Open source is not american. The internet is not American. It might have been at one point, but it's not any more.
Neither ESR's ranting, nor Lessig's reasoned response address this global scope.
This makes ESR's 'The government and Microsoft are EVIL' comment extremely funny. Like the US government could harm the 'Open Source Movement' by regulating it. Sorry, but anything international is basically reduced to a 'least common denominator' approach to legislation. The world hasn't even harmonized all the various Copyright Laws out there yet, and it's had about 50 years to do so. So, do you think regulating open source could possibly work? Laws inside America to protect american companies might actually help, or they might help very little, but they certainly won't kill it entirely, nor will they cause Open Source to succeed where it otherwise would not. We're talking about a 10% boost versus a 10% decrease, as a maximum. Therefore the overwrought doomsday-verbiage of ESR is at once amusing, and pathetic. Lessig is certainly the more believable of the two, but even he fails to point out the international angle.
Of course, I've noticed that to many Americans, the Rest of the World is just a place to go on Vacation. "Look Marge, there's a native. Let's see if we can take his picture before he notices, and gets mad at us, for stealing his soul."
> the guy reviewing for canux is a complete > idiot, how can he get a job?
From that review I could see that a non-technical person would have about ZERO chance of getting the product (CorelLinux+CorelWPO) installed on their PC. That says all that needs to be said. Sure, if you're a hacker, you're not their demographic. You're happy writing LaTeX preprocessor output in VI or EMACS. Go away already, okay? In thinking you're so clever, you have revealed your stupidity. Ironic, no?
Some people just want to turn on their computer and use it. Those people should probably (honestly) just get an iMac and Claris Works and say 'nuts to linux, nuts to Windows too'. Neither one is Nirvana for Neophytes. Neither is the Mac either, but at least it's consistent and useable.
1. Python is the most elegant language I have ever seen. Smalltalk is elegant too, but I found the "procedural programming sucks" message printed too loudly in the design of it. Python at least allows standard shell script type procedural programming (programming in the small?) and large object-oriented system programming (programming in the large) equally well. It can be an embedded part of your C applications, or you can start with Python and add C extensions where necessary. You don't normally need to add C extensions though, because the standard library is great. Sockets, HTML, XML, Windows COM/DCOM, CORBA/ORB, SQL and database links, are all written for you.
2. IMHO, wxPython is the best-of-breed GUI for Python. I personally dislike Tcl/Tk intensely (ugly, primitive, non-native looking, limited widget set) and find wxWindows (C++ library) much better looking. It's a little larger, but most systems can handle the size. There are still some quirks in it however, and I think it will be another 6 to 9 months before I'd feel comfortable shipping applications with it.
3. I think a nice IDE + GUI Builder (Boa Constructor?) combining Python+wxPython+IDE would be a killer combination. Keep watching out for this one.
When I was a programmer, I knew all about managers like you. Wait, I still am a programmer. You see, there are a lot of people who think that just anyone can be a programmer. While I agree that the C.S. degree is not necessary, it's certainly not a drawback. Your lack of insight is astonishing. Are there then not programmers who are interested in gardening, neuro-chemistry, english literature, guitar playing, advanced mathematics, pure sciences and applied, cooking and engineering, etc? Your argument falls down flat there.
1. no ftp install 2. packaging system inferior Pretty simple. It's unfortunate that we didn't get any commitment from P.V. to add either of the two things that most detract from Slackware's usefullness.
It's funny but CE represents a major re-invention of Windows, visibly similar, invisibly vastly different. For one thing, a lot of the underlying X86 and DOS cruft is gone. It's portable, runs from ROM, RAM or Flash EEPROM with equal dexterity, it has a unified namespace (drops the "C:" drive letter prefixes from path names) and it's simpler to configure. Since it's ALWAYS pre-installed, installation isn't an issue, except for small companies creating embedded systems, such as where I work, where where it's certainly the thing that's preventing us from using Windows CE. I always thought "Windows for Appliances" was a better title, although I guess that gives the image of having to double-click to make your dishwasher start. Sort of absurd no matter how you look at it, but noble, and technologically sound. Not everyone wants Windows, that's just hard for the Redmondites to accept.The Palm III is a perfect example of something with a CPU where people don't want "Windows.". On the other hand, I have an HP 620 LX, one of the mid-sized handheld PCs running Windows CE. I only wish Microsoft had more software for it. I've considered using it for embedded systems, and the problem is that for my uses (X86 systems, usually PC-104 form factor), it's extremely immature. If you are HP and you are making your own hardware and everything then CE would work for you. Heck, 90% of the most common plain-vanilla PC peripherals don't even have CE drivers. I think if they were serious about CE they should have gotten a driver base for it that at least covers all the most common X86 peripherals. So we've dropped it and used Phar Lap (www.pharlap.com) instead, which provides a very nice commercial RTOS that is somewhat Win32 compatible. Warren Postma
Anyone remember the movie "Logan's Run"? That's a great movie to watch on your 30th birthday. I remember in 1975 (I was 5) thinking "the year 2000 will never come, why, I'd be thirty then, and that's really old". Today (January 12 2000) is my 30th birthday. Just like Y2K, 30 is just a number, and all that happens is that the "milestone year" moves out one more time to 40. Of course none of us know how much time we have left. Warren Postma
If you look at the number of people in "business" computing who are not paid to be full time programmers, yet who can assemble a database-oriented "Application" from parts with Visual Basic and some ActiveX controls, you're stretching the definition of programmer. How many people have "Software Developer" or equivalent on their business card and yet only know Visual basic? I hope that number is somehwat lower. I hope that it's not the language of choice for the average B.Sc. Computer Science graduate. I'm often reminded of an old axiom in computer science: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In other words, the surveyor started out to find the answer to the question they already knew: Does Visual Basic meet the needs of the people who use it? Yes. he/she/they surveyed exactly the right kind of people to find out if Visual Basic was still relevant to the small custom database oriented application building thing. My other problem with this is that a sample size of 150 people is laughable when they pretend they are answering the question "Is Java a failure?". Hmm. Does Java have a target niche now? Yes. So why not go and look at it's penetration in that niche. It's not news that Java hasn't replaced every other language for every purpose. Neither has PERL, C, C++ or Visual Basic. Welcome to reality. I'd like to know what the over 3,000,000,000 people who spend all or some of their time developing software think. I'd like that survey broken down according to whether or not programming is their primary job function, and ask them if their choice is dictated by job description or the "shop" you work at, or if you are off in a corner like embedded systems, etc. The number of languages that people say they know and have written software with would be interesting as well. Some interesting statistics could be calculated. For example, if 50% of people who know both Delphi and Visual Basic still choose Visual Basic for most projects, I think Inprise/Borland would sit up and take note of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry kids.
Open source is not american. The internet is not American. It might have been at one point, but it's not any more.
Neither ESR's ranting, nor Lessig's reasoned response address this global scope.
This makes ESR's 'The government and Microsoft are EVIL' comment extremely funny. Like the US government could harm the 'Open Source Movement' by regulating it. Sorry, but anything international is basically reduced to a 'least common denominator' approach to legislation. The world hasn't even harmonized all the various Copyright Laws out there yet, and it's had about 50 years to do so. So, do you think regulating open source could possibly work? Laws inside America to protect american companies might actually help, or they might help very little, but they certainly won't kill it entirely, nor will they cause Open Source to succeed where it otherwise would not. We're talking about a 10% boost versus a 10% decrease, as a maximum. Therefore the overwrought doomsday-verbiage of ESR is at once amusing, and pathetic. Lessig is certainly the more believable of the two, but even he fails to point out the international angle.
Of course, I've noticed that to many Americans, the Rest of the World is just a place to go on Vacation. "Look Marge, there's a native. Let's see if we can take his picture before he notices, and gets mad at us, for stealing his soul."
Just Some Guy From Canada
> the guy reviewing for canux is a complete
> idiot, how can he get a job?
From that review I could see that a non-technical person would have about ZERO chance of getting the product (CorelLinux+CorelWPO) installed on their PC. That says all that needs to be said. Sure, if you're a hacker, you're not their demographic. You're happy writing LaTeX preprocessor output in VI or EMACS. Go away already, okay? In thinking you're so clever, you have revealed your stupidity. Ironic, no?
Some people just want to turn on their computer and use it. Those people should probably (honestly) just get an iMac and Claris Works and say 'nuts to linux, nuts to Windows too'. Neither one is Nirvana for Neophytes. Neither is the Mac either, but at least it's consistent and useable.
Warren PostmaThis combination is deadly good for two reasons:
1. Python is the most elegant language I have ever seen. Smalltalk is elegant too, but I found the "procedural programming sucks" message printed too loudly in the design of it. Python at least allows standard shell script type procedural programming (programming in the small?) and large object-oriented system programming (programming in the large) equally well. It can be an embedded part of your C applications, or you can start with Python and add C extensions where necessary. You don't normally need to add C extensions though, because the standard library is great. Sockets, HTML, XML, Windows COM/DCOM, CORBA/ORB, SQL and database links, are all written for you.
2. IMHO, wxPython is the best-of-breed GUI for Python. I personally dislike Tcl/Tk intensely (ugly, primitive, non-native looking, limited widget set) and find wxWindows (C++ library) much better looking. It's a little larger, but most systems can handle the size. There are still some quirks in it however, and I think it will be another 6 to 9 months before I'd feel comfortable shipping applications with it.
3. I think a nice IDE + GUI Builder (Boa Constructor?) combining Python+wxPython+IDE would be a killer combination. Keep watching out for this one.
Warren Postma
When I was a programmer, I knew all about managers like you. Wait, I still am a programmer. You see, there are a lot of people who think that just anyone can be a programmer. While I agree that the C.S. degree is not necessary, it's certainly not a drawback. Your lack of insight is astonishing. Are there then not programmers who are interested in gardening, neuro-chemistry, english literature, guitar playing, advanced mathematics, pure sciences and applied, cooking and engineering, etc? Your argument falls down flat there.
1. no ftp install
2. packaging system inferior
Pretty simple. It's unfortunate that we didn't get any commitment from P.V. to add either of the two things that most detract from Slackware's usefullness.
Warren Postma
It's funny but CE represents a major re-invention of Windows, visibly similar, invisibly vastly different. For one thing, a lot of the underlying X86 and DOS cruft is gone.
It's portable, runs from ROM, RAM or Flash EEPROM with equal dexterity, it has a unified namespace (drops the "C:" drive letter prefixes from path names) and it's simpler to configure. Since it's ALWAYS pre-installed, installation isn't an issue, except for small companies creating embedded systems, such as where I work, where where it's certainly the thing that's preventing us from using Windows CE.
I always thought "Windows for Appliances" was a better title, although I guess that gives the image of having to double-click to make your dishwasher start. Sort of absurd no matter how you look at it, but noble, and technologically sound.
Not everyone wants Windows, that's just hard for the Redmondites to accept.The Palm III is a perfect example of something with a CPU where people don't want "Windows.".
On the other hand, I have an HP 620 LX, one of the mid-sized handheld PCs running Windows CE. I only wish Microsoft had more software for it.
I've considered using it for embedded systems, and the problem is that for my uses (X86 systems, usually PC-104 form factor), it's extremely immature. If you are HP and you are making your own hardware and everything then CE would work for you. Heck, 90% of the most common plain-vanilla PC peripherals don't even have CE drivers. I think if they were serious about CE they should have gotten a driver base for it that at least covers all the most common X86 peripherals. So we've dropped it and used Phar Lap (www.pharlap.com) instead, which provides a very nice commercial RTOS that is somewhat Win32 compatible.
Warren Postma
Anyone remember the movie "Logan's Run"? That's a great movie to watch on your 30th birthday. I remember in 1975 (I was 5) thinking "the year 2000 will never come, why, I'd be thirty then, and that's really old". Today (January 12 2000) is my 30th birthday. Just like Y2K, 30 is just a number, and all that happens is that the "milestone year" moves out one more time to 40. Of course none of us know how much time we have left. Warren Postma
If you look at the number of people in "business" computing who are not paid to be full time programmers, yet who can assemble a database-oriented "Application" from parts with Visual Basic and some ActiveX controls, you're stretching the definition of programmer. How many people have "Software Developer" or equivalent on their business card and yet only know Visual basic? I hope that number is somehwat lower. I hope that it's not the language of choice for the average B.Sc. Computer Science graduate. I'm often reminded of an old axiom in computer science: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In other words, the surveyor started out to find the answer to the question they already knew: Does Visual Basic meet the needs of the people who use it? Yes. he/she/they surveyed exactly the right kind of people to find out if Visual Basic was still relevant to the small custom database oriented application building thing. My other problem with this is that a sample size of 150 people is laughable when they pretend they are answering the question "Is Java a failure?". Hmm. Does Java have a target niche now? Yes. So why not go and look at it's penetration in that niche. It's not news that Java hasn't replaced every other language for every purpose. Neither has PERL, C, C++ or Visual Basic. Welcome to reality. I'd like to know what the over 3,000,000,000 people who spend all or some of their time developing software think. I'd like that survey broken down according to whether or not programming is their primary job function, and ask them if their choice is dictated by job description or the "shop" you work at, or if you are off in a corner like embedded systems, etc. The number of languages that people say they know and have written software with would be interesting as well. Some interesting statistics could be calculated. For example, if 50% of people who know both Delphi and Visual Basic still choose Visual Basic for most projects, I think Inprise/Borland would sit up and take note of it.