Sections: Main page Security Kernel Distributions Development Commerce Linux in the news Announcements Back page All in one big page See also: last week's Back page page. |
Linux links of the weekThe Linux Hardware Database has announced its big relaunch. This site seeks to provide answers to all of the "will Linux support this device?" questions out there. Dr. Dobb's Journal has announced its new Linux Channel. It contains recent Dr. Dobb's articles on Linux and other useful stuff. The folks in the Linuxcare marketing department evidently took a break from the creation of ways to fool people into eating insects and launched ReRover.com on April 1. Somebody over there needs some serious help... Section Editor: Jon Corbet |
April 6, 2000 |
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Letters to the editorLetters to the editor should be sent to letters@lwn.net. Preference will be given to letters which are short, to the point, and well written. If you want your email address "anti-spammed" in some way please be sure to let us know. We do not have a policy against anonymous letters, but we will be reluctant to include them. | |
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 19:13:26 -0400 From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Kernel release versioning... In last week's LWN, Jon wrote: > We mentioned last week the new sequence of "pre" > pre-patches. The first 2.3.99pre-4 prepatch contains *Yuck*. Would anyone like to comment on the idea of going back to "traditional" versioning, maybe? 2.3.34 2.3.35 2.3.36 ... 2.4alpha1 2.4a2 2.4a3 ... 2.4beta1 2.4beta2 ... 2.4.0 One of the things that drives me _CLEAN_ up the wall is version numbers driven by _anything_ except engineering concerns. If I can't understand what the hell it means after 20 years in computing, the structure of the numbers is wrong. Opinionated as hell, yes; that's what they pay me for. But, really; is there anyone out there who can't figure out numbers like the ones I listed above? Do any kernel 'hats read this fine publication? Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida http://baylink.pitas.com +1 888 806 1654 | ||
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 10:44:32 +0300 (GMT) From: Roberto Alsina <ralsina@unl.edu.ar> To: editor@lwn.net Subject: Selling rights. Hello, In your March 30 edition, you say: "whether or not the authors of a piece of software actually create a written instrument, "using paper and pen and a signature", to assign over their rights. Without such an instrument, the authors may be able sell their rights to someone else, who can then revoke the earlier license. In this article, Eben Moglen, FSF general counsel and a law professor at Columbia University, urged authors to create a written instrument, signing over their rights to the Free Software Foundation, if they really want to make sure their software remains under the GPL." If I write a piece of software under the GPL, and I intend to keep it under the GPL, it will stay under the GPL, because I won't take it off the GPL. If I write a piece of software under the GPL and don't intend to keep it under the GPL, I will change its license. In both cases, signing copyright to the FSF makes no sense. Why should I trust the GPL more than I trust myself? That's nonsense. ("\''/").__..-''"`-. . Roberto Alsina `9_ 9 ) `-. ( ).`-._.`) ralsina@unl.edu.ar (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._`. " -.-' Centro de Telematica _..`-'_..-_/ /-'_.' Universidad Nacional del Litoral (l)-'' ((i).' ((!.' Santa Fe - Argentina KDE Developer (MFCH) The stone age didn't end for a lack of stone" Firoz Rasul | ||
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 16:56:11 +1000 From: James Cameron <quozl@us.netrek.org> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Free Software Summer Camp - Australia G'day from outback Australia, In response to LWN's comment; "Here is a good project for next summer: a Free Software Summer Camp!" The free software summer camp may well be happening here. Although it is sponsored by an international religious Christian organisation, Scripture Union, the camp to be held in Brisbane during September this year will undoubtably promote free software. The main reason is the necessity to be squeaky clean with respect to compliance with software licenses, and the high cost of obtaining temporary licenses for the duration of a camp. The moral and ethical basis of the owning organisation of the camp will mandate this. Some of the camp leaders are open source users; one of them is an OSS project leader (me!). We do plan to do a fair bit of technology teaching. -- James Cameron mailto:quozl@us.netrek.org http://quozl.us.netrek.org/ | ||
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 18:55:25 +0800 (CST) From: "Hung(2) Chao(2)-Kuei(4)" <ckhung@cyut.edu.tw> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Re: Use of term "viral" in reference to the GPL > From: Stuart Ballard <sballard@netreach.net> > To: letters@lwn.net ... (nested quote deleted for brevity) ... > > I have heard this argument many times and agree with it. However, I have > not heard any suggestions of alternative terms for this property of the > GPL. People are bound to continue using the term "viral" if there is no > alternative, even if they disagree with the message it sends. Dear all, May I suggest the alternative term: "recursive". I have been using this term (actually its Chinese translation) in my talks. It is politically neutral, technically correct, and it highlights the mathematical-thinking style of this legal document. Chao-Kuei Hung http://www.cyut.edu.tw | ||
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 18:08:20 -0800 (PST) From: Aaron Turner <aturner@linuxkb.org> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Re: Use of the term "viral" in refernce to the GPL and FDL > From: Collins_Paul@emc.com > To: letters@lwn.net > Subject: Use of the term "viral" in refernce to the GPL and FDL > Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 07:26:33 -0500 > The use of the term "viral" with reference to the GPL (and now the FDL) > is unfair and prejudicial. > The GPL is not a virus. The GPL is written the way it is because > otherwise, others would be able to take away freedoms that you > explicitly grant when you choose to use the GPL. Actually, the term "viral" in context is neither unfair or prejudicial, it merely describes an aspect of the GPL/FDL. Viral, when it comes to licenses refers to how the license is enforced. The GPL is viral, the BSD license is not. The reason is that the GPL is viral is because it forces the GPL to be used for all subsequent versions of the software, which prevents someone using GPL code, making changes to it, and not having to redistribute those changes. Hence, many people would argue that it being viral is a good thing. > If you don't like the GPL or the FDL, don't use it. > The choice is yours. Yep. -- Aaron Turner, Core Developer http://vodka.linuxkb.org/~aturner/ Linux Knowledge Base Organization http://www.linuxkb.org/ Because world domination requires quality open documentation. aka: aturner@vicinity.com, aturner@pobox.com, ion_beam_head@ashtech.net The difference between `Unstable' and `Usable' is only two characters: NT | ||
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