11–20 of 338 posts
The people who campaign for GPL software authors to change their license seem to assume that the authors of the software naively chose the GPL, as opposed to choosing it for its particular spirit. That's really important distinction that people don't realize about the GPL - it's designed to protect the rights of the END USERS. And that's great when the end user is you and me, but it's also not surprising that we, as…
The people who campaign for GPL software authors to change their license seem to assume that the authors of the software naively chose the GPL, as opposed to choosing it for its particular spirit. That's really important distinction that people don't realize about the GPL - it's designed to protect the rights of the END USERS. And that's great when the end user is you and me, but it's also not surprising that we, as…
Is it bad I just don't care that LLVM has enabled non-free software? Because it has done a h*ck of a lot for opensource software. New languages, new compilers, new optimisers, new IDEs have sprung up around an impressive framework. I also don't understand how LLVM enables non-free software any more than binutils does. I can do: binutils/cat my_file | my_incredibly_none_free_program | binutils/grep my_pattern which is…
> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree. (*) This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom. I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code because they unders…
A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests.
http://www.openlogic.com/blog/bid/156894/Are-App-Stores-Liab...
"Either way, the next question in the legal analysis is whether the app store qualifies as an online service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Actually, a court may answer this question first as a matter or practicality.[1] The DMCA limits liability of online service providers for infringing material provided to the service by its users (i.e. app developers here) so long as the provider meets certain conditions. Whether an app store can be considered under the DMCA definition of an online service provider has yet to be tested, but it seems likely given the trend of caselaw that has held such vendors as Amazon and YouTube to qualify."
The people who campaign for GPL software authors to change their license seem to assume that the authors of the software naively chose the GPL, as opposed to choosing it for its particular spirit. That's really important distinction that people don't realize about the GPL - it's designed to protect the rights of the END USERS. And that's great when the end user is you and me, but it's also not surprising that we, as…
Many do. Any many of them realize they didn't actually want the GPL, they just picked the license they had heard of the most. I don't see what this has to do with the discussion of gcc being limited technically because the GPL is not enough to sufficiently hinder people from writing proprietary tools.
>That's really important distinction that people don't realize about the GPL - it's designed to protect the rights of the END USERS
That is an artificial distinction created to try to justify the newspeak meaning of "freedom" where it is defined to mean "imposes restrictions". Developers are users.
The GPL is not what allows users to get what they need from software or technology. It's the market. As long as you have a free market, with able competitors, you don't need the GPL, and the whole discussion of "free software" is a red-herring.
Stallman's initial experience with closed software was not in a free market, so I can see how he's grown up with a colored view.
> The values of free software are fundamentally different from the values of open source, which make "better code" the ultimate goal. I want to live in a world where innovation thrives and survival of the best technology reigns. Because the ultimate point of technology is to serve humanity by making our lives better. So stifling innovation just so that everyone has access to source code is backwards.
Is it bad I just don't care that LLVM has enabled non-free software? Because it has done a h*ck of a lot for opensource software. New languages, new compilers, new optimisers, new IDEs have sprung up around an impressive framework. I also don't understand how LLVM enables non-free software any more than binutils does. I can do: binutils/cat my_file | my_incredibly_none_free_program | binutils/grep my_pattern which is…
Seriously though, I agree. Stallman here seems to be adopting almost a religious argument, not a pragmatic one. He even announces a refusal to use Skype because it's not free software. If he prioritizes freedom over everything else, then more power to him, but to me talking about who "wins" and "loses" on some kind of arbitrary scale of freedom does not make a compelling case against the use of excellent tools like Clang/LLVM.
> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree. (*) This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom. I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code because they unders…
Read what he wrote in the asterisk; he is making a distinction about DRM and terms of use. A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests. http://www.openlogic.com/blog/bid/156894/Are-App-Stores-Liab... "Either way, the next question in…
Sourceforge can get away with that because Sourceforge has no editorial process.
Apple could not continue to operate their App Store in the manner they currently do and successfully pursue a section 230 defence under the DMCA.
The people who campaign for GPL software authors to change their license seem to assume that the authors of the software naively chose the GPL, as opposed to choosing it for its particular spirit. That's really important distinction that people don't realize about the GPL - it's designed to protect the rights of the END USERS. And that's great when the end user is you and me, but it's also not surprising that we, as…
end users do not give a shit about source code (or software licensing at all).
However, I also think (I don't know for certain) that is precisely why it is important that the FSF keeps plugging away and refusing to compromise. There has to be one place where people do give a shit.
I have started to use gNewSense 3.0 recently. Small, fast, Gnome 2 and fortunately the er - maturity - of the packages does not affect my use cases.