Skip to main content

Help JMRI

I don't even use the software from the JMRI project, but I had to donate a little to help their potentially important case. The violators are claimer that by being free (as in beer), all copyright is waived and thus any GPL restrictions are not even the project's own to claim. Wow, that is an evil claim.

Do what you can, even ajust five or ten bucks.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The project in question doesn't appear to use the GPL. Nevertheless, the behaviour of the agressors concerned (filing patents, disregarding software licences, playing baroque legal games) is obviously highly unethical.
5:56 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CARDIAC: The Cardboard Computer

I am just so excited about this. CARDIAC. The Cardboard Computer. How cool is that? This piece of history is amazing and better than that: it is extremely accessible. This fantastic design was built in 1969 by David Hagelbarger at Bell Labs to explain what computers were to those who would otherwise have no exposure to them. Miraculously, the CARDIAC (CARDboard Interactive Aid to Computation) was able to actually function as a slow and rudimentary computer.  One of the most fascinating aspects of this gem is that at the time of its publication the scope it was able to demonstrate was actually useful in explaining what a computer was. Could you imagine trying to explain computers today with anything close to the CARDIAC? It had 100 memory locations and only ten instructions. The memory held signed 3-digit numbers (-999 through 999) and instructions could be encoded such that the first digit was the instruction and the second two digits were the address of memory to operate on
1 comment
Read more

The Range of Content on Planet Python

I've gotten a number of requests lately to contribute only Python related material to the Planet Python feeds and to be honest these requests have both surprised and insulted me, but they've continued. I am pretty sure they've come from a very small number of people, but they have become consistent. This is probably because of my current habit of writing about NaNoWriMo every day and those who aren't interested not looking forward to having the rest of the month reading about my novel. Planet Python will be getting a feed of only relevant posts in the future, but I'm going to be honest: I am kind of upset about it. I don't care if anyone thinks it is unreasonable of me to be upset about it, because the truth is Planet Python means something to me. It was probably the first thing I did that I considered "being part of the community" when I submitted my meager RSS feed to be added some seven years ago. My blog and my name on the list of authors at Plan
17 comments
Read more

Javascript Module Loaders Considered Harmful

Introduction I’m coming to an opinion of Javascript module loaders that is profoundly negative and I’d like to express why I think they are, generally, a bad idea. However, I do think they have a place, which I’ll get to at the end. Now, I understand I might be in the minority here. Between the competing specifications of CommonJS and AMD modules, loader systems like RequireJS or the (honestly really awesome) Google Module Server, and the huge cultural influence of Node on the Javascript world, you’d be hard pressed to argue against Javascript modules these days. Scripts are old hat, too stupid, too inflexible. Everyone knows that and no one would make an argument in their favor, right? I’m going to step out on a limb and say “Javascript Module Loaders Considered Harmful” and I know the baggage involved with declaring something “Considered Harmful”. I mean every ounce of context that phrase carries with it, and I hope I can persuade you. Harm #1: Confused Debuggers
7 comments
Read more