07.30.09

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New Video: How Free Software Can Save the World

Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Videos at 6:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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10 Comments

satipera said,

July 30, 2009 at 8:08 am

Very interesting, I would recommend investing half an hour of your time and listening to this.
Dario said,

August 1, 2009 at 2:05 am

URL to play on your favorite media player

http://www.geeksoc.org/gcds/Keynote:%20Glyn%20Moody,%20Why%20Hackers%20Will%20Save%20the%20World.ogv#/Keynote_Glyn_Moody_Why_Hackers_Will_Save_the_World_ogv_Keynote_20Glyn_20Moody_20Why_20Hackers_20Will_20Save_20the_20World.ogv
zatoichi said,

August 1, 2009 at 9:29 am

So, Roy, why no story on Jo Shields’ “Chicken Little” remix of Ubuntu? Isn’t that newsworthy…?

bambambox Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 9:45 am
You’ll find that news snippet here:

http://boycottnovell.com/2009/08/01/hackweek-and-suse-studio/

Granted, there is no fanfare, but the news has been reported.

zatoichi Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 10:56 am
I find it interesting that, having been given what he’s been stridently demanding, Roy is so reticent to make any significant mention of it.

Maybe he likes complaining about things better than getting what he wants.

Say, speaking of “complaining about things”, here is a video in which Mr. Stallman makes the claim that the ability of the Linux kernel to dynamically load drivers violates the terms of the GPL—evidently he’s saying that, since the kernel can’t fulfill the terms of the license, it can’t be legitimately said to be released under that license.

Given that, why hasn’t the FSF stopped using the non-free “GNU/Linux” system and moved over to the completely free “GNU/HURD” system? Why hasn’t it recommended that others do so as well?

bambambox Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I’m interested to know what motivation Roy would have by intentionally hiding this thing. It isn’t immediately obvious to me. What exactly are you getting at here?

Any how, over on the Mono Nono site there is talk of making a proper distribution out of it, by including alternative applications like Gnote and such. Might be something, might be nothing. We’ll just have to wait and see.

zatoichi Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I’m interested to know what motivation Roy would have by intentionally hiding this thing. It isn’t immediately obvious to me. What exactly are you getting at here?

I can’t account for the trouble you’re having, since I pretty much stated what I see as Roy’s motivation to bury this flat-out.

Roy would rather complain about “Mono in the default Ubuntu install” than actually do anything about it, or acknowledge anyone else’s having done something about it. Jo’s “Chicken Little Remix” removes a front in the “war” Roy imagines he’s waging, and that’s not helpful to him. Roy is not about getting results, he’s about getting attention. If he admits that he “won” here, then he can’t complain about how Canonical and Ubuntu are “oppressing” the “community” by including Mono-related stuff any more. So he buries the story.

Is that clear enough? For all the complaining Roy’s done about Mono being in Ubuntu, he’s never taken a single practical step to actually doing anything about it. He’s posted a lot of questionable articles about it, run down a lot of people associated with Ubuntu and Canonical about it, but he didn’t submit his name for an open seat on the Ubuntu Technical Board, and he didn’t do a simple remix, like Jo thoughtfully did.

I’ll be very interested to see whether the folks who want Mono out of Ubuntu so badly are willing and able to do the heavy lifting, now that Jo has shown them how. So far, Dan Serban seems to be airing his sense of entitlement to Jo’s time in unilaterally signing Jo up to do twice-yearly releases for him. Jo reports no more than a handful (around ten, last herd from) of downloads, but since Roy’s burying the story…

saulgoode Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Say, speaking of “complaining about things”, here is a video in which Mr. Stallman makes the claim that the ability of the Linux kernel to dynamically load drivers violates the terms of the GPL

Again you engage in your pestiferous propensity to inaccurately misinterpret the statements of others.

Richard Stallman stated,
“He [Linus Torvalds] implemented a feature in Linux, the kernel, for the dynamic loading of device drivers.

Now the effect of this was that GNU/Linux could use a device with a proprietary device by dynamically loading it. Now I think that this violates the GNU GPL just as much as statically linking the same driver would violate the GNU GPL.”

Contrasting Mr Stallman’s actual words with your paraphrasis, Mr Stallman was NOT claiming that the ability to dynamically link proprietary drivers which violated the GPL — it was that the dynamically linking itself did so.

Now I don’t think Mr Stallman’s statement is entirely accurate in that it is an oversimplification and overlooks that there are some situations where dynamically linking a proprietary driver can be legal — but nonetheless he did not actually claim that the ability to dynamically load proprietary drivers violated the GPL.

Nor is Mr Stallman’s interpretation of the derived works aspect of copyright law unique to him, or the Free Software Foundation, or the Software Freedom Law Center. It is an opinion that has been expressed by Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman.

bambambox Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Is that clear enough?

Yes, sure. You don’t like Roy very much, I notice. I’m not getting into that argument, thanks.

Jo reports no more than a handful (around ten, last herd from) of downloads, but since Roy’s burying the story…

My guess is that one of the reasons the downloads are so few because those opposed to Mono will have already nuked it from their desktops long ago. The remix is useless to these people, and who else will such a distribution appeal to? Personally, I can’t see the logic in installing an entire distro just to have a few different default packages, but there it is.

zatoichi Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I don’t see the logic in it either, but that hasn’t kept Roy and the gang from demanding it. Repeatedly. Here and on mailing lists and in blog comments.

It’s equally unclear to me why Roy (or anyone) should feel that right approach is that the Ubuntu Technical Board should abandon its normal process and just “listen to (e.g.) Roy” rather than “(e.g.) Roy should remove whatever he doesn’t want from his own desktop and get on with life”.

But there it is; what’s one to do?