Slashdot Mirror
NASA Goes SourceForge
refactorator writes "We have a lift-off! The NASA Ames Research Center has open sourced Java PathFinder , a JVM that is an explicit state software model checker, all written in Java. For the first time, the complete master development site of a live NASA software engineering project is hosted on SourceForge. Read the official press release for details. The team around John Penix, Willem Visser, and Peter Mehlitz fought long and hard to get the development hosted outside of NASA, to enable true collaborative software development. Now show the government that it works - join the fray. May Java PathFinder boldly go where no NASA program has gone before." (Both Slashdot and SourceForge are part of VA Software.)
Good to see the gov't is realizing the benefits of SF and OSS...
The bigger question for me is if the open source software is used and fails then where does the accountability lie? consider the stress that would be required for anything NASA does, and consider the results of even slight errors. now imagine the sort of bugs that crop up in other open source projects... this could be bad.
How big is the widespread use of OSS in goverment anyways? I thought Microsofts latest pricedrops in Europe (when dealing with the german government for instance) would have some effect on the US as well... Did they realize OSS is "good", or is it just that they didn't see any real use for this being closed source?
Not even Google knows what an explicit state software model checker is!
This app spiders through all routes of an app through the bytecode. Not only will this become a very stable and usable debugging application, but the applications that borrow from this application are endless with possibilities. For NASA to OS an app, this was probably the best choice!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
IANARS Damn.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Kudos to all involved.
omg it's nasa on sourceforge let me join up and make a name for myself as a chef software archatek. I mean chief architet.
Poor guy. That name must be an endless source of amusements to his Linux-using colleagues.
Who thought of the PENIX man pages when I saw that guy's last name?
The availability of this tool does wonders for Java. I'd like to know the reasons behind NASA's decision to use Java for this kind of development in the first place, but having this tool available as a testing resource could be enough reason alone to choose Java for a wide variety of new projects.
Kudos, NASA!!
Wow, that's cool.
Doesn't our government exist to serve the general public? Why aren't more government software development projects open source? Why was it such a battle to make this particular application open source?
Don't get me wrong, this is a great feat by NASA-Ames, but it's something I already expect as a taxpayer...
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
This can change things a lot. If the goverment sees open source work, imagine how many more projects(non security of course. Hell will freeze before those will be OS) will be opened up? Also, what about these OS authers? Do you think job offers might ever come to people? Is there a possibility that these Open Source Projects can change the way the Goverment operates?
What happenes if this project fails? Then what? OS will seem to be a failure then, and that would not be a good thing, at all.
All I can say is, this is one hell of a chance for OS.
Yay, I have a sig.
NASA WorldWind has been on SourceForge since September. Though most development happens over IRC.
World Wind ( http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html )is also open source. I think there are other NASA open source projects as well. This definitely isn't NASA's first venture into open source, although it may be their first project release on SourceForge.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
I don't know if any of you have ever dealt with government (especially NASA) or contractor-written software, but god help us all!
The saying "good enough for government work" comes to mind.
Hmm... too little too late
There was a time when NASTRAN was the most technologically advanced Finite Element Analysis package out there, something like SPICE for EE's. NASA has finally made available the sourcecode for non-americans, for a price that most people cant pay. I suspect if it's ever released as opensource, they will release it when its considered obsolete.
You, sir, are an idiot.
:: period
If the code is open source, that means ANYBODY can work on it, improve it, or find and squash bugs. If one person makes a mistake somebody else will correct it, If somebody tries to do something harmful to the code. *several* other people will instantly remove the malware. As for accountability? Why do we always have to have some poor soul to point the finger at? why do we have to make any one person in particular accountable? whats wrong with saying "Open source technology represents the very best, that we as a society are able to achieve working together as a team for a common cause." If the project fails then we have ALL failed, and, friend, the accountability will be found in the fact that we WILL improve upon the code, we WILL learn from our mistakes, and we WILL prove that Open Source (free) software IS the best way to spend tax payers money when it comes to computer programming
"many eyeballs" my friend, watch and learn.
I seem to recall that the reason they didn't release government-developed projects as open-source was because of prohibitions on commercial use of government software.
Basicallly, they didn't want a government agency to be making software (using your tax bucks) for the profit of someone else.
Before you say "corporations pay taxes too", let me remind you that corporate tax share has gone from about 50% in the 1950's, to about 2% today. Yep- the individual foots 98% of the government budget, but corporations get all the laws.
Please help metamoderate.
Haha. Good troll. Just in case anyone missed
it: the software is a model checker. It checks
verifies formal properties about OTHER code
you have to supply, or spits out a contrary
proof. E.g., you can use it to prove that a
state is not reached, or something will always
happen in another program. (Of course, you
have to supply the OTHER program you wish to
prove these properties. And do a helluva
lotta programming to get the model checker to
use the other programs CFG.)
Terrorists doing model checking. Hehe. That's
a good one. We might also want to make sure
terrorists don't get their hands on an editor.
Because they could use our editor technology
against us. Hehe.
Screenshots (sort of) can be found here: here.
Also of interest is the software these NASA people use. Most of the stuff seems to be done on Macs, but it's nice to see the one Windows machine (this) using Firefox and Thunderbird (the latter visible in the taskbar area).
If it's hosted on sf.net then the terrorists would have open access to our technology & methodology. Sounds too good to be true, thats what I would be thinking if I were Osama Bin Laden. This sort of code and it's related technologies should be kept out of the hands of potentionally hostile regimes to the u.s., IMHO. You may have a different opinion but I'm concerned about the safety and welfare of our nation.
Oh, no! The worst has happened! Osama bin Laden has learned to debug software!!!
Call in the army! Send in the militia! We can't let any other nation learn the secrets of robust software development, or democracy will die!
Then again, maybe I'm just overreacting a bit...
--
AC
Does anyone know of something similar for hardware? In other words something that can be used to check all states of a state machine that would go into an fpga or ic design?
I just want to know how much time I have...
John Penix; because there is only one way to do a feces.
This is not the first app that NASA has open sourced, just the first one on sf.net. NASA has an OS website at
http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/
Evolution or ID?
One small step for NASA, one giant leap for the open source community.
From what I understand, according to Turing's Halting Problem, what the Java Pathfinder is trying to do isn't actually a computeable problem.
With NASA, for not validating/testing a solution enough, just as it would be my responsibility if I implemented a half-assed piece of software into a corporate environment without adequate testing. If NASA went down to the hardware store and bought a garden hose valve for a rocket fuel tank, slapped it on the night of a launch and it failed and sent a rocket into the drink- would you blame the garden hose valve maker? Course not. We like to point fingers all the time at things other than our decision-making process.
I help volunteer for a car club which teaches high performance driving at various racetracks. A lot of stuff becomes Really Important when you're driving close to the limits of your talent and the vehicle's equipment. Stuff does go wrong, although it's statistically very rare for there to be an incident caused by mechanical failure. Much of the time, it's driver error.
For example, a wheel falls off. The driver says "I crashed because my wheel fell off." No. The driver crashed because the driver forgot to check lug bolt torque, and the wheel came off because the torque on the lug bolts wasn't correct. A more complex example: "I crashed because my brakes failed". No. The driver crashed because the lap before he crashed, the driver didn't realize his brake pedal was getting really spongy- or worse, he did realize it, and didn't do anything about it (ie, he didn't pit in and bleed the brakes because he wanted to stay out on track).
Please help metamoderate.
How many NASA employees got fired on their first day at work when being introduced to this "John Penix" fellow and giggling uncontrollably right in front of him?
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
Recently, several large corporations, which (apart from other things) develop commercial software, released a number of projects on sourceforge.net. Among them were: Microsoft (3 projects), Google (4 projects), IBM (30 projects), Adobe (1 project). The reasons they gave for such move are often somewhat "foggy". My personal opinion is that it finally became "cool" to have a project on sourceforge.net, which is great of course.
How many people do you think are going to try to insert bad commands to show the world that they can do 1337 hacking skillz?
The team around John Penix, Willem Visser, and Peter Mehlitz fought long and hard to get the development hosted outside of NASA
Long and hard indeed.
(I'm going to hell for this.)
'nuff said.
sigs, as if you care.
... and that person is paying taxes on the income they receive from that ownership.
Yeah, right. Tell me another. Do you know how far the tax rate of the wealthiest has fallen since 1950? Not to mention offshore tax shelters, loopholes and associated bullshit.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Government software is open source, to the rest of the government.
If a federal agency writes a piece of code it is required to share it will any and all other federal agencies. Any contractor who writes code for a government agency is required to give all source code to said agency.
Disclaimer, no support needs to be provided and any program that can be covered under the national security clause is exempt (A lot more since bush took office)
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
From what I can tell, this is definitely a true Free Software license. However, you have to register with an agency of the United States government in order to muck with the code. Some may have a problem with this, be forewarned.Gets to crash a space station... this is one small step for NASA, one gaint leap for hackers :P
My hacked site
You bitch and complain because the adminstration kowtows to the cultural conservatives by paying lip-service to the gay marriage ban, and then when the Whitehouse reaches out the the gay community by giving the highly-regarded post of administration ringer to a gay-American, you make snide comments about THAT, too! There's just no pleasing you un-American, democratic bastards!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Could it be that NASA is finally giving up on Ada and embracing the safety, reliability, and simplicity of Java?"
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Oh, man. I needed a good laugh today.
Aside from the compulsory Slashdot Java FUD, it's really not a joke. Java has a big advantage in that the the bytes codes produced can be verified, and so the program tested, without any concerns of the final deployment platform. This is a major advantage for an organisation like NASA which most likely has a wide range of hardware on which software is deployed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can see some of the projects at: http://opensource.gsfc.nasa.gov/projects.php
The OS abstraction layer is going to have an update fairly soon, i believe.
I did not RTFA. But how can this program check all possible paths of any java program to detect deadlock etc. Isnt this a variation of the halting problem ?
Now for my Java project which calculates distances between two geographic points, i hope JPF doesn't force me to use metric systems instead of English units(miles)... Wait a sec, didn't NASA make some mistakes themselves in the past by mistaking Miles for KM's before?
buffering...
Open source may be a "sunset" project this Silicon Valley branch of NASA because that site is to be decimated and perhaps closed.
Ames mainly performs long term R&D in space and areonautical sciences. There is an opinion in the adminstration that the federal government should not be conducting R&D internally, but outsourcing it to universities, companies, and think tanks. This is pretty much the model in the biological sciences.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm sorry, but you've got to be fucking kidding me.
NASA knows explicitly what the final deployment platform will look like, from hardware up to OS and available software binaries. It's part of the all-encompassing and overwhelming specification process used when creating a new government (well, NASA/military) project.
For what NASA is doing, what they need is a language that is well-understood (Ada most definitely is), and Java doesn't fall into that category yet...C++, maybe, but not Java.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
For what NASA is doing, what they need is a language that is well-understood (Ada most definitely is), and Java doesn't fall into that category yet...C++, maybe, but not Java.
Sure it does. Once you get down to the embedded development level, it's far easier to plan for capacity and availability. Programmers do it all the time for MIDP cell phone programs. The difficulties you are considering have to do with Desktop applications which use an unpredictable amount of resources.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Funny to see this code; I was just pinging the developers of C Global Surveyor (a vaguely similar tool that operates on C/C++ code instead of Java) to see if I could get access to their work. I didn't get a reply, but hopefully Java Pathfinder will give them the cover they need...seriously, CGS looks absolutely brilliant.
I hope President Spitzer's first action upon assuming office in 2017 is
to get you some reading comprehension skills.
I'm sorry, but you've got to be fucking kidding me.
Is this kind of statement really necessary?
NASA knows explicitly what the final deployment platform will look like, from hardware up to OS and available software binaries. It's part of the all-encompassing and overwhelming specification process used when creating a new government (well, NASA/military) project.
NASA has a huge range of deployment platforms, and not all are of military grade hardware/embedded. There are matters of security systems etc.
For what NASA is doing, what they need is a language that is well-understood (Ada most definitely is), and Java doesn't fall into that category yet...C++, maybe, but not Java.
I worked alongside people who were developing Ada in the early 80s, so I know how it is used. I am also aware of the attempts at proof-of-code-correctness that were made at the time. This is extremely difficult with source, and much work in avionics is done by analysing and tracing the resultant machine code. This is why using a language such as Java that has a specified, hardware independent, set of byte codes is so useful. Java is a far smaller language than C++, specifically tailored for safety and security. It also includes built-in standard capabilities for real-time concurrency much like Ada.
Hahaha, Hey Penix, what's your wife's name? Vagina Coastguard?
--
"Do you think," said a Woodpecker who had been busy making a hole in the table, "that there might be a problem with the name 'UNIX'? I mean, it does sort of suggest being less than a man."
"Maybe we should try another name," suggested the Job Sparrow, "like Brut, or Rambo."
"Penix," suggested a Penguin.
http://www.davar.net/HUMOR/UNIXLAND.HTM
-jp
There's just no pleasing you un-American, democratic bastards!
What could be more American than democracy?
-- often wrong; never in doubt
The federal govenrment can't hold a copyright.
Copyright (C) 2005 United States Government as represented by the
Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA). All Rights Reserved.
The above statement from the license is not legal.
By defn all copyrightable materials produced by the feds are Public Domain... in the most legal sense of the phrase.
Someone at NASA wasn't paying attention.
Furthermore, since the copyleft principle relies on Copyright to grant certain permissions, the fact that the Feds can't hold copyright means that they can't use "traditional" open source licenses.
That's why you don't see this whole flood of OSS from the feds.
Aside from the compulsory Slashdot Java FUD, it's really not a joke. Java has a big advantage in that the the bytes codes produced can be verified, and so the program tested, without any concerns of the final deployment platform. This is a major advantage for an organisation like NASA which most likely has a wide range of hardware on which software is deployed.
Which is nice, but when it comes to serious mission critical software where faults can't be tolerated Ada has some advantages. Call me when Java has anything equivalent to SPARK for validating code.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
The NASA announcement is one part of a larger battle over the federal government's position on the roles of public vs. private, secret vs. open, etc. This represents a rare win for the public-open axis. On the other hand, one Senator wants to restrict public access to weather service data (that the public already paid for collecting, one story here: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2005-04-27-NW S-bill_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA). The president's proposed dismantling of social security is another.
Which is nice, but when it comes to serious mission critical software where faults can't be tolerated Ada has some advantages.
Call me when Java has anything equivalent to SPARK for validating code.
Work on this has started. Here is an example:
https://www.hija.info/
"High Integrity Java".
Much of the technology for this is already in place. For example, the Hotspot optimiser for Java already does bounds prediction of some variables in order to eliminate the need for time-consuming range checks in code such as loops.
You might take a look at ESC/Java, which provides "extended static checking" for annotated programs. It's similar in concept to SPARK/Ada, although I'm not sure how well they compare in terms of features.
Talking about opensource software from NASA, has someone ported winvn to Linux yet?
tnx
Simon
That's nice to know. I wasn't meaning to diss Java - I think it's a nice language. I was more interested in the fact that it's (relatively speaking) a young language and doesn't have all the tools and additions available for it that something with a long history in high integrity software like Ada does.
I do expect Java to get there soon. That's for the reference, it looks like they were closer than I had previously thought.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
When I asked about this in my journal. Anyone interested?
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Since Ames Research Center is looking at a 1/3rd budget cut, all of the software projects better put their development tree outside of NASA. Once the authors are laid off, the software will die and no one will try to get it out.
Does it automatically do metric to English unit conversion?
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
Sure income redistribution is a grand idea. Let's all sign up.
Ack!
Income redistribution stifles innovation. Why should I work hard if you're going to take it away from me and give to 'the needy' (where needy is defined merely by someone who has less than 'average.')
If you redistributed income once - taking all of the money and resources away from the rich and poor and equitably distributed to each one, within ten years most of the people who were rich originally would be rich again. This is because some of them are smart, creative people who apply themselves and find ways to collect resources through socially acceptable means. Others will lie, cheat and steal from people so that they can increase their stockpile. Some of those who were originally rich - those from 'old money' - might be shut out of the cash, but others who were 'upper middle class' would most likely take their place. The poor would still be poor.
So, you must have a constant wealth redistribution plan where assets are repeatedly and frequently taken from the 'rich' to give to the poor.
Aside from the gaping loopholes, and the lack of motivation those in power have to take resources from themselves, this MIGHT work, except for the fact that it stifles innovation and kills the spirit and creativity of the workers.
Why should I achieve if you're going to take it from me? Look at the failures of the Soviet system for an example of how this falls flat. If we institute wealth redistribution (at a greater rate than we already have today due to our tax system) we will destroy the engine that drives our economy.
It's a bad deal, and I'd hate to sit on my butt letting my creative talents go to waste. If you're going to take my money - that I worked hard to earn through application of my talents and personal discipline - I might as well sign up for the handouts.
It's a bad idea. A non-starter. Enjoy your marxist philosophy. Hope you can find a place where it will actually work.
For what it's worth, I believe that we who have a great deal must have compassion on those who have substantially less. We should give generaously to those in need. I don't need the government to compel me to do it. The government is terribly inefficient at EVERYTHING it does. Let's not waste those resources.
Respectfully,
Anomaly.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Now NASA has a far less glowing image. So we see another probe every now and then. We see an archaic shuttle. By releasing software, NASA is potentially creating more positive press again. Even those people who think space reasearch is stupid might say "Hey at least we get some new software".
Besides... if you're an american tax payer you already paid for this stuff anyway.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
i genuinely welcome everyone who welcomes me. this is a triumph of communication. lets all together invid/te our vicinicity
...to develop a script that will play the "Memento" DVD in the correct chronological sequence?
I think NASA has too many engineer and not enough theoretical computer scientist. If they had they would realize this is an effort in futility.
A program 'A's logic is being checks by a program 'B'. We can assume nothing about 'A' so we turn focus to 'B'. We make 'B' check the logic program 'B' and we are stuck with a circular logic problem which can never be define in a computer.
simiular proof
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem/
On Real-Time Systems, Java is still not a suitable candidate due to its indeterminstic garbage collection.
3 67671/
In mission-critical application, a hard time requirement cannot be violated. And you wouldn't want Java's gc to kick in and cause a space shuttle to crash would you.
http://www.developer.com/java/other/article.php/1
Income distribution from the rich to the poor is a relatively new invention of mankind. Throught almost all of our history the rich always got richer. The more money you had, the more power you had the easier it was to gather more money and power. Eventually everything in a country was owned by the king or a handful of famillies. What usually followed was a revolution in which the rich were killed and the cycle started over again.
Of course you can see this going on all over the workd right now. There are lots of countries with no income redistribution and where a handful of families own everything. Oddly enough they always seem to be having coups and violent surpressions of dissent. Iraq and afghanistan come immediately to mind.
What you fail to understand is that the natural tendency of money is to flow "uphill". Income redistribution is a good thing. It prevents violent revolutions.
"For what it's worth, I believe that we who have a great deal must have compassion on those who have substantially less. We should give generaously to those in need. I don't need the government to compel me to do it. "
I hear this a lot but see very little evidence for it. Rich people tend to give a miniscule percentage of their income to charity and most of their charity seems to go to their alma matter or the opera or something.
evil is as evil does
On Real-Time Systems, Java is still not a suitable candidate due to its indeterminstic garbage collection.
The nature of the garbage collection is an implementation detail, not a language feature. There have been real-time implementations of Java with deterministic garbage collection for years.
It's just there: with the people who choose to use it. If they release something as Free Software, there are likely three possible reasons:
In all of these cases, the final responsibility for using that free software in a project lies with those who actually incorporate it into the project. In all of these cases, they can choose an older fork which is known good. And again, in all of these cases, they can test heavily.
Free Software is a social contribution and a development model, but it's not a quality control system, and never will be. Of course, there are probably quality control systems that are Free Software, too ;)
You're right. At least since 2002.s .cfm&show_article=5
http://www.timesys.com/index.cfm?bdy=home_bdy_new
I hear this a lot but see very little evidence for it.
If it is necessary for the government to intervene to compel people to give, then why have charities in the US received more than $1B in private donations just for tsunami relief?
Why is it estimated that Americans gave $241B in charitable donations in 2003?
The US government is forecasted to spend $1.3T in annual entitlement spending during 2005. How much is enough?
Is it truly your argument that we should take from the 'rich' and distribute their assets to the 'poor' so that the poor don't rise up and kill the rich?
Do you realize that the poor in the US are living with orders of magnitude greater wealth that the rest of the developing world?
Should we liquidate the US assets and give them to the Indians, Chinese, and Indonesians? Would that prevent them from rising up and killing us?
Are you serious?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
You said: What usually followed was a revolution in which the rich were killed
o ld=2&commentsort=3&tid=160&mode=thread&cid=1236518 1/
It seems to me that the logical extension of this is that the poor countries of the world should be expected to rise up to eliminate the rich ones. They certainly outnumber us.
You also said: What you fail to understand is that the natural tendency of money is to flow "uphill"
If you read my previous post, I agreed with that statement when I said: within ten years most of the people who were rich originally would be rich again http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=147514&thresh
Are you saying we should all live like palestenians?
I'm not saying that, but if you truly advocate equitable distribution of resources, once all of the US assets (currently owned by ~300M of us) are distributed to the ~6.5B people in the world, we'd be living in squalor, and those in the US currently described as 'poor' would comparatively look like kings. Doesn't this logically follow?
Do you favor worldwide wealth redistribution? Really?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
This software was developed in phases under several different contracts/agreements supported by several different contracting companies.
In general, contractors can retain the commercial rights to the software and the gov't gets a government use license (which includes providing it to other gov't contractors to be modified).
In this case, since no single organization owned the code, we asked the orgs to waive their rights to we could open source it and everyone would have access to it.
The NOSA is OSI approved. And the lawyers here are pretty detail oriented.
jp
-jp
So then you're suggesting that the wealth in this country be taken from those who have it and be given to those who don't for the express purpose of avoiding a revolutionary uprising of the poor against the wealthy?
I have no counter argument? Now who is failing to read prior postings?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
end up with violent revolutions.
The 'poor' here are extremely unlikely to revolt until the tide rises for the third world. The US is the best place in the world to live in terms of opportunity and resources. They poor won't revolt until they have no hope. Some Americans have little or no hope for their future, but not many.
the top 5% control 95% of the wealth but pay less then 50% of the taxes
I guess it depends where you get your facts. The treasury dept says
"In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income."
Sounds pretty nuts to me. Why should the rich bother?
Speaking of the top 50% of wage earners in the country, the report continues:
"In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total."
96% of taxes are paid by the top 50% of wage earners!
Why should you penalize those who work hard by taking what they have earned?
Apparently earning less than $130K is enough to qualify someone as being in the top 5% of wage earners. Is $130K/year 'rich?'
FWIW - I'd bet that most people who earn that much are in debt more than those who earn less - even after adjusted as a percentage of AGI.
I grew up 'poor' by US standards. I got my first job at age 9 (paper route) and worked continuously until today. I worked my way through college, and have carefully chosen to budget my resources so that I have very little debt. I choose to drive used cars, live in a conservative home, and I save money.
I don't earn that much, but proably will in my lifetime. Will I deserve to have my assets taken once I hit that level?
I suppose if you want to live in a world of 'us' and 'them' then thinking in terms of income redistribution is a great idea, until you become 'them.'
I'm reminded of a friend who worked as a union laborer for a grocery chain to pay his way through college. He definitely had an 'us' and 'them' mentality. I tried to explain that by becoming college educated, and seeking a professional job, he BECAME one of THEM. I don't think he understood that at the time.
I'm also reminded of the man I met who was a time/motion study expert representing a union of upholsterers. He genuinely believed that the manufacturer set the price of the goods independently of the manufacturing costs, and regardless of the rest of the market! Wow.
Income redistribution is a scam to make people who have little feel worse about themselves by thinking that the only way to achieve is to 'stick it to the man' and take from him.
I live in a world where opportunity stretches before me - where achievement is related to the disciplined application of my gifts and talents.
I started out as one of 'us' and through hard work, discipline, and good choices have become one of 'them.' You can too.
If you want to live in a world where the boots of 'the man' are on your neck, go ahead. Seems a shame to me, but it's your life...
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Thanks for the explanation. I figured it had to be something like that. It can be a pain, however, if you are the government employee and you want to jump in and code. In our case ~2/3 of the code is written by government employees and so we just get the contractors to waive and call the whole thing public domain.