Novellty Linux
December 21st, 2006
The other day I woke up and realised: “holy crap I haven’t done a new ELER in weeks! I need to get my act together!”. That was back at the start of November. Let’s see if we can’t get this free software freak show back on the road.
Script help from the usual suspects: Roel, Louisa and Gianni.
published now and then
… when the planets are aligned
… pigs fly
Or when Microsoft so suckers a bunch of suits that it makes for a good comic storyline.
About fudding time. Maybe you should make an automagic script to generate stories from stock art and ZDNet stories.
“holy crap I haven’t done a new ELER in weeks!” -> months, damnit
Doesn’t SuSE have less marketshare than Debian?
mattl, just mentioning “marketshare” and “Debian” in one line will probably spawn two months of debate on the Debian mailing-list, whether “marketshare” is evil or not ;))
Ooh, a new ELER on my birthday! Thanks, even though you had no idea ;-)
too easy, man… but it’s nice to have ELER back!
It was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but yeah.. I don’t want anymore delays to Etch!
Debian, being non-commercial, it’s impossible to quantify.
The two Debian systems I have at home, and the one at work, aren’t counted anywhere.
Spitting Image, Norman Lamont, Black Wednesday.
Linux kernel and all other GPL 2 software -> forked and licensed under GPL 3. Every point releases of the the GPL 2 projects are re-forked under the GPL 3. This is all done in a country where no software patents are allowed. Closed source software from other countries are licensed under GPL 3 and GNU Linux under the GPL 3 can finally takeover the world, or something.
Hooray! We were starting to think Reiser had got you!
> Linux kernel and all other GPL 2 software -> forked and licensed under GPL 3.
There’s a reason the FSF asks for the copyright of GNU projects to be assigned to the FSF.
Even if the top hundred kernel contributors wanted to do this (which is a laughably implausible level of solidarity from Linux kernel programmers, along with the opposite case being somewhat closer to true), they’d be set back by *years* rewriting the code from the remaining thousands of others who are
1) unwilling to relicense
2) uncontactable
3) dead
Mozilla’s license change was plagued by these problems, and they’d had only a few years of outside contributions. Just imagine fifteen years of copyright holders to wrangle.
I HAVE A GNU
I AM A GNU
Why are copy rights so controversial for most?
Why is it that most view software copyrights so controversial while nearly all people would not question the need for industrial copyrights? The answer is very simple. The computer has become ubiquitous for most citizens of so called first world countries. The result is that the means of producing applications are available to most which suggest that anyone with enough time and determination can create the next hit application, the next Photoshop or Microsoft Office. Copyrights prevent people from creating the next Super Mario game or adding additional features to a current closed source application. This (copyright) is merely an artificial limit imposed on people. Contrary to building your own car and selling it to people, the barrier to creating a new software application is very low. All that is needed is a computer which can nowadays be purchased for under $400 dollars. Open source software is the best example of the public owning the means of production. In the open source universe, software is not created for its possible exchange value but for the mere fun of it. Software is simply produced for it use value and nothing else even if the creator the software in question is the only one with the perceived need. The open source movement has shown us the possibilities of a scenario whereby the populace would own the means of production unencumbered by the limitations of the current economic system by the requirement of exchange value production. By using the open source model one quickly sees the possibilities of it being applied to other sector of production.
I think you mean patents. Copyright is usually accepted by everyone but the boing boing crowd. Copyright doesn’t generaly inhibit software, because as long as the code isn’t directly copied, then there are no real violations.
Yes, you’re right. Replace copyrights with patents in my last post. Copyrights are merely an extension of patents in that they do not cover the same amount of artificial property. Thank You
“Let’s see if we can’t get this free software freak show back on the road.”
Hurrah!
Hooray!