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IRC Mayhem.

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dryden
Posts: 80
Joined: 2015-02-04 08:54

IRC Mayhem.

#1 Post by dryden »

I realize how important the community is for really using a Linux operating system.

I have two Debian servers, one of them a VPS. I also usually run a Kubuntu system.

I got recently banned on #debian by some asshole mod who spends his time as a user giving advice and then when you don't agree with it, he antagonizes you and if you don't back down, you are banned.

9 years ago, this wasn't the case. The culture has changed.

I have been using Debian since 2000. It was installed on a home server of a house I moved into.

I consider Debian to be the most technically knowledgeable environment of the distributions I like.
If you want real knowhow, you go to Debian and not to Ubuntu or any of its derivs.

Sure at OpenSUSE they also know a lot. And the Arch wiki is renowned. These days asking any question of sufficient depth in any channel such as #debian may often result in you not getting helped, having to put up with senseless advice, commands that you have already executed, a sort of codified troubleshooting path that does not ask any questions, but just gives orders. Do this. Do that. Do that.

I still consider the environment in #debian to be better than for example #ubuntu. They have some terrible mods there.

They have this Ikonia person that just barks orders and if you say "hey, this doesn't really help. I am just asking a question and would like an answer to the very question I have asked" she goes "I don't like your attitude. I won't help you."

It is accepted that you have these people in #ubuntu etc. because Ubuntu as a whole is not a community-driven issue, and as such the ones that try to form that community all suck up to the big boss. They become the lackeys of the "Community Guidelines" that they didn't write, but Canonical did.

However that is not to say that Debian cannot be cynical as well. I am sure there are plenty of those on this forum. People who disagree with anything you like to do because it falls outside the scope of what the system currently does.

Open source is about changing stuff, but if you actually try, you get banned.

Yesterday someone inquired whether it would be possible to remove the package upgrade system and freeze the current package state on any Debian clone you could or would want to create. In other words, a procedure starting with a base, configured, fully configured Debian system, and then a way to make an image out of that to provide a fixed system.

The responses he got were of the kind of "That wouldn't be Debian. Only Debian is supported here." The guy replied by saying "That doesn't seem to agree with the principles of open source." The other person then backed down and provided some sort of an answer. These people try to claim the channel, whether they are moderators or not (I have no clue how many there are, they do not show themselves) and prevent anyone from giving answers to questions they deem inappropriate for the channel, or, more likely, not in the best interests of Debian.

If you go to a bakery and you ask for advice about other bakeries, you won't get it.

If you got to a linux distribution and you ask for advice about other distributions, you won't get it.

Then they frame it in terms of you not wanting to work with the volunteers, or you intending to waste their time, or something of the kind. When they are most often wasting yours, entirely, It is then treated as some sort of occupation for the "volunteers". You have to work with the volunteers as they give crap answers because they are trainees. And if you then say "I'm sorry, but this doesn't really help. You can assume I know a little bit about the system and you don't have to direct me towards paths that are not going to be very promising" and "I would prefer if you actually listened to what I said and responded to that" you are considered offensive and "having an attitude".

I think if you grep those chat logs for "drop the attitude" you will get thousands of hits.

The reason I am now getting banned is because I have some urgency in my life and I am no longer putting up with senseless misdirections.

The typical kind of time wasting you have to go through to "please the volunteers". After all, they are not there for you, you are there for them to have an occupation.

I also help people when I'm in a channel. I do not consider myself a volunteer and I would find such jargon directed at me to be offensive.
You may say "If you tone down, you will ensure that you will be able to get help when you really need it." Sure. But maybe it is also time to make a stand for this.

I think the entire internet ecosystem has degenerated in recent years and Linux has not escaped from that, in fact, may even have been a driver. Let me just curse in the church then a little bit. Back when OpenSUSE 10.3 or something was current (around 2007-2009) I had a wiki page on their site. They have "commercialized" the wiki to such an extent that user contributions are no longer really possible and I never use the thing when I need answers. I think most people don't. Most people prefer to ask the mailing list, if they are regulars anyway.

To resolve my cursing here: I hate the SuSE package environment. You won't believe how slow it is when you are used to apt (suck suck).

Writing on any Ubuntu wiki is also not really possible, due to spam they thought the best thing they could do was to reserve wiki editing to a special wiki group that you have to become a member of before you can edit anything, completely defeating the very nature of a public wiki.

Debian is that thing I use when I want the feel of a non-GUI system. Even the shell server of my commercial email provider uses Debian and always has. This is how you are greeted when you log in:

Image

Enough Debian fanboyism here? :P. I don't use the Debian wiki either I must say. I also do not really remember ending up there through Google ever, but maybe I have.

However when this "community project cq. product" becomes rather inaccessible to you because you are banned in some channel run by some select group of assholes, you suddenly do realize that your efficacy in using the system sees some of its foundation swept away from under your feet.

Basically Linux becomes a thing you can only use if you suck up to the people who are in positions of authority. Now you don't need to pay money. No, you need to pay with submission and humility, with praise and loyalty.

You need to be part of the I-suck-up-to-you club.

In the end, it is them who determine how you use the system.

You are not free to use it whatever way you want, because if you do, you lose their support and their love, and then this pretty hard to use system, that is wholly dependent on internet resources and community help, is suddenly no longer as usable although you can still do a lot, but you miss access to quick answers, to begin with.

You also miss access to friendly people (never the moderators) who are willing to chat with you a bit.

Moderators who have no gripes with silencing you and then to keep talking to you while you cannot respond.

So Open Source is not free. To begin with the license (GPL) is utterly restrictive and not anything to do with freedom at all.

It is of the same nature as any copyright law ever devised. There are many systems in the kernel (and it is growing, apparently) that you cannot use unless your kernel module is GPL.

That means that if you disagree with GPL, but still believe in open source, but in your own way, your own special way, you are now seen as a betrayer of humanhood and a sulking destroyer of all that is good and holy. And no you cannot use our code. OURS.

So this "free to copy and use" is not free to copy and use at all. It requires membership of the club. There is this battle between various "versions" of Open Source the way the various factions of Islam combat each other.

They want to control your software. They want you to not have any control over it, to be allowed to make any choices of your own. To deviate. Open Source (GPL) is all about non-deviation, non-freedom, non-customization, non-difference.

"The kernel is now tainted." My ass. You don't need to be closed source for that. Yes I have done some modest kernel development recently, very very modest still but enough I guess for now.

If you ask for support in ##kernel they first want to know what you are going to do with the knowledge. "I just want to ensure you are doing something sane". Knowledge is not free. You have to pay for it by becoming a member. By converting to the faith.

Compliance is the keyword, not freedom. A certain amount of independence, perhaps. But not freedom.

No wonder then that if you enter any channel such as #debian or #ubuntu, perhaps more so in #ubuntu but still, that deviation is not appreciated. Deviation would take away from the brand of Debian. It is not in the interests of Debian as a project and product in itself.

No wonder then that they always try to get you to use the solutions they like. Some will say, if you try to do something different "Don't make problems". Agreement and compliance is problem-free. Wanting to do your own thing they see as you making a problem when it shouldn't have to exist. If you were obedient and nice and compliant, you would use the ready made solutions that others have readied for you, and then you would need to do no thinking of your own. And there'd be no "problems". Really they are not problems, they are challenges you seek to complete. But to those moderators you are making a fuss. You are an unwanted element. You deviate.

Deviation is seen as immoral, as well.

Let's call it Debiation ;-). The willful attempt to turn Debian into something it hasn't been before.

If you go to #bash and attempt to talk yourself into using "cat <file> | grep" instead of "grep < <file>" you get into a fight there. You are not supposed to use cat, because it is an extra process, and it wastes resources. You are a bad person if you use cat. You are deeply immoral if you use cat. You are also a bigot if you use cat. Everyone can see that direct grep with a redirect is superior. You must be a real big idiot if you think you still want to use cat, now that the experts have explained the Truth and the Reality to you.

Shoo you who deviates from the Path.

No, there is not much freedom in Linux. Any attempts to introduce something better or more advanced, usually gets shot down. Any attempt to create something new is met with paranoia. Suspicion. Follow the Path. The Path is your new God. It is called GPL and it is your new master.

Anyway.




Being dependent on Debian kinda sucks if the only support venues are controlled by people who dislike you doing what you want with it. I will admit to that. No secret here.

So maybe I am a fool. Maybe I am a wise man. It would be nice if people could recognise what I am saying here. I was in the process of reinstalling a Debian server and now it feels like there's no point to it.

dryden
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#2 Post by dryden »

You know why I was banned?

Because I like using "service networking restart" to restart networking and some mod thought I shouldn't be using it because it is not a daemon.

The only reason he really banned me was because I offended his ego.

As a matter of fact and as a matter of principle, service networking restart didn't work while my issue was there, and when it was solved, the thing also worked again. So it agreed completely with the state of the system and works as intended.

But no, you are not supposed to use it because it is not a daemon.

And I'm so smart that I'm going to be pedantic and pretentious in saying that if it is not a daemon, you also cannot stop it. So instead you should be throwing coffee over your keyboard to stop networking, that would work better.
Last edited by dryden on 2016-05-07 19:31, edited 1 time in total.

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GarryRicketson
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#3 Post by GarryRicketson »

Post by dryden » 2016-05-07 13:22
You know why I was banned?
It probably was more for the "rants" like these.
So you figure you will come here and start posting rants ?
Smells like a troll to me.

dryden
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#4 Post by dryden »

GarryRicketson wrote:Smells like a troll to me.
Well I saw you talk to the other guy, I have no reason to talk to you, I think. And also there is no way you can rant more than 6 lines on IRC to begin with, before one of these mods bans you.

It's not about what you do. It's about what you don't do, which is to suck up.

And your reaction here is an example of deep hostility.

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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#5 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

Fascinating post, thanks :)

If I may:
dryden wrote:If you got to a linux distribution and you ask for advice about other distributions, you won't get it.
Over at https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/ we support all operating systems ;)

See https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewforum.php?id=19

@Gary -- I would characterise this as an opinion piece rather than trolling, any discussion may prove interesting.
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#6 Post by No_windows »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote: Over at https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/ we support all operating systems ;)
Even Windows 10 and DOS 3.3? 8)

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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#7 Post by GarryRicketson »

Post by Head_on_a_Stick » @Gary -- I would characterize this as an opinion piece rather than trolling, any discussion may prove interesting.
Well , every body does have a opinion, including me, any way, have fun.
Fascinating post, thanks :)

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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#8 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

No_windows wrote:
Head_on_a_Stick wrote: Over at https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/ we support all operating systems ;)
Even Windows 10 and DOS 3.3? 8)
Yes, I still remember quite a bit of DOS :D

Also: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=1370 :cool:
deadbang

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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#9 Post by BowCatShot »

Dryden, you're obviously a pretty smart fellow. And you write extremely well. I do think that you're far too bitter and should channel your energy somewhat more productively. Try to cultivate a positive outlook.

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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#10 Post by edbarx »

BowCatShot wrote:Dryden, you're obviously a pretty smart fellow. And you write extremely well. I do think that you're far too bitter and should channel your energy somewhat more productively. Try to cultivate a positive outlook.
I second what BowCatShot has said.
Debian == { > 30, 000 packages }; Debian != systemd
The worst infection of all, is a false sense of security!
It is hard to get away from CLI tools.

tomazzi
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#11 Post by tomazzi »

dryden wrote:So Open Source is not free. To begin with the license (GPL) is utterly restrictive and not anything to do with freedom at all.

It is of the same nature as any copyright law ever devised. There are many systems in the kernel (and it is growing, apparently) that you cannot use unless your kernel module is GPL.

That means that if you disagree with GPL, but still believe in open source, but in your own way, your own special way, you are now seen as a betrayer of humanhood and a sulking destroyer of all that is good and holy. And no you cannot use our code. OURS.

So this "free to copy and use" is not free to copy and use at all. It requires membership of the club. There is this battle between various "versions" of Open Source the way the various factions of Islam combat each other.

They want to control your software. They want you to not have any control over it, to be allowed to make any choices of your own. To deviate. Open Source (GPL) is all about non-deviation, non-freedom, non-customization, non-difference.
Yeah, so You're using Debian+GNU/Linux for 16 years now, but You have completely no idea what is the difference between OpenSorce and FreeSoftware and what is GPL for.

Maybe it's time to actually *read* the license before You write more bullshits like the above.

Short explanation of what the GPL means:

You can do whatever You want with the FreeSoftware programs, with 2 exceptions:
1. You can't distribute modified versions in form of closed-source proprietary crap, claiming that You are the author.
2. If You are distributing a modified version of FreeSoftware program, then You have to show the source.

You can create closed source programs based on FreeSoftware libraries, if they are licensed under modified version of GPL, called LibraryGPL or LesserGPL - LGPL.

You can create closed-source modules for FreeSoftware programs, because GPL doesn't restrict linking in such case.

Nice trolling.
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#12 Post by sunrat »

I'd like to see the IRC log from when you were banned and what led up to it. Must have been serious for you to post a 2200 word essay about it.
There are always two sides to a story like this.
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Those who have lost data
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dryden
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#13 Post by dryden »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:Fascinating post, thanks :)

If I may:
dryden wrote:If you got to a linux distribution and you ask for advice about other distributions, you won't get it.
Over at https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/ we support all operating systems ;)
Thanks for the positive response. I will do note, that if your distribution is mostly about a more fine-tuned customization, or "finish", then obviously you won't be so embedded in any one operating system ;-). Attention to detail, in general, is a form of love. Also your forum looks rather nice.
BowCatShot wrote:Dryden, you're obviously a pretty smart fellow. And you write extremely well. I do think that you're far too bitter and should channel your energy somewhat more productively. Try to cultivate a positive outlook.
I hate my writing to be honest. I quite never enjoy it. But that is the result of having been imprisoned for over a year.

I ended up in a world that was no longer my own. Let me just say that expressing negativity is a prereq to getting to that positive outlook. What people often do is to skip that first step, and end up liars.

What I mean is being a liar about not having any negative feelings. And you end up like a Buddhist, who professes to be peaceful, but still judges everything greatly.

Still, thank you for your consideration and attention. Not many people even say I write well, or even "admit" to any form of intelligence from my part ;-).
tomazzi wrote:Yeah, so You're using Debian+GNU/Linux for 16 years now, but You have completely no idea what is the difference between OpenSorce and FreeSoftware and what is GPL for.
Typically in our world Open Source and Free Software go hand in hand, so your point is moot. They often call it FOSS, Free and Open Source Software, and this is what I was talking about. Moreover, Free Software implies Open Source, so the distinction is only in the additional license. You may see "Free Software = Open Source + GPL". You do not even explain that to me here, which proves to me you are not intending to educate, but only criticise, and which also reveals that you don't really believe I don't understand it, or you would have explained.
You can do whatever You want with the FreeSoftware programs, with 2 exceptions:
1. You can't distribute modified versions in form of closed-source proprietary crap, claiming that You are the author.
2. If You are distributing a modified version of FreeSoftware program, then You have to show the source.
It's much more than that. Many software projects refuse code that is not GPL, because it would change (taint) the license they are under themselves. GPL is like the worst thing to cooperate with, it is the equivalent of type AB blood. When you are a type O donor, everyone can use your blood. A type AB donor can only be used by AB people.

Linux is a type AB person. It will accept nothing but AB blood.

LibreOffice was apparently forked primarily because a growing segment of developers refused to contribute under the (non-GPL) license, and instead forked a version that would not have that issue, no matter how much that works in legal terms. The original license apparently did not prevent a more restrictive license like GPL on its copied code. By contrast, the new more restrictive GPL code could not be given back to OpenOffice, since it would lessen its restrictions. Any license is going to be about restrictions. GPL is the most restrictive one there is. You cannot go from more restrictive to less restrictive. You can only go from less restrictive to more restrictive. That means there is a flow of code from lesser restrictive licenses, that do permit relicensing, to more restrictive licenses such as GPL. It is like a sinkhole, but nothing ever comes out again. Everything needs to become GPL, that ever touches it.

The end result is that LibreOffice kept stealing from OpenOffice, but OpenOffice could not take anything back from LibreOffice. You can also call GPL a thieving institution and a doctrine of thieves.

And this proved to be the end for OpenOffice, for the largest part. With LibreOffice stealing from OpenOffice, but not the other way around, and nothing you could do against it (since it was all open source) there was no way to compete with this new product anymore. For instance, the sidebar was a thing that was ported from OO.org to LO. OO.org could do nothing in reverse.

So the point is not what the license actually says. The point is what the license actually does. It is not about the terms on the software. It is about what license the software is going to get.

It is like a string of zeroes. Even a single 1, will taint that string of zeroes. If you have a flat landscape, a single tree will disrupt or destroy it. In the Netherlands there are areas where farmers are forbidden from planting trees, because it would ruin that nice flat landscape we have there.

00000000000000000000000000 = GPL
00000000010000000000000000 = no longer GPL.

In order to call something GPL, ALL PARTS OF IT must be GPL (or more restrictive).

But normally, I guess, many licenses allow relicensing it as GPL.

If you were to provide code that was not GPL, or could not be relicensed GPL, it would not be accepted.

Like I said, perhaps from what others have written, there are now a growing number of subsystems in the kernel that will refuse "operating" with tainted modules. You can only use these subsystems if your module is GPL.

That means, at a certain point, that if you don't want any GPL for your own code, you now cannot even load a module in the kernel anymore.

And I am not even talking about closed source. I am talking about open source with a modified license.

Closed source and proprietary is not the same. I reserve the right to actually distribute my product, for instance, and if you want to fork me, you have to cooperate with me, because I don't want my product to be "diluted". It is the kind of license that TrueCrypt had. I haven't written it yet, beyond basics, it is not relevant for me yet.

In other words, I don't want the kind of thieving that goes in in GPL.

I don't want other people to take my work, fork it, and then destroy it by taking away the opportunity for me myself, to keep distributing it, because now suddenly a forked version is being distributed "for free" in the Linux world that not only does what mine would have done, but also won't have the same quality as mine would have had. Basically, slightly like OpenOffice in that sense.

For the same reason I don't want other people to publish half-written books I have written. No one is going to be interested in my book anymore, if some faggot goes and publishes parts of it before I do. In Open Source they say "release early, and release often" but I consider that a fallacy. This guarantees that every release is going to be half-done, because the promise is always that the *next* version will solve the issues that weren't solved now. Microsoft has taken this stance with Windows 10, which is the least decent, from a "solidity" perspective, version of Windows there has ever been. They have upped the development and release pace, but mostly to develop new features constantly. The result is a system in which basic components often break, much like they do on Linux.

The polish is gone from that system. Sure W10 looks really good if you discount the ugliness of the tile interface in the first place. But they are rapidly trying to release it, and it is just half-done (much like W8 was).


That being said, I won't even be able to develop "addon" systems to Linux in the future, the way it goes, because my code might not even be allowed to link against existing Linux code, even though both are open source.

Yes I know about LGPL. The kernel is not licensed LGPL from what I believe, and I don't know about everything else. This is a real concern to me, although I do not worry about it at this point.
sunrat wrote:I'd like to see the IRC log from when you were banned and what led up to it. Must have been serious for you to post a 2200 word essay about it.
There are always two sides to a story like this.
I don't know how to get to the logs. The one provider I found online does not have logs for May 7th, which I assume was the day. The moderator in question was "TheMill". I think that was his name, you could ask him.

What happened is that I asked for support in a networking anomaly, from my perspective. In the end, it turned out I had been quite arrogant, because I had not actually paid enough detail to the files in question. A Debian upgrade had changed /etc/network/interfaces and removed "eth0" from the "auto" line, probably as a result of the new SystemD system for network naming. Probably, the system is now configured by default to use NetworkManager for this, since a basic default configuration using static names, is no longer possible. This means that the update had broken my system.

In the beginning people asked me "What is in your interfaces?" And I just gave them the eth0 line, but not the auto line. After all, I did nothing to change that file, but I didn't know what was going on. I had disabled the systemd scheme on that system (Debian 8). Then they asked me about "systemclt status networking". I said there was nothing going on there, networking just didn't come up by default. How stupid of me, but that aside.

When I said that "service networking restart" would kill my connection, first someone told me not to use that, but the systemctl line instead. I said there is no difference, they do the same thing. Then themill told me not to use either, because "networking is not a daemon, so how can you shut it down?" Purely pedantic and obnoxious. In the end I became aggressive as to these "complaints" that I was not doing the "right and proper thing" even though it had nothing to do with actual troubleshooting.

I started saying things such as "don't bullshit me" and "you are wasting my time with these remarks". I think that was rightly so, but then I was accused of not wanting to work with "volunteers". I had provided feedback on the fact that "ifdown --force eth0; ifup --force eth0" did actually work. But that the system didn't come on by default on reboot.

These two facts should have pointed someone with awareness to the fact that my interfaces file must be corrupted, but no one even asked me whether I was using networkmanager or not. So they kept giving orders "do this, do that" but not asking any questions. Then, after I said those two things (don't bullshit me, you are wasting my time) (I think) the mill told me "You can drop the attitude". This aggrieved and aggravated me even more. Drop the attitude is a favourite line uttered by some of the worst admins everywhere. I can show you channel logs from Ubuntu where a mod called "Ikonia" is the most disruptive, disrespectful, and aggressive "polite" person you can probably imagine. You merely have to search the Ubuntu logs for "ikonia" and "like your attitude" and you will find evidence of people inquiring into information, only to be bossed around by that person (woman) into doing what she wants, but what the person didn't want, at which point the person starts saying (quite respectfully) "do you realize you are not helping here?" at which point Ikonia responds "I don't like your attitude" and "I won't help you anymore". So "drop the attitude" means "I was just an ass to you, but I control this channel, so I am going to get away with it, but you won't, little mister". So I responded something like "why don't you drop the attitude instead?". Then I kept quiet for a while, and someone said "well, we're just trying to help". A little calmer now, I said "Well, then don't make me do these things you know I must already have done, please". At that point TheMill silenced me.

Of course I could not and did not know that that themill was going to be one of those moderators. It is like insulting a police officer and after being insulted, the officer reveals himself to be an officer, and at that point gives you a fine for it. Which would be illegal, in actual fact. But this "illegal" fact is being perpetrated by these mods constantly.

They play the role of actual user, then make statements they can only make because the wield they ban stick (such as "don't do this, don't use that"), often times they politely "ask" you to stop doing a certain thing, and then if you don't comply with that non-obligatory request, they assume mod status, silence you, and then they say "you were asked not to do this and that". Which is like the essence of tyranny: the requirement to obey random people because any random person might end up being a wielder of power. And then they excuse themselves for this behaviour by saying that "I should behave" no matter if a mod is around or not, completely ignoring the question of why any random person should have the authority to govern other people's behaviour. Like that. They are like police officers wielding no uniform but still doing all that stuff that police officers do. Which is illegal in real life. And if you tell a mod that it is illegal in real life, they even say "that's not true".

Gosh, why do you think police officers are required to wear uniforms? Because if they didn't, and people had to obey them regardless, random people could scam other people into doing stuff that would in the end turn out to be a crime. That in the end would amount to getting scammed, or killed, or stolen from, or raped. Which is why in real life, a police officer can only do most things a police officer can do, when he or she is wearing that damned uniform.

Such clear and obvious remarks, and such clear and obvious and age-old understandings, are beyond the intelligence and education of these mods. They are like kindergarten kids professing to know everything.

If you have to obey random people's demands, there is no safety. In law, a question or suggestion such as "you may like to tone down" is also not a legal request. You are allowed to turn down such requests at your own behest. Only when a person in a position of authority makes a formal request, are you required to obey. This is the essence of formalized authority.

But these people just randomly terrorize in order to feel good about themselves. They always hide being a mod, and then act like asses. And if you then object to their ass-ness, you are the one at fault, because they are beyond all blame, obviously. This skews any conflict that may arise, and always frames you as the aggressor. Because after all they can use polite language and still win: they merely have to press a button and you're gone.

That's how people in authority abuse their power: by seeming to be polite and decent, but then if things escalate, they call in the strong arm, who are not decent and polite, but use strong force. As the oppressed, you cannot resort to such measures, you have to self express and release your anger and upset. Because if you keep a polite voice, the oppressor always wins. It's like being the one with the key.

A key may seem a non-violent measure. But you can use that key to keep people locked up.

To obtain that key from you, the prisoner needs to use violence. However, to lock him up, you don't need to do anything. This is why authority seems so "decent' and "well behaved". But you can easily kill a person with this well-behavedness.

This is why an emperor can seem well-behaved, even though, with a wave of his hand, entire cities can get decimated. He's not doing the violence. Other people do it for him.

The people with keys often do not resort to violence themselves. They first get their lackeys to lock you up. After that, they control you, and you have to use violence to get out, which will then be held against you.

In this case that ban stick is that "civilised measure". It does not seem like violence, but it could kill a person. It is like an ordinance that says "You are no longer allowed in any public shops". It is just a piece of paper. Nonviolent right? But if you breach it, you get thrown out. And then you will be accused of breaching the verdict. This piece of paper can kill you. That electronic measure can also kill you, in that sense. A single bit can destroy my internet connection, in a certain sense. Just a flag. Enabled not enabled.

What police often do, in these circumstances, is when they arrest you (which does not *seem* violent because they are always with more) that if YOU use violence, they tell you, then "they will have no choice but to respond in kind". However, they are using violence to begin with. They are the instigators. And they are making it seem like you are.

The reason it doesn't seem like violence is because it is not explosive. It is all quiet and calm, they first intimidate you, then take you with them. In the end you are locked up, and might die of starvation. Of whatever kind.

So this is the fallacy, the lie and the illusion, from my perspective: that you are the one who wrongs people, just because you do so in a visible or overt way, whereas their covert ways of doing things, is not a way of wronging people. They hide their schemes and profess to be civilized by doing all the meanness and all the vileness. There is another word for it, I forget. This slick way of hurting people, is what I object to. This insincerity, this dishonesty. They hide their evil and then get away with it, but not forever.

Some of these moderators (women) will say "Please be quiet". Pardon me? I am not a child.

Don't tell me how to behave, by all means, please.

We may call this "not malevolent, but still malicious". We may call this "insidious". And this bowing down on top of the human, is what I object to. Yes, I have some gripes with it, you might say.

I object to condescension and patronization. I object to being ordered around for no reason. I object to being told to shut up, just because some people don't like it. I object to being dehumanized. To be turned into a child that still needs to learn things. To be considered inferior. Morally inferior, too, often. To be told "From your behaviour here, it is clear to me you are not fit to be in a public place". Yes, that is what this person told me.

Deeply condescending. Deeply insulting. People are killed for such things.

In different cultures, or subcultures, people are killed for such insolence.

Actually what he told me was that I was not capable of behaving in public, or something of that kind. Came down to the same thing. I don't know the literal words anymore.

Not just "#debian" public but "everywhere" public. Yes, he considered himself that wise and authoritative person, that all-knowing person, that experienced person, that could make such character attributions, or characterizations, based on my vocal objections to his treatment of me in that public channel. That he was in the position to pass such judgement over me. To disqualify me from human life. Because I had mishaved in his public channel, according to him.

And you can have your own opinion for all I care. That does not take away from what he did, or what they often do. That does not take away from the fact that any other kind of "approach" would have quickly resolved the issue in good standing. And the fact that to begin with, this person was the itch that started everything, the aggressor in the first place.

That he was the first to transgress, in actual fact. By these ludicrous statements, to begin with, that I should not be allowed to use "service" or "systemctl" on "networking" because "networking" was not a "daemon". To bug me with that, and derail the discussion in that sense. Like these moderators so often do. Because they are so smart and wise and they know everything, including how other people should live their life and what tools to use and not use.

And yes, I have issues with that.

I have issues with people telling me what not to do when it is none of their business.

I have issues with that. Thank you for listening in any case, and apologies if anything sounds odd, I don't always write that well, to be honest. I often write awkwardly, and not at all like I used to. Regards, and bye, and see you here, around.

dryden
Posts: 80
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#14 Post by dryden »

By the way, there is another issue with GPL.

Most GPL'ed code and programs are not very well documented. For instance, there is hardly any "generated" documentation of the Linux kernel. You have to document in that sense by reading code.

Documentation is not GPL, but code is.

So in order to use GPL code, you often have to use examples. The examples are coming from code, so they are GPL.

That means that any line you copy, whether it be verbatim or not, is now going to fall under GPL. That means that parts, maybe important parts, of your code are now GPL. People might be able to trace that, even.

What now you do? Now parts, instrumental parts, of your code, maybe not more than 1%, but still that 1% is going to be legally GPL, the way it is going or being done.

That is because GPL is really "non-free", you cannot freely use that code, you must 'copy' the license it fell under. That means the GPL dragon still controls your code. It just got another head.

This means GPL actually taints your own code. It is not the reverse. GPL code does not get tainted by your code, only the total product does. Individual parts of your code are now getting tained by GPL. So what license is your own product going to fall under?

Seeing that the two provisions are (as explained by the above person):

1. Cannot use code and claim to be the author
2. Must allow code to be open source if it uses GPL code.

It seems to be not so bad. My code is open source to begin with, usually at least, I profess and think and believe. I merely have to give the source to those lines I copied, right?

I have seen before that GPL conformance does not require the program actually being able to be built by someone else. Compilation is not part of GPL, nor is functioning. The only thing that is requested, is textual information (source code). So sucks to be you, in that sense. But the license explicitly states that a "covered work" is a work that includes any part and thus becomes covered work with the mere inclusion of a single line of code. And here is the filth of it:
c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.
That means that, once the lines of code you copy are covered by a copyright law (and not fair use exclusions) my entire work will become GPL instantly.

This is what we call "tainting". The tainting we see in the kernel is not tainting, because it does not change possession or ownership of the rest of the code. You may call it colouring, but not tainting. So the GPL is the reverse of what it says it is. It taints everything that touches it.

So that means you have to now explicitly ask permission of the authors of that lines of code you have copied, and if you are not getting it, you are screwed (in that sense).

The ludicracy of this is that GPL expands like an oil spill. Yes, I have good and nice metaphors for it. Any covered work becomes a program licensed under these terms (GPL). Then, even if it is just a small part of your entire Program, your entire program now becomes a covered work if it uses its own module, since your own module has become a GPL Program in itself. That means, that, principially, a single line of GPL code could transform a billion line code product into GPL.

With no way to isolate any part from it.

It is probably going to get better. Read on.

The "additional permissions" section is actually only about further restrictions. This is Newspeak here. This is just Orwellian Newspeak here. This section is about additional restrictions, but it is so hard to comprehend.

If you violate the terms often enough, you run the risk of permanently losing the "right of use". This is unlawful to begin with. If you complied with the terms to begin with, and there were no other terms or requirements to be granted copyright use, then after cessation of violation, or likewise, after a recreation of the conditions under which licensing is granted, there can be no legal basis to hold and uphold that you do not now no longer qualify, as if copyright law contains a "history" of past transgressions. Copyright law is not state-based, it is stateless, and only the present moment matters. If you needed no permission beforehand, you cannot suddenly need permission afterwards. After all, if you were to "start anew", who would be anyone to claim you have a history? And if you don't have a history, how can you be held liable for a past that doesn't exist?

All in all, you lose all freedoms (liberties) to license your modified work the way you want to. For example, you could not prevent ANY part of your modified work from being modified, or redistributed, as long as they keep agreeing with GPL. This makes no sense at all, because the license terms of the original code were not harmed, and the original terms to that still apply. That means you could never actually impede the distribution and modification of the original work. So what GPL really comes down to, is this stingy and scroogy "Okay, I will allow you to use my code, but only if you become my slave, and all of YOUR code also starts belonging to me". So, for instance,

If there was a different type of license also being this greedy, and you also incorporated code from that license, does that mean your code is now dual licensed?

And what if that other license was in opposition of GPL, then what?

The GPL doesn't even contain a provision for that, because that would seem REALLY GREEDY.

I want to ask these guys about that. What happens if another license is incorporated, is equally greedy, also determines that my work is now a modified work of that source code, but this license now prevents me from redistributing the source of my program at all?

Well, they might say, then your work is a "proprietary" work and you may not use GPL at all, so you have to choose. So what if it didn't become closed source, but disallowed redistribution of that single line of code you incorporated? Same thing. GPL wants ownership over that single line of code as well. What if that new greedy license prevented modification of the resulting work? Same thing. You'd have to choose whether you include that one line of GPL code, or that one line of "other" code.

And what if there were a dozen different ones? What if they all agreed nicely with each other, except GPL? Well, you have to choose. It is either GPL all the way, or none at all. So now you cannot use that code from those dozen other sources. Now you can only use that single line of GPL code, your entire work becomes GPL, and you have to ditch your other lovers, because GPL is rather jealous, and also somewhat possessive.

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mor
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#15 Post by mor »

dryden wrote:
tomazzi wrote:Yeah, so You're using Debian+GNU/Linux for 16 years now, but You have completely no idea what is the difference between OpenSorce and FreeSoftware and what is GPL for.
Typically in our world Open Source and Free Software go hand in hand, so your point is moot. They often call it FOSS, Free and Open Source Software, and this is what I was talking about. Moreover, Free Software implies Open Source, so the distinction is only in the additional license. You may see "Free Software = Open Source + GPL". You do not even explain that to me here, which proves to me you are not intending to educate, but only criticise, and which also reveals that you don't really believe I don't understand it, or you would have explained.
Don't get thrown off by his somewhat harsh tone, he means well.
And what he meant to say, I believe, is that using Free Software and Open Source interchangeably leads to confusion.
While Free Software is the ideology that promotes and advocates for the liberation of code from proprietary licenses that restrict the freedom of users, Open Source is a developmental model, a way to work on software projects if you will.
Ideology on one hand, developmental model on the other.

Open Source in fact, does not imply the ideology that is pushed on by Free Software and doesn't guarantee from final licenses being proprietary or non completely Free.
While any software to be licensed as Free has to have the source code available, it doesn't mean that the development process of said software had to be of the open source kind before releasing and licensing.

As you see, there is some overlap between the two worlds, but the fundamental difference cannot be overlooked as you did even if, as you explained, you wanted to refer to the larger F(L)OSS cluster.

Understanding this distinction well, would help you a lot in understanding the issues you are complaining about.

Further readings:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-sour ... point.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#FLOSS / http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#FOSS
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Open

Bye ;)

dryden
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#16 Post by dryden »

mor wrote:Don't get thrown off by his somewhat harsh tone, he means well.
Well that is a friendly statement to make to begin with, so thank you.

However.....
And what he meant to say, I believe, is that using Free Software and Open Source interchangeably leads to confusion.
While Free Software is the ideology that promotes and advocates for the liberation of code from proprietary licenses that restrict the freedom of users, Open Source is a developmental model, a way to work on software projects if you will.
Ideology on one hand, developmental model on the other.
Yes I've realized this and I realized this before I was being spoken to in this sense, here.
Open Source in fact, does not imply the ideology that is pushed on by Free Software and doesn't guarantee from final licenses being proprietary or non completely Free.
While any software to be licensed as Free has to have the source code available, it doesn't mean that the development process of said software had to be of the open source kind before releasing and licensing.
Sure, but in practical terms that distinction is moot. Of course it does in fact mean that you can "develop closedly" until you release, as you say. And that takes away some concern, but I do not even mean to develop closedly until I release, and what is release? Practically, this would imply not ever showing any public person or venue any of your code, or product, in the meantime? Practically infeasible. Because, any such release would invariably, probably, imply having to meet the terms of the license, even with some temporary, "inofficial" release.

The GPL does not talk about releases. It takes about propagation and conveyance, whatever the distinction may be.

So although you would be "protected from theft" as long as you don't "propagate" or "convey" anything, since other people could then only take away from your finished product, that has, at that point, already been released (hopefully). It does imply that any intermediate version that you might show to anyone (in public) can also be copied at will, and if you do this more than once, you entire source will be available under GPL regardless, at various times, and inevitably, in whole, prior to your actual first release date. And of course any subsequent versions would fall in with the same.

That means your development would be hidden but any intermediate milestones would be GPL, and public, and in agreement with those terms, if you have it that way.
As you see, there is some overlap between the two worlds, but the fundamental difference cannot be overlooked as you did even if, as you explained, you wanted to refer to the larger F(L)OSS cluster.
For me this distinction is at the heart of my contention with GPL, so your statement does not make sense here. My contention with GPL is that even though I want to be open source, the moment I want to cooperate with GPL code, I am in trouble. You also know very well that in the minds of the public (if they are aware of it at all) the phrase or term "open source" indicates this complete system. The impression is made, that "open source" and "open source" work well together. In practice there is a lot of strife between different open source licenses, such as between BSD license and Apache license and GPL.

So of course, I know the practical and structural distinctions, but in practice the result is interoperability or lack thereof. In practice GPL versus other "open source" licenses is like oil vs water. GPL is the oil that tries to separate itself.
Understanding this distinction well, would help you a lot in understanding the issues you are complaining about.
I don't think I need to understand these issues beyond what I already know, unless you really have clear, correct, to the point, and reasonable complaints, or distinctions to make, that actually have practical relevance as to my own case here, which is the topic and subject of my disagreement with it (GPL). That means, that if you are the wise person who has read these documents you espouse below, you can be the person making these arguments, and you do not need me to do your work for you, or to imply that once I have read these documents, I will invariably start to agree with you, which is deeply condescending of the nature at hand here, and of my right to disagree.

In general you cannot use documents written by others, or written by yourself at some other time, to make arguments for you as if the reading of such documents would invariably cause agreement with your statements. That is never true, and it is the condescending thing that people often do.

If you had read those documents yourself, you could make the arguments that you say they espouse, directly to me. Seeing that you do not, I don't think they are there.

So I will uphold my statements about GPL. And yes I am thinking about becoming a lawyer some day ;-).
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is nonfree. While we can distinguish various nonfree distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical.
So here you see the all or nothing nothing. The only thing that agrees with GPL, is GPL itself.

In Java terms:

Code: Select all

interface License {
  boolean agreesWith(License l);
}

class GPL implements License {
  boolean agreesWith(License l) {
    return l instanceof GPL;
  }
}
;-)

Personally I reserve the right of distribution until such time as that I may not consider it necessary anymore. Particularly, I reserve the right of modified distribution (or) under a different name. For instance, if you wanted to distribute a modification that would take away from the core nature of my program, I would object. This is because it would blemish the name of the program, and could be considered to be identical to the requirement to credit the original authors. At least, preservation of author contributions may be a separate term under section 7, and I believe it often is.

Interesting to note that the GPL is itself not GPL, because you cannot modify it ;-).

Requiring a changed name is in agreement with GPL. Requiring author attribution is in agreement with GPL.

However, taking a program, and then deviously changing core attributes of the program, and then releasing it on public platforms, with more leverage than the original author has, only to thwart that original author, is also in agreement with GPL.

Most notably, people may have different opinions as to the quality of user interfaces. They may have different opinions as to the ethicalness of certain usage strategies. If you do not want the program to do something for whatever reason, for instance because you are in the process of developing something that would supersede that, or because it would sacrifice the nature and identity of the program, or because it would vastly increase the complexity and thus user-support nature of the program, which is not an uncommon case, I think, you would no longer be in agreement with GPL or what GNU considers "Free" software.

Most notably, not at all unimportant, the GPL requires you to specify a voiding of all warranty. Of course you could license it differently, but not if you incorporated code form others, and those others did not agree to also release their software under your license. What if I do not want to void all warranty?

Now suddenly I cannot do so. In general the statement comes down to "void all warranty except as required by law" which makes it untenable to begin with; in that case you would be better off informing your users as what those requirements by law could be. You create a lot of problems for people in litigation, because a clear understanding of the law in your locality would probably introduce a lot of categories for which the authors WOULD be responsible, or could be considered responsible, under law, depending on how that works there and whether there have been previous attempts to enforce such "rights" for users.

So for me, I consider it much more ethical to explain the warranty that I feel should be in agreement with what I think a software should have. For example, I should not be allowed to give the impression that my software is suitable for a certain purpose, other than by the messages on the software itself, such as by my mode of promotion, messages I state on websites, etc., that could form an opinion or impression with the public that my software would be suitable for something, and then subsequently, this would not be true.

I can make the example about Mozilla products, but I am not sure it is wise to do so here.

Particularly it means I will not falsely advertise suitability for certain purposes, and then in my license state:

INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE

Which is just a scam. First you say "my program can do this and that and it is amazing" and then you say "oh, but if it fails to do that, I am not liable".

This is called false advertising which is unlawful to begin with, and in Dutch we call it "dwaling" (legal term).

Purposefully, I intend to make my program so good that it will not require support, and if it does require support, I intend to provide it. The free software philosophy apparently means to make crap software, and then void any responsibility for it. I do the opposite: I make something amazing, and then take responsibility for what I do, or have done.

However, what do you think is going to happen if someone forks the program, introduces complexity they cannot support, or guarantee the quality of, leaves "support" to some mailing list or forum, and at the same time, the program is still identifiable, in some way, as my thing?

Now you have to be the asshole to those people saying "sorry, that version is not supported". You will constantly be visited by people asking support for features you did not want.

You will constantly be questioned with such things as "why don't you introduce that feature, that fork has?". "I think you are a lousy developer, fork is better". You know that is going to happen, it happens even now.

Now suddenly you have to defend yourself, because someone else took his product and made it his own, and a wagonload of morons and idiots that mostly use it because they would have relicensed it under GPL, or, if it already was GPL (which is the case here I guess) because it agrees more with their bad design schemes, are now going to constantly assault you to make you look bad in the eyes of other people, as they habitually do and have done with OpenOffice.

Do not think that open source people (or floss people, or whatever) are beyond devious schemes, ego-based competition, and general vileness in combating your product because they compete with it.

They fork it, but they instantly become a competitor. And though often times direct money is not involved, indirectly it always is. There are going to be people offering support contracts for said software. There are going to be people that want to be listed as main authors, to get a better job in the real world. There are going to be people that want to obtain reputation within the FLOSS world, in order to leverage more power, or to be able to make more decisions, or in the end, to monetize their reputation.

So your "fork" is going to try to fight you. Combat you. Vie against you. Compete with you, and do the stuff people do in competitions in order to come out on top.

Then, after they've destroyed you, they will claim that their product is being developed faster than yours. That theirs is the better product. You can see it between OpenOffice and LibreOffice, the vileness that has been espoused, completely. When you say anything good about OpenOffice in public, these days, you become the target of aggression, vile attacks, character assaults, and whatnot more. Yet even Mark Shuttleworth, no matter how much you may dislike him, has shared his opinion on this, even though at the end they assimilated LibreOffice and dumped OpenOffice. Which was also the source of my knowledge on this, and it made perfect sense to me, because that is what I see people do in F(L)OSS. [[ I am going to dump "FLOSS" though, I will just refer to it as FOSS, because what GNU says about the "open source" camp is irrelevant to me. ]]

I do not wish to be the subject of such attacks, and so I will reserve the right of distributing modifications, such that such issues never even arise.

Then, even if people still do it and I cannot defend against that (but no mainstream project ever would) at least I can tell everyone that I did not intend for this and that I am not responsible for what they do with it, and that I consider it theft.

The point will not really be modifying it for your own purpose. The point will be creating a competing product based on my work, time and energy, and efforts, and then using that competing product to destroy me, in essence. That is why I espouse a dislike of GPL. And why, in a general sense, I despise it.

Sorry if this opens up another can of worms, I was not meaning to write this, to begin with, in this way (the just above).

GPL is about the freedom of other people to take your work (steal it) and make it their own.
It does not protect the rights of other people to control their own work. Even though it is considered a copyright license, but a twisted version of it.

In a general sense, it takes away your freedom to make any choices about the work you promote. For example, you craft a table, but you are now no longer allowed to make any choices about that table you just crafted. In principle, if someone manages to invade your home, steal your construction plans, and run off with it, they can now make a competing table that does the same, without ever having had to invest the same time and money in it, in designing it.

So GPL quietly voids a right to a return on investment. It voids the rights to be the sole beneficient of the work you put in yourself, because even though FOSS is usually not about money, in the end money is always involved.

So what GPL really does, in my opinion, is to dissuade spending time on design or development and to promote quick releases that have seen little development because the first one to publish something, gets the credit for it. And it's all about credit here. It is all about ego.

In FOSS, it is all about positioning your product within the landscape so as to become irreplaceable. Then, if no one can get around your software anymore, and you are the one with the fastest development pace (and the most releases) no one could ever fork it in a way that would take away your momentum, because your software keeps seeing releases continually. And then, even though people may dislike your software, seeing that it has already garnered (open source world) support, you have become such a power house that you get to direct the direction of the entirety of Linux (think SystemD). Because in order to "void" you you now have to create a competing product from scratch while no one cares enough to actually do it. You cannot fork SystemD because it is already a monster, the fork would also be a monster. You would have to refactor it completely, split it into components, etc. etc. I can be done perhaps. But it is not the same as forking a well-designed product that can already form the basis for something great. The reason SystemD cannot be forked, is because it is so bad.

So GPL dissuades well thought-out designs. Someone might come and design a crappy product based on your designs, and then release it. Now their release will garner popularity before yours can, because they have spent less time getting to the finish line.

It is not realistic to assume you can completely design it in-house and closed-source, before releasing under GPL, when you still want to cooperate with the open source world.

You want to be able to share your designs and ideas and garner support without other people taking it and running off with it, and then creating their own product based on it, leaving you in the dust, before you have even finished yours. Foremost you want to be the first to publish, and distribute for real. GPL only protects this if you develop closed-source, which means it does not protect it at all. I'm sorry, I am going to cut this short now.

I feel a person should not really have the freedom to destroy someone else or in a general sense I should have the freedom to defend against that. And GPL takes away my freedom.

It takes away any form of "ownership" even though it is nothing more than a form of stewardship, and I want to protect my software as a good steward.

Under GPL, other people can ruin your software, and as a good steward, you would not allow that. I say these things because I care about my software, and others may not.

Anyway, time to quit this. See ya.

dryden
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#17 Post by dryden »

Let me condense and summarize.

GPL is about the freedom to steal other people's work. It is a doctrine of thieves.

It is the ability to sit back, watch someone else spend ample amount of time on the development or construction of something, and then when you consider the time right, take it off their hands and do something with it on your own.

That wouldn't be bad if there was never any form of real world competition involved.

However in reality competition is created, and the original product is going to get assaulted.

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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#18 Post by oswaldkelso »

I've not heard as much bullshit and plain lies about the GPL in over 10 years here, than dryden has somehow managed to put in one thread. Congratulations.

Now If you've written GPL'd code and someone else has forked it and it become more popular than yours. Great! That's the whole ****** point.

I would suggest dryden crawls back under his bridge. If you the original author you still have copyright you can go off with your copyrighted code and make it non-free if you want.. If you put anything like as much effort in to writing code as you do in to your forum posts you will create a new office suit in no time at all. But the thing is no one will care.. Except you maybe.

If anyone wants to know about the GPL go read it for your selves. Very good documentation at https://www.gnu.org/
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#19 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

dryden wrote:Let me condense and summarize.

GPL is about the freedom to steal other people's work. It is a doctrine of thieves.

It is the ability to sit back, watch someone else spend ample amount of time on the development or construction of something, and then when you consider the time right, take it off their hands and do something with it on your own.

That wouldn't be bad if there was never any form of real world competition involved.

However in reality competition is created, and the original product is going to get assaulted.
GPL is about the freedom of the user to control the software they use.

Copylefting prevents any future exploitation of code, this is a beautiful thing :)

If you don't like it, use another licence for your code.

I would hope that eventually *all* software would be licensed under GPL, why would that be a bad thing?
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Re: IRC Mayhem.

#20 Post by mor »

dryden wrote:
Open Source in fact, does not imply the ideology that is pushed on by Free Software and doesn't guarantee from final licenses being proprietary or non completely Free.
While any software to be licensed as Free has to have the source code available, it doesn't mean that the development process of said software had to be of the open source kind before releasing and licensing.
Sure, but in practical terms that distinction is moot.
It is not moot, in fact…
dryden wrote:Of course it does in fact mean that you can "develop closedly" until you release, as you say. And that takes away some concern, but I do not even mean to develop closedly until I release, and what is release? Practically, this would imply not ever showing any public person or venue any of your code, or product, in the meantime? Practically infeasible. Because, any such release would invariably, probably, imply having to meet the terms of the license, even with some temporary, "inofficial" release.
That you're referring to was just an example of a possible scenario. ;)
It only served the purpose of making a practical distinction between something that is a developmental model and something else that is an ideology. It was meant to have you picture a situation where, for example, a developer codes some piece of software alone in his own basement and then makes the code public (he "releases" it) with a Free License, in a case like that "open source" was not the developmental model.
On the other hand, say a company makes the source available on their website for random developers to contribute, but the license prohibits those people from sharing the code further or denies any other freedom that GPL-compatible licenses grant instead, then you would have "open source developmental model", but not Free Software.

So, as you see, the distinction and the point of them being different realms is not moot at all. It is very important indeed. ;)
dryden wrote: The GPL does not talk about releases. It takes about propagation and conveyance, whatever the distinction may be.

So although you would be "protected from theft" as long as you don't "propagate" or "convey" anything, since other people could then only take away from your finished product, that has, at that point, already been released (hopefully). It does imply that any intermediate version that you might show to anyone (in public) can also be copied at will, and if you do this more than once, you entire source will be available under GPL regardless, at various times, and inevitably, in whole, prior to your actual first release date. And of course any subsequent versions would fall in with the same.

That means your development would be hidden but any intermediate milestones would be GPL, and public, and in agreement with those terms, if you have it that way.
Look, you are going too far ahead of yourself on this.

Have you read the documents I suggested?
You are approaching this issue from the wrong angle and it is preventing you from getting how things work, there is a lot of assuming in your reasoning and it is driving you in the wrong direction.
Take a moment or two to breathe and read the FSF site in depth.

But you're not gonna do it because you said it yourself:
dryden wrote:I don't think I need to understand these issues beyond what I already know.
Suit yourself then.
dryden wrote:In general you cannot use documents written by others, or written by yourself at some other time, to make arguments for you as if the reading of such documents would invariably cause agreement with your statements. That is never true, and it is the condescending thing that people often do.
Why not?
Those documents are just more detailed and comprehensive versions of what I already said, they served to corroborate the points I've made as in "I say this, check that document for a longer version".
They do not serve the purpose of convincing anyone, this is not about convincing, rather it is about informing.
But you don't need to have more information than what you already have right?

Hope you find what you are looking for, take care.

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