While I agree that Android != Linux, I think your statements are somewhat over-broad.

There is a full Posix userspace on Android. It is done via different libraries than the usual ones, so don't expect any GNU extensions to glibc and such, but posix is there completely. You will need to use a toolchain adapted to that environment, but the same holds true if you decide to go with uclibc.

I'm not sure what you mean by the kernel being locked/limited. This is, when all is said and done, a Linux kernel, exposing all of the usual Linux user space APIs. There are some non-standard APIs as well, true, but I don't see how that is any problem. I have statically compiled a fairly comprehensive version of busybox, and everything worked. The only reason I did this statically was to avoid the toolchain problem mentioned above.

Shachar

I think the summary was actually saying that Apple did NOT clearly spell out its support schedules like many other software companies DO. Rough quote - "this would not be noteworthy if Apple, like other software vendors, DID...."

So it's saying other software vendors DO do that, but Apple does not. Which is what you're saying. Can't we all just get along... ;)

For all of Microsoft's failures, bad business practices (particularly in the past), etc., they seem to be doing some things right these days. I'm not too big of a fan of the new start screen (easily fixed) ... although my wife, while finding parts of it annoying, also finds it somewhat intuitive ... but Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 seem to be pretty solid OSes.

Completely undermining.

Shachar

I think you are thinking about the wrong question. The question is not whether the publication is going to cause trouble. Of course it is. The question is whether it is legitimate for the spying to have taken place in the first place.

If it is, then Snowden releasing this information is betrayal, and the shit storm that will (likely) happen now is just one good reason to keep this a secret.

My point was that countries are forming spy organizations. I know very few people who claim those organizations are completely unnecessary. And yet, assuming you don't live in a country with clear enemies (which, living in Israel, I actually do), you have to wonder, who are those organizations spying on? If it's not okay to spy on your own citizens (and it's not), and not okay to spy on your close allies (which it's probably not), and not okay to spy on other countries (which, implied by this piece of news, is also not), then who's left?

Shachar

Seriously. These are spy organizations. And here they are - spying. On foreign countries, no less. What were they thinking?

The Snowden leaks started out with things the public actually needed to know. The NSA spying on Americans is a gross overstep of the organization's charter. Spying on friendly nation's leaders is an embarrassment. This, however, seems to me like them doing their job.

At first, I thought that labeling Snowden as a spy was an overreaction. The US government trying to silence a whistle blower. However, were I a juror in a trial in which he released just this document, I'd convict.

Anyone who disagrees is kindly requested to answer two simple questions:
1. What should the NSA do?
2. Assuming this is not this, how can a country maintain military intelligence without doing this?

Shachar

I am very interested in hearing what you believe in. In particular, why do you think the evolutionary model is wrong?

Also, I'd like to know whether you consider your belief of how the species got to be the way they are to be scientific.

Thanks,
Shachar

Care to share what you do believe in, then? Particularly, why you believe the evolutionary model is wrong?

Also, I'm interested to hear whether you think your ideas are scientific, and what that term means to you.

Thanks,
Shachar

When stating that, you forgot to factor in the fact that your way the trip will take much longer.

Shachar

For long term space voyages, all you have to do is accelerate at 9.8m/s^2 for half the voyage, and then turn off the rockets, rotate the ship, and use the same rockets to decellerate at the same rate. Except for the time the ship rotates, the astronautes would feel a normal earth gravity. Bonus, the trip takes less time.

Of course, it's not that simple. Not only are the energy needs of such a trip much higher, there is another potential problem. After about 35 days of accelerating at 9.8m/s^2, your speed will be about a tenth of the speed of light. At those speeds, time flows visibly different inside the ship and on earth. Accelerate much further, and this becomes a one way trip, by definition.

Shachar

Huh?

I did not pour religious !$%!@# into discussion. You did. I just chose a license for my own software, which I have written and decided to share. If you don't like that license, don't use the software. I am not limiting your choice in any way. If you wish to share your software under a non-copyleft free license, feel free to do so with no word of reproach from me.

I do not understand why you defend software released under a proprietary license, which gives the user a very limited set of freedoms, and yet condemn my choices, which give the users a much much greater set of freedoms (though not a great as you'd like, obviously). You seem to think you have a moral right to my code if I choose a free license, but not if I choose to go proprietary.

I simply do not understand this position. It seems hypocritical to me.

You complain about RMS going around telling people what licenses to use. I get that. I think he's pushing it. Then again, you do the exact same thing, only with a different license. Not only this, but RMS's position is, at least, self consistent. He claims that all software should be free. I agree with neither basic claim nor the method he advances that world view, but I understand the world he's aiming for. You, on the other hand, claim that all free software should be non-copyleft, but that proprietary software can be whatever it likes. Maybe I'm missing something, but that does not seem self-consistent to me.

Shachar

You said:

Not a day goes by, and you say:

So, what you're saying is that I should be free to write proprietary software all I want, under whatever restrictions my lawyer can come up with, but should I choose to release the software, that I should not go with a copyleft license.

As my list of projects clearly show, I belong to neither the "Anti-GPL" nor the "GPL-only" camps. As a rule, I try to choose the most restrictive license that does not impose anything on the user of the program (hence - GPL for command line utilities, but LGPL for PgOleDb, which is a driver).

When I have a special interest in people using the software, however, I go with more lenient licenses. BiDiEdit was meant to be a proof of concept reference implementation to a standard, so the higher cause here is the standard, not the actual editor. safewrite represents a relatively modest investment on my part, and a major boon to any program that maintains a configuration file automatically. Since it is a common plague on Linux, my outmost interest here is that people will do safe writes, and my library is a simple convenient way to do it.

The bottom line here is that the licenses on all of those programs represent what I believe is best for my own interests. This is fine and proper, as I am the one who invested the time to write those programs to begin with. You do not gain the moral right to tell me what I should and shouldn't do with programs I write unless you also go around telling Microsoft and Apple what they should with theirs.

Shachar

To be fair, there is some confusion between people like yourself, who advocate the user's freedom to choose whether to use free only software, and the anti-GPL crowd, who advocate a developer's right to choose whether their addition are free or not.

While I am all for the user's freedom to not use free software (and, in fact, the non-free repository is enabled on my machines, and like I said, I do have some proprietary software installed), whenever I choose a license for free software that I write from scratch, I (usually, there are exceptions) choose a copyleft license.

I think the heat from the later argument is warming up the former argument, despite the fact there are few good arguments to limit a user's freedom of choice for the sake of giving her more freedom.

Shachar

You lost me.

I already have the games. They are DRM free. I already have a way to keep track of my library. It's at https://www.humblebundle.com/h.... All it takes is a single password. Why would I want another one, merely for the privilege of having another one?

Most of the games I have (at least, those I'm actually playing) have no multiplayer mode that I'm aware of.

The "single connection" limitation is not much of an issue for me (I do, actually, honor the conditions I bought the games under, which is that they are only for my use), but why would having the DRM to enforce it be an advantage for me?

Shachar