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Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

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Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#51

Post by jkn »

smosher wrote: post #14
Hemospectrum wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the introduction of the GPL3, there's been a steady purge of GNU software from OS X. This is why Apple's GCC, bash, etc. are stuck at old versions lacking a variety of useful features. I'm kind of curious what they'll do about Emacs. It doesn't have a BSD-licensed counterpart like everything else they've removed... Maybe they'll just leave it out.

Since the introduction of the GPL3, there's been a steady purge of GNU software from OS X. Is it all GNU software that's being purged, or just the GPLv3 licensed stuff? If the latter, I can't say I blame them. The former case can go either way but I guess it's good to future-proof early.

I very much blame them for their effort to ensure they can prevent users from modifying Free Software utilities on their own machines. What else would be the purpose of avoiding GPLv3? And breaking compatibility with user scripts and removing features in the process... Glad my macbook pro can still boot linux.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#52

Post by jkn »

bluedanieru wrote: post #48
pooriaazimi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in theory, FSF can overnight change the license of all GNU softwares to shareware and sell them? That's really fucked up. (I trust they won't do such a thing, but I didn't think such a thing could be possible)

Well it's more likely than you might think over a span of a couple decades... But, I think if they were to go rogue it would be a matter of forking a GPL-licensed version of the software and continuing development on that under an open license.

I don't think it is likely at all even in decades, and if they did they would be sued by loads of contributors for violating their binding promise to adhere with free software spirit in future licenses. You get some guarantees when you assign your copyright to the FSF.

And all this is ignoring that most GNU programs are licensed under a GPL variant and any future version, so they would not need the copyright to upgrade the license anyway.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#53

Post by AndrewDucker »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #46
Hemospectrum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: Not quite. Long answer: One of the conditions for contributing code to the GNU project is assigning copyright to the FSF. That means they're legally the sole copyright holders for all software they distribute. The official reason for this is so they can pursue GPL violations in court without involving the actual authors of the code. It also permits them to change the license on any of their software. Fi…

So, in theory, FSF can overnight change the license of all GNU softwares to shareware and sell them? That's really fucked up. (I trust they won't do such a thing, but I didn't think such a thing could be possible)

They can change how they license it from this moment on - but any copies they've already licensed continue to be licensed the way they were.

So if they licensed it to you as GPL, and then say "From now on, shareware is the way forward!" then you can continue to share yours as GPL, fork it, etc.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#54

Post by dfc »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #42
dfc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You think that PPAs and your other unnamed improvements tower over the apt package management system? Without PPAs apt-get would be yet another kludgy package management system? Sure apt-add-repository is a nice time saver but how hard is: echo deb http://repo.net/ unstable main >> /etc/apt/sources.list I think we might be miscommunicating because I can't imagine anyone making this argument. I'm not sure h…

With respect to PPAs, I'm not speaking from a user perspective, but from that of a sysadmin having to maintain mirrors. PPAs are just easier than setting up all the key signing and mirror infrastructure. Yeah, apt and dpkg are great compared to what else was available a decade ago. But that doesn't mean that Ubuntu's additions, however incremental, are worthless or somehow inferior to Debian. Incremental gains are st…

I'm confused about PPAs and setting up a mirror infrastructure. What mirror infrastructure? What key signing is involved in a mirror that is not involved in signing packages for a PPA?

Ubuntu's additions are nice. But they are minor improvements to apt/dpkg. Without them apt and dpkg would still be phenomenal.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#55

Post by dfc »

philh wrote: post #40
dfc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You think that PPAs and your other unnamed improvements tower over the apt package management system? Without PPAs apt-get would be yet another kludgy package management system? Sure apt-add-repository is a nice time saver but how hard is: echo deb http://repo.net/ unstable main >> /etc/apt/sources.list I think we might be miscommunicating because I can't imagine anyone making this argument. I'm not sure h…

Doesn't Ubuntu have apt as well though? Ubuntu's package management may have come from Debian, but that doesn't make it inferior. It sounds to me like you're trying to make a different argument: that Debian's package management was a bigger deal, in some sense, than Ubuntu's incremental improvements on it.

Ubuntu's package management system is apt and dpkg. Apt and dpkg were Debian projects long before ubuntu was even a whisper. Ubuntu uses Debian's pakage management system, it does not have it's own system.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#56

Post by microtherion »

inthe90s wrote: post #39
microtherion wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's current C compiler, clang, did not originate in the BSD project, but is primarily developed by Apple itself.

This is a good point. Although that word "primarily" is interesting. Is Clang BSD-licensed?

"primarily", because the LLVM / clang project had its origins in academia (before the project and its team got acqui-hired by Apple), and because the project is open source, and thus still gets some amount of community contributions (probably not a huge proportion of the overall effort, though).

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#57

Post by philh »

dfc wrote: post #55
philh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Ubuntu have apt as well though? Ubuntu's package management may have come from Debian, but that doesn't make it inferior. It sounds to me like you're trying to make a different argument: that Debian's package management was a bigger deal, in some sense, than Ubuntu's incremental improvements on it.

Ubuntu's package management system is apt and dpkg. Apt and dpkg were Debian projects long before ubuntu was even a whisper. Ubuntu uses Debian's pakage management system, it does not have it's own system.

Yes, that's what I thought. Ubuntu uses Debian's system with minor changes. If you want to say Ubuntu's package management is second (inferior) to Debian's, you need to show the changes are bad, not minor.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#58

Post by dfc »

philh wrote: post #57
dfc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu's package management system is apt and dpkg. Apt and dpkg were Debian projects long before ubuntu was even a whisper. Ubuntu uses Debian's pakage management system, it does not have it's own system.

Yes, that's what I thought. Ubuntu uses Debian's system with minor changes. If you want to say Ubuntu's package management is second (inferior) to Debian's, you need to show the changes are bad, not minor.

Ubuntu does not have a package manager of its own. It uses Debian's. Ubuntu was the second guest to arrive at the apt party.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#59

Post by philh »

dfc wrote: post #58
philh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's what I thought. Ubuntu uses Debian's system with minor changes. If you want to say Ubuntu's package management is second (inferior) to Debian's, you need to show the changes are bad, not minor.

Ubuntu does not have a package manager of its own. It uses Debian's. Ubuntu was the second guest to arrive at the apt party.

So what? Ubuntu has package management. It is a superior experience to the package management in Debian. (Or so I assume, since you have not disputed it.) Therefore it is not true that package management in Ubuntu is second to Debian.

I'm probably going to tap out here, because this doesn't seem like it's going to become productive.

Re: Perl Regex Removed From Grep in Mountain Lion

#60

Post by kunvay »

ubernostrum wrote: post #30
gizmo686 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't (one of) the points of the GPL that you cannot change the licensing of the software?

Basically all FSF-curated projects ask for contributors to assign copyright to the FSF. Which means the FSF ends up owning the rights to all the code, and can (as the copyright holder) switch to a different license for new versions.

We think that stinks and is unfair to contributors. We can understand giving a license to use, but complete ownership is unfair and unreasonable.
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