[9081] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 2698 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Sat May 23 00:08:48 1998
Date: Fri, 22 May 98 21:00:31 -0700
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Fri, 22 May 1998 Volume: 8 Number: 2698
Today's topics:
Re: .= food for thought? (Ken Williams)
Re: A Perl starter question about rounding variables... (Craig Berry)
Re: Daemon code??? (Gabor)
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <budpro@aol.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <evan@garrett.hpl.hp.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <evan@garrett.hpl.hp.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community (Bonard B. Timmons III)
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <rowland@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community (Greg Lindahl)
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community <hp@pobox.com>
Re: GNU attacks on the open software community (Paul D. Smith)
Re: GPL documentation == unspeakable evil (John Stanley)
Re: GPL documentation == unspeakable evil (Tyson Richard DOWD)
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 22:18:21 -0400
From: ken@forum.swarthmore.edu (Ken Williams)
Subject: Re: .= food for thought?
Message-Id: <ken-2205982218210001@news.swarthmore.edu>
In article <slrn6mb622.upr.charlie@cs.ed.datacash.com>, charlie @ nospam .
antipope . org wrote:
>On Fri, 22 May 1998 10:29:51 -0400, Any more mini-dilemmas I should know
about?
><jefpin@bergen.org> wrote:
>
>>>There is indeed.. I could of swarn I'd tried it to no avail...
>>>maybe it was =.
>>
>>But that raises an interesting question. It would be handy to have a
>>concatenation operator that works thusly:
>>
>>$var = "string" . $var; # $var OP "string";
>>
>>It would come in handy.
>>
>>That's all.
>
>Ahem: you mean like this?
>
># perl -e 0 -d
>
>Loading DB routines from perl5db.pl version 1.01
>Emacs support available.
>
>Enter h or `h h' for help.
>
>main::(-e:1): 0
> DB<1> $var = "bar";
>
> DB<2> $var = "foo" . $var;
>
> DB<3> print $var, "\n";
>foobar
>
>
>Clue: Perl has more operators than most people can remember.
>
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying you posted a
solution? I don't think you did, you just posted what the previous poster
posted. Or are you saying you are thinking of a solution, but you won't
tell us?
If you don't mind some extra funny business, you can do:
$string = "bar";
substr($string, 0, 0) = "foo";
print "$string\n"; # foobar
I've occasionally wished for a nicer prepending method too.
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 1998 02:16:07 GMT
From: cberry@cinenet.net (Craig Berry)
Subject: Re: A Perl starter question about rounding variables...
Message-Id: <6k5bh7$fa1$1@marina.cinenet.net>
Mantvydas (udo@puni.osf.lt) wrote:
: What functions from which modules are to be used for rounding variables?
: I found somewhere mentioning floor(), ceil() and round()... But I don't have
: the modules with their implementation...
floor() and ceil() are in POSIX.pm; that's part of the standard
distribution, I believe...oh, wait, you're on Windows, in which case it's
not. I wish someone would create a POSIX.pm for Windows with just the
easy-to-port parts...maybe I'll tackle this myself this summer.
Rounding is best accomplished in Perl using sprintf, or a custom-built
routine that follows your own local rounding conventions.
Meanwhile, here are simple implementations of floor() and ceil().
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Simple floor() and ceil() funcs and a test of each.
# Craig Berry (19980522)
use strict;
sub floor
{
my $val = shift;
my $neg = $val < 0;
my $asint = int($val);
my $exact = $val == $asint;
return $exact ? $asint :
$neg ? $asint - 1 : $asint;
}
sub ceil
{
my $val = shift;
my $neg = $val < 0;
my $asint = int($val);
my $exact = $val == $asint;
return $exact ? $asint :
$neg ? $asint : $asint + 1;
}
my @data = qw( 1.0 -1.0 -1.3 4.8 5.01 4.99 );
foreach (@data) {
printf '%10.3f' x 3, $_, floor($_), ceil($_);
print "\n";
}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Craig Berry - cberry@cinenet.net
--*-- Home Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/cberry/home.html
| Member of The HTML Writers Guild: http://www.hwg.org/
"Every man and every woman is a star."
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 1998 01:04:50 GMT
From: gabor@vmunix.com (Gabor)
Subject: Re: Daemon code???
Message-Id: <slrn6mc8ia.r9r.gabor@vnode.vmunix.com>
In comp.lang.perl.misc, braunb@my-dejanews.com <braunb@my-dejanews.com> wrote :
# Hello,
#
# I'm looking for code to implement a UNIX daemon in perl. I searched the
# perl.com references but couldn't find anything there. I could always
# implement W. Richard Steven's Unix Network Programming code example, but,
# I'd rather not re-invent the wheel.
This should get you going
use POSIX ();
$pid = fork;
die "fork : $!"
unless defined $pid;
exit
if $pid; # parent exits
die "setsid : $!"
if POSIX::setsid() == -1;
gabor.
--
/* This bit of chicanery makes a unary function followed by a
* parenthesis into a function with one argument, highest
* precedence. */
-- Larry Wall in toke.c from the perl source code
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 21:01:46 -0400
From: Joshua Boyd <budpro@aol.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <35661FF9.3934@aol.com>
Chris Nandor wrote:
> In article <_bS81.68$152.620589@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>, Barry
> Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com> wrote:
> # The GPL doesn't force you to share with your friends, it allows it.
> What an odd thing to say. Since when does something like sharing your own
> work with your friends need to be allowed? Does it allow me to cross the
> street without my mommy, too?
I wrote a pretty neat group scheduling application in Visual Basic(no
nasty comments please, I was being paid to do it in this language, and
not in some other language). Would you like me to give you a copy?
Whoops, I can't go that unless you have a copy of Access '97. Why?
Because I wrote my program using the JET engine built into VB5, but the
license aggreement says that I can only distribute programs that require
the JET engine to people who own a copy of the JET engine someother
way. So I guess I can't share my nifty application with my friends
until I rewrite it to not be dependant on JET. And so far I haven't
found a GPLed DBMS to use, and I don't know how to write my own database
system that is safe for multiple people to use at the same time.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 01:07:52 GMT
From: Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <Ijp91.28$hF2.165182@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>
In article <6k3via$mne$1@news.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
Dave Barr <barr@cis.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
>In article <u1hn2cbtqtz.fsf@mary-kay-commandos.MIT.EDU>,
>Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG <tb@mit.edu> wrote:
>>I don't recall any GNU people telling Linus that his kernel was
>>pointless. I remember lots of people being quite pleased with it.
>
>I do remember quotes from RMS saying essentially "Linux is interesting,
>but the Hurd is the way to go".
The Hurd has some very grandiose ideas for features that RMS is interested
in promoting (mostly some features he misses from OSes like TOPS-20 and
ITS). Linux, I believe, is more modest in its goals -- it's basically just
another POSIX-compliant system. The Hurd is POSIX compliant as well, but
by basing it on a microkernel, they provide the hooks for many interesting
extensions, and they have plans to use them.
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Cambridge, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1998 18:05:42 -0700
From: Evan Kirshenbaum <evan@garrett.hpl.hp.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <v9hu36hlrtl.fsf@garrett.hpl.hp.com>
trd@hydra.cs.mu.oz.au (Tyson Richard DOWD) writes:
> Ron House <house@usq.edu.au> writes:
>
> >Jan Vroonhof wrote:
> >>
> >> pudge@pobox.com (Chris Nandor) writes:
> >>
> >> > I officially redefine "free" as meaning "provided with
> >> > ketchup". Any other usage with me is misleading.
> >>
> >> Putting all sillyness inside, the word 'free' in English does
> >> have several meanings in english which lead to all this
> >> mess. While it would haven be very much better if the FSF/RMS had
> >> not used such an ambivalent term they just made precise which of
> >> the meanings of free they meant and are consistent in using it in
> >> that way.
>
> >But this is the whole problem: they did not use any recognised
> >meaning of the word: they made up a new meaning.
>
> No, that meaning has been in place for centuries now.
I know I really shouldn't get involved in this one, but I'm having
trouble coming up with another X for which "free X" can reasonably be
construed as "an X that anyone is free to examine, modify and make
available to others provided that if they do so they must provide a a
full description of the modified X and transfer this right"?
I'm not arguing that this is necessarily a bad thing (quite the
contrary), but it really doesn't jibe with any other definition of
"free" I've ever seen. It isn't "unencumbered", because there are
things I can't do with it (principally, I can't modify it and
distribute it without giving away the modification rights and
source). It isn't like a "free citizen", as it doesn't have any
volition of its own and will likely be prevented run under the control
of someone who will have definite ideas about what it can and can't
do. It isn't like a "free evening", a "free variable", a "free
particle", or a "free translation".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |_Bauplan_ is just the German word
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |for blueprint. Typically, one
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |switches languages to indicate
|profundity.
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | Richard Dawkins
(650)857-7572
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1998 18:16:45 -0700
From: Evan Kirshenbaum <evan@garrett.hpl.hp.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <v9hsom1lrb6.fsf@garrett.hpl.hp.com>
James Youngman <JYoungman@vggas.com> writes:
> Recap:-
> 1. The GNUs Buletin suggested the creation of Free-in-the-FSF-sense
> documentation for Perl. This does not already exist.
>
> 2. Mr. Christiansen was apparently offended by the implication that
> his documentation is not "free".
I suspect that what Mr. Christiansen was offended by was the wording:
A good free manual for Perl. (There are proprietary books, but
these are no good, because they are being withheld from our
community by their owners.)
I, too, would be exceedingly pissed if something I worked hard on,
made freely available (in the common sense) to the community, and
which was considered excellent and indispensable was called "no good"
when what is meant is "unsuitable for our purpose" and described as
"being withheld from our community" when what is meant is "contain a
more restrictive license than we require". I suspect that had it been
worded better, you could've even left the word "free" in without
getting a reaction.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |"Revolution" has many definitions.
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |From the looks of this, I'd say
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |"going around in circles" comes
|closest to applying...
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | Richard M. Hartman
(650)857-7572
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 01:47:47 GMT
From: Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <7Vp91.30$hF2.165182@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>
In article <86wwbemicq.fsf@dr-teeth.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
cmcurtin <cmcurtin@interhack.net> wrote:
>And how would RMS, et al, react to find one of the "GNU Free Books"
>gutted, authorship removed, examples changed to things that don't
>work, and then sold in bookstores everywhere because the publisher is
>one with good distribution channels?
He probably wouldn't be pleased, and he would make a big stink about it.
He would probably post a diatribe about what losers that author and
publisher are to the gnu.misc.discuss newsgroup, and exhort people to
boycott them.
But he would *not* change his licensing terms. He understands that the
freedoms necessary to improve upon his work also allow people to ruin them.
It's like the old saw about free speech: I may not like what you have to
say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Cambridge, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 01:56:26 GMT
From: Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <e1q91.31$hF2.165182@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>
In article <wsnogwq1e1l.fsf@harper.uchicago.edu>,
robert havoc pennington <hp@pobox.com> wrote:
>cmcurtin <cmcurtin@interhack.net> writes:
>> This is *precisely* what has happened time and again by morons who
>> pretend to be Perl experts. They steal Larry's work. They steal
>> Tom's work. They steal Randal's work. They steal from us all.
>You're way off base. This isn't the issue.
>
>FSF has a project to write *their own* documentation on their task
>list. They are not going to use any of Tom's work.
That's only because Tom's work has a copyright notice preventing them from
doing what they want with it. If Tom's work were free, by the FSF
definition, they would be able to do things that cmcurtin would probably
characterize as "steal". It wouldn't actually be stealing, though, since
the nature of this type of free license is that it explicitly permits these
activities.
In other words, use without permission would be stealing, but RMS doesn't
want to steal, so instead he's asking people to reinvent so that he can use
it with permission.
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Cambridge, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 01:59:38 GMT
From: Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <e4q91.32$hF2.165182@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>
In article <bysom2pn9b.fsf@bolzano.math.ethz.ch>,
Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@frege.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com> writes:
>
>> >Now it maybe well be that producing quality documentation like
>> >O'Reilly and GPL style licences are incompatible.
>>
>> Isn't that what people used to think about software, too?
>
>That is why I was using "may".
And that is why I didn't say you were wrong. My intent was that we should
not give up on FSF-free documentation because there's a widely-held belief
it can't succeed, just as we didn't give up on FSF-free programs because
there was a widely-held belief that it couldn't succeed. Maybe you're
right, but we should at least try to prove the naysayers wrong.
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Cambridge, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1998 21:07:56 -0400
From: timmons@ezy.net (Bonard B. Timmons III)
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <87vhqx6bgz.fsf@ip27.ezy.net>
Zenin <zenin@bawdycaste.org> writes:
> Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com> wrote:
> : I don't think RMS is opposed to all copyrights. He believes that software
> : users should be able modify it to suit their needs, i.e. that software
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> No, he does not. If he did the GPL would be worded much closer
> to the BSD license.
It seems to suit Linux, gcc, and emacs users' needs fine. Who are you
talking about then, those who want to steal GPLed code to make
proprietary software?
Bake
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 22:59:23 -0400
From: Shaun Rowland <rowland@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <35663B8B.4FFC6694@cis.ohio-state.edu>
robert havoc pennington wrote:
>
> cmcurtin <cmcurtin@interhack.net> writes:
> >
> > And how would RMS, et al, react to find one of the "GNU Free Books"
> > gutted, authorship removed, examples changed to things that don't
> > work, and then sold in bookstores everywhere because the publisher is
> > one with good distribution channels?
> >
> > This is *precisely* what has happened time and again by morons who
> > pretend to be Perl experts. They steal Larry's work. They steal
> > Tom's work. They steal Randal's work. They steal from us all.
> >
>
> You're way off base. This isn't the issue.
>
> FSF has a project to write *their own* documentation on their task
> list. They are not going to use any of Tom's work.
This is great and all, and they *can* do this if they want and the task
list warrants it, but Tom's complaints are not unwarranted... you still
have not answered the question that Matt has posed, and the thrust of
Tom's complaint (at least a part of it as I see it).
> > What bothers me about the GNU community is that there is a level of
> > arrogance in assuming that the One True Way(tm) of software
> > development (and apparently documentation, as well!) is based on what
> > Eric Raymond calls the Bazaar model. Making such an assertion is
> > absolutely stupid. Projects that operate in what Eric calls the
> > "Benevolent Dictatorship" mode have produced significant pieces of
> > work. The *BSD operating systems. XEmacs. Apache. Perl.
> >
>
> Again, you are confused. The FSF is supposed to be the Cathedral
> model. Their projects are very closed and few people participate. The
> Bazaar describes mostly non-FSF projects, such as Linux.
Yes, this is true. Linux is a great example of the Bazaar model of
development under the "Benevolent Dictatorship" of Linus. Amazing that
it is however, most of everything that I use in Linux is under GPL, but
that is another thread... and neither points have much to do with this
thread.
I much prefer Xeamcs to GNU emacs I must admit... but that again is
another thread...
> >
> > The FSF did not create Perl. The FSF has no business telling the Perl
> > community how to do its work.
>
> They aren't. They are writing *their own* manual. Or rather, they have
> it on the task list, I doubt it will happen soon.
And this is their right. There is nothing stopping the FSF from doing
this, but I believe that the original point was something along the
lines of this:
* A good free manual for Perl. (There are proprietary books,
but these are no good, because they are being withheld from our
community by their owners.)
This depends on your definition of free. There are a lot of ideas
floating around about what is "free" and what is not. Let me fill you
in on what I feel, from a rather new perspective as I have not been a
member of this community for all that long. When someone says something
along the lines as the above, with the word "proprietary" and such I
think of something that is completely closed and not based at all on the
concept of freedom. All that Tom wants is that his documentation not be
stolen and used in other publications under the guise that it is someone
else's work, be it exactly correct or completely wrong. There is
nothing about this idea that leads to the definition of "proprietary".
The manual for perl is NOT being withheld from *our* community by their
owners. I am more than happy with the situation with perl as I am sure
many are. There are two ways (if not more) of looking at the above
statement. I think you should be very careful before you make such a
statement considering all those that read it. If the FSF fundamentalist
would have said "We want a document of our own that we can author and
freely change at any time in accordance with our ideals" instead of
something that basically sounds like "We are the perl community and we
are the authors of the documentation and care not what the FSF wants or
requires, and as such withhold our glorious product from any mangling
that you so desire to inflict" then I would have been a lot more
comfortable with the above statement. Don't forget that there are
people that don't know what you mean by "free" reading what you write.
I believe that the above statement is very unfair as worded, and Tom has
the right to be upset.
> >
> > This is a shame, no matter how you look at it. And it would be
> > terrible to allow this to create a rift between the two communities.
> > The rift is being created by the FSF, who refuses to recognize the
> > Perl Community's right to do as it pleases. If this trend should not
> > reverse, if the rift becomes Yet Another Irreconcilable Difference
> > between the FSF and some other entity of the free software community,
> > I know which side I'll be on, and it won't be with The Free Software
> > Foundation or the GNU Project.
> >
>
> There is no irreconcilable difference, because they aren't asking you
> to do anything, they are just doing something themselves. Perhaps it's
> duplication of effort, but it's not a rift unless you demand that
> *they* not write docs because it's "your" right to do so. Or burst
> onto Usenet with lengthy flames over very minor issues.
>
> Havoc Pennington ==== http://pobox.com/~hp
This is not all that minor of an issue, at least to someone like
myself. These issues mean something to me. When a statement that
basically says that the perl community is not *free* in some sense of
the word is made to such a general audience, then I am not comfortable.
I know that such a statement is not true under most contexts. I can see
the FSF's point, and I would never want to imply that I don't like the
ideals that the FSF embraces, but I wouldn't say that I don't see Tom's
point and wouldn't be upset if I were in his position. I like the GNU
project. Maybe I have some inclination to believe totally in the FSF's
idea of "free" due to my rather idealistic view of things, but I sure as
hell see Tom's point, and Matt's.
If the FSF wants to make their own documentation for perl then they
should do so and not say things that imply that the documentation for
perl is NOT free, at least in such a context that confuses a lot of
people. I can tell you this, I will buy the books and read Tom's perl
documentation anyway even though I like the FSF. Try not to make
statements out of context, and the key to realizing that you did is when
a discussion such as this erupts involving very smart people in the
industry who basically share similar ideas.
No one is demanding that the FSF not write docs, but I can tell you
who's docs are going to be read. This is not to discredit anyone, but
when the FSF makes such a statement I am offended. There is nothing
about the documentation of perl that is being UNFAIRLY withheld from
me. Go and make FSF documentation under the GPL, just don't go around
saying that the current documentation is not *free* and that it is
withheld from *our* community, because in at least some sense, this is
an absolute lie.
--
---------------------------------------------
Shaun Rowland rowland@cis.ohio-state.edu
IICF System Administrator DL798
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~rowland
http://linux.med.ohio-state.edu/rowland
---------------------------------------------
Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1998 22:03:57 -0500
From: les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <6k5eat$7d3$1@Venus.mcs.net>
In article <cco91.22$hF2.165182@cam-news-reader1.bbnplanet.com>,
Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com> wrote:
>In article <6k45ri$kef$1@Mars.mcs.net>, Leslie Mikesell <les@MCS.COM> wrote:
>>Yes it does, if your work consists of making GPL code and non-GPL
>>code interoperate. The GPL takes away your right to share such
>>code under any circumstances. You can write it for yourself, you
>
>And I say that it's the non-free program program that takes away your right
>to share the code, since it doesn't allow you to include the source code
>and/or transfer the sharing right to the recipient.
Someone else wrote that part, so why is it anyone else's business how
the other people get their copy of it? In many cases (like connecting
to a database or a matching encryption scheme) they would have the
required libraries already or they wouldn't have any use for the
modifications to use it.
>Or it's neither and both taking away your right to share. The two original
>codes each have their own licenses for redistribution, so the combination
>has to be redistributed under terms compatible with both. If the licenses
>have mutually-exclusive requirements, this is not possible.
That makes no sense at all in the case where the potential recipient
already has the other component.
>Neither one is
>solely responsible; if you claim so, it's only due to your personal biases
>(you were happy to abide by the terms of one license, so it must be the
>other one's fault).
Well yes, I suppose I do have a bias towards letting people make their
own decisions about whether they agree to commercial copyright terms
or not. It would be fun to see if Microsoft could get away with
putting a restriction on their products that said they couldn't be
linked with any competitor's. I don't think it would fly.
>>can use it, someone can hire you to write such code for their own
>>use, but you can't give them a copy.
>
>If someone hires you to write it, it's a "work for hire", and it's owned by
>the employer, so giving it to him is not making a copy. He probably can't
>let you take a copy with you when you're done, though!
Which all seems pretty counterproductive and unlikely to result in
good interoperable components.
Les Mikesell
les@mcs.com
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 1998 02:18:04 GMT
From: lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <6k5bks$9qb@news1.newsguy.com>
Evan Kirshenbaum <evan@garrett.hpl.hp.com> writes:
> I, too, would be exceedingly pissed if something I worked hard on,
> made freely available (in the common sense) to the community, and
> which was considered excellent and indispensable was called "no good"
Er, given that this passage is quite old and probably refers to the
commercial book "Programming Perl", I suspect you'd apologize if you
started the kind of flamewar that Tom did.
-- g
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 03:27:30 GMT
From: robert havoc pennington <hp@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <wsnhg2h1xb1.fsf@harper.uchicago.edu>
Shaun Rowland <rowland@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>
> else's work, be it exactly correct or completely wrong. There is
> nothing about this idea that leads to the definition of "proprietary".
> The manual for perl is NOT being withheld from *our* community by their
> owners. I am more than happy with the situation with perl as I am sure
> many are.
I am happy with the Perl docs too. I also agree that the FSF could
phrase things a little more gently, perhaps; tact is not their strong
point. But other than that I don't think it warrants such a giant
gnu.misc.discuss flamewar.
> comfortable with the above statement. Don't forget that there are
> people that don't know what you mean by "free" reading what you write.
Very few were reading it until it was posted to comp.lang.perl.misc,
ironically enough. At least on the GNU web site you must run the
propaganda gauntlet where "free" and "proprietary" are defined in
order to find the task list.
> I believe that the above statement is very unfair as worded, and Tom has
> the right to be upset.
>
I think he has the right to be mildly annoyed and maybe write a snippy
email to RMS asking for a rewording. I also think the "unspeakable
evil" flames were pretty out of hand.
> This is not all that minor of an issue, at least to someone like
> myself. These issues mean something to me. When a statement that
> basically says that the perl community is not *free* in some sense of
> the word is made to such a general audience, then I am not comfortable.
> I know that such a statement is not true under most contexts. I can see
> the FSF's point, and I would never want to imply that I don't like the
> ideals that the FSF embraces, but I wouldn't say that I don't see Tom's
> point and wouldn't be upset if I were in his position. I like the GNU
> project. Maybe I have some inclination to believe totally in the FSF's
> idea of "free" due to my rather idealistic view of things, but I sure as
> hell see Tom's point, and Matt's.
>
It would help if everyone here was as good at seeing all the points. ;-)
> If the FSF wants to make their own documentation for perl then they
> should do so and not say things that imply that the documentation for
> perl is NOT free, at least in such a context that confuses a lot of
> people.
How are they going to get anyone to write the docs they want unless
they write on their web site why they want new docs?
> I can tell you this, I will buy the books and read Tom's perl
> documentation anyway even though I like the FSF.
Me too. Even though I found Tom's posts kind of annoying.
> Go and make FSF documentation under the GPL, just don't go around
> saying that the current documentation is not *free* and that it is
> withheld from *our* community, because in at least some sense, this is
> an absolute lie.
Well, they have to say it somehow to explain the task list item. I
agree it could be worded more tactfully.
That's why I think there must be deeper personal issues most of us are
unaware of. From the outside, it looks like a lot of childish
bickering over nothing.
Havoc Pennington ==== http://pobox.com/~hp
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1998 23:52:06 -0400
From: psmith@baynetworks.com (Paul D. Smith)
Subject: Re: GNU attacks on the open software community
Message-Id: <p5pvh54pax.fsf@baynetworks.com>
%% fantome/@/usa/./net (le Fanttme) writes:
lf> You are mistaken. The PerlFAQ is available on CDs -- legally so.
lf> Because the people who are putting it on the CDs are not charging
lf> extra because they are putting the PerlFAQ on the CDs.
I'm sorry, but your wishful thinking about how things should be simply
doesn't make it so. The license seems quite clear an unequivocal to me,
and I see absolutely nothing in it to justify your interpretation.
There are many licenses which say essentially the same thing, where the
author really _doesn't_ want his work to go on any for-profit
compendium, even if it's only a small part of the whole and the claim
could be made that there are no extra charges for that particular work.
This is why people are warned to not to simply dump FTP archives to a CD
willy-nilly.
How are we to tell the difference? Magic?
However, I must say that there is an odd feature of the "Noncommercial
Reproduction" section of the license, which probably means Tom intended
it to say something other than what it actually does. Look at this:
Permission is granted to distribute this document, in part or in full,
via electronic means or printed copy providing that (1) that all credits
and copyright notices be retained, (2) that no charges beyond reproduction
be involved, and (3) that a reasonable attempt be made to use the most
current version available.
Furthermore, you may include this document in any distribution of the
full Perl source or binaries, in its verbatim documentation, or on a
complete dump of the CPAN archive, providing that the three stipulations
given above continue to be met.
Now what in the world is the point of the second paragraph? As far as I
can tell it adds exactly nothing to the first paragraph, so why even
write it?
It starts out "Furthermore...", so one can assume that Tom _meant_ for
it to add some rights, but didn't quite get down what he really wanted.
I'm happy he's working to clarify this situation.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Smith <psmith@baynetworks.com> Network Management Development
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 1998 01:05:50 GMT
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Subject: Re: GPL documentation == unspeakable evil
Message-Id: <6k57de$3dq$1@news.NERO.NET>
In article <3565FC7F.57CBE276@cavalry.com>,
Bill Anderson <recon@cavalry.com> wrote:
>John Stanley wrote:
>> Yes, it takes electronics to create the CD, but it also takes
>> electronics to create a book. It takes electronics to read a CD, but by
>
>One can create abook without using even electricity.
Yes, but most books today are not created without electronics. How they
are created isn't really relevant.
>Last tim eI spoke with my lawyer, he said that a cd is electronic media.
I am sure it is. Whether it actually is or not is not the issue.
>> So, if a CD is "electronic means", a book would have to fall into that
>> category.
>
>No, it does not.
Since CD's can be distributed with exactly the same lack of electronics
involved as a book, either they both are distributed via electronic
means or neither are.
>As your argument goes, this
>email was not transferred via electronic means because it was carried
>over copper wire, and or fiber-optic cable.
You seem to have missed the point. Distributing the email over copper
wire requires electronics at both ends to do the transport. Ditto
fiber. My argument would call the email "via electronic means". Your
misinterpretation of my argument is your problem.
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 1998 13:05:37 +1000
From: trd@hydra.cs.mu.oz.au (Tyson Richard DOWD)
Subject: Re: GPL documentation == unspeakable evil
Message-Id: <6k5ee1$is6$1@hydra.cs.mu.oz.au>
pudge@pobox.com (Chris Nandor) writes:
>In article <p5vhqy2x8g.fsf@baynetworks.com>, psmith@baynetworks.com wrote:
># Wow! You sure see a lot more in the license than I do. Here's the
># text we're discussing, for those who haven't read it:
>#
># Permission is granted to distribute this document, in part or in full,
># via electronic means or printed copy providing that (1) that all credits
># and copyright notices be retained, (2) that no charges beyond reproduction
># be involved, and (3) that a reasonable attempt be made to use the most
># current version available.
>#
># First, this gives permission only for distribution "via electronic means
># or printed copy", and it's not at all clear to me that sticking it on a
># CD falls under either of those categories. Why not just say "by any
># means"?
>I can't answer the question, but I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind
>that a CD is electronic means. How could it not be?
># Second, it merely says "no charges beyond reproduction be involved".
># There's no mention that "oh, maybe a few pennies profit", or "oh, you
># can charge more as long as the CD contains lots of other stuff too", or
># anything like that.
>#
># It says "no charges". Where I come from that means "no charges".
>Well, IANAL, but it seems much more likely to me that it means no charge
>beyond reproduction FOR THE DOCUMENT in question. If you happen to throw
>it on a commercial CD with other stuff without raising the cost of the CD,
>then that seems perfectly in line with the statement above.
>Further, since we know that the document in question IS distributed in
>that manner every day, on CDs and pre-installed on hard drives, we know
>that a precedent has been set. And since Tom has done nothing to stop
Rubbish, there is no legal precedent. You need a court case for that.
>these actions, even if we did not know that he has personally, repeatedly,
>stated that this is OK, the fact that he has done nothing to stop this
>manner of commercial reproduction is evidence that it is allowed. In
>other words, if he does nothing to stop it, then he has in effect
>relinquished his right to stop it.
Rubbish. He has relinquished no rights whatsoever, unless he gives
explicit permission. He can grant explicit permission a million
times, and then still owns the copyright, and the right to sue anyone
that doesn't have explicit permission.
>So, again IANAL, but it seems to me that the license allows Debian and
>RedHat to put it on for-proft CDs, and precedent further strengthens the
>case.
No, the license allows nothing of the sort. Explicit permission
might allow this, but Debian will not put software that has
a "special permission for Debian" on the offical CD. I don't know what
they plan to do about Perl, because it is the documentation, not the
software, that is problematic.
>I edited a CD now for sale that includes perlfaq and perltoot, and
>I am not at all worried about getting sued by Tom, because even if he
>would do that (which he wouldn't), he would never win the case.
Your legal standing is shaky indeed. I would get permission from him
first.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Mar 97 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97)
Message-Id: <null>
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------------------------------
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