good luck with that
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick May 12, 2009 1:35 PM EDT |
It's like trying to get people to say "tissue" instead of Kleenex, "bandage" instead of Band-Aid, "digital video recorder" instead of Tivo, "I could not care less" instead of "I could care less." Linux is a perfectly good name with many excellent characteristics associated with it, and it is silly to continue this pointless "Linux is a kernel, not an OS!" pedantry. While saying something like "Linux-based operating systems" makes technically correct sense, in the real world it's too long and fussy. I'm OK with one word having multiple meanings, and Linux has come to mean kernel, operating system, family of operating systems, applications, and the whole ecosystem. No problems, relax and move on. Better that people have a short simple word to remember than to get all exercised over how many Linuses can dance on the head of a pin. |
| jdixon May 12, 2009 2:00 PM EDT |
> Better that people have a short simple word to remember... Agreed. Now, if only we could get the major corporate sellers of Linux (Dell, IBM, HP, et.al.) to use the word. |
| techiem2 May 12, 2009 2:07 PM EDT |
But they sell "solutions" not "systems" (is that how H put it?). (pay no attention to those Vista logos plastered all over their websites) |
| tuxchick May 12, 2009 2:20 PM EDT |
Reach for the stars, jdixon! It could happen!
(massive sarcasm tags implied here) I am continually baffled how some people can keep straight faces while emitting the most astonishing BS. **edit** I'm referring to the suits jdixon mentioned, not Libervis, who has more clue in his little finger than they have in their entire globalcorp empires. Just want to be clear!** Yes techiem2: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/10/leave-it-to-little-guy... The video is priceless. Watch 'em go all wormy and squirmy. This was at a LINUX FOUNDATION event, sheesh. I guess the next one will be called "The Thingy Foundation Get-Together" |
| caitlyn May 12, 2009 2:47 PM EDT |
I'm with tuxchick on this one. This is an old argument that serves no purpose. Those who truly know Linux know the difference between the kernel and a complete OS. That doesn't matter, really. Adding extra language can only serve to confuse people who don't know and don't care about the technical details further. |
| dinotrac May 12, 2009 3:51 PM EDT |
He's right about one thing: Linux is not an operating system. Windows is an operating sytem. Pull up a Windows machine with no applications installed and you can't do cr@p. Linux is a complete computing environment. Even my little Dell netbook came with OpenOffice and some games that my kids love. Where we do Linux a disservice is to compare Linux to Windows. We need to compare Linux to WIndows + Office + whatever else. We can still call it Linux, just not a "mere" OS. |
| tracyanne May 12, 2009 4:56 PM EDT |
What spoils that video is Bruce right at the end. Up to that point, the slimy children of unwed mothers were on the hook, unfortunately the squirm factor was not exploited , because Bruce's inane comment let them off. |
| Libervis May 12, 2009 6:47 PM EDT |
TC, I wasn't being pedantic about the whole "Linux is a kernel" thing. I actually said near the beginning of the article that "if pointing this out was the sole purpose of my writing this article I wouldn't have written it" which is true. I don't really care anymore about the tireless pedantism of the FSF and GNU fans... Furthermore, my goal isn't to encourage people to keep saying "Linux based operating system". Using the name of the distro and advertising and marketing it as such in its own right is enough. Ubuntu is Ubuntu. You don't have to say "Ubuntu is a Linux based OS" unless you actually want to tell someone that Ubuntu is based on the Linux kernel. Also, there is a larger point which has less to do with the actual terminology. Linux enthusiasts often express desires for unification of some sort. The ideal is a single package management framework and things like that. They truly DO want to make Linux a single OS rather than a multitude of distros, in a nutshell, or at least some sort of a massive harmonized coordinated effort which I think is fairly unrealistic. This is why I referred to the "Linux sucks" video. It's like they're trying to reconcile what cannot be reconciled. Do you really think RPM and apt-get (or DPKG if you will) can be somehow made compatible with each other that a company would have to make only a single package that will work on both? If not, do you think it will ever be possible to choose only one of these two as the one package management system for this unified Linux OS? I don't think so. So basically, all I'm doing is suggesting that perhaps we are better off stepping back and observing the situation as it naturally is, taking in all of that diversity and lack or conciliation and pick a fight which we actually have a chance at winning, which is not unifying this disparate ecosystem into a single OS. Instead let's allow distros to be even more unique. Let's encourage even more diversity and innovation. Let's not try to pressure them to struggle to coexist with things with which they don't necessarily have to coexist. Let's not trash Ubuntu for doing things like put in a new notifications system just because it wasn't "approved" by the so called "community". Sometimes it seems to me that there's so much emphasis on unity that we forget how important and in fact fundamental to progress it is to acknowledge and maintain unrestrained diversity. Pick a distro you feel is the best for the desktop and promote that as an OS and experience in its own right full steam. Btw, it is telling that Dell apparently prefers to use the word name "Ubuntu" rather than "Linux" on its site where it sells the Linux based Ubuntu OS: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us... Cheers |
| keithcu May 12, 2009 9:57 PM EDT |
I think unification is a good thing. Comparing software to the Soviet Union is shallow and wrong. Software and other IP is infinitely recombinable -- look at Wikipedia. Anyone can contribute. Sure it isn't perfect, but it gets better every day. Free software is much closer to a free market of ideas than a command economy. And you can have all that while cooperating. Ubuntu's problem is not that they are stealing the show, but that they are killing Debian. They added the last 1% and stole all the excitement and new volunteers. I talk about these ideas and many others in my book "After the Software Wars." It contains many ideas that are old-hat to free software geeks, but many that are not. |
| AwesomeTux May 12, 2009 11:38 PM EDT |
> Better that people have a short simple word to remember... You're right. It's GNU! The Free Software Foundation started the development of a free Unix-like operating system, not Linus. They had a name for it before Linus even began to write the kernel. All the FSF has to do is finish GNU Hurd, integrate it with gNewSense, wait for people like me to start using it. And it no longer can be called "Linux." And there is already the Debian project committed to provide such a binary distribution. Debian GNU/Hurd is currently under development and available in the unstable branch of the Debian archive. Video and such other drivers will have to be developed for it. But that part's easy with ATI drivers being free software or "open source." Not sure if their source is under a GPL version, but still. Only a matter of time. Right now it's still the GNU operating system. Not the "Linux" "operating system". |
| dinotrac May 12, 2009 11:56 PM EDT |
Awesome - GNU? Doesn't apply to X, Firefox, OpenOffice, Cinelerra, MySQL, PostgreSQL, k3b, Tuxracer or very much of what we actually do with Linux. GNU is important, don't get me wrong, but's something of a bit player these days. Linux is the word that has caught on. Ubuntu seems to be making big strides in that direction, but not GNU. |
| AwesomeTux May 13, 2009 12:27 AM EDT |
dinotrac - All those programs were surely compiled with GCC, GNU. Every last task you do on a "Linux" system wouldn't be possible without GNU. It's the OS, name it as such. I don't care if people don't like the sound of it, either does FSF. And Ubuntu uses GNOME by default, later came KDE and Xfce, so Mark Shuttleworth obviously believes more in free software, when GNU Hurd is done, Ubuntu might even switch to it, or at least have a Hbuntu or something that uses Hurd. |
| caitlyn May 13, 2009 12:27 AM EDT |
I agree with dino. The role of GNU is decreasing, too. Debian just ditched the GNU C library (glibc) in favor of eglibc. busybox replaces GNU utilities in some lightweight distros, Glendix uses Plan9 rather than GNU anything. If we add the BSDs to the discussion we see a migration away from gcc. I always thought the whole GNU/Linux thing was a bit over the top. Without a kernel you have nothing. Now as many of the GNU bits and pieces are replaced the role of GNU is diminished. |
| caitlyn May 13, 2009 12:28 AM EDT |
AwesomeTux: Hurd? Done? Will that ever happen? I've heard about Hurd for years and years and nothing really functional ever materializes. Sorry, I'll believe that one when I see it. |
| jezuch May 13, 2009 2:03 AM EDT |
Quoting:Ubuntu's problem is not that they are stealing the show, but that they are killing Debian. They added the last 1% and stole all the excitement and new volunteers. I'm watching Planet Debian and I'm not seeing a lack of "I'm finally a DD!" posts there. Ubuntu might have done some harm, but this "killing" part is IMO greatly exaggerated. |
| Sander_Marechal May 13, 2009 2:29 AM EDT |
Quoting:Ubuntu's problem is not that they are stealing the show, but that they are killing Debian. They added the last 1% and stole all the excitement and new volunteers. I don't quite agree. I know of many, many people who started off with Ubuntu, got fed up with it at some point and switched to Debian proper (or another distro). |
| AwesomeTux May 13, 2009 2:36 AM EDT |
caitlyn - Well you are wrong about that, EGLIBC, or Embedded GLIBC, is a variant of the GNU C Library (glibc), optimised for use in embedded devices, it's still gLibc. I think to name the OS "Linux" is wrong. Linus still to this day, includes binary blobs in the Linux kernel, which is wrong, and against software freedom, against what the GNU operating system started and continues on. And yes. Hurd is still being developed, just slooooooooowly. But sooner or later, Richard Stallman will think to gather people -- if he can -- and start working on Hurd. Because the Linux kernel is just heading down the road of a proprietary industrial computer kernel. |
| caitlyn May 13, 2009 3:04 AM EDT |
Linus still to this day, includes binary blobs in the Linux kernel, which is wrong In your opinion it's wrong. A lot of us don't share that opinion. It's a necessity if you want maximum hardware support which, in turn, is a necessity if you want widespread adoption. I also don't think there is any such thing as a GNU operating system, at least not yet. |
| keithcu May 13, 2009 3:18 AM EDT |
I watch Planet Debian as well, and while it is gaining programmers, it is happening slowly, much more slowly than Ubuntu. It should be doubling the number of DDs every year or so and would have if Ubuntu had been created as part of Debian. The number of people who switch from Ubuntu to Debian is very small. If they move from Ubuntu to another distro because of the mistakes they found in Ubuntu, that is another problem that was caused by the fork -- Ubuntu is in some ways inferior to Debian. I don't think binary blobs are a big problem in the scheme of things. Driver software need to be in the kernel because Linux changes its internal design, but that isn't the case with the firmware code, etc. Free software's biggest challenge is getting the 1,000s of applications to be as high (or higher) in quality as Firefox. Hurd is a waste of time. If Hurd takes off, it is because millions of programmers are working on free programs now and can port their code to Hurd. Linux built the first industrial strength free kernel which allowed the rest of the free software community to gain momentum. Even the GCC compiler is better because it has a kernel as a test case. |
| Libervis May 13, 2009 8:20 AM EDT |
@keithcu: I think unification is a good thing. Comparing software to the Soviet Union is shallow and wrong. I merely remarked on the attempts to control and coordinate what is actually an aggregation of self interested (or itch scratching if you will) pursuits of many different individuals. As I'm referring to Linux as in fact a market of components more so than it is a coherent OS, the analogy seems to fit. Many have tried and failed to shape up the markets to serve their particular vision of how the world should work, including the Soviet Union. It was just a passing remark though and I certainly don't think Mark Shuttleworth as akin to Stalin or something. ;) I think what he's trying to do in a lot of ways benefits Ubuntu and so long as other projects agree on their own accord to his pleas it's all good, but once the whole project hits a dead end, he still has an incredibly successful Ubuntu OS to succeed in its own right, with or without the rest of the Linux community. > Software and other IP is infinitely recombinable -- look at Wikipedia. Anyone can contribute. Sure it isn't perfect, but it gets better every day. Free software is much closer to a free market of ideas than a command economy. And you can have all that while cooperating. Yes, just don't forget competition is one form of cooperation (because it takes two to compete, it is mutual encouragement to do better). I agree it is closer, but it's not exactly there. I'm gonna write about that in one of the future articles. There can be no truly free market with copyright in the picture enforcing a completely backwards notion of property. > Ubuntu's problem is not that they are stealing the show, but that they are killing Debian. They added the last 1% and stole all the excitement and new volunteers. They didn't steal anything. Developers and excited people chose to join or become excited and Debian's license is explicit about letting people base new things on their code. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what Mark did with Ubuntu. |
| keithcu May 13, 2009 8:50 AM EDT |
There is competition within the Linux kernel. Many people submit ideas (for things like io scheduling) and the best ones win. You don't need a totally separate codebase. Just put the best of all in one codebase, like Wikipedia, Linux, Apache, etc. Things like the separate packaging format are inefficient and slow progress. Copyright has nothing to do with whether people fork and compete or work together. And without copyright law, the terms of the GPL couldn't be enforced. Ubuntu stole excitement and all the new volunteers and is killing Debian. You don't think Ubuntu is killing Debian, or you don't think there is anything wrong with that? I've talked to a fair amount of Debian developers who are angry at Mark. Did you know they are out there? In addition, the current situation is inefficient. Work is done in Ubuntu, and then re-done in Debian. |
| jdixon May 13, 2009 9:25 AM EDT |
> Linux built the first industrial strength free kernel which allowed the rest of the free software community to gain momentum. The BSD kernel predated the Linux kernel, and there is no doubt it is industrial strength. Some would argue more so than the Linux kernel. |
| Libervis May 13, 2009 9:29 AM EDT |
I disagree with everything you say keithcu. Separation and forking is what made some of the greatest things in the Linux realm and also happens to be fundamental to freedom in general. It all really comes down to freedom to say no and go your own way, the freedom to be different instead of creating collectives for collective's sake, not for own sake. Copyright has everything to do with everything in the software industry. It let's even so called Free Software developers to assume that they own copies of software on my own computer, even after giving it to me voluntarily. They just demand from me to use it under different and somewhat less restrictive terms, but especially in case of GPL those terms can still get in the way of innovation quite terribly. GPL builds walls for the supposed "protection" of freedom, but it also sometimes has the exactly opposite effect. And indeed, it wouldn't be able to do that without copyright. All copyright licenses assume that the software vendor owns all copies of given software regardless of where you got it or how much you paid for it (free or not). If you want truly free software the only way to go is public domain, because copyright doesn't apply there. But next best thing still is BSD. At least they restrict the least (merely requiring acknowledgment). If you're at all curious and open minded.. well.. wait for the article. I don't want to turn this comment into one, but I will explain everything. Controversial it surely will be, but it's about time I infect the Free Software "community" of so called big freedom advocates with alternative reasoning. Aside from exercising doublethink, some of you may never be able to think about software freedom the same way. As for Ubuntu killing Debian, you obviously don't understand what "stealing" means. To steal something you must take something away by force. This is utterly impossible in case of Debian and Ubuntu because everything that happened was agreed upon. Developers CHOSE to join Ubuntu. Debian people CHOSE to license their software in a way that allowed Ubuntu to base on them. Developers who get angry at Mark are barking up the wrong tree. If they don't want their code to be used by other people freely then why are they giving it anyway? IMHO, Ubuntu is helping rather than killing Debian. You say yourself: "Work is done in Ubuntu, and then re-done in Debian." Duh. Edit: And yes, I'm being arrogant (before anyone accuses me of it). :P Trust me, the alternative is worse. |
| TxtEdMacs May 13, 2009 10:58 AM EDT |
Awesome!, ah Tux is it? I too heard of hurd, years and years now. However, despite the cacophony of the approaching thundering herd, there has been nary a sign of the true hurd. It seems to fail to arrive, not even its scent. Oh, why has the great master been napping too long? ... I will cut this short here, because derision is too easy. The essence is that RMS's ideas and ideals are superior to the man in real life. He has obvious flaws. Do not venerate the man, show respect for his ideas and even his short comings. That is, in free software his ideas have been more often correct than his contemporaries or those that arrived later.. RMS's greatest failing is his not following some of the critical ideals he espouses. One example, was emacs, which seems to have been mostly a solo project centered on his code and efforts. As a result of the slower pace and some differences in the feature set xemacs* split off from Stallman's code base. Certainly under the terms of GPL this was an understandable and legal fork, however, it obviously engendered bitterness in one major party i.e. RMS. When the xemacs project requested to use the emacs documentation (I assumed they meant the user guide), the request was denied with prejudice**. More recently, the xemacs project asked to be merged back into emacs the request seemed to be rejected with a tone of disdain, which is quite counter to the ideals of free software. Thus, to me RMS pushes the ideals of free software, but reserves the rights not to live by those values. More likely, he is not truly aware of the dichotomy. In my opinion, RMS does not get the respect he deserves partially due to his own faults. He seems set to being at the very center of a project immersed and in control of all details. In contrast, Linus***, pushes the work and even the esteem outward to others that have the time and skills he respects. RMS's pursuit of the central role makes too many enemies without winning allies. As a result the creator of Linux gets more adoring press and GNU guy gets ignored or berated. At least some of this assessment is warranted, because the crown jewel of GNU was supposed to be hurd. Had RMS stepped just a bit aside it might have been here long ago. That's my reason for always referring to Linux with no prefix attached, despite my appreciation of many of the fine things RMS has done. Indeed his thought laid the foundation of an entire movement whose consequences have not yet entirely played out. In my opinion****, your extreme accusations regarding Debian and the harm inflicted upon it by external parties are mainly based upon ignorance of the way that group has operated. When I first read of the ideals of Debian, those came closest to matching my own, I was truly impressed. Later my knowledge about Debian's actual operations deepened, my view altered. I found the ideals subverted by what I see as a toxic subculture that talks about honesty with a liars regard for facts. Just a couple of examples, why are there people on the help forums that spout only one response: "RTFM"***** when it is others that take the time to explain and respond? Secondly why did it take so long to muzzle the gender disparagement of potentially excellent developers who happened to be women? These examples alone strongly suggest the Debian project, despite its ideals, had major and continuing internal problems that were not being caused by the appearance of external projects that pilfered its efforts. Debian product strong points were delivering the most stable Linux server platform that was kept secure with constant updates. However, Its release "schedule" of the stable branch was not conducive to attracting a massive user base to its desktop. Next, the supposed stealing of developers from Debian: read a bit more and you will see there was a bureaucratic backlog of developers waiting to be approved to be active. Many were known to be deserving, but locked out because the process had atrophied to the point losses were exceeding admissions. Looking at it from this vantage point, it could be argued that Debian was actively pushing competence away from its project by inaction. Where would you go if you had the talent? To those that showed no interest or those that invited you to join a new, hot project? Some (maybe most) would gravitate to the latter. This is what Debian did to itself with no help from Ubuntu, so do not accuse without a fuller understanding. From my point of view, Ubuntu did Debian a favor (remember many current Debian developers are paid by Ubuntu), the leadership and schedule has changed. Yes it might have without Ubuntu, but at a much slower pace, if ever. We will never really know. Your Buddy Txt. P.S. I suggest getting a subscription or reading lwn.net, for a deeper look at Linux and related projects. All items are free after two weeks and a few are available to all immediately * Not an important note, but when I was picking up Unix on the fly while on assignment I unknowingly used xemacs under the Sun OS thinking it was emacs. At the time I wondered why it had features that were lacking under Linux where I was running real emacs. This was circa version 20.x for both versions. I thought xemacs was superior, but I attributed it to running on Unix. ** There is more than a bit of irony here, because he vehemently opposed O'Reilly (and others) publishing guide books on how to use Free software applications. He stated these books should not be commercial, but Free like the software. Yet where he had the chance to share to a closely related, free project he was stingy. *** Linus too can be bull headed and give his opinion too readily where he has been wrong and disparaging. **** I say this not due to being uncertain that I know more about the Debian project than you, but I tend to know how little I know do I try to hold off of over general conclusions, except in jest. All this is a result of being trained in the sciences. ***** What manual and where it might be found go unanswered. If those answers were supplied it requires someone that understands Unix type documentation. Without prior experience and/or training a new user encounters an opaque excess of verbiage that is lacking in clarity. |
| azerthoth May 13, 2009 1:30 PM EDT |
@YBT that was a nice bit of writing. |
| tuxchick May 13, 2009 1:51 PM EDT |
Dear LXer readers who write long excellent comments and waste them in the Comments section, here is the Submit Story link for submitting nice original Features. LXer loves Features! http://lxer.com/module/newswire/stories/add.php |
| gus3 May 13, 2009 1:55 PM EDT |
But if TxtEdMacs submits a story, does it automatically get a Humor tag? |
| keithcu May 13, 2009 4:51 PM EDT |
Libervis, You act as if forking is a good thing, something almost to be admired, but ignore that the point about free software is it allows for cooperation. If everyone writes free software, but works in their own forked codebase, is that any better than the proprietary model? Remember the line about standing on shoulders of giants? I think the GPL is a good license and public domain is a bad idea. There are many examples of codebases made under lax licenses that started free and were made proprietary. With GPL that can't happen. Check out the history of the X Windows subsystem. I heard a talk by Keith Packard who described all the messes because of the proprietary forks that were made. The GPL pushes people to give back. You think IBM would have made their changes to Linux part of the official codebase without the GPL license? Wrt to Ubuntu, the problem isn't that Ubuntu is using Debian's code. The problem is a matter of social engineering. It has created separate communities, and massive inefficiencies. When work is re-done in Debian, it is very little more helpful than if the work didn't exist. When something is re-done it means the work was NOT useful. In other words, Ubuntu is not helping Debian. You are allowed to be arrogant, but don't confuse it with being correct. |
| keithcu May 13, 2009 4:57 PM EDT |
TxtEdMacs, Of course Debian had problems. Every community has problems! Note rudeness is not unique to Debian. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I agree that the stable branch took too long to release, but changing this could have been done without creating an entirely separate community. I am familiar with the problem of a backlog of developers, but fixing that is not even that hard. And while you describe problems, you don't describe the inefficiences caused by Ubuntu. Mark should have hired Debian developers and gotten them to work in the Debian codebase. Hiring DD's to work full-time in Debian would have been a shot in the arm that would have fixed a bunch of the problems. He didn't *need* to hire them and get them to work in a separate codebase. Don't worry, I'm not "accusing" without a full understanding. |
| gus3 May 13, 2009 5:04 PM EDT |
Quoting:I think the GPL is a good license and public domain is a bad idea.Public domain has its place. All shell scripts that I release go into the public domain. I see nothing else that makes sense for something like that. |
| keithcu May 13, 2009 10:23 PM EDT |
Gus3, I think you could release your stuff as GPL. It might seem overkill, but it doesn't hurt. Since a shell scripts contains all of its source, it is easy for people to comply with the terms of the GPL. For little codebases, it doesn't matter. But if big codebases are public domain, it is bad because people will not give their changes back, or create proprietary forks, etc. |
| gus3 May 13, 2009 11:01 PM EDT |
Heh, honestly, my shell scripts hardly count as a "big codebase." The most complicated shell script I ever wrote was the Christmas slideshow script that was featured on LXer a year and a half ago. Although, it would be fun to implement a Java VM in Bash. I can already hear the screams of agony... That said, I do have a project on my plate, and it will definitely have a GPL license if/when it finally gets released. If you're interested in reading about it, click the "Terminating a Bad Assumption" link under the LXer Features in the right-hand column. |
| jezuch May 14, 2009 2:05 AM EDT |
Quoting:Mark should have hired Debian developers and gotten them to work in the Debian codebase. Uh, I don't think thst would be such a good idea. Remember dunc-tank experiment? |
| keithcu May 14, 2009 3:19 AM EDT |
Jezuch, Yes, I remember dunc-tank but I'm not sure what your point is. The primary challenge with it seemed to be a PR problem, or something minor. There are companies such as HP who have programmers paid to contribute to Debian, and I see no ongoing complaints about that. |
| Libervis May 14, 2009 10:49 AM EDT |
@ keithcu: > You act as if forking is a good thing, something almost to be admired, but ignore that the point about free software is it allows for cooperation. If everyone writes free software, but works in their own forked codebase, is that any better than the proprietary model? Remember the line about standing on shoulders of giants? I thought it was about the user (and by extension a developer as well) being able to decide what to do with it. You're just projecting your own opinion as the "point" of free software, yet the keyword is "free" and the saying goes "free as in freedom". Freedom makes absolutely no value judgments between particular acts. You are free to do anything. So cooperation, competition and forking are all equally valid and I would say equally admirable, but you're overemphasizing cooperation over the rest and then somehow concluding that lack of cooperation must be like proprietary software. Free Software can be developed in both the cathedral fashion and the bazaar fashion. Don't forget that. In both cases the result is still free software. > I think the GPL is a good license and public domain is a bad idea. Of course you are. You're like I was, thinking of RMS as this great leader and GPL as the ultimate shield he bestowed upon us to protect our fragile freedoms.. I know the drill and I know exactly why would you be a fan of GPL and be very VERY hard pressed to even consider the benefits of even LESS restrictive licensing (like BSD and public domain), not to mention philosophical reasoning behind it. But.. hold on.. > There are many examples of codebases made under lax licenses that started free and were made proprietary. That's a common objection to BSD, and there's a very good response, if you're willing to read with an open mind: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/bsdl-gpl/article.html In a nutshell, free code that ends up in proprietary software is not necessarily such a bad thing nor such an impotent force for bringing about more freedom for software users. GPL builds walls for "protection" and the reason it's often called "viral" is because essentially everything that touches GPL must also get in within those walls and slam the doors shut. But BSD is the one which *infects* proprietary software. Once a proprietary software developer adopts a BSD program instead of developing his own in house a pathway to standardization is open. You may think they would modify the BSD'd code to not interoperate, but that costs money and should they need support from the authors of the BSD code in question, they potentially lose that capability as well. BSD thus operates by extending a hand and providing strong incentive whereas GPL builds walled gardens, creates potentially expensive legal booby traps and calls them "freedom". Just think of OpenSSH and OpenSSL and even TCP/IP I think, as examples of BSD software which have became a de facto standard and thus benefited the whole world. That simply wouldn't have been possible if mentioned technologies were GPLed. > You think IBM would have made their changes to Linux part of the official codebase without the GPL license? I can't be the one to say that. They may have or they might not have. I would also defend a larger point that it is in fact unethical to even force their hand in that decision, which is what I'm gonna write about later. GPL still does all of the fundamental things proprietary software does - assume that the author owns all copies ever made anywhere in the world and thus has the right to impose his will on how it should be used. I completely disagree with such an assumption, and it's a basic assumption behind all copyright. Copyright facilitates property theft on a mass scale, and due to ignorance, so called "freedom" supporters in the Free Software movement still defend such theft and user control, while calling such a state of things "freedom". YOU own copies of software on YOUR CDs, DVDs or computers, not the author of the code, whether (s)he uses GPL or a proprietary EULA. A developer who uses GPL is merely a little more gentle master, but still a master. And take it from RMS's mouth: "Freedom is not a choice of masters". > Wrt to Ubuntu, the problem isn't that Ubuntu is using Debian's code. The problem is a matter of social engineering. It has created separate communities, and massive inefficiencies. When work is re-done in Debian, it is very little more helpful than if the work didn't exist. When something is re-done it means the work was NOT useful. In other words, Ubuntu is not helping Debian. See TxtEdMacs assertions on that. I guess you personally do not like the fact that Ubuntu did what they were *allowed* and *encouraged* to do by means of Debian's *chosen* licensing and somehow want to portray that as regardless something wrong. I don't get it man. You advocate a license which allows certain things and then selectively scorn people for doing what it allows. |
| jezuch May 14, 2009 3:01 PM EDT |
Quoting:Yes, I remember dunc-tank but I'm not sure what your point is. The primary challenge with it seemed to be a PR problem, or something minor. The point is that Debian is a volunteer organisation. When you add money to a volunteer environment, it creates ferment. This ferment killed Debian Weekly News, for example. Hiring Debian Developers to work on Ubuntu, and *not* on Debian, is a smart workaround of this problem. [Yes, it too creates tensions, but of different, less deadly, kind.] |
| keithcu May 14, 2009 3:42 PM EDT |
Liverbis, > So cooperation, competition and forking are all equally valid Just because you have the freedom to own a gun and shoot yourself in the foot doesn't make it a good idea. The success of Linux and Wikipedia et al are due to the fact that so many people are working together in one codebase >Free Software can be developed in both the cathedral fashion and the bazaar fashion. Don't forget that. In both cases the result is still free software. Either dev model can be adopted in a codebase. In other words, this has nothing to do with what we are talking about. > You're like I was, thinking of RMS as this great leader Now you are projecting. I don't think Richard Stallman is a great leader. I evaluate ideas on their merits. I hope you do as well. >Just think of OpenSSH and OpenSSL and even TCP/IP I think, as examples of BSD software which have became a de facto standard and thus benefited the whole world. That simply wouldn't have been possible if mentioned technologies were GPLed. Of course you can find examples of codebases that succeeded while being BSD. Part of the reason for their success is that no one wants to fork OpenSSH. Why? It would defeat the purpose of allowing interop. TCP/IP is a standard, not an implementation. There are many floating around. Your post never responded to the messy history of X Windows which was forked and made proprietary several times. Understand that and see if you still like BSD. And Linux might not be the success it is if it were not GPL. It is much more likely that someone would fork Linux (or not contribute their changes back) than would fork OpenSSH. Maybe in your world without value judgments, you don't care if things are a success or not. >I can't be the one to say that. They may have or they might not have. I would also defend a larger point that it is in fact unethical to even force their hand in that decision, which is what I'm gonna write about later Now you are projecting what is ethical. You don't have to use GPL software if you don't want to! Choosing to use GPL software is voluntary. The point about GPL is that it is protecting the rights of future users, so that they will have the same rights as current users. You seem to argue that proprietary software is a good thing, or no worse or better than free software. Once you conclude free software is superior, you will then conclude that GPL is superior. >See TxtEdMacs assertions on that. I guess you personally do not like the fact that Ubuntu did what they were *allowed* and *encouraged* to do by means of Debian's *chosen* licensing and somehow want to portray that as regardless something wrong. I don't get it man. You advocate a license which allows certain things and then selectively scorn people for doing what it allows. I already responded to TxtEdMacs. Forking is not "encouraged" by free software. If you think that, you don't understand the point of free software and why free software is succeeding today. You don't get it man because I'm guessing you haven't worked on software with a large team of people and so don't understand why working together is a good thing. |
| keithcu May 14, 2009 3:45 PM EDT |
Jezuch, >Hiring Debian Developers to work on Ubuntu, and *not* on Debian, is a smart workaround of this >problem. [Yes, it too creates tensions, but of different, less deadly, kind.] Why haven't the HP developers caused tension? You never responded to that. If Debian withers and dies because of Ubuntu, as it is well on its way to doing, do you still consider that not a problem? |
| tuxchick May 14, 2009 3:47 PM EDT |
Quoting: The point is that Debian is a volunteer organisation. When you add money to a volunteer environment, it creates ferment. This ferment killed Debian Weekly News, for example. I think the problem with both Dunc Tank and Canonical hiring Debian devs is a lot of folks are left out and they feel unfairly treated. Which is understandable because everyone has given up time and energy to support Debian, and now some are cashing in, and some are not. I imagine that some sort of scheme that distributed money to everyone, even if it's just a little bit, would go a long way towards making people feel like they were treated fairly. |
| keithcu May 14, 2009 3:55 PM EDT |
Tuxchick, > think the problem with both Dunc Tank and Canonical hiring Debian devs is a lot of folks are left out > and they feel unfairly treated. But the people who work on Ubuntu as a job work on it 40-60 hours per week. Those who volunteer do not. People need to understand that if you are digging a ditch out of love for 2-4 hours per week in your free time, and someone shows up to start digging 40 hours per week, that is a benefit to you because the ditch gets dug faster. They should also be reminded of the HP dev scenario. No one is cashing in on their work. They are only paid for their future work. Maybe Mark could have thrown around some money to the past people, though. It surely would have been cheaper to do that than to create bzr, buy a bunch of build servers, invent a new bug tracking system, etc. I believe if Mark had improved Debian, and brought it all the users he brought to Ubuntu, with new volunteers working on improving the Debian art, wiki, etc., etc. the bitterness would have disappeared. In addition, Ubuntu has paid developers and volunteers. Why has this not been corrosive to their community? |
| tuxchick May 14, 2009 4:06 PM EDT |
Well keithcu, I know of at least a few DDs who would love to work on Debian full-time, but can't because they have to work at other jobs to earn their livings. Yes, Ubuntu has both paid and unpaid workers, but that's how it was from the start. With Debian it was a big change. It's hard to not take something like that as "I'm not as valued as those other people because they're getting money now and I'm not, so this sucks." |
| caitlyn May 14, 2009 4:08 PM EDT |
I'll get back to this thread when it comes out in paperback. |
| NoDough May 14, 2009 4:12 PM EDT |
What? No kindle? |
| keithcu May 14, 2009 4:13 PM EDT |
Tuxchick, > Well keithcu, I know of at least a few DDs who would love to work on Debian full-time, but can't because they have to work at other jobs to earn their livings. Yes, Ubuntu has both paid and unpaid workers, but that's how it was from the start. With Debian it was a big change. It's hard to not take something like that as "I'm not as valued as those other people because they're getting money now and I'm not, so this sucks." If someone is getting paid to do something else, then they shouldn't complain. I'd love to have the salary of 3 or 4 jobs, but the problem is I'd have to do that work. I really think that if Mark had hired some Debian devs to do that hardest, most boring work, and this brought in hundreds more volunteers, it wouldn't have been a problem in the long term. And he could have helped by giving some money to the current Debian community, paid for people to come to Debconf, etc. And I'm sure some people in Debian are ticked because they are volunteering to do things that Ubuntu devs are getting paid to do. In the one codebase world, this wouldn't have happened. |
| keithcu May 14, 2009 4:19 PM EDT |
Caitlyn, >I'll get back to this thread when it comes out in paperback. Much of what I'm writing about is covered in my book "After the Software Wars" http://www.lulu.com/content/4964815 Much of what is there is obvious to people in the Linux community: why the Linux kernel is superior, etc. But much of what is not: why GPL is better than BSD, why Ubuntu shouldn't have been created separately from Debian. It explains things more methodically than I do here. You can get it on paperback from Amazon as well: http://www.amazon.com/After-Software-Wars-Keith-Curtis/dp/05... I enjoy chatting with people here because it helps me refine and make sure my arguments are effective and cover all the possible objections people might make. I think I'll eventually add a few sentences to my book because of what is said here. |
| Libervis May 14, 2009 6:47 PM EDT |
> Just because you have the freedom to own a gun and shoot yourself in the foot doesn't make it a good idea. The success of Linux and Wikipedia et al are due to the fact that so many people are working together. I don't think it's a good idea to shoot myself in the foot, I agree. :) But if it was someone else doing it it's his or hers decision to make. Maybe their foot was just bitten by a poisonous snake so it might very well be a good idea for them, even if very crude. :) My point is not to deride the value of working together though. It is impossible to accomplish anything significant without working together on SOME level. You can work together at the same time while competing. On wikipedia people may compete in how many articles they write or how good their articles are. On Linux they may compete in terms of quality of the code they create, even if it is two pieces of code that do the same thing, hoping that theirs is what Linus or any other gatekeeper will pass into the kernel tree. Forking is either about personal vanity, in which case I just don't see the harm. If I wanna rip the Linux kernel apart and create my own that I will use alone that's my pejorative. But if I'm forking something to offer to other people and those other people actually want what I'm offering more than the other thing then I'm obviously meeting demand, simultaneously creating more choice, diversity and potentially innovating in ways I couldn't if I stuck to the original project. What I'm defending is the same thing you should be defending fundamentally, as a professed Free Software supporter, and that's the freedom to do whatever you want with the software, not JUST the freedom to cooperate. Cooperation isn't the cause, it's the effect. You may like cooperation or certain kinds of cooperation and that's fine, I like it too in many circumstances. I just don't think that's the KEY to Free Software. The KEY is freedom, or at least that's what it was supposed to be. > Now *you* are projecting; I don't think Richard Stallman is a great leader. I evaluate ideas on their merits. I hope you do as well. Right.. I was saying the same thing and then I encountered ideas that I evaluated on their merits and they turned out to be far better (more fundamental, more consistent and empirical.. ). Same might happen to you at some point. > Of course you can find examples of codebases that succeeded while being BSD. Part of the reason for their success is that no one wants to fork OpenSSH. Why? It would defeat the purpose of allowing interop. I think you're kinda proving my point there. The deeds follow the needs. GPL puts roadblocks towards that. And proprietary licenses put even more roadblocks. > Your post never responded to the messy history of X Windows. Understand that and see if you still like BSD. I might read it, but don't assume I'll make the same conclusions as you. From what I do know and remember it was a forking issue. You might call it messy, I might say deeds follow the needs. If it was done it was done because enough people found value in doing it. > And Linux might not be the success it is if it were not GPL. It is much more likely that someone would fork Linux than would fork OpenSSH. Maybe in your world without value judgements, you don't care if things are a success or not. It's just as well possible Linux would be even bigger of a success if it were not for the GPL. Also don't forget it's still possible to fork Linux despite it being under GPL. Why wasn't it? As for my world being without value judgments, that's a misunderstanding. The universe at large objectively makes no value judgments. They're specific to individual humans. I'm just about respecting individual's own value judgments while sticking to my own and not imposing my values on others nor having others impose their values on me. That's not a world without value judgments, it's a world where individual values can be exercised freely, without someone repressing them. GPL is comparatively far better than proprietary licenses perhaps, but that's not because it doesn't repress at all. It just represses less. BSD represses least. Public domain doesn't repress at all. > Now you are projecting what is ethical. You don't have to use GPL software if you don't want to! The point about GPL is that it is protecting the rights of future users, so that they will have the same rights as current users. I know I don't have to use it and same is said to me about proprietary software. I don't have to use any of it, but then I might as well not use computers at all. So I do have some value invested in talking about what I see as wrong about the way it's done in the software industry. The reason I'm saying it's unethical was explained before the quoted text, it's because I believe in property rights. You write some code and you own that code, but as soon as you copy that code to someone else, either for free or for a fee, he now owns that second copy while you STILL own your own copy. Nobody owns both copies at once. You don't own the copy you gave to someone else, you still own JUST your own copy. But copyright law fundamentally assumes the contrary. It assumes that you still own both copies, and not only those copies, but even copies the other guy makes for other people and so on indefinitely. Thus copyright assumes that all he ever did was merely rent software and doesn't even allow for any other option. So ALL copyright licenses carry that same basic assumption, including the least restrictive ones like BSD and GPL, and most restrictive ones like various EULA's. So by following copyright and giving software under terms of a *copyright* license, you are either forever only renting (though even that breaks down if the license explicitly allows copying and sharing in that shared copies are no longer rented by you) or you're imposing claim and control over software you don't actually own, which is tantamount to theft. The only last resort that remains thus is the copyright free zone, the public domain. That's the only place where you can truly respect the property right of the user, the only way Free Software can really be free as in freedom. > You seem to argue that proprietary software is a good thing, or no worse or better than free software. No, I'm just saying that because of using copyright GPL shares a fundamental trait with proprietary software which is what makes it merely less restrictive, but not ENTIRELY respective towards freedom. It makes a developer a gentler master, but still a master. The user still never actually gets to act as if he truly owns his copy of software or else he could combine the GPL'd code with code under a GPL incompatible license without fear of violent retribution via government courts (violent because you get money stolen from you if you don't comply). > I already responded to TxtEdMacs. Forking is not "encouraged" by free software. If you think that, you don't understand the point of free software and why free software is succeeding today. Would you not say that Free Software advocates encourage people to care about their freedom when using software? And isn't one of the freedoms allowed by the GPL the freedom to modify the code and thus turn it into something else, essentially creating a fork? It seems to me you don't quite deeply understand your own ideology. > You don't get it man because I'm guessing you haven't worked on software with a large team of people and so don't understand why working together is a good thing. I'm not arguing against working together, but for individual freedom to decide what to do with his own property, whatever that involves, working together or not, forking or contributing existing projects. I'm arguing a more fundamental point. |
| Libervis May 14, 2009 6:48 PM EDT |
Meh, why does it have to turn out this long. :S I should write a freaking article instead of arguing......... maybe I better do that next time instead of replying. |
| keithcu May 14, 2009 10:13 PM EDT |
> But if I'm forking something to offer to other people and those other people actually want what I'm offering more than the other thing then I'm obviously meeting demand, simultaneously creating more choice, diversity and potentially innovating in ways I couldn't if I stuck to the original project. Yes, but you would very likely be better off doing your work in the Linux kernel. Linus and company would likely find bugs in your ideas that you wouldn't find if you were off by yourself. And if someone adds a feature that you've already added, then there is now wasted effort. In other words, forking Linux is likely a bad idea. Linux runs on embedded devices and supercomputers so I can see no reason why you would need to fork. And without the GPL license nudging companies like IBM to contribute their changes back, I'm quite sure they wouldn't have. > What I'm defending is the same thing you should be defending fundamentally, as a professed Free Software supporter, and that's the freedom to do whatever you want with the software, not JUST the freedom to cooperate. I *completely* support the idea of forking, but think it should happen very infrequently. Software is infinitely malleable, so the best ideas can be combined together. The only reason to fork is if the dev process is broken or some other extreme reason. I believe that cooperation is extremely important, and not equally or almost as good an idea as forking. Cooperation is fundamental to progress. With proprietary BSD code or forking, cooperation is halted. This is why Ubuntu is a bad idea, and why BSD license makes it too easy for forking or proprietary derivatives to happen. The viral burdens placed on the GPL are very limited in scope. You can run a proprietary Oracle database on Linux. GPL only says that you must pass on to your users the same freedoms you got yourself for a particular piece of code. I can't see how you would think that is a bad idea unless you think proprietary software is a good idea. >And isn't one of the freedoms allowed by the GPL the freedom to modify the code and thus turn it into something else, essentially creating a fork? It seems to me you don't quite deeply understand your own ideology. You can't contribute back your changes without the ability to modify your code. In the BSD model, you might be using software that you don't have access to the source code for. Therefore you lose freedom to modify your code. Your totally free code is actually not free then! You can't check in some new code without making a change and running it on your machine first. That sort of forking is not what this discussion is about. > I should write a freaking article instead of arguing......... maybe I better do that next time instead of replying. Maybe, but I don't think you appreciate the importance of cooperation, the importance of protecting the freedom for future users, that BSD software can be proprietary, and the way software evolves via innovation chains, so I'd hold off on it for now. |
| Libervis May 14, 2009 11:18 PM EDT |
> Yes, but you would very likely be better off doing your work in the Linux kernel. That's ultimately on me to say, not you. You don't morally decide instead of the one who is acting how (s)he should act. You can merely provide an opinion and a suggestion. > And without the GPL license nudging companies like IBM to contribute their changes back, I'm quite sure they wouldn't have. It's good that they used it to begin with, given that exact mandate. I wonder how many companies wouldn't even touch Linux because of it, let alone "contribute back". GPL builds walled gardens. Not everyone may be as bold to enter them as IBM. There are better ways to incentivize contributions aside from threatening a lawsuit (copyright enforcement). > I *completely* support the idea of forking, but think it should happen very infrequently. Cool, thanks for sharing your opinion. Just don't expect everyone to follow it. > Cooperation is fundamental to progress. No, freedom is fundamental to progress. Cooperation is one set of options you get to have once you're free. GPL denies you freedom to do certain things for the sake of "protecting" freedom, and uses government to force those rules even on people whom it has no business policing. You seemed to have just skipped the part where I explain property rights and how copyright violates them, but just to make it a little more vivid.. I OWN all of the GPLed software I currently run on my computer. Got it? I own it absolutely. If I wanted to I could take another code which is attached with a GPL-incompatible license, and combine it with the GPL code. I can't do that you say? GPL violation you say? Copyright violation? Yes it is. But is it a moral violation? If you believe in property rights it is not. If I don't own all of that code on my computer I don't own my computer then either, because you're then taking it upon you to control what I may or may not do with it, even when doing what I'm doing hurts nobody and steals from nobody. If it's not immoral then it's merely illegal. And the ONLY thing that means is that I am threatened to be sued and stolen money from for doing what I did above. In other words, the only thing you have on your side is a threat of force. And this my friend is why you and the Free Software movement have very little to do with true freedom, just enforcing your own preferences. > With proprietary BSD code or forking, cooperation is halted. How can proprietary code be both proprietary and BSD? If it's BSD then it's free and you can take it and cooperate on its development all you want. You're almost beginning to equate BSD with proprietary software. > This is why Ubuntu is a bad idea, and why BSD license makes it too easy for forking or proprietary derivatives to happen. I don't see the "why" you see here aside for a few "strong" opinions, not facts. I can't believe you still hammer on Ubuntu as a bad idea. It had more success and innovation in 4 years than Debian had in more than a decade. If Mark Shuttleworth didn't do what he did I doubt I'd even be using Linux today. > In the BSD model, you might be using software that you don't have access to the source code for. Therefore you lose freedom to modify your code. Your totally free code is actually not free then! That's all fine and dandy, but you're talking about a red herring. I don't like BSD code becoming proprietary any more than you do, but that's not the point. BSD code still comes closest to respecting all of my property rights than GPL. And BSD infecting proprietary code and becoming itself proprietary still CAN have at least some positive side effects, as mentioned before. The incentive towards better standardization and interoperability. BSD doesn't build walls, it crushes them. > Maybe, but I don't think you appreciate the importance of cooperation, the importance of protecting the freedom for future users, that BSD software can be proprietary, and the way software evolves via innovation chains, so I'd hold off on it for now. Really? Is that why you ignore my property rights comments? Because I think I understand all too well. The fundamental thing is freedom, without it at least some kinds of cooperation are trampled. You speak of protecting freedom with a license which still limits what you can do with your own property. Your big beef is cooperation. Well don't you see that you're actually banning certain kinds of cooperation with GPL? It's not really cooperation you're about, it's cooperation on your terms and in your kind of walled garden. This is all too typical for many so called freedom fighters. At some point one begins to see they're really not about freedom, but about forcing one particular (dis)order over another, just replacing one set of restrictions with another. |
| gus3 May 15, 2009 12:07 AM EDT |
Quoting:How can proprietary code be both proprietary and BSD?From the perspective of the end user/customer, modified BSD code without source is no different from proprietary code. |
| keithcu May 15, 2009 2:09 AM EDT |
Regarding unification versus forking:
> You don't morally decide instead of the one who is acting how (s)he should act. I didn't morally decide. I just said you'd be stupid to fork Linux. That is a technical analysis, not a moral statement. > Cool, thanks for sharing your opinion. Just don't expect everyone to follow it. I know I'm not dictator of the universe. I don't even rule my house, my cat does. I'm just trying to point out that just because forking is allowed doesn't mean it is a good idea. Likewise, the "healthy competition" that you think exists between the DEB and RPM people is just an accident of history, a mistake, a huge waste of resources, and something which slows down Linux's progress. > If Mark Shuttleworth didn't do what he did I doubt I'd even be using Linux today. That's because you haven't considered alternative things Mark might have done. You assume only two possibilities: Mark doing nothing, and Mark doing what he did. In fact, I am positive that more people would be using Linux today if Mark had stayed a part of Debian. Regarding licensing: > I wonder how many companies wouldn't even touch Linux because of it, let alone "contribute back". Apple doesn't contribute to Linux, but basically every other hardware company does. In other words, this question is answered. But what is still not answered is whether companies like IBM would have created proprietary forks if not for the GPL. I think they would have. You haven't given it much thought. > If I wanted to I could take another code which is attached with a GPL-incompatible license, and combine it with the GPL code. I can't do that you say? GPL violation you say? Copyright violation? You could do that on your computer if you want to. The problem only happens with downstream users of your code. See, you aren't thinking about the next guy. >How can proprietary code be both proprietary and BSD? As Gus explains, someone can modify some BSD code and not release the modified source and this is effectively proprietary again. This is what I mean when I say you don't recognize software as a constant chain of innovation. >I don't like BSD code becoming proprietary any more than you do, but that's not the point. And BSD infecting proprietary code and becoming itself proprietary still CAN have at least some positive side effects, as mentioned before. The incentive towards better standardization and interoperability. That *is* the point. BSD provides no way to prevent this bad thing from happening. BSD provides no "incentive" for better standardization. BSD provides nothing. You think proprietary software is okay, so you think BSD is good because it allows for integration with proprietary software. But proprietary software sucks, and so this "feature" BSD provides is a dumb feature. > It's not really cooperation you're about, it's cooperation on your terms and in your kind of walled garden. You act like the terms of the GPL are an onerous imposition on you. They are not. They don't affect users, only programmers who modify the code. And the only restriction is that you must give any modifications to YOUR users. That is the minimum restriction to guarantee freedom for future users. If you want to get your panties in a bunch and claim this is a big imposition, you have that freedom. But that is silly. You claim to want freedom, but you don't want license agreements that give, even guarantee, that freedom. The GPL is the best license for giving and guaranteeing freedom to users and future users. The BSD license is stupid. You realize I can write some BSD licensed code, but not give the source away? I suppose you are fine with that because you view giving away code as a potential imposition on freedom. Your world of maximum freedom actually makes no sense. > No, freedom is fundamental to progress. Progress only happens when people stand on each other's shoulders. That is the definition of progress. That is cooperation. Anyway, it is a semantic discussion. Anyway, I agree that freedom is important, which is why I think your ideas for creating more freedom actually would create less and are therefore a bad idea. |
| Libervis May 15, 2009 4:27 AM EDT |
I'll try to make this shorter. I don't think you're understanding what I'm trying to say or in any case you're misrepresenting it. 1. Rift between RPM and DEB is not an "accident", it's an aggregate of individual human choices. You may disagree with someone's choices, but it's their right to make them. 2. I am NOT a fan of proprietary software. Specifically I'm a fan of NO copyright license whatsoever. I merely recognize BSD as least restrictive, thus closest to no copyright and so most respective towards freedom. The ideal way is public domain. 3. My main beef is with presenting GPL as if it was an end all and be all to software freedom while completely ignoring the moral flaw embedded in all copyright licenses that makes that impossible. In other words, if your goal is freedom then your ideal should be public domain, not GPL (BSD is just the next best thing). At best GPL is just a hack on the corrupt system and a lesser evil, but the destination is public domain and no copyright. The moral flaw embedded in copyright is the assumption that the author of the work owns all copies of that work ever made by anyone anywhere in the world, even when he had no part in transactions nor acts of making copies, which is plainly ridiculous and philosophically (logically, empirically) unsound and invalid. If two individuals have a transaction, no third party has any business in it whatsoever. Whatever agreement or contract exists is solely between them. So if I get emacs from RMS and he gives me GPL as terms which he expects me to follow if he is to give me the copy of the program, then GPL becomes an agreement between me and RMS for that single exchange, no other, nobody else. RMS thus basically rented a single copy of emacs to me under the terms of the GPL. I don't own THAT copy of emacs because I agreed to terms which preclude ownership (you can't own something if you agreed to use it only in ways someone else defined, which breaks exclusivity of control necessary for you to have in order to own something.) If I then make a NEW copy of emacs to Jack, since GPL allows copying software to others, but do not ask Jack to comply with any specific terms nor attach any particular license. I just give it to him under no obligations whatsoever so it becomes his own, then that is the arrangement between me and Jack and nobody else involving a SEPARATE, NEW copy of emacs, not the one RMS gave me. Then RMS has simply no business in then threatening Jack if Jack does something GPL doesn't allow because GPL doesn't apply to Jack. Copyright, however says otherwise. And being a copyright license, GPL says otherwise too. The result is that RMS can then involve himself and the government into the picture by threatening Jack if he doesn't comply with terms he never was asked to agree to in order to obtain a copy of software that RMS never made (I did that, as allowed by RMS's own terms). Can you see the problem now? |
| keithcu May 15, 2009 7:16 AM EDT |
LIbervis, > 1. Rift between RPM and DEB is not an "accident", it's an aggregate of individual human choices. You may disagree with someone's choices, but it's their right to make them. You look at the world today and assume that there is some well thought-out reason for the way it is. Unfortunately, it isn't that way. Software is created by men, not God. The RPM / DEB thing is a mess. Don't confuse having the right to make a mess with something necessarily being a good situation. The problem is that it is very hard to put toothpaste back in the tube. Mistakes like this, once created, are very expensive to fix. So harping on people's rights to make messes, which I never argued in the first place and even tried to clear up above, is ignoring the point.You claim I don't understand what you are saying, but I can also claim that. > The ideal way is public domain. The reason why public domain is stupid is that no one even has to release their source. Someone can make software which is "public domain", but only release the binary. Your world of maximum freedom is not necessarily free, actually. > If I then make a NEW copy of emacs to Jack, since GPL allows copying software to others, but do not ask Jack to comply with any specific terms nor attach any particular license. I just give it to him under no obligations whatsoever so it becomes his own, then that is the arrangement between me and Jack and nobody else involving a SEPARATE, NEW copy of emacs, not the one RMS gave me. You argue for no copyright protection. It reminds of those who argue for a world of maximum freedom via anarchy. That is the only world where anyone can do what they want. No thanks. If you think about it a bit, you'll realize it isn't that free at all. The problem with your analogy is the copy you give to Jack contains the same order of bits as the one you got from RMS. Just because it is easy to copy bits doesn't mean they don't contain the same information. Likewise, a world of only public domain erodes incentives to work on something, and to work together. You'd submit a book to a publisher, and they'd say thanks, and never pay you a penny in royalties. I suppose you are fine with that because the publisher has maximum freedom without any pesky rules it has to follow. And the GPL terms are not onerous. You act as if all impositions of your freedom are equally onerous. Staring at you, and torturing you are both impositions of your freedom, but are of different degrees. There are matters of degrees in things. You seem to not appreciate this. Copyright law is a good thing. It is about "ordered liberty." Once you accept that, you then understand why GPL is a good thing. The problem with our world isn't copyright law, it is the licenses that were created. I have no problem paying for music, but I don't like DRM. But DRM is not inherent in copyright law. Etc. |
| Sander_Marechal May 15, 2009 7:37 AM EDT |
keitchu: Nice arguments, but they are wasted on Libervis. Do yourself a favour and save your breath. |
| Libervis May 15, 2009 11:56 AM EDT |
> You look at the world today and assume that there is some well thought-out reason for the way it is. Unfortunately, it isn't that way. Software is created by men, not God. Did I say that? You're twisting my words. There is no universal "well thought out reason" for the way the world is. There are individual persons reasons which may or may not be well thought out. There's a reason why you typed that comment too. And saying that certainly doesn't imply involvement of some god. WTF? > The RPM / DEB thing is a mess. Don't confuse having the right to make a mess with something necessarily being a good situation. Am I actually doing that? That's a straw man. > The reason why public domain is stupid is that no one even has to release their source. Someone can make software which is "public domain", but only release the binary. Your world of maximum freedom is not necessarily free, actually. And again I would have to say that the freedom not to release a binary, among all others, is exactly the point. It wouldn't be yours if you were restricted from doing that. Is that so tough to grasp? I'm not even promoting that people not release source code. That's completely irrelevant. I may prefer them to do so and I might not use their software if they don't, but I believe in their right to make such an offer. If my "world of maximum freedom" isn't "necessarily free", how can yours be if you are restricting freedom for people to make certain choices? > You argue for no copyright protection. It reminds of those who argue for a world of maximum freedom via anarchy. That is the only world where anyone can do what they want. No thanks. If you think about it a bit, you'll realize it isn't that free at all. I thought about it more than a bit, certainly far more than you have given the way you seem to think (evident in your posts). Dude, I am a voluntaryist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntaryist ). I don't believe in people being coerced to do another mans bidding with their own property. I guess being compared to anarchists is supposed to be a point detrimental to my position? > The problem with your analogy is the copy you give to Jack contains the same order of bits as the one you got from RMS. Just because it is easy to copy bits doesn't mean they don't contain the same information. That's not a problem, that's simply the nature of software. The copies may be exactly the same in content, but they are still different copies. They're like ideas. I own ideas inside of my head too, would you say otherwise? Would you, upon someone giving me an idea that is exactly the same in content as an idea you had in your mind, feel right to impose restrictions on how I should use my idea, to whom I should tell it etc.? You might as well argue that two CDs of exactly the same brand and capacity holding exactly the same software are in fact a single CD. That line of reasoning obviously doesn't work. > Likewise, a world of only public domain erodes incentives to work on something, and to work together. You'd submit a book to a publisher, and they'd say thanks, and never pay you a penny in royalties. I suppose you are fine with that because the publisher has maximum freedom without any pesky rules it has to follow. You're now conjecturing cases, as it usually happens when I point out to someone that forcing people to obey YOUR or anybody else's rules is wrong, because you don't own them nor their property. For one you're making exactly the same argument proprietary software supporters are making against Free Software - lack of incentive. And as a Free Software supporter you should have enough in your arsenal to defeat such arguments. The most basic incentive is the work produced, not necessarily what someone will give you in exchange for that work (which is a price YOU can set yourself). If you decide to give your work to someone then you have made a decision on your own. And here's one thing you seem to be ignoring. In my analogy there was still a rightful agreement between me and RMS. It just happened to not restrict me from copying. If it were, then RMS WOULD have the right to seek damages if I broke the agreement and copied emacs to my friend. However if I did break the agreement and copy it to someone else only *I* am responsible for it, not the one I copied it to, whom now owns his copy. I am fully responsible for all the damages. Now just displace me with the publisher you're talking about and you can see that what you're saying isn't quite true. I am making a distinction between the relationship between the publisher and the book writer, and the relationship between the publisher and Jack (to whom he copied it to). This requires you to think more precisely about what's going on instead of shouting typical almost pre-programmed responses designed to attack ideas that are radically enough different. It's all too easy to just resort to using force to make people act in the way you think should be just, without even considering all the options before force is even considered. > And the GPL terms are not onerous. You act as if all impositions of your freedom are equally onerous. No, I'm not denying degrees. I'm saying that regardless of a degree, violation of freedom is still a violation of freedom. Lesser degree is a lesser evil, but still evil. > Staring at you, and torturing you are both impositions of your freedom, but are of different degrees. Staring at me doesn't prevent me from doing anything I want to do and is thus not an imposition of my freedom at all. Torture on the other hand is. "Float your boat so long as it doesn't sink mine". Do whatever you wish so long as it doesn't preclude me to do what I wish. Only coercion does that, no matter for which cause it's done. > Copyright law is a good thing. It is about "ordered liberty." "Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order." -- Proudhon Arbitrarily forcing people to follow your opinion on how they should act is not order. You cannot have order without freedom. |
| Libervis May 15, 2009 11:58 AM EDT |
@ Sander: keitchu: Nice arguments, but they are wasted on Libervis. Do yourself a favour and save your breath. Trolling might be emotionally satisfying, but is certainly not a mark of an intellectual. "In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.[2]" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) |
| Sander_Marechal May 15, 2009 2:05 PM EDT |
Me? Trolling? GPL v.s BSD and copyrights have been discussed to *death* here. We both know that you're never going to move an inch. |
| Libervis May 15, 2009 2:11 PM EDT |
Trolling yes. The frequency of a topic being discussed here is irrelevant to that. That said, I think you're categorizing me a little too quickly. How many of BSD fans and copyright abolitionists do you know have argued here which were at the same time voluntaryists and anarcho-capitalists? And, how well do you actually understand voluntaryism and anarcho-capitalism to be able to dismiss them as basis of these arguments? I'm not your run of the mill BSDer or copyright abolitionist. :P Closest one tho *might* be Bob Robertson. |
| TxtEdMacs May 15, 2009 2:12 PM EDT |
Libervis, Quoting:"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion...Can't argue against that. So how does this negate Sander's assertion? YBT |
| Libervis May 15, 2009 2:21 PM EDT |
You mean the assertion that Keith's arguments are "nice arguments"? Well that depends on what standard of aesthetics he is using to proclaim those arguments as "nice". If it's the claim that those "nice arguments" are "wasted" on me, that partly depends on what is meant by "wasted". If what is meant is that I wont be convinced even when provided arguments that clearly prove my points as flawed or baseless, it's essentially an accusation of intellectual dishonesty. All I can say to that is deny my dishonesty and continue to provide counter arguments. So far Keith's understanding of where I'm coming from has been so marginal that his arguments came down to attacking straw men or self-contradiction (protecting freedom by restricting freedom). And of course I'm the one to be likely branded as having lack of credibility for the sole reason that I'm advocating something so "radical". I almost feel like I'm blaspheming in some people's eyes every time I argue for things like abolition of copyright (let alone government). I must be insane to even suggest such incredibly foolish things, right? Yeah... |
| bigg May 15, 2009 2:35 PM EDT |
> And of course I'm the one to be likely branded as having lack of credibility for the sole reason that I'm advocating something so "radical". Libervis, please do not view yourself as being persecuted for your higher understanding. I've avoided these threads for the most part because I don't find them that interesting. The reason Sander and others have a problem with your debating style is that no matter what argument is made, your answer tends to take the form, "I'm right because I know I'm right." That's not very convincing to others. Normally I find it best to just ignore those who are stubborn, but I'd hate to let you believe you're being attacked because others are incapable of understanding your arguments. Sometimes you just have to accept that others will disagree with you and they may not be wrong. |
| Libervis May 15, 2009 2:48 PM EDT |
Did I ever say anyone is incapable of understanding my arguments? If I truly believe that why would I ever argue to begin with? If all my arguments come down to saying "I'm right because I know I'm right" why would I need so much room for explaining them? And why would I even care? Did it ever occur to you that it may actually be true that the counter arguments I'm faced with actually DO NOT address what I'm trying to say and that thus I'm compelled to keep trying to explain and clarify my point of view hoping that it will actually be considered instead of routed around? It's all too easy to just jump in there and throw those kinds of accusations. You're doing exactly what I alluded to above, trying to taint my credibility instead of addressing arguments. But without addressing actual arguments, you cannot prove them wrong. |
| keithcu May 15, 2009 3:34 PM EDT |
Libervis, > If my "world of maximum freedom" isn't "necessarily free", how can yours be if you are restricting freedom for people to make certain choices? I don't consider the GPL maximum freedom like what you would get with public domain because I recognize it has requirements. But I don't mind those requirements because it allows future users of software to also have source code. It is a trade-off I'm happy to make. You are trying to increase freedom by abolishing copyright or making everything public domain but that will decrease freedom for others down the line. Companies like IBM will not give their changes back to Linux. In other words, what you are suggesting will break down. It is like anarchy: everyone does what they want. Sounds fine, right? Well, it will break down. > I guess being compared to anarchists is supposed to be a point detrimental to my position? No, it is pointing out that you want copyright anarchy which is as flawed as anarchy in the real world. My analogy of a book publisher stealing your work because copyright doesn't exist and everything is public domain is one natural outcome of your "thinking" and proof that your arguments are flawed. Imagine that you accidentally posted your work on the Internet before you were ready to publish it -- whoops, gone forever. No copyright law, so nothing you can do. But don't bother them, they are working on their own "copy" of your work. > However if I did break the agreement and copy it to someone else only *I* am responsible for it, not the one I copied it to, whom now owns his copy. I am fully responsible for all the damages. What damages? Now you are talking about using force and all the other messiness of copyright law. If everything was public domain, you couldn't have any of this. > I own ideas inside of my head too, would you say otherwise? Yes. If I had a poem I had composed, and I told it to you, and you went around and gave it to other people, I would be happy to claim a copyright violation. It is only because ideas are typically small pieces of knowledge that this is not a problem. > You cannot have order without freedom. You can't have freedom without order either. The police take away freedom, but provide order which gives people freedom. > Arbitrarily forcing people to follow your opinion on how they should act is not order. Who says it is arbitrary? Is making killing illegal arbitrary? > I must be insane to even suggest such incredibly foolish things, right? No, you are foolish to suggest something insane. |
| keithcu May 15, 2009 3:46 PM EDT |
Libervis, I read about voluntaryism. So, who runs the military? If the guy running the military makes bad decisions, how is he replaced? |
| Libervis May 15, 2009 5:44 PM EDT |
> I don't consider the GPL maximum freedom like what you would get with public domain because I recognize it has requirements. But I don't mind those requirements because it allows future users of software to also have source code. It is a trade-off I'm happy to make. Can you know for sure what other people will do once you actually give them the choices you currently wish to deny them? Furthermore, aren't you aware that copyright empowers proprietary software licensing far more than it empowers free software, since there are more restrictions to enforce and thus more chances of infringement? Do you think that draconian types of restrictions like those commonly found in proprietary EULA's would ever be as widely accepted if it weren't for the implicit threat of force allowed by copyright? I think it is rather obvious that without copyright, three of the four freedoms RMS promotes are always guaranteed, so the only issue that remains is that of source code and with regards to vendors providing source code it becomes a matter of doing the same thing you're doing today, trying to convince people to release source code and urging users not to use software which doesn't come with it. In other words it's boycotting binary only software, a practice you're completely free to employ. > No, it is pointing out that you want copyright anarchy which is as flawed as anarchy in the real world. Define anarchy. If you're referring to what mass media tends to connote with it then you're referring to a completely false definition (which is part of the reason why I rarely actually use the word "anarchy" to describe the type of society I wish to live in). What I want is a society where nobody initiates force upon anybody for any reason. You're free to defend yourself, but never to *initiate* force. > My analogy of a book publisher stealing your work because copyright doesn't exist and everything is public domain is one natural outcome of your "thinking" and proof that your arguments are flawed. I thought I addressed that. A publisher cannot steal what is being offered to him by your own choice and you can seek him to agree to your terms before giving it to him, including prohibition of copying. In that case if he does copy, you can seek damages (explained below). If you fail to do that then who is to blame? It is your responsibility to pose certain conditions prior to providing a service or a product, if you so wish. > Imagine that you accidentally posted your work on the Internet before you were ready to publish it -- whoops, gone forever. No copyright law, so nothing you can do. But don't bother them, they are working on their own "copy" of your work. First of all regardless of whether it is an accident or not I think you're responsible for what you do, not somebody else. Would you punish someone else for your own mistakes? Furthermore, assuming there's nothing you can do is jumping to conclusions. Where did you accidentally publish the book? If it was your own server and you gave no explicit permission to others to download, you may still claim unauthorized use of your property and thus seek damages (whether they'll be awarded to you or not is another question, but it's one recourse you have). If you published it somewhere else at the very least you can ask the site you published it at to take it off the site. Finally, if the book isn't finished, you still have the advantage of having the full complete version (once it's complete). You can treat leaked copies as free advertising that could increase demand for the complete book and thus charge more for orders of the book directly from you. You're already doing something similar yourself. You are selling the book on Lulu and on the very same page you also offer a free download, but you are politely asking readers to buy it. You can even offer further incentives for buying it that others cannot offer. Resorting to force (copyright) is in fact the most uncivilized and barbaric thing you can do in this and in every case where there is a particular dispute. Sure it's popular to do that in our society, but that doesn't make it right. > What damages? Now you are talking about using force and all the other messiness of copyright law. If everything was public domain, you couldn't have any of this. I am against initiation of force, not self defense and protection of what actually IS your property. So if your property was violated (and contract violation is just one way of doing that), you are entitled to a retribution. It is like returning or compensating for what has been stolen from you. But mind you, I'm not talking about anything like copyright law. You don't need to have a government to be able to have dispute resolution and damages collection. An alternative is something that could resemble insurance companies today. Both you and the one you're suing can have "insurance" with the dispute resolution organization of your choice so you can file a dispute with the organization who would have to cooperate with the dispute resolution organization of the other guy to choose an appropriate arbiter that you can both agree to, who would review your case and decide on the damages. If it is decided that the damages should be paid, the dispute resolution organization bills it to the violator (along with arbitration costs) and transfers the money to you. In this whole process, nobody was forced to anything whatsoever, short of the violator who is the one who owed money. Both chose their dispute resolution company. Both agreed to that company policies and thus agreed to the final arbiter chosen as well as to abide by the decision of that arbiter. Today, however, you don't get to choose whom to pay for the service of dispute resolution and arbitration. You must pay the government in form of taxes whether you want it or not and you must abide by their policies (chosen by politicians who are chosen by a majority whom you don't necessarily belong to). Government is thus a monopoly of the worst kind because it gets rid of its competition by force, leaves you no choice in whether to buy their services, and if you resist throws you in jail or steals huge sums of money from you. > Yes. If I had a poem I had composed, and I told it to you, and you went around and gave it to other people, I would be happy to claim a copyright violation. So you tell me a poem and then wish to control what I can or can't do with it?? You'd be right to claim a moral violation ONLY if before telling me the poem you asked me to agree not to tell anyone else, I agreed, and yet I still told them. > You can't have freedom without order either. The police take away freedom, but provide order which gives people freedom. The point was order is either impossible or always lesser without freedom. Freedom is a precondition for true order. I know you're used to the way things currently are as "order", because you never probably thought about a society that could be even more harmonious than this and compared to which this is actually chaos. IMHO it is, we're living in a society in which the default mode of solving problems is by force, prohibitions are everywhere, theft is rampant (taxes), lies are a norm (political campaigning) and half the world sends people into wars paid by the stolen property. All because too many people think freedom must be sacrificed for order, which they somehow see as necessary for freedom - the very thing they're sacrificing (self contradictory circular reasoning). With full freedom you have full order, nothing is sacrificed. Every person is kept whole. That's the whole point of both freedom and order. > Who says it is arbitrary? Is making killing illegal arbitrary? That's the thing, you don't HAVE to make killing illegal - no such decree is necessary, no decree can change reality. It's enough to ask yourself, would you like someone to kill you, or to rob you or to threaten force to you if you don't behave as you're told? If not, then don't do those things to other people, ever. And tell me which person on Earth does want any of these things to be done to them? Live and let live is freedom. Order and harmony emerges naturally as a result. > I read about voluntaryism. So, who runs the military? If the guy running the military makes bad decisions, how is he replaced? Nobody. The only reason wars are waged is because military is funded to wage them. You're free to defend yourself and you're free to band together with your neighbors (who join by choice, not conscription) if you are being threatened by a larger group of aggressors. Crime is made very difficult if either everyone is armed or nobody is armed. In former case a criminal always makes a deadly risk because he knows everyone is armed and ready to defend. In latter case not even criminals have access to guns, because nobody wants to sell them. A free society can be built either way (tho all-guns is more likely because we're emerging out of a violent society in which too many people have guns that they're ready to use (military, police etc.) so there needs to be means to defend against them. Anyway, this is going towards a more general topic that's offtopic on LXer.. If you'd like to discuss voluntaryism specifically we can take it to personal messaging or email. My email is libervis |at| libervis dot com |
| tuxchick May 15, 2009 6:55 PM EDT |
Quoting: I'll get back to this thread when it comes out in paperback. You might want to wait for the mini-series! |
| NoDough May 15, 2009 8:27 PM EDT |
>> You might want to wait for the mini-series! Mini? |
| gus3 May 15, 2009 8:51 PM EDT |
or the Reader's Digest Condensed Version |
| caitlyn May 15, 2009 8:51 PM EDT |
Looking at the volume it looks like season 1 is done and season 2 is about to start. Lots of episodes here and nothing mini about it |
| Steven_Rosenber May 15, 2009 9:42 PM EDT |
I'm using both BSD and Linux, so I'm interested ... but how about Cliff's notes? |
| TxtEdMacs May 15, 2009 10:01 PM EDT |
Paper bound ... Ha! Sorry folks, only a hard bound teak will hold this elongated, competing screeds to a finite size. |
| theboomboomcars May 15, 2009 11:25 PM EDT |
[home]Can you know for sure what other people will do once you actually give them the choices you currently wish to deny them?[/quote] History. Human history is a repeating story, and when ever there is great freedom available to the people, someone will take advantage of the situation and usurp power and oppress others. It has happened every time, and will probably again. Which is one of the great things about the GPL, is it takes advantages of the rules that are there to oppress and uses them to provide more freedom for more people. There is a delicate balance between freedom and oppression where things work, the trouble is finding that balance and maintaining it. In an ideal world where everyone is looking out for everyone else, public domain would work great. But I have never seen that world, or more than a couple of people who would be able to sustain that type of world. |
| Libervis May 16, 2009 12:17 AM EDT |
90% of all inter human interaction is already voluntary and peaceful theboomboomcars. 90% of the time people trade, talk, walk in crowds, drive in high traffic (even without traffic lights in some places), dance in packed nightclubs etc. all without violating each other. You're referring to history of usurpation and oppression and then just submit to usurpation as a matter of norm, assuming that freedom is its cause, not the opposite. But isn't that like saying that too much peace leads to war, because indeed as history shows almost every period of peace and prosperity was followed by some kind of a war? If you're gonna keep believing that we need to be repressed in order to be free then we'll always be repressed and never really free. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. |
| keithcu May 16, 2009 8:49 AM EDT |
Libervis, > Can you know for sure what other people will do once you actually give them the choices you currently wish to deny them? Given the way that many corporations grudgingly give their code back, I think that the copyleft provision of the GPL license nudges people to do a good thing. Software is so easily forked...And as you claim to support free software, forcing people to do something they already should is not a big deal. You constant harping about evils and freedoms without mention of degrees is tedious. If the biggest "evil" in the world is the GPL license, then we have won. In the meanwhile, public domain and BSD are perhaps less evil, but to a very small degree. And the downside is that the practical advantage you claim with BSD is that you think it is encouraging to proprietary companies, but I think also less useful. > aren't you aware that copyright empowers proprietary software licensing far more than it empowers free software, since there are more restrictions to enforce and thus more chances of infringement? Aren't you aware that guns can be used to kill robbers and innocent children? > you can seek him to agree to your terms before giving it to him, including prohibition of copying. > If it was your own server and you gave no explicit permission to others to download, So you want copyright rules, just privately negotiated ones. I sort of envisioned that you wanted everything was in the public domain, but it doesn't appear that you are suggesting that anymore. I have a bit of a difficult time figuring out what you are proposing, although I also have a difficult time being interested in exploring whether your private copyright fantasy is logical or not. Today's problems in software are much more concrete. In addition, your proposal such as having private courts can be done independently of whether copyright is public or private. > So you tell me a poem and then wish to control what I can or can't do with it?? Suppose you could perfectly copy what you heard or saw. You were almost a computer. Therefore the laws of copyright would apply to what you do. The reason why copyright doesn't apply to people sharing ideas today is that it is just small bits and pieces of knowledge. If I didn't want you to pass along an idea, I wouldn't tell it to you. > With full freedom you have full order, nothing is sacrificed. You can't have full freedom except in your head. > That's the thing, you don't HAVE to make killing illegal The reason why we have laws is to define what is legal and what are the punishments. When a murder / manslaughter happens, there needs to be consistent application of rules. You can't just say to everyone adopt the golden rule! Everyone is taught that rule in kindergarten, yet people still murder. You seem to think you can change human nature in your new society. That is silly. > The only reason wars are waged is because military is funded to wage them. That is also silly, and what if you are wrong? If you start enumerating some things you'd like the government to do, like have a military, defend the borders, create a currency, etc. you will create something very similar to our US Constitution. The problem with today is the laws created by our Congress, not our Constitution. I really recommend people reading Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose". It is a book that gives a very different perspective on the free market, and how to combine it with social welfare. For example, just because government pays for K-12 schools doesn't mean they should run them! His book advocates many good ideas a few of which are advocated by Libervis, and how to do it without throwing away the Constitution and starting over, which it isn't necessary, and wouldn't work. The people who created our constitution were libertarians. What the US Congress did after 200 years of meddling are things not envisioned by our founding fathers. The solution however, isn't to start over, but pass new laws. And starting over won't happen anyway so who cares. If you have good ideas, you need to find a way to advocate them in an evolutionary fashion taking into account the current world. I'll bet any of your good ideas could be done in this way, and you'd be smarter to think about it from that perspective. Anyway, I got into this discussion because I disagree that BSD is a better license than GPL, that the GPL terms are unethical or onerous, that forking and issues like the RPM/DEB divide are good things to be equally to be "celebrated" and encouraged as cooperating in the same codebase, that Shuttleworth needed to split off from Debian, that getting rid of copyright law is a good thing, that putting everything in the public domain is a good idea, that we need to throw away the US Constitution to get a more free society, etc. I think I've made all the points I wanted to make, so I will probably stop for now. Regards to you all |
| Libervis May 16, 2009 11:32 AM EDT |
> Software is so easily forked...And as you claim to support free software, forcing people to do something they already should is not a big deal. "Should" according to whose opinion and why is that opinion the right one, so right that you're justify in forcing it on other people? Why do you think you have the right to decide what other people should or shouldn't do? > You constant harping about evils and freedoms without mention of degrees is tedious. I've addressed degrees in my last post! > Aren't you aware that guns can be used to kill robbers and innocent children? That doesn't answer my question, but avoids it. (Yes I am aware of it, but if you're wholly anti-gun, then why don't you push for disarmament of both the police and military? Otherwise you're just applying a double standard.) > So you want copyright rules, just privately negotiated ones. I wouldn't call them "copyright rules", but rather agreements. Everything in a voluntary society is based on agreement (that's why we call it "voluntary", as in based in consent, not coercion). > I sort of envisioned that you wanted everything was in the public domain, but it doesn't appear that you are suggesting that anymore. The only reason why I'm currently a fan of the public domain is because that's the only "place" where copyright doesn't apply and is thus most similar to a free market situation. > In addition, your proposal such as having private courts can be done independently of whether copyright is public or private. I'm not so sure. What is illegal doesn't necessarily equate what is unjust or immoral, but whatever private court would exist for arbitration would be forced to still abide by the legal system instead of the more natural and basic moral code (rooted in property rights and non-coercion). Effectively it'd be like one company being forced to follow the policies of another company in their own business, like Microsoft forcing (literally, by threats of kidnapping or extortion) RedHat to operate under Microsoft's rules. > Suppose you could perfectly copy what you heard or saw. You were almost a computer. Therefore the laws of copyright would apply to what you do. I don't care about the "laws of copyright", but about basic moral sense. If you told me the song before you asked me to agree to any restrictions then you told me the song unconditionally, obviously! If you want me to agree to certain restrictions, then you ought to tell them to me before you tell me the poem so that if I disagree with your restrictions you have the option of not telling. Isn't that rather obvious? > If I didn't want you to pass along an idea, I wouldn't tell it to you. Well exactly, now you might want to try and apply that principle to other things, such as software. If you want to make lots of money writing software your best bet is custom coding (coding for hire). Otherwise you're either just writing for yourself or you actually WANT others, as many of them as possible, to use it. The latter is still possible to monetize, copyright or no copyright, but even today isn't necessarily the most lucrative way of making money. Besides, as a Free Software advocate you already seem to be willing to take a bit of a hit to the profitability of distributing software given the way GPL works. So is what I'm suggesting really such a huge leap? I'm advocating a society where three of four freedoms are practically guaranteed at all times and source code situation isn't any worse than it is today. You accuse me of being a fan of proprietary software yet what I'm proposing would deal the most deadly blow to exactly proprietary software while allowing FOSS to flourish and probably take over the world. You're defending the "protection" involved in GPL, but what I'm advocating would create circumstances in which there would pretty much be nothing to protect from! The biggest reason GPL builds the walls it does is to defend from the corporatists (corporations who use the state to force their agenda, just think of software patents laws and attempts to make DRM legally required). Remove the state and copyright law with it, let the free market of arbitration flourish and GPL will basically have nobody to defend from anymore. It wont be necessary, it will die with the old system it was created to subvert. > The reason why we have laws is to define what is legal and what are the punishments. The problem is with the way those laws come to be and the way those punishments are determined. It is too arbitrary and disconnected from reality. It is like trying to fit one size shoe to every foot in the country where the size in question is decided by a committee of men supposedly chosen to make that decision by the majority of people in the country. It's like trying to define right from wrong on the basis of a bureaucratic process instead of common sense and the question "would I want this done to me?". How ridiculous it must be to base your moral life on the decisions of a committee of men who have no qualms with lying to you and forcing you to pay for the "services" they offer regardless of whether you want or need them. > You can't just say to everyone adopt the golden rule! Everyone is taught that rule in kindergarten, yet people still murder. You seem to think you can change human nature in your new society. That is silly. I'm not making up any rules. I'm asking a simple question that should REVEAL exactly what your human nature is and have you act upon it! Do you want to be killed or robbed? If not then don't do it to others because it will most certainly result in increasing your risk of being killed or robbed, not to mention you might not even survive your own attempt at murdering because everyone has the right to defend himself, with guns if necessary and they certainly wont be compelled to wait for the police!! The way a free society is built is by allowing each individual to have complete power over themselves, which includes self defense and reparations. Those are the *natural* means of "punishment". Once each individual has these powers untrampled, killing does indeed mean immediate endangerment of the murderer, probably far more than current statist system can emulate. The current system either punishes people for doing something completely non-violent and involving no theft or softens the blow to those who actually do. And even when the punishment is strong, it does very little to rehabilitate the criminal. It is focused more on punishing the perpetrator rather than reforming him and repairing the damage to the victim. Not to mention the state itself murders and steals. They just call it "warfare" and "welfare", even awarding medals to murderers (poor soldiers who were taught certain kinds of murder are admirable). > That is also silly, and what if you are wrong? If I'm wrong, wars waged will still be on a far smaller case and likely with far less bloodshed and destruction than that which a military complex can cause. Certainly, it is possible for people to fight each other even without a military, but violent conflicts are very expensive and unlike government these people would have to fund their little war all by themselves. How long do you think that can sustain itself compared to the government which basically has zero accountability in that area since it simply steals and diverts money to the military or otherwise prints new money or borrows endlessly from other countries? War is a terribly unsustainable and destructive business for all parties involved. Only the biggest plunderers in the world can sustain them for as long as our current and past wars have (the states). > If you start enumerating some things you'd like the government to do, like have a military, defend the borders, create a currency, etc. you will create something very similar to our US Constitution. I would be very unprincipled if I did that. Government as we know them today is a coercive monopoly and I'm against all coercion. So even if you limited government to a very few markets, it would still be wrong. Why should any market be coercively monopolized? > If you have good ideas, you need to find a way to advocate them in an evolutionary fashion taking into account the current world. I'll bet any of your good ideas could be done in this way, and you'd be smarter to think about it from that perspective. I agree, but I have a feeling that what you're suggesting is "working through the system", essentially political action. This is debatable (and voluntaryists have debated it a lot), but I personally don't think political action is effective at all. Just look at the Libertarian Party. Enough said. Also, there is a moral side to it. Using politics is in some manner trying to use coercion to force my beliefs upon people, which is exactly what I am against. I mean, if people want to be raped then who am I to force the rapist out of their butt, right? ;) That's the thing. My war will be won by conviction, not by force. And don't worry, I'm doing a lot about it. I've dedicated at this point my entire business for this, and as you can see I have a lot of trouble restraining myself on these forums too. I live for this. Cheers |
| TxtEdMacs May 16, 2009 12:46 PM EDT |
Kieth!!!!!, If you respond, I will tear your tongue out without benefit of anesthetic. Just a friendly warning, go off and do something constructive. For example, write a porn* book or two. I promise to review, at least the pictures, faithfully and give you my unbiased, unvarnished opinion (provided the content meets my standards, i.e. see footnote). Your Buddy Txt. * I prefer glorious females images, please. |
| keithcu May 16, 2009 12:57 PM EDT |
sts > Why do you think you have the right to decide what other people should or shouldn't do? I have no problem living in a moral society. Your society based on the golden rule is a form of morality! > I've addressed degrees in my last post! Yes, but when you write in other places, you don't include degrees. That is why your harping is tedious. > Otherwise you're just applying a double standard. I'm not anti-gun. I'm simply pointing out that just because you say that copyright has problems doesn't immediately mean copyright itself is broken. > If you want me to agree to certain restrictions, then you ought to tell them to me before you tell me the poem so that if I disagree with your restrictions you have the option of not telling. I would need it in your "world", but not in today's world, because copyright protects me already. > It's like trying to define right from wrong on the basis of a bureaucratic process instead of common sense and the question "would I want this done to me?" It is much more complicated than that. Consider murder versus manslaughter, for example. What does your golden rule tell you about the punishments for those cases? That is why you will need to lay down some laws. > that which a military complex can cause. But the point is even assuming you changed the US, you'd have to also change countries like Iran, North Korea, etc. Otherwise, they would just invade the US and take over. Have you considered whether you can implement your fantasy on a country by country basis? You can't just have one country unilaterally disarm. > Government as we know them today is a coercive monopoly and I'm against all coercion. You will need a military, a currency, a border, etc. Maybe it would make you unprincipled, but that just means you need new principles. > Just look at the Libertarian Party. Join the Republican party. There are *many* libertarians in that party. Everyone thinks of the Republican party as Christians and Sarah Palin types, but that is a caricature. The, ideals at least, of party is much bigger than that. They are fighting the move to government-provided healthcare, for lower taxes, etc. Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand more identified themselves with the GOP. > Using politics is in some manner trying to use coercion to force my beliefs upon people No, you could do advocacy. That is what politics is about. Anyway, I will think about what were to happen in a world of entirely public domain. I am against software and biotech patents (I talk about them in my book), DRM, proprietary software, etc. But I like copyright so I can sell something if I want. You claim to about having everything being voluntary, but if everything is public domain you are taking away that option! What would happen to movie companies in a world of entirely public domain? And I still think that if I posted something by accident to my website that it would be gone. |
| keithcu May 16, 2009 1:24 PM EDT |
TxtEdMacs, I only saw your comment after I posted. Don't worry I'm wrapping things up! I spent a lot of time thinking about IP issues in my book, so it is helpful to me. In fact I have an entire chapter on patents and copyright, for example. I agree that Libervis tends to harp, has spent a lot of time creating a fantasy world that is unrealistic and will never happen because it requires throwing out copyright and all governments, that he focuses too much on freedom rather than on the social aspects of writing software, claims to not be for morality except for his morality, etc. But he does have some good ideas. I've already written a book, and it does have a picture of some nice girls on page 135. |
| TxtEdMacs May 16, 2009 1:29 PM EDT |
Ok, I will let you off this one last time, just send the porn. |
| Libervis May 16, 2009 1:54 PM EDT |
> I have no problem living in a moral society. Your society based on the golden rule is a form of morality! Again, it is not a "golden rule". I'm not trying to impose any rules whatsoever, not even a rule that says "you shall not murder". This is a larger discussion on moral theory, but I just want to make this distinction very clear. Your way seems to be based on imposing "moral" beliefs of ones (ideally, but not always a majority) on others. My approach is completely different. I think morality is scientifically determinable from observation of human behavior and moral behavior emerges most consistently only from people who are free. This is why instead of telling someone "you shall not do this", I prefer asking "would you want others to do this to you"? I appeal to their nature rather than wanting to change it. In both our approaches murder and theft end up being wrong which means that both by consensus and observation of human nature these at least are likely to be universal human moral principles. If you want to explore this further I suggest this book: http://www.mississaugatherapy.com/FDR_Books/FDR_2_UPB_A_Rati... (Universally Preferable Behavior). It is one of the latest, even if controversial, philosophical attempts at establishing rational proof of secular ethics. > Yes, but when you write in other places, you don't include degrees. That is why your harping is tedious Because I am not arguing in terms of degrees. I don't even necessarily disagree with you on degrees. Yes, GPL is better than EULA, but that's besides the point. Lesser evil is still evil. > I'm not anti-gun. I'm simply pointing out that just because you say that copyright has problems doesn't immediately mean copyright itself is broken. My whole point is that it can't be anything but morally broken, at least as a policy imposed by a coercive monopoly - *because* it is coercive. > I would need it in your "world", but not in today's world, because copyright protects me already. What you call protection there is nothing but giving you power to subjugate. According to this you can retroactively force people whom you gave or sold something to change the way they use it. > It is much more complicated than that. Consider murder versus manslaughter, for example. What does your golden rule tell you about the punishments for those cases? That is why you will need to lay down some laws. Again I don't have a freaking golden rule. Stop harping on that. This is a simple case of arbitration. Manslaughter still means a life was lost so the heirs of the dead deserve their compensation. How much is a matter to be discussed and agreed to between the heirs and the guilty one, by means of third party arbitration. I've already talked about private courts. The only legitimate "laws" that exist are natural law (incl. human nature) and inter-human agreements as an extension of it. > But the point is even assuming you changed the US, you'd have to also change countries like Iran, North Korea, etc. Otherwise, they would just invade the US and take over. Have you considered whether you can implement your fantasy on a country by country basis? You can't just have one country unilaterally disarm. Yes I considered it, and you're assuming that defending from such threats is impossible without theft and printing money (dominant ways government funds the military). But stolen money is stolen from the people in the country. When it's not stolen they have it to give voluntarily into armament of defense agencies they choose to represent them. Without government fiat currency, value of money tends to be stable and constant, thus again all of the value remains among the people instead of sucked into government by debasing the currency. And that value too goes into defense, if deemed necessary. Bottom line is, defense just becomes decentralized. Also remember the case of Hitler trying to conquer Switzerland and failing. Why? Because they had a decentralized defense system - most people were armed and trained to defend themselves. Defeating such a "country" then is not a matter of defeating a single monolithical army or forcing a single ruler (like a president) to declare defeat. Instead the enemy faces thousands upon thousands of free people none of which speak for each other. Such defense is likely to thus be MORE efficient at defending from outside threats, not less! In a sense, there is no nation to conquer. There is only the land of the free. It's nearly impossible to conquer. Almost reminds me of why it's almost impossible to kill off Linux... it's not a single thing, but a decentralized ecosystem. Think about it. :) > You will need a military, a currency, a border, etc. Maybe it would make you unprincipled, but that just means you need new principles. Military not, as discussed above. Borders are irrelevant, the only borders perhaps would be those of neighboring statist countries, but in a free society the only borders that exist are between individual owner's lands. As for a currency, currency can be anything that can conveniently be used for trade. At least in a free market there is no government to manipulate the money supply and force people to use useless paper you can't redeem for anything but useless paper as "currency". What a sham. As for inviting me into the republican party, I think you can see why I wouldn't do that. Besides, I live in Croatia. > But I like copyright so I can sell something if I want. You claim to about having everything being voluntary, but if everything is public domain you are taking away that option! Wtf? You can't sell without copyright? I don't get where did you pull that one off. Nobody said you can't charge people for providing them a copy of what you have... regardless of whether you impose any conditions on its use (renting) or not. > What would happen to movie companies in a world of entirely public domain? They would still be making movies? Duh. Most revenues come from cinematic experiences already anyway. And all of the other points about selling copies apply. The only difference is you don't get to police people who never even dealt with you. > And I still think that if I posted something by accident to my website that it would be gone. And I still think I'm not right to punish people for my own mistakes, albeit I do have recourse that doesn't involve that. And it certainly wouldn't be "gone". You still have your own copy. Geez.. ------- To sum up my disagreements it's simple; I disagree that trying to control behavior of others is a necessity for a free society. That's the fundamental underlying point behind everything I have to say about free software licensing, copyright and the state in general. As for Ubuntu/Debian and RPM/DEB, it's moot. We disagree merely on whether what happened was good or not, but we seem to agree that everyone had the right to make the choices they did even if they were bad. Regards |
| Libervis May 16, 2009 2:00 PM EDT |
> I agree that Libervis tends to harp, has spent a lot of time creating a fantasy world that is unrealistic and will never happen because it requires throwing out copyright and all governments, A self fulfilling prophecy. Yes, let's all continue to accept coercion and trying to run other people's lives against their will as a "normal thing". It's you who lives in a fantasy world if you don't see the destruction such a belief has caused, war, poverty, economic depressions, partial slavery (up to 50% in most of the western countries) etc. > that he focuses too much on freedom rather than on the social aspects of writing software, Ah so freedom is the problem now. > claims to not be for morality except for his morality, etc. According to your conjecture maybe. I explained that above. > But he does have some good ideas. Gee thanks. What a praise coming from someone who just called me deluded for focusing on building freedom against the odds. |
| Libervis May 16, 2009 5:04 PM EDT |
Wow.. Free Software is promoted on a forum full of voluntaryists.. http://freedomainradio.com/board/forums/t/20004.aspx?PageInd... They're discussing some interesting things such as whether software is or isn't property to begin with. My current position is that it is, only in form of individual copies owned by individual people, but if I find compelling reasoning and evidence against that.. then it would make copyright even more flawed. |
| dinotrac May 16, 2009 6:59 PM EDT |
Wow. This whole thread makes me feels so -- terse And then some fool has to go and say something as stupid as: Quoting: The reason why public domain is stupid is that no one even has to release their source. Someone can make software which is "public domain", but only release the binary. Your world of maximum freedom is not necessarily free, actually. Come on, guys!!! That's not how it works. Copyright attaches to the source code, not to the binary translation. The binary translation is protected, but as an expression of the copyrighted work. But that's beside the point. The real point is "HUH? Have you actually thought about this? With the brain that's above your belt? So you can release executables out into the public domain without releasing the source. Guess what? You can do the exact same thing with GPL'd software and you can do it under the exact same circumstances. Here's the deal: You can't grant rights to anything that you don't own. You can't release my code into public domain or under the GPL unless I specifically grant you the right to do so. As the rights holder, however, I can release binary copies of all my GPL'd stuff (ie -- stuff I wrote and GPL'd) and NEVER make the source available. That's a bit of an abomination and would surely ruffle some feathers, but them's the breaks. As rights holder, I could sue myself to release the source code, but...I don't think I'd do that. Want to hear something really funny? Releasing under the GPL, I could sue downstream users who them distributed the binaries without source, even though I never provided it. Why? Because the GPL requires you to make the source available if you distribute the binaries and downstream users, unlike me, depend on the license terms for their rights and the license doesn't allow that. In the end, the best license is the one that fits your values and your needs. |
| Libervis May 16, 2009 9:53 PM EDT |
lol, dino, those are some funny loopholes indeed. Btw I've been reading that thread I linked to in a previous post and it's helped me be able to express my position a little clearer. Basically it comes down to this. Being against copyright isn't necessarily being against GPL. You can re-implement GPL entirely as a contract. Since GPL has this viral feature which basically says "if you want me to give you this copy you must agree that if you copy it to anyone else you must copy it under these same exact terms" GPL as a contract would automatically end up applying to every downstream user. The only differences are in to whom would violators be held liable. If Jack gets a copy of your program from Jill and you thus had nothing to do with that transaction, and Jack violates some GPL term, it is to Jill that Jack would owe damages, not to you. BUT this can easily be fixed by tweaking the GPL to say that "if you violate any term of the GPL you owe X amount of damages to this person ". Problem solved. You can go even further and put an additional tweak to the license that says "if you make a copy of this program and give it to someone else, you owe X amount per copy to this person: ." Tho that's really pushing it and if I were faced with such term before downloading your program, I might very well refuse to and seek an alternative from someone more reasonable. Point is, you can do ANYTHING with contracts completely morally and without any initiation of violence whatsoever because contracts are agreements (which by definition exclude coercion). All of these terms become binding ONLY upon an agreement of the one whom it would bind. See Keith? You don't need copyright to get paid. You don't need copyright to have a GPL-like terns that require people to release source code either. You don't need copyright for anything. The only issue that remains is enforcement, but I've covered that plentifully in previous posts. State isn't the only way of doing contract enforcement. It in fact the crudest way (as a monopoly, unaccountable to the market, an inefficient bureaucracy etc.) I might disagree with that GPL is the best strategy, but frankly I'm willing to put that mild disagreement aside for the sake of this larger point I care so much more about: You don't need coercion!!! You don't need the state! We don't need to use violence to solve problems! I wish such an obvious fact didn't escape people so easily! Rational thinking and empirical evidence supporting that fact are everywhere, plus it's common sense, people just never think about it critically: In every day lives, we hardly think it's good practice to solve problems by violence or to force people whom we interact with to follow our opinions. Your romantic relationships are voluntary, you have to WIN their heart. Your trade relationships are voluntary, you have to offer VALUE. Your friendships are voluntary. You can even hire someone to protect you, possibly for far less than you pay in taxes. Why do you then defend the right of this particular organization called the state to FORCE you into an involuntary relationship with THEM? Why make such an incredibly gross exception? (Sorry for being so verbose again. :( ) |
| tuxchick May 16, 2009 9:59 PM EDT |
OK, so I was wrong about mini-series. |
| Libervis May 16, 2009 10:08 PM EDT |
TC, it will be a new franchise! :) I almost feel like apologizing, but then again do I really need to apologize? Nobody is *forced* to read it. It your own voluntary decision! :) |
| gus3 May 16, 2009 10:29 PM EDT |
Thank goodness for that. |
| azerthoth May 16, 2009 10:30 PM EDT |
Quoting: Point is, you can do ANYTHING with contracts completely morally ... Should be careful with that last word. who is to say your morals are mine or anyone elses. In some places people feel 'morally justified' to kill you for not having a beard and banging your head on the ground several times a day. Others feel morally justified in killing a woman who refuses to marry someone not of her own choosing. So using 'morals' or 'morality' in any discussion, your actually dropping a verbal hand grenade that is liable to blow up and get everyone sticky, when someone decides to split hairs or disagrees with your 'moral viewpoint'. |
| keithcu May 16, 2009 10:54 PM EDT |
DinoTrac, > You can't grant rights to anything that you don't own. I'm not talking about that scenario. My implicit assumption is that all of the stuff was properly done -- I understand you can't just attach licenses to things you don't own. The thing I was getting at is that acceptance of a (properly done) GPL license gives you an explicit mechanism for access to the source code. But with public domain, or BSD there is nothing like that. If this distinction is irrelevant, why does GPL spend so much time defining what "convey" means, etc.? Libervis, > You don't need copyright to get paid. Of course you don't. You just implement a private copyright! If it looks like a duck... You argue you don't need coercion, but what happens if someone doesn't follow your contract? You are forced to go to your private courts. I really don't see any big difference. |
| keithcu May 16, 2009 11:16 PM EDT |
Libervis, > "would you want others to do this to you?" That *is* the Golden Rule. Look it up. (I learned it in kindergarten.) It is a form of morality. That is why I have no problem with the copyleft term of the GPL. It is a form of morality. The freedoms given to you, you must pass on to others. > My whole point is that copyright can't be anything but morally broken. The original context was you saying copyright is bad because it enables proprietary software. My point is that by itself doesn't make copyright bad just like guns aren't automatically bad. > Most revenues come from cinematic experiences already anyway. But the point is that someone could open "The Public Domain Cinema" make a copy of movies and charge $1.50 for entrance, and keep all the money for themselves. And that $1.50 per viewer is greater than the movie theaters get for current ticket sales, so it would be cheaper for customers and more profitable for the theater. > most people were armed and trained to defend themselves. That doesn't work against tanks. > We don't need to use violence to solve problems! Sometimes you do need to use violence to solve problems. What if the problem is a guy pointing a gun at you? Not only that, North Korea would invade South Korea tomorrow but for the fact that SK has tanks and plans and such sitting on alert. Your Switzerland analogy wouldn't provide deterrence. |
| dinotrac May 16, 2009 11:58 PM EDT |
LIb - Kinda sorta, but not really. A couple of problems: A contract, as opposed to a license, is between two parties. That matters. Say, for instance, I have your GPL'd code on a server and somebody else makes a copy of it without my knowledge -- something that happens all the time, btw. That copy gets put on another server where somebody else picks it up, etc... Those people picking up the code are not bound by any contract. In the absence of copyright, they are also not prevented from doing as they please with the code. Without copyright protection, code is either secret or public domain. Once it's not a secret any more, it is out in the wild and you can't do crap about it. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 12:26 AM EDT |
> Of course you don't. You just implement a private copyright! If it looks like a duck... It's not a private copyright, no new subcategory. It's just agreements between people, something that has existed and persisted for ages (while governments and kings have risen and fallen). > You argue you don't need coercion, but what happens if someone doesn't follow your contract? You are forced to go to your private courts. I really don't see any big difference. Didn't I just frigging say it? Because people AGREED to such a contract they AGREED to pay damages if they violated it. If you agreed to something it's not coercion! And as ALSO explained previously, the private courts in question are also previously chosen by the parties. All that people are thus bound to are "laws " (contracts, "terms and conditions", "company policies" etc.) which they already agreed to, in addition to natural law from which there is no escape. > That *is* the Golden Rule. I don't care what they told you in kindergarten, but a question is not a "rule". It is a god damn question. If you want to make a rule based on your answer, that's your rule to make for yourself and that's the whole point. Be consistent and true to yourself. I'm not "imposing" morality, I am merely asking of people to be consistent. The fact is that if your morality is flawed it will be *impossible* for you to be consistent and impossible to avoid the consequences! This is why neither me nor a government can really impose true morality on you. Reality does that all by itself. Morality is natural. You wanna live? You're certainly not increasing your chances if you kill people. You wanna have your property safe? You're certainly not increasing your chances if you steal. But by all means try it and see for yourself. If you try to kill me I'll defend myself and it may be you who ends up wounded, if not dead. Try to steal from me and the same may happen. Try to defraud me and you'll find yourself persecuted for damages! You don't need me nor government to tell you these basic facts. And these are observations of reality not impositions. This is also why azerthoth is wrong. He assumes my morality is subjective rather than observed (and I'm sure he right about now assumes I'm willing to impose conclusions based on my observations on others, so before anyone jumps on that, let me remind you it is me who is arguing AGAINST forcing people to follow my opinions, thus no matter how right I may even be, you wont see me forcing you to either agree nor live in accordance to them). > The original context was you saying copyright is bad because it enables proprietary software. My point is that by itself doesn't make copyright bad just like guns aren't automatically bad. I also said, which is a more fundamental point, is that its problem is the assumption that an author of a copyrighted work automatically has rightful control over all other copies of that work anywhere in the world EVEN when these copies weren't made by him and were for the people he never even met. Which obviously leads to a situation of coercion, some people end up being threatened extraction of damages on the basis of terms they never agreed to. > But the point is that someone could open "The Public Domain Cinema" make a copy of movies and charge $1.50 for entrance, and keep all the money for themselves. And that $1.50 per viewer is greater than the movie theaters get for current ticket sales, so it would be cheaper for customers and more profitable for the theater. I can refer to my previous post about licenses implemented as contracts. If a movie company wants to prevent such a situation they can very well do that by distributing their stuff under a contract that prohibits one to screen a movie by himself and redistribute under different terms to others. Unlike with copyright at least the ones who buy your movie actually *agree* to such terms - all of them, not just direct buyers. Also related is this analysis: http://freedomainradio.com/board/forums/p/20004/161496.aspx#... (basically, if someone is "undercutting" you in the market it means you're overcharging). > That doesn't work against tanks. And private individuals (perhaps organized in voluntary defense agencies) are incapable of pooling money for tanks or weapons that work against tanks? > Sometimes you do need to use violence to solve problems. What if the problem is a guy pointing a gun at you? Then he already *initiated* violence. The whole point is not to even initiate violence, but if somebody does I already argued for the right to self defense, in which case you're merely reacting to violence perpetrated by another. Do you think it's OK to *initiate* violence to solve problems between humans which don't involve anyone initiating violence already? > Not only that, North Korea would invade South Korea tomorrow but for the fact that SK has tanks and plans and such sitting on alert. Your Switzerland analogy wouldn't provide deterrence. It provided deterrence against Hitler's tanks. Plus, as said above there's no reason why free people cannot organize adequate defense systems for any sort of a threat if such a threat is detected. I would argue they'd be more efficient because their market and technology would be more advanced (no government strangulation.. I mean "regulation") and because they're spending their money on what THEY see fit, not a bunch of clueless politicians with no accountability towards the market and no sense of financial and resource efficiency). |
| jdixon May 17, 2009 12:26 AM EDT |
> That doesn't work against tanks. That depends entirely on the arms available to your average person. From what I've been told by people who should know, anti-tank rockets aren't that hard to use. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 12:30 AM EDT |
Dinotrac, I'm quite aware of that distinction and I would say that's exactly the reason why I'm against it. People who have been given something without being asked to agree to any terms shouldn't thus be bound by those terms. BUT, you don't have to meet people face to face, nor even communicate with them directly online to establish a contract. All you have to do is provide something akin to the "terms of service" agreement that many sites display before you register and often even before you download something. Now of course if you fail to implement that and just put it somewhere in the wild, who is to blame but yourself? I wouldn't hold other people responsible for my own mistakes. |
| dinotrac May 17, 2009 1:20 AM EDT |
Libervis - Yes, and you are at the mercy of everyone in the chain. Even somebody whose laptop gets stolen. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 1:44 AM EDT |
What chain? If my laptop gets stolen then it's clearly a matter of theft in which case I do have damages owed to me for both the laptop and copies on it as well as the copies that may have leaked out without my permission. |
| dinotrac May 17, 2009 2:07 AM EDT |
Lib - Danages? How do you figure? If somebody steals a laptop, it's a criminal act. You might have a civl action, but I'll bet the thief, if caught, is in no position to pay you anything. You MIGHT get the laptop back, but it might also be in the hands of a new "owner" who has found your code interesting and shared it with friends who share it with their friends. As to leaking copies without your permission, none of these people needed your permission to leak copies of your software. They don't have contracts with you and there is no copyright (remember - that's still the scenario). |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 11:58 AM EDT |
I don't care if he isn't "in a position" to pay damages. If he can't pay immediately my insurance can cover it and then hire an investigator and private courts to track down the guilty one and extract damages one way or another. He's the one who initiated coercion and thus he remains indebted so long as he doesn't pay. And I didn't say the new owner owes me anything did I? The fact that there now exist new owner is the reason why the thief would have to pay damages for the leaked copies as well, not only for the laptop, and these damages may indeed be determined by the arbiters as quite hefty. Why WOULD I indeed seek people who neither stole anything nor had any idea what's going on to pay for it? It wasn't them who stole it, it was the thief. And you're pretending as if you have any better of a recourse under the copyright law, as if you're capable to sue and extract damages from every person who has ever pirated your copy. If that's your assumption you assume much, not to mention you assume punishing people for crimes *they* didn't commit is somehow a good thing. |
| dinotrac May 17, 2009 12:07 PM EDT |
Lib -
You're missing the point. Why does the thief owe you any damages at all?
If you get your laptop back, you are made whole WRT to the theft. If not, the thief is liable for the making you whole -- ie, paying for the laptop and software that's installed. Anything beyond that is tough luck because, in the absence of copyright, the software has no value at all. You could make a case for replacement cost of any software that you had on -- ie, what it costs to get a new copy, if anything, but your stuff? Gone with the wind, baby. You had no contract with the thief and you had no contract with anybody downstream from the thief. And that's presuming the thief is even caught, not killed in prison, etc. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 12:38 PM EDT |
I thought you meant before the laptop was returned. If returned the laptop he may still owe the damages for the time I was without a laptop (especially if I use it for work and things like that) AND a compensation for whatever copies may have leaked off the laptop without my letting him (and obviously since he stole it I didn't let him). As for me not having the contract with the thief, that's besides the point as the fact is there WAS an interaction between me and the thief by means of him stealing my laptop. This does make him liable for absolutely ALL damage incurred to me as a consequence of stealing my laptop. So while it may be true that others who have gotten the leaked copies now have my copies for free without any contract and thus any obligations to me, that is exactly what I was compensated for by the thief (or immediately by the insurance company if they didn't get to the thief yet). If that isn't enough then what will ever be enough? It's no better under copyright. The only difference is that you can actually go and sue even those who never had anything to do with theft (which I hold as immoral), but what are the chances of you being able to find let alone extract damages from all of them?? So if you wanna say it's "gone by the wind", it is so either way. That said, it may be that copies on your laptop were incomplete or "alpha" state software if you're still working on it, so all they'd have would be this incomplete stuff. I still hold the advantage of being the only one who can release a final and subsequent versions and then offer them under a contract I want. > And that's presuming the thief is even caught, not killed in prison, etc. As I said the insurance can cover it. That's what I'm paying them for. If they couldn't, working with the investigators and courts, catch the thief, that's their problem. So long as I have provided them with sufficient proof (under their policies, which are a part of what influenced my buying their services in the first place) that I was indeed stolen from. That said, you're missing a lot about what voluntary society inevitably implies. There is no "public property" governed by everyone and noone at the same time. Everything is private property. This severely restricts the movement of thiefs and murderers. If I could ever provide a description of a thief, the owners of roads, stores, squares etc. could be on the look out severely increasing the chances of the thief being caught. They would also have far greater incentives than anyone using "public property" has, because it's THEIR property and they don't want a thief be lurking around at it. As for being killed in prison, people wouldn't and shouldn't be thrown in prison as often as they are today. If he eventually pays up he's free to go and as legitimate and moral of a citizen as anyone else, except this little stain on his reputation. Prison is only a last resort, and even then it's more likely to involve some kind of a labor, him being compelled to provide a particular useful service to pay of his debt to the insurance company that way, than just "rotting in prison" and thus incurring even greater costs to the company (cell maintenance, feeding etc.) |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 12:54 PM EDT |
One additional little tidbit, speaking of extracting damages. The whole point about building a voluntary society is to strive to do everything without any coercion whatsoever, which is the most intelligent and evolved way of solving problems. The only place where force is justified is in *reaction* to force already initiated, that is, defensive force. HOWEVER, there have been people in the voluntaryist community who have thought of ways of extracting damages, for instance, without any force whatsoever. They do it by incentive. As I mentioned, everything is private property and if owners of the property know how the thief looks like they can not only report him to the insurance company, but also deny him service. The insurance company might, to save costs, not send some cops to apprehend him. They may wait for him to come to THEM all by himself. Why? Well, because sooner or later even if he has the money, he wont have anything to eat, anywhere to buy clothes, anywhere to get internet access etc. He is officially branded as the thief who didn't pay of his debt and thus ostracized from society. The only way for him to get out of this predicament is to come clean and pay his debt to the company and thus restore normal life. Why would private property owners ever do that? You might say they want to sell no matter who they're selling to. Well, they may be partly compensated by the insurance company, perhaps, but the larger point is that thiefs and murdered would be a rarity if the difficulty of being a thief and a murderer gets to this bad a level. If immediately as they are branded a criminal they can barely survive in a civil society, the incentive to steal or kill is incredibly low. Call it a fantasy if you will. If you think violence is a better way then go back to your barbaric beliefs. Some of us actually think constructively and scientifically about designing a society where violence is not the norm. |
| dinotrac May 17, 2009 1:29 PM EDT |
Lib - No. There is a always a limit to damages. Here is your problem: If you go into civil court to collect damages from the thief -- and you wouldn't do that by the way, because it almost never makes sense -- You have to establish the basis for the damages you seek. You are not going to get compensated for your time without the laptop. Just not going to to happen. You are free to argue til your face turns blue, but it's not ever going to happen. Some guy goes to jail for stealing your laptop, you're not going to get very far trying to grind him into the ground. As for copies leaking off your laptop without your permission, so what? (BTW -- it doesn't have to be YOUR laptop that was stolen. It could be somebody who has received your software under contract) What is your theory of loss? In the absence of copyright, your software has no inherent monetary value. You might be able to snag back any profit the theif made from your software under the same theories that damages are recovered in trade secret cases, but you're not going to get compensation for all the copies that have spread into the wild. Those copies have no value so you don't have any damages. You have no basis for recovery. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 4:02 PM EDT |
> If you go into civil court to collect damages from the thief -- and you wouldn't do that by the way, because it almost never makes sense -- The logistics of it don't matter. It would depend on the insurance company I'm with and their procedures. I would likely not need to go anywhere else except to my insurance company in order to provide evidence of the theft being committed and losses incurred. Your disagreement appears to be in that area, providing evidence. > You are not going to get compensated for your time without the laptop. Just not going to to happen. You are free to argue til your face turns blue, but it's not ever going to happen. Some guy goes to jail for stealing your laptop, you're not going to get very far trying to grind him into the ground. So say you? You're also completely ignoring what I said about the jail. That is a last resort option, the thief may not go to jail at all if he pays damages finally determined. Those damages are not about "grinding him into the ground", but about making me whole, restoring me to the point before the theft occurred. That's what justice was supposed to be, repairing the damage. If I can demonstrate clearly that if I spent time on my laptop during the time it was gone I would have been able to say, earn a particular amount of money, and back this up by evidence that *proves* a pattern of me using that laptop in those times for these value making purposes, I don't see why would that then obvious and evident value loss not be admitted by the arbiters. Albeit I'm not saying their decision must necessarily BE that way and I would accept his decision whatever it is (because I *agreed* to the policies of that company), but I might then reconsider my subscription to that company (choice I don't get with government). > As for copies leaking off your laptop without your permission, so what? Same thing as above. If I can demonstrate loss I think I have a fair chance of having that loss compensated. Perhaps I have a business plan which I can prove I wrote before theft occurred and which details the contract and price under which I would distribute my copies and can thus calculate how much would I make if I was the one selling or giving those copies instead of the thief. > (BTW -- it doesn't have to be YOUR laptop that was stolen. It could be somebody who has received your software under contract) That isn't a problem unless a contract has a viral clause like the one under GPL. Otherwise I already allowed the one I have a contract with to copy it to others under different terms. So pursuing damages for the theft of his laptop is solely his business and has nothing at that point to do with me. If it was a viral contract, the one from whom the laptop was stolen may be held liable to me, but since it is clear he didn't voluntarily provide copies under a different contract his liability to me would be equal to thief's liability to him. Thus whatever damages I may seek from him are the damages he is right to seek from the thief. Again it simply comes down to the fact that if it is the theft which causes loss of any kind it is the thief who is responsible for covering that loss. Shouldn't that be obvious? > What is your theory of loss? Everything that is done *to me* (me physically or my property) without my consent is something I can consider as loss. This basically comes down to all forms of coercion (theft, physical harm) and contract violations (someone breaking an agreement with me). Makes governments the biggest debtors in history of mankind (which they are even without the application of the above principles). > In the absence of copyright, your software has no inherent monetary value. It may not have value directly, but the service of providing a copy of software does so if I did not choose to provide that service to someone, yet someone just steals my computer (and thus copies of software on it), it is like stealing my service, compelling me to do something for someone against my will. This is the same reason why contract violations incur damages. If there was no agreement I wouldn't have provided what I provided in the first place, thus when an agreement happens and then is violated it is the same as stealing. Technically, this is called fraud. |
| dinotrac May 17, 2009 4:58 PM EDT |
Lib - Talk it up all you want, but the bottom line is this: Contracts can't do what copyright does. They can do a little bit of it, but not nearly all of it. You can type from here to eternity and that won't change. |
| azerthoth May 17, 2009 5:15 PM EDT |
Interesting how you are dismissive of any other form of morality than your own. You completely ignored as inconvenient to your argument that others moralities stand diametrically opposed to your own, and to the owners are just as valid and self consistent. What you really mean when you say moral is "in my not so humble and currently immutable opinion". I'm surprised at you Lib, of all people, you have over the last 2 years gone through an amazing philosophical shift. You should be one to recognize that universal truths are not immutable things. |
| dinotrac May 17, 2009 5:32 PM EDT |
I skipped over something earlier, and it's not trivial.Quoting: So say you? You're also completely ignoring what I said about the jail. That is a last resort option, the thief may not go to jail at all if he pays damages finally determined. Lib, even in a libertarian society, the government has an obligation to protect its citizens against violence. That's why, in most -- if not all -- societies that I can think of, individuals to not prosecute criminals. The state does. In a properly functioning society, whether or not a thief goes to jail should not be your choice. You should not be allowed to subject your fellow citizens to harm, even possible danger, just because you got your laptop back. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 5:49 PM EDT |
> Contracts can't do what copyright does. That's the whole point. Copyrights overreach. They force people who never even interacted with you, never had an agreement to break, never stole anything from you, never coerced you, to be somehow liable to you. Essentially it gives unilateral power of ones over others solely on the fact that their computers or media (their property) stores same arrangements of bits. > You can type from here to eternity and that won't change. You're right. I don't want to change it. That difference is the whole reason I'm against copyrights. > Interesting how you are dismissive of any other form of morality than your own. What a mindfuck. Don't you realize that I am arguing against imposing one's opinions by force on another? If you're gonna accuse someone of intolerance it is those who defend copyrights and the state - defend the rights to coerce. > You completely ignored as inconvenient to your argument that others moralities stand diametrically opposed to your own, and to the owners are just as valid and self consistent. Are they really diametrically opposed? All I've reached as conclusions of my approach to moral argument was that coercion is wrong and thus that theft and murder is wrong. Is there anyone here who can honestly say that coercion is moral, that theft and murder are OK? If not then your morals aren't diametrically opposed to my own at all and you're just being in denial of the fact that some of the things you support actually contradict your own morality. Note I've asked a question above, posed a conditional, just like the last time. So before you continue accusing me of trying to impose my moral view on others, please answer the frigging question and please be honest and then tell me if your morals are really so diametrically opposed. > What you really mean when you say moral is "in my not so humble and currently immutable opinion". You're putting words in my mouth. I never said my opinion is immutable. What I did was describe a process according to which I reach my opinions and what some of the conclusions appear to be. I described my process as logical consistency and observation of reality. Can you do the same? Do you agree that this is a way to reach correct opinions? Again, I am ASKING a question! > You should be one to recognize that universal truths are not immutable things. That statement is ambiguous. Do you mean to say universal truths as in what exists in reality or universal truths in form of currently held opinions of an individual? In either case I wont necessarily deny what you're saying, but I don't see how it contradicts the way I determine morality as clarified above. If you mean the former then that just refers to the possibility that some laws of nature MIGHT change. Since I have seen little if any evidence of that happening I would conclude that at best such a process is incredibly slow from our perspective. Still, all this means is that we should be constantly on the look out, constantly observing reality and being logically consistent, in order to truly know what is real and true. If you mean the latter, again the solution is the same. Constantly be on the look out, constantly observe and be internally consistent. Only this way can you find flaws in your current truth beliefs. This is EXACTLY what I'm doing with my moral beliefs. So if you're gonna attack my moral beliefs you have to prove how am I being inconsistent with them, how exactly do they contradict reality OR dispute the entire method I'm using to get there (basically you have to dispute scientific method). |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 5:56 PM EDT |
> Lib, even in a libertarian society, the government has an obligation to protect its citizens against violence. By initiating violence? If that's protection then it is government that I need protection from. How is it initiating violence? By forcing competing protection agencies out of the market. I am not an unprincipled (minarchist) libertarian, but a voluntaryist. When I say I'm against coercion I mean it all the way, I don't make an exception and then allow some government to exist. > In a properly functioning society, whether or not a thief goes to jail should not be your choice. You should not be allowed to subject your fellow citizens to harm, even possible danger, just because you got your laptop back. Whose choice should it be then? The government? People who initiate violence themselves? No thanks. And if the thief completely repaired the damage he caused he is no longer in the wrong and is free to go. Given that he was caught and had to pay once, in combination with all the other anti-theft and anti-coercion incentives present in a free society (all property being private, ostracism (freedom of association), freedom of self-defense (people able to own guns and use them against murder or theft attempts) etc.) should be enough of a disincentive for further thievery. Putting a man who paid his dues in jail is kidnapping an innocent man and thus increasing rather than decreasing criminal activity in a society. If I do that, I'm the one people should fear and ostracize. |
| azerthoth May 17, 2009 6:07 PM EDT |
I'm saying that you are arguing your belief system as moral, dismissing those that are opposed to you as inconsistent, as I stated before there are 'moral' structures that find no wrong in coercive behavior up to and including the death of those who do not agree. To those people their beliefs are as valid as yours are to you, and you are both right. In using the term morals in any conversation you must include opposing viewpoints as valid and as worthy as your own. Otherwise you suffer hypocrisy. I have not questioned your 'moral' stance, only that you choose to use that word as substantive support for your position. When that word, when tossed into conversation is vague enough to be meaningless in nearly any context. Your morals and morality are not mine, do not presuppose that yours are superior by calling your actions and beliefs moral and mine oppressive, do you see what I am saying? It is the word, not the belief system behind them, that you are flagrantly misusing. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 6:16 PM EDT |
I'm sure their moral beliefs to them sound as right and consistent as mine do to me. Does that make them right? How do you determine who is right? Do you support questioning their methodology of determining the moral truth? Do you believe there is such a thing as a scientifically determinable moral framework observable in human behavior and thus evident as a property of human nature? How do you define morality or moral behavior? Thanks |
| hkwint May 17, 2009 6:31 PM EDT |
Gentlemen (and this is not aimed at Dean because he's very well behaved today), Please be warned that topics dealing with 'state coercion / violence' and such tend to be deleted from LXer from time to time by the responsible authorities (which don't include me BTW, I'm normally on the TOS-violating side). Ask Bob Robertson and me if you don't believe. Some of the language can also bee deemed insulting by some, and is also violating TOS (please watch your language Danijel). LXer TOS says: Quoting:Discussion and debate of a political or religious nature is not allowed on the site. So please keep the thread on topic and refrain from politic and religious arguments or risk this thread being deleted. |
| azerthoth May 17, 2009 6:36 PM EDT |
I dont, which is why I say that in using the term 'moral' in the fashion that you have, you are defining yours as the only stance which is correct. This is not so, or are you saying that because I condone the use of force I am immoral? As you have just so wonderfully asked, without the ability to judge what is universally moral and immoral, the use of the phrase is meaningless and unsustainable. So in using it as supportive of your argument, you are announcing that you have climbed upon your metaphysical high horse so that others must look up at you, or positioned yourself in such a fashion as to denigrate those who do not believe as you do. The word you chose is meaningless, and in the context in which you used it, either incorrect or hubris. |
| dinotrac May 17, 2009 6:38 PM EDT |
>he's very well behaved today I've been sick. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 6:48 PM EDT |
Hkwint, I'm sorry if I said anything insulting. I realize I can be standoffish and am trying to overcome that. Though it is probably hard to discuss coercion without touching on politics, non-coercion isn't a political philosophy at all. It is completely apolitical by definition. And it sure isn't religious. Edit: Oh and I'm glad I'm not the only oddball here with a tendency to discuss state coercion. azerthoth; So you're essentially arguing that morals don't even exist and might as well be deleted from the vocabulary. I mean, you say the word is completely meaningless. However in the same sentence you say that "in the context in which you used it, either incorrect or hubris", but if it is meaningless then saying it is incorrect is contradictory. If it has no meaning it isn't possible to be either correct nor incorrect when using it. It simply means nothing. That said, if morals are meaningless, then on what basis do you think you and me shouldn't go killing and stealing from people? Thanks |
| azerthoth May 17, 2009 6:48 PM EDT |
@hkwint defining a useful meaning for 'moral' or 'morality' is very pertinent to FOSS, as the whole basis for the GPL and FSF are the definitions of RMS definitions of moral behavior. This is not a debate about what is or is not moral, but that word itself is functionally meaningless when used to define one's viewpoint. Much like having a discussion where proofs are required and someone drops 'because $DIETY said so' into the mix. So understanding the term moral is very pertinent to any discussion of FOSS/FSF/RMS/TLA/ETC . That we have not been specific in its application to such does not abrogate meaning. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 6:53 PM EDT |
Ahh, your last post clarifies it. You basically say I posed a moral position before revealing the method of reaching that position and inviting one to question such a method. OK, but then later I DID reveal the method I'm using. So do you want to question that method? Edit: Actually there seem to be two questions here: 1. What is the method of determining proper moral positions (right from wrong)? 2. What is the definition of morals or morality? Right? |
| azerthoth May 17, 2009 7:00 PM EDT |
Nope, we have had our warning I think. Just that you hit one of the things that triggers a reaction from me. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 7:10 PM EDT |
Fair enough. I guess we're on the same page on that point then. I should be more careful to define the terms I use and methods I use to determine my positions, to be clearer. (Not sure if that helps make my posts smaller.. tho.. maybe it results in having to do less explaining and more debating.) |
| hkwint May 17, 2009 7:35 PM EDT |
Quoting:(Not sure if that helps make my posts smaller.. I have to admit I'm still not done processing May 17th. Quoting:@hkwint defining a useful meaning for 'moral' or 'morality' is very pertinent to FOSS As long as FOSS and not politics is the topic of that exploration LXer normally tolerates such. But again I don't have the auth to delete threads so you don't have to convince me. I'm just warning you because last time Bob and I were exploring the building bricks of 'property' (which sure was both interesting, fun and educative) our thread ended in /dev/null halfway. |
| Libervis May 17, 2009 7:51 PM EDT |
Why don't we create an alternative forum for such discussions then where we can explore them freely? ;) Actually, I've already made one over 4 years ago which is waiting rather quietly nowadays.. just a thought. :) |
| TxtEdMacs May 18, 2009 8:06 AM EDT |
Libervis, For you anything goes. I will talk to Scott to make it happen so that you and a limited number of your closest friends can discuss anything to your heart's delight. Ok? However, I see one problem, apparent in this and other forum threads, you seem to hear voices, since there are stretches where you are responding when no one else has uttered a type click. Thus, your group may be limited to you, some of your alter egos and perhaps one or two others. Please recognize, that while all may read the postings, the peripheral fence will be electrified at what we really hope gives a sublethal shock. This is simply to protect all concerned. Nonetheless, I advise caution once you enter. One final commitment: no counter argument posts will be allowed that employ empirical citation of fact when fancy rules. How's that, will that suit you? Your [Best*] Buddy Txt. * Nuts I may be, but I am staying on the other side of the fence. You might need help to escape, eventually. |
| dinotrac May 18, 2009 9:03 AM EDT |
Hey txt -- ouch!! That new ouch!!! forum.. can ouch! anybody ouch! Never mind. |
| Scott_Ruecker May 18, 2009 10:09 AM EDT |
I will tell you right now that there will be no off topic forums coming anytime soon. It is not the purpose of LXer to have to police political and religious conversations, which is what almost all of the conversations would end up being about. There are a myriad of other places on the Internet to go do that, not on LXer. FOSS and GNU/Linux, that is what LXer is about. |
| TxtEdMacs May 18, 2009 10:35 AM EDT |
dino, You have to admit your response was over-the-top, right? The cable has not even been attached. So where and what are all these feigned signs of pain meant to imply? YBT |
| dinotrac May 18, 2009 10:39 AM EDT |
YBT - Yeah, but you don't need cables when you've got microwave satelites pouring down the sun's concentrated energy. Clever move that, keep out interlopers AND sell green energy to PG&E. |
| jdixon May 18, 2009 10:58 AM EDT |
> I will tell you right now that there will be no off topic forums coming anytime soon. Probably a wise decision. While the occasional off topic excursion is entertaining, that's not what the site is about. And I say that as one of the occasional offenders. |
| dinotrac May 18, 2009 11:34 AM EDT |
>And I say that as one of the occasional offenders. **cough** |
| tuxchick May 18, 2009 11:49 AM EDT |
Thanks Scott. Libervis, nobody in the history of humanity has ever been persuaded by longer diatribes or louder shouting. If you can't express yourself clearly and fairly concisely, being more insistent and verbose doesn't help. When people don't agree with you, getting mad and being insulting doesn't work. Half the time I have no idea what your point is, and then when you lose it and get mad because everyone isn't all happy joy joy over whatever it is you're saying, I wonder why I even bother reading your posts. For someone who claims to be against coercion, it seems to me you're trying for force people to agree with you. |
| jdixon May 18, 2009 12:18 PM EDT |
> **cough** I very carefully did not say "infrequent". :) > ...because everyone isn't all happy joy joy ... The link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqGsxwQpa_g for those who want or need to know. |
| Libervis May 18, 2009 3:09 PM EDT |
TC, my debating skills are a work in progress. Verbosity mostly comes out of desperation. I feel I'm not getting through, not in terms of failing to convince, but in terms of having someone even understand what I'm talking about before attacking it (which is why I just wanna cringe a lot of the times I read replies.. scream "no no no this isn't what I'm talking about for freak's sake, how the hell can you not see that!"); and "being loud" and verbose is a knee jerk reaction to that. I doubt I have been as insulting in this thread as is made to appear though. You're right, and I already said I should have defined my terminology and methods more clearly, which might have resulted in less verbosity. As for another forum, I thought an off-site forum, but anyway. And.. um.. I'm in no mood to decipher whatever TxtEdMacs just said. Meh.. cya around.. |
| hkwint May 18, 2009 7:48 PM EDT |
Quoting:And.. um.. I'm in no mood to decipher whatever TxtEdMacs just said. Maybe try Openssl -c aes-cbc -d TxtEdMacsComment |
| dinotrac May 18, 2009 8:18 PM EDT |
Hans - Stop giving away the store!!! |
| Scott_Ruecker May 18, 2009 10:56 PM EDT |
Anyone who can truly decipher what YBT says is either a genius or insane..and probably a mix of both is what is really needed.. Love you buddy! lol |
| gus3 May 18, 2009 10:58 PM EDT |
@Scott, It's a fine line between them. A long-time friend of mine tap-danced on that line for as long as he could. |
| dinotrac May 18, 2009 11:34 PM EDT |
gus3 - I all humility, I must correct you - the line between genius and insanity is not fine at all. It's jus that we ham it up a bit so that you "meres" -- as in "merely bright" "merely human" -- types won't feel so overwhelmed by our, well, overwhelming brilliance. The difference is easy to see: On the one had, you have Charlie Manson or Jack the Ripper. On the other, you have Dr. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb. Clear as a bell, eh? |
| gus3 May 19, 2009 12:09 AM EDT |
dino, Do you have occasional episodes of congenital schizophrenia that go hand-in-hand with certain types of unusually high intelligence? That's what I'm talking about. My friend lived with that for 25 years. |
| dinotrac May 19, 2009 7:17 AM EDT |
gus3 - This is not the kind of place to be talking about people's congenitals. |
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