Writing an Operating System

How do I do it

>>39
All of them.

>>40
If by "freedom" you mean "more restrictions", then you are correct.

>>42
If by "more restrictions" you mean "less subjugation of users", then you are correct in deeming him correct.

>>43
If by "less subjugation of users" you mean "more subjugation of users", then you are correct in deeming >>42 correct in deeming >>40 correct.

>>44
In by "subjugation" you mean "subjecting the users to rules that ensure that they are unable to restrict fellow users", then I am correct in deeming that WHBTC.

>>45
If by "restrict fellow users" you mean "improve the product to such a degree that other users will choose to use the improved version even though the changes are not released under a similarly free license.", then fuck this.

in b4 Anonix

ptr = realloc(ptr, 200)
MEMORY LEAK DETECTED

>>48
ACCIDENTAL BOMBING DETECTED

The absence of rules does not make everybody free. All it does is make power available to the strongest. The strongest inevitably uses that power to usurp freedom from the weak.

This is what happens with liberally licensed free software; software that was once free is now being used to subjugate users of their right to freedom.

So what is freedom with relation to software? [b]Software freedom the right for one user to help oneself; accepting proprietary software means that the user is helpless. How do users live in freedom when they always require explicit permission in order to help themselves? Note that there is no guarantee for anybody to granted the necessary freedoms in the context of proprietary software; it is normal for all users to be completely helpless in this context.

Freedom with relation to software is the right to be upstanding members of society. A free society should not require explicit permission in order to share and cooperate. The nature of computer software is to exist as a tool. Upstanding citizens share their tools, information and resources with their neighbours. However, there is a problem: accepting proprietary software means that society is forbidden to share; accepting proprietary software means one is divided from the rest of society.

There is no freedom in proprietary software as users are expected to be helpless and divided in order to use them.

The GNU GPLs are free simply because of the reason that those that accept it have the liberty to live free and upstanding lives.

>>50
A writes a program, and distributes it only in source form under the GPL.
B gets the source from A, compiles it, and deletes the source code.
A deletes the source code.
B and C have identical hardware and run the same operating system.
C wants a copy of the program, and doesn't care whether it's in source or binary form, as long as he can run it.
there is no legal way for C to obtain a copy of the program.

The absence of rules does not make everybody free. All it does is make power available to the strongest. The strongest inevitably uses that power to usurp freedom from the weak.
except that Microsoft/IBM/Sun/Torvalds/whoever can't legally break into your house and remove code from your hard drive, no matter how liberally it's licensed. with BSD-licensed code, they can't take away your right to use, modify, and distribute the code either.
however, if you don't have the source code, they can take away your right to distribute GPL-licensed binaries that you compiled from source. they can't do that with BSD-licensed binaries.

>>51
Of course there is. C can receive a copy of the binary via A, who can (at his whim) relicense it to not require an offer of source code to be distributed alongside the binary.

Perhaps you should read the actual text of the GNU GPL version 3, rather than relying on your personal hallucinatory memories of it. For a software license, it's very readable and its legalese is of the kind that can be understood by informed laymen.

>>40
That's the way copyright law works. By default you have no rights to another person's work whatsoever. Both the BSD license and the GNU GPL grant you additional permissions besides the "you can't do jack shit with this" guaranteed by international treaties etc.

The main difference between the two is that the permissions granted by the GNU GPL are conditional, as required by its explicit design goal to guarantee and expand software freedom. From this perspective it's quite odd that we have BSD fanboys screaming and ranting that software licensed under the GNU GPL should instead be licensed under a two-clause BSD license. What are their goals? Are they planning to "improve" that source code and then close it off? Or "improve" it and release the changes, which the GNU GPL explicitly permits itself?

Besides permitting proprietary forks and "not being by the FSF who are dirty hippie communists", there is no point to the BSD license at all. Software that one wants to be permitted to be linked against non-free software can be licensed under the Lesser GPL. For reasonable, cooperative people the GNU GPL and its Lesser sibling cover all bases as far as source code is concerned. Only those who would like to make Free Software non-free would want it released under a BSD-like license.

As for people who release their own programs under a BSD-like license, I have no idea where they come from. I'm tempted to say that they are the idealist fringe, which crops up in any popular movement (and Free Software certainly is that), but the absence of patent-based takeover protection in the license makes this improbable. It's as though they were inviting others to claim patents on their own production and have it closed off for the next 20 years for some butthole's proprietary benefit.

In short, use of the BSD license for newly-written software is insane. There are no upsides to it that weren't tied to business models oriented around non-free software, and it is weak against attacks that were well-known more than twenty years ago.

>>52
that only works if A has a binary for whatever platform C needs one for and is willing to give it to C.

>>53
BSD-licensed code is free for anyone to use, and nothing anyone does can make BSD-licensed code that you have non-free. a corporation can relicense the code, sure, but that doesn't affect your rights. you'd still have all the same rights you had before. they can't steal anything from you. they can't close the source code. it's already open. it's already freely available  to anyone who wants it. it can't be closed up because the rights granted by the license aren't conditional.
i never improve GPL'd code, because i don't want to license my code under a non-free license. if i'm going to give code away for free, i want to make damn sure that anyone can use it for any purpose.

the GPL is a huge step backwards toward the proprietary licenses that the corporations you hate so much use. claiming that adding several kilobytes of restrictions to the license and a misleading, irrelevant manifesto at the beginning makes the software somehow more free is insane. the only advantage of the GPL is that it allows corporations like Red Hat, IBM, and Sun to take advantage of open source development and not worry about their competitors using the same freely available code to create a better product.

>>51
C wants a copy of the program, and doesn't care whether it's in source or binary form, as long as he can run it.
there is no legal way for C to obtain a copy of the program.
Wrong. There is no legal way for B to fulfill the requirements of the GNU GPL and so, B cannot legally distribute the program. C does not care about source because he doesn't care for freedom; not caring for freedom is a short sighted way to live life.

>>51,54
except that Microsoft/IBM/Sun/Torvalds/whoever can't legally break into your house and remove code from your hard drive, no matter how liberally it's licensed. with BSD-licensed code, they can't take away your right to use, modify, and distribute the code either.
This is true, nobody can come to your computer and remove code from your hard drive. What we are concerned about is when people take free software then make it into proprietary software. The free software ALWAYS remains free but people will use the absence of rules to _{subjugate freedom of other people}; this is a fact that will never change. This is why the GPL protects the four essential freedoms; any other freedom is secondary to the four freedoms. You can do anything you want as long as it doesn't conflict with the four freedoms.

C does not care about source because he doesn't care for freedom
Or maybe C doesn't care about your definition of ``freedom'', and has shit he wants to get done in the most efficient way possible. I wouldn't call it a short sighted way of life, I'd call it ``not being a GPL fag''.

Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, the GPL is truly free.

Nobody claims the GPL is truly free except idiots, stop attacking straw men.

Free as in not truly free

>>58
The BSD license isn't truly free either. Why do you deny people the right to relicense your work without asking, or credit themselves with its creation?

>>59
the BSD license does allow relicensing, and it doesn't say they can't credit themselves with it's creation. they're just required to keep the copyright acknowledgement.

You think the Indians care about any of this shit. When a company outsources, they get back open source code wirtten by the someone else that the Indians have repurposed.

Give them a project to do from scratch that they can't take advantage of open source stupidity, and you will see their 3rd world diploma is worth as much as the hand they wipe their ass with. Can never remember if culturally its the right or the left. I never shake their fucking hands.

Open source, India thanks you.

>>61
Back to vdare.com, please

Or maybe C doesn't care about your definition of ``freedom'', and has shit he wants to get done in the most efficient way possible. I wouldn't call it a short sighted way of life, I'd call it ``not being a GPL fag''.
I ask once again, how does one live in freedom when one requires permission to help oneself and be an upstanding citizen?

Let's take the example of Adobe Photoshop. It is a very useful and powerful program. However, it has the problem of being user subjugating software.

With Photoshop, users don't even have the right to freedom 0. In order to remain legal, users must get explicit permission from Adobe using Photoshop's DRM scheme just to get very limited rights to freedom 0. The people that install and use Photoshop without Adobe's blessing is violating the terms of the licence. They have to live underground rather than live as an upstanding member of society.

How do licensed users of Adobe Photoshop live in freedom? The answer is they don't. What people do is trade their right to live as legitimate citizens in order to use a very attractive and powerful tool. These people are short sighted for trading their freedom for convenient subjugation.

>>12
Congratulations to post 12, for being the only relevant poster in this thread.

>>1
An OS is extreme complicated. I wouldn't make an attempt unless you really know your shit.

>>63
Adobe Photoshop is not licensed under BSD or GPL.  Try ranting about something relevant.

>>63
Right to live as legitimate citizens? What the fuck are you talking about? Does everyone have the right to install Adobe Photoshop now?

>>63
Photoshop users are not short-sighted because of your crazy hippie ideals.
They are short-sighted because an objective comparison of Photoshop and The Gimp clearly shows that Photoshop stopped being relevant many versions ago.
Of course, people bitch about the GIMP not being a Photoshop clone, since the momentum gained by the open-source movement in the user interaction design communities helped us, as a culture, to outgrow the need to clone commercial software, freeing us from legacy paradigms that no longer make sense.
Graphic artists need to be more vocal about their embracing the GIMP.

>>67
But the GIMP is shit, so yeah.

>>68
But it's free shit, which makes it less shitty. Oh wait, no it doesn't.

>>67,68,69
People who can't accomplish anything with Photoshop or the Gimp.

>>70
Person who cannot understand that the rights and freedom of Photoshop and the Gimp is not <= using those programs

>>65
The context is: being short sighted by trading freedom for convenient subjugation.

>>66
How does a citizen live a free and upstanding life when the citizen requires permission to help himself?

Installing Photoshop (any recent version) requires users to get Adobe's explicit permission in order to satisfy Photoshop's DRM scheme. Citizens that install "legitimate" copies of Photoshop do not live in freedom; they are living subject to the goodwill of Adobe. Citizens that install "illegitimate" copies of Photoshop do not live as upstanding citizens. They are required to keep their actions hidden or be subject to legal action.

An upstanding citizen should not have to live like this. An upstanding citizen should live straight and upright lives.

>>72
Either you are a complete retard, or WHBT.

>>67
Photoshop is just an example showing how people are short sighted by trading their right to freedom for convenience. People do not live in freedom when accepting proprietary software.

Another example I could have used would be for any recent history computer game. Let's say I own a Sun Ultra 45 workstation. Let's say I run FreeBSD on this system. By all means, this system has enough number crunching abilities to run a copy of The Sims. I cannot run it because of EA's policy of user subjugation. They dictate how the program should be run and I must either accept or reject it. If the program was free, I could invest my money into changing the code to make it work on my system.

With regards to the Sims, I cannot live in freedom as I am helpless to help myself.

>>73
Please explain.

>>72
There's nothing fucking ``short-sighted'' about that.  Photoshop is commercial software.  Users know exactly what they're getting, and can pay the asking price or find an alternative.  Nobody has an obligation to write software for you.

What's more ridiculous is that you're trying to imply that this makes writing free software wrong and stupid, because only the subjugation of the GPL is hip enough for forward-thinking elite sheeple.  There is no sane reason why free software shouldn't be a common base for everyone to build from, regardless of whether those developers are such evil kkkapitalistz that they also want to have money to eat.

There's nothing fucking ``short-sighted'' about that.  Photoshop is commercial software.  Users know exactly what they're getting, and can pay the asking price or find an alternative.  Nobody has an obligation to write software for you.
All these assertions are correct though nothing here though counters my assertion that these people are short sighted. Choosing proprietary software is like choosing to have different masters to rule over yourself; they may provide you with the most convenient living conditions but you still have to live under their rule as long as you stay under their rule.

What's more ridiculous is that you're trying to imply that this makes writing free software wrong and stupid, because only the subjugation of the GPL is hip enough for forward-thinking elite sheeple.  There is no sane reason why free software shouldn't be a common base for everyone to build from, regardless of whether those developers are such evil kkkapitalistz that they also want to have money to eat.
Please rephrase this into plain english. I don't understand your point.

>>74

Well you are a fucking idiot.

While the FreeBSD license isn't very restrictive, it does have restrictions. So does the GNU and MIT license. All this "free" software does not let you do whatever the fuck you want with them.

It just happens it would allow you to do something you want to do.

You think its "free" because its "free" to you. The world doesn't revolve around your faggotry.

The same laws that let EA do what they can with the seems allows open source to make their licenses and restrictions.

Ignorant faggot.

>>78
The freedom I am referring to is right to _freedom (the right to help myself) and _{social solidarity} (the right to help my neighbours) . Nobody here can manage to solve my question in a satisfactory manner: How do I live in freedom when I require permission to help myself? How do I live in freedom when I require permission to share and cooperate (be an upstanding citizen)?

This isn't just a rhetorical question as it has only one solution: I cannot live in freedom when I require permission to help myself and be an upstanding citizen.

People may have the legal right to create and distribute proprietary software but it doesn't mean these actions are socially or ethically acceptable.

>>79
Ignorant commie faggot.