Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On 6/10/10, Tzafrir Cohen tzaf...@cohens.org.il wrote: On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 02:04:29PM +0300, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Is there an official term for software that comes with source code but does not allow one to modify or distribute it (modified or not)? [This was the original question that fueled my curiosity.] By giving up any of those freedoms, it means you give up on using free software. I know. The terms I am asking about will most definitely not classified as either free or open source SW. The subject of my friend's email to me was not open source software ;-). Are there licenses that provide the code but do not allow (even private) modifications? http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Yes, but both allow distribution, so they didn't fit because of that. Sure. What you want is certainly not close to being free software. You need not bother looking there. I did not look specifically for free/open source. I looked for license comparison lists hoping to find examples (that would not be FOSS). Finally, I did mark the post OT, I posted the question here because this is a place where there are people very well versed in the subject. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Friday 11 Jun 2010 01:24:40 Oron Peled wrote: On Thursday, 10 בJune 2010 21:26:20 Tzafrir Cohen wrote: Even if you have the source code, it does not mean you can build it. Exactly. 2. How about modified-in-house software? Initially, it looks different, but let me explain why it's practically read-only. I'll start with an infamous history, which was told many times by Arie Scope (yes, the former chief of MS-Israel). Any time he wanted to attack FOSS, he repeated the same story which goes like this (from my memory, not exact): ...many years ago we had a mainframe computer in Tnuva and we had the source code for the system. During the years, a lot of people in the company modified and adapted the source to their needs. The result was a total mess. Nobody understood the code and nobody could maintain/upgrade it etc... The story makes perfect sense to anyone who maintains software. That's the assured result of in-house-only source code. Which mean it's crapware, but you get extra maintenance costs as a bonus ;-) Obviously, Scope didn't see (or didn't wanted his audience to see) the crucial difference between his story and FOSS. In FOSS the modifications (or rather the good modifications) are propagated upstream. This result in sharing of the maintenance costs among all the conributing parties. Well, that's the ideal. In practice, deployed FOSS code (which can always be modified in-house, according to the free software definition), sometimes tends to divert from the mainline code and be . Some examples: 1. Back when I administered the linux.org.il and iglu.org.il E-mail domains, I was requested from the administrator of the Linux-IL mailing list at cs.huji.ac.il to remove the linux...@linux.org.il and linux...@iglu.org.il aliases, because they had problems dealing with them there due to the highly customised setup on cs.huji.ac.il. It was all FOSS, but they had many custom modifications and were afraid to upgrade. 2. whatsup.org.il's codebase is based on an old version of PostNuke, with some adaptations to support Hebrew, which were not accepted because they planned to do it properly using CSS, and since then has garnered many fixes and workarounds to security problems. Since then PostNuke seems to have been abandoned. 3. I know there are many companies out there who have still standardised on using perl-5.6.1 because they are afraid to upgrade to a more recent Perl version (there have already been the stable 5.8.x, 5.10.x, and 5.12.x releases) because something might break. Now, perl-5.6.x is still open source and someone can maintain it, but the world has moved on. - So there is still a risk of people writing inhouse changes for open-source code and not propagating it for public consumption with open-source code. So that does not make an availability of source code for in-house modification crapware and we might as well call everything that's not 100% FOSS crapware too. Furthermore, calling it crapware is not indicative of why this is the case. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Funny Anti-Terrorism Story - http://shlom.in/enemy God considered inflicting XSLT as the tenth plague of Egypt, but then decided against it because he thought it would be too evil. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply . ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Saturday, 12 בJune 2010 19:59:56 Shlomi Fish wrote: On Friday 11 Jun 2010 01:24:40 Oron Peled wrote: Well, that's the ideal. In practice, deployed FOSS code (which can always be modified in-house, according to the free software definition), sometimes tends to divert from the mainline code and be . Some examples: You gave good examples. As you pointed, in every one of them, there was a penalty in maintaining an in-house fork. 1. ... because they had problems dealing with them there due to the highly customised and were afraid to upgrade. 2. ... with some adaptations ... which were not accepted because they planned to do it properly using CSS, ... Since then PostNuke seems to have been abandoned. 3. ... still standardised on using perl-5.6.1 because they are afraid to upgrade. Now, perl-5.6.x is still open source and someone can maintain it, but the world has moved on. These penalties are exactly the reason most people to avoid forking free software into an in-house branch. As you correctly pointed out, there are always exceptions (for whatever reason, valid or not). Nevertheless they pay the price for this. So there is still a risk of people writing inhouse changes for open-source code and not propagating it for public consumption with open-source code. Sure, we cannot prevent people from doing these mistakes -- their problem. So that does not make an availability of source code for in-house modification crapware The availability does not make it crapware but the results are almost are. and we might as well call everything that's not 100% FOSS crapware too. Not 100%, but a pretty close number. Read enough corporate maintained code and you'll see what I mean. Furthermore, calling it crapware is not indicative of why this is the case. Simplified explanation: When software teams are pressured by management to produce results at impossible deadlines, without taking maintenance into consideration (clients pays only for features, or fixing immediate critical bugs) -- than over sufficient time and project complexity the code quality is almost bound to be bad. There is a lot of FOSS crappy code as well. However, in mature FOSS projects, there is some minimal quality required of *new* code entering the project. Since this bar is set by programmers (usually from different companies) it is not lowered so easily by marketing people or managers of a specific company. Even if they badly want a new feature *now*. This tends to improve code quality of mature FOSS projects overtime. Bye, -- Oron Peled Voice: +972-4-8228492 o...@actcom.co.il http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet. - William Gibson ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
Oron Peled o...@actcom.co.il writes: Simplified explanation: When software teams are pressured by management to produce results at impossible deadlines, without taking maintenance into consideration (clients pays only for features, or fixing immediate critical bugs) -- than over sufficient time and project complexity the code quality is almost bound to be bad. Hear, hear, but I find that the most common (and to me, the most baffling) reason given for the pressure is the mythical time to market... I cringe each time I hear we can't afford to do it right argument (most frequently from otherwise very competent senior technical managers, not marketeers). My normal retort (No, we can't afford to do it WRONG!) rarely convinces anyone, even if I show that doing it right will not require more time or resources even in the short term. There is a lot of FOSS crappy code as well. However, in mature FOSS projects, there is some minimal quality required of *new* code entering the project. Since this bar is set by programmers (usually from different companies) it is not lowered so easily by marketing people or managers of a specific company. Even if they badly want a new feature *now*. I believe there is yet another factor that makes proprietary code crappier on average than *mature* open source. It is indeed related to the quality bar that Oron mentioned. However, it is not 100% one-sided programmers vs. marketoids thing (although marketoids/managers are often near-sighted indeed). The key point is that good FOSS projects are usually run by developers who have rosh gadol, who see the big picture, who are capable of making decisions for the project rather than specific engineering decisions for a particular function point. It struck me more than once during my career how many developers there are in the corporate world who, while not completely devoid of aptitude, exhibit rather astonishing narrow-mindedness and adopt a let me quickly fix the next bug assigned to me and leave me alone attitude. There are lots of them in private enterprise (and, I guess, in government shops, too), because there is a space for them. I'd venture an opinion that they are convenient both to their insecure managers and to their not very professional colleagues, they are not politically dangerous, they don't rock the boat, they are not very demanding, they don't generate that most dreaded thing of all - change. And they tend to give lower effort estimates than really good engineers who see a bigger picture and worry about design, maintenance, flexibility for future modifications, and other inconveniences. Management and salespeople love low effort estimates and think that spaghetti is a kind of pasta. Managers also like the fact that you typically need more roshim ktanim than gdolim for the same tasks - meaning a larger empire, headcount, budget, etc. [Mind you, I've seen managers, product people, customer support personnel, and even marketeers (not *all* of them are dumb) become very frustrated by the rosh katan attitude of developers.] Such narrow-minded programmers are not very likely to start or lead an open source project. If they stumble into such position by some quirk of fate chances are the project will go under for reasons discovered by one C. Darwin long before computers came about. FOSS projects that survive to maturity are simply likelier to be run by folks whose brains operate beyond specific knowledge of the syntax of one programming language and the APIs of two libraries. The likelihood is guaranteed by natural selection. A final world of caution: while survival of the fittest is a plausible explanation for higher quality one should not forget the old observation that Nature (like many volunteer FOSS projects) does not have schedule or budget restrictions... -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
Oron Peled o...@actcom.co.il writes: * Which, BTW, means all those NDA/Escrow plans are totally wothless. Well, Oron, let's not get all carried away. You seem to be focused on crapware that does not even compile and cannot be maintained, and in those cases you are completely right. However, escrow plans exist to make sure the SW is actually maintainable by the user or by third parties in case the vendor cannot provide support for one reason or another, and such maintainability is verified before any contract is signed (unless the cusomer is a complete muppet). That's why an NDA is signed before anything else - to perform such verification. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.org wrote: Hi, We all know what free/open-source/libre software means and we are generally capable of distinguishing between open source and free and so on, and figuring out if a given license is free and to what degree. According to FSF (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), there are 4 freedoms: * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). * The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). * The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. I was just asked a question (by a friend who is very knowlegeable about free software himself) that made me stop and think. I'll paraphrase his original question - it was short and to the point and it did not refer to the FSF 4 freedoms. The 2nd freedom (Freedom 1) is compound and not atomic. Study how the program works (e.g., from sources) and change are two different things. I find this very curious, it seems natural to me to separate passive and active access, but they are bundled together. Is there an official term for software that comes with source code but does not allow one to modify or distribute it (modified or not)? [This was the original question that fueled my curiosity.] Are there licenses that provide the code but do not allow (even private) modifications? I was once offered something similar. The source code was to be given, as insurance in case the company stopped existing. However, we were not to access the code unless such a thing happened. Are there licenses that allow private modifications but not distribution of either original or modified program? Of course - this is where you sign an NDA to get the code. My search did not yield much. The Open Source Definition, the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the Free Software Definition all require redistribution. As far as I understand, public domain does not require opening the source. I looked at many license comparison lists and there is always redistribution, modification, etc. The only example I found was Microsoft's Reference Source License, http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/referencesourcelicensing.mspx . Does anyone know if Reference Source License is a generic term or just a specific license from M$? I did not find any license that allows private modifications but forbids redistribution. It is quite possible I missed something. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il -- Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda. http://ladypine.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt p...@goldshmidt.org wrote: Are there licenses that allow private modifications but not distribution of either original or modified program? I know of at least one, though it was not part of a Well Known License, rather than the license terms the guy invented by himself. The qmail MTA. Its author allowed redistribution in source code form only, and IIRC, without changes to the source (you had to attach patches and let end users do the patching artwork). Binary distribution, even of unmodified code, was not allowed. Many years people begged him to change his mind. I just checked now, and it seems that one version was release as public domain, thus (IANAL) removing all the above restrictions. The license behind Firefox doesn't allow you to distribute a binary branded with the Mozilla name - might also be related to what you're looking? Those are the famous things that crossed my mind... -- Shimi ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On 6/10/10, Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda ladyp...@gmail.com wrote: I was once offered something similar. The source code was to be given, as insurance in case the company stopped existing. However, we were not to access the code unless such a thing happened. Are there licenses that allow private modifications but not distribution of either original or modified program? Of course - this is where you sign an NDA to get the code. Oh, I did not mean private contracts with code escrow and such - these are standard, normal, widespread, etc. The licensee gets to review the code before signing a contract, etc. I've been on both ends of such deals. If you look at the M$ Reference Source Licensing it is something different. E.g., they (or someone) publicly distribute a useful library and they want to let developers study its inner workings to be able to use the library efficiently, but they do not allow redistribution, modifications (even private), derivative works, or anything like that. It's our IP, you may look but you may not touch. This is not a case where the licensee is afraid that M$ will go under and they'll need to maintain the code. For all I know (and I don't) the code may be published on an FTP site under this license, no NDA signing in a back room required. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Binary distribution, even of unmodified code, was not allowed. This is not true. DJB did allow distribution of unmodified binaries, so long as they were compiled with unmodified toolchains. That may not fit the Open Source Definition then, Nothing that fits your criteria will. If you are not allowed to distribute or make changes, then it is not open source. Also, when IBM originally distributed the BIOS's source code, they allowed anyone who so wished to see the source, but allowed neither modifications nor distribution. This is from memory only. This actually posed a problem for Compaq when they wanted to create a clean room implementation. They needed competent engineers who have not had a look at IBM's source code. Shachar -- Shachar Shemesh Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd. http://www.lingnu.com ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 02:04:29PM +0300, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Is there an official term for software that comes with source code but does not allow one to modify or distribute it (modified or not)? [This was the original question that fueled my curiosity.] By giving up any of those freedoms, it means you give up on using free software. See (a random comment from today) http://lwn.net/Articles/391578/ . But you asked a technical question, and thus I'll focus on it. Are there licenses that provide the code but do not allow (even private) modifications? http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Are there licenses that allow private modifications but not distribution of either original or modified program? There surely are licenses that forbid redistribution. As for what you do privately: is that really enforcable? I guess you can find or formulate licenses that will allow or forbid that. But a free software mailing list is really not the right place :-) My search did not yield much. The Open Source Definition, the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the Free Software Definition all require redistribution. Sure. What you want is certainly not close to being free software. You need not bother looking there. As far as I understand, public domain does not require opening the source. It means no copyright restrictions. And you want copyright restrictions. Should have been obvious :-) -- Tzafrir Cohen | tzaf...@jabber.org | VIM is http://tzafrir.org.il || a Mutt's tzaf...@cohens.org.il || best tzaf...@debian.org|| friend ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On 6/10/10, Shachar Shemesh shac...@shemesh.biz wrote: Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Binary distribution, even of unmodified code, was not allowed. This is not true. DJB did allow distribution of unmodified binaries, so long as they were compiled with unmodified toolchains. This is a response to Shimi, not to me. That may not fit the Open Source Definition then, Nothing that fits your criteria will. If you are not allowed to distribute or make changes, then it is not open source. I am not looking for Open Source. I am looking for a *term* for such a license. In general, we know what open source or free software means. How do you call what I describe? It is definitely not open source. Also, when IBM originally distributed the BIOS's source code, they allowed anyone who so wished to see the source, but allowed neither modifications nor distribution. This is from memory only. Correct. I know this well (and lectured on it). Somehow this example slipped my mind. Thanks! Still no term though... Thanks, Shachar, -- Oleg Goldshmidt | p...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote about [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom: According to FSF (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), there are 4 freedoms: I am guessing that Stallman *wanted* there to be four freedoms, as a reference to the Roosevelt's four freedoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms) who (at least used to) be much more well known. So if he had 3 freedoms, or 5, he had to merge or split them to get exactly 4 :-) * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). * The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. You asked about freedom 1, but I personally have more of an issue with the way freedom 2 and 3 are phrased. If you have the source code to modify (freedom 1) and can legally distribute copies of the original source (freedom 2), what prevents you from legally distributing modified copies? At worst, you can always distribute the original code (freedom 2) along with patches that do your modifications (freedom 1). The 2nd freedom (Freedom 1) is compound and not atomic. Study how the program works (e.g., from sources) and change are two different things. I find this very curious, it seems natural to me to separate passive and active access, but they are bundled together. Because in reality, if you have access to the source code, you *can* change it. Even if the license somehow tries to force you not to, there is no way that the seller can enforce it on software running in-house. So if you let people see the source code, might as well just let them change it - there's no point in pretending they can't. This is is *exactly* the reason why copy-protected software does *not* come with source code - they know that if you had the source code, you could easily remove the copy protection, even if you promise not to. Is there an official term for software that comes with source code but does not allow one to modify or distribute it (modified or not)? [This was the original question that fueled my curiosity.] I'd call it hannukah-candle software - you can look at it, but you cannot use it ;-) But seriously, the closest thing that comes to my mind was the original Unix license. Unix came with its source code, which you were free to study, but you were *not* allowed to redistribute. But I don't think they pretended they can prevent you from making changes to the source code you have. And indeed, many did make such changes, with BSD being the most notable example. But BSD were not allowed to distribute their Unix-based code - rather, someone would have to buy Unix from ATT first, and only then he could have the BSD patches which he could apply himself. Are there licenses that allow private modifications but not distribution of either original or modified program? Yes, and the Unix license (above) is the best example I can think of. At the time, it was called a source license, if I remember correctly. -- Nadav Har'El| Thursday, Jun 10 2010, 28 Sivan 5770 n...@math.technion.ac.il |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |War doesn't determine who's right but http://nadav.harel.org.il |who's left. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On 6/10/10, Nadav Har'El n...@math.technion.ac.il wrote: I am guessing that Stallman *wanted* there to be four freedoms, as a reference to the Roosevelt's four freedoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms) Hmm, interesting... You asked about freedom 1, but I personally have more of an issue with the way freedom 2 and 3 are phrased. If you have the source code to modify (freedom 1) and can legally distribute copies of the original source (freedom 2), what prevents you from legally distributing modified copies? At worst, you can always distribute the original code (freedom 2) along with patches that do your modifications (freedom 1). There is a distinction. Look at Article 4 of the OSI Open Source Definition (http://opensource.org/docs/osd): the author of the original SW may want to preserve the integrity of his creation and has 2 types of provisions at his/her disposal for the purpose: a) optionally requiring to provide patches separately from the original source code (same bundle, but distinct, to be applied at build time) b) optionally requiring that software built from modified sources to carry a different name or version number from the unmodified version. Because in reality, if you have access to the source code, you *can* change it. Even if the license somehow tries to force you not to, there is no way that the seller can enforce it on software running in-house. This is only true in cases where there is no way for the vendor to access the modified software. However, it is common to provide a software-based service without distributing the software. It used to be called server-side software, nowadays terms like SaaS abound, let alone cloud, etc. Assume you run an application on your server (or server farm, or cloud) and use a library of mine. Users access the software using a thin or thick client. This is not distribution, so you may use, e.g., modified GPL software without any obligation to provide the sources to your modifications to your users or to anyone. Now, *I* did not allow you to modify my library (even though I gave you my code to study). It is, in general, feasible (e.g., by signing on as a user) for me to discover that you made modifications if such modifications manifest themselves in the behaviour. I'd call it hannukah-candle software - you can look at it, but you cannot use it ;-) Pardon my public display of political incorrectness, but the term I myself thought of was lap-dance software (I don't have much experience in the area but there does seem to be a rather general look but do not touch rule). BIG SMILEY GOES HERE before anyone gets offended! I actually rather like the term (the hint of indecency and of something to hide seems appropriate in the context of proprietary software), but I doubt it'll be adopted. ;-) -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote about Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom: On 6/10/10, Nadav Har'El n...@math.technion.ac.il wrote: I am guessing that Stallman *wanted* there to be four freedoms, as a reference to the Roosevelt's four freedoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms) Hmm, interesting... Yes, I always find it amusing that when hearing about the Four Freedoms, Linux geeks think first of Stallman ;-) In his January 1941 speech, almost a year before Pearl Harbor, FDR told congress that the time for non-interventionism is over. That Germany is out to conquer the whole world, and to destroy the four freedoms that Americans hold dear. Therefore America must start to help the allies much more seriously, and invest much more of its manpower and economy into producing weapons and supplies for the allies than it has done so far. Two months later, congress authorized the Lend-Lease program which over the war supplied 1,000 billion dollars (in today's currency) of millitary supplies to the allies. I'd call it hannukah-candle software - you can look at it, but you cannot use it ;-) Pardon my public display of political incorrectness, but the term I myself thought of was lap-dance software (I don't have much A more neutral phrase can be read-only source. You can read it, but cannot modify it... -- Nadav Har'El| Thursday, Jun 10 2010, 29 Sivan 5770 n...@math.technion.ac.il |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |A man is incomplete until he is married. http://nadav.harel.org.il |After that, he is finished. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On 6/10/10, Nadav Har'El n...@math.technion.ac.il wrote: Yes, I always find it amusing that when hearing about the Four Freedoms, Linux geeks think first of Stallman ;-) In his January 1941 speech, almost a year before Pearl Harbor, FDR told congress that the time for non-interventionism is over. That Germany is out to conquer the whole world, and to destroy the four freedoms that Americans hold dear. Two, actually (freedom of speech and freedom of religion). He invented two others (freedom from want and freedom from fear) for current political reasons - note how even the grammar (freedom of vs. freedom from) is different. Funnily, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms refers to The Free Software Definition, often called the four freedoms within the free software community, but not the other way around. It should be noted that the Europeans have their own four freedoms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms_(European_Union) and both Europeans and Americans talk about the Fifth Freedom. Note how Europeans concentrate on economic freedoms, the EU is not concerned with FDR's freedoms *inside* the EU. EU did not have a foreign policy mandate or infrastructure until very very recently, so it's not isolationism, it simply wasn't their business. But this is getting more and more off topic. Thanks, everybody, I think we can close this thread, there were some very good historical references here (BIOS, UNIX, M$, FDR, etc.). -- Oleg Goldshmidt | o...@goldshmidt.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 04:17:07PM +0300, Nadav Har'El wrote: Because in reality, if you have access to the source code, you *can* change it. Even if the license somehow tries to force you not to, there is no way that the seller can enforce it on software running in-house. So if you let people see the source code, might as well just let them change it - there's no point in pretending they can't. Even if you have the source code, it does not mean you can build it. Say this is 2000. You got a hold of a secret copy of Oh-No.o Someone called JBA gives you a secret patch that adds Hebrew support to that odd software. Does this mean you can actually use it? Sure. You can apply the patch. But now you need to actually build the beast. Luckily for us, in the real story, JBA was allowed to not only redistribute modified sources, but also modified binaries, and thus many more people were able to test the Hebrew support even beforeit got into the OO.o tree. -- Tzafrir Cohen | tzaf...@jabber.org | VIM is http://tzafrir.org.il || a Mutt's tzaf...@cohens.org.il || best tzaf...@debian.org|| friend ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Thursday, 10 בJune 2010 21:26:20 Tzafrir Cohen wrote: Even if you have the source code, it does not mean you can build it. Exactly. Let's examine two categories mentioned in this thread: 1. Read-only software 2. Only-In-House modified software The common name of both is -- crapware. Why? 1. Read-only software: * The vendor prevents modification (or make it worthless): - Either by not supplying the complete build environment - Or by ommitting crucial components. * Would you waste your time reading source that does not represent anything you actually run? * Which, BTW, means all those NDA/Escrow plans are totally wothless. If/when you'll try to use this source... - It won't compile, - Or, it would contain a subset of the functionality you use, - Or, it would be some obsolete version (deposited few years ago when the contract was made), - Or, it's stored on an Exabyte-tape and you cannot find such a tape-drive, - Or, you found a drive, but the tape is so old, that's not readable anymore, - Or, you've read the file, but it's ARJ compressed and nobody can read them any longer. To apply the common wisdom (from sysadmin domain): A backup is wothless, unless it was actually tested (used) So: Source code is wothless, unless you actually compile and run it 2. How about modified-in-house software? Initially, it looks different, but let me explain why it's practically read-only. I'll start with an infamous history, which was told many times by Arie Scope (yes, the former chief of MS-Israel). Any time he wanted to attack FOSS, he repeated the same story which goes like this (from my memory, not exact): ...many years ago we had a mainframe computer in Tnuva and we had the source code for the system. During the years, a lot of people in the company modified and adapted the source to their needs. The result was a total mess. Nobody understood the code and nobody could maintain/upgrade it etc... The story makes perfect sense to anyone who maintains software. That's the assured result of in-house-only source code. Which mean it's crapware, but you get extra maintenance costs as a bonus ;-) Obviously, Scope didn't see (or didn't wanted his audience to see) the crucial difference between his story and FOSS. In FOSS the modifications (or rather the good modifications) are propagated upstream. This result in sharing of the maintenance costs among all the conributing parties. That's all for tonight folks... -- Oron Peled Voice: +972-4-8228492 o...@actcom.co.il http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron באנו ווינדוס לגרש, בידינו פנגווין יש! ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Fri, 11 Jun 2010, Oron Peled wrote: - Or, you've read the file, but it's ARJ compressed and nobody can read them any longer. http://arj.sourceforge.net Geoff. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom
On Friday, 11 בJune 2010 01:34:24 Geoff Shang wrote: On Fri, 11 Jun 2010, Oron Peled wrote: - Or, you've read the file, but it's ARJ compressed and nobody can read them any longer. http://arj.sourceforge.net It's even easier: yum install arj However, here's a true story from few years ago (without names, so we don't embarase anybody). A very big multinational company needed to reprint old course material for a client (it was about an old and EOL version of its OS). Their HR people found it on the company internal servers, but they could not open it (as Win* people describe what happens when they double-click on an icon) So, I asked them and they sent it to me. Using file shown that it was an ARJ, containing PowerPoint files (one per course chapter) written in a *very* old PowerPoint version. So: arj - ~25 .ppt files - OO.o - ~25 PDF's - pdftk - One PDF Sent the resulting PDF for printing, got a huge thank you from them, did the course, life is good. Now, let's see if you can find a working Exabyte tape-drive ;-) -- Oron Peled Voice: +972-4-8228492 o...@actcom.co.il http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
