going off the deep end
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Dec 11, 2007 12:54 PM EDT |
Now y'all know I have a little shrine to RMS, and I place regular offerings of Asian food at it. Even so, every so often he comes with something like that has me scratching my head: "I could recommend OpenBSD privately with a clear conscience to someone I know will not install those non-free programs" Dood. Anyone can install non-Free programs on anything, including gNewsense. Do we have to sign a pledge promising not to? *scratch scratch* |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 11, 2007 1:07 PM EDT |
I thought just pointing to Debian "main" would suffice... |
| tuxchick Dec 11, 2007 1:19 PM EDT |
Alas, even Debian is not free enough for RMS. Cooties from the non-free repos might leak into main... |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 11, 2007 1:23 PM EDT |
And it uses that "linux" kernel, too. Can't have that. |
| hkwint Dec 11, 2007 1:40 PM EDT |
RMS has no clue at all it seems, since even _I_ know one of the policies of OpenBSD is not to allow any GPL code in their kernel because they find the GPL license unacceptable. You can understand if they even don't allow GPL code, they certainly don't allow binary blobs coming with EULA's. I wonder why RMS is making a fool out of himself. Sure, I talk about things I don't know whack about everyday - it's OK to have to learn stuff in my opinion, and learning comes with lots of mistakes. But then I'm not pretending I'm a 'role-model' / prophet like RMS. He should be more careful before blaming other people of things they are more strict in than he is. Also, the OpenBSD team would be the last to blame, because they have done lots of work to make BSD-licensed drivers for hardware even Linux didn't have a free driver for, and therefore in my opinion the OpenBSD team deserves kudos, not uninformed accusations. |
| tuxchick Dec 11, 2007 2:21 PM EDT |
Yes Hans, that's even worse! "From what I have heard.... or at least so I was told..." Not a good basis for forming an opinion that is intended to influence other people. |
| Sander_Marechal Dec 11, 2007 2:40 PM EDT |
Quoting:something like that has me scratching my head It's easy, really. OpenBSD does ship binary firmware images for some bits of hardware. As does Debian. As does Red Hat. As do most distros. The few that don't: gNewSense and the other distros that RMS does recommend. |
| montezuma Dec 11, 2007 2:43 PM EDT |
Typical (ex-)denizen of the Upper West Side..... |
| dumper4311 Dec 11, 2007 2:52 PM EDT |
RMS is a bit of a puzzle. He preaches about "software freedom", and then turns around and uses the same methods of CONTROLLING and RESTRICTING the use of his "free" code as his arch-enemies in the proprietary software world. Note that the terms and conditions are of secondary importance - is the software free or isn't it? Personally, I'm ok with the GPLv2 - it's conditions aren't overly onerous, but the GPLv3 crosses an important line. For me, it's not about whether it's legal for anyone (FSF or Microsoft) to impose such restrictions, it's about whether it's right to do so. There's a moral issue in there somewhere, and RMS and I disagree on what's right. I view his attempts at controlling "free" software use as more than a little bit hypocritical. In any case, BSD code is more "free" than any GNU code out there. As Tuxchick pointed out, anyone can install "non-free" code on anything (holy cow, we actually agree on something!!!) RMS doesn't "encourage" such behavior by providing a non-free software repository, I guess. But that speaks more to his pet projects usability than it's righteousness in my opinion. Further, binary blobs to support hardware are a fact of life right now. While it's great to stand "clean and untainted," wouldn't you like to be able to use the hardware you're saddled with? So what's his motivation for this little rant? Agree with him or not, RMS isn't a stupid man, so what was his motivation? Could it be that this icon of software "freedom" has adopted another tactic of his sworn proprietary enemies - the spreading of FUD? Not a very charitable assumption of me I know, but if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . . In any case, intentional or not, what other purpose can such a rant on the BSD forums serve? On a more charitable note, maybe he's just had a bit too much of his own kool-aid today. |
| hkwint Dec 11, 2007 3:33 PM EDT |
Quoting:So what's his motivation for this little rant? I suppose he's seeking support from the OpenBSD team to ask for more open hardware, to enable that hardware to run without propriety firmware in the future? Or maybe he wants the OpenBSD team to take a stance against closed firmware? As I understood from Royal Philips Electronics' IP Counsel Intellectual Property & Standards Arnoud Engelfriet (he gave a talk about this issue at T-Dose 2006), the hardware-makers that do want to make open drivers, usually divide their drivers in two parts: -The part where technologies, code or patents of 3d parties are involved where the maker of the hardware doesn't own the copyright / patents on; this is then placed in propriety closed firmware; they are not able to make this software available under an open source license, -The part where technologies, code and patents of the hardware manufacturer itself are involved, for this part a Linux-kernel driver is released under an open source license. As I understood, Philips uses this model for its newer HardDisk-recorders - which run on Linux (in fact; they are convinced using open source drivers make their products cheaper!) Indeed, when you would look in the users guide of such a product, you would see a notice the source code is available, and a number to call (the counsel however told me nobody ever dialed that number, but it _does_ exist at Philips!) to ask Philips to send you the source code (which - under GPL2 should be available in written form if the customer asks so; this changed in GPLv3). The problem is lots of patents and software from different manufacturers are needed to make a single chip work, and it's not easy to find all those IP-holders and push them to open-source their software, our make their patents available under a license which permits the firmware to become available under an open source license. Therefore IMHO, RMS should go after the 'unconverted' hardware manufacturers, not OpenBSD, though seeking support is a good thing. |
| tuxchick Dec 11, 2007 3:38 PM EDT |
Mmm, an RMS vs. Theo Smackdown; the Immovable Object takes on the Irresistable Flamer. Should be a good match! |
| hkwint Dec 11, 2007 3:50 PM EDT |
I'm afraid Theo doesn't have time, since he's actually 'hacking some piece of hardware' most of the time. |
| dumper4311 Dec 11, 2007 3:53 PM EDT |
hkwint: I think you're absolutely right about why the blobs exist, and why BSD (and others) provide the ability to utilize them. From the original article's comments, I also believe the OpenBSD method of implementing these blobs is a better choice than others. Companies that open up previously closed-source apps frequently encounter the same hurdles, and often solve them in similar fashion. It's a practical solution to a sticky IP problem. From the article, Reyk Floeter has made a more effective stand against such binary blobs in his implementation solution than the Linux people. I believe RMS is smarter than that (or should be), and am still left wondering what his motivation is. Wouldn't it have been easier to simply come out and say "campaign for open hardware, and shun closed firmware"? The effects of such rants within the "free" software community are harmful to that community on many fronts. And I agree with you again, RMS should target the hardware manufacturers, rather than shoveling FUD on (and potentially harming) groups working to make a difference and provide a practical solution. |
| hkwint Dec 11, 2007 4:07 PM EDT |
This is nice (from the thread:)
Quoting: RMS: > OpenBSD is by far the most free OS in the landscape. Everything that > ships with it is free or else it won't be distributed with it. Quoting:William Bushock: Strictly speaking, no. If you unpack ports.tar.gz you will find a bunch of makefiles, packing lists, & c., all of which are free. OpenBSD's ports system depends on programs in the base system which are free. On a modern UNIX-like operating system it possible, even easy, to use free tools like awk, make, perl, sh, and so on, directly or indirectly, to facilitate the installation and maintenance of (free and non-free) software. Your asking the question indicates that you might have done better to exclude OpenBSD from the scope of your remarks. When one does not know, the most appropriate statement is 'I don't know.' Quoting:Theo de Raadt: William is right. You know what I notice? It's exactly the same discussion as with the Bittorrents. In that analogy, RMS would say the bittorrents are illegal since they encourage non-ethical behaviour, while most OpenBSD people would argue the bittorrent-files themselves only help with conducting non-ethical behaviour, but the files themselves can't be blamed. At least RMS is polite, willing to clean things up if gNewSense made some mistakes by endorsing non-free software, and he's willing to discuss the things - I see on the list, and I'm glad to see he's discussing in a constructive manner. |
| hkwint Dec 11, 2007 4:26 PM EDT |
About the other part: non free firmware, this seems to be RMS problem: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/~checkout~/src/sys/dev... That's an Atmel-license of Atmel firmware (also on the OpenBSD site). The Atmel license is BSD-compatible but GPL-incompatible, and therefore RMS would say it's a 'non-free' license (since it doesn't restrict distribution without the availability of source code, hehe). Since this Atmel license doesn't give users the right to view source code and enables binary-only distribution, it's incompatible with the GPL, and this kind of software could not be distributed with gNewSense. Well, that could be a formally valid reason - though very far fetched - not to recommend OpenBSD. So I'm afraid I have to agree with RMS, though I wonder if he knew all this when making his statement. |
| tuxchick Dec 11, 2007 4:39 PM EDT |
Get out the super-duty umbrellas, because the pigs are aloft- I agree with dumper4311. RMS' stance that "It is not about what the system allows... It is about what the system suggests to the us" is an over-reach of epic length. Remember the story about how he was originally motivated to promote Free software, because his proprietary printer driver was defective and the vendor wouldn't fix it? Well maybe the vendor was worried that RMS would use it to print illegal materials like child porn, or just embarrassing things like "OpenBSD just might possibly suggest wrong behaviors." So really, the printer vendor had the correct motivations from the beginning, and RMS has built an entire career on promoting and teaching people how to workaround those noble, correct motivations. It's a good thing I figured this out, finally. *** Hans, the BSD license is not compatible with the GPL, and can't be distributed with gnewsense either. And I doubt that RMS had any such specific knowledge as the Atmel license, because he always speaks in precise terms. Like this time, when he was clear that he has no real knowledge of OpenBSD, but is passing gas I mean an opinion based totally on hearsay. |
| dumper4311 Dec 11, 2007 6:17 PM EDT |
Holy crap! Is anyone else on this forum afraid of heights? You know how when you look over a ledge and it feels like the whole world is spinning out from under you? Consensus with tuxchick . . . this will take some getting used to. Don't worry, I'm sure we can find something else to argue over. :) |
| dinotrac Dec 11, 2007 6:48 PM EDT |
Wait - I'm jumping in... ...But... Phooey! Everybody's pretty much right. What's the world coming to? |
| tuxchick Dec 11, 2007 7:55 PM EDT |
This is quite an odd situation. I think we should all check for fever and infections. |
| jdixon Dec 11, 2007 8:07 PM EDT |
Hmm. Naw, I think I'll stay out of this one. Too much agreement is bad for the constitution. |
| gus3 Dec 11, 2007 8:35 PM EDT |
OT: LOL /back to the regular distraction |
| dinotrac Dec 12, 2007 2:23 AM EDT |
>LOL TOS Reference to Loopy Old Liberals is not permitted. |
| Scott_Ruecker Dec 12, 2007 2:42 AM EDT |
Wow! I don't think I've ever broken up an agreement before.. There's a first time for everything I guess. :-) |
| hkwint Dec 12, 2007 11:23 AM EDT |
Well, if everybody agrees, there's not much fun here. Sad I'm not allowed to break TOS, otherwise some religious or political drive-by injection would surely stir up the debate for the coming three weeks. |
| DarrenR114 Dec 12, 2007 1:19 PM EDT |
> some religious or political drive-by injection would surely stir up the debate for the coming three weeks. Such debate would be pointless - everyone knows that the San Diego Chicken is actually the most current incarnation of the Great Omnipotent All-seeing Toenail. |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 13, 2007 4:24 PM EDT |
The Tunguska blast of 1908 was caused by the Cosmic Teapot being knocked out of orbit by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Hallowed be His name, Ramen. |
| jacog Dec 14, 2007 12:24 AM EDT |
I heard it was a UFO crash... uh huh, yup... so I have been told. And I am sure that German dictator guy was involved somehow. |
| NoDough Dec 14, 2007 4:18 AM EDT |
> some religious or political drive-by injection would surely stir up the debate for the coming three weeks. I nominate Bob as being the one who actually crossed the line. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a reference to a group that actively fights against Christianity. Edit: But I award him 5 points for being stealthy about it. |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 14, 2007 4:25 AM EDT |
Hey, it was Darren who brought up reincarnation, omnipotence (although that could have been a sexual reference, I'm not sure) and toenails. And Dino stuck in "Liberals"! Can I not be the bad guy here? :^( (btw, it's not a fight against "christianity", it's reason vs. irrationality.) |
| dinotrac Dec 14, 2007 4:28 AM EDT |
> The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a reference to a group that actively fights against Christianity. Not that I can tell, although individuals within the group may, just as individual FOSS folk may love/hate Novell love/hate mono prefer New York hot dogs to Chicago style (only the unwashed illiterate heathens). The Pastaferians are more about bad science and opposition to creationist teachings, and intelligent design. That is very different from fighting Christianity or leaving unused ports open on your server or compiling filesystem support into your kernel as opposed to putting it into a module and using an initial ram disk and I really look forward to 2.6.24. |
| dinotrac Dec 14, 2007 4:29 AM EDT |
>Can I not be the bad guy here? :^( No. Keep it to Linux, pal. |
| NoDough Dec 14, 2007 4:36 AM EDT |
> Can I not be the bad guy here? :^( Well, Darren did bring up the San Diego Chicken, which large numbers of people gather to... um... er... admire. |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 14, 2007 5:01 AM EDT |
> No. Keep it to Linux, pal. Two days ago I got some _massive_ filesystem corruption. I suddenly could not do much because my dev/hda1 had been remounted read-only on the fly behind my back. (my pants were on backwards, I guess) A couple rounds of fsck'ing, a good backup and a complete wipe-reinstall later, things are back to "normal". The latest Adobe Flash player is causing nsplugin-viewer to crash every time I leave a web page in Konqueror that has flash content, even though that content is not being displayed. I have not yet tried YouTube in Iceweasel, but just because Ron^H^H^H{censored for TOS violation} doesn't have a new video up to see. Debian Sid is missing three libraries that are in testing that are required for various media playback, and Koffice won't install for missing dependencies too. So Sid is living up to its name. So there. |
| dinotrac Dec 14, 2007 6:05 AM EDT |
Much better, Bob. Say, do you think Hillary could give my any advice on satan? **edit** I mean the port scanner!!!!!!! **edit** |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 14, 2007 6:16 AM EDT |
She could probably quote several contract clauses, maybe even get a referral bonus. Definitely a Windows user. Hey, he _asked_! |
| NoDough Dec 14, 2007 6:53 AM EDT |
> Say, do you think Hillary could give my any advice on satan? Clear TOS violation. Please do not reference entities with supernatural evil capable of destroying the world. And don't bring up satan either! Sorry, Scott. Moment of weakness. |
| dinotrac Dec 14, 2007 7:13 AM EDT |
NoDough - Reprimand accepted. |
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