that I talk about. I mean, many, many businesses are the same and need email / web server setups plus a few business-specific apps. This is all duplicated by each organization. I believe GPL is specifically crafted to address this issue, at least in theory, as the source code for every published new version of the software must also be published. However, for the internal use within organizations, like in the hospitals you gave as an example, there is nothing in the GPL forcing to publish the source code, because the new binaries are not published either. I think some companies, e.g. Google, already benefit from that. I think it is bad, because it leads to wasted resources as you said; but on the other hand, more restrictions than GPL provides for using open-source software could also be bad.
Just because Windows happens to be the most popular solution at the moment doesn't necessarily give Windows a monopoly. Yes it does in regards to the EU antitrust law. There is no clear percentage limit for the antitrust law to apply, but there have been court cases where a mere 40% market share has been considered dominant. Below that you are (likely) safe; above that not. Microsoft clearly has a market share that falls under the EU antitrust regulations and Apple doesn't. yet.:-)
I've also written my share of PostScript code and agree to most of the things you said. Except one - PDF isn't PostScript. PostScript doesn't support alpha channel but PDF does, which is a major difference. If you render e.g. translucent gradients having a nonlinear shape into a PDF file, there is no way to convert the resulting vector graphics into PostScript (other than bitmap, that is).
Maybe with home video editing becoming popular some people might need to backup this much data. Indeed.
I use DVDs for my home videos and pictures, but it's a pain in the ass and I think it's not a particularly reliable backup method anyway. I try to burn two backups of each video, though.
For example, I could invite you around my house and say "If you're hungry, grab something from the fridge". All your friends would probably be very polite and ethical about it, but if you put up a note at the local mall billboard saying that your fridge is open for anyone interested, there would bound to be someone willing to empty it. Similarly, if you'd offer your BSD code for your friends, there wouldn't be any problems. But what would happen if you offered the world your code under the BSD license? There's always someone willing to try to take advantage on your generous offer.
I bet RMS foresaw this one. He was determined enough to invent something to keep the code pirates at their bay.
I am sorry I understood you wrong. However, it seems we do agree about what I wrote about the legality of adding code with GPL license to a work licensed under BSD. The reason I thought you were discussing about newly added code was because you referred to modified files in the sentence just before the one I quoted:
BSD code can be modified but the BSD license cannot be removed from the modified file either. It is not possible to add a new license to a BSD licensed file without permission of the original copyright holders. Granted, you can indeed modify code (bugfixes, minor new extensions) without adding anything substantial, but I was thinking about larger modifications and even new source files. It all depends what the "modified file" actually means.
It is not possible to add a new license to a BSD licensed file without permission of the original copyright holders. Of course it is. You just cannot remove the BSD license from the original code you did not wrote. GPL and BSD are compatible in this sense; you can for example add a function to a BSD licensed file and put a note there that the said function is licensed under GPL. Also, you can add GPL-licensed files into BSD-licensed project (GPL specifically allows it, and BSD license does not forbid it). After that you cannot distribute the combined work without agreeing to both the BSD and GPL licenses; of course only to the extent in which you use the GPL-licensed parts and BSD-licensed parts. If I understood correctly, that seems to be the problem here. The BSD people, quite understandably, do not like this licensing quagmire, because it would prevent the inclusion of the combined work into a BSD tree (the newly written files and functions under GPL could not be placed into a *BSD project).
That's just it. Due to the GPL's viral nature, the BSD community cannot just "use it within the GPL limitations". Those "GPL limitations" would reportedly turn around and force the entire OpenBSD source base to be licensed under the GPL.
Indeed; if you don't want to use GPLd code under GPL license, you simply cannot include it in your project. But I fail to see how this is worse than not giving any code back, like Microsoft did when they took the BSD TCP/IP stack and extended on it. As I said, with GPL people "taking" BSD code you can at least see the modified code, and use the resulting code and binary without paying for it.
I agree that the *BSD license gives you more freedom with dealing with the code. But why there needs to be such a fuss when GPL people plan to take an advantage on this freedom? I thought that the idea behind the BSD license was specifically to allow more freedom and not to force you give the source back like GPL forces you to. I agree that it's not very nice that the Linux developers are planning not to give code back to the *BSD trees, but I also believe it is their right.
It's weird how Theo de Raadt writes about GPLd code:
"Thanks for what you wrote, but this is a one-way street, you give
us code, and we take it, we give you you nothing back. screw off."
I agree with Theo it would be somewhat rude to extend the driver with GPL-only additions, which is possible and seems to have been proposed. But still, I wouldn't exactly call publishing GPLd code to be "giving nothing back". At least you can see the code, and the community is free to use it within the GPL limitations.
I'm just asking you for the option of using a lightweight GUI to parse and store my preferences to the same text file.
I felt the same way, but then I found two excellent general-purpose GUI configuration editors for Linux. They're called emacs and vi, and with bot of them you can edit the config files on graphical screen. No more flipping the switches on the front panel! The only problem is I haven't yet been able to decide which one is better.
6. The rootkit itself handled all connections via something that looked like ssh. I never managed to figure out how it loaded. One of the executables in the system loaded at startup was backdoored. Probably sendmail or one of the other daemons it could not do without.
I once had a machine compromised with very similar symptoms. It turned out that it was infected with a loadable kernel module rootkit. Back then I didn't even know that such beasts existed! However, I managed to find and examine it by compiling my kernel without module support, so the rootkit couldn't start. Originally I thought that the kernel was just acting weird and tried to configure it as simple as possible. When booting, it warned it could not load the rootkit module.:-)
Linus treats everyone as if they were fair, generous, and cooperative. Unfortunately the real world is not like that. It's full of deceitful, self-serving, and non-cooperative people and companies who talk nice but do evil.
I guess you're right. Maybe that's why his little hobby operating system project failed so miserably. Had he treated everyone as a potential enemy, he'd probably been able to keep the project completely as his own.
News flash: Your current computer you just used is "crystal based". In fact, silicon and diamond have the exact same cubical diamond lattice crystal structure.
Actually, "epäjärjestelmällisyys" is quite an easy example. You could continue it and end, for example, in a form "epäjärjestelmällisyydentelemättömyyksissänsäkään" , which would be a fully correct single word in Finnish. It means literally "not even under the influence of his often repeating habit of being unsystematic". Of course, we Finns don't use words like that, because such words would be difficult to understand even for the native speakers.
I would assume they're planning to sue in Thailand, not in the USA. There seems to be a law in Thailand with heavy penalties for insulting the king. If YouTube/Google has any subsidiaries in Thailand, they may be screwed.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how they plan to get the hardware specifications for the necessary drivers from Apple. Booting Linux is not very useful, if you can't access most of the peculiar hardware in the iPhone.
They mine those machines
Haven't you heard about data mining before?
I always happen to look at my clock at precisely 13:37. It's weird.
I've also written my share of PostScript code and agree to most of the things you said. Except one - PDF isn't PostScript. PostScript doesn't support alpha channel but PDF does, which is a major difference. If you render e.g. translucent gradients having a nonlinear shape into a PDF file, there is no way to convert the resulting vector graphics into PostScript (other than bitmap, that is).
I bet RMS foresaw this one. He was determined enough to invent something to keep the code pirates at their bay.
That's just it. Due to the GPL's viral nature, the BSD community cannot just "use it within the GPL limitations". Those "GPL limitations" would reportedly turn around and force the entire OpenBSD source base to be licensed under the GPL.
Indeed; if you don't want to use GPLd code under GPL license, you simply cannot include it in your project. But I fail to see how this is worse than not giving any code back, like Microsoft did when they took the BSD TCP/IP stack and extended on it. As I said, with GPL people "taking" BSD code you can at least see the modified code, and use the resulting code and binary without paying for it.
I agree that the *BSD license gives you more freedom with dealing with the code. But why there needs to be such a fuss when GPL people plan to take an advantage on this freedom? I thought that the idea behind the BSD license was specifically to allow more freedom and not to force you give the source back like GPL forces you to. I agree that it's not very nice that the Linux developers are planning not to give code back to the *BSD trees, but I also believe it is their right.
It's weird how Theo de Raadt writes about GPLd code:
"Thanks for what you wrote, but this is a one-way street, you give us code, and we take it, we give you you nothing back. screw off."
I agree with Theo it would be somewhat rude to extend the driver with GPL-only additions, which is possible and seems to have been proposed. But still, I wouldn't exactly call publishing GPLd code to be "giving nothing back". At least you can see the code, and the community is free to use it within the GPL limitations.
Haha, that was fun on so many levels! :-)
I'm just asking you for the option of using a lightweight GUI to parse and store my preferences to the same text file.
I felt the same way, but then I found two excellent general-purpose GUI configuration editors for Linux. They're called emacs and vi, and with bot of them you can edit the config files on graphical screen. No more flipping the switches on the front panel! The only problem is I haven't yet been able to decide which one is better.
6. The rootkit itself handled all connections via something that looked like ssh. I never managed to figure out how it loaded. One of the executables in the system loaded at startup was backdoored. Probably sendmail or one of the other daemons it could not do without.
:-)
I once had a machine compromised with very similar symptoms. It turned out that it was infected with a loadable kernel module rootkit. Back then I didn't even know that such beasts existed! However, I managed to find and examine it by compiling my kernel without module support, so the rootkit couldn't start. Originally I thought that the kernel was just acting weird and tried to configure it as simple as possible. When booting, it warned it could not load the rootkit module.
Linus treats everyone as if they were fair, generous, and cooperative. Unfortunately the real world is not like that. It's full of deceitful, self-serving, and non-cooperative people and companies who talk nice but do evil. I guess you're right. Maybe that's why his little hobby operating system project failed so miserably. Had he treated everyone as a potential enemy, he'd probably been able to keep the project completely as his own.
News flash: Your current computer you just used is "crystal based". In fact, silicon and diamond have the exact same cubical diamond lattice crystal structure.
Actually, "epäjärjestelmällisyys" is quite an easy example. You could continue it and end, for example, in a form "epäjärjestelmällisyydentelemättömyyksissänsäkään" , which would be a fully correct single word in Finnish. It means literally "not even under the influence of his often repeating habit of being unsystematic". Of course, we Finns don't use words like that, because such words would be difficult to understand even for the native speakers.
I would assume they're planning to sue in Thailand, not in the USA. There seems to be a law in Thailand with heavy penalties for insulting the king. If YouTube/Google has any subsidiaries in Thailand, they may be screwed.
Look out! It's a trap!
Parodies are another matter....
Maybe Linux is a parody of SCO Unix and therefore allowed?