368 karma · joined November 26, 2008
I don't mean this to be disrespectful but it's not as simple as it sounds. Especially, if the committee is clueless (or in disagreement) about the usual questions: What do you want? What do you need? What goals should be accomplished?
It even gets more tricky if membership for the committee is not well defined.
IRL, you get people who miss their measurement unit (cm or inches seem to be complicated). Or they misunderstand instructions and thus just enter 10 cm while they should enter 10.5 cm.
However, there are online stores for custom made shirts (with lots of measurements) and it sometimes works, depending on the dedication on the user's side.
Not yet, maybe.
Since he started his movement, Richard Stallman made it absolutely clear that he considers proprietary software to be evil in a literal sense of the word. He repeatably said it "should not exists" [1].
Recall that when Richard Stallman introduced the GPL for GNU, there was no LGPL. It was introduced later. Here's the announcement from the GNU bulletin [2]:
"We should by now have finished a new alternative General Public License for certain GNU libraries. This license permits linking the libraries into proprietary executables under certain conditions. The new library license actually represents a strategic retreat. We would prefer to insist as much as possible that programs based on GNU software must themselves be free."
Note also that any GNU system (and therefore Linux) is based on the GCC, distributed under the GPL. It's not just a compiler but also provides a runtime library that most programs need to link to when compiled by GCC. To make this possible, it has a special exception to the GPL. However, since the copyright is completely owned by the FSF, the exception can be revoked, anytime -- making it impossible to compile proprietary software with GCC (unless a fork proves to be viable).
In other words, the FSF has the means and the motive to make proprietary software impossible to run under Linux. All they lack right now, is the political power -- that is, the opportunity to do so.
[1] http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031411-richard-stallma... [2] http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull10.html#SEC6
It's worth reading the original instead of the above linkbait.
[1] http://www.brownrudnick.com/nr/pdf/alerts/Brown%20Rudnick%20...
I've noticed the same about Nostradamus' predictions. Oh, and Jules Verne's fiction. ;) Irony aside, counting how many vaguely described predictions came partially true, is hardly a good way to judge whether someone's opinion is right.
To judge whether a principle should be called moral or ethical, I try to ask myself whether it can be thought of a universal. Otherwise, it's just a matter of personal preferences.
Accordingly, Stallman's principles are just personal preferences although he tries to sell them as universal.
Surely, he's entitled to try but that doesn't make his principles right.
I've been active in a irrelevant project of GNOME (ie. marketing), and my initial opininon still seems to hold: It's not about the desktop; it's about the apps. Neither GNOME's Shell nor Canonical's Unity solves any interesting problems for users.
And the lack of apps is basically just a matter of a missing business models for Open Source Desktop Applications.
To see them fighting over stuff that probably makes up -- at most -- 0.01 percent of the users' time, let's me wonder whether Open Source is ever going to be any major force on the desktop. I've once believed it would, but this belief dwindles.
But it's possible to solve the other use case. 3D-foot-scanners are already out there for shoemakers, so taking measurements could become easier in the future.
http://www.mirapodo.de/groessen-kompass
I've been working on a similar concept for dress shoes.
Why?
Linux is a platform, and therefore depends on network effects: The more people use it as a desktop, the more software (apps, games) will be available. The more software is available, the more people will use Linux as a desktop.
Thus, market share seems to matter -- especially for those who aren't ideologues.
Unfortunately, the theory only holds if there's money to be made by developing desktop applications and games. This is still more complicated than it should be.
But Stallman is clear enought during interviews (emphasis by me):
* “The free software movement aims for a social change: to make all software free..." - http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html
* “Non-free software tramples your freedom. […] It's unethical and it should not exist.” -- http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2004/07012004/july-aug04in...
* Interviewer "If there was a button that you could push and force all companies to free their software, would you press it?" Stallman: […] But yes, I think all published software should be free software." - http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt
* Interviewer: "Would you accept a federal law in the United States to enforce the distribution of source code with every type of software?" Stallman: "I am not calling for such a law as of now, but I think that would be a valid consumer protection measure[…]" - http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_int...
"People feel that that moral rules are universal. Injunctions against murder and rape, for example, are not matters of taste or fashion but have a trancendent and universal warrent. People feel that other who commit immoral acts ought to be punished: not only is it right to inflict harm on people who have commmited a immoral infraction, it is wrong not to, that is, to "let them get away with it,"...
You have never suggested a law, but that's what the Free Software movement is about: In Stallman's mind -- and to those who understand him - , publishing non-free software is not just a matter of taste or fashion -- it's immoral and wrong; just like murder, rape, and stealing.
It must be punished.
When Stallman calls "non-free" software immoral, does he want to say that it's a matter of personal preferences, or does he want to say that there should be a law against publishing non-free software, and violations should be punished?
* Open Source supporters say "Some software should be..."
* Free Software supporters say "All software should be..."
In this regard, you're right: Free Software misses the point of Open Source, namely that the goals and values of Free Software are simply wrong.
Also, their passengers are unlikely to make photos from some unspectacular houses somewhere, put them online, and link them with the relevant addresses.
Google may have a German address but who's got the copyright of these photos? Do you know if it's the German company or is it the American one? In general, why should anyone be forced to sue? You would need to have a case, and it's not always possible to prove damage. For example, proof that your reputation was damaged when street view caught you making love with your wife in your own garden, surrounded by a two meter fence.
Concerning the law: You and your face is also public when you happen to be in a public place. But there's also a law concerning your right to your own photo, ie. I can't simply take a photo of you walking down a public street and put it online without asking for permission.
But when you're arguing that it's a moral sufficient justification that someone somewhere can make money off of it, shouldn't we drop that law?
Then, everybody can add add motion detection to the cameras and put these cars in front of some 'interesting' houses! Say, the houses of Google employees, taking photos of them, their wifes and their children. Maybe, there's a business model for that, too.
And why stop there? What about people in law enforcement, the military, public administration and politicians? After all, it's all public and as long as someone pays for it, you obviously think it's OK that it be done.
I guess, you wouldn't want that. But if people have a right for their own photos, why not also their own houses?
Your last argument can also be turned around: Laws against street view would not only protect everybody else, but you, your wife, your children, too. In general, just because you can do X, doesn't mean you have the right to do X.
First, do they have a right to use a camera mounted in a height above the normal eye level? Why should people be required to adjust the height of their fences to protect themselves from Google's view? Just because there are no laws against this yet, doens't mean Google has a right.
Second, even if they have the right to make the photos, do they also have the right to automatically make them public? There's no human judgement involved, so who's responsible when Google camera catches you naked while sun-bathing in your own garden? Who can be sued for taking these images down and who's paying for the damage that is created while the photos were online?
Third, do the have the right to connect the photos with street addresss so the views are searchable? This decreases search costs and your home will be public not just to bypassers, but to anyone. Who said, they are allowded to do that?
And this is the point: They asked noone but just though they could act as if they are free do however they please. This may work in the U.S. but this doens't work here. Or, at least, that's not how it should work.
Also, I'd say, people here don't have the blind faith, U.S. people seem to have concerning cooperations and free markets.
Under these circumstances, it shouldn't be a surprise that Germans are reluctant to watch some large cooperation build another potential monopoly out of other people's "property" -- namely their privacy.
Yes, because there's a chance -- say, 5% -- that you would have bought it. So, you're depriving me of wealth and money.
Buying music, software or any other digital good is a contract, a promise: I promise you a copy of my music, you promise to pay me money and don't copy it for others. If you don't like the conditions of the contract -- fine, buy elsewhere!
But if you agreed to the conditions, violating them is immoral.
There're also plenty of examples of businesses trying to buy as cheap as possible while at the same time trying to sell as expensive as possible. That just proves that buyers should beware.
Also, proprietary software is not equivalent to high switching costs: in fact, it's a rather subjective calculation. If you don't care about keeping your old emails, switching your E-mail client has nearly no costs, for example. Additionally, "free" software doesn't imply low switching costs: develop a large application using the KDE or GNOME APIs, and you'll find that switching is rather expensive.
In general, your argument is a red herring: Since switching costs may establish a trap, you should warn about software with high switching costs, not about proprietary software.
One could also understand the article the other way around: We have evolved to reproduce in response to natural conditions, and one result is women being able to get pregnant at about 15. Now, why should something like this happen if the natural 'optimum' would be rather 20 or 25?
Read this way, the fact that needs an explanation is women getting pregnant rather late.
For they give away their stuff with no strings attached! Oh, wait...
Also, you do have rather established legal definitions of 'collective' and 'derivative works'. See, for example, Laurence Rosen: "Open Source Licensing". Then, why does the GPL3 not use them? Instead, is uses 'work based on' IIRC. So, why's that?
In my opinion, the resulting (legal) uncertainty is intentional.
Another reason: If the interpretation of the FSF is true, all works that ever linked dynamically against a Microsoft library would be derivative works of said library. Does it makes sense that companies like Adobe try to build a business on such shaky legal grounds?
Of course, not! That's the point of a chilling strategy, you know?
This is not quite correct, in my opinion.
Copyright only applies to your work, and works which are derivative works according to copyright.
You can't write a license that requires someone to release 'all' his work under the GPL, for example. (It may be different if it's a contract.)
That's just what the FSF wants you to think. Of course, it usually doesn't pay to go through the legal hassel to defend yourself from unjustified claims by the FSF -- thus it's an effective chilling strategy.
For more information, see http://www.law.washington.edu/lta/swp/Law/derivative.html
Contrary to jerf's assertions, however, it seems to work both ways: It provides news that is often carefully balanced and 'factual' and there are also formats that pursue a political agenda and publish inconvinient stuff.
A discipline either establishes common criteria to distinguish good stuff from bad stuff or it doesn't. And these should not be arbitrary otherwise the judgment remains subjective and therefore worthless.
Since you admit that "there's alot of hacks", it seems literary criticism has no criteria or they are mostly subjective. Otherwise, you wouldn't have such a lot of hacks, but just a few.
It obviously produces hardly anything worth knowing, no?
You assume these have no equivalent ethical validity. But you fail to provide a rationale for your assumption. So, why should anyone accept your premise?
In fact, both are equally valid: If you expect others to keep their promise to share something, you should keep your promise to share something, too. If you expect others to keep their promise NOT to share something, you should keep your promise NOT to share something, too.
Both are derived from the Golden Rule and are thus equally valid.
Consequently, if you feel entitled to break your promise NOT to share something, why should anyone else respect their promise to share something?
Hardly, in my opinion.
Just use the rather common approach of the Golden Rule: 'Treat others like you want to be treated'. If you want others to keep their promises to you, you should keep your promise to others. Likewise, if you want others to fulfill the contracts they agreed to, you should fulfill the contracts you agreed to.
The author offered a contract: "Pay 4 dollars and promise not to copy and redistribute the media, and I promise to give you a copy". Nobody who accepted this contract, has the moral right to violate it. Otherwise, everybody would have the right to violate contracts, in general.
Everything else is just a matter of organization: If teenagers need sheet music for school production, their parents should pay for it. Or the parents can create a club, hire somebody to write music, and share the resulting work.