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225: Open Source

2016-08-13T19:20:58Z

Pick107: Changed minor grammatical errors in paragraph 2

{{comic
| number = 225
| date = February 19, 2007
| title = Open Source
| image = open source.png
| titletext = Later we'll dress up like Big Oil thugs and jump Ralph Nader.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Richard Stallman}}, or ''rms'' after his handle, is an old-school hacker known these days primarily for establishing the {{w|Free Software Foundation}} (FSF) and initiating the {{w|GNU Project}} in the early 1980s, which produced major portions of what would later be the {{w|Linux|GNU/Linux}} operating system. In this capacity, he's also known for being one of the most ardent and outspoken proponents of {{w|free software}}, sometimes called {{w|open source software}}. In fact, his advocacy is so emphatic and polemical that he has garnered active dislike from traditionalists who believe that software {{w|source code}} should be retained as a trade secret by its developer(s). Stallman has expressed that he did not even wish to be in a comic using the word '''Open Source''', see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section.

While this dislike may not rise to the level of hiring {{w|ninja}} assassins to remove him from the world, it is strong. The joke of the comic, as it also turns out, is that the two ninjas were just out to have a fun time teasing Stallman, and they seemed to know that Stallmans paranoia about {{w|Microsoft}} makes him sleep with no less than two {{w|katana}} swords near his bed. This type of swords were one of the traditionally made Japanese swords that were used by the {{w|samurai}} of feudal Japan. A ninja was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. Their covert methods of waging irregular warfare were deemed "dishonorable" and "beneath" the samurai-caste, who observed strict rules about honor and combat. So this makes sense in this comic with Stallman, the samurai, and the ninjas, the lackeys of the oppressing Microsoft (at least in his mind). It also turns out that they specifically chooses a target for their raids that have reason to be paranoid of come larger companies that might send someone after them, and thus sleeps with weapons near their bed. Stallman has received a Katana due to this comic, see the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section.

{{w|GPL}} refers to the 'GNU General Public License', which is a copyright license written by the FSF that covers much GNU software and plenty of other free software besides. It stipulates that software so copyrighted must always be provided along with full source code, and that everyone in possession of such software is free to use, study, modify, and redistribute it for any purpose whatsoever (including sale or resale) provided they give due credit to any other contributing developers, also provide access to the complete source code, and retain all copyright notices.

Legally, this gives all users of such software exactly the same rights under copyright as the developer(s), and prevents any developers from ever taking away those rights from users, which is the defining feature of '{{w|Free software#Definition|free-as-in-libre}}' software. It also has the effect of making all software ''derived'' from GPL software thereby also GPL, even if 'derived' merely means 'borrowed a few lines of code from'. Some (e.g. Microsoft's {{w|Steve Ballmer}}) have therefore argued that this makes GPL software behave as a kind of {{w|viral license|'license virus'}}, which spreads GPL-guaranteed freedoms to any software used in close conjunction with GPL'd software during development, such that businesses should actively avoid adopting {{w|FOSS|free and open source software}}, so as not to jeopardize software developers' legal standing with regard to {{w|proprietary software|proprietary IP copyright}}s.

During the attack Richard Stallman begins to speak like he quotes an old play. For instance the wording "For a GNU dawn!" is pronounced "For a g'new dawn!", following the pronunciation of {{w|GNU}}, so it is a version of ''New Dawn'', a sentence used often in fiction. He even gets annoyed when it turns out the ninjas just run away, he had clearly waited a long time to, even looking forward to, defending him self with his katanas.

Because as it turned out that the two "ninjas" made a prank with him, and they realized that they had so much fun out of Stallman that they plan to do more of these nightly raids even mentioning two other possible future targets on their way out of the window:

{{w|Eric S. Raymond}} is a famous {{w|Hacker (programmer subculture)|hacker}} who wrote {{w|The Cathedral and the Bazaar}} and has been something of an unofficial spokesperson for open source as a {{w|Open-source software development|software development methodology}}. The plan to prank Eric Raymond could be a bad one since he is an experienced martial artist, swordsman, and firearm enthusiast. However, this seems to be the attraction of these two "ninjas" as can be seen by what they seems to know about their other possible target:

{{w|Linus Torvalds}} is the creator of the {{w|Linux kernel}}, an free/open source operating system kernel inspired by the {{w|Unix}} kernel, which proved to be the final component that, combined with then pre-existing GNU system functions and {{w|userland}} components, produced the first fully free operating system, {{w|Linux}}. The plan to prank Torvalds would at first sound more boring as the mild-mannered Finn, while known to be strongly, abrasively opinionated, is otherwise mostly harmless. However, one of the ninjas seems to know otherwise since it is rumored that Linus sleeps with {{w|nunchaku|nunchucks}} in the same way that Stallman sleeps with two katana swords. The ''nunchaku'' is a traditional Okinawan martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks connected at one end by a short chain or rope.

A third possible target of this prank is mentioned in the title text. {{w|Ralph Nader}} is a famous consumer rights advocate, most famous for the 1965 book {{w|Unsafe at Any Speed}} and for running for US President in 2000. Nader was an environmentalist, a member of the Green Party, and supported clean energy, thus he should naturally be opposed to the Big Oil companies.

==Transcript==
:[The first panel has the second panel inside it. It also has a slightly light gray background color. Just above the inlaid second panel is Richard Stallman lying in his bed sleeping, the bottom part at the foot of the bed is hidden behind the second panel below. Below his bed under his head lies a katana sword in it's sheath, and another one hangs in it's sheath behind the end of the bed. Two ninjas with black cloth around their heads and swords jump through the skylight smashing it so glass scatters around them. Each of them is hanging one handed from the same rope coming down from the skylight. The rope ends just above the inlaid frame below. The two ninjas shouts at Richard Stallman, from four speech bubbles which have pointy ends to indicate how the two alternately speaks. (These bubbles are white not gray).]
:Richard Stallman: ''Zzzz''
:Top Ninja: Richard Stallman! Your viral open source licenses have grown too powerful.
:Bottom Ninja: The GPL must be stopped.
:Top Ninja: At the source.
:Bottom Ninja: You.

:[In the second inlaid panel (with normal white background) Richard Stallman wakes up immediately, and while sitting up in bed he pulls out both his katana swords from their sheaths leaving the sheaths under and behind the bed. One hand is up in the air with the sword from behind the bed, and the other is still pointing down with the swords from below the bed. Lines indicate the fast movement of the swords. His three speech bubbles are like those of the ninjas, the last two even breaking the panel entering into the large first panel.]
:Katana swords: Shing! Shing!
:Richard Stallman: Hah! Microsoft lackeys! So it has come to this!
:Richard Stallman: A night of blood I've long awaited. But be this my death or yours, free software will carry on! For a GNU dawn! For freedom!
:Richard Stallman: ...Hey, where are you going?

:[An outside scene at night with black sky. Richard Stallmans gray house can be seen with the broken white skylight on the roof. The ninjas are jumping out of a window at ground height while taking of their ninja cloth around their heads, holding them in their hand, thus revealing they both looks like Cueball. The first one is already on the grassy ground beneath the window his sword pointing down and left, the other just jumps from the window pane his sword pointing up and right. Again they have speech bubbles like before. It is not possible to tell which of the two ninjas from before is first out the window.]
:Ninja in window: Man, you're right, that never gets old.
:Ninja on the grass: Let's do Eric S. Raymond next.
:Ninja in window: Or Linus Torvalds. I hear he sleeps with nunchucks.

==Trivia==
*The phrase "So it has come to this" is the title of [[1022: So It Has Come To This]].
*In [[1624: 2016]] [[Cueball]] smashes through the ceiling, also hanging on a rope, to wake a person in a bed. Not as a threat though, but still a very similar situation.
*Because of this comic Stallman has [http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/04/19/life-imitates-xkcd-part-ii-richard-stallman/ been given a katana] by fans of xkcd.
*At his [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHp_Vh9TESU#t=1645 talk at JCCC3] (as well as in a note in ''[http://store-xkcd-com.myshopify.com/products/xkcd-volume-0 xkcd: Volume Zero]''), [[Randall]] mentioned that the comic he originally published had the assassins say "free software" and Richard Stallman says "open source software". He swapped the two terms after complaints that Richard Stallman was [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html opposed to the phrase "open source"]. Even after this change he got an e-mail from Stallman himself saying that he didn't even want to be portrayed in the same comic as the words "open source".
*Stallman's well-known opposition to the term "open source" stems from the fact that "open source" refers specifically to a methodology for software development involving allowing customers to actively participate in development and testing of software products by giving them access to in-development source code and soliciting feedback; as such, the term was first adopted as a means to promote free software ideas to business interests. In contrast, Stallman and the FSF view free software as a political issue concerning the basic freedoms that should belong to all computer users, and thus 'open source' as an appeal to software businesses misses the point of getting individuals to think about their rights as users.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Computers]]

1630: Quadcopter

2016-01-16T16:05:02Z

Pick107: Removed explanation of Cuball like guy

{{comic
| number = 1630
| date = January 15, 2016
| title = Quadcopter
| image = quadcopter.png
| titletext = I always have to turn off nature documentaries when they show these scenes.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|The alternative that Cueball-Student should be able to control the three Quadcopter should probably be deleted. See current explanation.}}

There is large controversy over {{w|Quadcopter|quadcopters}}, which are usually referred to as ''{{w|Unmanned aerial vehicle|drones}}''. People worry that they will spy on people and essentially interfere with their lives in places they do not want them.

For this reason the US {{w|Federal Aviation Administration}} is now requiring any "drone" (unmanned aerial vehicle) to be registered so that it can find out whose fault it might be that a quadcopter interfered with commercial aircraft--or carried off a citizen to be devoured.

Recently, since drones have become more common, companies have begun selling remote-controlled drones. It will thus be commonplace for people who wish to use these that they take a class on how to fly them, because it can be tricky. There is currently a drone called {{w|MQ-1 Predator}} which is used a lot by the {{w|CIA}} and {{w|USAF}}. Although it's not a quad-copter, the idea behind this comic could come from this drone, taking the name literally to give drones predatory behavior. This comic thus takes people's worries to the extreme, suggesting that the drones become sentient and can cooperate together to grab a human being and fly off with him, just like a pack of wolves or a group of eagles.

This happens to [[Cueball]], the teacher, while his students ([[Megan]], [[Ponytail]] and another Cueball-like guy) do nothing to help him. Afterwards they discuss if they should have done something, but then take the view that now that the drones are sentient, they have become a part of nature, and that you should not interfere but just "let nature take its course". This is a common comment in nature programs about wildlife, where the speaker tries to explain why the team that was there to film the poor animals dying did nothing to help them - because they will not interfere with nature.

This comic shows how hypocritical that comment is, because if a lion decides to kill and eat humans, that would be natural, but we would do anything in our power to kill this lion, and not just let it run off with our children or the old and weak people. So in such a case with Cueball being taken by wild quadcopters we would not just let nature takes its course.

Note that Cueball has a tame quadcopter as a pet on the ground behind him. This may be a reference to people who raise dangerous animals which are cute when just small fluffy pups (tigers or bears for instance) but suddenly they attack for no discernable reason when they become big enough (perhaps we just smell too tasty).

The title text refers back to the above as [[Randall]] confesses that he has to turn off any nature documentaries which show scenes of animals killing their prey, while the speaker tells that this would be part of nature. This continues the theme of treating drones as an occasionally-ugly but accepted part of nature.

Sentient quadcopters were part of the game in [[1608: Hoverboard]], where [http://xkcd.com/1608/950:-1084+s.png one quadcopter is speaking to the other] over the lava lake in the Mount Doom crater to the left. How to solve the problem of too many drones was mentioned in [[1523: Microdrones]]. Just over a week before this comic was released another comic also had as subject a situation where our technological inventions begins to take control over us, see [[1626: Judgment Day]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball to the left talks to Megan, Ponytail and a Cueball-like guy, with a remote control. They are standing to the right. Behind Cueball, on the ground, there is a quadcopter.]
:Cueball: Welcome to Quadcopter-flying school.

:[Cueball looks over his shoulder as three other quadcopters fly in towards him from above and left. The other three people are in the same position.]
:Cueball: Today we'll be learning the basics of-
:Cueball: ...Uhh..

:[In this frameless image the three quadcopters all grabs hold of Cueball, two in each of his arms, one takes hold of his legs. And then they lift him up from the ground. He is thus hanging almost horizontally, with his head over Megan and his feet over the place where he stood before. The other three just stands there looking up at him.
:Cueball: Um

:[Cueball is carried off by quadcopters, his head has already exited the top right corner, only his legs and the last quadcopter still in the frame. The other three have turned around looking up and right after him.]

:[Megan looks down again and the other two turns towards Megan. Cueball is gone and has only left his "tame" quadcopter behind on the ground.]
:Megan: Should we have helped?
:Ponytail: No. It's cruel, but we have to let nature take its course.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]