best of breed!
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Oct 29, 2009 2:25 PM EDT |
So much for justifying its inclusion in default install images as "best of breed." |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 29, 2009 2:52 PM EDT |
Ah .. so I'm not the only one who has "date problems" with F-Spot. For some reason, images imported from my cell phone (LG Neon) all end up with the same date, regardless of the date the image was shot or imported. Every cell-phone-camera image is dated 3/18/2008 for some reason. I had thought it was entirely the cell-phone's problem ... but it appears from this post that both phone and F-Spot are to blame. I haven't quite made the move to digiKam and am still importing images into the PC with F-Spot. I'll have to take a closer look at the date stamps on the files themselves and EXIF in the images out of the phone. I assumed that these apps looked at file-creation time and not EXIF data, but in this case, nothing is coming out right. |
| justintime Oct 29, 2009 4:01 PM EDT |
Seems like this guy didn't bother to comment on either of the bug reports he linked to (one of which has a patch, btw). From what I could tell, the reason the patch hasn't been applied yet is because there's no way to allow the user to tell F-Spot which timezone the camera took the photos in (since apparently cameras allow the photographers to choose UTC vs Local Time and there's no way for F-Spot to get at that info?). Also pretty classy that TheBeeze blames this bug on the attitudes of Mono developers in the comments. I think he needs to watch his own attitude. |
| gus3 Oct 29, 2009 4:52 PM EDT |
Quoting:Seems like this guy didn't bother to comment on either of the bug reports he linked to (one of which has a patch, btw).Status: Unconfirmed Priority: Normal One almost 3-1/2 years old, the other over 2 years old No way should a data corruption bug be left open that long. If these people want to be taken seriously, if they want respect for their work, they need to get with the program. In the world of proprietary software, this would result in a discount in a corporate support contract. For a government contract, it would be a similar net result, but I think the operative term would be "a fine." |
| justintime Oct 29, 2009 5:15 PM EDT |
gus: it's free software. you have the source. it's also not even marked as 1.0, latest release is something like 0.5 or 0.6. It's also not a commercially sponsored program. It's also not really data corruption, it doesn't corrupt the tags of the photos on the camera, it only changes the tags on the copied photo. |
| tuxchick Oct 29, 2009 5:18 PM EDT |
LXer needs a Best ComicTroll award. I nominate Justintime, plus all of his other LXer nicks. |
| HoTMetaL Oct 29, 2009 6:43 PM EDT |
Ah yes, more "TROLL!" name-calling from tuxchick whenever she disagrees with a commenter. Stay classy, tc. |
| gus3 Oct 29, 2009 7:07 PM EDT |
That attitude is a big reason people don't take FOSS seriously. You want to be flippant about data corruption bugs? Fine, do the rest of us a favor: keep your programs to yourself, and don't muddy the waters for others who DO want their hard work to be respected. |
| jdixon Oct 29, 2009 7:34 PM EDT |
> ...you have the source. I'm not a programmer, and if I was, I wouldn't use Mono. > it's also not even marked as 1.0, latest release is something like 0.5 or 0.6. If you want to be held to the same standards as Microsoft and other proprietary software, I'm willing to do that. But then you shouldn't mind if I use a "real" FOSS program instead. We're supposed to be better than that. Look, it's a known bug for over 3 years now. That's not acceptable. Just bring over the dates from the camera as is. Don't change them without even notifying the user. If the camera's dates aren't right then let the user fix it. |
| HoTMetaL Oct 29, 2009 7:44 PM EDT |
I figured one of tc's nicks would chime in to defend her (again). I even predicted it would be you, gus3. My comment isn't about being "flippant" or having an "attitude," gus. Of course the bug should be addressed. What this *is* about, however, is calling people names in public discussion forums simply because their opinion differs from yours, and they chose to publish it. I'm sure justintime really believes his position, just as tuxchick has nothing more to contribute to the discussion other than her usual "troll" label. If you are truly concerned about people taking FOSS seriously, you should think really hard about how people within that community treat each other, and the professionalism that they display toward others. |
| gus3 Oct 29, 2009 9:16 PM EDT |
In other words, both of you have nothing useful to contribute to the topic at hand. |
| vect Oct 29, 2009 9:39 PM EDT |
People who write _bad_ free software harm the reputation of oss and computer science. No matter what type of work it is, low quality work is low quality work. Why would anyone care to tell these people about their 'bug'. Even if they fix the bug, who would trust the F-spot program ever again? 'What other 'normal' bugs might there be in that software? F-spot's brand is irrecoverably damaged by this. So what if it's open source and 'you're free to modify it'? Why would anyone want to spend time touching up low-quality work of a bunch of amateurs. The people who develop f-spot could never be real software developers and so instead they work for free on a clumsy project that they will probably never finish. They are failures. They get to use their 'it's free software' to dodge responsibility for allowing themselves to be low-quality developers. Unfortunately, the problems with F-spot are more typical in the linux world than some of us would like to admit. Since they release their low-quality software for free, people will use their low-quality software and there will be less of a consumer base to pay for decent and professionally made software and there will be a smaller job market for professional developers who respect quality. |
| tracyanne Oct 29, 2009 11:02 PM EDT |
@vect, Decent and Professionally made? You mean like Windows. |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 29, 2009 11:06 PM EDT |
I think you're going overboard with that "F-Spot's brand" talk. It's just a little image organizer in GNOME. It has no aspirations to take over the world. And there are plenty of alternatives, proprietary and FOSS. F-Spot can certainly use some work, and yes, it uses the dreaded Mono, but overall it's a pretty nice application. And there are plenty of apps both large in their communities and small that do a whole lot better. Look at Firefox and Thunderbird. We could use a whole lot more applications (and communities) like those. Regarding the last comment: Quoting:Since they release their low-quality software for free, people will use their low-quality software and there will be less of a consumer base to pay for decent and professionally made software and there will be a smaller job market for professional developers who respect quality. The problem is that most home users will not pay for software. They just won't do it. Even businesses these days are reluctant to pay when they can get an open-source app for free. Most people are content to steal the proprietary apps they'd never pay for. But FOSS offers another way, and the openness and inclusion often make for better apps overall. Apache? MySQL? I do a lot of complaining about FOSS image-editing apps because I do ... a lot of image editing. I don't complain about Photoshop because I don't run it. It's a dog, plain and simple. And there's little else out there in the rarified world of proprietary apps ... despite any willingness to pay or not. I'm counting on FOSS, and for what I need to do, it's coming through. |
| tuxchick Oct 30, 2009 1:05 AM EDT |
OK, name-calling is low-class and I am sorry. But honestly, who doesn't think the Mono fanbois ask for it? (I know, take the high road.) Mono is perfect, Mono apps are perfect, everyone should have Mono and Mono apps on their systems whether they want them or not, and everyone who has the slightest concern about them is wrong and deluded. It's like a cult. I've never much cared for F-Spot; it's slow and limited, and if that's what Gnome considers "best of breed" then it's one more reason to avoid Gnome. Solang, G-Thumb, and Eye of Gnome are all decent alternatives, though none of them approach Digikam in power and functionality. |
| azerthoth Oct 30, 2009 1:06 AM EDT |
HoTMetaL, pot meet kettle, thine name is HoTMetaL. |
| dinotrac Oct 30, 2009 4:18 AM EDT |
TC - Yes it is and glad you are, but... I can almost understand mono "fanbois" ( I thought we had agreed that name-calling was low-class!). You tend to get defensive when people are constantly calling you dupes of the evil empire and questioning your very right to survive in the FOSS universe. Kind of like the KDE folks vis a vis KDE 4, at least until recently. Come to think of it, looking at comments to the article, etc, I see a lot of similarity to KDE developers and, um, fanbois. Stupid developers are everywhere. You can't scratch an itch without finding one. Defensive supporters in denial likewise. Maybe it's part of being a geek. I don't know. |
| r_a_trip Oct 30, 2009 4:28 AM EDT |
@Vect. Since they release their low-quality software for free, people will use their low-quality software and there will be less of a consumer base to pay for decent and professionally made software and there will be a smaller job market for professional developers who respect quality. You do know what the logical conclusion of this sentence is, don't you? Your little diatribe here infers that people absolutely don't care about the quality of software, they just want something that they can get for cheap. In which case there is no demand for quality software and therefore there is no market for the products of "professional developers". Somehow I don't think that was what you were aiming for, but in your zeal to drag FOSS down you just kicked your precious "quality software" and your "professional developers" to the curb. |
| bigg Oct 30, 2009 10:15 AM EDT |
> it's free software. you have the source. it's also not even marked as 1.0, latest release is something like 0.5 or 0.6. It's also not a commercially sponsored program. It that directly from one of Ballmer's memos? You truly are a terrible astroturfer. At least pretend to have an interest in some other FOSS topic, or at least start out with "I love FOSS, but...". |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 12:53 PM EDT |
I've been using linux for a long time and I'm not ignorant about it's benefits, I just think that, in any field where people struggle to make a living such as programming, or storyboarding, or truck driving, or house painting, or _whatever_... The type of people who work for little or no pay AND produce lousy work are ruining things for their profession and for themselves. It lowers the bar for the good workers when there are a glut of terrible ones out there and most of the good workers will leave an environment/field/career like that. With lots of bad free work out there, people become accustomed to and will almost expect bad work and people who make good work won't be appreciated for it. People who can't write good software shouldn't be writing software. They shouldn't be writing software for low-pay and they shouldn't be writing it for free. They shouldn't be writing it at all. How would you like if a bunch of people entered your job field and made bad, free work that people started using. If you care about what you do, you wouldn't like it. Free software is good is when the people who write it have passion and care for what they are doing. The kernel, the gimp, vim... there are lots of software that are free and good, but there are lots of software that are free and bad also and those are the ones that I have a problem with. |
| mortenalver Oct 30, 2009 1:30 PM EDT |
The principle of the open source community means that you'll have to live with the bad as well as the good software. Some people may start out writing bad software, then go on to write better software as they get feedback and contributions from others. It's like with sports - you need the "grassroots" level where lots of kids, talented or not, participate, in order to get the top athletes. |
| justintime Oct 30, 2009 2:04 PM EDT |
So... it sounds like you guys want to ban developers from writing Free Software unless they are professionals? Huh? What a great community it would be with you guys in leadership roles. Thank God that isn't the case! The great thing about the Free Software community is that it helps novice programmers get involved and learn/improve, etc in ways that would otherwise not be possible. If all software was proprietary, how would beginners get started? How would they get the experience? Richard Stallman once said that he would rather have cr@ppy software that was Free Software than great proprietary software because if he /did/ run into a problem, he could fix it. This is one of the aspects of his ideals of Freedom. For people who spend countless hours on this forum badmouthing proprietary software and "advocating" FLOSS, you sure are hypocritical. If it's not your favorite app, it's ok to FUD it. But as soon as someone points out a problem with /your/ preferred app, suddenly that person is a troll and a hater of Freedom. I'm not attacking DigiKam here, I'm not even saying F-Spot is great and wonderful. All I'm doing is pointing out your hypocrisy. But I'm the "troll". Did I attack DigiKam the other day when a review was posted about it? Have I ever attacked KDE? Have I ever attacked GNOME? Have I ever attacked any of your favorite apps? No. Do you know why? Because I have a lot of respect for Free Software developers, whether I like and use their software or not. I think the author of this article should have, at the very least, /tried/ to contact and work with the developers to get the problem solved before writing an "Open Letter" nastygram, but it is very clear that he did not so much as add a "me too" to either bug report that he linked to. This is the bare minimum I consider to be "Common Courtesy" for working with the Free Software community before going off and trying to vilify or defame a project or group of developers. Don't you think? I mean, how would you like it if someone did that to your favorite project? I bet Carla would immediately write an article and publish it on LinuxToday calling the person a Microsoft troll trying to destroy Free Software (she does that to me and I haven't even done any such thing). There are already countless examples of her doing that in cases where people have pointed out problems with Linux. Some of you people do the very things that you attack other people for doing. But you seem to think that it's ok when you do it. Why is that? |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 2:06 PM EDT |
mortenalver, I like your response and am somewhat convinced by it. However, I would like to know your response to this, -that there are plenty of fields that produce quality professionals without the need for them to pass through a long "grassroots" stage. There is no "grassroots" stage for many in the medical science field or even fields like special effects and animation in film. If there is a "grassroots" stage, that stage should be very small and it should not be something that is unreasonably large or difficult, such as writing an entire photo management tool for linux. Steven, you are way too generous to write 'its just a little image organizer [...] plenty of alternatives'. The only good alternatives are, -digikam and geeqie. Developing that 'little image organizer' is a huge task that should be taken more seriously. I never installed f-spot specifically, but my ubuntu desktop uses it by default to import photos and open raw images. |
| hkwint Oct 30, 2009 2:11 PM EDT |
Quoting:With lots of bad free work out there, people become accustomed to and will almost expect bad work and people who make good work won't be appreciated for it. Normally, customers learn to find out the differences between cheap and expensive brands. The company where I work sells expensive products, cheap products, and competitors make even cheaper products. Nonetheless, the most expensive brand is still sold surprisingly well, even if customers can buy the same for much less money. It goes without saying that these expensive brands are the ones we put the most work in, and they are the ones that are tested the most. However, we find ourselves a bit in the same position as Gnome: We have to find the best suppliers, and the cheapest (in case of Gnome, they have to find the best free software programs / projects). If not, our brandname is ruined. If Gnome chooses bad suppliers, I guess they're also ruining their name. Anyway, I think that brand recognition is important here. When something comes by default with Windows - or it comes from Microsoft, you know what you are going to get. Same for software from AutoDesk, Adobe and the like: When they buy a small company which makes bad software or if they bundle bad software, their trademarks / brands will suffer. If something comes by default with KDE or Gnome, you will probably expect it just to work as good as the rest of the same suite. But what you are basically saying is that people don't recognize quality when they see it, and therefore the makers of good, expensive products suffer. What I'm trying to say is that as long as the brands of those good products are recognized by people, that's a problem that doesn't exist. It starts to become a problem in fields where the customers doesn't know the brands, as is probably the case with custom-made software made by SMB's. I'd say the answer here is marketing: Educating customers about good and bad software, brand building, and convincing customers why more expensive software is better (and eventually cheaper) for them. |
| gus3 Oct 30, 2009 2:34 PM EDT |
@justintime:Quoting:The great thing about the Free Software community is that it helps novice programmers get involved and learn/improve, etc in ways that would otherwise not be possible.True enough, when they'll pay attention and learn. But one of the things they could learn, but don't care enough to, is that DATA CORRUPTION IS UNFORGIVABLE. Data-corrupting hardware gets replaced. Even total system panic is preferable to data corruption in ring 0. In ring 4 apps, data corruption is still the severest of all bug types. Leaving data corruption bug reports open for 3-1/2 years is indefensible. Your shallow comment that "it doesn't affect the images on the camera" totally misses the point. You're treating the camera as a backup system for the images. Huh? You're saying if I want data integrity in my photos, I'd better leave them on the camera? When the card gets full, I should just run out and buy another card? Maybe I can get a bulk discount, plus a sympathy discount for using F-Spot. But that totally ignores the lost timestamps on pictures that have already been deleted from the cameras. That's why data corruption is unforgivable. Once the primary source data is gone, it's gone forever. I don't care if you have 200 backup servers, they'll be backing up corrupted data, because it was corrupted immediately upon transfer to your desktop system. And your failure to realize this, having to have it spelled out to you, makes the "troll" label rather low-ranking on the list of "if it fits..." |
| hkwint Oct 30, 2009 3:00 PM EDT |
Normally, software that may corrupt your data or may cause unbootable systems comes with a warning of 'make a backup first' or "here's a plan how to rescue your system if it becomes unbootable" (Grub2 on Gentoo for example). I wonder if F-Spot comes with such warnings? |
| justintime Oct 30, 2009 3:10 PM EDT |
gus3: did you even read the bug reports? It's about timezone. I understand about the "data corruption" problem when the images are deleted off the camera, but this only becomes a problem if you changed the timezone on your camera when you took the photos, and then imported them on a machine in a different timezone. And because it is just the timezone, it is fixable. It's not like it is image corruption, which I think would warrant the kind of "the sky is falling, the developers are retards, etc" responses we're seeing here. While I understand the frustration and that it's "data corruption", I think some people are making a gigantic mountain out of an ant hill. Most people do not change their timezones on their cameras as they move around the globe for a vacation, it seems like mostly it's the professional (and, I would imagine, some of the more enthusiastic hobbyist?) photographers do and not the average joe's like mom & pop (and me). Since F-Spot converts the date/time in the EXIF data to UTC, I think it's fairly reasonable to conclude that to the original author of that particular code, that was the desired behavior and not a bug. In hindsight he (or she) was wrong (I agree with you that you shouldn't change that info). I was also pointing out that F-Spot is clearly "in development" and not considered by even then developers to be 1.0 material, so it should be expected that the software is not rock solid/perfect/whatever. I'd also like to point out that you are not infallible either. Mistakes happen. Bugs happen. I think it's a bit egotistical for you to belittle the developers for this bug, don't you? Especially considering from the looks of it, F-Spot is a side-project and not something any of the main contributors work on full-time (you would know this if you've ever read their blogs which are all on planet.gnome.org, btw). |
| justintime Oct 30, 2009 3:14 PM EDT |
Oh, and did you know that one of the F-Spot developers was the artist that drew the famous Tux penguin and got The GIMP so much publicity in the early days? |
| gus3 Oct 30, 2009 3:22 PM EDT |
Yes, I read the bug reports. All. Theway. Through. But I guess you didn't bother to read half of my previous comment. |
| azerthoth Oct 30, 2009 4:20 PM EDT |
Curious to relevance of your last comment justintime. The who has nothing to do with the what in this case. Even LT has made the occasional oops. |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 4:21 PM EDT |
Justintime, This response is directed at you. Someone I know recently had their house painted and refurbished for a 'deal'. The window frames were painted after they were fixed to the window and so the white paint on the frame also got onto the wall where the frame meets with it. The electrical outlets are at differing heights and a professional electrician said that some of the electrical work done was dangerous and fire-prone. Some of the walls painted have white spots where they 'missed a spot'. Installed cabinets are almost level, but not quite. All of their work would need to be ripped out and replaced or redone completely for me to trust any of it. That guy is going to continue painting houses and the job market for that kind of thing will be lowered in the area that he operates in. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all have a chance to paint houses? The fact is, it's better for everyone if people are required to pass standards before offering their services to others. Standards to keep amateurs out and when it gets right down to it that's a good thing. Anyone with a degree in cs or who has worked professionally in the cs field would agree that a data corruption bug is like the one observed in f-spot is unacceptable for even a 'beta' release. It is not OK to say, 'oh, this is only version zero point whatever...'. It is not acceptable to release your software if you yourself haven't taken the time to do decent QA on it. |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 4:33 PM EDT |
What I think should happen is that there should be a recognized body of standards that is enforced by a peer-review group that confers acceptable status on projects. If a body of people with good reputations like Eric Raymond would endorse certain software as 'approved' a lot of the difficulty for users would be solved. Your project could only be submitted for approval once a year and the peer-review group would need to agree to look at your project. There would be nothing stopping people from releasing free software under the GPL, but only well-made software could have 'approved' status from the peer-review group. If someone lost their exif data because they trusted f-spot, we could all say, "f-spot's approval status was rejected by the gnu-review every year they submitted their code. You shouldn't have trusted them in the first place." |
| justintime Oct 30, 2009 4:37 PM EDT |
In that case, Free Software has no hope. Might as well give up now, right? There have been kernel bugs that destroyed hardware. That's far worse than the F-Spot bug. And it was in a released Linux kernel. Bugs happen. This is Free Software, you can fix it. That's one of the flags I always see Linux "advocates" waving around until they discover a bug in a Free Software application that they don't like (KDE app if the advocate is a GNOME fanboy or a GNOME app if the person is a KDE fanboy), then suddenly that no longer applies and it is a cardinal sin of the developer(s). My point is every single one of you live in a glass house. Every single one of your favorite apps also lives in a glass house. Best to keep that in mind the next time you decide to start throwing stones at your neighbors (especially when that neighbor is another Free Software community member). |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 4:44 PM EDT |
Justintime, it is totally acceptable to openly criticise f-spot in public. Why? Because the f-spot developers released their code publicly on the internet. Just like anything, when you attach your name to something and post it on the internet, you are exposing yourself to the opinions of others. If the f-spot developers wanted their work to be treated with respect they should have released respectable work. They should have done some qa and bug-testing on their own before releasing it and inviting us to test it and use it. Nobody is saying that the code must be perfect, but it does make them look dumb when they release software that permanently corrupts your personal data. |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 4:52 PM EDT |
justintime, what kernel bugs destroyed hardware? Would you please link us to information about that so we can know the details? Which do you prefer to do? Do you spend your time fixing other people's lousy work that they should have done right in the first place? Have you ever done code archaeology on project that might have been easier to write from scratch in the first place? I don't think so. My friend is free to rewire their house and paint over the white spots, but is it even worth the trouble to do that? No. I guess you think we should all be quiet because we all exist in 'glass houses'. That's baloney. We are all free to observe the problems that people and projects have. If you deserve respect, you'll have to demonstrate that to other people. |
| justintime Oct 30, 2009 4:59 PM EDT |
vect: so you are pro-UCITA, then, I take it? That is, after all, essentially what you are pushing for. Good luck with trying to convince the majority of the Free Software development community that it's a good idea. vect: It is easier to criticize than it is to create, so most fools choose to criticize rather than create. Right? I can't believe Free Software supporters such as yourselves are so into criticizing other people's hard work, done on their own time, for the benefit of others with no tangible reward. With "supporters" like you guys, why should anyone bother contributing to Free Software and risk being viciously attacked by the likes of you if they make a mistake? I'd really like to know when the last time any of you actually contributed anything worth mentioning. You belittle other people's hard work and yet have nothing of your own worth bragging about. Pathetic, really. I have the belief that it is better to try and fail than to not try at all. You people apparently hold the opposite belief: anyone who tries and fails must be ridiculed by people who do nothing but sit on their fat asses and criticize others for their failures. |
| jdixon Oct 30, 2009 5:00 PM EDT |
> It's about timezone. No, it's not. It's about f-spot changing the date the camera provides without notifying the user that it's doing so. The reason it does so is completely immaterial. |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 5:10 PM EDT |
Justintime, Things are opposite of how you present them. I don't want to lose my anonymity, but I do maintain a quality gpl3 software and I regularly submit bug-reports to projects that I like and support. YOU are the one who has never seriously contributed anything and that is why judgement of the f-spot developers is out of YOUR domain and why you have such an un-realistic perspective of things. Your perspective is not informed by real work experience. It is ok to try something and to fail, but unless you are really putting your best foot forward on the task, keep it yourself. Why do we have to release everything we think and produce to the internet? If you care about the judgement of others, take responsibility for what you put on the internet. |
| justintime Oct 30, 2009 5:21 PM EDT |
vect: http://www.ostatic.org/blog/likely-cause-of-intel-e1000e-bug... There have been other nasty corruption bugs in the Linux kernel in the past as well (this is the only hardware corruption bug I know about, though), even some long-standing bugs that existed for 10 years or longer (I recall one just recently getting fixed in the last month or 2 which I read about on LinuxToday or LWN). Most of the other ones I've heard about were filesystem corruption bugs. Even so, filesystem corruption is far worse than EXIF timestamp corruption. Should we all be badmouthing the kernel devs? Should we all be calling for them to be burned at the stake or calling into question their "attitudes" because of their choice in programming language? |
| justintime Oct 30, 2009 5:27 PM EDT |
vect: And I have been a core developer on a number of widely used Linux desktop applications that are installed by nearly every desktop Linux distro as well as Free Software projects that are core to the system, both server and desktop. |
| azerthoth Oct 30, 2009 5:31 PM EDT |
actually vect the e1000 kernel driver is a well documented case in regards to kernel drivers destroying hardware. I would like to point out that between 2 of you specifically, you have wandered off topic and are now just leveling ad-hominim attacks. What one 'anonymous' person contributes or does not contribute has nothing to do with another 'anonymous' does or does not. *edit* or the validity or tenacity of their respective positions. */edit* |
| vect Oct 30, 2009 5:41 PM EDT |
justintime, Calm down, please. No one is calling for people to be burned at the stake, and even though you didn't mean that literally, the emotional sentiment behind it isn't being presented by anyone here either. I don't think that the intel e1001 bug in the kernel puts the kernel developers in the same position as the f-spot developers. In terms of scale, the e1001 driver is a small component of the kernel. The amount of creativity and intelligence involved in the lifespan of the linux kernel have given it a status that positively overwhelms the damage of that e1000 bug. Also, the kernel developers were doing the best job that they could and they fixed the bug eventually. F-spot specializes in managing photos and it fails to do that without corrupting EXIF data. In terms of scale, this EXIF bug is huge. It is right there in the core of F-spot's specialized task. F-spot has not built up a reputation that deserves to survive such a thing. I'm not trying to outwit you here, I'm just being honest and saying what's on my mind. Don't take the discussion so personally that you can't see my point of view. /*edit I'm speaking up because I'm really annoyed with that part of the culture surrounding linux that pushes attitudes like, 'fix the source yourself', or 'you're not a programmer and should respect your free software'. Software developers need to take responsibility for their work and make up their mind to do a quality job. Stop slacking off and being over-sensitive when people call you out on your mistakes. edit*/ |
| gus3 Oct 30, 2009 6:32 PM EDT |
justintime is only here to start arguments. He(?) hasn't responded to any of the points we make here, except to put words in our mouths/hands and trivialize the real issue. As I said, "troll" is an understatement. |
| jdixon Oct 30, 2009 9:22 PM EDT |
> As I said, "troll" is an understatement. Hasn't that been the case every time any criticism of Mono or a Mono based application comes up? |
| gus3 Oct 30, 2009 9:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:Hasn't that been the case every time any criticism of Mono or a Mono based application comes up?That doesn't seem to be the crux of justintime's trolling. The only connection I see between justintime's posts and Mono is "if you don't like it, learn Mono and then fix it." |
| azerthoth Oct 30, 2009 10:46 PM EDT |
I have a better solution, dont like mono, dont install it. Distro wont let you not install it, change distros. Subjecting everyone else by trying to force your opinion is just wrong in every way imaginable. p.s. I dont install it, for the simple reason there isnt a single app using it that I find useful in any manner. |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 31, 2009 4:40 AM EDT |
@azerthoth: Don't forget the anti-mono package for Debian and all derivatives. It's an empty package that explicitly conflicts with Mono. If you have the anti-mono package installed, you cannot accidentally install Mono because you will be prompted to resolve the conflict first. |
| jdixon Oct 31, 2009 10:03 AM EDT |
> The only connection I see between justintime's posts and Mono is... In this case, perhaps. But he does seem to show up anytime any criticism of Mono or a Mono based application becomes the topic. > I have a better solution, dont like mono, dont install it. Agreed. Of course, the distro I use doesn't include Mono, so I don't have to worry about it. |
| KernelShepard Oct 31, 2009 11:25 AM EDT |
I haven't bothered to read all the comments here, but it seems to me that it's a little ridiculous to say that the F-Spot developers shouldn't have put their code up on the internet until it was ready for prime time. The way Free Software is developed is via collaboration, which is just a tad hard to do without it being available publicly on the internet for people to download and hack on. If people download and use it, that's their choice and obviously it must be useful to them or they wouldn't be using it. It is not the responsibility of the developers if distributions ship their software by default. QA, in that case, is the responsibility of the distro in question. Also of interest is that according to a commenter (Bastien, who appears to be a GNOME developer) on that blog, F-Spot is not part of the official GNOME suite. This suggests to me that it is indeed the fault of the distro for not doing proper QA. |
| vect Oct 31, 2009 11:58 AM EDT |
KernelShepard, Collaboration works well when someone does the best job they can do and accepts help from others. For the last few years, it has become more common in the linux world to find people who halfway follow through on a project and then respond to others by telling them to fix it or be quiet. People like me who don't respect the work that was done in the first place will never be inclined to submit a patch or even a bug report. It seems like it would be a waste of time. If they can't manage to spot and fix a serious data corruption bug on their own then I doubt they will ever do anything useful with their software or my contributions. Collaboration or not, it is THEIR domain to be sure that bugs like this don't occur in their software, -not the communities' domain. The fact that they knew about this bug and ignored it for so long is incredible. Basically, if they want us to take their stance on 'collaboration' seriously, they need to take their own development more seriously. Ubuntu is responsible for putting a program like f-spot on it's desktop and no one is arguing with that. The F-spot developers are responsible for writing software that has a serious data corruption bug and posting that to the internet. Just because it's open source doesn't mean that the core developers escape criticism when they put no thought and no qa attention into the work that they put on the internet. If I release low-quality work to the internet, people will think I release low-quality work to the internet! That's how it is! |
| vect Oct 31, 2009 1:06 PM EDT |
A lot of people who use linux like to talk about 'community' and 'learning' and 'self-reliance'. All of that is such a sham. If there was an intelligent community surrounding linux, it would be more critical of poor effort. If you had experience writing software, you would see bugs like this EXIF bug for what they are. Bug testing is just part of the routine for writing software and it's not hard. The main developer of F-spot does not need the help of a community to find or fix this bug, -he/she wrote the parts of the code that affect the EXIF data and so he/she can easily locate the problem and fix it. It's no one else's job to do that. Stop thinking that software developers are beyond criticism. People who develop software for linux generally don't get the same level of respect that they did 8 years ago. We need to be more intelligent and critical in our opinions. It will prompt developers to do a decent job or go away. I think the F-spot developers can do a better job, but if they won't do a better job they'll have to deal with the negative opinions. |
| KernelShepard Oct 31, 2009 4:24 PM EDT |
It's the "or make them go away" bit that concerns me. I think it would be better for more experienced developers to get involved in helping these developers improve their skills and thus write better software. How does (effectively) banishing people from writing free software help the Linux desktop fill in the gaps? How does banishing people from contributing to free software help morale? I'm worried that being nasty to the developers that /do/ contribute their time (no matter how skilled or unskilled) will only hurt free software, not help it. With attitudes like yours, the free software community is doomed because no one will want to contribute if they are going to be attacked with such vitriol should they happen to write some code that isn't flawless. Am I wrong? Also, just FYI, but you seem to have an ego the size of Jupiter. In my many years of experience, anytime I see someone with an ego like yours who attacks a coworker over some bug, I've found that person is often the least competent programmer on the team. These people feel the need to attack other programmers to make themselves feel more important, I guess. Anyhow, that is the impression I am getting from reading your posts. You might want to reflect on that. |
| vect Oct 31, 2009 5:51 PM EDT |
KernelShepard, Whenever I read criticism of open source software, i see comments like those at the bottom of the web-article this thread associates with. Comments from foss supporters marginalize criticism by telling the critic that they should fix the code themselves with the implication that if they can't fix it they should be quiet. Most people who don't program are cowed in by responses like that, but they shouldn't be. These kinds of bugs are comparable to someone _not_ using spell-check to write a book that they submit to a publisher -and in this case Ubuntu published the book! It's not beyond criticism! Users should be critical. If you don't want to use spell-check, maybe writing a book is not for you. Your speculation about me and my ego are the same kind of thing. You want to marginilize my perspective by making me out to be someone who's incompetent and has something to prove. Maybe your right (your not)? It still shouldn't take away from what I'm saying. - if you decide to write software and share it, you should bug-test it (adequately to find bugs like this EXIF bug) - if you are a user and someone gives you software that ruins the EXIF data in your image collection, you should complain loudly + - you should not be criticised for saying what's on your mind or told to be quiet because the software was free I'm not suggesting anything crazy here... it sounds nice to be all happy feelie and to talk about the community and all of that and people who criticise anything in OSS are un-popular, but what I'm saying here is true and no one has effectively shown why I'm wrong on those points. Your completely un-critical attitude is what hurts open source software. If people who don't test their software are made to feel uncomfortable about it, they might leave and stop contributing. Yeah, -but everyone wouldn't leave. If everyone was a little bit more critical, what would most likely happen is that some people would leave and the rest would simply do a better job and open source would be better off. |
| vect Oct 31, 2009 6:25 PM EDT |
Also, I'm not saying that the software needs to be flawless, but this bug was observed YEARS AGO!! 'TOTALLY ridiculous! Why is anyone defending this!? hahahaaHAHAHAA! |
| KernelShepard Oct 31, 2009 6:52 PM EDT |
I just found this out, but the original author of F-Spot died. |
| vect Oct 31, 2009 7:17 PM EDT |
If the current developers weren't familiar enough with F-spot's internals to address the EXIF bug, they should have made f-spot inaccessible until it was ready and they were ready to publicly release. The current devs are responsible for the problem by this point and I don't see how that news would change anything. |
| hkwint Oct 31, 2009 9:13 PM EDT |
Wikipedia says Novell is the developer of F-Spot now. |
| vect Oct 31, 2009 9:37 PM EDT |
hkwint, I'm not surprised. Novell's projects are always plagued with really dumb problems. For example, try printing a calendar from evolution or print pre-viewing. The thumb calendar has ALWAYS been broken, and it doesn't look as bad as it once did (it was improved in a recent gnome release), but it still doesn't look correct. Novell will never fix it. Why? No one knows,... hahahzzhahaha. F-spot and novell are perfect for each other in many ways. |
| gus3 Oct 31, 2009 9:54 PM EDT |
Holy cow, you mean F-Spot is a corporate project? Quick, get Roy Schestowitz on the phone! |
| hkwint Oct 31, 2009 10:05 PM EDT |
No, Wikipedia says it is. So let's do some work ourselves actually. http://f-spot.org/Get_Involved : Quoting: Maintainers Look at the e-mail adress of Stephane as mentioned in F-Spot: http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/GNOME/sources/f-spot/0.4/f-spot-0.... First article on Stephanes blog: Quoting:Mono-ifying Gnome3, one dependency at a timehttp://blog.reblochon.org/2009/10/mono-ifying-gnome3-one-dep... Look on Gabriels blog: Quoting:About I'm a computer engineer, free software hacker and enthusiast, coffee lover, private pilot, husband, and uncle. I currently work for Novell... It's no surprise were Larry Ewing worked: http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/GNOME/sources/f-spot/0.1/f-spot-0.... He still works there: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lewing So those are the ones you should contact about this 'bug' I guess. |
| vect Nov 01, 2009 2:33 AM EDT |
When one of them starts doing something great, let us know and maybe we'll start paying attention to them. Otherwise, who cares. |
| montezuma Nov 01, 2009 12:02 PM EDT |
Larry Ewing? No relation to J.R and Hagman huh? |
| KernelShepard Nov 01, 2009 2:03 PM EDT |
It's pretty sad and pathetic that you guys base your opinions of these developers solely on their current employer. Do a Google search for Larry Ewing. He's been a GIMP developer, he's the artist that created the Tux penguin and more. But I guess you're right, because he now works for Novell and a bug appeared in one of the side projects he contributes his spare time to, all his contributions are null and void. With friends and supporters of Free Software like you guys who stab them in the back, who needs enemies? Ironic that the very people who throw hissy fits and badmouth Novell for backtabbing the Free Software community are the very people that find it not only acceptable to backstab others, but actually condone it. You should be ashamed of yourselves. I suppose now you'll claim that "but they work for the devil company! Their employer backstabbed us first!". Yes. Their employer. Maybe you are someone who feels that collateral damage is acceptable? Because that's what attacking Mono and the Novell engineers really is. You aren't hurting the people responsible for the decision made by the high level Novell execs (do they even still work for Novell?), but you are instead hurting the low ranking engineers for your perverse "revenge". |
| gus3 Nov 01, 2009 3:11 PM EDT |
Perverse? Perverse? It took a court order to stop Microsoft from perverting Java. Ask Tom-Tom about legalistic perversions. Ask the former Digital Research about perverse error messages. Ask any Windows Vista user about the perversely low system requirements that amounted to false advertisement. Don't you dare lecture us about "perverse revenge" as we try to defend ourselves and our freedoms. My previous comment was silliness and sarcasm. This comment is not. I mean every word. |
| jdixon Nov 01, 2009 3:18 PM EDT |
> ...that you guys base your opinions of these developers solely on their current employer. You guys being exactly one person in this thread. Unless you count the pro-mono/f-spot folks. That may be the basis for their opinions for all I know. > ...and badmouth Novell for backtabbing the Free Software community Whether they intended to or not, that's effectively what they did. Are we supposed to congratulate them on their savvy business skills. > Maybe you are someone who feels that collateral damage is acceptable? It's not that collateral damage is acceptable, it's that it's unavoidable. > Because that's what attacking Mono and the Novell engineers really is. You aren't hurting the people responsible for the decision made by the high level Novell execs... No, I'm hurting them by not buying, using, or supporting Novell products. Which includes Mono, btw. > ...but you are instead hurting the low ranking engineers for your perverse "revenge". I seek no revenge on Novell. I simply avoid them. Sigh, with friends who make arguments like this, Mono doesn't need any enemies. |
| hkwint Nov 01, 2009 4:30 PM EDT |
Quoting:It's pretty sad and pathetic that you guys base your opinions of these developers solely on their current employer. I don't (thanks jdixon), I just tried to find out who the current developers of F-Spot are because of your comment the main-developer died. And you shouldn't trust WP solely when it comes to that, I just tried to provide some facts. The rest is your fantasy. |
| vect Nov 04, 2009 12:28 AM EDT |
I’ve actually put some serious thought into this post. This entire thread made me consider a few things, some of which have been disheartening to me. I decided to gather my thoughts together and post them here so that I can see if they hold up well to the scrutiny of others and to see if there are any other insightful viewpoints out there. I will be using the acronym OSS incorrectly as though it were a place somewhere, but I think you will understand what I mean. RESPECT People in OSS romanticize the respectability of free software. Maybe we've been trying to convince ourselves more than anyone. The ideal that we are all gentle-scholar-types who write software for our intellectual curiosity is a sham. The truth is people who don't pay you for your work aren't showing you respect and if you are giving yourself out for free you're not getting respect. Are you a gentleman if you aren't treated like one? If you're dating someone and they won't let you kiss them, -you're not really dating. They don't think you're good enough. As far as pay/respect goes, people won't pay you or show respect to you unless they are required to. That’s why we all must discriminate against who we give ourselves to, -we should only give ourselves to people who will respect us. Freud: “According to one ethical view, whose deeper motivation will become clear to us presently, this readiness for a universal love of mankind and the world represents the highest standpoint which man can reach. Even at this early stage of the discussion I would like to bring forward my two main objections to this view. A love that does not discriminate seems to me to forfeit a part of its own value, by doing an injustice to its object, and secondly, not all men are worthy of love.” OSS fails to give any REAL respect to great projects. Do any of you remember Ktoon? Ktoon was building up to be an awesome flash-like animation tool using the latest qt and kde technology, but the lead developer ran out of money and though he publicly moaned and pleaded for donations, no one donated anything and Ktoon ceased. His work was respectable, but he didn't get respect for it. Ktoon isn't the only one (Gogh, Dark Oberon, WxGlade) and Ardour appears to be slowly headed down the same path as Ktoon. Without any tangible currency of respect, OSS is unable to discriminate against itself in terms of quality. There is no model or idealized potential that OSS contributors are required to reach. The effect is deepened by the thousands of bug-reports directed at OSS no matter what it accomplishes. This has the consequences of leaving the OSS software world perpetually and aimlessly incomplete. It also has the consequence that the people who write OSS software will never feel the satisfaction of reaching the finished state, of being at the crest of their own personal wave. They will never be able to satisfy a basic urge that is only satisfied when we exercise our strength and connect with our goals. Completing something with quality and finish is a basic satisfaction that cannot be replaced in any other way. That’s not to say it’s all bad. No one could argue that _some_ OSS software is unbeatably good (the good stuff usually has a steady stream of support from financial or academic sources). And that’s where this next observation comes in. The good and the mediocre products that come out of OSS have a profound impact on our attitudes toward ‘respect’ in general. For example, if it is OK to own a thoughtfully developed creation like the GiMP for free, then what does that make other creations worth? What does it make OUR creations worth? The existence of the GiMP makes it difficult for us to respect other things that are comparatively not as valuable as the GiMP. Certain types of music, videos, and books are losing some of their former respect now that they share a world with ‘free’ creations like the GiMP. F-spot is an example of the impact that a mediocre* OSS software will have on our attitudes toward respect. It is assumed by many (like justintime) that we must tolerate the corruption of our personal data since F-spot is free. We all have to ‘hang in there’ and show support while we encounter regressive bugs and inconsistencies because, after all, this stuff is ‘free’. The constancy of this kind of thinking is ultimately negative and leads to lower expectations for our world and a certain sense of anxiety due to the undependable nature of these always-changing tools. *by mediocre, I mean software that damages our trust by failing to safely and predictably perform the task it was made for. That leads me into another aspect of OSS that is disconcerting. FANATICISM (lack of logic in thinking) There are uncomfortable similarities that OSS culture shares with Christian/theistic culture. Everyone feels obliged to ‘witness’ to others by passing out free cds and talking about the merits of OSS (though most are apathetic). There is a noticeable amount of recycled thinking present in OSS. ‘For example, statements like ‘if you don’t like it, you have the source’ are common and they are often applied to situations where they don’t make sense, -such an example is found early in this thread. These kinds of statements pass without question and they usually function to make us feel subservient, -to make us support OSS without ever questioning it or the result is produces. You are the low bus-person (user) in this restaurant and if you know your place you’ll know that you shouldn’t upset the baristas (developers) who all outrank you. You’re not permitted to publicly take a stance that asks for respect. Respect doesn’t exist in OSS. There are no norms here for exhanges where we can feel good about the way we treat other people and deserving of the way we are treated by others... ALSO Another thing that has bothered me are some of the unreasonable development choices for the kernel. Does EVERY SINGLE kernel-accessing device EVER MADE really need to have its driver owned by the kernel? Do NVIDIA and ATI really need to maintain/release drivers for every single kernel release? Why can’t there be a stable device driver interface for binaries to interact with? Even though NVIDIA has been loyal to linux for a long time, as soon as support is dropped for some NVIDIA cards from the latest driver people act as though NVIDIA has done something awful. Why don’t they complain to the kernel developers? By this point nvidia has probably released several drivers to support your card and they were made obsolete by the newest kernel. FINAL OSS is a culture that appears on the surface to be full of wonderful humanitarians who care about the world and want to help the world community. In fact, it is full of people who have no respect for themselves or others. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 04, 2009 4:01 AM EDT |
I don't agree with you vect. Respect != money. There's no lack of respect in FOSS but a lack of developer time. And money buys developer time (i.e. FOSS developer can quit or cut back on day-time job and make a living off FOSS). Also, Quoting: Why can’t there be a stable device driver interface for binaries to interact with? Because that way lies madness: http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable_api_nonsense.html http://lwn.net/Articles/162686/ |
| dinotrac Nov 04, 2009 8:25 AM EDT |
Sander - Money buys something else that isn't developer time: It buys direction. With money you can get people to do things that don't scratch their itch, and lots of programming tasks come under that category, even in big, wonderful, interesting projects. You also get somebody to ask questions like "Are you out of your freakin' minds?". Not that it always works. I believe the KDE project gets money, and the mozilla project, perpetrators of a couple of the biggest boners yet foisted on the free software world. Still, it's a good thing. |
| mortenalver Nov 04, 2009 8:33 AM EDT |
Just curious: what has Mozilla done that qualifies for that description? |
| dinotrac Nov 04, 2009 9:42 AM EDT |
mort - You must be new to FOSS land. Mozilla handed IE 90+ per cent of the browser market by abandoning netscape for pursuit of their muse. As it turns out, their muse was only so good, but somebody else was able to pick up the pieces and deliver Firefox, which now struggles to top 20%. |
| vect Nov 04, 2009 1:58 PM EDT |
Sander: Where does respect manifest itself tangibly in OSS? Where is the respect? It's nice to say that it's there, but where is it? Aren't time and money just different sides of the same coin? Don't we all buy one with the other? Developers do not receive a refund or respectable exchange for their time. Life is short and with so many things to do, why would someone, without getting any time or money in exchange, give their time to the re-implemention of ideas that already exist in the commercial world? Why? They don't respect themselves. It takes confidence and vision to internally legitimize the effort one directs toward creating products of their own creative agency. These people have no self-respect and so they take the safe/easy path of giving free-labor in the hope that they will find friends or be noticed by a corporate entitiy for their contributions. They can't make it in the commercial world because they have no self-confidence, but no one in the OSS world will stop them from making free contributions. |
| vect Nov 04, 2009 2:11 PM EDT |
Sander: I read those links and they don't really tell us anything new. One instant remedy to the 'problems' observed in those links would be to release a stable long-term kernel. It was done with the late 2.2 and 2.4 kernels and that's why 2.4 had many commercially-authored drivers available for it. Linus has said that he has no plans to stabilize 2.6. There are no debates about the manageability of releasing a stable 2.6 kernel. Linus has no plans to do it. Things probably weren't as convenient for the developers, because many people kept using 2.4 as work was being done on 2.6. The refusal to stabilize the 2.6 series forces everyone to be on the same kernel series at the benefit of the developer and the expense of the user. This is OK in OSS, because no one is respected here and we can't complain. Why should we? We're not paying for this stuff... |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 04, 2009 4:38 PM EDT |
I get the impression you really do not understand FOSS at all, vect. Or respect for that matter. You seem to think respect is something tangible like money. It's not.Quoting:Developers do not receive a refund or respectable exchange for their time. Yes we do. Lots and lots (and lots) of code. It's called sharing and it's what FOSS is all about. I donate some of my time and you donate some of yours. And together we can make something better than either of us individually can. What we get in return is better software. Quoting:Life is short and with so many things to do, why would someone, without getting any time or money in exchange, give their time to the re-implemention of ideas that already exist in the commercial world? Respect. Status. Better software. Experience. Opportunities. Bragging rights. Money. Job offers. Feeling good about yourself. There are endless reasons. Why do people volunteer for charities? Why do people play in local brass bands? Why do people fix their neighbours computer for free? Why do people donate blood or sperm for free? Or donate organs? Why help that old lady across the street? If you don't understand that you won't understand FOSS. Quoting:They can't make it in the commercial world because they have no self-confidence Google my name. I run my own company and I make a full time living from FOSS. Quoting:One instant remedy to the 'problems' observed in those links would be to release a stable long-term kernel. It was done with the late 2.2 and 2.4 kernels and that's why 2.4 had many commercially-authored drivers available for it. And look at the mess that caused. People who could not update their kernels because their out-of-tree or binary drivers didn't work anymore. People who could only run a specific distribution/kernel combination because nothing else would work. People being forced to continue using 2.4 kernels was not a benefit to users or developers. I'm glad that got fixed with 2.6. Besides, binary kernel drivers are not legal so the entire point is moot anyway. The only people suffering from a non-stable API are people who want to write closed source kernel modules. |
| vect Nov 04, 2009 5:22 PM EDT |
Sander: Your points are well made. I don't think they completely invalidate my own points, -I still think there are some worrying aspects and consequences of open-source. I do disagree with your perspective on the 2.4 kernel days. People were using 2.4 because it did things that 2.6 would not do (only 2.4 could succesfully use drivers written for 2.4). They were 'forced' to use 2.4 by their own needs and when 2.4 began to look very old around 2004, people still had needs that could only be met by 2.4 and that's why they used. Forcing everyone to move on to 2.6 didn't take away the needs, it just ignored them. It made things more difficult for people to depend upon a static feature or kernel. It made it more difficult for companies to tie a static driver to the kernel. It forces everyone to use the current kernel releases. |
| hkwint Nov 04, 2009 6:14 PM EDT |
OK, there are some 'loose' observations I like to make. Not much coherent though, but anyway. Please notice that most of the academic world nowadays works with 'open source'. Why did Einstein open source the relativity theory and publish it - without earning much? And are you serious he didn't gain respect? Of course, they are paid. But Einstein was not paid for that particular discovery. In the contrary: At that time he worked at the patent office, and was being paid to open-source the ideas of other people. Not the ones of himself. Most of the times, those open sourcing their ideas as patents earn respect (well, it used to be, before the software industry screwed up). People like Einstein could have earned more elsewhere. Think of all the ones doing research. Physics and such. Research - like superconductivity and much earlier electricity - which looked useless and pointless at the time. Notice the ones who _really_ invented dynamite and didn't survive (because it wasn't stable back then). Because they invented a matter which killed themselves immediately, their discovery seemed pointless at the time, and the actual inventor of dynamite (before it was stable) is unknown. Notice Kamerling Onnes was not looking for supermagnets, he was only experiencing with low temperatures, and sharing his results. If he had kept his results secret, supermagnets might not exist today. Research that was published 'almost for free'. Ideas that were shared, reflected upon, contemplated, improved, changed, rebuild, and built upon. Would Einstein have received the respect he has today if he had kept his theory 'closed' and only 'available for paying customers'? Would GPS be as accurate as it is today if Einstein didn't 'open source' his theory (please note GPS uses a correction for relativity). And please note both Kamerling Onnes and Einstein received the Nobel prize. Also note that Einstein didn't receive the Nobel prize for relativity, but for the theory that - together with the work of others like Bequerel - today enables photo-voltaic solar cells. Applications Einstein probably never foresaw. Nonetheless, he's one of the people earning respect from those applications, particularly because he _did_ open source his inventions. And please also note, those who did discoveries - just because they were interested, not to earn much money - enabled much larger works today. For example, superconductivity was discovered while trying to reach low temperatures. Nowaday, it is used to find the Higgs-'particle', the last particle not yet proven to exist in experiments. The particle that - if proven - would finalize the unification theory. If people such as Einstein and Onnes had kept their discoveries and papers closed, they would probably not have contributed to the experiments of CERN today. But because they - and thousands of other people - open sourced their work, people have now been able to make one theory that 'should explain all physics'. So if you work for Microsoft, will the world ever respect you because the nice code you wrote? Of course not, 99% of the people in the world won't see your closed source code anyway. Which brings us to the second point: The other 1% that does. You think of OSS as being only supply-driven. People just decide to write and open source their code. Well, that time is behind us. open source software nowadays is also demand driven. For example, Microsoft open sourced Windows to a small group of customers, amongst others the Chinese Government. Do you think the Chinese government had less respect for Windows after they saw the code? Maybe they did because the code was worse than they thought, but if that was true, the code shouldn't have ever earned respect anyway. No, they had more respect for Microsoft because they found out it didn't implement spying-schemes from NSA. And they did have more respect from them because they were able to embed the green wall directly into Windows. They had more respect for Microsoft, and so much more that they ditched their RedFlag Linux plans altogether. And speakin' of supply and demand, that brings us to the third point: The paid applications you shouldn't respect. There are many programs out there like F-Spot you have to pay for. Lots of bad programs, or ones that shouldn't earn much respect. For example, look for gratis software to 'cat' PDF files for Windows. You (almost) won't find any. All of them - you need to pay for. While the only thing the program does is cat PDF files. A free solution exists for Linux, and much of the time the Linux-alternatives have more features. So these PDF-cat programs are simple in nature. Now do the developers of the Windows programs earn more respect for their program than the Linux developers who actually made the same? Do the developers of countless 40k payd-for 'crippled' iPhone apps who seem to be bad (from what I heard) earn more respect than the makers of F-Spot? Sometimes there just is a demand for a particular program, such like 'cat PDF files'. And because there's demand, people can ask whatever they want. If you found a cure for cancer tomorrow, and you asked $ 100 million per person you cure - just because there is demand and some people might be able to pay that - would that earn you respect? Or would it earn you respect if you 'open sourced' the cure (or sold it for $10M, you gotta make a livin, eh?) to ensure thousands of people could be cured? Now I have to sleep - the sleeping pills start kickin' in and if I'd go on I'm afraid the rest will be pointless. But your theory only covers part of the spectrum of the 'total field' of "openness of ideas and publications". There's more to it that your theory / opinion doesn't cover, and cannot be explained in respect, and therefore I feel your view is a bit limited, while maybe it is correct if the field you apply it too isn't so broad as reality. Hmm, hope that makes sense. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 04, 2009 6:45 PM EDT |
Quoting:I do disagree with your perspective on the 2.4 kernel days. People were using 2.4 because it did things that 2.6 would not do (only 2.4 could succesfully use drivers written for 2.4). So it was a problem for users, not a benefit as you claim in your previous post. And it was caused because 2.4 had a "stable" API, which caused many drivers to be out-of-tree or even closed source binary blobs. Users of the 2.6 kernel line do not have this problem *because* the API is not stable anymore, which causes drivers to go in the kernel mainline. See? Stable 2.4 API = bad for developers, bad for users. Unstable 2.6 API = good for users and developers. |
| vect Nov 04, 2009 8:33 PM EDT |
hkwint: Thanks. Your points are clear and I'm convinced. Sander: Removing the solution to a problem does not remove the problem. If I take away your trash can, -you will still have trash and need to put it somewhere. If I take your food, you will still become hungry and want to eat. If someone takes away the static kernel that allows you to use last year's binary drivers, it does not mean that you no longer need last year's binary drivers. In an ideal world 'out-of-tree or even closed source binary blobs' wouldn't be necessary, but be practical. A company like NVIDIA that survives using a traditional commercial approach should not be required to open up their intellectual property to the world. They won't do it. Users benefit from NVIDIA's participation and if NVIDIA and ATI would stop supporting linux, it would be a major setback for linux users. The kernel developers should allow companies non-gpl entities to have access to a stable kernel interface. |
| krisum Nov 05, 2009 1:04 AM EDT |
@vectQuoting: Removing the solution to a problem does not remove the problem.The problem are the binary blobs since they are not legal. Probably you have not read the links carefully -- stable binary kernel interface is practically impossible given the myriad ways in which the linux kernel can be compiled/configured. As for companies opening up code of their drivers, that surely is better than devs reverse engineering them. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 4:02 AM EDT |
Quoting:Removing the solution to a problem does not remove the problem. That's irrelevant these days. Nobody needs 2.4 anymore. All drivers are available in 2.6. Heck, 2.6 supports more hardware than all other OSes combined. Nvidia and ATI have no problems shipping a video driver that works on all 2.6 kernels, despite the unstable API and ABI. And that's a good thing. Imagine that the API was "stable". Nvidia would probably just have supplied drivers for a few distro/kernel combinations instead of supporting every 2.6 kernel under the sun. This fosters development and innovation. It means that people can change the kernel and still have all hardware supported. Kinda like that tiny start-up distro did in 2004. Perhaps you've heard of it? It's called Ubuntu. If would have never grown in a stable API world because there would not have been enough drivers. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 8:54 AM EDT |
Quoting:The problem are the binary blobs since they are not legal. Can somebody explain this to me in a way that has more to do with the law than it does with mouth-breathing repetition? |
| jdixon Nov 05, 2009 9:28 AM EDT |
> Can somebody explain this to me in a way that has more to do with the law than it does with mouth-breathing repetition? The way I understand it, the position of some kernel developers is that any kernel module is effectively a derived work of the kernel, and that the binary kernel capability was only included for backwards compatibility. Now (as you know), IANAL, and my understanding may be flawed or incomplete. However, it's both a debated and debatable position. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 9:29 AM EDT |
@Dino: Easy. *All* drivers are derivatives of the kernel. The kernel is GPLv2 so the driver must be too. If it's not (like a binary blob) then distributing the binary blob violates the copyright of the kernel authors. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 11:05 AM EDT |
Not so easy, guys. The law is not about talismans and tea leaves. First, drivers **probably** are derivatives of the kernel. That depends mightily on whether or not you can make a driver that does not include copyrightable kernel code. Header files may or may not be copyrightable, depending on what they contain, but, even if copyrighted, the copyright will likely protect only against a verbatim copy and not against an equivalent recoding. So -- if they use no kernel code, drivers are not a derived work. The combination of the kernel and the driver IS a derived work. However, a) the kernel long ago accepted binary blobs. Copyright holders have every right to make exceptions to the general terms of the GPL, and, in the case of the Linux kernel, individual contributors must agree to the project's terms if they wish their work to be included. b) Users are always free to combine binary drivers with the kernel because the GPL contains no restrictions on what users can do with GPL'd code that they do not distribute. So -- where does this illegal crap come from? |
| tuxchick Nov 05, 2009 11:42 AM EDT |
It comes from Greg Kroah-Hartman: http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html
Somewhere he has written more about this but I can't find it now. Linus has long turned a scornful eye to the issue, characterizing it as a political agenda rather than a copyright violation. Some of the other kernel devs, seeing binary kernel drivers as a violation of their copyrights and getting frustrated, made a stab at banning them. But Linus rules so it went nowhere. This has a short summary:
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Torvalds-quashes-bin... |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 11:49 AM EDT |
Dino: a) I think you're confusing binary firmware blobs and binary drivers. The kernel community has accepted the previous, not the latter. b) Irrelevant to this discussion. We were talking about vendors shipping out-of-tree drivers or binary drivers for the 2.4 kernel. So it's distributed. |
| gus3 Nov 05, 2009 11:51 AM EDT |
But we did get the "Tainted: P" reboot-to-clear flag out of that effort, which is useful for diagnostics. |
| jdixon Nov 05, 2009 11:57 AM EDT |
> Not so easy, guys. As I said Dino, it's a debated matter. I don't know enough to have a position on the matter, but I agree that the folks arguing that binary drivers are a license violation would have a tough row to hoe in court. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 12:05 PM EDT |
Sander -- on a) Will have to go back and do a little research, which I am not able to do at the moment, so... we'll let that distinction go for now. b) So what if vendors ship drivers? They have every right to ship drivers UNLESS those drivers incorporate GPL'd code. The fact that they ultimately get combined with the kernel makes no difference. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 12:19 PM EDT |
TC -- That's nice. I've also spoken with a lot of IP attorneys in my time. First, it is their business to say things are closed. They make their money by telling people they can patent and otherwise protect their wares. They are not technicians, and that matters, and it is easily shown. Picture a driver in two parts. One part speaks to the other via a well defined api. One part is proprietary, the other is GPL'd. The GPL'd part of the code is a wrapper tha provides an interface between the Linux kernel and the proprietary core. The proprietary core contains no GPL'd code whatsoever. This, I believe, describes nvidia drivers. It also describes ndiswrapper. Ndiswrapper does not render windows wireless drivers illegal, nor does it make any part of what the windows device driver authors/distributors do illegal. If something is illegal, it is not in the binary blob. If you distribute the GPL'd source with the binary blob (remember -- the copyright holder can do that), you are not violating anybody's copyright or license. If the end user compiles them together and loads them up into the kernel, he or she is doing somethign explicitly allowd by the GPL. So --- where's the beef? |
| tuxchick Nov 05, 2009 12:28 PM EDT |
Quoting: So --- where's the beef? Between the buns. You asked where the illegal thang came from, I answered. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 12:30 PM EDT |
Ah. You weren't presenting it as proof of correctness, merely source. Gotcha. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 12:52 PM EDT |
Quoting:This, I believe, describes nvidia drivers. It also describes ndiswrapper. Yes, and it does not describe a closed source kernel driver. Which is what we were talking about and which GKH and many others say are simply not legal. A closed source driver necessarily incorporates a whole bunch of kernel headers otherwise it could not be loaded by the kernel. Also note that many kernel hackers merely tolerate the "split driver"option from Nvidia, ATI and the like because it is proved that the binary blob that sits outside the kernel is not just Linux-specific. Nvidia uses the exact same blob on Windows for example. The devs have said that such split kernel drivers would be contested if it is clear that the binary blob is just for Linux. |
| tuxchick Nov 05, 2009 1:06 PM EDT |
dino, I understand that it's a legal gray area, and the finest minds of our time will happily argue it until the sun grows cold. It seems the definitive solution is "user choice," since lawyers and courts are incapable of giving definitive answers to anything except "Waste more time and money, kthx." For me it's simple-- I value 'free as in freedom' and don't want closed binary stuff. If I did I would run Macs. |
| softwarejanitor Nov 05, 2009 1:10 PM EDT |
@tuxchick I agree... If I was willing to accept closed binary stuff I'd also pick MacOS X over Windows... Although I have compromised that in a few areas like nVidia drivers... but that is just about it. |
| tuxchick Nov 05, 2009 1:20 PM EDT |
I've also been thinking about some of the points vect raised, and wouldn't be so quick to dismiss them. I've written about FOSS and money before, and the issue of respect, and gotten thoroughly massacred for it. Maybe there were lots of readers out there nodding to themselves and thinking yes, I see your point. But they didn't tell me or anyone else. If we gauge by the public discourse, FOSS is a realm of juvenile mouthy unprofessional asshats. If money is the coin of the realm, and respect the coin of the realm when there is no money, on the surface it appears that FOSS fails on both counts. It appears that coders are revered for no good reason other than a cozy self-congratulations club, while other contributors and users are lower life forms. I'm still thinking it through. |
| jdixon Nov 05, 2009 1:36 PM EDT |
> The devs have said that such split kernel drivers would be contested if it is clear that the binary blob is just for Linux. I can't see any real basis for doing so, but if they want to try, it's their time and money. |
| krisum Nov 05, 2009 1:45 PM EDT |
Quoting: Can somebody explain this to me in a way that has more to do with the law than it does with mouth-breathing repetition?Yes, binary blobs that are part of kernel tree are not legal. Quoting: If the end user compiles them together and loads them up into the kernel, he or she is doing somethign explicitly allowd by the GPL.No one is contesting this. Quoting: Picture a driver in two parts. One part speaks to the other via a well defined api. One part is proprietary, the other is GPL'd. The GPL'd part of the code is a wrapper tha provides an interface between the Linux kernel and the proprietary core. The proprietary core contains no GPL'd code whatsoever.One would say that this can then be done for most GPL'd code especially libraries and others that provide an API. Dynamically load GPL'd code in proprietary code (which VMs like java do automatically all the time anyway) and the same scenario as above is easily replicated. I doubt this would be considered a valid use (or else we would not have LGPL) though, of course, one cannot say for certain. My reading has been that anything short of two separate processes will constitute a derived work. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 2:09 PM EDT |
Krisum - A derived work has a very specific legal meaning. It is the end result of altering a copyrighted work, whether by addition or subtraction. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the processes by which those changes are made. As to being legal, repeating an unsupported conclusion does not an argument make. Sander - The law on header files tends to support the position that they are not copyrightable, except perhaps for verbatim copies that include comments. "Tends to" is the operative part of that statement -- it's possible to make headers that match program code for complexity and creativity, but that is not the normal case. So -- it's possible that a kernel driver could be compiled with header files and still not violate copyright law. If that is the case, the GPL doesn't matter because the rights required do not require reliance on the GPL. And -- as to contesting split drivers, people say they will contest a lot of things. Has nothing to do with the merits of whether they should bother. |
| krisum Nov 05, 2009 2:50 PM EDT |
Quoting: It is the end result of altering a copyrighted work, whether by addition or subtraction. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the processes by which those changes are made.Well, I am in no position to contest that. However, as pointed out your example applies equally well to all GPL'd code so that all GPL'd libraries etc. can be used inside proprietary code to the extent that LGPL will be useless. I doubt this is the case and most likely not the intention of GPL though, of course, legally speaking it may be otherwise. Quoting: As to being legal, repeating an unsupported conclusion does not an argument make.At least for binary blobs inside the kernel tree, the situation is mostly clear cut. edit: FSF's position has been that dynamically linking applications to libraries creates a single work derived from both the library code and the application code and though the GPLv2 does talk about collective works, this has been debated a lot all over and there is no point in doing that here again especially given that I have hardly any training in legal matters. I tend to go by FSF's interpretation of their license. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 2:52 PM EDT |
I'm not sure about headers dino. For userspacekernel interoperability it's probably not copyrightable. But modules and the kernel innards are very, very Linux specific. It would be impossible to recreate then from scratch without looking at or copying from the GPL kernel headers. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 3:25 PM EDT |
Krisum -- Not exactly. LPGL'd code can be distributed. The freedom to use GPL'd code as you wish is great if you have the coders to do what you want, and have no desire to distribute your work. FSF's position is correct, but so what? It is exactly the same thing I said. But note - their position is not that the driver is a derived work. It is the combination of the two that is a derived work, and the two are combined by the user, who, as has been made painfully clear, over and over and over again, is free to do that. That has nothing to do with the legality of creating a driver, only with the freedom to distribute that driver in specific ways. It also means nothing to the copyright holder, who does not rely on GPL rights, or to others who have been granted rights by the copyright holder that go beyond what the GPL provides. |
| krisum Nov 05, 2009 4:08 PM EDT |
Quoting: It is the combination of the two that is a derived work, and the two are combined by the user, who, as has been made painfully clear, over and over and over again, is free to do that.Yes, it is the ability to distribute the drivers with the kernel (as part of linux distributions, for example) that is in question here. I made two points: * the model for development of out of tree kernel drivers you suggested is not much different from linking to a GPL'd library so it will likely have the same restrictions * in kernel tree binary blobs are not legal |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 4:59 PM EDT |
If you change your second point to "may not be", then you're ok. Copyright holders, or those who have been granted appropriate rights by copyright holders, are not bound by restrictions in the GPL because their rights are not granted by the GPL. I am presently at a disadvantage because I don't recall the specific terms under which contributions to the kernel are accepted. I know there is some requirement to disclaim patent rights, but I don't know what else. As to development model, the scenario I provided is not restricted in any way by the GPL. It is the domain of the developer and the rights granted to the developer under copyright law. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 5:00 PM EDT |
Quoting: Yes, it is the ability to distribute the drivers with the kernel (as part of linux distributions, for example) that is in question here. That fully depends on dino's interpretation that the kernel header files are not copyrightable. I'm still not convinced of that. |
| vect Nov 05, 2009 5:07 PM EDT |
TuxChick, Thank You for being objective about considering those things. I recently read some of oswald spengler's writings and they have influenced me to consider that problems in OSS may not originate with OSS. They may be tangible symbols of something else at this stage in our 'western' culture. Hkwint: I'm no longer very convinced. The examples you bring forward are extraordinary examples involving extroadinary people/scenarios whose experience with open source is not the same as ours is. Also, the fact that there are some bad commercial softwares doesn't really refute any of the points made about OSS. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 5:14 PM EDT |
Sander -
I don't know the answer to that, either, and the answer may well be some are and some aren't. A number of things are pretty common across unices and I will bet that no competent judge would find those things to be copyrightable beyond a thin protection against verbatim copying. Some things, maybe not. |
| tracyanne Nov 05, 2009 5:43 PM EDT |
Well If I could replace it with DigiKam on my Ubuntu rig I would, I never really liked it, but for reasons that have nothing to do with Mono. But DigiKam doesn't seem able to mount my iPhone camera, so F-Spot stays. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 05, 2009 5:46 PM EDT |
dino: True. That's why I said above that any headers needed for userspace and kernel interaction probably aren't copyrightable. It just looks way too much like SysV. But we're talking about kernel modules here. That's a completely different API and very Linux dependent. It's the kernel's internal API, the interface to it's subsystems, schedulers, memory allocators, etcetera. It looks nothing like SysV or BSD or anything else out there. It's that internal API that kernel modules use. Perhaps you were thinking of the SCO trials and the SysV headers when you were thinking about uncopyrightable header files? Those headers are part of the external API. The API that userspace programs use. It's a completely different API (and different set of header files) that the internal API that kernel modules use. |
| dinotrac Nov 05, 2009 5:52 PM EDT |
Sander - Well, I'm really thinking of a general case -- which can make fools out of all of us. There have been some court cases -- and some EU rulings (pertaining to monopolies, I think) -- that straightforward collections of structures that define an API for passing data in and out of a piece of software don't rise to the level of creativity required for copyright. That level is a pretty low bar, though, and I can easily imagine headers that could meet it. |
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