>>120
But don't you know that the software wants to be free?
Name:
Anonymous2009-03-23 19:09
>>120
I'll have you know that I'm posting on an Arduino.
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Anonymous2009-03-23 19:44
Fuck it, let's all use Flash
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Anonymous2009-03-23 23:36
>>123
Let's all use Flash, Facebook and Vista in order to be free, good citizens
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Anonymous2009-03-23 23:48
Fuck it, let's all use Silverlight
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Anonymous2009-03-24 0:01
>>120
I use only 100% natural, free-to-hax hardware and software.
--
Posted from my anus
Name:
Estanislao Martínez (203477)2009-03-24 0:41
on Monday March 23, @01:54PM (#27301223)
The problem with that logic is that Stallman missed a huge point. If, from his example you're using Google Docs, even if the JavaScript is "freed" using his new standard with stylized comments and the @source directive - you are still accessing non-free server software (the Google web servers) that responds to the AJAX requests. Not only that, but your browser is also making a call to the Google Ad server, which also has non-free software. You might also argue that its being served by a modified version of MySQL thats non-free, and perhaps even the firewall and the proxy that its passing through is a custom version written by Google Engineers (likely.)
There are two problems I can perceive with your argument, though:
1. It is still potentially very useful to you to be able to modify the software that runs on your computer, and to share these modifications with other people. This is one of the major points of the GPL.
2. You're describing here a system with three kinds of compoments: (a) client software, (b) server software, (c) server data. It's much harder to argue that (b) should be free software, especially if it's in-house Google software that we're talking about, not distributed outside the company. And (c) is not software at all, so the argument doesn't apply. Should the GPL have clauses that forbid, say, a GPL-licensed web browser from being able to connect to a web server running a non-free http server? What if it's a free http server connected to a non-free database? What if the http server and database are free software, but the people who operate the server don't allow you to download all of their data in bulk and serve it yourself?
You have to draw a line somewhere here, and drawing the line between (a) and (b) seems reasonable.
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Anonymous2009-03-24 0:47
MOD PARENT UP (NT)
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Anonymous2009-03-24 1:43
>>120
Hardware is different to software in the fact that it is not trivial to modify hardware when it is built. The only practical way to extend existing hardware functionality is to make use of hardware interfaces. Software is different as software is just a collection of spells designed to conjure the spirits of the computer. What we demand from hardware vendors are adequate technical documentation - we only need enough documentation that allows us to conjure the computer's spirits.
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Anonymous2009-03-24 2:48
>>127 Google using a modified version of MySQL
...
Ok, enough is enough. You have just angered an expert programmer. First of all, half of you probably can't even recite the GNU lesser license, let alone the GPL. I've been working on the GNU project for over twenty years, I was coding when most of you were sucking on you're mother's teet.
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Anonymous2009-03-24 5:12
>>133
20 years?
.......are you the stallman?
oh, wait, my mistake; stallman hasn't done anything useful since the 80's
>>134
Twenty years ago was the '80s. I don't think it was ever the ``80's'', though.
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Anonymous2009-03-24 6:56
>>129
| Hardware is different to software in the fact that it is not trivial to modify hardware when it is built.
I detect an EXPERT HACKER who considers modifying binaries trivial.
>>138
Actually I do consider modifying binaries trivial, and sometimes i find myself just patching an executable live because I'm too lazy to recompile it.
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Anonymous2009-03-29 7:05
>>144
The point is that it takes an unnecessary amount of effort to make meaningful changes to binaries. Flipping some bits here and there doesn't count. How happy would you be if you tried to modify the Linux x86 binary (the kernel and the drivers) to work on an ARM system?
>>145
You're talking about binary translation or emulation when you say ``modify the Linux x86 binary (the kernel and the drivers) to work on an ARM'', that is not binary modification (such as changing some minor functionality or extending a function or adding some hooks), but complete translation to another instruction set. Binary translation is possible, but it's usually done automatically, and translated binaries tend to run much slower if the instruction sets are too different. In some cases direct binary translation is not even possible due to self-modifying code ( or being unable to tell code from data ), in which case one has to do a form of dynamic recompilation.
>>147
The point is about making changes to the binary. I would like to know where one would find such program (free or non-free) that would let me translate a binary for one architecture to work onto another architecture as this is new to me.
How about trying to modify a copy of the Sims to replace DirectX and make use OpenGL, GLUT, OpenAL and GLibC AND porting the game to run on my Sparc machine? How much time and effort would that cost if you didn't have the source?