Slashdot Mirror

I am glad to hear that the user isn't going to be paying this money... btw: where does the government get their money?

People have got to learn that the government cannot give, it can only return!

OpenSourcerers

You are right. However, the high prices of these journals, which leads to the illegal copies, is the result of a peculiar market.

As we know, in the research/academic community it is "publish or perish". However, it is insufficient to publish just anywhere, you have to publish in the most prestigious journal you can in order to get more research funding. I.e., putting your paper up on the web won't work.

As a result, the journals can reject all but the finest papers (I'll leave the definition of "finest" as an exercise for the reader). The papers they do accept are not allowed to be published elsewhere (like on the web).

So, if you want to know what is going on in a technical field, you have to pay the publishing gatekeepers their pound of flesh.

Competing journals cannot come into existence because they cannot attract the requisite papers. It's a chicken and egg problem.

To recap: because of research/academic politics, the most useful information is not available for a reasonable price. Instead, people who early on maneuvered their way into a unique position to control the flow of information have enjoyed an opportunity to engage in extortion.

They are now reaping what they have sown.

OpenSourcerers

I think so. A few days ago I said: I expect the XBox is the precursor of something that will become a SOHO terminal that is as hard to work as a light switch.

All of the non-technical users I know want a zero-maintenance computer: no software upgrades required, no hardware upgrades required, and no backups required.

I am not saying anything about what is the right solution. I am simply observing that I know a lot of people who would like a different solution. A solution more like a telephone than a PC.

The question for us (advocates of open source and/or free software) is what will our response to .NET be?

OpenSourcerers

We are definitely off-topic now but I need to say to everyone that I didn't mean to be harsh in my response to the original poster and I apologize if I came across that way.

OpenSourcerers

Now you're trolling.

OpenSourcerers

The phrase broadcasters who are not obliged to continually chase the bottom line are more likely to come up with something creative and interesting is an assertion, not an argument. My point is that there is nothing in the original post to support the assertion, no matter how it is phrased.

There is also the slippery slope of defining terms. What do "creative" and "interesting" mean? What is creative/interesting to one person is trite/boring to another. In any case, there is no proven connection with the method of funding the production.

OpenSourcerers

This point is illogical.

1. I like this program.
2. This program is the result of nationalization.
3. Therefore, nationalization produces the best programs.

The best we might be able actually deduce from the statements is that the programs that have appealed to you the most so far happen to have been the product of nationalized institutions.

OpenSourcerers

<humor>
Isn't a spell checker for making sure that your incantation to raise the dead is going to work and it's a spelling checker that makes sure that you don't have typos?
</humor>

OpenSourcerers

Having been a Java/CORBA advocate for the last four or five years, I am aware of JINI. What I would like to know is which Java IDE is it that allows you to browse the network seeing service providers as being just another component to be referenced, no matter what language that service is written in?

As for the problem with the plugin, as I said, it is a known and documented problem with jinstall.exe. It is "Bug Id 4393067" and is known since 28 November 2000.

You apparently overlooked the name of my company OpenSourcerers -- I am not a Microsoft advocate! However, to ignore the biggest gorilla on the block doesn't make sense, many people will be willing to use .NET.

I have no trouble viewing the .NET page in any of the browsers I have here (Links, Lynx, Opera, Netscape, and IE), perhaps it is your system?

You seem to have missed the gist of what I have been saying: I think Microsoft has concluded that the Era of the Platform is over and that we are entering the Age of the Service.

OpenSourcerers

That's true, but given that you can easily snoop the network connection and that a .NET service advertises in a standard way what it can do by describing the function name, parameters, and results; then it seems to me it will not be too hard to figure out what is going on.

OpenSourcerers

It is certainly true that it would be typical for Microsoft to not port .NET to other platforms but I think the game has changed and that the underlying platform is no longer relevant. The main competitor to .NET is J2EE and in both cases it is in the best interests of the advocates to hide as much of the underlying platform (Windows, Solaris, Linux, OS/390,...) as possible and to focus on universal acceptance.

When you consider that .NET uses SOAP when accessing remote services, it seems pretty clear that how to implement the interface to .NET will be hard to keep secret. Also, the Common Language Infrastructure has been submitted to ECMA as a proposed standard so a lot of what's on the server will be known as well. The only place left for significant value is in what the service provides. Here the deep pockets of Microsoft et alia give them a serious competitive advantage over a talented developer in his "garage".

It also solves those pesky licensing and reverse-engineering problems too. :-)

OpenSourcerers

The problem for most people is this: they buy a system then install whatever they need for the next 18 months.

Then they find they want/need some new application which requires a newer version of the operating system or a more powerful CPU. At this point they are out of luck. They don't know how to upgrade, they've never done a back up, and quite possibly they need more powerful hardware anyway.

These are the people who would much rather pay an extra $10 or $20 a month to the cable company to get access to all the latest software with never a worry about anything else.

OpenSourcerers

X doesn't do the same job as .NET. .NET allows a developer to create an application that contains different components that are supplied as services.

It is true that you can accomplish much of .NET with server-side Java but there aren't the development tools to allow things like dynamically discovering self-documenting services on the network. Also, Microsoft is working with ECMA and can claim to PHBs to be more "open" than Java.

Add to that the fact that you can trivially create projects with components made in different languages that are full peers to each other (a COBOL object can extend a C# object and the result can be invoked from Visual Basic all from inside the same IDE).

Applets are dead. Microsoft has seen to that. I recently revisited applets to see if any improvement has been made and the Java plugin fails to even install on my system. This problem is a known bug which has been known for several months. If I had to download the plugin over a dialup connection I would have been really annoyed!

I am pretty certain Microsoft will port .NET to Linux and other OSs (probably as a version a shade less than whatever is available on Microsoft platforms) because the the real battlefield has moved past that and into services.

For most users there will be no service packs or client licenses and that's the point. The only people who will have to worry about those issues will be the service providers. All the end user (individual or business) needs to worry about is "Did we pay our IT services bill?".

Go talk to any non-nerd individual or small business and ask them which they would rather have: systems and software they own but have to take care of themselves OR a service they don't have to maintain and that is accessible from anywhere, for a modest monthly fee.

OpenSourcerers

I think .NET will be a resounding success and the pricing is on purpose to encourage the growth of Application Service Providers by making owning your own servers unattractive. As we know, it seems Microsoft is headed towards renting access to applications and this pricing will limit the producers of services to those who can afford the development costs, not like in the days of VB3.

Microsoft's problem is that there is no real reason to upgrade Microsoft Office or even Windows 98. The current versions do what 95%+ of people need. In order to ensure an on-going revenue stream they need to change their business model to a subscription service model where they charge you for the same application every month.

They will port .NET to other platforms because it will be the services that will be important, not the platforms. Microsoft is betting on having the best services. They have already won the office suite wars and they have been steadily accumulating the raw materials for services such as the electronic rights to images.

Without exception, all the non-technical people I know would love to have a simple on/off device that gave them access to a range of applications for a monthly fee. They hate upgrades, backups, and everything else that is not directly related to getting their work done.

Even more in favor of this are small businesses of fewer than 50 employees (to pick a number at random) because they cannot really justify the cost of a full-time IT person.

People will trust Microsoft with their personal data. People already trust their bank, their accountant, their doctor, their dentist, their lawyer, their realtor, etc. With careful marketing of image, an ASP can be a trusted entity.

As to whether or not businesses will do this, they already do. I know of an insurance company who outsources their IT to a consulting company who actually does the work on a leased IBM mainframe owned and maintained by a third company.

This will happen because it will sneak into corporations like PCs did. At first no real business would run on anything but a mainframe. Then, as PCs became accepted at home because of hobbiests and early adopters, small businesses began to use PCs because they couldn't afford "real" computers (I remember accounting packages that loaded from cassette and ran in 64K being used by small businesses). Pretty soon all companies had PCs because they couldn't afford not to, competively speaking.

Since this new approach is what Microsoft wants (remember the constant revenue stream is desired) and Microsoft controls the vast majority of the bottom end of computers (i.e., the same place that PCs snuck in to begin with) this will happen.

From Microsoft's perspective this has the additional benefit of defanging the accusation of leveraging their operating system to the detriment of others. They will now be able to claim that they operate on an ECMA standard platform and anyone can implement it.

The new consulting (services) company between Microsoft and Anderson is a sign of this as well. Those consultants will advocate spreading IT costs across time periods in nice predictable amounts rather than the current spikey model where the spikes are caused by an unwanted upgrade cycle. This will be irresistably attractive to accountants and CEOs who hate surprises in the quarter's bottom line.

I expect the XBox is the precursor of something that will become a SOHO terminal that is as hard to work as a light switch.

The big question is not "Will .NET succeed?" it's "What can advocates of free software and open source offer that is as attractive?".

People who haven't looked at .NET or who write it off as a lame alternative to Java/J2EE should look into it more and watch The Show at MSDN.

To whet your appetite: one feature is the ability to browse the web from your IDE, locate a server offering a .NET service, see all the functions and parameters that are available for accessing that service, and then include that service (complete with IntelliSense prompting in the editor) as just another component.

OpenSourcerers

I think they are counting roll, pitch, and yaw as three dimensions.

OpenSourcerers

I agree completely that laundry lists of requirements are red flag! My response here is not meant to be argumentative. I hope to provide some insight.

My perception of ads that contain long lists of requirements is that any of the following may be true:

• the ad writer doesn't know what he is talking about and is afraid he is leaving something out
• the company can't even figure out what they want in a developer (How can they figure out a business?)
• the ad is not for a real job, they are just collecting resumes

The other major problem with ads is failing to mention the salary. As I have moved up during my career I have observed that salaries are mentioned more often in the ad. See for yourself, you won't find nearly as many executive positions advertised as "DOE" or "competitive".

Finally, as someone in the southeast who is currently job hunting (sales engineer, 11 years of open source experience, obligatory resume), I have to say that the cost of living in Silicon Valley makes moving there nearly impossible to consider.

A developer in Atlanta can easily make $75K and a nice enough house only costs about $150K. A sales engineer typically makes a base of $90K with incentives to $150K or more. From my research, I would have to be paid something like $375K to move to Silicon Valley and maintain my life style.

OpenSourcerers

I agree completely that laundry lists of requirements are red flag! My response here is not meant to be argumentative. I hope to provide some insight.

My perception of ads that contain long lists of requirements is that any of the following may be true:

• the ad writer doesn't know what he is talking about and is afraid he is leaving something out
• the company can't even figure out what they want in a developer (How can they figure out a business?)
• the ad is not for a real job, they are just collecting resumes

The other major problem with ads is failing to mention the salary. As I have moved up during my career I have observed that salaries are mentioned more often in the ad. See for yourself, you won't find nearly as many executive positions advertised as "DOE" or "competitive".

Finally, as someone in the southeast who is currently job hunting (sales engineer, 11 years of open source experience, obligatory resume), I have to say that the cost of living in Silicon Valley makes moving there nearly impossible to consider.

A developer in Atlanta can easily make $75K and a nice enough house only costs about $150K. A sales engineer typically makes a base of $90K with incentives to $150K or more. From my research, I would have to be paid something like $375K to move to Silicon Valley and maintain my life style.

OpenSourcerers

I am curious, who is paying $150-250/hour for those developers? That pay rate is easily 4 times anything I have seen advertised, even for Silicon Valley.

OpenSourcerers

I really liked the movie but you are absolutely right about the plot.

What would have made more sense to me would be that the humans comprise a massive bank of parallel wetware processors for achieving an objective that only the machines understand.

A genetic algorithm would be used which explains why the humans live in alternate realities: each person/society/reality is evolving towards the answer.

Given the fact that this explanation makes so much more sense (IMHO), I have to wonder if the electricity explanation is a red herring and that as the series progresses we will find out that electricity was not the reason.

Perhaps the machines are trying to determine the existence of God and will discover that the answer was right in front of them the entire time: as human beings, God in each of us and not "out there" to be discovered by machines.

OpenSourcerers

This approach to firing/laying off people is pretty typical. ICL of the UK did it to all 500+ employees in North America this past October.

It wasn't quite as abrupt but it boiled down to showing up at work, being told you don't have a job; and then being told to clean out your office and leave the building.

I think the approach in the article is expected as the consensus among the ex-ICL employees was that the shutdown wasn't being done in a "professional" manner because (1) employees had been allowed into the building to be told of the lay-offs, and (2) they had been allowed back into their offices (and the network) after hearing the news.

OpenSourcerers

The task bar is resizable. Select the top edge and drag it straight up. It should double (or triple, or whatever) in height.

With the new size, all the labels are legible. I have "auto hide" checked so the taskbar only obscures the screen when I need it.

Setting "show small icons" helps too.

OpenSourcerers

Are you really a moron?

Yes, I did everything I said I did. The company was called Gaea Corporation and that is exactly what we did.

Of course I didn't go up to people looking like you and beg for money to haul their stuff. I took a shower, I got cleaned up. Oh that's right, you sat on your butt whining about how tough life was treating you until your water was cut off and you couldn't clean up. I guess being stupid is tough.

Anyway, I took some change and ran off photocopies of a handmade flier. I took my wife and three year old daughter with me when I distributed the fliers. If someone was home when I dropped off the flier, I talked to them from the perspective of someone who was obviously a bit down on his luck but trying. I made what is called a positive impression. This is called sales.

The fliers were bright yellow and whenever somone came to the door and talked to me, they could see fliers at every house down the street. This gave them some confidence that we were doing something real.

The fee was $15 for 3 months of hauling and because we went into a yuppie neighborhood on purpose, yes they were willing to pay that because they [1] could afford it, even if was a handout to a bum; [2] they were typical tree-huggers; [3] they definitely didn't like hauling garbage in their Volvos. Duh! This is called knowing your market.

As a result of these efforts we were a human interest story in the newspaper on the front page of the local section of the Sunday newspaper. The picture of my three year old putting garbage in a bin while her parent's exhibited some iniative was priceless - you can't buy advertising like that.

This lead to people being more willing and interested in working with us. Now businesses were willing to talk to us because we carried the newspaper clipping with us to jog their memories.

We worked 14 hour days (this is called hard work), we hauled tons of garbage, we learned what was profitable to haul and what wasn't (this is called learning the business).

This story is true. I will make this simple enough so that a drooling mouth breather with a room temperature IQ like you do this much.

1. Go to this link.
2. Check "Columbia State" as the paper to sarch.
3. Enter "gaea", "peter", and "hoffman" as the terms to search for.
4. Change the search period from 6 months to the entire span available.
5. Click on "Search".
6. You will get two articles.

I repeat: you are either a liar or an idiot, probably both. I will add that you are a lazy whining baby whose concept of the world hasn't evolved past "mommy will make it all better".

I am not surprised you claim to kiss my mother with that mouth.... my mother is dead.

OpenSourcerers

I don't understand Oi Hoffers but I will attempt to respond to the rest of your comment.

It is precisely because I have been "kicked in the face for no apparent reason" and got over it that I say the things I do.

Have you ever been out of your country? Do you have any clue as to what things are like Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Zimabwe, or Kazakhstan? I didn't think so but I have and I do know what it is like elsewhere in the world from first hand experience.

People in the western world have no idea what real hardship is.

I also suggest that people learn how to read, and then actually read what I have written, and then think about it instead of flying off the handle.

In this discussion people said that ideas like a national sales tax were not a good solution because such schemes are regressive. I simply observed that perhaps that is not a bad thing because [1] the poor don't handle their money as well as the rich (otherwise they'd be rich) and [2] they collect more government benefits.

Therefore, a regressive tax is nothing more than a government run money management program for people who have not yet learned how to manage money.

I did not say this is a good thing, and I did not say I was in favor of it. I did say there was a certain logic to it.

It used to be that Slashdot was populated by people who could read and think. Now it seems it is largely populated by knee jerk idiots who write before reading what was actually said.

OpenSourcerers

Yes, it is true that the characters I created are somewhat caricatures but their purpose was to illustrate particular types.

I have done some sort of work continuously for the past 27 years (ever since I turned 16). Sometimes it was digging ditches or bussing tables for minimum wage, sometimes it was being a heavy equipment operator or an engineer for 6 or 7 times minimum wage.

As a result, I have lived next to all sorts of people and the characters I created are not at all uncommon. In particular, I have known more of the John-type than I can count (as will anyone who has done construction or similar work).

Certainly, the Jack type is at risk of being wiped out in an economic downturn but there are no guarantees in life. Even in the US we are only promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

As far as James is concerned, I have seen several times people inherit millions in a family business and then lose it all within a few years because they weren't up to managing it. The James character is different, he inherited his start that is true but successfully maintaining a company through the years, especially when there is a payroll to be met, is hard and stressful work. He deserves the credit he gets for the employment that he really does continue to make available.

All I have been saying is that some people are not good with their money, that these people are (as a result of the their lack of money skills) typically poor, and that all taxing them is doing is managing their money for them (they get back all their money and more in government benefits).

Therefore, it makes sense that their taxes (their government managed money) are a higher percentage of their income than people who are better off and who are managing more of their own affairs.

Therefore, there is a logic and fairness in a regressive tax such as a national sales tax.

As far as how long people work, I am all for people living however they like. Myself, I was a "professional student" for over ten years and I lived very much a non-materialistic life.

Then I decided that while that was fun in my 20s it wouldn't be so great in my 70s so I went to work. I then found that I really enjoy creating things and getting stuff done. That's fine, I used to be a philosopher and now I am a business person. I can see both sides.

Maybe the problem is that some people have trouble reaching a balance between the material things they want and the amount of effort they are willing to make to earn them. As a result they are unhappy and feel that they have somehow been cheated by others.

OpenSourcerers

As a matter of fact, I started and ran a recycling company when I had nothing back in 1989. I asked people if they would pay me to haul off their recyclable materials because the city had no curbside pick up of recyclables at that time and people didn't like hauling garbage in the cars.

People thought that was a great idea and prepaid for the service. I then used that money to pay to rent a truck which I used to haul the material to the recycling plant. I was able to haul enough material to make a profit and to pay for the truck the next time I had to make my rounds.

I then made connections with places like department stores who had a lot of corregated cardboard to get rid of (which is clean by comparison to aluminum and glass food containers and, at the time, more profitable) and I hauled off their stuff now that I had ongoing access to a truck.

Eventually I bought a truck and the rest, as they say, is history!

I continued this business while I put myself through engineering school.

In this world there are people like me who can think and who aren't afraid to work. We will always get ahead. There are also people like you who are lazy and stupid and who will always fail even if they are given everything.

By the way, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

OpenSourcerers

I don't want to come across as rude, text is somewhat limiting at times but... Do you actually know any poor people? Have you ever been in the home of a person who is on welfare as a career? Have you ever employed people who know exactly when they have worked enough hours to collect unemployment? Do you have any real first hand experience of what you are talking about?

I don't think anyone here has advocated letting people croak in the street. What has been said is that poor people collect a disproportionate percentge of government services and that taxing them at a higher rate proportionally makes sense (i.e., regressive taxes are logical).

Let me try some specific, but extreme examples as illustrations.

• John works part time at minimum wage and also collects welfare. Should we let him take home his complete check so he can spend it on beer to impress his unemployed buddies or shouldn't we tax him at 100% and give him food stamps he can only redeem for nutritious food for his family? John is apparently not smart enough to spend his money wisely (which is why he is poor) and is a burden on society.
• Jack works 40 hours a week in a factory collecting no regular government benefit. He saves every penny he can by eating generic beans and rice because he wants to start his own business. He does benefit from emergency services which are on standby should he need them. Shouldn't he be taxed only enough to pay for the services he uses? Jack spends his money wisely (which is why he won't always be poor) but is some cost to society now.
• James is Jack's son and he inherited the company Jack built. James successfully manages it while employing 100 people like Jack. Because James is wealthy he will not need Medicare/Medicaid. He also will not need social security. Since James provides the facilities that create the job Jack has, James is already paying into society a benefit society would otherwise have to come up with (i.e., Jack's unemployment check). James spends his money wisely (he has not driven the company into the ground through mismanagement) and is a benefit to society. Maybe James shouldn't be taxed at all since he already gives so much to society.

As far as not working 8 or more hours a day is concerned, that to me is a flag that we will never agree. I don't understand people who don't feel a need to be accomplishing something with their lives (by that I mean work on something, not necessarily for someone). When people don't feel that need, I just have to agree to disagree with them.

OpenSourcerers

The problem in the U.S. with unions is that they do not bargain in a free economy. The government interferes with the threat of force.

If workers go on strike and make demands, that's a government backed right. (US Code Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, Section 157)

If the management threatens to fire the striking workers and hire people who will accept the position and pay originally offered, that is negotiating in bad-faith and the government may step in. (US Code Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, Section 158)

If the mangement does fire the striking workers and hires people who will accept the positions and salaries as offered, that is union-busting and almost certainly the government will step in. (Also in US Code Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, Section 158)

There have been egregious wrongs by both labor and management all over the world, under all economic models. The observed differences between unions in socialist vs. capitalist economies has more to do with the (unrelated?) fact that socialist societies have tended to be communist and that capitalist societies have tended to be democratic.

OpenSourcerers

The point remains that no one (who is not disabled in some way) needs to live in poverty in the United States.

By living in poverty and not achieving even a middle class status they have demonstrated that, for whatever reason, they do not have the ability to manage money properly.

Therefore, there is a certain logic in taxing poor people at a proprtionaly higher rate than rich people. Poor people are not spending their money in a rational fashion and therefore their money must be doled out to them like an allowance for a child who has not yet learned how to save or run a lemonade stand.

Rich people (or even middle class people) don't need government benefits nearly as much as they have proven an ability to take care of themselves. Since they are less of a burden on government services, they shouldn't pay as much, proportionally speaking.

Therefore, a regressive tax is not a bad thing and may even be the most logical thing.

There are some government facilities which we all use (military and emergency services for example) and therefore some level of taxation on everyone might be rational.

I could even argue that rich people should pay no taxes at all since through their efforts businesses, jobs, and economic growth are created which are more valuable to society than simple money.

OpenSourcerers

I would say that the real danger is when the government throws it weight behind a corporation (monopoly or not). That is where the real danger lies.

It is very difficult to build a monopoly in a free economy. Every monopoly I can think of including oil, railroads, steel, and communications has had strong government support in the forms of tariffs and regulations.

For example, why can't I be a cable TV station to my neighborhood? The answer is that the government has made that enterprise a monopoly. In order to use the facilities rights-of-way grants (the right to run wires across your property to reach someone else) you have to have the OK of the government. That OK is handed out selectively, largely based on campaign contributions and other graft.

I don't know that there is a non-government solution to some of these problems but we all need to be aware of the potential for abuse that the combination of business and government creates.

Btw: I think that the future will look back and say that Microsoft's big mistake was in not learning that the government endorsement of a monoploy is a good thing. If Microsoft had argued to the government sometime around 1993 or 1994 that they needed to be recognized as a form of necessary monopoly and protected as such then they would have lasted a lot longer. The most brilliant thing would have been declared a critical industry necessary to the national security and defense. Then they would have been unassailable!

OpenSourcerers

In 1862, in order to support the Civil War effort, Congress enacted the nation's first income tax law.

That sounds a lot like an explanation to me. :-)

Seriously, I think the details you are looking for are here. On that page they explain that the Supreme Court declared income taxes unconstitutional. Since income taxes were unconstitional, the only way to legalize their collection by the government was to enact the 16th Amendment which granted that right to the government.

As to why the U.S. needed those revenues, big bills from adventures such as the Spanish-American War (largely engineered by William Randolph Hearst to sell newspapers) figure prominently.

As to your hypothesis, I would counter by saying in response to "For small towns, government maintenance is very low" that the potential tax (via excise taxes) base is low as well. Correspondingly, for "larger population centers require much more infrastructure" I would say that they have a larger available tax base. Therefore, the government-costs/tax-revenue ratio is roughly constant regardless of the population. The revenues from property taxes on large tracts of undeveloped property would be pretty poor and irrelevant.

My theory would be that as the U.S. matured the opportunities for the few to exploit the many reached a critical mass. Once this happened then it was in the interest of the few (the rich) to enact income taxes that could be levied against the entire population.

Taxes in general are a good thing from the perspective of rich people who are the owners of the companies the government buys from. If I owned Dow then I would strongly favor a tax of almost any sort to support a war that used a lot of napalm. The cost to me of my share of the tax would be greatly outweighed by the benefit I would receive from increased napalm sales.

OpenSourcerers

Actually, not bore everyone with the details, I did grow up in that sort of environment in many respects.

Those of us who know first hand what that is like also know that it is a cop-out to blame your upbringing or environment. Those without first-hand experience should count themselves lucky and stop talking about things they know nothing of.

The fact of the matter is that if you cannot rise above poverty in the United States it is because there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It is absolutely not for any other reason.

OpenSourcerers

You are right and I am sorry I didn't make it clear that my second paragraph was not a statement of a Libertarian position.

My second paragraph was a general observation on the issue of regressive taxes. It is my view that regressiveness in a tax is not an inherently bad thing (assuming that you are going to have a tax at all).

Taxes in general are not supported by Libertarians because taxes imply violence (pay up or we'll get you).

OpenSourcerers

Speaking of selfishness and capitalism vs. socialism: ever notice how many "socialists" are materially well off? If socialists were truly concerned about the plight of their fellow human beings wouldn't you expect them to give away their own surpluses voluntarily?

Maybe the attitude of non-socialists is more a case of I worked hard for it and I am not going to let you steal it and give it to someone else, just so that you can either enjoy a warm fuzzy feeling or garner political support among the feeble minded.

OpenSourcerers

There is no connection whatsoever between the availability of land and income tax. Please check out this link for some facts on the history of the income tax in the United States.

The poor also receive more in tax-funded benefits than rich people. Perhaps there is some logic in taxing them more. The government is effectively saying to the poor that, by being poor, they have demonstrated a lack of money management skills. Therefore, the government must take their money away in taxes and manage it for them. Only by doing this can it be ensured that the poor will still get some sort of health care (or other social safety net benefit such as social security) even after blowing their paychecks on beer.

OpenSourcerers

As Libertarians keep trying to tell people (see The World's Smallest Political Quiz), limiting views to Left vs. Right is completely wrong.

Browne is neither Left nor Right, he is Libertarian.

OpenSourcerers

As someone who spent 8 years working in the US for a British company with a large percentage of its employees on H1-B visas (ICL), I look forward to reading your views after you have some actual experience with the situation. If your experience is anything like mine, you will have a completely set of opinions.

In the meantime, your ignorance is abysmal.

OpenSourcerers

There are rules in the US that make it unnecessary to list your age on your resume. How can they possibly find out your age? Especially if you list just the positions that you have occupied during the last 5 years?

I will assume that this is not a troll and try to give a straight answer...

There are many ways to deduce a person's age! When did they graduate? Are they married? What schools in the area are appropriate for their kids (high school or elementary)? Business-related chit-chat ("...remember the Christmas wreaths made from punch cards?").

If the company asks for a complete work history and you only list jobs from the last five years, that is cause for instant dismissal, and it will be noted that you lied on your application.

OpenSourcerers

But my advice is not to buy into the PHB-propagated myth that you are somehow obligated to do this for the company you work for. You're not.

This is completely true. I just watched an office full of people get shut down with no notice, or even a word from the PHB who sent hatchet men in his place to do the dirty work.

After laying off everyone the PHB discovered that there were outstanding contractual obligations that were going to require the presence of at least a few people who knew what was going on.

When those people tried to bargain as a group for the few weeks of work that were offered (to help transition product development and support to a cheaper team overseas) they were accused of attempting to exploit the situation and take advantage of the company!

Never, ever, kid yourself. If you are a typical employee of a typical company, you are just a component in a machine to be replaced as needed.

OpenSourcerers

I agree. I have long maintained that people who practice software development should have an association like the American Bar Association and also have education and licensing requirements the same as lawyers.

Yes, this would be onerous compared to the free-wheeling situation we have today but there would also be advantages.

For example, much of what's wrong with the UCITA could be fixed through such an arrangement.

To choose one example: the lack of liability on the part of the software vendor could be side-stepped by making it a violation of professional ethics to ship a product with known but undocumented bugs.

While the company might not be liable via the UCITA, the individual developers would be via their professional oaths. This would give them firm grounds for refusing to do certain things.

Look around any corporation that has an in-house legal staff. Compared to the technical staff, why are the lawyers paid more? Why is more credibility given to what they say? It is because they are professionals in the original sense of the word: licensed to perform their jobs.

Yes, I do know that lawyers are not usually perceived as being paragons of virtue. That doesn't mean that the model is completely wrong.

There is more about this at the OpenSourcerers web site.

OpenSourcerers

In the article at Red Herring, on the second page, the interviewer asks:

And is Dot.net a platform-independent strategy?

Bill Gates replies:

No. No. Dot.net is a Microsoft platform. Just like the Windows platform. Windows was built on common standards, like standard character sets like TCP/IP. It was all built on standards. But it was a Microsoft platform, too. The Dot.net is a Microsoft platform. We haven't decided that Microsoft is a zero-revenue company.

No. No. Dot.net is a Microsoft platform. Just like the Windows platform... Don't anyone kid themselves into thinking that Microsoft is interested in playing nicely with others.

One way to lead is to walk in front of the marching crowd. When the crowd changes direction you can either run faster in the new direction and get in front again or you can stop claiming to be the leader.

The software industry "crowd" has changed direction. Watch Microsoft run to be in front again.

The article is here: http://www.redherri ng. com/mag/issue82/mag-gates-82-home.html

PS: When is this damn little textarea going to be tweaked to a reasonable size?

OpenSourcerers

From the front page of our web site:

All work is guaranteed to be free of coding errors for one year after delivery. In the event a coding error is discovered within 12 months of delivery, we will fix the error at no charge. Be sure to ask our competitors about their bug-fix warranties.

Guess what? No customer has ever asked about our software quality ever! We have found that customers are much more interested in

• How much will it cost?
• When can you deliver?
• Can you make it do...?

There seems to be a fundamental assumption on the part of customers that software will fail. Their expectations are down to "Will it mostly work?".

There is a serious lack of "professionalism" (to use a buzz word) in the software development business which is probably to be expected given the relative lack of maturity of the field when compared to other engineering disciplines.

It should be in the best interests of good developers to change this. If you raise the expectations the customer has for the deliverables by educating the customer, you will raise the perceived value of those deliverables, which will raise the amount the customer is willing to pay, which will improve the bottom line for whoever is writing the code.

Of course, then you have to actually deliver what is promised which is where sloppy developers will get in trouble.

-- OpenSourcerers

I am not certain that it is true that you cannot distribute copies.

The postal regulation says that you can do anything you like with what you receive. That sounds to me like the sender is relinquishing all rights to the sent item.

If the sender is the copyright holder, then you could argue that among the rights relinquished is the copyright. If the sender is not the copyright holder, then the copyright is not relinquished any more than I can give away your car without your consent.

-- OpenSourcerers

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be adversarial, I just think these are issues that need to be thought about.

An interesting question to consider is this: suppose they sent a book without your asking for it. Do you have a right to read the book via Title 39, Sec. 3009 where it says ...the recipient, who shall have the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender. (emphasis is mine).

If you have the right to read it, do you have the right to think about it? Do you have the right to write a review? Do you have the right to be inspired by it and write your own book using the same alphabet and perhaps even some of the same phrases?

If you have any of those rights, how is software different? In both cases the protection is via copyright (although I think there is an argument for saying that any copyright the sender may have had was voided by the act of sending via the USPS regulation - do notice that the sender may not have had any copyright rights to being with).

Suppose I put a notice of an EULA on the copyright page at the front of the book (that nearly no one ever reads) and the EULA itself in an appendix in the back of the book saying that if you read any of the book, then you agree to certain terms. Where does that leave us?

-- OpenSourcerers

Companies can sponsor you for a Green Card if they want, but the rules require you to return to your home country while they consider your application.

I don't think that's true. I am working right now with several people who are getting or who have gotten their Green Cards after having been here on an H1-B first. They did not have to leave the U.S.

-- OpenSourcerers

That's funny, I always thought that was a Yankee joke! :-)

-- OpenSourcerers

You are completely right, CFOs are not supposed to be tech people. However, in many smaller companies the CIO/CTO position is filled by the CFO doing double duty.

Btw: reading CIO magazine will pretty quickly convince anyone that CIOs are not tech people either!

-- OpenSourcerers

I don't know if it would work but I do like the approach. I think it is worth pursuing.

-- OpenSourcerers

Minor point: Richard Stallman is the source of the word POSIX.

The following quote appears in the Introduction to POSIX.1: "The name POSIX was suggested by Richard Stallman. It is expected to be pronounced pahz-icks as in positive, not poh-six, or other variations. The pronounciation has been published in an attempt to promulgate a standardized way of referring to a standard operating system interface".

From The Portable Application Standards Committee (which is part of the IEEE) in the section titled What is POSIX?

The task of defining UNIX is now done by The Open Group.

-- OpenSourcerers

If someone is going to do this, I think they should initially focus on replacing slow/buggy Microsoft components with fast/non-buggy versions released under the GPL (to keep Microsoft from appropriating them).

Once these new components were of sufficient quality the word would get out that Hey, you can improve the speed/stability of Windows by installing these files instead of the Microsoft originals.

Eventually, the installed base of the GPL'd versions would be sufficient that you could begin to make proprietary enhancements (i.e., full Windows compatibility would be a subset of the functionality) to these GPL'd components and have other GPL'd programs take advantage of them.

This would result in a package that is:

• completely Microsoft Windows compatible (only a few components were actually replaced)
• superior in performance and reliability
• not under the control of Redmond

If this sounds familiar it is because it is. It is commonly known as embrace, extend, extinguish which is a double-edge sword.

If all this was Objective One of the project, then if it somehow failed to achieve Objective Two (a full implementation of Windows), it still would not have been a wasted effort.

As to the obvious counter attack from Redmond of changing things in response: Microsoft is much more constrained because of their installed customer base and cannot make completely arbitrary changes to core routines. As a result, they cannot be more agile than the GPL group.

-- OpenSourcerers

I used to sell life insurance. Your medical records are available via a centralized facility called the Medical Information Bureau. It is used to check to see if (for example) an applicant is lying when he claims to not smoke before issuing a policy.

Yes, we needed your signature to release the information but the point is that the information is already being stored in a centrally accessible fashion.

This isn't robots collecting DNA samples (yet) but you should know that when a medical test is ordered, a lot of other information is collected along the way. Blood tests in particular test for a set of things at the same time. All that information is centrally accessible.

The only way I can think of in order to maintain traditional privacy would be to live in the woods as a hermit. Even then, it's too late because you left a trail of data as a child.

A lot more interesting information on this is here.

-- OpenSourcerers