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The road to freedom in the embedded worldIf I had to choose the single moment that defines when the Free Software movement became self-aware, it would be the 1983 publication of the GNU manifesto by Richard Stallman. Despite its age it is amazingly up to date. Free Software has come a long way since that time; creating an alternative by inspiring people to put together the GNU Project piece by piece on a proprietary platform. Only with the publication of the Linux kernel were people able to see pure Free Software operating systems running on their computers in the 90s. But they were still booting off a proprietary BIOS, and we also saw an increasing tendency to put hardware functionality into proprietary firmware. Only recently have projects such as LinuxBIOS managed to bring more freedom to the BIOS, although notebooks still are problematic. The issue of proprietary firmware is still being worked on, including by the FSF. Compared to the situation in the personal computer area, embedded devices are still several years behind, but there are people who are working hard to catch up. I recently had the pleasure to learn a little more about this exciting field. One device that a lot of people have in their homes or offices are routers to connect to the internet. Until not so long ago, these used to be entirely proprietary. That is no longer true. Not only do several vendors provide routers with more or less free firmware based on the Linux kernel, but the OpenWRT project and its younger offspring the FreeWRT project have also made some amazing advances in this area. However even though FreeWRT has a web interface to build custom firmware online, both are still catching up with the freedom, ubiquity and sophistication of modern GNU/Linux desktop distributions. There are still problems with hardware compatibility and drivers, as both distributions are still confined to a certain chipset, and locked into the 2.4 Linux kernel series because of proprietary drivers for the wireless card built by Broadcom, a manufacturer that has proven itself to be very uncooperative towards the Free Software community. Getting rid of these restrictions to freedom is a collaborative effort with many different players, including FSFE's Freedom Task Force, which helped the OpenWRT team to avoid making mistakes in the reverse engineering of the Broadcom wireless driver, such that the result will then be fully usable by all Free Software. The situation with mobile phones and PDAs is even worse than that of routers. Until very recently it was close to impossible to find mobile phones that were running Free Software and gave the user control over what they were doing. One of the first companies that tried to answer requests for Free Software mobile phones was Trolltech with their Qtopia Greenphone. Maybe because this was the first time this was tried, and maybe because they didn't consult enough community voices before launching the phone, they made some mistakes. One of them was the overly restrictive EULA terms, which Trolltech quickly corrected after being confronted with the problem. This was not the only problem. The Greenphone's package management is still proprietary, although that problem can be mitigated by using the ipkg package manager instead. Ultimately it seems that everything but the communication stack can be replaced by Free Software in this way. So the Greenphone was a step in the right direction, but it is not yet good enough. The interest it raised probably also helped bringing about the OpenMoko phone, which will ship very soon and which is taking another big step toward freedom. Like the Greenphone, the GSM stack remains proprietary, though. Reasons for this appear to be a thicket of cross-licensed patents and regulatory concerns about frequency usage and transmission strength. Many politicians are concerned that tinkering with these could impair the ability of other people to communicate, including the ability to access emergency services. Their argument is that the potential damage done by tinkering is greater than the damage of not having the freedom to change the code. This is a reincarnation of the old "your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose" argument, and it is not easily discarded. We need to convince society with good answers to this and because of that, the GSM stack is likely to remain a difficult area for some time. Depending on when you start to count, it took our community at least 10 years to address the issue of the proprietary BIOS on our PCs, but we did not let this stop us from improving our GNU/Linux Desktops. In the same way I believe we should work to create maximum freedom on mobile phones. Other possible candidates have been launched by Nokia, namely the 770 and N800 internet tablets. Both devices are running a Linux kernel with a very small GNU/Busybox system using Debian package management. Because they do not need the GSM stack, these devices might be made entirely free, though unfortunately they are not being shipped that way. They come with the proprietary Opera browser and a Flash player, which are easily uninstalled and can be replaced by a Mozilla port called Minimo; maybe Gnash can be compiled for them as well. But there is more work waiting to be done: In a sad kind of irony Nokia seems to have chosen the Gtk+ library over Qt because that would allow them to keep part of their helper library for the embedded small screen proprietary. There are also other parts that are still kept proprietary, like the boot loader and battery charging application. They also seem to share the proprietary firmware problem with the personal computer platform. Even the flashing utility is proprietary software at the current point in time. This has made some people very sceptical. It may even turn out that we will not be able to free these specific devices entirely without Nokia's help on the hardware interfaces, which may never come. But working to free them will inevitably end up providing more freedom, although maybe not on these specific devices. Experience gained can be used in many ways, and Free Software written can be transferred to other platforms. Like the Greenphone, these Nokia devices provide a substantial step towards freedom, but are not yet good enough. So they have to be seen as an intermediate step towards freedom in the embedded world. Both Trolltech and Nokia deserve praise for making a step into the right direction, as well as constructive criticism on the remaining proprietary parts, which should also be set free. There are projects that have already gotten very far in this effort for other devices, like the Familiar Project for the iPAQ which, I was told, is now running fully Free Software except for the wireless driver. And there are other devices that seem capable of running Familiar, like the Siemens Simpad, which also spawned its own community project to set it free. So maybe a FreeMaemo.org project is what we need for the Nokia internet tablets. An essential element in truly achieving freedom in the embedded world will be to further strengthen the Free Software community in this area and enable more Free Software developers to tinker with these devices. One person who has done extraordinary work in this area is Harald Welte. His signature is also visible all over the OpenMoko project and the way it actively reaches out to build a strong developer community. We need more people like him and the other OpenMoko developers, and I hope you will take a look at their call for GPL'ed wireless drivers and application developers. We also need to get more of the devices into the hands of capable developers. This is what Armijn Hemel of gpl-violations.org did during FOSDEM 2007 when he gave a bunch of routers to the OpenWRT project so they would have more devices to work with and set free. Ultimately freedom is not static. It is a process that involves a lot of work. It is also a differential question: There are steps towards more freedom, which are good, and steps towards less freedom, which cause problems -- if not immediately, then in the future. The choices of which direction to take were recently described by FSFLA as "The fifth freedom." As a community, we have set the personal computer free to a very large extent. We are not yet as far with embedded devices, but there are first signs of the Free Software community growing into this area. With the possible exception of the GSM stack, I believe we have good reason to expect 100% Free Software devices in the near future by starting from the most free, although imperfect, options available and setting them free entirely. Through this effort we'll not only see the Free Software community flourish in this area and we are also likely to see more hardware vendors willing to supply the community and people who value their freedom with such devices. Eventually it will be possible to enter the store and buy such a device running only Free Software out of the box, which is what I really want. And with projects such as the GPE Palmtop Environment we will be able to use the same software environment on different hardware devices; something that is common on personal computers, and a great advantage. Working for this goal can serve to strengthen Free Software on the desktop, because integration of the mobile devices with desktop computers is an important issue. With Free Software it could be possible to use the same software on both, possibly in different versions and from different vendors. The result would be seamless integration that proprietary software might not be able to achieve across vendor boundaries. It seems only a question of time until someone picks up on this and offers the combination of freedom and convenience to people. In the end, by walking forward on the road to embedded freedom, we might end up strengthening Free Software overall. (The author is initiator and president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and his personal blog is available at the Fellowship of FSFE) (Log in to post comments)
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 16, 2007 18:14 UTC (Fri) by orospakr (guest, #40684) [Link] I'm surprised OLPC wasn't mentioned. It is a very Free piece of hardware, excluding the non-free wireless firmware, which will hopefully change.
Of course, truly Free hardware would have all the schematics and ASIC VHDL/Verilog code under a Free license.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 16, 2007 23:40 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] And OpenSPARC is one of these really free things.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 20, 2007 11:31 UTC (Tue) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] I'm surprised OLPC wasn't mentioned. It is a very Free piece of hardware, excluding the non-free wireless firmware, which will hopefully change. I saw OLPC more among the laptops, which are a very large and complex area. It was my fear that trying to incorporate them would have made the article too long. But yes, the OLPC is a very interesting project.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 16, 2007 18:50 UTC (Fri) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] Interesting article. I think that this seems like a poor analogy: "Many politicians are concerned that tinkering with these could impair the ability of other people to communicate, including the ability to access emergency services. Their argument is that the potential damage done by tinkering is greater than the damage of not having the freedom to change the code. This is a reincarnation of the old "your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose" argument, and it is not easily discarded. ..."If this argument were true, then the freedom to modify the code would end at transmitting illegally (wrong frequency...), and it would not prevent tinkering with the entire communication stack. A better analogy would seem to be: Since we can't trust you to not hit my nose, you will not get the freedom to swing your fist.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 17, 2007 6:30 UTC (Sat) by MKesper (subscriber, #38539) [Link] Since we can't trust you to not hit my nose, you will not get the freedom to swing your fist.
I like that one. It really shows how far trusting and allowing freedom goes.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 20, 2007 11:44 UTC (Tue) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] Interesting article. Thanks. Interesting comment, too. A better analogy would seem to be: That would be one way to reformulate the thoughts described, yes. But it is very much an issue of perspective. Someone in favor of such regulation might want to describe it more along the lines of: Since we don't want noses to be hit, we don't want people to swing their fists wildly in crowded rooms.Some regulation of society is something that is generally accepted and wanted by a majority in population. Think of laws against murder, or rules regulating the traffic. But sometimes regulation goes too far and becomes over-regulation. Defining that line is done in a dialog with regulators and society, and we'll need to convince them that this is going too far and/or ineffective.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 20, 2007 19:23 UTC (Tue) by EldestHanson (guest, #43597) [Link] You say it is a matter of perspective, but then you leave the land of logic for that of political spin. Sure, not swinging fists in crowded rooms is a sensible idea. This implies it is ok elsewhere. Where do you find even the tiniest such sensible opening in a blanket argument against open source wireless stacks?
So I reject you proposed "perspective". All your argument shows is that an in group can get a majority to be so scared of getting their noses hit that they will vote to outlaw ordinary citizens from swinging arms anywhere.
Proposed Perspective? Posted Mar 22, 2007 2:15 UTC (Thu) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] Woah! Ease up a moment. You're talking to Georg Greve, president of FSFE. I think you'll find he is in favor of free software wireless stacks. He's not articulating that political spin to convince you to oppose his own goals and those of the organization he represents. He's trying to help you understand the perspective of the people who need convincing.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:08 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] A good indication of the flaws in the wireless stack domain would probably start with radio hams, and the fact that (as Alan Cox has pointed out), hardware wireless stacks forbid radio hams from transmitting on frequencies that they're legally allowed to transmit on, because they have no way of being told that the user is a ham. Equally, they have no way of being told that the user has purchased some other region of spectrum and is thus allowed to transmit in it.
i.e., it's not that they restrict the users to doing what the law allows: it's that they restrict the users to doing *less* than the law allows, and have no way of being told that the user has additional rights. This is akin to ditching the presumption of innocence (while in the domain of criminal law, I can see the analogy between `you can't do things because we can't be sure you have the right to do them` and 'you can't be set free because we can't be sure you aren't a criminal`. If the criminal law worked the way these wireless stacks do --- and the way that DRM systems do --- we'd all be locked in jail all the time in case we became serial killers.)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 16, 2007 20:57 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] WTH is GNU/Busybox supposed to be? Busybox is decidedly not a GNU project and a replacement for the GNU coreutils, shellutils, fileutils, tar, etc. A system running Busybox is quite likely to use very little GNU software. Calling it GNU is a bit of a stretch IMO.
Note that I'm a free software person myself, but this GNU/anything issue is something I don't buy. Free software systems nowadays are composed of less GNU software than they were years ago, and this trend continues ...
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 16, 2007 21:22 UTC (Fri) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] Dont know about Busybox to say anything about that matter.
"Free software systems nowadays are composed of less GNU software than they were years ago"
By that same token. We should stop calling any Linux based system "Linux" because Linux kernel is a smaller and smaller part "than they were years ago, and this trend continues ..."
Nope. Usually first comers get disproportionately far greater name recognition than others, and giving GNU and Linux equal name recognition seems correct to me.
Regards
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 16, 2007 23:06 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Well ya.
Plus you have things like Gnome, which you know is GNU, that aren't getting any smaller!
The thing that is ironic about all of this is that for the majority of 'Linux' software out there has software created or maintained by GNU project as it's most fundamental dependancy.
That is, since the majority of GNU is very portable, and so then is the software that runs on it.
So the end effect is that it's much much much more easier to remove the 'Linux' out of the 'GNU/Linux' then it is to remove the 'GNU' and actually have a usable operating system.
But all of that has very little to do with this 'GNU/Busybox' term stuff.
I think that in this case, if you've been paying attention to exactly how Nokia 770 works is that it does replace a lot of GNU functionality with BusyBox to reduce the footprint, but in fact it still has a whole lot of GNU-provided userland to make it compatable with 'linux' software.
So it actually is a combination of GNU + Busybox-based userland as a basis for running 'Linux' software.
Were as typically for Linux PCs you only use busybox for initrd and the whole userland is GNU-based.
They realy should start using the + sign instead of the / sign for these things nowadays. That / has become only a way to invoke hugely political motivated and outspoken feelings in the whole anti-RMS/GPL league.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 18, 2007 8:11 UTC (Sun) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] What's really stupid about the whole thing is that RMS just had to shut up on this issue for five or six years and everyone else would eventually figure it out.
The Linux kernel is easily replaceable, but it's harder to do without the GNU system software. It can be done, but it's less pleasant by far. People WOULD figure this out; with the huge number of Linux kernel issues these days, more and more folks are realizing that the kernel can be swapped for something else without as much pain as they'd think. All RMS had to do was just be patient, and everything would have worked out.
But, instead, he insisted on renaming someone else's project, and on top of THAT, forcing the name of HIS software in front. (that single thing probably irked people more than anything else.) So of course he ran into hostility. Now, the GPL3 is coming under significant fire, and I guaran-damn-tee you one of the primary reasons the Linux devs have been so vocal that it's bad is because they feel that RMS tried to hijack their project.
The truth would have come out on its own; his insistence on naming rights badly damaged the community, as can be seen with the heated vitriol over GPL3. He made enemies out of people who were on his side, and has made life a little harder on all of us.
It's hard to tell yet, but he MIGHT have traded away GPL3's success to get some people to use a term he liked. If that's how it works out, it was a very bad bargain.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 19, 2007 16:42 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] I don't begrudge the man his desire to promote the project he founded. I just wish he had found a way that wasn't offensive, tasteless, confusing, and assinine to do it. He's a bullheaded guy and that's a trait we all needed him to have, but it's too bad he doesn't have the wisdom to consult others on his presentation.
As for bullheadedness on "GNU/Linux" damaging GPL3 chances, I really doubt that one. He gained some minor dents in his goodwill from the Linux crowd (a big one), but the license is really going to be adopted or rejected on its merits (or perceived merits) and not on its creator.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 19, 2007 22:53 UTC (Mon) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link] Well, maybe so, but judging from the sheer vitriol of many of the anti-GPL3 comments I've seen, particularly from the kernel devs, I think the objections are as much personal as technical. Even another comment in this thread talked about the 'v3 kool-aid', which worries me. That kind of wording is about FSF (aka Stallman's) motives, not actual merits or faults of the license.
I do hope you're right, but I'm not at all convinced that's the case.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 1:43 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Well the problem is that:"OSS is about a better software development methodology not a religion"
Is just as political stance as anything else, but people refuse to acknowledge it as such, so that automaticly clouds their judgement.
"I am not religous like you" and "I am not political like you" is not realy a effective way to deal with people in a debate. It's only a couple levels above personal insult and is ultimately quite pointless and irrelevent to anything people are talking about.
Unfortunately it's difficult for people who see GPLv3 as RMS's baby to look at it objectively when they feel that RMS has gone out of his way to fuck with them not only on a project-wide, but also on a personal basis in order to push his agenda. (I think that their is pretty decent justification for them to feel that way.)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 17, 2007 15:57 UTC (Sat) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > Dont know about Busybox to say anything about that matter.
I do. I maintained the thing long enough to put out releases 1.01 to
What got me into BusyBox development in the first place (and what I'm back
> By that same token. We should stop calling any Linux based
You're responding to an article about the embedded space where the kernel
The GNU/Linux/Dammit thing is purely Richard Stallman's ego. Linus didn't
> Nope. Usually first comers get disproportionately far greater name
The first comer here would be "Unix", and they do get plenty of name
The big advance in open development in 1984 was the invention of the
The GPLv2 is highly cool, but it's not code. You can't run it. The
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 17, 2007 16:38 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] If your bizarre paranoid rant were right, Perl would be (C) FSF: afterall, it was distributed from {prep,athena}.ai.mit.edu.
But, oh look, it isn't.
(And GCC is still an FSF project, you know; the development methodology
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 17, 2007 17:26 UTC (Sat) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > If your bizarre paranoid rant were right
Good to know we're keeping this on an intellectual level. :)
> Perl would be (C) FSF: after all, it was distributed from
Let's see, google "perl history", click the first hit, and:
> Perl 1.0 was released to usenet's alt.comp.sources in 1987
Sounds like a few years after patch, an alternate distribution channel
> And GCC is still an FSF project, you know; the development methodology
Yes, I know, the FSF handed over the title to the fork:
The people who did egcs mostly worked for Cygnus, the way the people
> The FSF is more than Richard Stallman, and Savannah et al
How do those two statements _not_ conflict? (FSF != RMS, savannah proves
And Savannah is still there to push a political agenda:
Rob
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 1:59 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] GCC's copyright is owned by the FSF, and at all times during the egcs development fork GNU standards were followed and copyright assignments were collected, because the egcs team wanted to reduce the number of forks (absorbing pgcc and the like).RMS is still the guy who started GCC and was the release manager for all versions up through 2.5.something. He can sometimes be annoying, but part of the reason he tries so hard to get credit is because of the large number of people who want to minimize his contributions and write him out of history.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 17, 2007 23:35 UTC (Sat) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] > the first complete reimplementation of Unix (BSD BSD wasn't the first. The first BSD-related kernel to have no AT&T code was 386BSD version 0.0, released in March 1992. Coherent was released in 1980 (it was proprietary, but not based on AT&T Unix). Linux was released in September 1991 (initially proprietary, but it was GPLed in February 1992).
Coherent Posted Mar 19, 2007 17:18 UTC (Mon) by filker0 (guest, #31278) [Link] Thanks for pointing this out. (I used to work for Mark Williams Co. in the 80s.)
And before the GNU project, there were free tools available (compilers, linkers, interpreters, editors, simulation software, etc.) distributed by various user groups (remember, this is a time before the Internet as we know it -- AARPAnet and BITnet were around, as were corporate and academic research networks, but it was difficult to get access to those) like DECUS acted as repositories and distributors for free (as in beer and as in freedom) software.
I used to know (and work with on occasion) one of the original authors of Coherent (also the author of Decus C and MicroEmacs), and along with a few other folks (myself included) we started working on a free Unix clone that we were going to call "Pubix". It never got very far, but that was in the early 1980s. When RMS published the GNU Manifesto and started up the GNU Project, we decided to follow that, as we had other things to do.
Coherent Posted Mar 19, 2007 20:07 UTC (Mon) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > And before the GNU project, there were free tools available (compilers,> linkers, interpreters, editors, simulation software, etc.) distributed > by various user groups
Not just for Unix variants either. Here's an article on the history of
http://web.archive.org/web/20010423051125/http://www.comp...
What Stallman had was access to MIT's internet connection. MIT was
http://landley.net/history/wwiv/FLASHUP.422
(And all the other files in that directory).
Of course Stallman claims none of it would have happened without him,
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 20, 2007 0:02 UTC (Tue) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] The first FOSS OS was GNU+Linux. BSD missed that distinction because of the ATT lawsuit (thru no fault of theirs).
Even as late as November 1993 had Sun opened up Solaris+Toolchain we would not be talking about Linux anything nor GNU anything.
>Of course Stallman claims none of it would have happened without him,
Really? He claims that? Nope. He has been clear and upfront that he came from a community that shared code. It was the instrusion of proprietary software and the loss of those communities that crystallised him to write the GNU manifesto and start FSF.
At a time when everybody was jumping ship to proprietary companies and becoming multimillonaires. True eventually we would have had all the FOSS software we have... but at a delay of atleast 3-5 years without GNU. And who can estimate the ecosystem effects the delay would have had on the Internet?
Anyway giving credit to FSF and GNU is not about RMS. It is not even about giving credit to FSF and GNU it is about spreading the philosophy of freedom and ending the slavery of copyright. Did I point you to "Misintrepreting Copyright"?
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 20, 2007 5:01 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] > The first FOSS OS was GNU+Linux.
I think a few members of the Homebrew Computer Club would disagree with you on this one. FOSS OSes existed more than a decade before Linus put his kernel source up for FTP.
You keep using the term "GNU+Linux." Has any distro ever actually called itself this? "GNU/Linux" was not used until 1994, pretty late in the game.
Frankly, anonymous1, people were tired of the GNU/Whatever PR campaign in 1996. It's been over a decade and the term just hasn't caught on. Do you suppose you'll still be making an issue of this in 2017? Just wondering. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/778...
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 20, 2007 22:49 UTC (Tue) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] The most important points I am making is1) First comers get recognition. (Home brew FOSS OSes might have existed, but I never got to use them so I cant give them any credit, we are not merely talking about history here. We are talking about giving credit to actors who have played an important historical role in the ecosystem.) So yeah I will continue to call the OS GNU+Linux.
(Why not GNU/Linux? because some people have reasonably objected that GNU/Linux could be intrepreted as "Linux is a GNU project" like GNU/HURD. So I choose not to use that wording. If you find a better way to give both GNU and Linux credit I will use that wording. Do you have any suggestions?)
2) The general public hardly heard about Free Software or the freedoms. Open Source dominates and people have not even heard of FSF or GNU. Like I said before "Anyway giving credit to FSF and GNU is not about RMS. It is not even about giving credit to FSF and GNU it is about spreading the philosophy of freedom and ending the slavery of copyright. Did I point you to "Misintrepreting Copyright"?
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 0:38 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] > I never got to use them so I cant give them any credit
Well, that's awfully strange. You're hell-bent on trying to win credit for the FSF and yet you are totally unwilling to credit the FOSS OSes that came before it? Care to explain yourself?
If you're not careful, the general public will come to know the FSF as "those weirdos who are still carrying on about calling it GNU@Linux." There comes a point when loud advocacy starts doing more harm than good. Just an observation.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 5:13 UTC (Wed) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] I use GNU+Linux, there I gave GNU credit. I did not use other FOSS OSes and cant give them credit. I cant say "I use XYZ FOSS OS" because I dont use XYZ FOSS OS which might have come first.
When my friends ask me what OS are you using. I dont tell them the whole list of FOSS OSes from start to finish. I tell them its "GNU+Linux" because I want to give credit to Linux kernel hackers and GNU.
Interesting that you concentrate on the minor point of giving credit to GNU. I thought I made myself very clear. I am giving credit to Free Software philosophy and my goal is to end the slavery of copyright. I dont care that much about giving GNU or FSF credit. Giving credit is merely a means to an end of freedom.
I notice that the nobody else strives to explain the importance of freedom with respect to knowledge, FSF does that hence I point to people to them.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 8:31 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] "GNU+Linux" gives credit to two concepts: GNU and Linux. That's it. If you intend to give credit to the Free Software philosophy or end the "slavery of copyright", a trite 9-character slogan won't help you at all.
I worry that by dwelling on petty issues like this, the FSF is actually marginalizing themselves rather than promoting themselves. I know that I'm personally less of a fan now than I was back in 2000 (I contributed code but not in this decade). The GPLv3 is overreaching IMO, and the FSF is spending valuable time on petty issues like "GNU:Linux" and badvista.org rather than, say, releasing Emacs. The FSF used to lead by example, now they're mostly shouting instructions from the rear. It's depressing to watch.
Nobody else strives to explain freedom with respect to knowledge? (notwithstanding the GPLv3 process I suppose...) How about the EFF? Or OpenBSD? Or Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, or any other distro? The Apache Project? The Eclipse Foundation? I could go on...
Anyhow, it's apparent that neither of us are achieving any traction here and I feel I've said my peace. Thank you for the discussion, whoever you are.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 11:42 UTC (Wed) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] The GPLv3 is overreaching IMO, and the FSF is spending valuable time on petty issues like "GNU:Linux" and badvista.org rather than, say, releasing Emacs. The FSF used to lead by example, now they're mostly shouting instructions from the rear.Good observation. Most of the people doing the actual work, including those people who truly deserve the credit for Linux's success, just do not have any dealings with the FSF beyond using the GPL2 and maybe tracking what's happening regarding GPL3. The only reason why the FSF has any importance today is because they're now trying to reshape everything using the GPL3. Without that sideshow, they'd be yesterday's hero.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 2:01 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Good luck doing development without RMS's compiler.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:43 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] I was using free C compilers before I'd ever *heard* of GCC and the FSF.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:26 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] There was no free C compiler before GCC. What compiler were you using?
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:44 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] There was no free C compiler before GCC. What compiler were you using?I didn't say it was before GCC, I said before I'd ever heard of GCC. I don't remember the name - it was something I bought from a PD (Public Domain) library on floppy 15 to 20 years ago. It was a DOS program, supported the full C spec at the time (or as much of it as I used, apart from fork() obviously), and allowed me to write graphical programs for MSDOS5. It was at least free as in beer, although I don't remember if the source was included or not. I stopped using it in 1992 when I started programming HPUX workstations. The point is that if that FSF hadn't existed, if RMS didn't write GCC, someone else's C compiler would have taken its place as the compiler of choice simply because other people were writing those sorts of thing at the time anyway. The Public Domain scene was *massive* for a time during the 80's and early 90's before Internet access became more widespread.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 21:23 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > The point is that if that FSF hadn't existed, if RMS didn't write GCC,> someone else's C compiler would have taken its place as the compiler of > choice simply because other people were writing those sorts of thing at > the time anyway. The Public Domain scene was *massive* for a time > during the 80's and early 90's before Internet access became more > widespread.
Seconded.
Anybody remember Jim Butterfield? My commodore 64 came bundled with a
http://www.commodore.ca/history/people/jim_butterfield_co...
Rob
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 13:01 UTC (Fri) by filker0 (guest, #31278) [Link] There was no free C compiler before GCC. What compiler were you using?This quote makes my point. There were free C compilers before GCC. I even mentioned one of them in my comment. In my senior year in college, I got a 9-track tape from the Decus library that contained 2 free C compilers, 7 or 8 Pascal compilers, 3 Lisp interpreters, a BCPL compiler, a BCP compiler, a number of Basic interpreters, and lots of other "Public Domain" compilers. This was in 1980. Several years before GNU, the GNU Manifesto, or GCC. It was because of what RMS saw as a betrayal of the trust that the PD software developers put in the community when releasing their code that he came up with the GNU Manifesto in the first place. RMS decided that the rules governing the Public Domain were too loose, allowing proprietary changes to once PD projects to be all proprietary, allowing credit to be stripped from a product and a company to claim complete ownership of the source even if all they did was add a command here or just their logo to the runtime start-up banner. The GPL was created to replace the Public Domain with a license that did not give up control of the code but expressed a perpetual free-use in the spirit of the software sharing community that RMS "grew up" in. You can thank Unipress for this, I think. If I recall correctly, they're the ones that pushed RMS over that cliff.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 14:18 UTC (Fri) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] Agreed. However:You can thank Unipress for this, I think. If I recall correctly, they're the ones that pushed RMS over that cliff. Whilst it was RMS who came up with the GPL itself, it's another case of there would have been someone else to step into the breach had he not done so. There were lots of rumblings during the late-80's (GPL1 was written in 1989) over these same issues, especially credit-stripping. Some people by that time were already putting their own usage and distribution restrictions in their README and/or documentation files. RMS was probably the first one to came up with a popular set of restrictions, but my licence history isn't so good here. But if RMS had decided to go into gardening instead, we'd still be pretty much where we are today, just with different players but similar licences and projects.
Free software, FOSS, RMS, and too much discursion Posted Mar 23, 2007 15:38 UTC (Fri) by filker0 (guest, #31278) [Link] I never meant to imply that RMS was unique in that regard. There were a number of us in thefree software community at the time who were just as upset about trends as he was. Our motivations overlapped, but were not always the same. My mention of Unipress is because of the Emacs debicle; that was Stallman's motive for becoming the advocate that he became. There were people who worked at DEC who were at least RMS's equal when it came to software freedom, but they had other motives as well (such as insuring the ability to run something they liked on hardware that the authors didn't support, or no longer supported.)
About that same time, AT&T decided to try to make a commercial go at Unix, and the licensing
My motivation for getting into the free software community was a mix of expansion of
I knew RMS at the time all this was happening, as he and I shared some friends. I doubt that he
My heros in the Free Software arena include the afore mentioned David Conroy (now at
RMS may still be involved in the development of software, but he has made himself into a full-
I am not anti-RMS, but I'm not pro, either. I do believe that the GNU project has done a lot of
So getting back to the original point -- RMS was pushed over the edge to become the advocate
I will not belittle what RMS has done, but I don't believe that he's the pioneer that some paint him
Free software, FOSS, RMS, and too much discursion Posted Feb 9, 2011 7:42 UTC (Wed) by rs79 (guest, #72801) [Link]
Agreed Dave Conroy is the real hero here. In 1975 I worked for Teklogix in Canada where Dave had worked and was still doing some consulting. He'd just finished University of Waterloo and wrote a C compiler for RSX11M.
Vik Sondi and I were the first two people I know of to use it, presumably others at Waterlook did, although I went there the next year and met most of the Unix poeple and never saw Dave's compiler used there - we didn't need to we had real Bell Labs Unix on a PDP 11/45 and it *had* a C compiler already - they had no need of RSX there. And we sure coldn't use Unix for real work. And RT-11 Sucked. Badly.
Dave gave the compiler to DECUS, the DEC users group. It popped up on my radar in Los Angeles in 1984 when we used it to generate Z8000 code. I noticed Dave's name was still in it. By 1992 or so I'd noticed the free C compiler I got from John "hoptoad" Gilmore's site said it was a port of the DECUS C compiler - and was now called "gcc".
I dunno what RMS wrote, but from what I've seen Dave Conroy wrote what is now called gcc.
As an aside, I met Charles Forsyth briefly at Waterloo. He looked a bit like a grown up Harry Potter and always wore a blue blazer. Dave looked like a deadhead, they were quite the pair.
There's a picture of me and Dave at the 1975 Teklogix company picnic in Terra Cotta, Ontario here: http://rs79.vrx.net/works/photoblog/2011/Feb/9/.rjsdgcs.j... I'm in the bicycle getup, I'd ridden 50 miles to get there, Dave is in the blue shirt and long hair.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 17:30 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > Good luck doing development without RMS's compiler.
Fabrice Bellard's Tiny C Compiler (http://tinyc.org) is somewhat stalled
So yeah, I've got that covered. It's still just on my todo list because
I've used Turbo/Borland C, I've used Watcom's x86->PPC cross compiler,
Rob
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:04 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] GNU doesn't claim ownership of programs built with GCC, either.
Of course GCC will never go GPLv3 only: that would have catastrophic consequences, as no non-GPLv3ed software would be buildable with such a GCC (which is obviously deleterious). The runtime libraries will remain under various flavours of GPL+exception (the precise nature of the exception varying depending on the nature of the language so as to ensure that programs compiled with GCC are not encumbered: the GNAT runtime, with its cross-unit inlining, needs different exceptions from libstdc++ needs, which needs different exceptions to libgcc or libjava...)
The *compiler* will probably go GPLv3 (except for the docs *sigh*), but GCC is more than just a compiler.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:28 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] GCC will go GPLv3 only, but all the support libraries GCC relies on have a "special exception" clause that essentially lets you build proprietary code with gcc.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 21:09 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] If gcc actually requires this exception than any gplv3 word processorwill require a similar exception to avoid the word processing documents you save out from being considered derived works of the word processor, and that's deeply silly.
They came up with lgpl for glibc because significant chunks of the
Having the exception to make you feel better is one thing, but compiling
Rob
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 14:19 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Word processors don't textually copy parts of the word processor intodocuments you save with it.
GCC *does* textually copy parts of itself (libgcc, libstdc++ headers,
Microsoft *do* claim rights over programs you build with their C compiler,
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 14:16 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] I was trying to emphasise that the *exceptions* would remain, andGPL+exception != GPL.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 21:40 UTC (Wed) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] > a trite 9-character slogan won't help you at all
I hope it does. " This didn't mean they would all agree with us, but at least they would pay attention to the arguments. They would give it serious consideration." http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html#...
>Nobody else strives to explain freedom with respect to knowledge?
Yes. Nobody. e.g. Linus says "Me, I just don't care about proprietary software. It's not "evil" or "immoral," it just doesn't matter."
What in effect he is saying is that copyright is not a problem. For me it is a serious problem and somebody needs to talk about it. Have you read Misintrepreting Copyright?
> FSF used to lead by example, now they're mostly shouting
Well they make 3/4 millon dollars a year. They can take leadership in developing sw. Even assuming the best leadership their contributions will be a drop in the FOSS ocean. (they have high priority projects http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html but that is still a drop)
Why was FSF important in 1980s? Becuase the community was relatively very small any technical contributions that they gave were significant. Being in a central place (the MIT) they could act as a clearing house, absorb and send out techinal impovements etc. With the advent of net anybody can do that, and there is no reason why the FOSS community needs them to act in that role.
FSFs importance was never merely technical, it has always been about the spread of the idea of freedom. They had an effect on the licensing terms of BSD, and other important projects. (everybody knows gplv2 is cool).
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch09.html
The arguments eventually took hold, although not in the way Stallman would have liked. In June, 1989, Berkeley separated its networking code from the rest of the AT&T-owned operating system and distributed it under a University of California license."
The modified BSD license as we know today is also in part due to RMS.
"The University of California's "obnoxious advertising clause" would later prove to be a problem. Looking for a less restrictive alternative to the GPL, some hackers used the University of California, replacing "University of California" with the name of their own instution. The result: free software programs that borrowed from dozens of other programs would have to cite dozens of institutions in advertisements. In 1999, after a decade of lobbying on Stallman's part, the University of California agreed to drop this clause."
RMS wrote a beautiful essay on Free Encylopedia in late 2000 if not earlier. You can see that he might as well have been talking about wikipedia (except that the essay preceded wikipedia).
To sum up. When it was important to develop code, fsf did that. Now it is more important to talk about freedom and they are doing that.
RMS has been clear about this. To paraphrase him "people are spreading gnu+linux but not talking about freedoms. if we dont tell them why gnu+linux is important, if we dont talk about freedoms they will lose the freedoms. i am going to spread the word becuase there are a lot of people spreading the SW"
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 22:17 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > >Nobody else strives to explain freedom with respect to knowledge?> > Yes. Nobody. e.g. Linus says "Me, I just don't care about proprietary > software. It's not "evil" or "immoral," it just doesn't matter."
Linus doesn't, therefore nobody does, because nobody except Linus
Note the question marks.
Now claiming that the FSF was vital to helping Steve Jackson fight to get
> The modified BSD license as we know today is also in part due to RMS.
Yeah, Stallman took credit for BSD when I drove up to Boston to interview
For a perspective on why open source is good that has nothing whatsoever
http://landley.net/writing/stuff/commodity.html
I'm sure he'll find a way to take credit for Adam Smith's invisible hand
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 2:26 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] That's why I like capitalism. (True capitalism. Not 'haha I am a big capitolist and I make lots of people lots of money; now pass laws to protect my market') It's goes very well with Freedom.
It's the economics that goes with the politics.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 0:42 UTC (Fri) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] > Linus doesn't, therefore nobody does,
"Linux community has done (and yes, I'll take at least some of the credit for that personally) has been to try to view it as just a license, i.e. strip the politics away from it." -Linus
It is not that nobody else does it. But just that I find that he is a good summary/reflection of OSS opinion.
> Before the FSF there was no such thing as freedom,
You are exaggerating here. I said that they talk about freedom of knowledge. Which is one aspect of the various freedoms of being a human.
> organizations like the ACLU are more recent developments?
I did not find that freedom of knowledge to be the defining role of ACLU, sure they have done good work with civil rights. But with freedom of knowledge?
Debian, EFF are much more recent organisations and dont do as much advocacy as FSF does.
>Yeah, Stallman took credit for BSD when I drove up to Boston to interview
Can you provide a link to his saying that? I know he claims to have influenced the BSD *License*, but I have not seen him take credit for the projects code. Link please.
>I'm sure he'll find a way to take credit for Adam Smith
> For a perspective on why open source is good
I have given enough thought to know that "open source" is good, your arguments are not new to me.
Knowledge is not property. Deal with it.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 17:03 UTC (Fri) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > But with freedom of knowledge?
http://lwn.net/Articles/177602/
And a couple hundred years earlier, how about Benjamin Franklin founding
> > Yeah, Stallman took credit for BSD when I drove up to Boston to
Ok, you see above where I said "I drove up to Boston to interview him in
He didn't claim credit for the code, he said that he spoke to someone (on
I've been doing my computer history research for a longish time. :)
During this interview I specificaly asked him what the FSF was doing
> Please stop this. RMS is controversial enough without you making things
I may be just a touch biased after my friends Kandy Danner and Stu Green
However, my point was that Stallman taking credit for Minix-inspired
> But Freedom of knowledge and Public Domain are even better than
Back in the last 90's my roommate was a graduate student getting a
http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rulemaker00...
And I've been following the Electronic Frontier Foundation since the
None of that has anything to do with the FSF.
> For a lot of people the slavery of copyright is OK.
Just a little over the top, don't you think?
> But for me it is not. d I wish not to be a slave to the "Intellectual
There are five major kinds of IP law: copyrights, patents, trademarks,
If I have it and you don't and I'm never going to tell you what it is,
Patents are designed to expire, and they make you document the thing.
Of course the more _obvious_ way you're in conflict with reality is that
Which of us has problem dealing with reality? Saying "it shouldn't be
Rob
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 28, 2007 4:05 UTC (Wed) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] >how about Benjamin Franklin founding the first public library in the country?
Your references are interesting. ACLU, EFF, Ben Franklin. "the country" by which i presume you mean USA.
I guess only 5% of the worlds population matters. The rest? ohh they can be slaves to copyright. Right? I have to reject that NorthAmerican centrisim.
Of all the orgs that you mentioned I have great respect for Micheal Hart of Project Gutenberg. He is an advocate of the Public Domain. and i dont think he likes more than 14 (maybe 28) year copyrights.
> And if you don't believe in copyrights, you should never
and allow other people to make put code back under the slavery of copyright. Nope. GPL defends Freedom, and I am not going to use anything inferior. Of course you understand this well
"[GPL] preamble explaining how it uses copyright law against itself, to effectively keep software in the public domain, and prevent it from being taken OUT of the public domain" -Rob Landley
> Of course the more _obvious_ way you're in conflict with reality
yeah... europe dominated the world for a 500 hundred years and copyright is ubiquitous since the colonial powers signed berne(?) in late 1800s. i see no reason to assume that law defines morality.
> only let you pay me for me to do it for you while you remain
Good strawman. Read "Against Intellectual Monopoly"
most of what we produce is for local consumption, in our local societies. if you reveal a secret in your local community, they why should people who are shores away pay you a royalty. because you are royalty and can impose your will on them? you mean colonial subjects. Now i get it.
I notice that you did not bother to reply to my assertion the OSS people dont care "if under current laws 99% of the worlds non-western people are criminals under copyright law." I presume you read "Misinterpreting Copyright"
non-western goverments (in the 60's and 70's)tried and failed to get better copyright treaties
C.F. Johnson,'The Origins of the Stockholm Protocol',
Access to Knowledge is another recent effort to deal with the salvery of copyright and other forms of "IP" .
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 23:07 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] You'll notice that I never claimed that Linus strives to explain freedom. That's clearly untrue. Good strawman argument though!
RMS predicted Wikipedia the same way he predicted a free Unix? So why doesn't he ask Wikimedia to call it "GNU+Wikipedia"? This would get a LOT more people to pay serious attention to the arguments than "GNU+Linux", wouldn't it? Probably a few orders of magnitude more.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 19:46 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] RMS predicted Wikipedia the same way he predicted a free Unix?In 2000? He was hardly the first man to come up with the concept of an electronic online encyclopedia written by a vast array of far-flung writers updated (semi | in | )frequently. Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide, anyone? That was 1978. Sorry, that's the GNU/Hitchhiker's Guide. RMS had the same idea, therefore the idea is his.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 1:30 UTC (Fri) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] >You'll notice that I never claimed that Linus strives
You claimed that RedHat is a counterexample, but are they. They have no problem with copyright. In fact claming that they have "intellectual property". Really? Since when are government granted monopolies property?
Property Rights and Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K.Levine
"All of this brings us to what intellectual property law is really about - a reality that is simply obscured by analogies to other types of property. Intellectual property law is not about your right to control your copy of your idea - this is a right that we have just pointed out, does not need a great deal of protection. What intellectual property law is really about is about your right to control my copy of your idea."
"The closest case is that of slavery. That is, the courts will not enforce a contract in which you sell yourself into slavery. In the case of slavery, as in the case of intellectual "property" we believe that the economic and moral arguments point in the same direction for the same reason. Your labor is irrevocably bound to your person. To enforce a contract in which you sell yourself to someone else requires them to enforce the contract by intrusive, expensive, and morally offensive measures. Hence we allow you to rent your labor, but not sell yourself."
> RMS predicted Wikipedia the same way he predicted a free Unix?
It is not merely about prediction. It is about setting out to work and trying to do it. "A similar non-wiki project, the GNUpedia project, co-existed with Nupedia early in its history; however, it has been retired and its creator, free-software figure Richard Stallman, has lent his support to Wikipedia."
Not just that, trying to come up with the principles of how it should be licensed etc... is important. I gave a link to the essay because he explains the principles clearly and I found them useful.
"The last and most important rule for pages in the encyclopedia is the exclusionary rule:
If a page on the web covers subject matter that ought to be in the encyclopedia or the course library, but its license is too restricted to qualify, we must not make links to it from encyclopedia articles or from courses. "
This is not about praising RMS. It is just that he is thoughtful and what he says has a lot of utility. We must consider his arguments both on rational and moral grounds. Whether we agree or not is a different matter.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 10:30 UTC (Fri) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] Wikipedia wasn't the first.
http://www.galactic-guide.com/faq/faq.shtml#what-is-pgg
The Galactic Guide started in 1991.
Can I mirror Galactic Guide? Posted Mar 28, 2007 3:23 UTC (Wed) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] Do I the freedoms of free culture w.r.t. Galactic Guide?
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 21, 2007 17:27 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > The general public hardly heard about Free Software or the freedoms.
Back in the 1970's there _was_ no proprietary software market to speak
In order to sell shrink-wrapped binary software, you need lots of the
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dec-faq/pdp8/
In its first two years, the Apple II sold a combined total of 43,000
The first "killer app" was Visicalc for the Apple II, written in 1979.
The proprietary software industry emerged around 1980 because there were
In this context, the founding of the Free Software Foundation in 1983 was
I repeat that the GPLv2 was great. It took several iterations to get it
Linux is NOT a reincarnation of the GNU project. When the GNU project
Posted Mar 22, 2007 2:47 UTC (Thu) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] Micro-soft was one of the first, and they were a shoestring operation with three employees, one of which was part time and one of which had a day job at HP. A Microsoft employee had a day job at HP? Which one? Are you sure you're not thinking of Apple computer and Woz? Draping a GNU flag over Linux is SILLY That's a matter of perspective. Personally, the software packages I rely on most are Bash, Emacs, GCC and GDB. Notice the pattern? I run these atop a Linux kernel at the moment, but draping a Linux flag over all that would be silly since I've also used FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris and even Microsoft Windows at times. The GNU project may not have become whatever you wish it had and there are certainly plenty of other important projects in the free software community, but it has not failed. GNU remains relevant to quite a few people. Deal with it.
Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:00 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > A Microsoft employee had a day job at HP? Which one? Are you sure> you're not thinking of Apple computer and Woz?
Ah, you're right. Paul Allen's day job for Microsoft's first year was at
> I've also used FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris and even Microsoft Windows at
I don't. I also use vi instead of Emacs, and I point out that Ubuntu has
> The GNU project may not have become whatever you wish it had and there
Unix won. MacOS X's Unix underpinnings are BSD, Linux was directly
The GNU project was one of a half-dozen independent rewrites of the basic
> GNU remains relevant to quite a few people.
I am not one of them.
The biggest boost GCC ever got was Sun's Ed Zander deciding to unbundle
Before that gcc was virtually unheard of, after that it became the
Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:07 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] You use vi over Emacs because of the *license*?!
Sheesh. Even RMS isn't remotely this rigid.
(Oh, and GCC was widely used and widely known in the embedded market long before Sun's unfortunate C compiler unbundling. Surely you know this, what with busybox's embedded penetration...)
Posted Mar 22, 2007 21:00 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > You use vi over Emacs because of the *license*?!
No, I use vi over Emacs because learning Lisp never struck me as a
> Oh, and GCC was widely used and widely known in the embedded market
First I've heard of it. What would that have to do with BusyBox? (Let's
Seems somewhat unlikely, since up through the 1990's the most common
Maybe you're referring to 68k, ala http://www.obviously.com/dice/ ?
According to
I know 1990 is about when I first heard of it. Then again, I was looking
Rob
Using Emacs requires learning Lisp? Posted Mar 23, 2007 18:27 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] No, I use vi over Emacs because learning Lisp never struck me as a reasonable requirement for a text editor to impose on its' users. How does editing text with Emacs require learning Lisp? I'll admit that I do know Lisp but I don't often apply that to Emacs. Even when I do I'm experimenting or adding some custom feature, which is not normal use. I appreciate the light footprint and ubiquity of vi and I have no trouble accepting that many people like it better than Emacs, but I hope you have some reasons less silly than this one.
Using Emacs requires learning Lisp? Posted Mar 26, 2007 12:53 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Doing anything much with Emacs customization used to require learning Lisp, but this hasn't been true for perhaps a decade. One of the problems with long-lived projects is that they acquire reputations which they then drag around long after they are no longer accurate.
(In any case, it's not as if elisp is very hard to learn, at least not to the depth required to customize Emacs. I learnt that much of it in two hours when I was twelve from the emacs-lisp-intro...)
Sic transit GNU Posted Mar 23, 2007 18:04 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] I also use vi instead of Emacs, and I point out that Ubuntu has replaced bash with dash as its' default #!/bin/sh in Edgy and Feisty (although I actually object to this because dash is broken). So? As far as I can tell your position is not merely that it's *possible* to get by without this or that GNU component (that's clearly true) but that GNU failed and is irrelevant. Since a substantial number of people depend on Emacs, Bash and other GNU components on a day to day basis that can't be true. Noting that there are other people who don't seems to be just another way to say, "there are certainly plenty of other important projects in the free software community" which I said above. Unix won. Yes, obviously. But that's beside the point. The GNU project didn't set out rewrite Unix for technical reasons. Their goal was to ensure that a complete, free software operating system would be available. Distributions such as Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu and others may not be all things to all people (and yes, I know "Saint Ignutius" himself is unwilling to bless them) but GNU components remain a vital part of each and the free software philosophy articulated and promoted by RMS played a substantial role in making them what they are. Spinning history to obscure this is not productive. You don't have to personally like RMS, to call the Linux based operating system on your computer GNU, to use the forthcoming GPLv3 as a license for your own work or otherwise accept any suggestion from the Free Software Foundation to appreciate the contributions they have made and continue to make to this community.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 23, 2007 15:22 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] To be totally accurate, libc5 for Linux was a early version of GNU libc, hacked up so it wasn't recognizable anymore (because the starting point was very sorely lacking abandonware; Linux needing a decent libc made GNU libc development (re)start in earnest).
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 12:24 UTC (Thu) by broonie (subscriber, #7078) [Link] Debian uses the term GNU/Linux (and GNU/Hurd, and GNU/kFreeBSD).
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:36 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > Debian uses the term GNU/Linux (and GNU/Hurd, and GNU/kFreeBSD).
And there's a reason they do so and that nobody else of any size does.
From Chapter 10 of Richard Stallman's biography, "Free as in Freedom",
> Shortly after the Manifesto's release, the Free Software Foundation
So Bruce Perens took credit for that decision.
Rob
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 22, 2007 19:18 UTC (Thu) by broonie (subscriber, #7078) [Link] Given the state of the Debian lists and the political views of many people associated with it's as much "It's easier to call it GNU/Linux than to deal with people banging on about how we should do that" as anything else.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 29, 2007 18:15 UTC (Thu) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link] >"GNU/Linux" was not used until 1994, pretty late in the game.
I installed Yggdrasil LGX (Linux/GNU/X) in 1993.
First FOSS OS? Posted Mar 29, 2007 18:44 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] So did I, but not until early '95.
Personally, I think "Linux/GNU/X" is a great name.
Coherent Posted Mar 21, 2007 10:46 UTC (Wed) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > we started working on a free Unix clone that we were going to call "Pubix". It never got very far
Otherwise one assumes you'd have changed the name after the first couple of roomfuls of people broke out in giggling fits...
Coherent Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:43 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] If we thought we were seeing some (petty) people complain about the correct pronunciation of `Linux'... it could have been so much worse. :)
Pubix Posted Mar 23, 2007 13:34 UTC (Fri) by filker0 (guest, #31278) [Link] Actually, it was a deliberate pun. Something to do with a castrated Multics being a Unix, and Pubixbeing intact...
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 19, 2007 22:58 UTC (Mon) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link] > Linux was released in September 1991 (initially proprietary...) It's a little late now, but I wanted to post a clarification of this point. Linus' original license was very stringent, but not what's normally thought of as proprietary. See his comments in this article. It was originally "freer than free," or more stringently "free" (as in beer) than GPL. It was not closed source, of course.
GNU+Busybox Posted Mar 18, 2007 18:02 UTC (Sun) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] > It's very much NOT a gnu project
And nobody said it was. There is GNU software in the distribution. Give them credit for it. Call it GNU+Busybox or Busybox+GNU
>Stallman claimed credit for this (patch) code
Can you give me a link to such a claim?
> Stallman's been marginalized because he hasn't done anything new
I guess travelling the world incessantly and explaining people the importance of Free Software does not count.
>The GNU/Linux/Dammit thing is purely Richard Stallman's ego
"Some people think that it's because I want my ego to be fed. Of course, I'm not asking you to call it "Stallmanix". -RMS
I have friends who have done masters in CS but dont know FSF let alone RMS. Never heard of "Free Software" but did hear of "Open Source"
" Before that time, there was no complete free operating system, but there were many important parts of one and people would install them on top of non-free operating systems because they were not only free but also usually better. And when they did so, they realised they were installing these GNU programs, so they thought of themselves as fans or enthusiasts of GNU, and when they saw the articles that were in some of these packages, explaining the philosophy of Free Software, the same philosophy that I've been telling you today, they would think "Oh, this is the philosophy behind GNU, and I like GNU, I should read this." This didn't mean they would all agree with us, but at least they would pay attention to the arguments. They would give it serious consideration. So we had a chance to convince them, and if we did convince them, then they would feel a motivation to contribute to Free Software, to contribute to GNU. So the software spread the philosophy, and the philosophy extended the software.
Once people started using more-or-less the entire GNU system, and thinking it was Linux, then, using the GNU system no longer lead people to our philosophy - that I've told you today, the philosophy of the Free Software movement - instead it lead people to look at the philosophy of the developer of Linux." -RMS
> The GPLv2 is highly cool, but it's not code. You can't run it.
RMS most important contribution is the philosophy of Free Software. Apart from that, one of his best and IMO most important essay is "Misinterpreting Copyright"
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 20, 2007 10:33 UTC (Tue) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] > http://sources.redhat.com/ml/libc-announce/2001/msg00000....
Wow. This needs more circulation around the media, especially as RMS is trying to flex his muscles again.
Here's a snippet:
==========
Stallman recently tried what I would call a hostile takeover of the
The morale of this is that people will hopefully realize what a
The glibc situation is even more frightening if one realizes the story
Which brings us to the second point. One change the SC forced to
The most remarkable thing is that Stallman was all for this despite
[...] For example, permission to use the GNU C Library in non-free
This $&%$& demands everything to be labeled in a way which credits him
=========
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 21, 2007 12:08 UTC (Wed) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] Six years old, publicly available, and pretty typical of a spat between developers. What's your motivation for posting it here?
We know what RMS wants; but I'm curious - who is NigelK, what does he represent, and why is he so keen to attack RMS using any means he can find? What is it you *want* from this, exactly?
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 21, 2007 12:21 UTC (Wed) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] What do I want? I want a stable environment for programmers to collaborate in free from politics and idealism. The GPL3 is in direct opposition to that because it places restrictions on what product people can build using their own code if they want to licence that code solely under the GPL3.
I also want an environment free from FSF scaremongering, or at least an acceptance that it's not just Microsoft who uses FUD to promote their own agenda.
The FSF aren't acting in the interests of programmers anymore, period.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 21, 2007 19:37 UTC (Wed) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link] FSF was never about programmers. It was about users and users freedoms.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 9:33 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] Yes, but for the FSF, users == programmers. The GPL is all about securing free access to the source code so people can hack on it some more and share the results. Anselm
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:59 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] Yep. It was only when people started using GPL code in products that RMS didn't approve of that the spin changed and the GPL was all about users rather than code.
Certainly in the projects I'm involved with, it's all about the code rather than "freedom".
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 11:30 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] The GPL can't really be »all about users« when it explicitly says that it does not regulate use of the code but modification and distribution (in original or modified form). The closest most »users« come to exploiting their GPL freedoms is when they pass complete Linux CDs on to their buddies (which is a good thing, to be sure), but to really make use of the freedoms the GPL gives you, you need to be a programmer. Which, to the FSF, used to be fine, because on ITS, everybody was a programmer! It is only with today's easily available PCs etc. that the gap between »users« and »programmers« has become so obvious. In fact, the main paradigm shift with GPLv3 is that it tries to branch out into regulating what may be done with the code (e.g., don't build a DRM system with secret keys) rather than to the code (e.g., change it, pass it on). It is understandable that many people do not buy this. Anselm
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 29, 2007 18:40 UTC (Thu) by TRauMa (guest, #16483) [Link] The GPL can't be all about users if it doesn't impose restrictions on users? Huh? I think you get it completely backwards here, the GPL imposes restrictions on distributors to ensure the freedom of the users.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:09 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Read the GNU Manifesto. It has *always* been about the users, from day 1. (It doesn't require that users be programmers in order to benefit: non-programmer users can hire programmers if the software is free, which is not an option otherwise.)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 11:13 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > The GPL3 is in direct opposition to that because it places restrictions on what product people can build using their own code if they want to licence that code solely under the GPL3.
I don't believe you. Justify that statement.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 21, 2007 15:52 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] > We know what RMS wants
Well, apparently RMS wanted to wrest control of glibc from Ulrich Drepper, but we don't know why. At least I still don't. Drepper is very smart and a phenomental maintainer.
> Six years old, publicly available, and pretty typical of a spat between developers.
Typical? No way. Power struggles among developers tend to be rare in open source. Disagreements are resolved by code forks, not by smoky room politics. It's a wonderful way to work.
In this case, however, Stallman tried to secretly undermine Drepper. In the 10 years that I've been working with open source software, I can only think of one other situation that's even close to this: Bruce Perens trying to wrestle for control of Busybox. At least Bruce had the decency to pull his shenanigans in public.
I'm very glad to say that, unsurprisingly, both Perens and RMS failed. However, the frustration, confusion, and ill will that they caused is tangible today and will continue to sour attitudes for many years to come. It's a shameful way to work.
Lysse, can you name another case where someone has tried use his political standing to wrestle control of an open source project from an active maintainer using rhetoric and secret negotiation, not code?
your claims are incorrect Posted Mar 22, 2007 4:43 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] glibc was originally written mainly by Roland McGrath, while he was an FSF paid employee. It was later taken over by Uli Drepper, who has written more of it than anyone else.It is true that there was a period, years ago, when there was some fighting between Uli Drepper, RMS, and other developers, but those arguments have been mostly worked out. It wasn't just RMS vs. Drepper, the battles were more complicated than that. It just wasn't working for glibc to be Uli Drepper's personal cathedral, any more than it worked for GCC to be RMS's or Richard Kenner's personal cathedral. Hence the establishment of a steering committee, something that had worked well for egcs, something some of Drepper's admirers called a power grab by RMS. In any case, all of glibc was and is legally assigned to the FSF, and Red Hat and Cygnus before them had blanket assignments contributing all of their employees' work. Uli would have had to quit if he really wanted to split with the FSF, and even then he couldn't change the copyright on code he already contributed; it was no longer legally his.
your claims are incorrect Posted Mar 22, 2007 6:38 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] As far as I understand, Drepper was perfectly fine with the FSF maintaining copyright over glibc. He just didn't agree with RMS swooping in from nowhere and declaring mandates from on high. I do agree that RMS had some valid grievances, it's just too bad that he went about addressing them in a short-sighted, apparently politically-motivated way. Luckily RMS backed down, Drepper backed down, and sanity prevailed.
Yes, the arguments have long since been settled, but some resentment and mistrust from that situation exists to this day.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 13:07 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > In this case, however, Stallman tried to secretly undermine Drepper.
Is there external support for this? Has Stallman ever commented on it? Do we have anything besides Drepper's own accounts? (Note that I'm not saying Drepper misrepresented the situation; I'm sure he called it exactly as he saw it. However, when we only have half of one side it's simply not possible to get a complete objective picture of what happened, so I'd be interested to know if there's anything else out there.)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:21 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] Well, if you're really interested, google finds a fair amount of mailing list discussion on this topic. Be warned, though: it's pretty one-sided. That might be evidence that RMS really did try to work in secret, or it might just be evidence of incomplete mailing list archives. Dunno. I didn't experience this disaster first-hand so I can only speculate.
Here are some thread heads... I almost didn't post these because I couldn't find a single message explaining RMS's side of the situation. I despise Fox news -- I truly would like to see an alternate viewpoint. I hope someone else can find and post one?
http://www.redhat.com/archives/redhat-install-list/2001-A...
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 21, 2007 20:03 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > Six years old, publicly available, and pretty typical of a spat between> developers.
You mean the way Linus Torvalds announced that the Linux kernel was GPLv2
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0009.1/0096...
> What's your motivation for posting it here?
My motivation? (Since I posted the original link?) Supporting my
His for cutting and pasting: I'm guessing because it was the first he'd
> We know what RMS wants; but I'm curious - who is NigelK,
Oh sure, shoot the messenger. You can always turn it into an ad homynym
> what does he represent, and why is he so keen to attack RMS using any
Who _I_ am (I'm not nigelk but he was responding to my message) is among
Who else I am is the ex-maintainer of busybox who abandoned the project
I've posted fairly extensive reasons why I think GPLv3 is a horrible
Rob
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:48 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] You appear to have a severe case of creditophilia. Why does it *matter* who gets credit? Isn't the *software* more important? (If it isn't, what's the point in working on it at all? Why not just start an advertising campaign or something?)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 11:04 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] Why does it *matter* who gets credit?It's part of the motivation to do something for the community. There are few totally unselfish acts in the world. Next question: Why does the FSF think that the GPL contains an advertising clause to the effect that Linux (and indeed *any* kernel: cf "GNU/Solaris") *must* be named GNU/Linux, regardless of the project leader's wishes, even though advertising clauses are incompatible with the GPL?
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 16:14 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > It's part of the motivation to do something for the community. There> are few totally unselfish acts in the world.
I'm not in it for praise. I do lots of things anonymously, things I'll
But it PISSES ME OFF when somebody else takes credit for my work (yes if
Adding retroactive strings to their own work ("I know you thought this
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:18 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] To be pedantic, stealing charity donations is theft (the original owner no longer possesses the donations). Likewise stealing a street sign.
Taking credit for something that is not your work is not theft (well, not in UK law and I'd be astonished to find it's theft in any common-law country). Misrepresentation may or may not be an offence: intent is all, as is usual in the law. Promoting a political platform you disagree with is also not a crime (well, not in non-totalitarian regimes, anyway, and I can't really see how one could use any piece of non-censorware to promote a political platform. Busybox ls is a political statement now?!)
(disclaimer: IANAL but seemingly half my relatives are various forms of IP lawyer so I hear a lot of this sort of stuff...)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:14 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] The GPL does contain an advertising clause, of sorts: clause 2c. However, this doesn't require that you name your program GNU/anything, nor does the FSF claim that it does.
RMS's rather quixotic one-man campaign to rename Linux-the-OS (as opposed to the GPLed Linux-the-kernel, which he has never suggested renaming) is not required by the license. He just thinks it's a way of giving the GNU Project credit.
Other people think this is silly: and perhaps it is (I take no stand on this myself: people can name things whatever the hell they like as far as I'm concerned). But legal concerns are not involved.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 23, 2007 9:08 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] Next question: Why does the FSF think that the GPL contains an advertising clause to the effect that Linux (and indeed *any* kernel: cf "GNU/Solaris") *must* be named GNU/Linux, regardless of the project leader's wishes, even though advertising clauses are incompatible with the GPL?Ah, I know the answer to that one: it is a straw man. The FSF never wanted to rename the Linux kernel, or indeed any other kernel; just the complete operating system. Quoting from the GNU page: There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is not the operating system. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in a combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU, with Linux functioning as its kernel.Furthermore, the FSF does not think that any software "*must*" be called by any names. The FSF suggests that you call the complete system GNU/Linux, but they don't go about suing or otherwise coercing anyone about it (unless you call Stallman's obnoxious corrections when being interviewed a form of "coercion"). You know, there is a difference between a polite request and an obligation. Quoting again: Whether you use GNU/Linux or not, please don't confuse the public by using the name “Linux” ambiguously. Linux is the kernel, one of the essential major components of the system. The system as a whole is more or less the GNU system, with Linux added. When you're talking about this combination, please call it “GNU/Linux”.You may or may not disagree with this position, but misrepresenting it is not a solid way to have a discussion.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 23, 2007 10:49 UTC (Fri) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] Oh please...
In practice, the FSF (and it isn't just Stallman) is trying to get the *generic* term for a Linux system to be GNU/Linux. You can see this in their interactions with the media (cf. the recent Information Week articles) that they will not tolerate references to "Linux" in any articles featuring interviews with them.
This is in spite of the embedded field where the GNU portion is fractional - and can be replaced with something else if need be.
And don't get me started on the low proportion of GNU software in most Linux distros... The FSF is just one player of many these days, and certainly not more worthy of a credit in the system name than the other players (the ones who are *really* responsible for Linux's current success, like Apache, KDE, Mozilla, OpenOffice, OpenSSH, MySQL, Perl, Python, etc, etc...).
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 23, 2007 12:19 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] Your original message pretended that the FSF wanted to rename the kernel, and implied that they were somehow using coercion via the GPL to get there. Nonsense. Now you want to discuss if they have any right to name the operating system, fine, let's discuss it once more, but this time with concrete numbers.First, the embedded field is not the primary focus of Stallman or the FSF, as you may or not have guessed. It plays a growing part in their concerns however. IMHO it is reasonable for the FSF to ask people to use the name "GNU/Linux"; after all, it was Stallman who came out with the idea of a libre, complete operating system, and they are the only ones providing it: GlibC, GCC, Emacs, Bash, Core- and FileUtils and GNOME; with the known exception of the kernel. Counting all of these makes out for a reasonably large portion of GNOME-based distros such as Ubuntu Linux. Many of the software packages you mention are either alternatives or not part of the operating system, but whatever, let's compare them. All in all the GNU project is probably the largest software provider in most GNU/Linux distributions, with at least 15 million lines of code, vs 8 for OpenOffice, 6 for Linux, 4 for KDE and 3 for Mozilla. Yes, I have counted them. As others have pointed out, the amount of software provided by the FSF is dwindling with time, since other large packages are being added to most distributions. That can only be seen as a good thing, and the FSF doesn't seem to worry about that. Again, more important than the quantity of software is the fact that GNU is the only project willing to develop (not just distribute) a complete operating system. They have provided the necessary pieces of infrastructure that nobody else cared about. (Once Landley's GNU-less project is released we can revisit this discussion if you want.) Linux itself has already been replaced. So the answer for me is a resounding yes on three counts: history, numbers and necessity say that it is reasonable for the GNU project to get a mention in the complete system name. Now if only popularity is to be measured, as you seem to imply, then GNU should indeed be disregarded.
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 23, 2007 13:30 UTC (Fri) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] "We did a lot of work, therefore we should get more influence than that stated in our GPL on the projects which use some of our code."
Nope, Free Software doesn't work like that. Shame on you.
If you're not happy with just being listed in the CREDITS file (or equivalent), then don't release code under the GPL. Find a licence with an advertising clause rather than working outside the licence you choose.
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 23, 2007 14:25 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Argument-chop-and-change much?
I really *really* want an LWN killfile. It only needs one name in it so
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 31, 2007 8:29 UTC (Sat) by muwlgr (guest, #35359) [Link] ... voice from the crowd : "petegn! petegn!":>
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 23, 2007 18:30 UTC (Fri) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > IMHO it is reasonable for the FSF to ask people to use the> name "GNU/Linux"; after all, it was Stallman who came out with the idea > of a libre, complete operating system, and they are the only ones > providing it...
Ok, let's go to http://www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/ and read the bit right
> This site contains copies of distribution tapes, other source and
I repeat my earlier assertion that for most of the 1970's proprietary
Which gets us back to "the FSF wasn't being visionary, it was being
> Linux itself has already been replaced.
Plus existence of BSD and MacOSX and the Posix certifications of Windows
Closer to home, Shawn Jackman built a subset of the BusyBox applets under
What Linux pioneered was modern open source collaborative development
The Cathedral and the Bazaar was a paper about how Linus's working style
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 24, 2007 0:40 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] Ok, let's go to http://www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/ and read the bit right above the download link:I'm not sure I follow you, the existence of large libraries of public domain code (even complete operating systems) at a moment in time is nice, but the real problem would come when IBM and the rest changed their view on copyright and started asserting it. Stallman set out to make an OS which could not be made proprietary. I repeat my earlier assertion that for most of the 1970's proprietary software wasn't even an issue on the hobbyist programmer community's radar.True, that is precisely why Stallman was being visionary by being concerned before the rest of the world saw the problem of the proprietary approach everyone was taking. Which gets us back to "the FSF wasn't being visionary, it was being reactionary and conservative from day 1".A bit contradictory (or again I'm not following you), Stallman saw the problem not only with proprietary development, but also with public domain and BSD-style licenses. That is why he created the GPLv2 and the FSF. Why is that "reactionary"? The Cathedral and the Bazaar was a paper about how Linus's working style differed from that of the FSF. (The cathedral was specifically the FSF.)I have seen this assertion of yours a couple of times, and it is what made me answer this post: where do you get this impression? Even in the abstract we read: I discuss these theories in terms of two fundamentally different development styles, the ``cathedral'' model of most of the commercial world versus the ``bazaar'' model of the Linux world.Or this paragraph: Perhaps this is not only the future of open-source software. No closed-source developer can match the pool of talent the Linux community can bring to bear on a problem. Very few could afford even to hire the more than 200 (1999: 600, 2000: 800) people who have contributed to fetchmail!I don't think Raymond considers GNU as "closed-source". There are a thousand examples all over the text where "cathedral" is equated with "closed-source", "proprietary", "commercial" etc. It is true that FSF development seems to be more "cathedralicious" or centralized than other free software projects, but saying that they were the epitome of cathedral development is quite misguided IMHO. The FSF insisted on physical copyright assignments with a signature on a piece of paper, and still do. Linus often merges over a hundred patches in a day, that kind of bureaucracy just wouldn't work.I don't see why not. The piece of paper is just needed once per developer; after that you can contribute as much as you want. Given that developers do not change that much, that many of them come from companies (which can ease much of the paperwork) and that copyright assignment is not needed for one-line patches, it is not a significant entry barrier.
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 24, 2007 17:48 UTC (Sat) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > > Ok, let's go to http://www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/ and read the bit> > right above the download link: > > I'm not sure I follow you, the existence of large libraries of public > domain code (even complete operating systems) at a moment in time is > nice, but the real problem would come when IBM and the rest changed > their view on copyright and started asserting it. Stallman set out to > make an OS which could not be made proprietary.
IBM didn't make the existing versions proprietary, they stopped releasing
IBM's big change of heart was called the "Object Code Only (OCO) Policy",
Here's the final report of SHARE's attempt to get IBM to change its mind
And an history article putting it in context:
> > I repeat my earlier assertion that for most of the 1970's proprietary
Going from a world that had less than a hundred thousand computers in it
> > Which gets us back to "the FSF wasn't being visionary, it was being
He was striving to maintain the status quo. Return to the glorius past.
He may have been right, but that doesn't change the nature of his
Fast forward to _today_ and people are going "oh, what great new insights
> > The Cathedral and the Bazaar was a paper about how Linus's working
From Eric Raymond directly, while editing The Art of Unix Programming
It's in the book, though, if you look for it:
> But few of us really thought very hard about what we were doing, or
A couple times he's talked about a specific 1996 conference that Tim
> I don't see why not. The piece of paper is just needed once per
Needed at precisely the wrong time.
I touched on it here: http://lkml.org/lkml/2002/1/29/9
Most developers start out as casual contributors. A line here, a bugfix
> developers do not change that much,
In a project with 1000 semi-regular contributors, the top 20 don't change
The point is where do they come from? Let's look at a couple of
Con Koliavs: scheduler dude. When he got into Linux his day job was as
Andrew Morton, current #2 in the development community. Only got involved
Even the early adopters did stuff before Linux. Alan Cox used to do
Back when I read the first year or so of the linux kernel mailing list, I
Now ask yourself: how many of those people would have just wandered away
Attracting and breaking in new developers is extremely important to the
Rob
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 26, 2007 12:58 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] `A line here, a bugfix there' do not and have never required copyright assignment papers.
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 26, 2007 16:53 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] Sure they did. Back in the late 90s, I wanted to submit a 15 line rather obvious bugfix to the viper elisp package. It took a snail mail letter and three weeks to clear up the copyright assignment. I almost didn't bother.
I do hope you're right and the FSF is being more realistic now. Not to long ago, though, they required papers for just about anything. I think I still have the proof in my filing cabinet!
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 27, 2007 14:37 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] The rule-of-thumb the FSF uses is `if the fix is trivial, no assignment is required: things ten lines long or less are assumed trivial'.
It looks like you slipped in just above that limit.
(I find it very little effort to do the occasional copyright assignment dance: the *really* annoying part is getting your employer to disclaimer-of-rights forms, because even if they agree they can be *so* damn slow at it it's not true. I've had to wait >6mths for these sometimes.)
Should it be GNU/Linux Posted Mar 26, 2007 21:55 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] [about RMS, and his visionary qualities]That is like saying that Mohandas Gandhi was reactionary because he just wanted to "return to the glorious past" when the English did not rule India. True, but lopsided. Stallman wanted not to return to a naïve past where kind people shared code, but go on to a new situation where people wrote free software because they wanted it to be free, and companies (a new concept) pooled their effort. Guess what, it works. [again about RMS, and his cathedralicious model of development]Ah, you worried me. For a moment I thought it was there, plain for all to see as a central recurrent theme and I had missed it: that instead of talking about closed, proprietary software Raymond was speaking about his old buddy Stallman all the time. But it is sort of hidden, isn't it?
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 16:03 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > You appear to have a severe case of creditophilia. Why does it *matter*> who gets credit?
I don't care about getting credit for my work. It's a gift.
I am deeply offended by somebody ELSE taking credit for my work. That's
I'm sorry you don't understand this distinction. Neither does the FSF.
Rob
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:55 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] His for cutting and pasting: I'm guessing because it was the first he'd seen it, so it was new to him?Yep. It opened my eyes to the antics of the "leaders" of the FLOSS scene. Having recently been disillusioned by PJ of Groklaw, the discoveries of RMS's and Perens' previous antics have been fascinating to me. I went off organised religion as a kid, and only recently have I discovered that extended to the computer field as well. Self-selected "leaders" have usually (with a few exceptions) put their own interests first. The moral of the story? Think for yourself, and work *with* others. Co-operation rather than conflict. That way great things happen.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 12:14 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > Self-selected "leaders" have usually (with a few exceptions) put their own interests first.
Honestly, if the basis of your ill-feeling towards Stallman is simply disillusionment, then please, deal with it in private. Being a "great" person is pretty much fundamentally incompatible with being a nice person, because part of it is having the ego and the mulishness to insist that you're right when everyone else is telling you not to be silly; and expecting people such as Stallman or PJ to be somehow immune from the vices, doubts and insecurities that plague the rest of us is asking them to be something other than human.
But as far as "self-selected leader" goes, what sets Stallman apart is that he didn't move. At a time when everyone was taking a route away from what he regarded as a core principle, he dug his heels in - but he also DID something about it. (Not just GNU; before that there was Emacs, and before that the wholesale recreation of the Symbolics OS for the Lisp Machines Inc machines. And of course, before that there was Emacs again.) Stallman didn't go anywhere; he just found himself a leader when people started looking to him for direction. So it went to his head. Are you seriously claiming it wouldn't have gone to yours? The person that is Stallman is of vanishing insignificance; anyone with his ability could have made his choices. What is significant - his refusal to compromise his ideals; his advocacy of freedom in moral terms, rather than pragmatic ones; his ability to read the writing on the wall - are the very qualities for which people dislike him, yet without those there probably wouldn't BE a free software movement today, let alone one causing Microsoft sleepless nights.
And for reference, I've never knowingly used the term "GNU/Linux", as far as I recall, and I have no inclination to start.
(PS. Conflict is responsible for more invention, art, and pretty much any creative human endeavour than anything else. Don't be so hasty to condemn it. Without it, we'd have hegemony, and we certainly wouldn't have freedom.)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:23 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Now that's a good reason not to use the term GNU/Linux: like the earlier unlamented Lignux it's a pig-ugly term (and to his credit he recognized that `Lignux' was horrible and stopped using it).
RMS has come up with a good few really nasty names for things and rarely realises when they're non-euphonious... (mind you he's picked some good names, too: Emacs isn't bad, and POSIX is so much better a name than IEEEIX that it's not true.)
RMS is stubborn as anything, yes, but a good few of his stubborn stands are *right*. (Not all of them: most people I've talked to think the GFDL is a mistake, for instance.)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 16:15 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > I went off organised religion as a kid, and only recently have I> discovered that extended to the computer field as well. > Self-selected "leaders" have usually (with a few exceptions) put their > own interests first.
Linus is refreshingly up-front about it though, isn't he? :)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 16:48 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] I've yet to see Torvalds try and shape the world outside his project. I've seen him give various opinions on various subjects, but that's to be expected when you're the leader of such a high-profile project. I've also yet to see him take credit for other people's work.
In other words, he's just what you'd expect of a project leader (multiplied by the fact that Linux is such a public-facing project) - out to enable people rather than hinder them.
I've now lost count of the number of times FSF-mouthpiece Groklaw has railed against decisions and practices (outside the courts) which are actually acceptable inside the industry. When I realised they didn't understand business or the needs of the tech sector (cf. binary "blobs", so-called Tivoization, etc), I realised that (aside from the SCO saga) they didn't speak for me, or for people with my background (generic geek programming and using computers at work and at home who want to help out other people where they can).
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 17:09 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] Luckily PJ is back on the SCO case, where she is simply amazing. I agree, her detours into "NOVELL IS BACKDOORING OPENOFFICE!!!!" etc. were wrong at best, and bold-faced lies at worst. Thankfully, the Utah courts are back in session and PJ appears to have mellowed out. You might want to give her another chance... people do make mistakes.
Even fake, invented-by-IBM people. :)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 17:18 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] I still follow the site, but I don't contribute anymore. The tipping point was the deletion of posts critical of the FSF and of the GPL3 - you can only be neutral or positive about either, and if you criticize the GPL3, you're told your views don't matter because it doesn't exist yet.
People pointing out the contradictions between "software patents are being awarded for trivial pieces of code" and "Linux (however you define it) cannot possibly infringe patents" also got silenced and their posts deleted.
So I basically now just read it for the information, and not the editorial. She doesn't understand the tech, nor the industry, so her value is only in the lawsuit coverage.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:25 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Of course she's never ever said that she's not a techie. (Only in, oh, virtually every article touching on tech matters. But I can see how you might have missed that.)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 19:08 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] The point isn't that she's pretending to be a techie. The point is that she doesn't understand the technical issues, and yet feels comfortable writing sensational incorrect conclusions on matters she doesn't understand, yet she feels able to speak for the community on these subjects.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 23, 2007 14:28 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] As far as I'm aware she's writing a popular bloggy thing. She didn't insome way *insist* that people Let Her Speak For The Community: she's in that position de facto because a large number of people think she's worthy of it. It's not a position that it's possible to `resign' from (without entirely ceasing to write anything publically visible!)
That's how the rank structure we don't have works. My apologies that the
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 23, 2007 14:49 UTC (Fri) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] Wow, you make popular unqualified bloggers sound more important than people who actually know what they're talking about. I'll leave you (and others like you) to wallow and panic in your collective ignorance.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 23, 2007 15:20 UTC (Fri) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] As an exercise for the reader, read through the Groklaw articles and count the instances of phrases along the lines of
* "The community doesn't want that."
* "The community doesn't work like that."
* "CommunityMemberFooBar is not acting in the interests of the community."
She seems to write about what the community wants, and yet her views only represent a small part of it these days.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 26, 2007 12:59 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] The only panicker (and conspiracy theorist) on this thread seems to be you.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 11:39 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > Who _I_ am (I'm not nigelk but he was responding to my message)
I _know_ who you are; you're open about your credentials, and whilst I may disagree with your opinions you have given me the option of respecting them in context. Moreover, if I'd wanted to know why you posted the link, I'd have asked you; but since NigelK isn't an alias for you, you can no more speak for him than I can. (I've learned my lesson about checking attributions.)
NigelK's only contribution to this thread seems to be to attempt a covert character assassination of Stallman, and by extension the FSF - and frankly, I suspect, the whole concept of freedom-guaranteed software. When someone appears to be working to an agenda, it's reasonable to ask them what it is. And if all NigelK's vehemence is based on is what he's read in the last few years, then frankly it's nothing but prejudice and he should damned well keep it to himself.
(And I'd describe who I am too, but the fact is I don't have any credentials to claim. I'm just someone who calls bullshit when I see it; if I do have an agenda, it's "all freedoms originate with the freedom to decline".)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 12:02 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] NigelK's only contribution to this thread seems to be to attempt a covert character assassination of Stallman, and by extension the FSF - and frankly, I suspect, the whole concept of freedom-guaranteed software.Yes, this is an example of the things I don't like emanating from the FSF: criticize FSF, or any of the FSF-associated personalities, and you're labeled as anti-freedom. This is in spite of the fact that I write code under GPL2 and BSD licences - but that doesn't count if you don't buy into the current FSF dogma. I don't write code to further any organisation's agenda. I do it to help out other people on terms that are acceptable to myself. And I do it bloody well.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 12:18 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > this is an example of the things I don't like emanating from the FSF
I'm in no way affiliated with that, or any other, organisation. If I say something, it's because I believe it personally. And frankly, you did seem to be parlaying a disgust with Stallman into a condemnation of the FSF - that's how it looked to me. Say it ain't so and I'll be happy to accept that. For myself - because I never could bear to speak for anyone else.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 16:44 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > (And I'd describe who I am too, but the fact is I don't have any> credentials to claim. I'm just someone who calls bullshit when I see > it; if I do have an agenda, it's "all freedoms originate with the > freedom to decline".)
I declined to abandon GPLv2, and couldn't get the darn FSFhova's
I decline to work on the GNU project, I work on Linux systems instead,
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 19:39 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] OK, I've explained that (a) I'm a nobody, (b) I don't have a problem with you, and (c) I'm not connected with the FSF at all. Should I also have explained that I don't see your actions as being in violation of the principle with which I did associate myself, even though I don't see Stallman's actions as violating it either? If so - you got it; I'm sure you are as much on the side of the angels as he is; and attempting to play "you're either with me or against me" games is silly and wrong whoever does it.
As to the DRM issue: If the reasoning behind the use of DRM on a device is to only allow the distribution of authorised binaries signed with a universal key, then fine - provide a unique key with each machine that allows binaries to be signed for, and used on, only that machine. That way, I can recompile and replace the software, and distribute everything needed to do so - I just can't distribute a precompiled binary, which may be a technical annoyance but is not a limitation of my freedom to share my work (because anyone else can do what I did to generate a binary).
As I understand the FSF, their concern is that the freedom of a user to receive, alter and redistribute software is meaningless if you can't actually USE it; such a solution would solve that problem whilst allowing the use of signed binaries. Would such a scheme be acceptable under the proposed GPL3? If not, then it appears that I also have a problem with that proposal. But if it would, then for the life of me I can't see what all the fuss is about!
And that's just one suggestion made by a nobody (which is probably why for the couple of months I've been saying it, nobody's taken the blindest bit of notice of me). I can't believe there aren't other conceivable solutions that will satisfy both sides equally well.
You cite ROM distribution as a counter-example, but it seems to me that ROM is being used as just that - no more than a means of distribution of a binary. If you pull out the ROM and replace it with an EPROM you've burned yourself, it'll run quite happily; all you need is a means to write a new copy of the chosen distribution method. But if I were to blow that EPROM and find that the CPU refuses to accept it because the chip carrier bore the wrong manufacturer ID on its surface, I have an "authorised binaries" analogy. So I cannot accept your comparison as valid (and it saddens me that your pre-emptive response to such a disagreement is not that it's wrong, but that it's "just plain stupid").
Of course, with a machine-specific key, I can download an unsigned ROM image, sign it, blow it and use it; my freedom is preserved, yet so is the ability of the manufacturer to authorise binaries (my signed ROM is useless on any other device; the unsigned ROM image can't be used directly or by stealth; signing a ROM image becomes a deliberate step, a signifier of taking individual responsibility). I repeat that in my view the GPL3 should permit this scheme.
...That aside - my point was that the FSF are quite free to decline to dilute their licence to suit purposes with which they fundamentally disagree, just as you are free to decline to use their licence if you fundamentally disagree with their goals. I don't see their quest to ensure that the use of DRM does not impact the rights of an individual user to hack on their device as anything other than a reaffirmation of their founding principle - namely that a user of a piece of software should have the right to customise it, and to share their customisations. That's a principle with which I wholeheartedly agree. The problem I have with "authorised" binaries is that they take away my freedom to decline all the choices offered by the authoriser and make my own options.
But of course, the broader point is this - freedom isn't free. Every choice carries a cost; creating one's own choice carries one that most people would view as far too high. If you're determined to use DRM to prohibit me from customising my machine, I don't have any right to stop you - but I can insist that you don't use anything of mine in the attempt. That's what I believe the FSF are seeking to do with GPL3; it's a continuation of a philosophy they've always espoused; demanding that they not do it is akin to asking them to change their philosophy. You're not doing that, which is great; you're insisting that your software remain GPL2, which is fine, and will certainly permit someone to sell you a device containing your own work and then stop you from updating it. That's your choice, and I'm all in favour of you making it. Everyone who currently uses GPL2 will have the same choice to make; some of them will see things your way, whilst others will disagree; and I'm sure some GPL2+ projects will end up forking into GPL3 and GPL2 versions, which will be a shame. (And of course, GPL3 isn't even final yet, so the entire discussion is possibly premature.)
Moreover, licences can't be applied retroactively; so you can take anything GPL'd before the GPL3 is out and use and redistribute it under GPL2+ terms, even if it's immediately relicensed to GPL3 thereafter - you just can't stop anyone else relicensing it to GPL3 when they redistribute it. So anyone currently using GPL'd software in DRM'd situations can continue using what they have right now, even after GPL3; but they might be frozen out of future developments.
Likewise, a product developer who chooses to use DRM to lock out individual developers in the future will have to make that choice in the knowledge that they're also locking themselves out from GPL3'd software; and those who stay with GPL2, or omit the "or any later version" bit, will be granting implicit permission for those product developers to use their software. That's as it should be - everyone able to make the choice that works best for them, with a knowledge of the costs incurred in doing so.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 19:53 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] (3 pages long? Ouch! Er, sorry for going on.)
Computer historian? Posted Mar 23, 2007 11:46 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] Who _I_ am (I'm not nigelk but he was responding to my message) is among other things, a computer historian (see http://landley.net/history/mirror for some random snapshots of research materials).You consider yourself a historian? Then maybe you should set your academic standards a bit higher. Random examples from your earlier messages: Back in the 1970's there _was_ no proprietary software market to speak of.In 1978 Microsoft had 11 employees, all doing proprietary software. It was the year when WordStar was published, and VisiCalc was soon to follow. But this is just in the microcomputer area; a fledging 1970s market saw the birth of such companies as Compuware (1973), Computer Associates (1976), SAS Institute (also 1976) or Oracle Corporation (as SDL, 1977); meanwhile Software AG had been founded in 1969 in Germany; and in 1972 in the US. I would hardly call that "no proprietary software market". Micro-soft was one of the first, and they were a shoestring operation with three employees, one of which was part time and one of which had a day job at HP.As someone has pointed out, Microsoft had no HP employees. Paul Allen used to work for Honeywell, Bill Gates dropped out of school. You are confusing Microsoft with Apple. The _very_ first might have been Digital Research, which was a one-man operation Gary Kildall ran out of his living room to make and sell CP/M for the very first commodity hardware platform, the S/100 Altair clones.DRI was hardly the first; by 1974 (the year DRI was founded) several companies were successfully selling business software. By 1980 Apple had 1000 employees, while Digital Research had more than 200. It never was a "one man operation"; from the start (1974) his wife was an integral part of the company. AT&T didn't try to commercialize Unix until 1983, by which time it was about as old as Linux is now.According to Levenez, by 1983 there were already several commercial Unix variants, including Microsoft's Xenix and HP-UX. Presumably AT&T were making money from it, which counts as "commercializing" IMHO. Stallman's been marginalized because he hasn't done anything new for 15 years.Stallman has been marginalized? Well, I guess that going around the world speaking about Free Software in various public (e.g. the European Commission) and private venues, and publishing books and articles all around doesn't count. Meanwhile his GNU project has started subprojects such as the GIMP or GNOME, and his GPLv3 committees have brought together most companies involved in Free Software from around the world. Not bad for a marginal character. And the first complete reimplementation of Unix (BSD, again predating the GNU manifesto) still has several forks active today.As has been mentioned before, not true: Coherent and a few other independent variants existed before BSD itself was independent. The big advance in open development in 1984 was the invention of the program "patch", which was done by Larry Wall (who went on to invent Perl). What Stallman had was an FTP site donated by MIT, back when that was hard to get, so lots of people like Wall signed up to get distribution on ftp://athena.ai.mit.edu. Stallman claimed credit for this code but he had nothing to do with it, he was running the sourceforge of his day.I have just downloaded a fresh copy of patch and there is a very clear explanation of the roles of Larry Wall and the FSF. Without an explicit reference it is impossible to check your statement. When FTP space became easier to get (cdrom.com and sunsite were both pretty active by the early 90's) the GNU project faded into well-deserved obscurity because they couldn't browbeat people into putting up with Stallman as a condition of getting distribution for their code anymore.I'm not sure "well-deserved obscurity" describes particularly well their past or current status. By the time I got acquainted with Solaris in 2000, the first thing everyone did to accomplish anything useful was to download several GNU packages such as Bash or GNU tar; not to speak about GCC. I am certain that GNU's popularity was not because it provided "FTP space". The important projects the FSF once maintained all stagnated and forked, gcc->egcs (and the name was handed over with gcc 2.95), glibc->glibc2 (and Ulrich Drepper who forked it and still maintains the fork was kinda pissed when the FSF tried to muscle back in on it: http://sources.redhat.com/ml/libc-announce/2001/msg00000.... )GCC has not stagnated; it is currently past its 4.0 release and moving along nicely, having been redesigned several times since the fork you mention. Similarly GlibC: the differences you mention have been put aside and development seems to move along. Many other GNU projects (such as the aforementioned GNOME or the GIMP) are moving along at constant speed. Your statement is so biased that it is hard to find any GNU packages which have actually languished or stagnated because of political differences, any more than e.g. your ex-project Busybox. I could go on. Unverifiable and biased statements are not (or should not be) the modus operandi for a historian. You write well, but your foundations are really too shaky. Please verify your statements before posting them in public; even a few trips to the Wikipedia can save a lot of embarrassment later.
Computer historian? Posted Mar 23, 2007 17:47 UTC (Fri) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > You consider yourself a historian?
It's a hobby, and your argument here seems to be that there were perhaps
> > Back in the 1970's there _was_ no proprietary software market to
Yup. Which they sold to hardware manufacturers for bundling with their
Microsoft big customers were computer manufacturers like Mits and IMSAI,
http://landley.net/history/mirror/ms/gates.mp3
According to the book "On the Edge"
I already mentioned that Paul Allen's day job was at Mits, not HP. This
> DRI was hardly the first; by 1974 (the year DRI was founded) several
For mainframes and minicomputers, sure. I mentioned the bespoke bit
> By 1980 Apple had 1000 employees
Selling hardware.
> was the year when WordStar was published,
http://www.wordplace.com/ap/ does a decent job of covering that (starting
> and VisiCalc was soon to follow.
Which I mentioned.
> But this is just in the microcomputer area; a fledging 1970s market saw
This was the bespoke market I mentioned. Each copy of that software sold
> According to Levenez, by 1983 there were already several commercial
I've read his chart and exchanged email to the guy. Xenix was
And AT&T were _forbidden_ from making money from it due to their 1959
> > And the first complete reimplementation of Unix (BSD, again predating
BSD was clearly started before coherent, but coherent was finished first,
Pick one, will you?
> By the time I got acquainted with Solaris in 2000, the first thing
In that case it's because Ed Zander decided to unbundle the compiler (and
(Personally I lump Solaris in with Desqview and OS/2 as "of only
> GCC has not stagnated;
The original development line did. Cygnus forked egcs and took over the
I mentioned this.
> Unverifiable and biased statements are not (or should not be) the modus
I'm not currently trying to write an article with citations, I'm saying
Historian isn't my day job. Programming is, and has been for years. (I
(P.S. Citing wikipedia to back anything up is hilarious. It's pretty
Computer historian? Posted Mar 26, 2007 13:02 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Cygnus forked egcs? Almost the entire development community forked it (even the original maintainer, kenner, participated in both forks for a while, until the pace of development on egcs forced abandonment of the original fork). The fork was done with RMS's agreement, as an experiment.
That doesn't seem like a unilateral one-company fork to me.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 17, 2007 12:42 UTC (Sat) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] I did not know that Busybox was a complete kernel.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 17:01 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] > I did not know that Busybox was a complete kernel.
It isn't, although it's been run on top of the bare metal with a
Generally, it's fairly Linux-centric though. Busybox+uClibc+Linux is a
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 26, 2007 2:12 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] That was sarcasm.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 17, 2007 17:06 UTC (Sat) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link] What he said was "a Linux kernel with a small GNU/Busybox system", which sounds right - the Nokia devices have a Linux kenel, Busybox replacing some of the common utilities, and some GNU software in the upper layers...
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 20, 2007 11:45 UTC (Tue) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] Thank you.
Yes. This was indeed how I meant it.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:25 UTC (Thu) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] And what GNU software does it actually run then? GNU make and gcc? These are important _development_ tools, but they will not run on the N800 directly, they will run on the devs workstation and be used for crosscompiling. Seriously, name a GNU program running on the N800.
I work on free software every day (and don't speak of open source even) but this GNU/ prefix is silly, even more so if you start putting it in front of everything.
The amount of software the GNU project produces is decreasing in relative terms and it even seems to be decreasing in absolute terms (please prove me wrong with numbers). If you wish to have more credit, produce more code.
This insistence on claiming credit comes across like singing your own praises. It's only hurting the FSF, which is sad. If you feel like you deserve more credit, get in line, the list of unsung (free software) heroes is long. Respect and praise and recognition are not things you can demand. If you do, you will receive less, it's just the way life is ...
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 17:09 UTC (Thu) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] I work on free software every day (and don't speak of open source even) but this GNU/ prefix is silly, even more so if you start putting it in front of everything.I always thought that advertising clauses infringed the GPL, but *insisting* (to anyone who'll listen) any system that uses *some* GNU tools be called "GNU/foo" is OK because... because... Anyone? For the record, I have a N770, and I'm not aware of any GNU software that comes with it as standard. IIRC you could download some tools from maemo.org, but I'm sure that not even the FSF would dare to call any system capable of running GNU software "GNU/foo"...
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 18:33 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] That insistence is not legally backed (and actually it's just RMS saying `I won't talk to you unless you call it GNU/foo', and RMS is quite within his rights to decide who he personally talks to, even if everyone else thinks this particular criterion is silly.)
RMS's insistence is restricted as far as I know to systems which run a lot of GNU software by default. Of course much GNU software is moribund and nobody runs it (e.g. the old `git'), some software has been arbitrarily defined as `GNU software' because it already existed and RMS simply grandfathered it into what was then a sort of distro (e.g. X), and most of what systems run nowadays isn't GNU software. So these days the insistence strikes me as wrongheaded.
The GNU Project is sort of halfway between a distributor, a development umbrella, and a naming factory, and most of these messes start because RMS is using one definition while everyone else is using the other (e.g. `GNU software' meaning `the theoretically-extant distribution we call GNU ships it', versus `GNU software' meaning `copyrighted by the FSF and maintained under the FSF's aegis'). I really wish RMS would pick one of these and stick with it (probably the development umbrella, because in practice this is what it has been since the 1990s).
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 26, 2007 2:14 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] > That insistence is not legally backed (and actually it's just RMS> saying `I won't talk to you unless you call it GNU/foo', and RMS is > quite within his rights to decide who he personally talks to, even > if everyone else thinks this particular criterion is silly.)
I personally find it to transgress upon the "laws" of social discourse ;-)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 26, 2007 13:02 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] RMS is an awful social discourse lawyer ;)
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 22, 2007 22:02 UTC (Thu) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] The 2.2 maemo package lists seemed to contain a fair amount of GNU software. But as I wrote in the first paragraph, I also feel that the start of the GNU Project was central for the Free Software movement to become self-aware (I only joined the GNU Project in the 90s, so I can claim no part in this). But out of respect for the achievement I like to give reference the GNU Project. This is a personal preference which I would classify as a minor detail of the article hardly worth so much discussion.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 23, 2007 0:41 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] > The 2.2 maemo package lists seemed to contain a fair amount of GNU> software.
Name a single package that really runs on the N800. No, development tools on the developers' workstations don't count. What percentage of that list is GNU software anyway? So what is your definition of a fair amount?
> But as I wrote in the first paragraph, I also feel that the start of the
Agreed.
> But out of respect for the achievement I like to give reference the GNU
Oh, come on.. You are the president of the FSF Europe. If you talk about the achievement of the GNU project like this, you are singing your own praises.
Yesterday it was GNU/Linux, today it is GNU/Busybox, what are you going to GNU/ next?
> This is a personal preference which I would classify as a minor
There's a lesson here: This minor detail is drowning out some of the effect of your good article. Think about it the next time you GNU/ a program.
Note that I'm really not trying to senselessly flame you. It's just that I feel that these GNU/ shenanigans are counterproductive and obscuring some of the good work the FSF does. And I think I'm not the only person that feels this way.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 26, 2007 11:32 UTC (Mon) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] Oh, come on.. You are the president of the FSF Europe. If you talk about the achievement of the GNU project like this, you are singing your own praises. Yes, I am the president of FSFE and I have my own roots in the GNU Project through some software and the monthly Brave GNU World column that I wrote for many years. So I openly concede a positive emotional attachment of myself to the GNU Project. At the same time it is our sister organisation in the United States, the original FSF, that is taking care of most of the legal and administrative issues of the GNU Project, which is a project that otherwise spans individuals, companies, and countries. So if you try to see this as an issue of praise, I'd see this as singing the praises of all the individuals and companies involved in the GNU Project, the praises of our sister organisation, and that of RMS. But I don't see this as an issue of praise primarily, and am fairly sure this view is shared by most in FSFE, possibly most people outside the US. Only speaking for those that I have discussed this with now: We like the "GNU/" because it reminds us of the principles, thoughts and plan behind starting the GNU Project, and using it will help to not forget that background. At the same time we don't seem to take using it half as seriously as some people in this discussion are about not using it. We regularly use it tongue-in-cheek, some people even prefixed their own name. Yesterday it was GNU/Linux, today it is GNU/Busybox, what are you going to GNU/ next? Based on the above, I'd have two answers for you. The one that should be understood with my tongue in my cheek would be: "GNU/ your life!" The more serious one would be to not take this so seriously, and have some patience with those of us who like the GNU Project and what it stands for. This is why people are using the "GNU/" prefix for things that they see as based on or growing out of that original declaration of software freedom. To most of these people this would be a badge of honor. If the recipient of that badge and affection finds it objectionable, I'd hope for some patience, tolerance and possibly humor in the reception of that badge. There's a lesson here: This minor detail is drowning out some of the effect of your good article. Think about it the next time you GNU/ a program. First of all: Thank you for the feedback. I am glad you found the article useful. Secondly: Yes. The rather strong reaction to four specific characters out of 10k of article seems to have created a disproportionate and distracting discussion. So yes, I'll keep this in mind as a learning experience.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 26, 2007 17:10 UTC (Mon) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] You should really reconsider this blithe view towards the prefixing of "GNU/".
Within the faithful fold, where you are apparently spending most of your time, you may view the prefix as without charge, and thus as something to use descriptively, playfully, as well as in the course of promotion. In the larger world, however, as you have seen, this prefix is a highly charged issue. The goal of mentioning the GNU project where its works are used and relevant can easily be accomplished without resorting to affixing its name to independent software projects. If you honestly wish to simply give the GNU project mention, then do that.
Every time I see the prefix "GNU/" attached to an independent software project, I am not reminded of the goals and noble ideals of the Free Software Foundation. I am instead reminded of the rigidity and unwillingness to listen or compromise of the organization. I suspect this is similar for many people who encounter Linux first, and GNU later. While I would be ecstatic if the FSF would learn to compromise (not their ideals!) on practical matters with other members of the free ecosystem, and to appear less rigid, I would be pleased as punch if the FSF would simply cease reminding me of these weaknesses.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 28, 2007 10:10 UTC (Wed) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] A very large part of my time -- 160 days of the year the last time I cared to count -- is spent on the road, meeting people from the community, from industry, governments and intergovernmental bodies, such as European Commission and United Nations. The majority of the remainder is spent working with the very same groups by means of the internet. Based on that experience, it seems to me this strongly polarised reaction to "GNU/" is a phenomenon that only exists within a certain part of the Free Software community. It also seems predominant within the United States and among those focused on the US. It does exist in other countries, too, but is much less of an issue. That also seems reflected in the nature of many comments in this thread, which seem predominantly directed at or referring to experience with our sister organisation in the United States, and often appear to have very little connection with FSFE or my article. But as I wrote before: It probably would have been wise to take the feelings of the aforementioned group into account when writing the article, and I see this discussion as a learning experience in that sense.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 26, 2007 18:01 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] Wait, you're saying that GNU/Whatever was all just tongue in cheek? Not serious? Ten years of just for fun antics??
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 28, 2007 10:43 UTC (Wed) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] Wait, you're saying that GNU/Whatever was all just tongue in cheek? No, I did not say it was all just tounge in cheek. I was not personally involved in that decision, so take this with a grain of salt, please: To my understanding, a major reason the FSF (there was no FSFE at the time) began talking about GNU/Linux was that in the second half of the 90s many newcomers to Free Software only heard about "Linux" and were not making contact with the GNU Project and its philosophical and scientific roots anymore. Forgetting these roots is dangerous. It makes it impossible to see the full picture when having to make a decision about our projects or just our personal use of software. The result are bad decisions that sometimes affect only ourselves, and sometimes affect the entire community. A less important reason was that there were GNU reference manuals, books, mouse pads and mugs being published that called themselves "Linux reference" even though they had no relation with the kernel. I think that every programmer should be able to emphasise with this situation. Yes, considering the amount of work and dedication that had gone into the GNU Project, the FSF was indeed unhappy about this development and sought to change it. In order to serve both goals while not making the mistake of claiming recognition for someone else's work, RMS came up with the "GNU+Linux" or "GNU/Linux" names. RMS even seems to give preference to the admittedly more cumbersome "GNU+Linux" form, which I believe is owed to his trying to make it very clear this is not a prefix for some independent project, but a combination of the two. If he had truly wanted to "claim fame" on the Linux kernel, he could just have proposed to rename the whole system to "GNU," but to my knowledge he never did that. Both of these considerations existed, with the former being much more important than the latter in my eyes. This is the serious background of it. But yes: We also seem to take it much less grave than many people in this discussion and indeed often use it in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Using it was not intended as a hostile act, and I hope I was able to make this clear now.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 29, 2007 10:11 UTC (Thu) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] > RMS even seems to give preference to the admittedly more cumbersome> "GNU+Linux" form, which I believe is owed to his trying to make it > very clear this is not a prefix for some independent project, but > a combination of the two. If he had truly wanted to "claim fame" on > the Linux kernel, he could just have proposed to rename the whole > system to "GNU," but to my knowledge he never did that.
But this is exactly what he believes. He believes it is the GNU system, whether or not the components are in fact GNU components or other components which work in harmony with the GNU ones. The necessity of using terms like "GNU/Linux" is simply because Linux already had the name recognition and branding trains in motion, and no direct means of raising the profile was found to be available.
That is, I suspect he would insist on calling the whole thing GNU if he thought it would work.
"GNU+Linux" at least has the minor amount of tact to not imply that Linux is a GNU component.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 29, 2007 12:29 UTC (Thu) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] That is, I suspect he would insist on calling the whole thing GNU if he thought it would work. All I can say to this is that when I spoke to him, he never gave me that impression. In fact, he always seemed to make it clear that only a combination of the GNU System with the GNU Hurd kernel would be "the GNU System" in his eyes. But ultimately only RMS can tell us what RMS really thinks.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 31, 2007 0:57 UTC (Sat) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] But this of course clearly underscores my point. Any production Hurd system would invariably include all sorts of software besides the GNU software, much of it as indespensible for real work as the kernel, but that would be "GNU" regardless of all the other software. The difference is that Linux is the defacto, existing name that people use to refer to the collection; its necessity is not unique. Thus you can see the attempt to affix GNU to Linux is not motivated by giving due credit, as none is intended when for the eventual Hurd system.
Please do further the FSF and FSFE's goals of promoting freedom by promoting the GNU project. The freedom ideals are important and deserve mention. But do it as openly and honestly as possible. Affixing it to Linux is a bad strategy.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 20, 2007 10:19 UTC (Tue) by NigelK (guest, #42083) [Link] It's RMS on an ego trip again. The recent InformationWeek articles highlight just what an ass RMS is, right down to his insistance of not talking to people unless they call Linux "GNU/Linux".
Until the Debian team insist on blanking out people who refer to Firefox as "Firefox" instead of "IceWeasel", and until that is considered acceptable behaviour, RMS will always be seen as a loon that people put up with until they have no further use for him.
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 21, 2007 11:01 UTC (Wed) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > RMS will always be seen as a loon that people put up with until they have no further use for him
Book: I am a Shepherd. Folks like a man of God.
(from Firefly, "Safe")
GNU/Busybox ?!? Posted Mar 29, 2007 19:04 UTC (Thu) by TRauMa (guest, #16483) [Link] Debian doesn't insist on the IceWeasel name, Mozilla does (or, more correct, they insist on Debian not calling it Firefox), so your example is relevant how?
Seriously, I don't know what RMS did to you, but your insistence on voiding all his reputation because of the GNU/Linux thing just doesn't make sense to me. At least he doesn't flame around in the forums I read and calls ppl an "ass".
I don't think your problems with RMS are his fault.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 19, 2007 13:29 UTC (Mon) by Hanno (guest, #41730) [Link] "They come with the proprietary Opera browser and a Flash player, which are easily uninstalled and can be replaced by a Mozilla port called Minimo; maybe Gnash can be compiled for them as well."
This is not correct. Minimo is incomplete and afaik not being developed anymore. Also, it does not act as a "replacement" for the browser of the Nokia device.
Gnash is also quite dead compared to swfdec.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 20, 2007 11:27 UTC (Tue) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] This is not correct. Minimo is incomplete and afaik not being developed anymore. I have seen it installed on a Nokia 770, and saw it browsing the web. If it is really not maintained/developed anymore, that would be bad. If worst comes to worst, maybe the GPE Mini Browser can act as a replacement, it already seems to support the Maemo platform. To my knowledge Gnash is actively being worked on. But if swfdec could be made to run, that would also be good. The specific piece of software is a secondary concern as long as it is Free Software.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 21, 2007 10:02 UTC (Wed) by Hanno (guest, #41730) [Link] I have seen it installed on a Nokia 770, and saw it browsing the web. It is still quite beta and it is not an actual replacement of the built-in browser. (As a user, you can't remove the original browser and just continue using Minimo. It's an alternative, not a replacement.) I was wrong about it not being developed anymore: a new release for Maemo just came out, yet this older message from the Minimo developer gave the impression that there is no active development is going on for the original project.
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 22, 2007 21:33 UTC (Thu) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] It is still quite beta and it is not an actual replacement of the built-in browser. (As a user, you can't remove the original browser and just continue using Minimo. It's an alternative, not a replacement.) To date I've seen no indication that it was impossible to uninstall/remove Opera and in fact saw more than one discussion and request about switching to a Free Software default browser instead of Opera. So if it is indeed impossible to uninstall Opera, I'd like to have some technical background to this with which I could approach Nokia. Can you provide me with a reference for this?
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 23, 2007 6:49 UTC (Fri) by Hanno (guest, #41730) [Link] To date I've seen no indication that it was impossible to uninstall/remove Opera and in fact saw more than one discussion and request about switching to a Free Software default browser instead of Opera.You misunderstood me. (English is not my first language.) It is certainly possible to remove Opera. It would be possible to replace it with an open source browser, if one existed that worked as well. BUT what I was trying to say is that Minimo is not (yet) an equivalent drop-in-and-forget replacement for Opera on the N800. So if it is indeed impossible to uninstall Opera, I'd like to have some technical background to this with which I could approach Nokia. Can you provide me with a reference for this? Once again: You misunderstood me and there is no need to approach Nokia or Opera about this, since they are not at fault for this. There just isn't an open source browser package for the N800 that a user can install INSTEAD of Opera. Because noone made an equivalent, yet. It is possible to make an equivalent browser and Nokia won't stop anyone trying to make one, but there isn't one available so far. (To compare it with the flash situation: You can of course use open source flash implementations, but they are not equivalent to the closed source flash player, yet. So as a user, it's not possible to just use swfdec or gnash as a full replacement for the flash player, because the open source alternatives don't work as well.)
The road to freedom in the embedded world Posted Mar 26, 2007 10:35 UTC (Mon) by greve (subscriber, #8385) [Link] You misunderstood me. (English is not my first language.) No problem. It is also not my first language, so the misunderstanding might as well have taken place on my side. BUT what I was trying to say is that Minimo is not (yet) an equivalent drop-in-and-forget replacement for Opera on the N800. From some of the discussions it seems that people aren't exactly happy with Opera on the grounds of technology, either. So I am not entirely sure how the technological comparison would work out in the end. But this is somewhat besides the point: People who value their freedom high enough to allow for some inconvenience can choose to install a Free Software browser already. This to me is good enough to talk about "replacing" Opera. And if enough people go down that road and also let Nokia know that they are unhappy about a proprietary browser on their tablets, maybe they will reconsider their default choice.
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 22, 2007 2:57 UTC (Thu) by myopiate (guest, #41091) [Link] In a sad kind of irony Nokia seems to have chosen the Gtk+ library over Qt because that would allow them to keep part of their helper library for the embedded small screen proprietary.I don't see how this is sad or ironic. A proprietary application can be built with Qt, you just have to pay Trolltech a licensing fee. You are basically saying that the Trolltech way (either you make free software or pay me) is a more free way than licencing under LGPL (the Gtk+ way). The "freeness" of one way over the other is debatable. In my opinion the Gtk+ way is better because the barriers to entry are smaller. I don't have to pay a license fee and I can bootstrap something that pays the bills easily. I can open source the project later if I want. The Trolltech way adds money/time expensive business transactions. Another issue is Non-GPL fee software such as Mozilla can't use Qt without paying licensing fees. Mozilla for Linux uses Gtk+. What you are peeved about is the propietary-ness of the Nokia platform. I don't think it really has anything to do with the selection of Gtk+ over Qt.
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 22, 2007 5:48 UTC (Thu) by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978) [Link] Non-GPL fee software such as Mozilla can't use Qt without paying licensing fees. Not true, and besides, Mozilla is triple-licensed (MPL/GPL/LGPL) anyway.
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 22, 2007 8:43 UTC (Thu) by myopiate (guest, #41091) [Link] I stand corrected :)
But if I want to use Qt, my software still has to be GPL (or FSF compatible) or I need to pay for a commercial license. Does this promote free software, or is it a sales pitch?
In modern computing, a windowing toolkit is amlost as ubiquitous as Libc. Would GNU Libc be where it is today if it were GPL or pay money?
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 22, 2007 10:49 UTC (Thu) by BlueLightning (subscriber, #38978) [Link] FSF or OSI approved licenses. That covers a huge range of licenses. If you want something else, it's likely that you're trying to do something that would allow people to bypass the commercial Qt licensing. The fact of the matter is, Qt would not be where it is today without the money that Trolltech gets from commercial licensing.
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 22, 2007 11:00 UTC (Thu) by mmutz (guest, #5642) [Link] > > In a sad kind of irony Nokia seems to have chosen the Gtk+ library> > over Qt because that would allow them to keep part of their helper > > library for the embedded small screen proprietary. > > I don't see how this is sad or ironic.
The irony lies in the fact that GTK+, which was originally positioned as
So while GTK+ set out to make the world a more free one, Nokia managed to
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 22, 2007 21:22 UTC (Thu) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] IMHO Qt is mainly suited for cases where the project is either proprietary or open AND that doesn't change. The case where you have to pay the licencing fees in the ramp up phase while the code goes through legal and management clearances doesn't fly that well, especially if the code is eventually going to be Open Sourced (or that hasn't been decided yet). Gtk gives more freedom in deciding how & when the code depending on it is to be Open Sourced.
Another issue is that Qt doesn't really have a community developing the widget set like is with Gnome/Gtk, it's completely controlled by Trolltech (which is a commercial entity and could get bought out).
C++ ABI compatibility is still a minor issue too. The C++ ABI changed again between GCC 3.x and 4.x.
On the upsides, Qt for example has excellent documentation and something like Doxygen can produce much nicer class hierarchies etc. from C++ code than what gtk-doc can ever produce from Gobject stuff...
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 22, 2007 23:55 UTC (Thu) by mmarxmeier (subscriber, #6217) [Link] > Another issue is that Qt doesn't really have a community developing the> widget set like is with Gnome/Gtk,
You mean like the KDE devs
> it's completely controlled by
http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 23, 2007 21:36 UTC (Fri) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] >> Another issue is that Qt doesn't really have a community developing>> the widget set like is with Gnome/Gtk, > > You mean like the KDE devs
Don't they develope things atop Qt, instead developing Qt itself?
> http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php
Yes, the code will be freed if Trolltech is bought, but the
Gtk+ versus Qt Posted Mar 29, 2007 23:19 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] There is, however, rather more to this picture. Trolltech has verydeliberately "poison-pilled" any hostile buyout or takeover attempt. (Unlike many smaller companies here in the US, it seems they value their independence and are /not/ simply there to eventually be bought out.) The currently active licensing arrangement for Qt is GPL/QPL/proprietary. In practice, what this does is ensure people contribute back to the community either with code, or if they don't want to do that, at least with money, so they can take their work built on top proprietary, but in the process fund the base that's dual licensed GPL as well, thus contributing to further development of the free software side with money if they refuse to contribute to it with code. =8^)
This of course has so far done a good job of keeping Trolltech financially
BTW, it should also be noted that the way the foundation is setup (two
Duncan
We all forgot rockbox Posted Mar 23, 2007 22:50 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] I just noticed that there's no mention of rockbox, not in the article and not in the hundred comments. Maybe it's a simpler project than internet pads and telephones, but it's still a fantastic project, and they seem to be starting to get cooperation from hardware manufactures (see this about their discussions with Austria Microsystems).
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