Windows Sucks

[Aloone_Jonez]

I would discourage non-MS pirate software, I don't have a problem with paying for software in general, just MS software.

[piratePenguin]

I would discourage non-MS pirate software, I don't have a problem with paying for software in general, just MS software.

I have no problems with paying for free software, so long as it's not a rip-off.
I don't like the crazy restrictions that are placed on some (read: most to all) non-free software. Their licences are designed to restrict the user.

The GPL is about guaranteeing freedom, and I think the "guarantee" part is important. Although not necesary. I like the BSD licence, for example, but it doesn't guarantee the same freedom that the GPL does. Therefore, I prefer the GPL. But I still like the BSD licence. RMS wants to build (well he has. but he has greater goals now ) a community in which non-free software does not exist. If the developers used, for example, the BSD licence, anyone could copy the software, make it non-free, add in some nice features, and the community's future could be at risk if the software is good enough.


A rather extreme example, cedega:
If any of you wanted cedega, I'd prefer you to get an illegit copy of it, rather than buying it from Transgaming that is.
Contrary to popular belief, cedega is not free software. It uses code from wine, sure, but that code is from before wine was GPL.

And I would pay for free software, if the software seems worth it. I wouldn't pirate it. I don't think. Unless I needed it and could not afford it.

[Jenda]

A rather extreme example, cedega:
If any of you wanted cedega, I'd prefer you to get an illegit copy of it, rather than buying it from Transgaming that is.
Contrary to popular belief, cedega is not free software. It uses code from wine, sure, but that code is from before wine was GPL.

I was just wondering about that... thanks for clearing it up. Added to don't-use list.

 

warez > paying < free software

If "warez > paying" and "paying < free software" then warez < free software.

A little (OK, very) o/t, but NOT TRUE.:thumbdwn: This is math. If [(x > y) and (y < z)], then all [(x < z), (x > z) and (x = z)] are possible. Try substituting with numbers, you will see that both [x=5, y=3, z=8] and [x=7, y=2, z=8] comply with the original statement that [(x > y) and (y < z)].
I hope this rant doesn't annoy you too much (just a little...).

[toadlife]

If the developers used, for example, the BSD licence, anyone could copy the software, make it non-free, add in some nice features, and the community's future could be at risk if the software is good enough.

I'm so sick if this argument. It amounts to little more than FUD. This type of thing you worry so much about hardly ever happens. I challenge you to find more than one or two examples of this happening over the last twenty years.

A rather extreme example, cedega:
If any of you wanted cedega, I'd prefer you to get an illegit copy of it, rather than buying it from Transgaming that is.
Contrary to popular belief, cedega is not free software. It uses code from wine, sure, but that code is from before wine was GPL.

It's not illegal to buy Cedega and then give it out to your friends. The Cedega license specifically permits it. They also permit you to build it yourself from the source. I found a few detailed howtos on how to build it from the CVS on linux, so if your so mad about having to pay, build it yourself.

And I would pay for free software, if the software seems worth it. I wouldn't pirate it. I don't think. Unless I needed it and could not afford it.

lol.

"I would never do _x. Unless I really wanted to do _x. Then I would do _x"

[Aloone_Jonez]

Fair enough Jenda, I stand corrected.

I have a different point of view regarding the licence:
To me when I'm choosing a piece of software for a particular purpose I weigh up the pros and cons of each package before I make a decision.

I consider the features, cost and compatability with my hardware before I even think about the licence. I don't care whether it's BSD, GPL, or closed source as long as it represents good value for money.

[piratePenguin]

A little (OK, very) o/t, but NOT TRUE.:thumbdwn: This is math. If [(x > y) and (y < z)], then all [(x < z), (x > z) and (x = z)] are possible. Try substituting with numbers, you will see that both [x=5, y=3, z=8] and [x=7, y=2, z=8] comply with the original statement that [(x > y) and (y < z)].

oh yer right :thumbup:

I hope this rant doesn't annoy you too much (just a little...).

I stand corrected, too.

I'm so sick if this argument. It amounts to little more than FUD. This type of thing you worry so much about hardly ever happens. I challenge you to find more than one or two examples of this happening over the last twenty years.

Little more than FUD eh? I said that it "could" happen, could it not?
As for the examples, the only one that I know of is X (although it didn't use the BSD licence).
But if all the GPLed programs suddenly switched to the BSD licence, wouldn't you think someone (eg, the evil bastards that are MS) would take advantage, especially when the licence allows it (I'm talking about using the BSD licenced code in some program, and distribute it in binary form)?
For a start, people/companies have been caught violating the GPL for using GPL licenced code, http://www.gpl-violations.org/.

Cedega and Wine would probably be another (more recent) example (rather than X) but I dunno what licence Wine used to use.

It's not illegal to buy Cedega and then give it out to your friends. The Cedega license specifically permits it. They also permit you to build it yourself from the source. I found a few detailed howtos on how to build it from the CVS on linux, so if your so mad about having to pay, build it yourself.

It doesn't matter. It's still not free software.
And I'm not mad about having to pay, I'm mad that it's not free software.
It uses the "Aladdin Free Public License" (bottom of http://www.transgaming.com/license.php?source=1), to quote from it:

[/color][/color]This License is not an Open Source license: among other things, it places restrictions on distribution of the Program, specifically including sale of the Program. While Aladdin Enterprises respects and supports the philosophy of the Open Source Definition, and shares the desire of the GNU project to keep licensed software freely redistributable in both source and object form, we feel that Open Source licenses unfairly prevent developers of useful software from being compensated proportionately when others profit financially from their work. This License attempts to ensure that those who receive, redistribute, and contribute to the licensed Program according to the Open Source and Free Software philosophies have the right to do so, while retaining for the developer(s) of the Program the power to make those who use the Program to enhance the value of commercial products pay for the privilege of doing so.

Seems fair enough, but it won't suffice for moi

[/color][/color]"I would never do _x. Unless I really wanted to do _x. Then I would do _x"

You appear to have misinterpreted what I said.

Unless I needed it and could not afford it.

I consider the features, cost and compatability with my hardware before I even think about the licence. I don't care whether it's BSD, GPL, or closed source as long as it represents good value for money.

I only consider that other stuff after I know that the program is free software. And as far as I'm concerned, when I'm picking programs, BSD licence == GNU GPL.
Closed source... Some chance

[toadlife]

Little more than FUD eh? I said that it "could" happen, could it not?

Sure it could, and from time to time, it does, but you speak with the premise that it is a universally bad thing and/or that only bad can come out of a company adopting and relicensing BSD licensed software.

As for the examples, the only one that I know of Well, it doesn't matter weather it was "the" BSD license. It's was a "BSD Style" license. People still use X today, no? If I'm not mistaken, the picture on my screen is being rendered by Xorg 6.8.x as I type. Companies have taken X, modified it, and sold it, but it has hardly hampered the success of open source X.

But if all the GPLed programs suddenly switched to the BSD licence, wouldn't you think someone (eg, the evil bastards that are MS) would take advantage, especially when the licence allows it (I'm talking about using the BSD licenced code in some program, and distribute it in binary form)?

Well, yeah, some "evil companies" might do this, but again I point out your premise. Your focus of your argument is wrapped entirely around the theme of possesion. "Take", "Steal", "Mine", and "Yours" are frequently used words/terms found in GPL advocates' arguments. When making arguments as to why the BSD license, GPL advocates get so wrapped up in these ideas of possesion, that they miss the point of BSD style licenses. Back to the point of why I label the argument FUD. Many people throw the term FUD around a lot without realizing (or conveniently ignoring) the fact that "FUD" is a standard marketing technique that has been used for eons to promote things.

The defenition of FUD from dictionary.com:

"An acronym invented by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering products." The idea, of course, was to persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software."

When promoting GPL by pointing out a possible bad things that might happen by using a BSD style license, then you are by definition spreading FUD.

Every company partakes in the spreading of FUD.

Here are some examples:
Intel(fanboy) FUD: "AMD chips might not be fully compatible with your software."
linux FUD: "If you use Microsoft products, you can't see the code, and are at the mercy of Microsoft to fix security problems."
Microsoft FUD: "If you use linux, you might have to spend lots of money re-training your sysadmins or hiring new sysadmins to support it."
Political FUD: My opponent wants to take away your Social Security.  

These are common examples of Marketing by FUD. The primary focus lies not on the positive aspects of using the marketer's products, but around the possible negative consequences of using the other guy's product.

For a start, people/companies have been caught violating the GPL for using GPL licenced code, http://www.gpl-violations.org/.

No doubt, the majority of violations stem directly from the complexity of the GPL license. Most violators of the GPL do so in ignorance.

Cedega and Wine would probably be another (more recent) example (rather than X) but I dunno what licence Wine used to use. It doesn't matter. It's still not free software. And I'm not mad about having to pay, I'm mad that it's not free software.

Perhaps you should be more angry that the free software community has failed on this front. If you feel that Cedega should be free, then feel free to take the original Wine and build your own "WineX". The original Wine is still alive and kicking. I took a look at the WinHQ site and noticed that it is licensed under the LGPL. AFAIK, the LGPL is compatible with what Cedega is doing.

[piratePenguin]

Sure it could, and from time to time, it does, but you speak with the premise that it is a universally bad thing and/or that only bad can come out of a company adopting and relicensing BSD licensed software.

As for the examples, the only one that I know of Well, it doesn't matter weather it was "the" BSD license. It's was a "BSD Style" license. People still use X today, no? If I'm not mistaken, the picture on my screen is being rendered by Xorg 6.8.x as I type. Companies have taken X, modified it, and sold it, but it has hardly hampered the success of open source X.



Well, yeah, some "evil companies" might do this, but again I point out your premise. Your focus of your argument is wrapped entirely around the theme of possesion. "Take", "Steal", "Mine", and "Yours" are frequently used words/terms found in GPL advocates' arguments. When making arguments as to why the BSD license, GPL advocates get so wrapped up in these ideas of possesion, that they miss the point of BSD style licenses. Back to the point of why I label the argument FUD. Many people throw the term FUD around a lot without realizing (or conveniently ignoring) the fact that "FUD" is a standard marketing technique that has been used for eons to promote things.

The defenition of FUD from dictionary.com:

"An acronym invented by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering products." The idea, of course, was to persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software."

When promoting GPL by pointing out a possible bad things that might happen by using a BSD style license, then you are by definition spreading FUD.

Every company partakes in the spreading of FUD.

Here are some examples:
Intel(fanboy) FUD: "AMD chips might not be fully compatible with your software."
linux FUD: "If you use Microsoft products, you can't see the code, and are at the mercy of Microsoft to fix security problems."
Microsoft FUD: "If you use linux, you might have to spend lots of money re-training your sysadmins or hiring new sysadmins to support it."
Political FUD: My opponent wants to take away your Social Security.  

These are common examples of Marketing by FUD. The primary focus lies not on the positive aspects of using the marketer's products, but around the possible negative consequences of using the other guy's product.

So you obviously think it'd be pretty safe for all the copyright holders using the GPL to relicence their code under the BSD licence. I disagree. If mplayer used the BSD licence, MS could (and probably would, seeing as NOBODY can stop them (the licence allows it)) help themselves and make a kick-ass next WMP release. They'd be ALLOWD to. With the GPL, they are NOT allowd to (unless they used a free software licence (I think that's the way it goes), like the GPL, which they would NOT). That's why I prefer the GPL.

No doubt, the majority of violations stem directly from the complexity of the GPL license. Most violators of the GPL do so in ignorance.

So they run through the code, change a few error messages (not all of them, of course), mess it up a bit, and release it (under some shit non-free software licence). Without looking at the original (GPL) licence? As if the GPL would allow such a thing. Unlike the BSD licence.

Perhaps you should be more angry that the free software community has failed on this front. If you feel that Cedega should be free, then feel free to take the original Wine and build your own "WineX". The original Wine is still alive and kicking. I took a look at the WinHQ site and noticed that it is licensed under the LGPL. AFAIK, the LGPL is compatible with what Cedega is doing.

GNU LGPL qualifies is a free software licence. Cedega's licence does NOT.
The LGPL is used for libraries mainly, so non-free programs can link with them. Other than that I think it's pretty much the same as the GPL.
Wine probably needs the LGPL so Windows applications can link with it's libraries, I think.
Wine wasn't always GPL. If it was, Cedega would either not exist (improvements would go straight into Wine), or it WOULD HAVE TO BE free software (probably with the same subscription fee, which I wouldn't mind paying (if I wanted to play Windows games, which ATM I don't) or recommending).

[toadlife]

So you obviously think it'd be pretty safe for all the copyright holders using the GPL to relicence their code under the BSD licence. I disagree.

I never said that. The GPL can be very usefull (Ask IBM) in certain situations. I just disagree with the idea that not using is inherently bad.

If mplayer used the BSD licence, MS could (and probably would, seeing as NOBODY can stop them (the licence allows it)) help themselves and make a kick-ass next WMP release. They'd be ALLOWD to.

Mplayer? Mplayer sucks rocks compared to WMP. You may not agree, but I guarantee you Microsoft would.

You seem to have a deep misunderstanding of Microsoft, it's culture, and it's history. I was going to touch on this in my last post, but forgot. If you look at the roots of the NT kernel you'll notice that it is based upon VMS, which is widely regarded by people who had the pleasure of using or administering it as one of those most stable/kick-ass operating systems ever made.

Dave Cutler, who was the chief architect of VMS, and the cheif architect (read: evil nazi dictator) of NT in it's early days, hated Unix with a passion. Alot of NT's design is based around the widely held belief in the scientific community that UNIX is an old, tired Operating System design which has absoultely no place in today's computing world. For Microsoft to take an OS like BSD and base their next OS on it, would contradict their goals. Their current TCP stack isn't even based on the BSD stack. In earlier versions of NT, it was, but later on, they ended up buying a TCP stack from another company to integrate into Windows 2000 and XP.

[Refalm]

Mplayer? Mplayer sucks rocks compared to WMP.

VideoLAN player kicks the ass of WMP, although it can't play WMV's (yet).

[piratePenguin]

I never said that. The GPL can be very usefull (Ask IBM) in certain situations. I just disagree with the idea that not using is inherently bad.

What I said:

If the developers used, for example, the BSD licence, anyone could copy the software, make it non-free, add in some nice features, and the community's future could be at risk if the software is good enough.

[/color][/color]What you said:

I'm so sick if this argument. It amounts to little more than FUD. This type of thing you worry so much about hardly ever happens.

Let's just put it this way: if a non-copyleft, free software licence (eg. BSD) was used (by RMS and GNU, etc.), nothing could stop anyone from ripping off the code and making their own non-free program based entirely on the non-copyleft, free software (eg. BSD) licenced code. It has happened before. It could happen all the time if the BSD licence was used rather than the GPL.
And that's part-of what I was saying.
You call it FUD. I call it FACT. If you disagree that it is FACT, then please let me know what would stop anyone from doing that.

"inherently bad", who said that? I, for sure, would rather see everything use the GPL than everything use the BSD licence.

Mplayer? Mplayer sucks rocks compared to WMP. You may not agree, but I guarantee you Microsoft would.

Possibly a bad example. AFAIK, mplayer has lots of features that WMP lacks. MS could take (read: steal, if you so desire) them and implement them in WMP. There would eventually be no question: mplayer would "suck rocks" compared to WMP.
Why should we help the evil bastards when they never help us?

You seem to have a deep misunderstanding of Microsoft, it's culture, and it's history. I was going to touch on this in my last post, but forgot. If you look at the roots of the NT kernel you'll notice that it is based upon VMS, which is widely regarded by people who had the pleasure of using or administering it as one of those most stable/kick-ass operating systems ever made.

VMS eh? I'll check it out sometime.

Bill Cutler, who was the chief architect of VMS, and the cheif architect (read: evil nazi dictator) of NT in it's early days, hated Unix with a passion. Alot of NT's design is based around the widely held belief in the scientific community that UNIX is an old, tired Operating System design which has absoultely no place in today's computing world. For Microsoft to take an OS like BSD and base their next OS on it, would contradict their goals. Their current TCP stack isn't even based on the BSD stack. In earlier versions of NT, it was, but later on, they ended up buying a TCP stack from another company to integrate into Windows 2000 and XP.

Err.
*vaguely sees what this has to do with anything.*
What exactly is MS's goals then? To create the most unlike-UNIX or unlike-*BSD OS in the world? Or to make the best OS in the world (let's leave all the other reasons like "to take over the world" and all that aside for now)? In which case, the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD (I actually amn't sure about what licence OpenBSD uses. But I think it's safe to assume it's BSD.) code would come in very handy.
And if all the GNU tools used the BSD licence too, MS (et al) could help themselves to that. Same goes for Linux, GNOME, KDE, and all other free software.

You do know that in my previous posts where I said "BSD" I always meant the BSD licence, right?

VideoLAN player kicks the ass of WMP, although it can't play WMV's (yet).

Indeed. I actually don't have any video player (read: decent video player) installed ATM. Might use VLP one when I need one.

[toadlife]

What exactly is MS's goals then? To create the most unlike-UNIX or unlike-*BSD OS in the world? Or to make the best OS in the world (let's leave all the other reasons like "to take over the world" and all that aside for now)?

The same as every othre company in existence; To make money.

In which case, the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD (I actually amn't sure about what licence OpenBSD uses. But I think it's safe to assume it's BSD.) code would come in very handy.
And if all the GNU tools used the BSD licence too, MS (et al) could help themselves to that. Same goes for Linux, GNOME, KDE, and all other free software.

Microsoft sees BSD/linux/UNIX and all of the things that come along with them as inferior to their products. That is why I don't think they would make use of the code.

[piratePenguin]

The same as every othre company in existence; To make money.

Hehe. Why didn't I think of that?

Microsoft sees BSD/linux/UNIX and all of the things that come along with them as inferior to their products. That is why I don't think they would make use of the code.

Well, heck, anyone could take advantage of the BSD licenced code.

Anyone could take FreeBSD, for example, make it a bit more user-friendly, and sell it under some crappy non-free software licence. Whereas if FreeBSD was all GPLed it would have to be released under a free software licence.
I'm aware that there's some GPL licenced code in FreeBSD (and it's packages. Or is it just it's packages?), let's disregard that for a while.

[Jenda]

Microsoft sees BSD/linux/UNIX and all of the things that come along with them as inferior to their products. That is why I don't think they would make use of the code.

Come on! Do you mean that? They say they think so, but in fact, you can never really know what they really think - that is, until you read the Hallowe'en documents.
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/
Microsoft, as well as all of us here, knows very well that FLOSS is WAY superior to their garbage, and the only thing protecting it from Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V ripoff is the GPL! And just wait for Long-Born flashing the new, unknown features that have all been copied off Linux & other FLOSS...

[piratePenguin]

the Hallowe'en documents.
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/

First time I came across that (I tend to stay away from opensource.org), and it's bloodey interesting.
Would make a good feature article.