It'd be a good move for MS. Their game is on a client side -- be it desktop, game console or cell phone. This is the market they want. To reduce development and maintenance cost they need common programming environment (.NET) and UI libraries. Vector graphics provided by Macromedia are ideal -- attractive, small in file size and accepted by users and developers.
EA spammed the email address I gave them as part of product registration and ignored my request to unsubscribe. But I guess it's just a part of doing business these days.
But indeed, one day we will have robots to do most of our labor for us, and we'll have genetic engineering, clean energy, and all the biotech advances we could ever want, and then I'll be ready to start making the trade for fewer hours. Because at that point our production will have become extremely efficient, and we'll have attained the things I want to see society achieve.
This is naive at best. Even if this future happenes, it won't occur overnight. This will be a gradual transition. Most people with power and money will find a way to keep their places. The rest of us will still have to work to make a living. It'll be a different kind of work, but I highly doubt that marketplace will allow more slack in this country.
Today this web site almost ceased to exist, so it doesn't matter. Back in October of 2000 our company (www.nunet.tv) had a project -- reincarnation of boo.com. (Original Boo was resold to fashionmall.com after it had burned through 137 mil VC money). The project was one hellish ride, but that's another story. Our designers created a Flash front page with an easter egg: it'd display "Nunet rules!" once you typed a key combo.
This does not mean that you did not learn depth cues such as perspective and relative size from other experiences, such as 3D perception. Simply because you have learned that certain shading patterns imply depth does not mean that you did not initially gather that information via stereo vision
It's relatively easy to test your argument. A person blind on one eye from childhood would never be able to learn stereo vision. Yet, it's VERY likely that he are still able to estimate distances.
The argument that he gathered distance information through moving and seeing an object from different angles and constructing 3D (or 2.5 D as some argue) in his head could be a good one. However, if you provide a photo of some scenery never seen before, this one eye viewer should still be able to estimate object boundaries and relative distances.
Simple rules like "object A covering object B is in front of it" play a much more important role than SV. SV is rather an addition to an already existing machinery, not it's primary tool.
The security implications of a huge hierarchical authentication method are staggering, and I'd expect there
to be distributed.net style contests to crack the root M$ keys
... DMCA? The entire project put on trial. Hmm, that should put an end to those diversion attempts by the PacMan.
Do you think it would be a worthwhile effort to create a sort of "meta news" web site? Each news gets it
coverage from multiple viewpoints (either articles posted directly or linked from outside). Since the effort
would require considerable resources this can be transformed into community web site.
1. Even without foreign language influences you'll always find academics fighting for language "purity". They don't like jargon, new terms, simplifications, you name it. The truth is that languages evolve no matter how hard you try to adhere to canonized rules. Why do they look at 18-19th century language as archaic, but pride themselves for sticking to the language forms they grew up with?
2. While I can't relate to Spanish-English situation, I've seen the same scenario with Ukranian-Russian, Ukrainian-Polish/Romanian (depending on where in Ukraine you are) and Russian-English. Get over it already! People will always use forms that simplify communications. Most languages don't have sharp boundaries no matter how hard you search for them. Word borrowing and transliteration are normal processes.
I suspect that Academia is freaking out due to the speed with which languages transform now. And that's in large part due to the
Internet and daily cross-cultural conversations.
It seems as a rather logical resolution of this conflict. Given that BMG will provide servers for file hosting and other add-ons. The question which I have is:
Why $5/month? In the last 4 years I bought 10 CDs ~ $150. I'd have to pay $60/year or total of $240 for the same amount of time. I realize that I'm hardly and average CD buyer, but still...
This pricing scheme makes sense for "power users". How about an alternative pay-per-download plan?
You make it seem that Red Hat is the only company that can suffer from DMCA's application. There are plenty of other companies (and not only Linux distros) and individuals who should be involved in financial support.
If every company would give 0.002% of their worth it should be sufficient.
The GNU and FSF view is that it is OK to sell anything except software.
Maybe I read different pages at the GNU's site but I was under impression that RMS is not against selling software per se. It's just that in most cases commercial software directly leads to proprietary software -- the one that restricts your ability to make changes and/or share it.
To give you an analogy.
You bought a book. You read it, you liked it. You found a few mistakes/misspellings in it. You corrected them.
Are you allowed to do it by law? Yes. Are you ethically justified to do so? Yes.
Your friend asked you to read the book. You gave it to him (with corrections).
Are you allowed to do so by law? Yes. Are to ethically justified? In most cases yes (unless we take a point of view of some authors/publishers who want your friend to buy a book).
Let's get back to the software. Are you allowed to make changes (if you even can) in proprietary software? No (read disassembly clauses). Are you ethically justified to do so? In many people's opinion (my including), yes.
Are you allowed to share the program with your friend? Neither by law nor by current ethical standards.
Case closed.
But if the work of your life is a great software package, trying to make a living out of selling it --- unless you also give it away, an immediate business-killer --- is a moral abomination.
First of all, it's not necessarily a business killer. If it would be, most software companies would be in financial ruins caused by 'warez kids'.
Second, nobody is saying that selling software is a "moral abomination" (with exception of some kids who have never developed anything worth mentioning). The question is, what right does the author of the software has to restrict modification and/or non-commercial modification of the product. I mentioned "non-commercial" clause because it's one point I disagree with RMS at.
Such balderdash would be easy to dismiss if it were not highly visible from the author's Open Source pages (I came across it when looking for Mr. Raymond's touted essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar") and didn't have any ethical implications.
Bertrand, Bertrand... We are talking feelings here:-) Didn't you ever write "balderdash" in your personal diary? If guns are what gets Eric high then let it be. It's his personal choice. Don't imply a link between Open Source and guns control issues.
the US political system has a remarkable combination of checks and balances making the imposition of a dictatorship rather unlikely;
Maybe that's partially due to the possibility of armed resistance that such political system was developed.
the historical exceptions to this observation... were not, if memory serves us well, met by armed resistance from an outraged citizenry;
Just because there was no precedent doesn't mean that there is never going to be one.
and a real aspiring dictator would have means of oppression, such as missiles, tanks and perhaps nuclear weapons, against which even the sophisticated guns on which Mr. Raymond roves ecstatic in his Web pages would be rather powerless.
Well, I don't think that Stalin used any tanks or bombs or even an army in 1937 to whip the country. It was all about quite night visits by a few KGB agents.
Also, why don't you look at guns as a weapon of self defense rather than a weapon of assault only?
But the result of such lunatic ravings, supported by the indefatigable NRA, are clear to everyone: a murder rate higher than in any other first-world country, an endless race between police and criminals for ever more lethal weapons, free availability of murderous devices in the infamous and barely regulated "gun shows" of the Western US, 12-year-olds trained in weapons since kindergarten who go on shooting rampages with guns borrowed from the family cupboard.
I just LOVED how you shifted attention from the FSF and Open Source. Stay on the subject, damn it! This is ad hominen!
People who are callous about human life cannot and should not be hailed as moral examples, whatever the alleged generosity of their views on the far less momentous issue of software distribution.
Assume I have a set of moral views. One of them is to cede my seat in a public transportation to an elderly person. Another one is to kill journalists who piss me off. Am I not allowed to encourage people to follow my first moral view? As far as the 'hailing' goes: nobody is creating idols here. It's perfectly understood that people have flaws. "Role model" game is something that is played in the grade school, not software world. We are not putting Raymond on a pedestal for his gun control views. Open Source has a different goal than NRA. I
t is high time for Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds to state publicly that they do not endorse the views of the gun lunatics, and that their cherished notion of freedom has nothing to do with the freedom to kill children and other innocents.
It's also time for both of our Gods (make it three, actually) to state publicly that they do not endorse the views or lifestyle of every single member of FSF, Open Source or tech community.:-) How fast we degraded to name calling. How fast we degraded to misrepresenting views.
If you cared to read Linus's interviews, you should know that he sees technological advancement as the most important reason for writing open source software. All three of them publicly stated that neither of them shares all views of others. I think that's clear and sufficient. There is no reason to start a fight.
if you find a bug in one of these products, you will have a much easier time reporting it and getting it fixed than if you try calling Sun or Microsoft customer support about a problem with their proprietary, binary-only products.
Yes, but you forgot one more point: "or fixing it yourself" (there is no need to leave stuff out). And this point should be the answer to your next complain: I
n both cases the scenario was the same: fixes to well-known bugs being promised and promised again; everyone waiting for months and months, until it becomes clear that nothing will happen; in the end, having to write off all the affected developments.
Now assume that the two products differ as follows:... Product P is proprietary software. It costs $50 for the binary-only version. It uses the most advanced techniques of software engineering. It never crashes, or departs in any way from its (mathematically expressed) specification. The seller is, in fact, so sure of those qualities that he will commit in writing that any violation of the specification during execution will immediately lead to reimbursement of the purchase price and compensation for any damages incurred.
Hahahaha! ROFL. Wake me up when the Messiah comes. The only way you can get to this state (given a current commercial world situation) is by introducing a new competitor - your free product "F".
Wanting to get rich is not morally reprehensible.
In itself no. But when you do so but depriving others of their rights, yes. We are running in circles here.
In general, I'm greatly disappointed by the article. The author thinks of open source/free software as of some kind of corporation that acts as one whole. In fact, it's a diverse group of individuals with different opinions. Too much misrepresentation for my likes.
But I have troubles viewing http://zeldman.com/askdrweb/tools2.html on my Linux computer with Netscape 4.72. More than likely (don't want to dive into your code) this is due to the forgotten </table> tag.
Which brings me to my question:
What percentage of your development time do you spend on testing your sites?
Oh but I will. I find this discussion very interesting.
One can argue quite impolitically that many poor people often have children they can't afford.
This is exactly were the problem lies. We could easily create a much smaller and smarter/stronger/whatever society if we would decide who can or can't have children. This is what eugenics were attempting to create. Simply artificial survival of the fittest. The problem with this approach is that:
1. Neither you nor I, nor even majority have any right to decide who can or can't procreate. We are not allowed to take other's rights.
2. Even if we could decide for others, how would we determine what is in the interests of the society. Today our interests might be more smart people. Tomorrow we might need something else, but we'll be left with the "nerd" society.
3. People in US are supposedly equal and have the same rights despite their social status. I don't really see how this equality can be maintained under this tax law.
Methinks you've created a rather outrageous strawman.
Yes, I might be taking the entire situation to the extreme. However, such extremes have to be evaluated to achieve a balanced solution.
We're talking tax cuts for having fewer children.
It's ironic. I don't know if there are any similar laws in US, but in former USSR there was an additional tax for single men. Maybe it's this involvement of the state into personal live that gives me the shivers.
Remarkably, you think I should study sociology, but you ignore the demographic trend of increased education -> fewer children and increased education -> increased household income.
Wonderful, so maybe the solution is in spending more on education? Without restricting personal freedoms we can "enlighten" the masses about there role in overpopulation?
In any case, your strawman ridiculously assumes that poor people routinely starve in the US.
No, I didn't say anything about starvation. Although I don't see the need to put an additional burden on lower, lower middle classes.
Four words: earned income tax credit.
I can give this one to you.
This is what I find amusing when people bitch about tax cuts for the rich. According to the last stats I saw, 80% of the income taxes collected was paid by 10% of the people. In other words, of course tax cuts go to the rich, they pay the majority of the taxes.
Oh, please. It all depends on which statistics you choose. By the same token, I recently heard about statistics that the income of rich people in US is growing at rates much, much higher then income of lower, middle classes. Thus the social gap increases. So maybe they deserve to pay more taxes?;-) We are getting into entirely different area here. I don't want to revise the ENTIRE tax system on US. Let's save this argument for the "flat tax" discussion.
Given its success in redistributing income, you can be assured that there Social Security tax is well-spent.
That was not an issue discussed. And you know it:-) "We know that we had an unjust tax law. But rest assured that the money went to a good cause."
FWIW, I heard on the radio today that the upper-limit on Social Security was abolished about 90 days ago.
Wow, great. I'll take you word for it. This is a great news.
Logic 101 my ass. Laws don't decide anything. People do.
Agreed, but people base their future decisions on existing laws. And often existing laws can provoke an avalanche of corrections and additions.
Nah, in reality, you're probably ensuring the upper-middle class won't have kids.
Your logic is faulty.
Given:
People have an instinct of procreation thus WANT to have children.
By not having children people save money. By having children they waste money.
Poor can't spend money when they hardly can make a living.
Result:
Poor can't have children because it would become a question of survival for them.
Only people with money can have children.
Having children will become something like having a yacht, Porsche or a personal jet.
Thus from a right given us by nature you make reproduction a privilege. This is exactly what eugenics in the beginning of 20th century were trying to do.
In the US, the poor generally pay no income tax whatsoever.
Who told you this stupidity? Every US citizen has to pay income tax. (Unless they make below $6k I think). On top of that, people with incomes BELOW $70k per year (just around the middle class threshold) have to pay Social Security tax. So relatively to income, poor might be just paying even more then rich. This is one of those tax wonders of this country.
Ummm, why don't you show us again what decision he's making for anyone?
If the tax law that he suggests goes into life, the law will indirectly decide who has the right to have children. This is logic 101.
I have an impression that you are either too young, or trying to start a flaimbait. I'd suggest that you take a course in sociology. It just might make some things clear for you.
Give people massive tax breaks for not having any children, or for only having one child. It's not violating anyone's civil rights, it's not imprisoning anyone, and it's humane. It appeals to the one thing that drives most people: their wallets.
What a great plan on the surface. Oh, but it's so rotten from the inside!
This is eugenics revisited, only this time profiling is done on the basis of social status. Reproduction is an instinct that sits in us. People will NOT get rid of it. By giving tax break to people without children you are ensuring that poor won't have any kids. Even if we forget for a second that a lot of useful to the society people grew in poor families, what right do YOU have to decide who gets to have children?
This is a totally biased solution on my part, though, since I never plan to have any kids.
I don't want to insult you on this one. I understand your concern for overpopulation. I even applaud to your choice. However, the solution lies elsewhere.
Wow! Since I don't have an MIT degree and can't see from your heights I didn't want to participate in this discussion at all. But with this comment you just hit me where it hurts:-)
Our *customer* decided that he wants us to integrate Yahoo! shop into the web site that we created for him. Having spent last week poking around their "regular" (HTML forms that generate placeholders with predefined fields) and "advanced" (proprietary to Yahoo! RTML language, something between actual HTML and programming language) editing modes I can tell you one thing: "It stinks!"
All we wanted was to have buttons on the left side as separate images with ability to do JavaScript roll-overs. And to have links from *our* web site that would utilize 'add', 'view' and 'checkout' options of the shopping cart located at Yahoo!. No can do:
1. Predefined templates can generate only an image map for navigation menu by combining separate buttons. Thus no JavaScript roll-overs.
2. To keep buttons as separate images you need to get *deep* into understanding of RTML.
3. RTML documentation provided at Yahoo! is a joke. No other information is available.
4. Their tech support sucks. It all boils down to one simple answer: "These are the options that we provide, if you don't like it -- piss off."
5. After pocking around RTML I can tell you that it's not worth learning. Yahoo! store's designers decided for you which elements to use as building blocks (thus non-modifiable, even if you *need* to edit them).
Also combining HTML with features from programming languages (iterations, global/local variables, functions, etc.) adds to the confusion.
Maybe they got the $50 mil you were talking about, but the product is not worth rat's ass. Any HTML/Perl sweatshop could create a much more functional and useful set of forms and placeholders for the content.
Just a few days ago we had an interesting article about DeCSS, DVD, corporate interests and personal involvement. The rant went along the lines: "It's very difficult to have any say about corporate policies. Let's create a fund and buy shares to be at least heard on shareholder meetings." Many people agreed that it would be a great idea. (Now, I don't know how many actually did something, but that's another story).
And here we are today... Someone else paid their money just to make sure that your voice can be heard. What a nice way to say thank you. So what if you can't directly change policies? It's not like you have direct influence on what laws are passed in Congress. Life sucks, get used to it. Your opinion can be heard and it just might keep people with power within reasonable boundaries.
I can already see hospitals overfilled with script kiddies and sys admins. For most, medical history files will be red with entries like: "Ran sniffit near backbone routers", "Migraines and nausea caused by tcpdump left running over night."
Re:Student Application Form
on
CFP2000
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· Score: 1
It wouldn't hurt if people used HTML checker before uploading web pages. Just because IE4.0 renders invalid HTML as if nothing happened, doesn't mean that it's right.
The author obviously forgot to close the outermost table with </TD></TR></TABLE>
Slashdot Mirror
It'd be a good move for MS. Their game is on a client side -- be it desktop, game console or cell phone. This is the market they want. To reduce development and maintenance cost they need common programming environment (.NET) and UI libraries. Vector graphics provided by Macromedia are ideal -- attractive, small in file size and accepted by users and developers.
It's a bit scary though....
EA spammed the email address I gave them as part of product registration and ignored my request to unsubscribe. But I guess it's just a part of doing business these days.
But indeed, one day we will have robots to do most of our labor for us, and we'll have genetic engineering, clean energy, and all the biotech advances we could ever want, and then I'll be ready to start making the trade for fewer hours. Because at that point our production will have become extremely efficient, and we'll have attained the things I want to see society achieve.
This is naive at best. Even if this future happenes, it won't occur overnight. This will be a gradual transition. Most people with power and money will find a way to keep their places. The rest of us will still have to work to make a living. It'll be a different kind of work, but I highly doubt that marketplace will allow more slack in this country.
Today this web site almost ceased to exist, so it doesn't matter. Back in October of 2000 our company (www.nunet.tv) had a project -- reincarnation of boo.com. (Original Boo was resold to fashionmall.com after it had burned through 137 mil VC money). The project was one hellish ride, but that's another story. Our designers created a Flash front page with an easter egg: it'd display "Nunet rules!" once you typed a key combo.
This does not mean that you did not learn depth cues such as perspective and relative size from other experiences, such as 3D perception. Simply because you have learned that certain shading patterns imply depth does not mean that you did not initially gather that information via stereo vision
It's relatively easy to test your argument. A person blind on one eye from childhood would never be able to learn stereo vision. Yet, it's VERY likely that he are still able to estimate distances.
The argument that he gathered distance information through moving and seeing an object from different angles and constructing 3D (or 2.5 D as some argue) in his head could be a good one. However, if you provide a photo of some scenery never seen before, this one eye viewer should still be able to estimate object boundaries and relative distances.
Simple rules like "object A covering object B is in front of it" play a much more important role than SV. SV is rather an addition to an already existing machinery, not it's primary tool.
this is not Poland, you know. :-)
... DMCA? The entire project put on trial. Hmm, that should put an end to those diversion attempts by the PacMan.
That was so funny. Let me stop rolling please.
./ is concerned with technological news. The talk was about different viewpoints on global news (i.e.
Israel/Palestine)
Do you think it would be a worthwhile effort to create a sort of "meta news" web site? Each news gets it
coverage from multiple viewpoints (either articles posted directly or linked from outside). Since the effort
would require considerable resources this can be transformed into community web site.
In short, what a load of crap! Let me elaborate.
1. Even without foreign language influences you'll always find academics fighting for language "purity". They don't like jargon, new terms, simplifications, you name it. The truth is that languages evolve no matter how hard you try to adhere to canonized rules. Why do they look at 18-19th century language as archaic, but pride themselves for sticking to the language forms they grew up with?
2. While I can't relate to Spanish-English situation, I've seen the same scenario with Ukranian-Russian, Ukrainian-Polish/Romanian (depending on where in Ukraine you are) and Russian-English. Get over it already! People will always use forms that simplify communications. Most languages don't have sharp boundaries no matter how hard you search for them. Word borrowing and transliteration are normal processes.
I suspect that Academia is freaking out due to the speed with which languages transform now. And that's in large part due to the
Internet and daily cross-cultural conversations.
It seems as a rather logical resolution of this conflict. Given that BMG will provide servers for file hosting and other add-ons. The question which I have is:
Why $5/month? In the last 4 years I bought 10 CDs ~ $150. I'd have to pay $60/year or total of $240 for the same amount of time. I realize that I'm hardly and average CD buyer, but still...
This pricing scheme makes sense for "power users". How about an alternative pay-per-download plan?
I meant another one, but this will do. Thanks
I assume that you had some sort of arrangement to post ThinkGeek link as THE place to bu this book. Please consider fixing it:
:-)
1. It' easier to jump directly into the ThinkGeek's page devoted to this book.
2. ThinkGeek might be upset
Also, someone mentioned long time ago a book searching engine a la pricewatch.com? Could you repost the link please?
'You can download MP3 music to the phone', but what exactly they mean isn't clear.
That's because you are not using Sprint PCS: "The Clear Alternative to Cellular".
You make it seem that Red Hat is the only company that can suffer from DMCA's application. There are
plenty of other companies (and not only Linux distros) and individuals who should be involved in financial
support.
If every company would give 0.002% of their worth it should be sufficient.
The GNU and FSF view is that it is OK to sell anything except software.
Maybe I read different pages at the GNU's site but I was under impression that RMS is not against selling software per se. It's just that in most cases commercial software directly leads to proprietary software -- the one that restricts your ability to make changes and/or share it.
To give you an analogy.
You bought a book. You read it, you liked it. You found a few mistakes/misspellings in it. You corrected them.
Are you allowed to do it by law? Yes. Are you ethically justified to do so? Yes.
Your friend asked you to read the book. You gave it to him (with corrections).
Are you allowed to do so by law? Yes. Are to ethically justified? In most cases yes (unless we take a point of view of some authors/publishers who want your friend to buy a book).
Let's get back to the software. Are you allowed to make changes (if you even can) in proprietary software? No (read disassembly clauses). Are you ethically justified to do so? In many people's opinion (my including), yes.
Are you allowed to share the program with your friend? Neither by law nor by current ethical standards.
Case closed.
But if the work of your life is a great software package, trying to make a living out of selling it --- unless you also give it away, an immediate business-killer --- is a moral abomination.
First of all, it's not necessarily a business killer. If it would be, most software companies would be in financial ruins caused by 'warez kids'.
Second, nobody is saying that selling software is a "moral abomination" (with exception of some kids who have never developed anything worth mentioning). The question is, what right does the author of the software has to restrict modification and/or non-commercial modification of the product. I mentioned "non-commercial" clause because it's one point I disagree with RMS at.
Such balderdash would be easy to dismiss if it were not highly visible from the author's Open Source pages (I came across it when looking for Mr. Raymond's touted essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar") and didn't have any ethical implications.
Bertrand, Bertrand... We are talking feelings here :-) Didn't you ever write "balderdash" in your personal diary? If guns are what gets Eric high then let it be. It's his personal choice. Don't imply a link between Open Source and guns control issues.
the US political system has a remarkable combination of checks and balances making the imposition of a dictatorship rather unlikely;
Maybe that's partially due to the possibility of armed resistance that such political system was developed.
the historical exceptions to this observation ... were not, if memory serves us well, met by armed resistance from an outraged citizenry;
Just because there was no precedent doesn't mean that there is never going to be one.
and a real aspiring dictator would have means of oppression, such as missiles, tanks and perhaps nuclear weapons, against which even the sophisticated guns on which Mr. Raymond roves ecstatic in his Web pages would be rather powerless.
Well, I don't think that Stalin used any tanks or bombs or even an army in 1937 to whip the country. It was all about quite night visits by a few KGB agents.
Also, why don't you look at guns as a weapon of self defense rather than a weapon of assault only?
But the result of such lunatic ravings, supported by the indefatigable NRA, are clear to everyone: a murder rate higher than in any other first-world country, an endless race between police and criminals for ever more lethal weapons, free availability of murderous devices in the infamous and barely regulated "gun shows" of the Western US, 12-year-olds trained in weapons since kindergarten who go on shooting rampages with guns borrowed from the family cupboard.
I just LOVED how you shifted attention from the FSF and Open Source. Stay on the subject, damn it! This is ad hominen!
People who are callous about human life cannot and should not be hailed as moral examples, whatever the alleged generosity of their views on the far less momentous issue of software distribution.
Assume I have a set of moral views. One of them is to cede my seat in a public transportation to an elderly person. Another one is to kill journalists who piss me off. Am I not allowed to encourage people to follow my first moral view? As far as the 'hailing' goes: nobody is creating idols here. It's perfectly understood that people have flaws. "Role model" game is something that is played in the grade school, not software world. We are not putting Raymond on a pedestal for his gun control views. Open Source has a different goal than NRA. I
t is high time for Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds to state publicly that they do not endorse the views of the gun lunatics, and that their cherished notion of freedom has nothing to do with the freedom to kill children and other innocents.
It's also time for both of our Gods (make it three, actually) to state publicly that they do not endorse the views or lifestyle of every single member of FSF, Open Source or tech community. :-) How fast we degraded to name calling. How fast we degraded to misrepresenting views.
If you cared to read Linus's interviews, you should know that he sees technological advancement as the most important reason for writing open source software. All three of them publicly stated that neither of them shares all views of others. I think that's clear and sufficient. There is no reason to start a fight.
if you find a bug in one of these products, you will have a much easier time reporting it and getting it fixed than if you try calling Sun or Microsoft customer support about a problem with their proprietary, binary-only products.
Yes, but you forgot one more point: "or fixing it yourself" (there is no need to leave stuff out). And this point should be the answer to your next complain: I
n both cases the scenario was the same: fixes to well-known bugs being promised and promised again; everyone waiting for months and months, until it becomes clear that nothing will happen; in the end, having to write off all the affected developments.
Now assume that the two products differ as follows: ... Product P is proprietary software. It costs $50 for the binary-only version. It uses the most advanced techniques of software engineering. It never crashes, or departs in any way from its (mathematically expressed) specification. The seller is, in fact, so sure of those qualities that he will commit in writing that any violation of the specification during execution will immediately lead to reimbursement of the purchase price and compensation for any damages incurred.
Hahahaha! ROFL. Wake me up when the Messiah comes. The only way you can get to this state (given a current commercial world situation) is by introducing a new competitor - your free product "F".
Wanting to get rich is not morally reprehensible.
In itself no. But when you do so but depriving others of their rights, yes. We are running in circles here.
In general, I'm greatly disappointed by the article. The author thinks of open source/free software as of some kind of corporation that acts as one whole. In fact, it's a diverse group of individuals with different opinions. Too much misrepresentation for my likes.
Which brings me to my question:
What percentage of your development time do you spend on testing your sites?
Did anyone else had to reread this paragraph at least twice to understand it? And afterwards did you think to yourself: "Duh!"
The recipe for a successful patent seems to be the following:
You'll probably never read this. . .oh well.
Oh but I will. I find this discussion very interesting.
One can argue quite impolitically that many poor people often have children they can't afford.
This is exactly were the problem lies. We could easily create a much smaller and smarter/stronger/whatever society if we would decide who can or can't have children. This is what eugenics were attempting to create. Simply artificial survival of the fittest. The problem with this approach is that:
1. Neither you nor I, nor even majority have any right to decide who can or can't procreate. We are not allowed to take other's rights.
2. Even if we could decide for others, how would we determine what is in the interests of the society. Today our interests might be more smart people. Tomorrow we might need something else, but we'll be left with the "nerd" society.
3. People in US are supposedly equal and have the same rights despite their social status. I don't really see how this equality can be maintained under this tax law.
Methinks you've created a rather outrageous strawman.
Yes, I might be taking the entire situation to the extreme. However, such extremes have to be evaluated to achieve a balanced solution.
We're talking tax cuts for having fewer children.
It's ironic. I don't know if there are any similar laws in US, but in former USSR there was an additional tax for single men. Maybe it's this involvement of the state into personal live that gives me the shivers.
Remarkably, you think I should study sociology, but you ignore the demographic trend of increased education -> fewer children and increased education -> increased household income.
Wonderful, so maybe the solution is in spending more on education? Without restricting personal freedoms we can "enlighten" the masses about there role in overpopulation?
In any case, your strawman ridiculously assumes that poor people routinely starve in the US.
No, I didn't say anything about starvation. Although I don't see the need to put an additional burden on lower, lower middle classes.
Four words: earned income tax credit.
I can give this one to you.
This is what I find amusing when people bitch about tax cuts for the rich. According to the last stats I saw, 80% of the income taxes collected was paid by 10% of the people. In other words, of course tax cuts go to the rich, they pay the majority of the taxes.
Oh, please. It all depends on which statistics you choose. By the same token, I recently heard about statistics that the income of rich people in US is growing at rates much, much higher then income of lower, middle classes. Thus the social gap increases. So maybe they deserve to pay more taxes? ;-) We are getting into entirely different area here. I don't want to revise the ENTIRE tax system on US. Let's save this argument for the "flat tax" discussion.
Given its success in redistributing income, you can be assured that there Social Security tax is well-spent.
That was not an issue discussed. And you know it :-) "We know that we had an unjust tax law. But rest assured that the money went to a good cause."
FWIW, I heard on the radio today that the upper-limit on Social Security was abolished about 90 days ago.
Wow, great. I'll take you word for it. This is a great news.
Logic 101 my ass. Laws don't decide anything. People do.
Agreed, but people base their future decisions on existing laws. And often existing laws can provoke an avalanche of corrections and additions.
Nah, in reality, you're probably ensuring the upper-middle class won't have kids.
Your logic is faulty.
Given:
Result:
Thus from a right given us by nature you make reproduction a privilege. This is exactly what eugenics in the beginning of 20th century were trying to do.
In the US, the poor generally pay no income tax whatsoever.
Who told you this stupidity? Every US citizen has to pay income tax. (Unless they make below $6k I think). On top of that, people with incomes BELOW $70k per year (just around the middle class threshold) have to pay Social Security tax. So relatively to income, poor might be just paying even more then rich. This is one of those tax wonders of this country.
BTW, if you'd like to know what exactly is the line of poverty in US, go check http://www.census.gov/hhe s/poverty/threshld/thresh99.html
Ummm, why don't you show us again what decision he's making for anyone?
If the tax law that he suggests goes into life, the law will indirectly decide who has the right to have children. This is logic 101.
I have an impression that you are either too young, or trying to start a flaimbait. I'd suggest that you take a course in sociology. It just might make some things clear for you.
Give people massive tax breaks for not having any children, or for only having one child. It's not violating anyone's civil rights, it's not imprisoning anyone, and it's humane. It appeals to the one thing that drives most people: their wallets.
What a great plan on the surface. Oh, but it's so rotten from the inside!
This is eugenics revisited, only this time profiling is done on the basis of social status. Reproduction is an instinct that sits in us. People will NOT get rid of it. By giving tax break to people without children you are ensuring that poor won't have any kids. Even if we forget for a second that a lot of useful to the society people grew in poor families, what right do YOU have to decide who gets to have children?
This is a totally biased solution on my part, though, since I never plan to have any kids.
I don't want to insult you on this one. I understand your concern for overpopulation. I even applaud to your choice. However, the solution lies elsewhere.
Wow! Since I don't have an MIT degree and can't see from your heights I didn't want to participate in this discussion at all. But with this comment you just hit me where it hurts :-)
Our *customer* decided that he wants us to integrate Yahoo! shop into the web site that we created for him. Having spent last week poking around their "regular" (HTML forms that generate placeholders with predefined fields) and "advanced" (proprietary to Yahoo! RTML language, something between actual HTML and programming language) editing modes I can tell you one thing: "It stinks!"
All we wanted was to have buttons on the left side as separate images with ability to do JavaScript
roll-overs. And to have links from *our* web site that would utilize 'add', 'view' and 'checkout' options of the shopping cart located at Yahoo!. No can do:
1. Predefined templates can generate only an image map for navigation menu by combining separate
buttons. Thus no JavaScript roll-overs.
2. To keep buttons as separate images you need to get *deep* into understanding of RTML.
3. RTML documentation provided at Yahoo! is a joke. No other information is available.
4. Their tech support sucks. It all boils down to one simple answer: "These are the options that we provide, if you don't like it -- piss off."
5. After pocking around RTML I can tell you that it's not worth learning. Yahoo! store's designers decided for you which elements to use as building blocks (thus non-modifiable, even if you *need* to edit them).
Also combining HTML with features from programming languages (iterations, global/local variables,
functions, etc.) adds to the confusion.
Maybe they got the $50 mil you were talking about, but the product is not worth rat's ass. Any HTML/Perl sweatshop could create a much more functional and useful set of forms and placeholders for the content.
Just a few days ago we had an interesting article about DeCSS, DVD, corporate interests and personal involvement. The rant went along the lines: "It's very difficult to have any say about corporate policies. Let's create a fund and buy shares to be at least heard on shareholder meetings." Many people agreed that it would be a great idea. (Now, I don't know how many actually did something, but that's another story).
And here we are today... Someone else paid their money just to make sure that your voice can be heard. What a nice way to say thank you. So what if you can't directly change policies? It's not like you have direct influence on what laws are passed in Congress. Life sucks, get used to it. Your opinion can be heard and it just might keep people with power within reasonable boundaries.
I can already see hospitals overfilled with script kiddies and sys admins. For most, medical history files will be red with entries like: "Ran sniffit near backbone routers", "Migraines and nausea caused by tcpdump left running over night."
It wouldn't hurt if people used HTML checker before uploading web pages. Just because IE4.0 renders invalid HTML as if nothing happened, doesn't mean that it's right.
The author obviously forgot to close the outermost table with </TD></TR></TABLE>