FSF/GNU/GPL/eddie: Episode-2

8 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/fsf-gnu-gpl-eddie-episode-2.41146/

@eddie,

I promised myself not to quote or reply any of your posts in that thread. Since you have now taken the discussion to personal level, I don't think it was appropriate for me to continue in "Open Source" section. Considering you'll resort to more and more personal flames, this section is more suitable for us to take on each other. There we go ...

eddie said:
Now that you have realised that your thoughts will lead you no where with none of the members in OSS community it is good to see you go from the discussion. I don't think anyone will miss you...at least I will not.

Well, I'm back ...and back with a vengeance.
By the way, your text in bold doesn't make any sense to me. I don't want fanatics anywhere near me!

eddie said:
1. This is like saying that if you are using any free software you are not entitled to speak against their ideology. Either stop using such software or shut up. If you are using even a single GPL software on your system...shut up. Are you doing what you are preaching? In any case, I never talked or intend to talk AGAINST any closed source software...I just supported open source software. I respect closed source software and open source software as well. I just don't like calling anyone stupid. Too difficult for you to understand...

I use GPL'ed software and happily comply with it. I don't use their *ideology* though, and that's exactly what I am against. And mind you, next Ubuntu release (Fiesty Fawn) will have proprietary nVIDIA and ATI graphics drivers installed by default. So much for the *ideology* against usability.

I'm not in the preaching industry; in fact, the preachers drive me mad. You have the clue.

eddie said:
2. Can you tell me have you ever seen a court room from inside and sat through a case involving patent infringement? Have you ever had the fortune of listening to those debates between lawyers that revolve around various sections or law protecting and providing loop holes in existing laws?

Thankfully, I have yet to appear in the court of law for any proceeding. Enjoy your *fortune* cookies.

eddie said:
The RE knowledge you have gathered from reading various half baked internet pages misses a major factor which is known as clean room RE. In such type of RE you don't copy stuff blatantly but you just copy the functionality. Such things can be done only to applications/hardware that do not stop decompilation totally. Windows XP is one of those applications and there should be many more. Looks like you didn't read the EULA and keep coming back with your ignorance. Also I never said that EVERY software gets you sued. I said that if you crack open your closed source application, you RISK getting sued. On the other hand you, yourself, started from Washing Machines and now talking about mod chips.

Don't talk about things you have little clue about. I'm sure you had the chance of learning RE'ing from the Great Gurus. And, now you're saying the same I stated a dozen times already. You still haven't replied whether or not you consider it legal to copy patented chip-designs and cracking game consoles. As for the washing machines, I'm sure you'll rip one open and bless the rest of us with a patent-free open-source version of it. Good luck!

eddie said:
Also Whirlpool vs LG that you are talking about. Well did you just pick it up randomly from internet or did you go through details because it clearly did not help you in this debate. LG simply picked features from Whirlpool's machine and introduced it in its own. This is not known as ripping open or RE...it is known as blatant copying. You should first understand the difference between copying and RE but then I guess you didn't even know the details of the case.

I set a trap, and you fell for it! LG didn't copy Whirlpool technology at all, and this was ruled out by the court of law. Whirlpool did sue LG, but it lost to them.

Now, who's been reading "half-baked" web pages? Gotcha!

eddie said:
3. Again you did not read my post. Read something related to "government structure"? Everything cannot be disclosed to every citizen part? Should I post a scan of my 8th class civics book for you? May be that will tell you something more about elections...parliament...ministers...representatives of common man? Also, even before RTI act was introduced, government was still quite open. It releases gazettes every fortnight informing general public like you and me about decisions taken in that fortnight, appointments done, tenders passed etc. etc. As far as "Classified Documents" are concerned, read the elections..parliament...minsters part again.

You misused so many words. This block of text doesn't mean anything. Even after having me posted the whole Clause[4] for proof of the limitations of the RTI-2000, you refuse to listen and keep uttrering gibberish.

eddie said:
About banks: You should go to your nearest RBI branch and buy a small booklet dealing with "rules for banking sector". It is priced at a nominal Rs.15/-. Go and buy it to know that EVERY bank...yes EVERY bank is liable to tell you what they are doing with your money. Your money ranges from your bank accounts, deposits, mutual funds...everything. A bank can't take your money and put it in horse racing to get maximum benefits. They HAVE to tell you what they are doing with your money and how they are investing it. If you go for mutual funds, it is your RIGHT to know how they are investing it. What stocks they are buying, what is their current price, how much you have gained, how much you have lost. Additionally they need to release quarterly information detailing how much of their assets and liabilities are in what state. They have to tell how they have invested common man's money. They can't just hide these facts that effect YOU. Here you means *you*...you can't go and ask about bank transactions of Ambanis. That doesn't concern you...so you don't know it. Go and read...

The original discussion was about GPL and how it makes every user reveal their sources if they modify them. If banks are "open", why don't they require their customers to reveal all their accounts information to the public? Now, why exactly you kept dancing around the corners and ignored the real question, is beyond me.

eddie said:
4. Except Flash I don't use any of the products you mentioned and in any case I am not preaching. I am just supporting someone's right to have his opinion without getting himself tagged as "stupid". On the other hand if we apply the same logic to yourself then I take it that you do not use bash, gcc, binutils or any other GPL software because they follow the same "stupid" ideology? Should I ask you to sit down now? Further, your insistence to keep calling gNewSense as gnuisance just shows your immaturity and childishness.

Except GPL admirers, I don't flame anybody else.
Wow! Calling them "GNUisanse" is so offensive and childish indeed! I'll listen to you once you start bashing those who use "Microsloth", "M$", "Micro$oft", "Micro$hit" and countless other twisted names in place of "Microsoft".

So "mature" and "18+" of you.

eddie said:
5. I wanted to laugh at you but I am resisting my self. Lots of people are there in India for whom English is not their primary language and it looks like you are one of them because you clearly cannot understand what is written.

What a bad decision! A good laugh would have done better than a proprietary "tainted" piece of commercial crap. English is not my first language either, but I don't misinterpret things on purpose.

eddie said:
"We would also like to give Broadcom a big "no thanks" because
their lawyers refused to give Jeff the documentation for the Tigon3
chipset using an NDA that would allow him to write a GPL'd driver
based upon said documentation. This means that all that we know about
the hardware has been reverse engineered from Broadcom's GPL'd driver
plus some experimenting. It is why this driver has taken so long to
finish, because it is hard to find incentive for this kind of brack
breaking work when the vendor is totally uncooperative."

You are free to highlight any portion of text as you may please, but you cannot change the fact, no matter what effort you put in. Read below for more.

eddie said:
The CODE for the driver was in GPL, not the documentation for the hardware. You call yourself a developer and do not know the difference between the two? The company did not want the developers to know how to the hardware worked. They just provided the code for the driver but to make a better driver, the developers needed documentation for hardware. This is why the developers were forced to RE the driver to know how it functioned and write working code accordingly. Do you understand now? I wouldn't blame you for not understanding though...you rarely read stuff properly.

Yes, I am a developer and it's a well known fact that "reverse engineers" don't work with documents signed under NDA. I don't want to know how and why the engineers reversed a "binary" driver and hardware, since the point of discussion was - why does a "free" Linux kernel contain a RE'ed driver. You apparantly lost track of the actual discussion. There were very heated-up arguments against this driver on IRC (#debian-legal) and Debian even excluded the driver from the official distribution for quite some time.

Check this - *wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/FAQ#head-d2b370740516f1e113719a733d9ecb324f61ff4f

As always, tongue in cheeks! A perfect Kodak moment. Say "cheese"!

eddie said:
6. You crack me up man...you crack me up. Keep posting jokes like these often. A whole project of the size of XGL has been successful because of nVIDIA's drivers. Good one! I hope that next time you say that xorg/xfree86 has reached to this stage because of Microsoft's code.

I crack you up, I rip you to bones and I tear them apart. Let's keep the discussion civil.

If Ubuntu and XGL users were happy with "free" Intel graphics drivers, why is the next release of Ubuntu, code-named "Feisty Fawn", going to have nVIDIA and ATI "proprietary" and "ugly" drivers installed for the users?

XGL is no major project. You obviously have little clue about it. It only duplicates most of the X functionality with added acceleration, which nVIDIA achieved without hacking X for better 3D effects.

Xorg has nothing to do with Microsoft either. At least, come up with better analogies to compensate with your weak, childish and arrogant arguments.

eddie said:
7. First you were talking about proprietary drivers, then you talked about Debian background and now you are praising the ability of Ubuntu's devs in inheriting stuff? Do you have more colours to change in?

That's none of your business. Besides, your arguments have already shown that your colorful imaginative World is actually painted in shades of grey.

eddie said:
8. BSD license when introduced in 1980 had severe problems attached to it. The company who introduced it (At &T ? Don't remember exactly) was charging exorbitant prices for products they sold under BSD license. It had major changes till 1989...most of the law suits were resolved till then and in that year it was publicly accepted when a project released its code *for free* under this license independently. That is why I wrote that both GPL and BSD licenses were born in 1989 because BSD had almost nil problems till 1989. Also Linux was born in 1991 while bash and gcc existed *under* GPL way before Linux was born. Saying that people went for Linux hacking because BSD had problems is plain ignorant. In 1989 people had started working with both BSD and GPL license but accepted the latter because they found it better, NOT because they went for Linux kernel hacking, or are you telling us that people in those times had serious future seeing capabilities? They knew that something like Linux will exist in 1991 so they started hacking for it even before it came into existence? Your ignorance is too visible man...hide it some where.

First you say that BSD license came out in 1989, and then you're making-up stuff to hide you blatant stupidity? AT&T you said? Muahahahahaha! BSD license was introduced by the Berkeley Software Distribution at the University of California, Berkeley. Net/1 was the first software to be released under the BSD license, outside BSD, in 1989. That doesn't mean that BSD license didn't exist before that.

All of the BSD lawsuits were resolved by 1989? Making up stuff again? Both FreeBSD and NetBSD started off in 1993. OpenBSD came out in 1995 as a NetBSD fork. FreeBSD 2.0, which came out in 1995, was the *first* release with no legal strings attached.

Again, the original discussion was that GNU/GPL started long before the *BSDs (license), so the developers have little choice but to gather under the GNU banner by then. You disappoint me more often than not.

eddie said:
9. If you were talking about developers then what in this god's world were you doing, telling us that people need to use Binary drivers, Microsoft fonts, Java, Flash? You need all those things to write code in C? The code looks different under nVIDIA drivers? It looks different in Arial and DejaVu? You need Java and Flash to see code written in C? Stay on one side of the fence man...just don't jump from this side to that side.

I was talking from a developer's *perspective*. Time to buy a dictionary?
You are always making stuff, purposely to avoid the real discussion. Get back on track.

eddie said:
As far as the truth is concerned, it is only you who is posting half baked ignorant stuff. Take a friendly advice...you are a developer...stay one...don't try to become a doctor, lawyer, finance consultant and expert on government policies. You just show how ignorant you are and embarrass yourself in public when others burst your bubble. Also this is the beginning of your life (I take it you are in your early twenties or even less then that?), you should learn to respect other people's opinion and people with different opinion. You will find them everywhere. If you call everyone who doesn't agree with you or their thoughts as stupid, then you will just create trouble for you. Respecting others is the first thing you should learn before learning anything else.

Keep grinding your blunt axe, for all you're left with now is impotent arrogance.

Thats very rude @Yamaraj. I don't have much knowledge about the topic u and eddie were discussing. I preferred to stay out and just be an observer! Eddie was talking quite respectfully. U were just flaming him more n more. That wasn't polite enough. I was completely neutral. At first I thought u were right. But after each n every post the other person seemed more correct to me! And starting a thread in different place won't solve ur problem either! If u can't discuss politely with him in OPENSOURCE, then I guess u created this thread just to flame him. "With a Vengeance","U'll die of cancer in asbestos or wateva u said"."impotence arrogance"....... Please debate politely!! If he's right then accept it. If he's wrong then show him the proof! Thats all he asked n thats what I expected. Please don't ruin the scenario. Its not just u and eddie who were discussing. There are also many people in digitforum who were observing and learning from that debate! Didn't expected this from u! :-|

mediator said:
Thats very rude @Yamaraj. I don't have much knowledge about the topic u and eddie were discussing. I preferred to stay out and just be an observer! Eddie was talking quite respectfully. U were just flaming him more n more. That wasn't polite enough. I was completely neutral. At first I thought u were right. But after each n every post the other person seemed more correct to me! And starting a thread in different place won't solve ur problem either! If u can't discuss politely with him in OPENSOURCE, then I guess u created this thread just to flame him. "With a Vengeance","U'll die of cancer in asbestos or wateva u said"."impotence arrogance"....... Please debate politely!! If he's right then accept it. If he's wrong then show him the proof! Thats all he asked n thats what I expected. Please don't ruin the scenario. Its not just u and eddie who were discussing. There are also many people in digitforum who were observing and learning from that debate! Didn't expected this from u!

In stead of being an armchair judge, wouldn't it be better to read the posts carefully and form independent opinions? I'm not going to defend myself.

I'm not being an armchair judge dude! I read all the posts more carefully than u cared to write them with flames all around! Earlier I wasn't forming much opinion coz every other person seemed more correct untill u started this thread. But yes I'm forming some opinion now! And for defending thing, u only need to defend ur statements if u think ur 100% correct. A gentleman doesn't flames all the way and that too from the beginning itself if he thinks that he is right and has full knowledge. All he need to do is debate properly.
All ur posts in this forum are filled with aggressive tones. I don't mind that. But then flaming,flaming,flaming all the way and that too from beginning and creating another thread and christening it as Episode 2 and later 3 or 4 wateva is just ridiculous.

"I'm back with a vengeance" : Now wat does that mean?? Did u felt a defeat of somekind?? Was ur ego hurt??

U may flame me too as much as u like but then that will lead to closing of this thread ultimately! So I again request u to continue from that thread so that all of us can get to see a discussion.

It's just sad that people lose the tracks so easily. I'm taking the pains in highlighting the points of original discussion again, so as to avoid any potential offtopic flame-wars. Disagreeing participants may want to play only in observer mode, if this serves them better.

1. Usability Vs. Ideology - How many of the Linux users follow FLOFFGGR[f] guidelines and ideology cleanly? How many of you avoid proprietary, commercial, patented, binary, reverse engineered and closed-source applications, drivers or firmware, multimedia codecs, MP3/DVD plugins and players, Adobe Acrobat and Flash? How many of you are going to be using gNewSense[a] without any non-free repositories, and how many of you will avoid the next release of Ubuntu which will have nVIDIA and ATI drivers integrated?

Their tagline is - "Addition of Freedom", and hidden agenda is - "Removal of usability".

2. Software and Hardware - Why do FLOFFGGR[f] fanatics keep on using hardware that fall into the same categories they despise so much? How many of you will abandon using Intel/AMD/IBM/Sun/x/y/z CPUs, nVIDIA/ATI/x/y/z cards, x/y/z NICs, a/b/c wireless cards and countless other hardware that are proprietary, closed and commercial in origin and by nature?

How many of you will wait for the "Open Hardware Foundation" till eternity?

3. Free Vs. Non-free - When it's clear that Linux does contain reverse-engineered driver(s), and the Linux sources were managed by a non-free program - for which even RMS called Linux kernel "only partially free" and I posted a link to that page[c], why don't the fundamentalists accept the truth that PCPBReC[d] are necessary (evil[e]).

4. FLOFFGGR[f] are not "divine" - Many of the FLOFFGGR[f] fans act like members of some cult, getting back severely on those who don't agree with them. Many even go as far to refer to Microsoft, nVIDIA etc as "evil". People are so brainwashed, they will do anything for their cult-figures, even if they're in direct violation of the "preachings".

5. Hardware RE'ing - The quote from eddie - "I can open my washing machine and tear open its thermostat, motors, circuit board and everything. I can create my own circuit boards based on the knowledge I get from it and then sell my products. On the other hand cracking open your closed source application is simply illegal." has been repeatedly refuted by me with solid proofs all over the net. Still, he is conveniently ignoring them to save his face.

6. Software RE'ing - Another statement of his - "Also, just because OpenBSD has reverse engineered drivers does not mean that it is legal." has been falsified. Not only OpenBSD, but the Linux kernel contains RE'ed drivers[g] too. And they are NOT illegal.

7. Wikipedia considered harmful - Well, he said it!

8. "Freedom" and "restrictions" - The followers have the freedom to praise the ideology, but the *unbelievers* are not allowed to criticize the faulty premises.

9. Windows users should abandon the ship because they're not allowed to decompose it - You heard it! Not only laughable, it's also quite disgusting to suggest that Windnows EULA sucks because it doesn't allow reversing, disassebly or decompilation. In his own words - "Go and read it for Windows XP and you will know what I am saying. They explicitly talk about reverse engineering and decompilation...no words minced."

Then, O' Great One, how the developers use kernel debuggers provided with the Windows DDK to develop software? I'll advise you again to first grasp the concept of "Reverse Engineering" and related laws in and out of USA. Happy reading!

10. The hypocrisy and the debate - I should not speak against their ideology because I use GPL'ed software, but the one who violates the same ideology is going to any lengths in defense of it.

The fundamental problem that led to the demise of The Great Debate was the lack of a proper participant on the other side.

[a] - I have used the correct name in the spirit of a good argument.
- Linux used BitKeeper, a commercial software for managing sources. Now, the Linux kernel sources are managed by the free "git" system.
[c] - *www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html
[d] - Proprietary, Commercial, Patented, Binary, Reverse Engineered and Closed-source
[e] - A little convenient, eh?
[f] - Free/Libre/OSS/FSF/GNU/GPL/RMS
[g] - Broadcom Tigon3 and ACX1xx series wireless drivers
__________

mediator said:

I'm not being an armchair judge dude! I read all the posts more carefully than u cared to write them with flames all around! Earlier I wasn't forming much opinion coz every other person seemed more correct untill u started this thread. But yes I'm forming some opinion now! And for defending thing, u only need to defend ur statements if u think ur 100% correct. A gentleman doesn't flames all the way and that too from the beginning itself if he thinks that he is right and has full knowledge. All he need to do is debate properly.
All ur posts in this forum are filled with aggressive tones. I don't mind that. But then flaming,flaming,flaming all the way and that too from beginning and creating another thread and christening it as Episode 2 and later 3 or 4 wateva is just ridiculous.

"I'm back with a vengeance" : Now wat does that mean?? Did u felt a defeat of somekind?? Was ur ego hurt??

U may flame me too as much as u like but then that will lead to closing of this thread ultimately! So I again request u to continue from that thread so that all of us can get to see a discussion.

Click to expand...

Are you finished with your speeches? Please, take your seat now.

AS I already stated man discussing in separate thread won't help! I didn't read a single word u wrote to show how correct u r except for the last comment u made! I really don't care about policies and most users don't either! We only care about the stability and security of an OS and yes its usability. I don't care and most end-users don't either if the Linux they use is actually free or is having some proprietary mix in it! As long as it is available for download freely from official site without any hindrance, we consider it as free. U may say that I'm ignorant about the policies and yes I openly admit it I'm! U can't change my mind or any one's else by saying it has propreitary mix in it. SO what?? The thing is free to download from official site and lets u do whateva u want!

So its better to make ur long speeches in that main thread instead of this dummy thread and practise ur skills on me!

I never knew that u started a thread here! And might not have known ever missing all the fun! But I visit this zone quite frequently. So...

So instead of misinterpreting my request each time, post in that original thread. And yes I have taken my seat in that orginal thread and I request u to take urs instead of creating new tables and new seats!

Even though it is unusual for me to explain myself, I'll make an exception for you this time.

#1. I was not pleased to see the debate heading into personal flamewars and I could do little about it. If you care to read the very first and last sentences of my last post in that thread, you'll know the reasons.

#2. People just don't have any sense of humor anymore. First, Eddie turned my "asbestos" joke into personal flames, then you're having fits because of the "vengeance" part, which only rhymes with the spirit of this section - Fight Club.

Enlightenment has you. Lighten up now!

Well in this thread and in this very post the only part that I liked was the tone of ur post this time which was least aggressive. I really don't care how much u 2 guys flame each other! I don't observe debates unless they enlighten me about something or entertain me! But that debate was really getting interesting for me! And I didn't like u continuing from somewhere else and I bet most people observing felt the same as me!

I also felt debate like this shud be continued in prestigious FIGHTCLUB. If u felt the same then u cud have requested the mods to move it here! Why create another thread?? A person wanting to read the whole thing from the start won't just keep on searching the parts of the whole debate! I hope u got mah point. So please don't misinterpret my request this time and do debate there only. Request a mod to move the whole original thread here in FIGHT CLUB ad u'll find me sitting comfortably and njoying my interest.

U may copy n paste the whole 1st post of ur new thread in the orginal one and thanx for enlightening about the policies and all. Neways I don't care about them much