Category: Software Libré
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JavaScript Performance of Google Chrome’s V8 Engine
Wow.
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“Intellectual Property” is not Real Property
Mark Helprin writes a rather disingenuous piece in the New York Times op-ed today, arguing that Congress needs to extend copyrights again, beyond the already-obscene author’s life plus 70 years. What if, after you had paid the taxes on earnings with which you built a house, sales taxes on the materials, real estate taxes during…
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Pet Peeve #5 – Calling the GPL Viral
I get really irritated when pundits (usually those trying to stamp out Free Software) describe the GNU GPL as “viral” or “infectious.” You have to make a conscious decision to link your code against GPL code! You can’t get “infected” by the GPL through any means other than your own choice. If you don’t want…
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Everything Old is New Again
It’s kind of fun to see old (but good) ideas about usability and feature bloat return to the forefront in a product. Those of us who remember the night-and-day difference between the Macintosh and MS-DOS (or even Windows 3.1) think of this as axiomatic – that the software should get out of your way as…
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$CO, $CO, $CO
I know I’m beating this thing to death, especially since nobody who drops by my site much cares, but here’s a few more items about everyone’s favorite Linux trash-talker. The case, and SCO’s continued assertions that black is white, up is down, and that software licenses can’t give users the right to copy, is starting…
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A Web Proxy Hack for CVS
If you’re like me, you are behind a crazy-restrictive firewall, that only allows outbound traffic through a web proxy. Occasionally, I have need of non-release software, like the latest CVS source from the ant-contrib project. The stupid thing is, the latest CVS packages don’t include proxy support. After hours of searching, I finally found an…
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Making Sense of SCO/IBM (Maybe)
Trying to make sense of the SCO vs. the World battle currently raging is complicated for many reasons. First of all, the company now known as SCO is the amalgamation of two companies, Caldera and SCO. The code they own comes from AT&T Bell Labs by way of both SCO and Novell. GNU/Linux is made…
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SCO Threatens Everybody
The SCO Group, formerly Caldera Linux Systems International, has upped its strident tones as it marches headlong into oblivion. It would be funny if they weren’t trying to take GNU/Linux with them. This time, they are stopping all sales of SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux products (the products that gave them the money to buy…
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GPL FUD
In this nifty piece of FUD from a so-called “open source” developer, the author goes on and on about the GNU GPL‘s costs to developers and its supposed disincentives to create. He conflates the imitative quality of some GPL software with the innovative character of the free software community as a whole, and their dislike…