Thanks for your replies, and yes maybe it is a bug. I've checked my profile settings and confirmed that I still have sigs turned off. Here is how your comment appeared when viewing from my account. Your name at the end is plain text and not clickable.
Unless I'm mistaken, in the comment I replied to, your name appears as plain text at the end of your comment. I have had signatures turned off since when I created my account (for so long actually that I'd forgotten that I'd even turned them off). But I still see a plain text signing off.
The reason I find your name (or anyone else's name) distracting at the end of a comment is it takes away from the pure content of the comment. I read it, process it, and then [thunk] your name momentarily derails my chain of thought as I move on to the replies. I want to just focus on the debate, or conversation. If I want to, I can see who wrote the comment in the comment title. Where there is also a place to link to your website or personal page.
Bruce, I've been reading your comments on Slashdot for the last ten years. Appreciate your input.
Now a small request. Can you leave off signing your name at the end of your comment? Your name is clearly spelt out at the top of your comment (as your user name). You and a few other people have this habit and it's quite annoying.
The two included quotes and your own comment are linguistic rubbish. Sorry to be so blunt. You have been upvoted because people love hearing these kind of stories about the 'mysterious' Chinese script.
I'm now feeling quite conflicted about Bill Gates. Yes, he spawned Microsoft, which has engaged in illegal and unethical practices and whose mediocre products have caused untold frustration to millions and retarded progress in the software world. My line used to be that it's hardly virtuous to give back to the world the billions of dollars you have taken from them in less than fair ways. But with the sort of work he's funding and advocating, he may just get to join the ranks of the robber barons who, in balance, left a legacy more good than bad. People such as Rockefeller and Carnegie. I think he's still got a way to go but I'm now feeling a little bit more open to the guy.
Clinton also called on U.S. businesses, particularly media providers, to fight censorship in the countries where they operate.
"Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company anywhere," she said. "American companies need to make a principled stand. This needs to be part of our national brand."
This is very strong language. Google is getting full backing and all other US companies are being actively encouraged to follow their lead.
Yes, I understood the point you were making. To answer, for a car I am paying for a material good. For a live performance I am paying to enter a real venue to see and hear the performance. Both of these have natural limitations. We completely create the limitations on copying by inventing copyright. It's too much of a stretch of fiction and it is not surprising that the experiment has devolved into an unworkable and perverse system. Sorry, I have read about this issue and given thought to it for more than a decade and the position I now take is hardline. If you create a copyable work and release it to the public (not legally release but release into circulation) then you must let it go free. Anything else hampers and perverts the free creation of culture. RMS understood this when he developed the GPL. If you completely respect the rights of the users or audience, then a natural corollary is that you do not legally constrain the work. It's not that the goal is cost-free access, it's that it's a natural side-effect that you can't force people to pay. They may pay, but you can't force them because you want to maintain their right to copy and modify.
Yeah, and because of that Shakespeare, while alive, refused to actually publish his plays.
Direct refutation of this assertion. 18 plays were published (and republished) before the death of William Shakespeare in 1616. Mostly the more popular plays including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Yeah, and because of that Shakespeare, while alive, refused to actually publish his plays. There's a reason that some of his plays are lost for good. A lack of copyright has a lot to do with that.
Sorry, I think you are making that up. Would you like to provide a reference? Details of Shakespeare's life are very scant, so much so that there has been speculation for centuries about his true identity. There is no documentation of his personal views or position on anything. It's arrogant of you to put words into the great bard's mouth.
...copyright just makes your subsidy of a public good more direct and lets you [...] decide who's worthy of getting money.
No, it forces me to pay money to the rights holder who more often than not is a bloodless corporation or estate. Letting me decide who's worthy of getting my money is letting me actively volunteer to give them money or pay them for their live performances.
Microsoft responded by stating they are happy IBM has found someone new, that's just great, and hey by the way MS is engaged to Dell who is hotter than IBM anyway so there.
Which side you believe is the side you already believe.
No, which side I believe is whichever side gets their facts right. Which certainly isn't you. Let me address some errors in your first paragraph:
There is a small but vocal group of Free Software zealots who make life miserable for anyone who thinks that the GPL isn't the end-all and be-all of Open Source licenses.
No, they don't because they would never call the GPL an open source license. 'Open Source' is a term used by a group who came after the FSF and who want to distinguish themselves from the FSF mostly by playing down the idea of freedom. No Free Software 'zealot' would describe the GPL as an Open Source license. That you conflate the two movements show you haven't done your homework.
They frequently point out problems they perceive with other licenses like BSD without conceding that their perspective may not be applicable/correct/logical/reasonable.
Your very next sentence and you are wrong here too. The FSF maintains a list of licenses on their website and give their analysis of each one. They categorise the BSD license as a Free Software license and a perfectly acceptable one to use. From their discussion:
Modified BSD license: This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the advertising clause. It is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.
And then you finish your paragraph with two incendiary sentences:
These are what I call the Free Software Fascists. They claim to work for the greater good of the OSS movement, but their actions are only self-serving.
Yeah great, anyone can describe someone as a fascist. It's a great word to spit out. But do you have any concept of the history of the word and the basic political position it describes? Because if you do, I would like you to show any one way in which the FSF could be described as fascist (hint: show that they are in favour of a high degree of co-operation between corporate interest and government). And no they do not work for the greater good of the OSS movement because they were around more than ten years before that movement and its aims are not theirs. And finally to describe their actions as only self-serving would be funny if it wasn't so deluded as they have clearly served the whole world by making a massive library of software free to use without anything asked in return. Anything at all.
People like you who want to attack the FSF should first get your facts right. It is tiresome to see the FSF continually misrepresented. They have pages and pages of text on their website, clearly and rationally spelling out their position. Are you just simply too lazy to read it? Either that, or would you like to declare a personal interest? Because you have provided absolutely no rigorous argument against any of their positions.
The most pure purists, such as RMS, take the position that I should not have done that mathematical investigation, because I could not do it without using non-free software.
This is *not* their position. RMS and his colleagues worked on computers with proprietary software to create the GNU operating system. They are saying it is better to use free software if free software exists that does what you want to do. They understand you using proprietary software if an alternative doesn't exist, although they would want to advise you about the risks of lock-in that you are running.
Their argument is that if you are *creating* software then you should offer it under a Free Software license. The creators and extenders of software are the people they are appealing to.
This is a fight between two fundamentalist religious regimes (Iran and Israel). Why take sides? I abhor both regimes, while rejoicing in the rich culture of *all* peoples in those oppressed states.
Just because you move from Microsoft to an FOSS platform does not mean you are becoming more free nearly as much as you just trading service providers. Whether you get your browser from Microsoft or get it from Mozilla foundation, your Office from Microsoft, or your office from some Open Office foundation, doesn't matter. In all cases there's some other body that ultimately controls the direction of the software.
This comment, showing complete ignorance of the benefits of using Free Software, gets modded +4 insightful? Not to mention its bad grammar? Put down the crack pipe mods.
Everyone acknowledges that Taiwan will be the flash point, meaning that the mainland will forcibly repatriate them if the Taiwanese don't surrender peacefully.
early in your (long) comment I didn't bother to read the rest.
This is just simply rubbish. China talks a lot of propaganda about Taiwan but at this stage they have no interest in retaking Taiwan. The economies of Taiwan and China are so interlinked that starting a war between the two would be economic suicide for both parties. Hard headed realpolitik thinkers on both sides understand this. You don't and are just foolishly swallowing the propaganda line.
I've lived in Taiwan. The Taiwanese population generally understand the situation and are not worried (although they do continually monitor the situation). The only ppl who think there will be a war between China and Taiwan are gullible foreigners and jingoistic thinking young Chinese patriots. Both of these groups serve the purposes of the Chinese Communist Party regime.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of the original name for the Daihatsu Applause, before they did their complete model name reaction testing.
Thanks for your replies, and yes maybe it is a bug. I've checked my profile settings and confirmed that I still have sigs turned off. Here is how your comment appeared when viewing from my account. Your name at the end is plain text and not clickable.
Unless I'm mistaken, in the comment I replied to, your name appears as plain text at the end of your comment. I have had signatures turned off since when I created my account (for so long actually that I'd forgotten that I'd even turned them off). But I still see a plain text signing off.
The reason I find your name (or anyone else's name) distracting at the end of a comment is it takes away from the pure content of the comment. I read it, process it, and then [thunk] your name momentarily derails my chain of thought as I move on to the replies. I want to just focus on the debate, or conversation. If I want to, I can see who wrote the comment in the comment title. Where there is also a place to link to your website or personal page.
Bruce, I've been reading your comments on Slashdot for the last ten years. Appreciate your input.
Now a small request. Can you leave off signing your name at the end of your comment? Your name is clearly spelt out at the top of your comment (as your user name). You and a few other people have this habit and it's quite annoying.
The two included quotes and your own comment are linguistic rubbish. Sorry to be so blunt. You have been upvoted because people love hearing these kind of stories about the 'mysterious' Chinese script.
Please have a read of The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy by John DeFrancis before you go spouting any more such stories.
I agree. I recommend people watch it.
I'm now feeling quite conflicted about Bill Gates. Yes, he spawned Microsoft, which has engaged in illegal and unethical practices and whose mediocre products have caused untold frustration to millions and retarded progress in the software world. My line used to be that it's hardly virtuous to give back to the world the billions of dollars you have taken from them in less than fair ways. But with the sort of work he's funding and advocating, he may just get to join the ranks of the robber barons who, in balance, left a legacy more good than bad. People such as Rockefeller and Carnegie. I think he's still got a way to go but I'm now feeling a little bit more open to the guy.
Ballmer, on the other hand, ...
Elephant in the room by Banksy.
Elephant in the room by The New Yorker.
Poor use of the term carte blanche which means full power, open sanction, free hand etc.
This is very strong language. Google is getting full backing and all other US companies are being actively encouraged to follow their lead.
Yes, I understood the point you were making. To answer, for a car I am paying for a material good. For a live performance I am paying to enter a real venue to see and hear the performance. Both of these have natural limitations. We completely create the limitations on copying by inventing copyright. It's too much of a stretch of fiction and it is not surprising that the experiment has devolved into an unworkable and perverse system. Sorry, I have read about this issue and given thought to it for more than a decade and the position I now take is hardline. If you create a copyable work and release it to the public (not legally release but release into circulation) then you must let it go free. Anything else hampers and perverts the free creation of culture. RMS understood this when he developed the GPL. If you completely respect the rights of the users or audience, then a natural corollary is that you do not legally constrain the work. It's not that the goal is cost-free access, it's that it's a natural side-effect that you can't force people to pay. They may pay, but you can't force them because you want to maintain their right to copy and modify.
Direct refutation of this assertion. 18 plays were published (and republished) before the death of William Shakespeare in 1616. Mostly the more popular plays including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Sorry, I think you are making that up. Would you like to provide a reference? Details of Shakespeare's life are very scant, so much so that there has been speculation for centuries about his true identity. There is no documentation of his personal views or position on anything. It's arrogant of you to put words into the great bard's mouth.
No, it forces me to pay money to the rights holder who more often than not is a bloodless corporation or estate. Letting me decide who's worthy of getting my money is letting me actively volunteer to give them money or pay them for their live performances.
Don't buy that ring just yet MS.
Actually, I think you meant hypocrisy.
Hypocracy is government by Hippos.
Mud, mud, glorious mud!
That was a very persuasively written comment. It was also complete bullshit.
No, which side I believe is whichever side gets their facts right. Which certainly isn't you. Let me address some errors in your first paragraph:
No, they don't because they would never call the GPL an open source license. 'Open Source' is a term used by a group who came after the FSF and who want to distinguish themselves from the FSF mostly by playing down the idea of freedom. No Free Software 'zealot' would describe the GPL as an Open Source license. That you conflate the two movements show you haven't done your homework.
Your very next sentence and you are wrong here too. The FSF maintains a list of licenses on their website and give their analysis of each one. They categorise the BSD license as a Free Software license and a perfectly acceptable one to use. From their discussion:
And then you finish your paragraph with two incendiary sentences:
Yeah great, anyone can describe someone as a fascist. It's a great word to spit out. But do you have any concept of the history of the word and the basic political position it describes? Because if you do, I would like you to show any one way in which the FSF could be described as fascist (hint: show that they are in favour of a high degree of co-operation between corporate interest and government). And no they do not work for the greater good of the OSS movement because they were around more than ten years before that movement and its aims are not theirs. And finally to describe their actions as only self-serving would be funny if it wasn't so deluded as they have clearly served the whole world by making a massive library of software free to use without anything asked in return. Anything at all.
People like you who want to attack the FSF should first get your facts right. It is tiresome to see the FSF continually misrepresented. They have pages and pages of text on their website, clearly and rationally spelling out their position. Are you just simply too lazy to read it? Either that, or would you like to declare a personal interest? Because you have provided absolutely no rigorous argument against any of their positions.
This is *not* their position. RMS and his colleagues worked on computers with proprietary software to create the GNU operating system. They are saying it is better to use free software if free software exists that does what you want to do. They understand you using proprietary software if an alternative doesn't exist, although they would want to advise you about the risks of lock-in that you are running.
Their argument is that if you are *creating* software then you should offer it under a Free Software license. The creators and extenders of software are the people they are appealing to.
This is a fight between two fundamentalist religious regimes (Iran and Israel). Why take sides? I abhor both regimes, while rejoicing in the rich culture of *all* peoples in those oppressed states.
Mod parent up. Exactly what I wanted to say. K&R as the founding text of functional programming is just a bizarre idea.
Karmic - english adjectivisation of sanskrit word. Kudos - ancient greek meaning praise or renown. It is not a plural.
That phrase, was to be found nowhere on the web, until your own posting. Hardly ubiquitous.
This comment, showing complete ignorance of the benefits of using Free Software, gets modded +4 insightful? Not to mention its bad grammar? Put down the crack pipe mods.
After this line
early in your (long) comment I didn't bother to read the rest.
This is just simply rubbish. China talks a lot of propaganda about Taiwan but at this stage they have no interest in retaking Taiwan. The economies of Taiwan and China are so interlinked that starting a war between the two would be economic suicide for both parties. Hard headed realpolitik thinkers on both sides understand this. You don't and are just foolishly swallowing the propaganda line.
I've lived in Taiwan. The Taiwanese population generally understand the situation and are not worried (although they do continually monitor the situation). The only ppl who think there will be a war between China and Taiwan are gullible foreigners and jingoistic thinking young Chinese patriots. Both of these groups serve the purposes of the Chinese Communist Party regime.
Broughton: A Mob of Effluence.
There is no such thing as pure subjectivity.
But I agree with you about lobster.