# The Free Software Thread



## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

Anything having to do with free software goes here. I know there are some FSF supporters here.

Please note: This is about Free Software and not Freeware, which is something totally different. This might also explain the difference.


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## anuradha (Feb 5, 2011)

danthecuber said:


> Anything having to do with free software goes here. I know there are some FSF supporters here.



Count me in!


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

What's your favorite free software program? Also, be sure to vote!
Mine would have to be after lots of deliberation... I have a tie. I can't decide between the Command Line and Emacs.
When do you think Debian Squeeze will be released? Its been forever.


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## aronpm (Feb 5, 2011)

Why would you ever want free software? Non-free software would be better because you have to pay for lots of development and features.


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## anuradha (Feb 5, 2011)

aronpm said:


> Why would you ever want free software? Non-free software would be better because you have to pay for lots of development and features.


 
If 10000 people want to build a house, and if everybody contributes a brick (or something of similar value), they will end up with a house. Just one house.

If a software is like a house, and if 10000 people want to build one, they all can contribute a bit - like a brick in the house example.

But unlike the house, a software can be copied. So all the 10000 people can have a copy of the software for themselves. Not only the contributors, but even other people can get copies.

It is like contributing a brick and getting a house back.

But in my opinion, you are right in two ways. There should be some business models to feed those who write code. And for some very specialized software (e.g.: medical), we won't be able to find 10000 people. So there are cases where non-free software models make sense.


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## anuradha (Feb 5, 2011)

anuradha said:


> If a software is like a house, and if 10000 people want to build one, they all can contribute a bit - like a brick in the house example.



By the way, this is a bad example. I am sure a software written by 10000 people working together is going to be the most chaotic one ever! ;-)

I was trying to show the difference between a house or a lunch vs software. A house or a lunch cannot be made copies, but a software can be made copies. Because of this fundamental difference, the "there is no free lunch" logic doesn't apply directly to software.

But again, there should be some way for the software developers to live. Like Dan pointed out in the first post, this is why "freeware" is a bad software model. On the other hand, "Free Software" is about the freedom and doesn't forbid charging money for software and services, and that's why it has been very successful.


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

aronpm said:


> Why would you ever want free software? Non-free software would be better because you have to pay for lots of development and features.


 
Think of it this way. The only people that have access to the source code of Microsoft Windows are Microsoft employees, which total 89,000 (wikipedia). 89,000 people therefore have access to the Windows source code. Gnu/Linux, on the other hand, lets the whole world have access to the source code, which is 6.7 billion people (I realize not everyone has a computer, but everyone has access regardless) What operating system is stronger, the one with 89,000 people working on it, or the on with 6,700,000,000 people working on it?



anuradha said:


> On the other hand, "Free Software" is about the freedom and doesn't forbid charging money for software and services, and that's why it has been very successful.


In fact, Richard Stallman sold his famous program Emacs for $200 at first.


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## aronpm (Feb 5, 2011)

danthecuber said:


> Think of it this way. The only people that have access to the source code of Microsoft Windows are Microsoft employees, which total 89,000 (wikipedia). 89,000 people therefore have access to the Windows source code. Gnu/Linux, on the other hand, lets the whole world have access to the source code, which is 6.7 billion people (I realize not everyone has a computer, but everyone has access regardless) What operating system is stronger, the one with 89,000 people working on it, or the on with 6,700,000,000 people working on it?


 
But there aren't 6.7 billion people working on GNU/Linux. I think windows is the strong operating system because people can't see the source code so hackers can't see the code and find exploits


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

anuradha said:


> By the way, this is a bad example. I am sure a software written by 10000 people working together is going to be the most chaotic one ever! ;-)
> 
> I was trying to show the difference between a house or a lunch vs software. A house or a lunch cannot be made copies, but a software can be made copies. Because of this fundamental difference, the "there is no free lunch" logic doesn't apply directly to software.
> 
> But again, there should be some way for the software developers to live. Like Dan pointed out in the first post, this is why "freeware" is a bad software model. On the other hand, "Free Software" is about the freedom and doesn't forbid charging money for software and services, and that's why it has been very successful.


 




 go to 7:15



aronpm said:


> But there aren't 6.7 billion people working on GNU/Linux. I think windows is the strong operating system because people can't see the source code so hackers can't see the code and find exploits



That's good, so then they can fix them! You've gotten caught up in the hacker controversy.


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## aronpm (Feb 5, 2011)

Sorry I meant crackers or black hats but my point is still unaddressed


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## anuradha (Feb 5, 2011)

aronpm said:


> Sorry I meant crackers or black hats but my point is still unaddressed


 
I think as much as the "crackers", security analysts also get to study the source code of Free Software tools. And some of the early fixes come not from the developers, but from the enthusiasts (the white-hats).

Perhaps this is also related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity


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## blade740 (Feb 5, 2011)

danthecuber said:


> You've gotten caught up in the hacker controversy.


 
This drives me crazy. "Hacker" has an accepted meaning in the popular vernacular, whether you like it or not. Calling someone out for this usage is pedantic and serves absolutely no purpose.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker 

Believe it or not, a word CAN have more than one meaning.


More to the topic at hand: I'm a supporter of free software. I think for vital computer systems openness is the best policy. A closed system can have exploits lie dormant for years before being brought to the attention of the developers who have the power to fix it. And even then, because the bug isn't publicly viewable, there's nothing keeping the developer from simply leaving the bug there. Free software means that anyone can find the bug, locate the cause, and in many cases even submit a patch to solve the issue. There's a reason that free systems dominate the server market (where security is of the utmost importance). 



aronpm said:


> I think windows is the strong operating system


I rest my case.


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## anuradha (Feb 5, 2011)

aronpm said:


> But there aren't 6.7 billion people working on GNU/Linux



I don't think lots of people "working on" a software makes it good. It will actually make it really bad!!! Even if all 89,000 MS employees were working on the Windows operating system alone, that would be the worst operating system ever. A few hundred bright individuals would do a much better job.

I think the point there is that people can look at the code if they want to, and lots of people out there do look at code, mostly CS students who has time in hand. So the code of free software get to be reviewed much more. I remember seeing masters/doctoral thesis on security and using free software code as case studies.

The other important contribution is funding those bright individuals. If you take the present Linux kernel development, most of the key developers are _paid_!!! Linus Torvalds is a full time employee of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL). And this is funded by many key organizations like IBM and Google, and (if I remember right) also by individual contributions. This is a win-win. Like my house example, each contributor shares the burden, and all of them get the benefit. Not only the contributors, but also everyone else.

But again, the Linux kernel example is good for Free Software, because it is not the key business of the financial contributors like IBM or Google. So promoting it as a Free Software is not a threat to their core business. Google won't use this model for its search engine development! Or a bank won't promote a banking software to be developed openly like that, and to be picked up by its competitors.

And to add to your point, there are hundreds of thousands of Free Software on Sourceforge and elsewhere, that are open to 6+ billion people, but nobody ever cares to look at them except the single developer who started it!


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

blade740 said:


> This drives me crazy. "Hacker" has an accepted meaning in the popular vernacular, whether you like it or not. Calling someone out for this usage is pedantic and serves absolutely no purpose.
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker
> 
> Believe it or not, a word CAN have more than one meaning.
> ...


 All Fixed

I never said I didn't like it nor implied anything else that was negative about that post. I just didn't realize at first which definition of hacker he was using.


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## anuradha (Feb 5, 2011)

blade740 said:


> Believe it or not, a word CAN have more than one meaning.



Sorry, I can't resist quoting from http://sabian.org/looking_glass6.php ;-)



> 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
> 
> 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

anuradha said:


> I don't think lots of people "working on" a software makes it good. It will actually make it really bad!!! Even if all 89,000 MS employees were working on the Windows operating system alone, that would be the worst operating system ever. A few hundred bright individuals would do a much better job.
> 
> I think the point there is that people can look at the code if they want to, and lots of people out there do look at code, mostly CS students who has time in hand. So the code of free software get to be reviewed much more. I remember seeing masters/doctoral thesis on security and using free software code as case studies.
> 
> ...


 
Thanks for clarifying that for me, because sometimes I have an idea in my head but can't logically write (or type) it out.


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## aronpm (Feb 5, 2011)

Sup.


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

aronpm said:


> Sup.


 
Congratulations, your operating system is 99.95% free software...
Good job for trying to make an argument against free software though. I try really hard sometimes but it never is logical.
Lets also see that uname -a. This thread was meant for discussion about free software btw, not to have arguments about what software model is better.


aronpm said:


> Why would you ever want free software? Non-free software would be better because you have to pay for lots of development and features.


lol now I realize the sarcasm in that post
Has anyone heard of VRMS? It's a very odd program...


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## anuradha (Feb 5, 2011)

danthecuber said:


> Lets also see that uname -a.



Here is mine (uname -a): Linux anu 2.6.37-trunk-686 #1 SMP Thu Jan 6 14:39:08 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

Here's alist of 100% free software distributions. Combining one of those with a Lemote Yeeloong computer would mean 100% computer freedom, INCLUDING THE BIOS!!


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## aronpm (Feb 5, 2011)

That's out of date? Mine says "Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.34.7-66.fc13.i686 #1 SMP Wed Dec 15 07:40:25 UTC 2010 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux"

I probably should get updates.


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## danthecuber (Feb 5, 2011)

aronpm said:


> That's out of date? Mine says "Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.34.7-66.fc13.i686 #1 SMP Wed Dec 15 07:40:25 UTC 2010 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux"
> 
> I probably should get updates.



Sorry, my mistake I was thinking of something else.
The moment you've all been waiting for:
Linux Dan-gNewSense 2.6.30.7-libre-fshoppel #1 SMP WED Sep 23 15:31:59 CEST 2009 i686 Gnu/Linux


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## masterofthebass (Feb 5, 2011)

stop bumping like this. It is not OK to delete your previous posts and then post the same thing.


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## masterofthebass (Feb 6, 2011)

stop bumping your topic with useless information... If no on posts in it, deal with it. Next bump you do, I'm closing the thread.


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## danthecuber (Feb 6, 2011)

Ok, then I will post some useful information.
Here is a list of some free software cubing programs:

Rubiks-jtimer
GNUbik
Rubik's Cube Solver by Eric Dietz
Here is a list of three more programs.
Rubik's Cube Solver
Rubik's Cube applet
Kubrick
Another simulator
Yet another simulator

Anuradha told me he was going to release his cubing program under the GPL, too.

If anyone else can find more free software cubing programs, feel free to post it.


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