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A poll of developers in progress: Would you pay money to keep Sun free? take the poll here and see the results here

A poll of developers in progress: Would you pay money to keep Sun free? take the poll here and see the results here

"What's Sun's software worth to you? That's the question being put to developers at a poll at Mr. Poll. The poll asks Java developers what they would be willing to pay to guarantee continued access to and development on Sun's Open Source software including Java, Glassfish, ZFS, MySQL, etc. The results, while limited, seem encouraging: the vast majority (92%) of independent or small company developers say they would open their wallets to the tune of U.S. $100.00 (the mode) to U.S. $$1,000.00 (9%) to keep Sun producing software while an encouraging 77% of developers in large companies say they believe that their companies should be willing to pony up U.S. $1,000.00 per developer per year to keep the Sun software machine going. Sun seems about to set into a Big Blue sky, leaving the future of major pieces of the Java stack in question. Are developers just finding religion now that they're faced with the possible abandonment of their language of choice? Or has Sun missed out by not asking for support, reasoning that people wouldn't pay for something they could get for free? If it would save Sun's software from oblivion (or worse) would you pay real money to keep Sun's software developers developing?"

"What's Sun's software worth to you? That's the question being put to developers at a poll at Mr. Poll. The poll asks Java developers what they would be willing to pay to guarantee continued access to and development on Sun's Open Source software including Java, Glassfish, ZFS, MySQL, etc. The results, while limited, seem encouraging: the vast majority (92%) of independent or small company developers say they would open their wallets to the tune of U.S. $100.00 (the mode) to U.S. $$1,000.00 (9%) to keep Sun producing software while an encouraging 77% of developers in large companies say they believe that their companies should be willing to pony up U.S. $1,000.00 per developer per year to keep the Sun software machine going. Sun seems about to set into a Big Blue sky, leaving the future of major pieces of the Java stack in question. Are developers just finding religion now that they're faced with the possible abandonment of their language of choice? Or has Sun missed out by not asking for support, reasoning that people wouldn't pay for something they could get for free? If it would save Sun's software from oblivion (or worse) would you pay real money to keep Sun's software developers developing?"

Here's a poll to vote on maintaining Sun's independence from IBM:

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/426985/results

Holy Crap! Tupac was black?!!?

What, you think the best rapper is white?

I'd also like to throw in my two cents on what I believe is a related issue: copyrights and patents. I recognize the importance of copyrights and patents. However, I think we should stop referring to them as property. They are not property. Property, by definition, is scarce, in the same sense that economists use that word. Ideas are not scarce. Therefore, ideas are not property. The term "intellectual property" is a contradiction in terms.

The purpose of copyright and patent should be to reward those who innovate, not to award copyright holders control over the implementation of those ideas as if they were property.

Toward that end, I'd like to see a change in the LP's platform that reflects something along the following lines: Copyrights and patents should only reward the innovator. They are not property and should not be transferrable. Only the innovator should collect royalties. It makes no sense for a small-time programmer to invent DOS, only to have Bill Gates buy it for $50,000 and then make millions off because of his government-granted monopoly via copyright. Instead, the innovator should be considered the permanent holder of the copyright or patent (until it runs out under law), and anyone who wants to use it may do so provided they pay a royalty. No patent or copyright holder should be permitted to withhold the use of an idea from someone else who is willing to pay a royalty to use it or sell a product based on it.

I have no problem with the innovator collecting $50,000 from Bill Gates. I have no problem with Bill Gates making lots of money off it. But I do have a major problem with Bill Gates being able to exclude anyone else from selling DOS, when he didn't even invent DOS in the first place. That's not the legitimate purpose of copyright, in my opinion.

Free markets depend on people competing to deliver products to the marketplace. When copyrights and patents amount to being primarily government-sponsored monopolies, it's time to redraw the line.

Well, since you asked, I took the liberty of creating a poll over at misterpoll.
I used checkboxes, so you may check as many, or as little, as you wish.

Share and enjoy!

Mister Poll.

GameSpy.

First of all, go read the explanation at my freaking poll.

Second, don't assume my possition on Abortion.
Third, don't assume that my possition on Abortion is anywhere near the top of my priorities.
Forth, don't assume I am a christian.
Fifth, here's a nickle kid, go buy yourself a sense of humor.

(Now, Go take my poll)

Thank you.

(I guess it is possible that you disable signatures. If so then I'm sorry. That might explain why you misunderstood my possition.)

Structure? We don't need no steenking structure.

Anything beyond an AI Army of One will be unable to come up with a sufficiently complex Concept-Fiber Theory of Mind to start coding True AI or Good Old Fashioned AI (GOFAI) in JavaScript for teaching AI and in Forth for robots.

A minor problem with the sole-source, lone-inventor Organizational Model for Open Source is that funding is almost impossible to obtain, unless you get your project listed in the Free Software Donation Directory or you write a book about your Open Source software. Even then, the sheeple will hound you as a crackpot, a 'Net-loon or a crank, with the result that even here on SlashDot the vicious malcontents will take up the cry and none of the world-famous Slashdot book reviewers will dare to write a reasonable, mind-opening review of your book, with the result that you will fall off the edge of the Open Source world into oblivion, but it won't matter what has happened to your Army of One, because your Open Source software will have advanced the State of the Art.