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Re: [ox-en] Germ of a new form of society or germ of a new form of business?



On 31 Jan 2004 at 16:16, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:

Most (young) people who hate computers do so because of two things:
(i) the historical unreliability of Windows and (ii) lack of usage
skills because MS made them appear sufficiently simple that they
could claim no training is required (this was and is lies, but still
not one we've gotten over).

In other words: the only intuitive interface is a nipple. :)

Heh, babies even find that troublesome at first! :)

This is getting into some pretty serious (and pretty thorny) UI
theory. Have you read "The Anti-Mac Interface"? I haven't read it for
years but IIRC it offered a pretty interesting take on a bunch of the
issues you are bringing up.

Indeed. I have my own theories on this which are definitely
unconventional. But they're off-topic here and besides, if all goes
to plan you'll be able to try them for yourself sometime next summer.

The problems you described is a problem and I explained it was one
that people are (successfully) working on. Will you be able to run a
LSB 1.3 application in 10 years on a Linux of your choice? Yes. All
you need to do is install lsb1.3 support (AIUI).

We'll see. I don't doubt that huge improvements can be made, but I
would caution that because of how much free software in particular is
written that it could prove a smothering influence. Put it this way:
binary compatibility is really only important to home users, anyone
technical will compile from source. If you forget home users, you can
seriously hit MS in a very vulnerable point - it must maintain ABI's -
 so you can eclipse them in rate of evolution.

If Debian is more stable and handles ABI changes more gracefully, it
stands to reason that people will migrate toward it. If you look at
the latest Netcraft report, you will see that Debian is the fastest
growing Linux Distribution.[1]

Of course - that is inevitable as people requiring stable & reliable
servers find that Apache functionality of say two years ago is more
than enough. Therefore there's no reason to use or risk using newer
versions.

There's a proposal right now to put LSB and ABI compatibility into
the Debian social contract!

I would wholeheartedly endorse such an action. However because of
how the software is designed they will have to do like OpenSSL and
rely on mature packages not changing much.

That's not true. They will have to standardize a given set of API/ABIs
with particular LSB version numbers.

What happens when a fix to a security weakness requires breaking the
ABI?

I think you misunderstand the FSF's position. The FSF's definition of
Free Software is *not* and has never been the GPL. The BSD, the
Artistic, X11, and many other licenses are all Free Software licenses
according to the FSF. The license they endorse in the GPL but they
don't try to tell people who like other licenses that their licenses
aren't Free Software -- quite the opposite in fact.

:)

Any lengthy propaganda piece by the FSF or those associated with them
will illustrate how "lesser" licenses than the GPL don't offer the
same protection. What the LGPL preamble says they apply to all non-
GPL free licenses when no one asks if commercialisation is really a
bad thing? Sure, if a company steals your work and markets it
ruthlessly you have a right to be bothered, but a company could also
integrate your work and return enhancements it makes back to the
communal fold. It's too easy to see dragons everywhere and worse, to
scare people into thinking there are more dragons than there are.

[examples snipped]
All of these are based on the idea of selling software licenses and
restricting access to software as the only way to make money from
software and to make development profitable enough to support. I think
this is just uncreative.

This will sound condescending but - have you ever read any economics
books? Spent time around entrepreneurs? They are the most creative
people around - often it's their only strength. If there was really
any money in free software economics, you can be sure they'd be
piling in there. They're not, therefore there isn't.

The reality is that information is power and he who controls the
information wields the power. This is truth. Therefore it is not only
inevitable, but *inescapable* that information will always be
controlled. The GPL is a shining example of this - it prevents closed
source use, thereby wielding power over those who would seek to use
it for that.

Free software is not about control. It's about liberation. It's about
improving the lot of mankind. This vision is growing increasingly out
of step with the FSF's practice eg; acceptance and use of copyright
when it's a bad law and should be replaced.

And this creation of diversity is something that Linux has not yet
matched. FreeBSD is still a superior Unix to Linux despite a much
smaller developer base.

I think that's subjective and unsupportable. Are there things that
FreeBSD does better than Linux? Yes. Are there things Linux does
better than FreeBSD? Obviously. If there weren't, Linux's huge
popularity would be either a major scam or a total fluke. I don't
believe it's either.

FreeBSD is a better Unix on a technical level (which is why I used
"superior"). Linux is a better Unix on a user level as it's
distinctly more friendly. What surprises me is that the innovation on
BSD should be lower than Linux as it's a smaller pool, but I think
it's a function of diversity and on Linux that's seen as a "confusing
for the user" thing.

Can I link GPL code in with my open source product and sell that
product? No. Why? Because the GPL guarantees the freedom to
distribute your product to others without paying you.

Therefore you can't commercialise GPLed code which is the whole
point of it after all.

Not true! You can't *proprietize* code. You're more than welcome to
commercialize it. You are using a very uncreative (and incorrect!)
definition of commercialize. This is a prevalent misconception but
it's still a misconception.

Where's the proprietising if you don't alter the original? Where's
the proprietising if you use the exact same binary DLL in a closed
source application versus a GPL one? How can it be that the identical
binary DLL is being "stolen" just because of what links to it?

It's pointless doing work unless the work is worth it. Since KHTML
was designed, yet another free HTML renderer seems foolish. Still,
people are free to waste their time if they choose.

I don't think Mozilla was a waste of time. I think it's the best
web browser I've used and *lots* of people agree with me. I'm sorry
you don't.

One of the great things about the software ecosystem is that maybe
Mozilla by absorbing ideas from all other comers does become the
perfect browser? When I say "waste of time" I don't mean that it's a
pointless piece of software, I mean that it's highly inefficient to
develop six web browsers all of which do the same thing. Better that
those superfluous developers be off doing something new.

Cheers,
Niall






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