I disagree. In a free country, if the majority of citizens ignore a law, then that law is wrong. In America, if the majority of citizens ignore a law or think it is wrong, the citizens are wrong. You are assuming America is still a free country, and I disagree with that.

In that case, we'll just make it out of unobtanium.

I think that is more accurate than my comment. I would agree. I'll reevaluate the issue, as I always have something to learn, but I still think my original comment about Android being open, but not free (as in hackable without jailbreaking) is still true. It IS open, but it is not modifiable. Thanks again.

Free vs Open Source

Really? What side am I on? I clearly stated "I am not saying, in this post, that one licence is better than the other . . .," so starting a war without choosing a side seems a little unusual. Please do not see malice where the intention is to educate.

You are confusing FSF with OSI. RMS often tries to be clear that he represents Free software, and NOT open source. Different camp. FSF represents Free software and the GPL only. OSI represents open source, of which GPL is one license in the group. GNU code is only under GPL/LGPL. They do mention compatibility, because they understand they are part of a bigger world.

In a nutshell, Apache, among other noncopyleft licenses, allows for freedom. Copyleft licenses protect freedom. Which is better, obviously depends upon your beliefs and goals, but that is the fundamental difference. Further argument/debate/war is like saying apples taste better than oranges. Personal preference.

I don't blame you for confusing the issue, as it is a common thing. Marketing people are intentionally trying to mess the words up, and are doing a good job. It is open, but you have to jailbreak it first. Well, that may be true, but it certainly violates the connotation, even if it follows the denotation. That was my point above.

I just wanted to remind you of the differences between open and free. Android is Apache license. It IS open source, and if that is what you mean by "open," then yes it is. Is is not "free" because the Apache license is not copyleft, and so it does not protect your freedom (I don't think Google ever claimed it did. They only claimed it was good for the handset manufacturers. I could be wrong here though). I am not saying, in this post, that one licence is better than the other, so I am not starting another flame war. I am just stating that, yes, Android is open source, and no, it is not free. I think we just need to understand our terms better. Is Android open source better than iphone complete proprietary? That is another question for another post.

I have, and so have you. Ever know of a recovering alcoholic? I know quite a few. I am a physician. I frequently see people hooked on drugs, going down the drain, getting off the drugs, and being perfectly fine in a good job afterwards. When I see them, they tell me up front never to prescribe narcotics to them, because they will get hooked, and don't want to go there again.

Using monkeys is a classic tail of innovation.

If you follow the discussions, the community around Opensolaris is not enough to maintain a fork. 99.9% of the OS is developed and maintained by Oracle now. It's not like the Linux kernel where numerous people/companies contribute. Legally, you can fork Opensolaris given the CDDL. But maintaining a fork is just not realistic. If it was as popular as Linux, then okay, but that is the problem.

At best, oracle would not care. At worst, they would encourage the lawsuit. This says nothing about zfs, only about freedom to use it. Oracle can give customers indemnification on solaris/zfs based stuff. What can Nexenta do, other than provide a great product? Legall, they can only be on the defense, as they probably do not have enough patents for a counter-offense. Oracle can only benefit from this, as nexenta is a competitor.

Huh? The whole purpose of the Constitution is to protect rights. The whole idea of the Bill of Rights was to restrict the powers of government. Today, the government gives rights, and what the government giveth, government can taketh away. But don't confuse current situation from the original intent. If you go back and read the Bill of Rights, they are very carefully worded. "Congress shall make no law" or something like that. Not "you have the right to do this and that." Huge difference, but unfortunately irrelevant today with our plutocracy.

I believe that is quite possible. When you play his recording backwards, I'd swear I hear Edison saying "worship the devil!" I could be hearing things, but you never know . . .

As humans, aren't we a little too hard on ourselves? First, we criticize ourselves for cutting down trees. Then, we criticize ourselves for global warming. Now, we criticize ourselves because our poops suck? Sheesh. When will it end?

One of the features of open source/software freedom, is to benefit the users, not the corporations. Red Hat often commented that they turned a multi-billion dollar industry into a multi-million dollar one. Why no billion dollar open source companies? Because users are cutting costs, competition is rising with more players, and there is less gouging going on. From a non-software corporation point of view, that's a good thing.

There are several reasons to do such research: 1. Be able to publish a paper and make a name for yourself. 2. Make policies so you can stand behind some meaningless principle that you can con others into believing and supporting your (political power). 3. Make money with the grants you get from such studies. 4. Get on good terms with your deity. In summary: gold, glory, and god. If we can learn something about human behavior, that may be an interesting side effect.

On the Family Guy, Peter thought he was a genius and played trivial pursuit with Brian. Peter asked Brian the question, and Brian answered "Cadmium?" Peter's response was "No. Tungsten, dumbass," as if that was an obvious answer. I'm disappointed that no one saw or remembered that scene, but I'm MORE disappointed that I actually do.