Comment Re:What do you think of non-free, non-software wor (Score 1) 573
Hi csolisr,
Thanks for the links and the reply. I guess Dr. Stallman need not answer this question now.
Comment Re:What do you think of non-free, non-software wor (Score 1) 573
Hi csolisr,
Thanks for the message. Can you cite all that?
Regarding using CC-By-ND for essays of opinion - I don't think it is necessary (I'm not a lawyer naturally). For example, I've written an essay titled The Case for Drug Legalisation (and other essays) and published it under CC-by along with the DocBook/XML source, so it can be of maximal use. Even if we take it into account, I don't think someone has the artistic licence to build upon it a completely different essay (say “The Case against Drug Legalisation”) and claim that I have written it. I don't mind people doing something like that, while giving me credit and a link to the original essay, but they still need to indicate that the original essay had a different them, or else it is defamation and misappropriation.
Comment The nmap Interpretation of the GPL (Score 2) 573
The nmap security scanner's licence is the GPL version 2, along with an opening comment where they give their interpretation. It seems that this interpretation is draconic, and among other things requires programs that parse the output of nmap to be licensed under the GPL or a compatible licence as well. This seems to stand against the Free Software Definition, which among other things specifies that one has "The freedom to run the program, for any purpose".
If we (or the courts) is going to accept nmap's interpretation of the GPL, then we can expect all hell to break lose, because that will mean that the output of such programs such as GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection), GNU awk, GNU sed, and many other GPLed programs of the GNU project or otherwise, must be under a GPL-compatible licence, while in fact, the GNU project approved of using them to build free software and proprietary software that was not.
Do you approve of the nmap interpretation, or do you think nmap are misusing the GPL as a way to apply the free software figleaf to their work, without complying with the spirit of free software?
Comment What do you think of non-free, non-software works? (Score 1) 573
Dear Dr. Stallman,
In this Slashdot feature “Stallman is quoted here saying that game engines should be free, but approves of the notion that graphics, music, and stories could all be separate and treated differently (i.e., "Non-Free.")”. However, this feature does not give a citation from you for that. To add to the confusion in a post to the Creative Commons Community mailing list, Rob Myers said:
RMS's views on culture are coherent and consistent with his views on software. But he's treating game assets as a matter of functionality (software) rather than speech (culture). There is an issue with the latter not being free..
So I'm a little confused. Do you approve of people using non-free licences for cultural works, including the CC-by-nc, CC-by-nc-sa, CC-by-nd, and CC-by-nc-nd licences? If so, when?
This is especially important given the fact that in the process for formulating the latest version of the Creative Commons licences (4.0), there has been some requests to deprecate the non-commercial (nc) and/or no-derivatives (nd) options (which I doubt will happen, but is nonetheless some thing some people feel strongly about).
Submission + - Besy Buy lays off 400, closing 50 stores (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S.-based electronics chain said it would close 50 big-box stores this year, test new store formats in San Antonio and Minneapolis, and lay off 400 corporate and support workers as part of a plan to trim $800 million in costs and restructure its ailing business.
Submission + - Audacity 2.0.0 Released (sourceforge.net)
Shlomi Fish writes: "Version 2.0.0 of the open-source and cross-platform Audacity audio editor and recorder was released. This is a new stable version with many bug fixes and new features in comparison to the previous stable version 1.2.6. Audacity is available for Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X and for several other OSes."
Submission + - Advanced Perl Maven Video Course (szabgab.com)
Shlomi Fish writes: "This Advanced Perl training course will allow you to create modules, classes, to write Object Oriented code in the modern way, whether using Moose, or by using only core Perl, manually blessing references."
Submission + - Two-thirds of Lost USB Drives Carry Malware (itworld.com) 1
itwbennett writes: "Antivirus firm Sophos acquired a passel of USB sticks lost by commuters on trains in the Greater Sydney metro area at an auction organized by the Rail Corporation New South Wales. The company analyzed 50 USB sticks and found that not a single one was encrypted and 33 of them were infected with at least one type of malware."
Submission + - Library of Congress to receive entire Twitter arch (federalnewsradio.com)
An anonymous reader writes: "The Library of Congress and Twitter have signed an agreement that will see an archive of every public Tweet ever sent handed over to the library's repository of historical documents.
"We have an agreement with Twitter where they have a bunch of servers with their historic archive of tweets, everything that was sent out and declared to be public," said Bill Lefurgy, the digital initiatives program manager at the library's national digital information infrastructure and preservation program. The archives don't contain tweets that users have protected, but everything else â" billions and billions of tweets â" are there. " ...
"Researchers will be able to look at the Twitter archive as a complete set of data, which they could then data-mine for interesting information."
"We have an agreement with Twitter where they have a bunch of servers with their historic archive of tweets, everything that was sent out and declared to be public," said Bill Lefurgy, the digital initiatives program manager at the library's national digital information infrastructure and preservation program. The archives don't contain tweets that users have protected, but everything else â" billions and billions of tweets â" are there. "
"Researchers will be able to look at the Twitter archive as a complete set of data, which they could then data-mine for interesting information."
Submission + - Your Programming Language Must Suck (livejournal.com)
Shlomi Fish writes: "A short blog post explains why "your programming language must suck" and why some design decisions in programming language design are actually trade-offs and will always make some people unhappy some of the time. "You're damned either way.""
Submission + - White House Cuts Half of G-Sites (washingtontimes.com)
Endoflow2010 writes: Today it was announced that the White House plans on cutting back on the number of federal government's websites within the next year.
The White House said that having nearly 2,000 websites confuses people.
“With so many separate sites, Americans often do not know where to turn for information,” the office of Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. said in a statement. “The administration will immediately put a halt to the creation of new websites. The administration will also shut down or consolidate 25% of the 2,000 sites over the next few months and set a goal of cutting the number of separate, standalone sites in half over the next year.”
The White House said that having nearly 2,000 websites confuses people.
“With so many separate sites, Americans often do not know where to turn for information,” the office of Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. said in a statement. “The administration will immediately put a halt to the creation of new websites. The administration will also shut down or consolidate 25% of the 2,000 sites over the next few months and set a goal of cutting the number of separate, standalone sites in half over the next year.”
Submission + - If Programmers Knew Kung-Fu (radvision.com)
Shlomi Fish writes: "Ran Arad of had written in a RadVision blog about an alternate universe where programming teams are populated by iconic characters from Kung-Fu films. You don't have to be a fan of Kung-Fu films to appreciate, but it might help."
Submission + - Canterbury Community Distribution Launched (gentoo.org)
Rich0 writes: Several distributions have announced coming together to launch a combined Canterbury distribution. Distro homepages have been updated to varying degrees.
It remains to be seen whether such an effort can hold together, as openly voiced by some skeptics of such movements. Will it even last the day?
It remains to be seen whether such an effort can hold together, as openly voiced by some skeptics of such movements. Will it even last the day?
Submission + - German bloke trademarks "STFU", sues geek-shop (getdigital.de)
An anonymous reader writes: E-Bay seller Thorsten Hermes (link), from Germany, successfully trademarked the well-known abbreviation "STFU" and has now--without prior warning--sent a cease-and-desist letter to the German geek-store getDigital.de (i.e. the German equivalent of thinkgeek.com), forbidding them to sell STFU-T-shirts. Being a small business the store has removed the T-shirts from their assortment. However they are now looking for "moral and financial" support to get the trademark deleted. They also posted the original cease-and-desist letter on their website (in German). RFC
Submission + - Disarm Internet Trolls - the CBT Approach (shlomifish.org)
Shlomi Fish writes: "The best way to react to people trolling on Internet forums is not to feed them, right? Wrong! "Don't feed the trolls" is also usually ineffective. Luckily, however, there is more effective approach, inspired by the book "Feeling Good" by David D. Burns. Read about it on the "Unarmed but still Dangerous" blog."
