Hypocrisy, thy name is node 3. I've told you that the prevailing attitude among friends and coworkers (and we do deal with this stuff a lot in my job) is that open source means the source is available.
This isn't your friends and coworkers. This is the Internet. If your small cadre of acquaintances are equally wrong, that doesn't make them somehow right in the broader context.
Open any random google search for open source, open any trade magazine, open any open source program's license. What you will find is that it's more than just the source is viewable.
That the source is viewable is just the most obvious aspect of open source, but that's not the end of it. If that's all you think is required, you have an incomplete understanding of the term. Your ignorance, however, has no bearing on the definition of the term.
In your own words, it is not for you to tell me I am wrong.
Not quite. You seem to have an extreme difficulty with language. It's not for me to define the term. It's definitely for me (if I want to) to tell you that your usage of the term is wrong. I'm not arbitrarily redefining a term to fit what my small sphere of acquaintances thinks it means, I'm looking to the source of the term, to the common usage of the term, and bringing that knowledge to you, since you so truculently wish to promote your ignorance to the rest of us.
It's quite clear you are going to hold on to the death your limited world view. Have it your way, Humpty. Be wrong. Take comfort in your small little corner of the world. Just don't think that you're going to be able to find much agreement with the broader tech world. Get used to being caught up in arguments, not about useful questions, but about the definition of the words you use. Be prepared to waste your talents (if you have any) on foolish endeavors, because until you open your mind to the way things are, and not just as they look ten feet in front of you, you're going to encounter frustration every time you venture from that wall you are sitting on.
Isn't it easier to simply accept the term as it is and move on? What do you possibly gain by redefining a term? The licenses that are open source will still be the same, whether they are called open source, or free software, or 'modify, copy, distribute as you please' software. And software for which the source is available for view, but not open such that it can be freely modified and redistributed will still be the same, closed software, whether you want to call it open source or not. So what's the point for you? The point for MS is clear, they get to pretend their software is open, when it isn't. If they can destroy a term, they can attempt to destroy a movement. But for you? Are you that base? Is that your goal as well?
In that same vein, I'm going to leave it at that. No point in wasting my time and talents arguing with a tool. Those that read this can make up their own minds.
Open source is not just two English words crammed together.
I can't help but wonder what you think it is - the term 'open source' is absolutelytwo English words crammed together.
The word 'just' is key here. 'Just' means 'only, and nothing more'. As in, it's just a cigar (and not a metaphor for...). If it is a metaphor for (???), then it's not 'just a cigar', even though it's still "absolutely a cigar".
Unfortunately for Bruce, they already convey a meaning when you do the cramming, unlike (as someone suggested in another post) hotdogs.
It has a meaning that is widely understood and accepted in the field.
Absolutely, and everywhere I've encountered it, the meaning has been "you can view the source", no more and no less. OSI will have to work long and hard to usurp that default definition.
No, you are wrong. It's not called "visible source", it's called "open source".
And, let's just imagine the term was widely used for software before the '97-'98 timeframe that led to the current open source phenomenon. Even is such a case, OSI has most definitely "usurped that default definition". Just google for "open source" and tell me how many references there are, with regards to software, about just being able to view the source, and how many refer to the general GNU or BSD style of view, modify, copy, etc.
Microsoft can't change the definition. Humpty Dumpty can't change the definition. You definitely can't change the definition. You can use it wrongly, as can MS, but pretending that you can decide, against everyone else, what a term means, is a fault that lies with you, not everyone else.
Why the fuck is everyone, and especially you getting fucking confused and trying to confuse everyone over the term 'open source' and 'Open Source'? Can you see he DID NOT capitalize it but you did in your post?
Capitalization does not a new term make.
Or is an MP3 different from an mp3? Try building your own car and selling it as a ford taurus. Write a letter addressed to madison, wi. Start a magazine called wIrEd.
Open Source, open source, opensource, open-source, Open source, etc., all refer to the same thing.
I respect you and your work Bruce, but I'm going to have to disagree with you completely here
Yeah, it's not like he helped define the term or anything.
I'm not missing a damn thing, and I believe you're getting yourself lost in a moral definition of a very simple English phrase - the source is open and it therefore is 'open source'.
Yes, you are. You are missing a lot.
Open Source means the source is: - Freely Open to Viewing - Freely Open to Copying - Freely Open to Modification - Freely Open to Compiling - Freely Open to Redistribution
Just because software is freely open to viewing is insufficient to make it open source. Morality has nothing to do with the definition, other than it was borne from a sense of morality. But the term itself is morally neutral. You're thinking of that other guy.
Open source is not just two English words crammed together. It's a term in and of itself. It has a meaning that is widely understood and accepted in the field. It takes a lot of influence to redefine a term so well-ensconced. Not even MS has enough influence to redefine Open Source. They tried (perhaps), but they failed.
What makes you think that you're going to succeed where MS failed?
That's your opinion. As far as I'm concerned, open source means exactly that - the source is open.
That doesn't define anything. You just restated the words in a different order.
Open Source doesn't require that the source be ported to alternate systems, but it absolutely does require the legal right to do so. That's a side-effect of "the source is open". If you disallow the right to port, the source isn't open.
Definitely a very liberal sprinkling of "Open Source is our phrase, you can't use it" going around the comments on this article.
Open Source is our phrase. Anyone can use it, but if they use it wrong, it's definitely reasonable that we should step up and point this out. Which is exactly what you said we are doing. Why do you state it like it's a wrong thing to do?
I am supporting it but stating that, in my opinion, there is nothing that we can do.
You're wrong. Amusingly so in that the slashdot post itself points out what "we" did, and that it got MS to change something.
So what exactly makes you think we can't do anything about it, when in fact, we did?
Accepted by whom? There is no legally binding definition that everyone must accept and use. The one that you and I accept means nothing to those that do not want it to be recognised.
This is not necessarily true. Were MS to continue to call something Open Source, when it isn't, they could be open to a lawsuit for fraud, and I think they'd have a strong chance of losing. This isn't a situation where it lies in a fuzzy no-man's-land of ambiguous wording. It clearly lies outside of the predominant understanding of the term, and does not fall into some other alternate meaning.
MS cannot just arbitrarily redefine words and have them legally stick. I can market butter as "healthy" because that's fuzzy. Is it lower salt than normal butter? Isn't that "healthy"? Or even, doesn't the body need fat and salt? So a half-pat of my extra salt and fat butter actually is healthy! And so on. But I can't take butter, label it as "diet cola" and sell it.
Licenses by definition aren't open and they most certainly serve an end. All the OSI approved licenses restrict what I can do in one way or the other. Otherwise everything would be public domain which is as free as this world can offer.
They only restrict your ability to *close* the software (and some don't even do that).
So, no, you're absolutely wrong. Open Source Licenses don't limit rights by their nature of being a license. Those that do, do so only to promote openness. The rest (like the BSD license) exist not to create restrictions (even positive ones), but are required because the way copyright works, it's pretty much required.
Public Domain doesn't mean "free to do with as you please". It's mildly ironic, but in order for something to be fully, legally, free, it takes a license.
Don't use media with DRM, and you'll never have issues with DRM. That's so consumer-hostile!
Impossible. The OS itself requires DRM (WGA) in order to fully run.
I'm not one of those people who say that if something contains DRM, it must be avoided. I'm far more practical about such things. Vista is, however, the most DRMd system to ever hit the shelves.
32bit systems don't have enough addressing space for 4GB of RAM, cuz 2^32 - 1 = 4,294,967,295. This space is also shared with other hardware. It's not because Windows is poorly written. Microsoft can't just turn on a magical switch that lets a 32bit OS see all 4GB of RAM.
Yes, they can. The person you were replying to even spelled it out for you.
Yeah, and they made equally short sighted decisions at the time of the new deal.
I disagree. The New Deal saved Capitalism, and we need more of the same.
It's interesting that the only time the nation has entered such severe crises is when there has been a lack of New Deal type programs. Decades of deregulation and the rolling back of the New Deal is the fundamental issue, and it's silly to believe otherwise.
The reason is the "market" will naturally boom and bust, without a regulatory system to manage it. The argument against regulation is it limits the booms. This is true. But it also mitigates the busts. You can't really have one without the other, although you can twiddle with the system a bit to help promote the booms and dampen the busts, similar to how you can kick your legs.
Worse, we're setting ourselves up for the next crisis as we let big financial institutions know that they can freely leverage themselves to the nth degree, bank on a perpetually booming economy, and if the markets turn sour the government will bail them out so long as they remain "too big to fail."
Very true. The proper response is to regulate those markets where these things happen. We regulate the roads to keep those who would take extreme risks from bringing traffic (and for some, life) to a halt. Why is it wrong to do the same with the market?
Nice talking point. However, the current economic crisis has nothing to do with mandated lending. It's entirely caused by voluntary risks and outright fraud.
Nor can I ever understand people who divide other people into Manichaean classes like you're doing. Economic policies are either sound or unsound, regardless of the numbers in the bank accounts.
"Sound" for whom? A policy can be sound for the rich, but devastating for the poor, and vice versa. I expect the rich to attempt to gain more wealth, and I see nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn't someone seek to better their life? Likewise, I expect the poor and middle class to do the same. What I find absurd is the poor and middle class who seem all too eager to give up their own wealth in order to help the wealthy.
When's the last time you got a job from the broke-ass bum "class" you seem to idolize?
I don't idolize the poor, nor do I demonize the rich. An interesting point, I've never been given a job by a rich person. All of my jobs have come from businesses, middle class people, and even from poor people.
And if a rising tide doesn't lift all boats
I never said it didn't. Since you brought it up, though, it's absurd to base fiscal policy on an analogy.
Don't worry. In most places, there isn't any competition other than DSL, which is often more than 10-20x slower than cable (such that 250GB isn't an arbitrary limit, but a physical impossibility.
So, removing all the switching to other ISPs from your list, you get:
1. Comcast discloses policy of capping your bandwidth 2. ??? 3. Profit!
As for the recent "bailouts", it's going to be the profitable and well-off being taxed to bailout institutions that gave money away (rich people's money, mostly) to that part of the general public that is never going to pay that money back.
If they are never going to pay that money back, the mortgage companies should have never made the loans. When you make a loan, you take a risk. If it is, as you say, the rich just paying back the rich, it serves them right.
But that's not what it's going to be. The rich don't pay taxes like you or I.
Fuck. The might as well have just increased income taxes and handed the money directly to those with bad credit. They could have avoided the charade of mortgages, etc, and just called it welfare and subsidized housing.
Had the mortgage companies not engaged in such underhanded practices, none of this would have been needed. It's they who broke Capitalism such that (temporary) Socialism is needed to fix it. This is exactly what happened 80 years ago that brought about the need for the New Deal.
I can never understand the cadre of poor and middle class who feel the need to defend the rich. Do you think defending the rich will make you rich? Do you think the rich will accept you as anything but a quaint and loyal pet? Or maybe you feel the tax burden, and are just pissed off about taxes? If that's the case, don't you realize that you, the poor or middle class, are paying an unfair burden at the expense of the wealthy?
Free markets are also about the mobility of labor.
Admittedly, labor is not as mobile as cash, but if people could not go to where the jobs are, you would never have had the railroads built, or silicon valley spring up or even the Gold Rush of [insert year here].
My point is that for many people, moving is not "a ridiculously expensive solution", it actually makes perfect sense for them.
The topic isn't labor moving, it's the consumer moving.
If you have to move to make a living, that's entirely different from having to move to get faster internet.
Given that this was chosen by Peru for Peruvian children I'm sticking with yeah, it is better than nothing. I honestly don't care what it runs - but I defend Peru's freedom to select their operating system that they want to use for their children.
No one is saying Peru doesn't have the right to make a choice, but I do see a lot of people saying Peru made the wrong choice. You seem to be saying "hey, they didn't make the worst choice, so STFU!".
For someone who seemingly advocates freedom you don't seem to want to allow others the freedom to make their own choices.
You've got me confused with someone else. I never said Peru couldn't choose what they wanted (and really, I don't see anyone else saying that, either).
You know what? Linux *does* offer searching, email, and educational software. Guess what? So does Windows. So does Amiga. So does RiscOS. So does FreeBSD. So does Mac.
Amiga OS, RiscOS and FreeBSD are not among the choices. The choices are Windows, Linux, or nothing. If Peru makes a choice, what's wrong with criticizing that choice? Are governments beyond criticism? If Peru made the choice of nothing, would you not criticize them?
For someone who has an opinion, and seems to have no problem stating it in public, you sure seem to have a problem with others stating theirs!
STFU or put up. Start your own project if you want but to belittle the people putting technology in the hands of those who need it most because of your misguided sense of right and wrong shows how much of a cretin you are. You're probably the type of person who would tell a starving child* that they can't eat at McDonalds because you don't agree with their capitalistic ideals or because you feel that you have a moral right to tell them that they can't eat meat. There is such a thing as morals and ethics but when those actually hinder people instead of enabling them (however slight) you should stop imposing them.
Wow. Where did I ever belittle Peru? Where did I ever say "if it's not Linux, then they should get nothing!". And even more absurd is the food analogy. Withholding a free PC is not life-and-death.
I agree this is a mono-cultured environment. That is better than nothing in my opinion.
"Windows: It's better than nothing!"
Where did you get the idea it was a choice of Windows or nothing? The choice is Windows, Linux, or nothing.
I didn't make an off the cuff response in support of Microsoft nor the OLPC program. I thought it out and have been thinking about it since it was announced. I am GLAD that the laptops are going to the hands of the children and, honestly, I don't care what they're running so long as they have access to a search engine, email, and educational software.
Gee, too bad Linux can't access search engines, email, or run educational software...
It's somewhat strange that you are making so many posts defending Windows on the OLPC when your position seems to be you don't give a shit.
When you say "Corporations are taking over the world", are you generalizing a bit, or do you really hate Capitalism
I'm not the OP, but hating what Capitalism has wrought is not the same as hating Capitalism, just as hating your wife's lasagna is not the same as hating your wife.
Corporations, and Capitalism, have a very critical role in our world, but ruling the world is not their role. Corporations exist primarily (some would say solely, but I think that's too simplistic) to serve the interests of their shareholders, or owners. If Corporations were to rule the world, essentially, we would be taking the rulership away from The People, where it belongs, and giving it to the wealthy few.
So, for me, I don't hate Capitalism, but I do most definitely hate many of the things Capitalists have done.
I didn't make the absolute assertions that you are trying to claim I did, and the question at hand is whether one specific agency is a net benefit or detriment.
Nonsense. You have taken the ideological stance that government == bad, free market == good.
To wit:
The proper role for an organization like the FDA is to enforce laws that say if you sell a bottle labeled as containing ibuprofen, it better not be sugar pills. Studying the safety and effectiveness of drugs is far better left to the private sector.
In other words, you are not making an attempt to determine whether the FDA does more harm than good. You've already reached your conclusion. Because the FDA is doing more than merely enforcing anti-fraud (in a very specific sense, not in a general sense), they are inferior to a private organization.
Essentially, your stance is consistent with those that hold government's *sole* legitimate role in the economy is to punish theft, initiation of force, fraud and contract violations, and little to nothing else.
It's noticeable that while you deny being a free market fundamentalist, you haven't made a single statement that actually contradicts that position.
The FDA kills people, and that's apparently fine and dandy with you.
No, it's not. But I submit that whether the FDA kills or saves lives is irrelevant to you. Your position is so cliche it's absurd. The lives that the FDA saves are lives you don't care about because any such lives saved, which are saved by reducing individual liberty, are lives that were lost due to the "stupidity" of the victims themselves, by your model.
The problem with your model is that instead of an FDA that gives us a greater-than-otherwise chance of receiving safe medicine, each individual must become an expert themselves, or become wealthy enough to hire an expert. Anything less is an affront to your "freedom" to take full control over your own fate (an impossibility, which should clue you into the fallacy of any model predicated upon it). If the simple, the elderly, the children, and even the highly intelligent who just don't have the education needed to make an informed decision, die because they make the wrong choice? Tough luck, at least they died free. If someone makes the wrong choice because a pharmaceutical company needed to recoup investment on a dangerous drug? Tough luck. If someone takes a drug because the pharmaceutical company runs ads making the person think they need it when they don't, tough luck!
How absurd to promote such a system when something like the FDA can so easily be created to minimize such tragedies!
But sure, you might not be a free market fundamentalist. You've yet to say anything actually contradict it.
subjugate your mental model of reality to what actually happens in the reality that exists.
That's advice you would do well to follow. Go and find out how many people the FDA kills in a year by keeping drugs off the market, despite the clinical experience in other countries that shows how well they work.
-jcr
Ooh, zing! You got me!
Oh, wait, no you didn't. My mental model accepts the reality that the FDA will make decisions which kill people, while your model seems to think the free market will always find the optimal solution. Just because the FDA makes bad decisions, that does not mean their net effect is negative.
Reality isn't as simple as you seem to think it is. I know you are too intelligent to not have wondered if that isn't the case. By what method have you determined that the free market can always regulate itself better than the government? Doesn't that seem absurd on the face of it? How is it that the people running pharmaceutical companies are somehow the most honest people on the planet that they need no oversight? Does that seem rational? How have you determined that the government can do no good by interfering in the free market?
The most astonishing thing is that people such as yourself can hold those views in the face of evidence which directly contradicts your world view. There are too many successful governmental organizations throughout the world, and too many examples of corporate malfeasance to even entertain, for a fraction of a second, that the free market is always better than the government. That's just not the case. And neither is the reverse. Sometimes the government is better at something, sometimes the free market is. How is that so difficult to comprehend?
An assertion you've failed to support, whereas I've supported mine.
The flaw is that you are equating debuggers with GMOs, as though any noun will do. Well, why not replace debugger with "private nuclear weapons" or "private anthrax laboratories" or "home-based meth labs". I agree that these are all very different from GMOs, but that's my point. They would be absurd comparisons on the extreme side of danger, whereas your is absurd on the extreme side of safety. This, I should point out, is your tactic laid bare. You first want to equate a malign thing with a benign thing in order to neuter the malign thing.
GMOs are not integral to feeding us now.
In other words, my first additional point of difference is valid.
And I would argue that debuggers, disassemblers, packet sniffers, and so on can actually cause massive social problems.
And this is significantly different from my second additional point of difference. The "massive social problems" debuggers can lead to are very, very different from the food supply problems that can be caused by GMOs.
You're right in that we couldn't practically ban debuggers even if we wanted to. But that point isn't central to my analogy.
It must be, in order for it to be a valid analogy, because it is central to my initial point, which defines the parameters any analogy must fit into. The very definition of an analogy is that it is similar to the original.
attempting to ban debuggers is going to keep me safer than attempting to curb Russian spammers et al's abusive practices
Attempting to ban debuggers will not keep me safer. Most simply, because banning debuggers will have no effect on "Russian spammers et al", whereas banning GMOs will most certainly have an effect on Monsanto et al.
Additionally, the analogy falls apart in that debuggers are integral to writing software, GMOs are not integral to growing food, and debuggers don't have the same potential to taint our food supply, or to kill or otherwise cause physical harm to millions of people.
Exactly. They fail at their ostensible purpose, and they are under no danger of going out of business for that failure.
Sure they are. Congress can wipe out the organization with the swing of a gavel. The problem isn't that government is incapable of providing quality services, there are far too many examples of that happening to even entertain the notion. The problem is that far too many Americans are fooled by the "free market" fundamentalists that they vote into power people who will not ensure the government actually works for the people from which it is granted its power. Can it be any surprise that a party that believes that the government is incapable of doing anything other than arresting and killing people seems to fail at helping people, but excels at arresting and killing people?
Studying the safety and effectiveness of drugs is far better left to the private sector.
This is absurd. Big Pharma has a fiduciary responsibility to get as many people as possible hooked on as many drugs as possible. Do you think they are capable of adequately policing themselves? If they were, there wouldn't have been a need for the FDA in the first place!
It's like polluters. Do you think some factory upstream of you would voluntarily spend the millions of dollars required to keep your drinking water clean? What possible financial incentive would they have to do so? And without a financial incentive, don't you free market fundamentalists promote that they should, in fact, not take those measures?
Below you mention the UL. They are an example of free market success. They are very different from the drug industry, where the UL doesn't keep categories of products out of the market, they just require a certain level of safety which is fairly inexpensive to maintain. If it were as easy to create safe drugs, then a free market version of the FDA would make perfect sense.
The treatments I ingest to treat any conditions I want treated are nobody's business but my own, and whatever doctor, pharmacist, or insurance organization I voluntarily do business with.
Then you are a fool. Do you truly believe that you can better determine the safety of a particular drug than an agency such as the FDA?
I agree that it's your business which drugs you take, but that's an entirely different topic from whether the FDA has a proper task of ensuring testing of drugs before they reach the market.
The fact of the matter is that free market fundamentalism kills people in order to promote profits. The fact that a rational human being can promote such an atrocious system boggles the mind. There are some things which the private sector does better, and there are some things that the public sector does better. Quit being so irrationally ideologically pure, and subjugate your mental model of reality to what actually happens in the reality that exists.
Slashdot Mirror
Hypocrisy, thy name is node 3. I've told you that the prevailing attitude among friends and coworkers (and we do deal with this stuff a lot in my job) is that open source means the source is available.
This isn't your friends and coworkers. This is the Internet. If your small cadre of acquaintances are equally wrong, that doesn't make them somehow right in the broader context.
Open any random google search for open source, open any trade magazine, open any open source program's license. What you will find is that it's more than just the source is viewable.
That the source is viewable is just the most obvious aspect of open source, but that's not the end of it. If that's all you think is required, you have an incomplete understanding of the term. Your ignorance, however, has no bearing on the definition of the term.
In your own words, it is not for you to tell me I am wrong.
Not quite. You seem to have an extreme difficulty with language. It's not for me to define the term. It's definitely for me (if I want to) to tell you that your usage of the term is wrong. I'm not arbitrarily redefining a term to fit what my small sphere of acquaintances thinks it means, I'm looking to the source of the term, to the common usage of the term, and bringing that knowledge to you, since you so truculently wish to promote your ignorance to the rest of us.
It's quite clear you are going to hold on to the death your limited world view. Have it your way, Humpty. Be wrong. Take comfort in your small little corner of the world. Just don't think that you're going to be able to find much agreement with the broader tech world. Get used to being caught up in arguments, not about useful questions, but about the definition of the words you use. Be prepared to waste your talents (if you have any) on foolish endeavors, because until you open your mind to the way things are, and not just as they look ten feet in front of you, you're going to encounter frustration every time you venture from that wall you are sitting on.
Isn't it easier to simply accept the term as it is and move on? What do you possibly gain by redefining a term? The licenses that are open source will still be the same, whether they are called open source, or free software, or 'modify, copy, distribute as you please' software. And software for which the source is available for view, but not open such that it can be freely modified and redistributed will still be the same, closed software, whether you want to call it open source or not. So what's the point for you? The point for MS is clear, they get to pretend their software is open, when it isn't. If they can destroy a term, they can attempt to destroy a movement. But for you? Are you that base? Is that your goal as well?
In that same vein, I'm going to leave it at that. No point in wasting my time and talents arguing with a tool. Those that read this can make up their own minds.
Open source is not just two English words crammed together.
I can't help but wonder what you think it is - the term 'open source' is absolutely two English words crammed together.
The word 'just' is key here. 'Just' means 'only, and nothing more'. As in, it's just a cigar (and not a metaphor for ...). If it is a metaphor for (???), then it's not 'just a cigar', even though it's still "absolutely a cigar".
Unfortunately for Bruce, they already convey a meaning when you do the cramming, unlike (as someone suggested in another post) hotdogs.
It has a meaning that is widely understood and accepted in the field.
Absolutely, and everywhere I've encountered it, the meaning has been "you can view the source", no more and no less. OSI will have to work long and hard to usurp that default definition.
No, you are wrong. It's not called "visible source", it's called "open source".
And, let's just imagine the term was widely used for software before the '97-'98 timeframe that led to the current open source phenomenon. Even is such a case, OSI has most definitely "usurped that default definition". Just google for "open source" and tell me how many references there are, with regards to software, about just being able to view the source, and how many refer to the general GNU or BSD style of view, modify, copy, etc.
Microsoft can't change the definition. Humpty Dumpty can't change the definition. You definitely can't change the definition. You can use it wrongly, as can MS, but pretending that you can decide, against everyone else, what a term means, is a fault that lies with you, not everyone else.
Why the fuck is everyone, and especially you getting fucking confused and trying to confuse everyone over the term 'open source' and 'Open Source'? Can you see he DID NOT capitalize it but you did in your post?
Capitalization does not a new term make.
Or is an MP3 different from an mp3? Try building your own car and selling it as a ford taurus. Write a letter addressed to madison, wi. Start a magazine called wIrEd.
Open Source, open source, opensource, open-source, Open source, etc., all refer to the same thing.
I respect you and your work Bruce, but I'm going to have to disagree with you completely here
Yeah, it's not like he helped define the term or anything.
I'm not missing a damn thing, and I believe you're getting yourself lost in a moral definition of a very simple English phrase - the source is open and it therefore is 'open source'.
Yes, you are. You are missing a lot.
Open Source means the source is:
- Freely Open to Viewing
- Freely Open to Copying
- Freely Open to Modification
- Freely Open to Compiling
- Freely Open to Redistribution
Just because software is freely open to viewing is insufficient to make it open source. Morality has nothing to do with the definition, other than it was borne from a sense of morality. But the term itself is morally neutral. You're thinking of that other guy.
Open source is not just two English words crammed together. It's a term in and of itself. It has a meaning that is widely understood and accepted in the field. It takes a lot of influence to redefine a term so well-ensconced. Not even MS has enough influence to redefine Open Source. They tried (perhaps), but they failed.
What makes you think that you're going to succeed where MS failed?
That's your opinion. As far as I'm concerned, open source means exactly that - the source is open.
That doesn't define anything. You just restated the words in a different order.
Open Source doesn't require that the source be ported to alternate systems, but it absolutely does require the legal right to do so. That's a side-effect of "the source is open". If you disallow the right to port, the source isn't open.
Definitely a very liberal sprinkling of "Open Source is our phrase, you can't use it" going around the comments on this article.
Open Source is our phrase. Anyone can use it, but if they use it wrong, it's definitely reasonable that we should step up and point this out. Which is exactly what you said we are doing. Why do you state it like it's a wrong thing to do?
I am supporting it but stating that, in my opinion, there is nothing that we can do.
You're wrong. Amusingly so in that the slashdot post itself points out what "we" did, and that it got MS to change something.
So what exactly makes you think we can't do anything about it, when in fact, we did?
Accepted by whom? There is no legally binding definition that everyone must accept and use. The one that you and I accept means nothing to those that do not want it to be recognised.
This is not necessarily true. Were MS to continue to call something Open Source, when it isn't, they could be open to a lawsuit for fraud, and I think they'd have a strong chance of losing. This isn't a situation where it lies in a fuzzy no-man's-land of ambiguous wording. It clearly lies outside of the predominant understanding of the term, and does not fall into some other alternate meaning.
MS cannot just arbitrarily redefine words and have them legally stick. I can market butter as "healthy" because that's fuzzy. Is it lower salt than normal butter? Isn't that "healthy"? Or even, doesn't the body need fat and salt? So a half-pat of my extra salt and fat butter actually is healthy! And so on. But I can't take butter, label it as "diet cola" and sell it.
Licenses by definition aren't open and they most certainly serve an end. All the OSI approved licenses restrict what I can do in one way or the other. Otherwise everything would be public domain which is as free as this world can offer.
They only restrict your ability to *close* the software (and some don't even do that).
So, no, you're absolutely wrong. Open Source Licenses don't limit rights by their nature of being a license. Those that do, do so only to promote openness. The rest (like the BSD license) exist not to create restrictions (even positive ones), but are required because the way copyright works, it's pretty much required.
Public Domain doesn't mean "free to do with as you please". It's mildly ironic, but in order for something to be fully, legally, free, it takes a license.
That's why he mentioned the Mac and not Linux. Everyone knows Linux users thrive on being ignored...
You tell 'em Internet Snob Guy!
Don't use media with DRM, and you'll never have issues with DRM. That's so consumer-hostile!
Impossible. The OS itself requires DRM (WGA) in order to fully run.
I'm not one of those people who say that if something contains DRM, it must be avoided. I'm far more practical about such things. Vista is, however, the most DRMd system to ever hit the shelves.
32bit systems don't have enough addressing space for 4GB of RAM, cuz 2^32 - 1 = 4,294,967,295. This space is also shared with other hardware. It's not because Windows is poorly written. Microsoft can't just turn on a magical switch that lets a 32bit OS see all 4GB of RAM.
Yes, they can. The person you were replying to even spelled it out for you.
Three times.
It's called PAE.
Yeah, and they made equally short sighted decisions at the time of the new deal.
I disagree. The New Deal saved Capitalism, and we need more of the same.
It's interesting that the only time the nation has entered such severe crises is when there has been a lack of New Deal type programs. Decades of deregulation and the rolling back of the New Deal is the fundamental issue, and it's silly to believe otherwise.
The reason is the "market" will naturally boom and bust, without a regulatory system to manage it. The argument against regulation is it limits the booms. This is true. But it also mitigates the busts. You can't really have one without the other, although you can twiddle with the system a bit to help promote the booms and dampen the busts, similar to how you can kick your legs.
Worse, we're setting ourselves up for the next crisis as we let big financial institutions know that they can freely leverage themselves to the nth degree, bank on a perpetually booming economy, and if the markets turn sour the government will bail them out so long as they remain "too big to fail."
Very true. The proper response is to regulate those markets where these things happen. We regulate the roads to keep those who would take extreme risks from bringing traffic (and for some, life) to a halt. Why is it wrong to do the same with the market?
Nice talking point. However, the current economic crisis has nothing to do with mandated lending. It's entirely caused by voluntary risks and outright fraud.
Nor can I ever understand people who divide other people into Manichaean classes like you're doing. Economic policies are either sound or unsound, regardless of the numbers in the bank accounts.
"Sound" for whom? A policy can be sound for the rich, but devastating for the poor, and vice versa. I expect the rich to attempt to gain more wealth, and I see nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn't someone seek to better their life? Likewise, I expect the poor and middle class to do the same. What I find absurd is the poor and middle class who seem all too eager to give up their own wealth in order to help the wealthy.
When's the last time you got a job from the broke-ass bum "class" you seem to idolize?
I don't idolize the poor, nor do I demonize the rich. An interesting point, I've never been given a job by a rich person. All of my jobs have come from businesses, middle class people, and even from poor people.
And if a rising tide doesn't lift all boats
I never said it didn't. Since you brought it up, though, it's absurd to base fiscal policy on an analogy.
Sorry if I ruined one of those steps for you...
Don't worry. In most places, there isn't any competition other than DSL, which is often more than 10-20x slower than cable (such that 250GB isn't an arbitrary limit, but a physical impossibility.
So, removing all the switching to other ISPs from your list, you get:
1. Comcast discloses policy of capping your bandwidth
2. ???
3. Profit!
As for the recent "bailouts", it's going to be the profitable and well-off being taxed to bailout institutions that gave money away (rich people's money, mostly) to that part of the general public that is never going to pay that money back.
If they are never going to pay that money back, the mortgage companies should have never made the loans. When you make a loan, you take a risk. If it is, as you say, the rich just paying back the rich, it serves them right.
But that's not what it's going to be. The rich don't pay taxes like you or I.
Fuck. The might as well have just increased income taxes and handed the money directly to those with bad credit. They could have avoided the charade of mortgages, etc, and just called it welfare and subsidized housing.
Had the mortgage companies not engaged in such underhanded practices, none of this would have been needed. It's they who broke Capitalism such that (temporary) Socialism is needed to fix it. This is exactly what happened 80 years ago that brought about the need for the New Deal.
I can never understand the cadre of poor and middle class who feel the need to defend the rich. Do you think defending the rich will make you rich? Do you think the rich will accept you as anything but a quaint and loyal pet? Or maybe you feel the tax burden, and are just pissed off about taxes? If that's the case, don't you realize that you, the poor or middle class, are paying an unfair burden at the expense of the wealthy?
Free markets are also about the mobility of labor.
Admittedly, labor is not as mobile as cash, but if people could not go to where the jobs are, you would never have had the railroads built, or silicon valley spring up or even the Gold Rush of [insert year here].
My point is that for many people, moving is not "a ridiculously expensive solution", it actually makes perfect sense for them.
The topic isn't labor moving, it's the consumer moving.
If you have to move to make a living, that's entirely different from having to move to get faster internet.
Given that this was chosen by Peru for Peruvian children I'm sticking with yeah, it is better than nothing. I honestly don't care what it runs - but I defend Peru's freedom to select their operating system that they want to use for their children.
No one is saying Peru doesn't have the right to make a choice, but I do see a lot of people saying Peru made the wrong choice. You seem to be saying "hey, they didn't make the worst choice, so STFU!".
For someone who seemingly advocates freedom you don't seem to want to allow others the freedom to make their own choices.
You've got me confused with someone else. I never said Peru couldn't choose what they wanted (and really, I don't see anyone else saying that, either).
You know what? Linux *does* offer searching, email, and educational software. Guess what? So does Windows. So does Amiga. So does RiscOS. So does FreeBSD. So does Mac.
Amiga OS, RiscOS and FreeBSD are not among the choices. The choices are Windows, Linux, or nothing. If Peru makes a choice, what's wrong with criticizing that choice? Are governments beyond criticism? If Peru made the choice of nothing, would you not criticize them?
For someone who has an opinion, and seems to have no problem stating it in public, you sure seem to have a problem with others stating theirs!
STFU or put up. Start your own project if you want but to belittle the people putting technology in the hands of those who need it most because of your misguided sense of right and wrong shows how much of a cretin you are. You're probably the type of person who would tell a starving child* that they can't eat at McDonalds because you don't agree with their capitalistic ideals or because you feel that you have a moral right to tell them that they can't eat meat. There is such a thing as morals and ethics but when those actually hinder people instead of enabling them (however slight) you should stop imposing them.
Wow. Where did I ever belittle Peru? Where did I ever say "if it's not Linux, then they should get nothing!". And even more absurd is the food analogy. Withholding a free PC is not life-and-death.
I agree this is a mono-cultured environment. That is better than nothing in my opinion.
"Windows: It's better than nothing!"
Where did you get the idea it was a choice of Windows or nothing? The choice is Windows, Linux, or nothing.
I didn't make an off the cuff response in support of Microsoft nor the OLPC program. I thought it out and have been thinking about it since it was announced. I am GLAD that the laptops are going to the hands of the children and, honestly, I don't care what they're running so long as they have access to a search engine, email, and educational software.
Gee, too bad Linux can't access search engines, email, or run educational software...
It's somewhat strange that you are making so many posts defending Windows on the OLPC when your position seems to be you don't give a shit.
When you say "Corporations are taking over the world", are you generalizing a bit, or do you really hate Capitalism
I'm not the OP, but hating what Capitalism has wrought is not the same as hating Capitalism, just as hating your wife's lasagna is not the same as hating your wife.
Corporations, and Capitalism, have a very critical role in our world, but ruling the world is not their role. Corporations exist primarily (some would say solely, but I think that's too simplistic) to serve the interests of their shareholders, or owners. If Corporations were to rule the world, essentially, we would be taking the rulership away from The People, where it belongs, and giving it to the wealthy few.
So, for me, I don't hate Capitalism, but I do most definitely hate many of the things Capitalists have done.
The world is not so black-and-white.
I didn't make the absolute assertions that you are trying to claim I did, and the question at hand is whether one specific agency is a net benefit or detriment.
Nonsense. You have taken the ideological stance that government == bad, free market == good.
To wit:
The proper role for an organization like the FDA is to enforce laws that say if you sell a bottle labeled as containing ibuprofen, it better not be sugar pills. Studying the safety and effectiveness of drugs is far better left to the private sector.
In other words, you are not making an attempt to determine whether the FDA does more harm than good. You've already reached your conclusion. Because the FDA is doing more than merely enforcing anti-fraud (in a very specific sense, not in a general sense), they are inferior to a private organization.
Essentially, your stance is consistent with those that hold government's *sole* legitimate role in the economy is to punish theft, initiation of force, fraud and contract violations, and little to nothing else.
It's noticeable that while you deny being a free market fundamentalist, you haven't made a single statement that actually contradicts that position.
The FDA kills people, and that's apparently fine and dandy with you.
No, it's not. But I submit that whether the FDA kills or saves lives is irrelevant to you. Your position is so cliche it's absurd. The lives that the FDA saves are lives you don't care about because any such lives saved, which are saved by reducing individual liberty, are lives that were lost due to the "stupidity" of the victims themselves, by your model.
The problem with your model is that instead of an FDA that gives us a greater-than-otherwise chance of receiving safe medicine, each individual must become an expert themselves, or become wealthy enough to hire an expert. Anything less is an affront to your "freedom" to take full control over your own fate (an impossibility, which should clue you into the fallacy of any model predicated upon it). If the simple, the elderly, the children, and even the highly intelligent who just don't have the education needed to make an informed decision, die because they make the wrong choice? Tough luck, at least they died free. If someone makes the wrong choice because a pharmaceutical company needed to recoup investment on a dangerous drug? Tough luck. If someone takes a drug because the pharmaceutical company runs ads making the person think they need it when they don't, tough luck!
How absurd to promote such a system when something like the FDA can so easily be created to minimize such tragedies!
But sure, you might not be a free market fundamentalist. You've yet to say anything actually contradict it.
subjugate your mental model of reality to what actually happens in the reality that exists.
That's advice you would do well to follow. Go and find out how many people the FDA kills in a year by keeping drugs off the market, despite the clinical experience in other countries that shows how well they work.
-jcr
Ooh, zing! You got me!
Oh, wait, no you didn't. My mental model accepts the reality that the FDA will make decisions which kill people, while your model seems to think the free market will always find the optimal solution. Just because the FDA makes bad decisions, that does not mean their net effect is negative.
Reality isn't as simple as you seem to think it is. I know you are too intelligent to not have wondered if that isn't the case. By what method have you determined that the free market can always regulate itself better than the government? Doesn't that seem absurd on the face of it? How is it that the people running pharmaceutical companies are somehow the most honest people on the planet that they need no oversight? Does that seem rational? How have you determined that the government can do no good by interfering in the free market?
The most astonishing thing is that people such as yourself can hold those views in the face of evidence which directly contradicts your world view. There are too many successful governmental organizations throughout the world, and too many examples of corporate malfeasance to even entertain, for a fraction of a second, that the free market is always better than the government. That's just not the case. And neither is the reverse. Sometimes the government is better at something, sometimes the free market is. How is that so difficult to comprehend?
No. The analogy is sound.
An assertion you've failed to support, whereas I've supported mine.
The flaw is that you are equating debuggers with GMOs, as though any noun will do. Well, why not replace debugger with "private nuclear weapons" or "private anthrax laboratories" or "home-based meth labs". I agree that these are all very different from GMOs, but that's my point. They would be absurd comparisons on the extreme side of danger, whereas your is absurd on the extreme side of safety. This, I should point out, is your tactic laid bare. You first want to equate a malign thing with a benign thing in order to neuter the malign thing.
GMOs are not integral to feeding us now.
In other words, my first additional point of difference is valid.
And I would argue that debuggers, disassemblers, packet sniffers, and so on can actually cause massive social problems.
And this is significantly different from my second additional point of difference. The "massive social problems" debuggers can lead to are very, very different from the food supply problems that can be caused by GMOs.
You're right in that we couldn't practically ban debuggers even if we wanted to. But that point isn't central to my analogy.
It must be, in order for it to be a valid analogy, because it is central to my initial point, which defines the parameters any analogy must fit into. The very definition of an analogy is that it is similar to the original.
Don't be absurd.
Specifically:
attempting to ban debuggers is going to keep me safer than attempting to curb Russian spammers et al's abusive practices
Attempting to ban debuggers will not keep me safer. Most simply, because banning debuggers will have no effect on "Russian spammers et al", whereas banning GMOs will most certainly have an effect on Monsanto et al.
Additionally, the analogy falls apart in that debuggers are integral to writing software, GMOs are not integral to growing food, and debuggers don't have the same potential to taint our food supply, or to kill or otherwise cause physical harm to millions of people.
Exactly. They fail at their ostensible purpose, and they are under no danger of going out of business for that failure.
Sure they are. Congress can wipe out the organization with the swing of a gavel. The problem isn't that government is incapable of providing quality services, there are far too many examples of that happening to even entertain the notion. The problem is that far too many Americans are fooled by the "free market" fundamentalists that they vote into power people who will not ensure the government actually works for the people from which it is granted its power. Can it be any surprise that a party that believes that the government is incapable of doing anything other than arresting and killing people seems to fail at helping people, but excels at arresting and killing people?
Studying the safety and effectiveness of drugs is far better left to the private sector.
This is absurd. Big Pharma has a fiduciary responsibility to get as many people as possible hooked on as many drugs as possible. Do you think they are capable of adequately policing themselves? If they were, there wouldn't have been a need for the FDA in the first place!
It's like polluters. Do you think some factory upstream of you would voluntarily spend the millions of dollars required to keep your drinking water clean? What possible financial incentive would they have to do so? And without a financial incentive, don't you free market fundamentalists promote that they should, in fact, not take those measures?
Below you mention the UL. They are an example of free market success. They are very different from the drug industry, where the UL doesn't keep categories of products out of the market, they just require a certain level of safety which is fairly inexpensive to maintain. If it were as easy to create safe drugs, then a free market version of the FDA would make perfect sense.
The treatments I ingest to treat any conditions I want treated are nobody's business but my own, and whatever doctor, pharmacist, or insurance organization I voluntarily do business with.
Then you are a fool. Do you truly believe that you can better determine the safety of a particular drug than an agency such as the FDA?
I agree that it's your business which drugs you take, but that's an entirely different topic from whether the FDA has a proper task of ensuring testing of drugs before they reach the market.
The fact of the matter is that free market fundamentalism kills people in order to promote profits. The fact that a rational human being can promote such an atrocious system boggles the mind. There are some things which the private sector does better, and there are some things that the public sector does better. Quit being so irrationally ideologically pure, and subjugate your mental model of reality to what actually happens in the reality that exists.