Re: OT: SANS 2002

["Sean \\The RIMBoy\\" <sean@rimboy.com>]

On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Steven Pritchard wrote:

> (I'm not sure if it is a good idea to start talking about license
> issues here.  I reserve the right to exercise my bad judgement again
> later to kill this thread if it gets out of hand.  ;-)

Hopefully it won't.  :)

> On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 10:05:35PM -0600, Sean The RIMBoy" wrote:
> > The Annual Monty Widenius Ass-Kicking Tour
> > Larry's in there.  Be sure to click the link to "What More?"
> 
> That's funny.  I'll freely admit that I tend to agree with most of
> that list.  Theo and djb especially.  :-)  (Although note that as one
> of the resident raving Perl bigots on this list, I'm *not* going to
> say anything bad about Guido.  I'll say bad things about Python all
> day, but it is nothing personal with Guido.)

We'll leave the Guido comments to noted Perl hackers.  The comment was 
made, we'll, I thought I'd see Python as programmed by the master... that 
being Guido.  About halfway thru the session, as the story goes, Guido 
made it obvious he had no idea what he was doing, and noted perl hacker 
was actually correcting code Guido was writing (ie, suggesting ways to 
achieve the goal, not typo's).  The person went in with an open mind and 
left thinking that if Guido can't do it (or do it right) then there's 
really no point in using Python.  

> > Now that said, Larry's other proof is obviously the BK licensing thread... 
> > which incidentally turned us off on BK because other developers cannot 
> > risk having their license yanked on the off chance they add a patch or 
> > develop rcs type systems.
> 
> As you all well know, I prefer open-source software, but I'm not
> opposed to people selling good software that happens to be
> closed-source.  It's the *crap* that passes for commercial software
> 99.999% of the time that bugs me.  (I think VMware and most of the id
> games make up the bulk of that good 0.001%, BTW.)

VMWare's borderline too, at least according to Moshe Bar.  VMWare 99% of 
the time does a good job, but it's not a complete implementation of 
Intel's spec.  Scroll down to the bottom of this:

http://openmosix.leonora.org/FAQ.php?openMosixFAQ

> So if BK is Good, and given Linus's comments on l-k it must be, I have
> *no* problem with LMV selling it. 

It's one thing for it to be good...

> If he wants to let some people use
> it for free, then that's even better.

But that's technically not free.  I would even argue it's not free as in 
Beer... It's like, you're free to drink the beer, but only as long as it's 
Stag or Keystone.  If you want to brew your own or want to drink PBR, then 
you must leave the bar immediately.  Or else we'll kick you in the nards.

>  If he wants to dictate who gets
> to use it for free, then that's his right. 

Technically yes, but is it enforceable?  Really... can you make someone 
not use your stuff just because they wrote another program?  Stallman made 
a living reverse engineering stuff.  To tell people they're not allowed to 
emulate the process or reverse engineer is a dangerous precedent (which I 
know others try).  

Larry's ramblings in various forums more than anything put him on the 
tour.  I can't help he's a moron just as much as he can't help that I'm 
one too :)

> The rest of us have the
> right to not use his software, but that's about it.

I'll drink to that.

Sean...

--
Believing I had supernatural powers, I slammed into a brick wall.
	--Paul Simon
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
KG4NRC  http://www.rimboy.com  Your source for the crap you know you need.


-
To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
"unsubscribe silug-discuss" in the body.