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Slashback: Hagiography, Oracle, Fusion

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the small-town-america dept.

Slashback with updates on RMS's biography, PVRs vs. the endangered edifice of Western Civilization, Oracle's funny deal with California, cold fusion and more. Read on for the details! Can't we please have a picture of the winner? obsidianpreacher writes: "Apparently, SETI@Home has just recently released who the winner of the 500 millionth result "contest" is, and posted the news on the SETI@Home site. Too bad it wasn't me (or one of the people who turn in 300 bajillion results per day)."

Even lukewarm fusion would be satisfy me. driggers writes: "I wrote a review of the book "Excess Heat" for /. last year. I thought you might (or might not :) be interested to learn that the U.S. Navy in February 2002 issued Technical Report No. 1862 titled "Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System," Vol. 1 of which summarizes A Decade of Research at Navy Laboratories."

Dr. Frank Gordon, Head, Navigation and Applied Sciences Department, concludes his foreword with the remark, "It is time for the government funding organizations to invest in this research."

If you modify the source you must keep it accurate, like a Mad Lib. An Anonymous Coward writes "I just noticed the biography of Richard M. Stallman, "Free as in Freedom" by Sam Williams is online at oreilly, released under the GNU Free Documentation License."

What vapors rule the modern day Oracle? MarkedMan writes: "The following CNET article outlines Oracle's reply to the State of California's announcement it was canceling a nearly $100 million dollar contract. It should not come as a surprise, as few companies would give up that kind of money without a fight, not to mention the domino effect if they just rolled over. It would be a tacit admission that they ripped off naive customers."

9 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. RMS Book by 00_NOP · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is very disappointing - it doesn't really explain him at all - other than to explain he is weird and has disgusting table manners (allegedly).

    At least it doesn't suffer from the "we're all making millions cos we are brilliant" syndrome that infected even the latest edition of Rebel Code.

    1. Re:RMS Book by danny · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I didn't think the book was negative to other FS people. In fact, if anything, I got the impression that the author was probably more of an "Open Source" person - his dialogues with RMS sometimes suggest that, anyway. And I opened my review by describing it as "far from hagiographic"!

      The book does quote Richard Stallman a lot, naturally, and it is about him, so obviously his views get more space than others. It's a biography, not a history of free software, even if, given RMS' influence, it comes close to being the latter!

      Danny.

      --
      I have written over 900 book reviews
  2. very brief review of the Stallman biography by jdbo · · Score: 5, Interesting
    • does it include details about Stallman that weren't otherwise widely known? yes.
    • does it provide insight into Stallman as a human being, as well as his primary role in pioneering the free software movement, and the relation between these two? yes.
    • is it respectful of Stallman (who participated in the books partially-self-documented creation) without being fawning towards him, or evasive of his faults? yes.
    • does it deal with technical issues in a way that is both understandable to the newbie as well as non-insulting to the experienced? yes.


    • I read it (online), and bought a copy. It's a real biography of a real (if unusual) person.

      For those who believe that everything must be perfectly bias-free, yes, it does display bias for free software ideals , but that is because it's telling RMS's (suprisingly successful) underdog story, and "triumph against massive odds" reads this way.

      A genuinely informative, insightful book - and readable, too.
  3. Governor Davis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The Oracle damage control person has to be credited in the arts of hopeful persuasion, however...

    Weren't there shredding trucks involved with this somehow?

    And 94 million. I'm still dumbfounded by that amount. Even 45 million. It makes me wonder the government has any money at all to work with if pissing it away so freely is common throughout the country.

  4. Oracle vs open source? by bcrowell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article says Oracle is seeing a downturn in sales. Is any of this due to people switching to the open-source alternatives? I'm not a database geek, but from what I understand, the open-source stuff is getting more and more full-featured. Of course a fortune-500 company doesn't care about the extra $$ for Oracle, but I wonder if they're losing out on the lower end...

    --
    Find free books.
    1. Re:Oracle vs open source? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To the contrary, Larry welcomes open source. He claims Oracle runs much faster on Linux than it does over Windows. And I don't think theirs any Open Source database really targeted at Oracle's market base. I think the downturn is do more to their sleazy, lying sales tactics finally catching up to them. Oracle in a nutshell: decent technology (arguably industry best). Unethical marketing (undisputably industry worst).

  5. Cold Fusion: Comments better than reviews by jbennetto · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I sometimes worry that computer geeks^H^H^H^H^Hprofessionals, like most of the general public, don't actually understand science.

    So I'm relieved to see stories like this. The reviewer is fascinated by a book extolling sloppy science, and that's sad. Maybe such stories (like, say this) shouldn't get posted. But it's a relief to see so many thoughtful, highly moderated comments explain what science is, what it means, and why the original post doesn't know what it's talking about.

  6. Re:SETI by pennsol · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...um..correction..19 yr old CHICK...

    --

    Just Limin' Mon

  7. Re:Isn't the book GPL'ed? by ainsoph · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like to call RMS an idealist whose geek factor and high IQ leaves little room for adequate social skills.

    If he was not so adament about his values, we would not be where we are today.

    I have an old gnome t-shirt from a long while back, it says "GNU/Linux" on it. I think thats pretty cool, but yer right, GNU/Linux doesnt really roll off the toungue easily and sounds kinda awkward.

    But maybe the point is for you to explain to new users is how much debt the linux operating system has to the GNU tools, which if it was not for the tireless efforts of Stallman. Well you know. Anyway.

    An example would be, I know a group of people who have been using linux pretty exclusivly for about 4 years now. I said to them "Hey, you know RMS, right.."?

    blank look.

    "Richard Stallman right? RMS?"

    More blank.

    So I bascially said, hey this guy is pretty much responsible for this computing environment you have been using, and love so dearly. And they said:

    "Oh yeah? How so?" All disbelieving like, looking at me like I was a little crazy to suggest that this RMS character I was telling them about had anything to do with Linux.

    This is exactly the point I think of what Stallman is saying, as people come along they are going to be less and less in touch with the values, ideas, philosophies and person behind the movement.

    Something which, while we may not all love Stallman or whatever, losing touch with his efforts and ideas are a dangerous thing, cos as he said, at the end of "Revolution OS" its all about making the world a better place.