Aggressive interprocedural optimization is possible because Singularity processes are closed--they do not permit code loading after the process starts executing. This is a dramatic change, since dynamic code loading is a popular, but problematic, mechanism for loading plug-ins. Giving plug-ins access to a program's internals presents serious security and reliability problems (did you know that 85 percent of blue screens in Windows are caused by third-party plug-ins and device drivers?). Dynamic loading frustrates program analysis in compilers or defect-detection tools, which can't see all code that might execute. To be safe, the analysis must be conservative, which precludes many optimizations and dulls the accuracy of defect detection.
Java has had full safety and sandboxing, dynamic loading and interprocedural optimization for more than a decade, and it wasn't even the first.
When Java came out, one of the first things people did was to write kernels with isolation provided at the language level. As you can see, it was a complete failure. Even the more modest attempts of running untrusted code inside Java is largely out the window; few applications really rely on Java sandboxing anymore. The only sandboxed code that everybody runs is Javascript.
Java failed at this because it just couldn't give reasonable backwards compatibility with the probably trillions of lines of source code out there. Microsoft isn't going to fare any better. Any system like this needs nearly universal adoption of the underlying virtual machine, and that's not going to happen with either the CLR or the JVM.
Really, If you guys aren't paying attention to what's going on in Iraq right now and still harping on shit over a year old, I think maybe you shouldn't comment.
I'm sorry, but I don't get what you are trying to say. Are you saying that because the Iraqis are finally calming down a bit, it was all justified?
This are looking better in Iraq, things are working, and Iraq is coming closer and closer to a democratic government supported by the people of Iraq that is both effectual as well as capable.
The war cost us more than a trillion dollars, and it cost at least tens of thousands of lives. It's given political ammunition to US enemies and it has increased the terrorist threat against the US enormously.
You're an idiot if you try to sweep this under the rug and pretend that just because there's a lull, it was all worth it. Bush made an exceptionally bad decision, and we are all going to pay for it for decades to come.
This is about trying to get the person on MySpace who drove the girl to suicide for something. It's some prosecutor that's trying to score political points. He doesn't care if he sets a bad precedent and destroys the Internet, he just wants to make a name for himself.
Our intention was good: to penetrate Iraq and bring it to a glorious, euphoric climax. But it's clear now that's just not going to happen. And yet we're still pounding away.
Causing the whole area to become painfully inflamed. And in that situation, the kindest thing you can do is...just pull out.
Well, the fact is. no matter what, people are going to want to write and sell proprietary software - this is what RMS has not grasped.
What you don't seem to grasp is that what people "want" doesn't define good public policy:
Well, the fact is. no matter what, people are going to want to copy and share proprietary software freely - this is what Bill Gates and the RIAA haven't grasped. We might as well play along with it, and if people are going to try to sell proprietary stuff, they need to figure out how to do so in a way that makes it attractive for people to pull out their wallets even though they could just copy it over P2P.
See, it works both ways. And, frankly, what people want actually matters a great deal more in a democracy than what Bill Gates wants.
The thing Mac OS X/NeXTStep gave the free software world is publicity, if anything.
Actually, most of Apple's marketing message about open source has been "thanks for the plumbing, but you can't write GUI software". That's bad publicity and hostile to open source.
With regards to Apple 'taking' from GNU/BSD - arguably, the same could be said of GNU taking from the original AT&T Unix.
What does that have to do with anything? You claimed that Apple and FOSS are an example of living together nicely, and they are not.
True, it didn't take any code, but it took many concepts, and I don't see RMS writing cheques to AT&T every week or so.
Quite right: AT&T and GNU also did not live together nicely, which supports my point even more.
The only reason Apple is succeeding is because they're making a damn good OS out of damn good components, including the tiny bits of GNU that are rattling around in there somewhere.
Geez, you really are an Apple marketing victim. OS X uses FOSS for its kernel, for its compiler, for many of its libraries, for its web browser, and for many of its servers and services. I suspect that if you count LOC, the majority of OS X is FOSS. Apple has given back nowhere near anything like what they have taken, and neither NeXT nor Apple would have been able to create anything like OS X by themselves. On the other hand, if Apple's FOSS software disappeared from the world, almost nobody would notice.
But he's also claiming that proprietary software is wrong in itself, regardless of who develops it.
I don't know whether I agree with RMS on his general view that all proprietary software is wrong. I think reasonable, limited copyright terms may be a good idea. Furthermore, I don't see any reason to believe that RMS harbors any illusions about the fact that proprietary software will be with us for a long time (otoh, I think it's also wrong to assume that we can say anything past a few decades in the future).
But your criticism of RMS isn't based on that general issue, you confound that general issue with RMS' criticism of Microsoft.
But RMS' views on Gates, BMGF, and Microsoft are well supported. From the point of view of a free market advocate and a proprietary developer, Gates, Microsoft, and BMGF are even more evil. Microsoft destroyed most of the software industry and replaced it with a cottage industry of visual basic hackers that write applications at Microsoft's convenience and leisure. Mozilla didn't get open sourced because its authors were raving free software lunatics or worshiped at Stallman's feet (they didn't even use a free software license), it got open source because Microsoft did everything in their power to kill this competitor. The "Go" case is even worse. As for BMGF, look at their project portfolio: they embody a media-savvy, self-promoting, self-serving "philanthropy" that kills initiative, scientific integrity, and free market-based development.
Microsoft killed company after innovative company in the 90's until, in the end, there wasn't no funding or spirit anymore to even start anything in any domain that Microsoft was in. Why bother develop better software if Microsoft is just going to destroy through their illegal monopoly and then, to top it all off, rip off your idea?
Converseley, the walls and bars of the GPL remain. This license is, in my view, unacceptable, because it refuses to link with proprietary software in any sense. [...] They can live together nicely - Mac OS X is an example of this. It includes FOSS components, but Apple still make their money by selling it with the additional software on top of the base system, Darwin.
That's the model Sun had (Sun started out almost all BSD), and Microsoft still killed them everywhere except enterprise servers. As for Apple, read about how Steve Jobs tried to rip off gcc to see why the GPL is important; to this day, Apple has not giving back a fraction of what they have taken.
The reason we have the GPL is because it's the only license that was strong enough to survive Microsoft's ruthless business tactics and avoid the kinds of abuses that NeXT/Apple attempted. Believe me, most software developers would have preferred a different outcome, but it's Microsoft's fault that it has come down to this polarized choice.
That is why I wrote "the stupidity of 'centrists' like you has brought us people like Bush"
And I wasn't the original AC. Learn to read.
Then your writing is bad, not my reading. It is reasonable for me to treat you as the original person unless you identify yourself as someone else joining the thread.
seeing as how I don't define myself in terms of one-dimensional thinking
But you do: your home page is called "The Centrist". That term means something specific in English, and it is defined by a one-dimensional view of US politics and defines precisely where you fit.
So very, very hilarious...
Unfortunately, stupidity like yours is not hilarious because it end up hurting people.
We can't allow Microsoft to interfere with politics, but we can't force EVERYONE to give away their software, which seems to be what RMS is proposing.
RMS does not want to force anybody to give anything away. In fact, the GPL is quite specific that there is no requirement to distribute your software. RMS simply isn't interested in whether or how you charge for your software.
The fact is, like it or not, proprietary software is here to stay, and we can't avoid it or stop it.
We certainly could do that quite easily, at least legally. The only reason proprietary software exists is because copyright law says it does. I lived for 20 years in a world where copyright law didn't recognize binary objects as copyrightable, and the sky certainly wasn't falling. Quite to the contrary: almost everything you take for granted today was developed back then, including the core technologies that MS Office and MS Windows are based on. I'm not saying we should, and it's clearly not going to happen, but the sky wouldn't fall if we did, Gates' whining notwithstanding.
Demonising proprietary software, and slandering its authors, is going to get us nowhere.
RMS isn't slandering authors of proprietary software in general, he is talking about Gates and Microsoft, a convicted monopolist that has a 20 year documented record of sleazy, anti-competitive business tactics, deliberate incompatibilities and bugs, security holes, and lack of originality.
I develop proprietary software, and Microsoft has been a blight on the proprietary software industry, harming not just innovation and competition, but also employment and career paths particularly for proprietary developers.
With regards to the Los Angeles Times, after the various inaccuracies (Gropegate etc) that have blighted it, you will forgive me if I am somewhat sceptical of what it reports.
Well, you don't need to believe the LA Times, you can just go to the BMGF web site. BMGF seems to be spending a lot of its time pushing Windows and squeezing babies. Their AIDS research has been widely criticized, etc.
And nobody ever shows that all this "charity" actually causes long-term improvements in the nations receiving it.
No nation has come out of poverty' is a bit of a silly statement, what is your definition of coming out of poverty?
Pick any accepted definition of development you like and try to find a country that has actually demonstrably developed to first world status as a result of foreign aid and charitable organizations.
Gates Foundation site and its pretty clear that they have the right idea in mind. You should have a look too instead of blindly criticising.
There's nothing "blind" about my criticism. A lot of their programs involve promoting Windows. Their health programs have been criticized widely for not being scientifically neutral. Their agricultural programs tend to involve promoting non-indigenous agricultural techniques. I don't think these people have the "right idea" in mind at all. In fact, I think they are largely irrelevant either way.
It isn't black or white like that.
Where did I say that it was "black or white"? I looked at BMGF. It's their particular brand of "philanthropy" that I think is harmful.
Instead these organisations tend to focus on specific tasks, immunisations of large proprtions of the population against a specific disease etc. that are going to eliminate that disease and provide economic benefit to the countries that way.
And where's the evidence that they are actually helping those nations in the long term? Why should a bunch of bureaucrats in Seattle have any idea how to fix public health or education in Africa? We can't even fix them at home. BMGF appears to be funding development of a malaria vaccine. Do you have any idea what the consequence would be if they succeeded?
This has nothing to do with your stance on computer software, it has to do with the fact that you think of Stallman as "an incredibly intelligent person who has the emotional development of a 15 year old". The problem isn't Stallman's emotional development, it's that you confuse conformity with being an adult.
And maybe I was jumping to conclusions based on your original posting, but your home page confirms it: you define yourself in terms of one-dimensional thinking, and your political views are merely platitudes. And, unfortunately, the stupidity of "centrists" like you has brought us people like Bush. Moron elects moron.
I don't agree with a lot of what Stallman says or wants, but there is actually something going on between his ears. With people like you, there's just a big, sucking vacuum.
Thanks for the answer. However, this still doesn't really explain how it prevents competitors from simply copying your hard-work, overhauling the GUI, slapping their logo on it and re-releasing it as their work.
Yes, and what's wrong with that? The programmer has already gotten paid for doing the work.
That might not be such a bad thing, but once Microsoft falls, why exactly would they continue to have a reason to pump money into software that pays them back nothing?
Because companies still need software to get their business functions done.
From my understanding, mostly being funded by Microsoft's competitors, like Google, Sun etc. who are hell-bent on weakening MS.
Very little open source software is developed in response to Microsoft. In fact, most open source software pre-dates its equivalent Microsoft products. Most open source software is developed in order to solve a problem that needs solving.
This is especially true for non service-oriented stuff like desktop applications, where you can't really charge a fee for continuous maintenance/consultancy/modifications.
That's actually where the market is moving.
But what's the reality behind this? How are they making the money to pay you if they just give away that software freely? Why would the company continue to fund software that doesn't give them any ROI?
But it does give them ROI: they need to get a job done, and the software helps them get it done more efficiently.
I'm not advocating a GPL-only world, and I don't think it's going to happen anyway. I'm just saying that Gates is bullshitting when he says that a GPL-only world would hurt programmers. A GPL-only world would hurt companies like Microsoft, but that's because Microsoft charge their customers many times over for the same programmer hour.
If Microsoft's claims of standardizing and simplifying desktop software were true, it would actually be Microsoft that would be putting programmers out of work in massive numbers.
It seems to me that RMS is stuck in a little world of his own. He doesn't understand that proprietary software is here to stay,
He understands that well. But we can do something about Microsoft in particular, and we can hopefully prevent another Microsoft from happening.
He is disparaging a charity
His criticism comes from the LA times, so complain to them. And the LA times is rational and justified in criticizing the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Shame on you, Richard Stallman. Shame on you.
No, shame on you by automatically assuming that because something is called a "charity" it actually is.
Third world nations need competitive economies, not selective meddling and handouts from publicity hungry US billionaires. And in order to get competitive economies, they need US and Europe to do something about their protectionism and monopolies. If anybody should understand that, it's self-proclaimed free market advocates like you and Gates.
The problem is people like you, not people like Stallman.
Apart from a few benevolent souls who produce software in their spare time, how exactly is completely free software a sustainable model?
Free software has nothing to do with whether it costs money, it has to do with what you can do with it. The fact that "free software" doesn't permit Gates-style business models is a side effect.
I still haven't really grasped what incentive a business would have of producing software without protecting their work.
Let's say the law required all software to be distributed under GPL-like terms. Do programmers just disappear? Not at all. Companies still need new software to support their businesses and they still hire and pay programmers to develop that. The requirement of GPL-like distribution may even lead to more programmers getting hired, if companies don't want to share their changes. Such a world is good for programmers. It is, however, bad for software companies, because it makes it hard to sell software.
How can you produce desktop software using such a model?
The exact same way it's being produced right now: companies pay programmers to develop the software, and then they ship it under the GPL. There are probably a lot more programmers employed developing open source desktop software right now than at Microsoft.
In some sense, Microsoft itself has brought about Stallman's utopia: realistically, in many domains, the only way to compete with Microsoft is to release under the GPL; no proprietary product can make it against Microsoft's ruthless and monopolistic business practices. And you know what? It's working well for programmers. It's a lot easier to get paid for developing open source desktop software than to land a job in the Microsoft Office group, and it's a lot more fun, too.
To even imply that such philanthropy is harming the thirld world is nothing less than criminal.
No, what is criminal is that people like you take it for granted that dumping large amounts of "aid" on third world countries is going to help them. There is not a single nation in the world that has come out of poverty through external aid.
but you can go too far.
Yes, you did go too far. It's people like you that condemn millions to die every year by offering them handouts and creating dependencies instead of real economic development and progress. You're the real criminal.
Here's an incredibly intelligent person who has the emotional development of a 15 year old.
Yes, Stallman's sense of right and wrong is something that teenagers frequently have and that many of them tend to lose sooner or later.
But losing it doesn't make you an adult, it merely makes you jaded.
That's your opinion and I don't agree with it.
So don't. The people that matter is the people who actually give a damn about their fellow human beings, and you will clearly never belong to that class of people.
One may dislike Bill and MS, but the foundation Bill started has really done some great things.
That is far from clear. There is a reasonable argument to be made that most foreign aid is harmful. In fact, libertarians and proponents of unfettered markets, the kind of people who hang out at Microsoft, should be quite sympathetic to those arguments.
has made other extremely rich people start to do similar charity activities.
More of a bad thing doesn't make it better.
Instead of focusing on criticizing Microsoft how about focus on making open source software that is not "as good" but rather "MUCH BETTER" than closed sourced equivalents?
Open source has been MUCH BETTER than closed source equivalents for as long as Microsoft has existed. Microsoft has, in fact, incorporated a lot of open source projects into their products.
Why doesn't Microsoft come up with a good and successful product themselves for once? Almost everything Microsoft has ever shipped was either something they bought or something they ripped off.
to be so awesome that it surpasses MS Office?
OpenOffice and KOffice will never be "awsome" because they are hamstrung by Microsoft Office compatibility; you can't be awesome if your primary user community demands compatibility with obsolete software.
But open source has long surpassed it with something better: browser based groupware, most of which is open source.
Sending low cost food to the third world on aid money isn't going to help thme.
The problem the third world has with food is not that it's too expensive, it's that it's too cheap. Food is the one commodity they can easily produce, and as long as it's cheap in world markets, they can't get their economies off the ground.
So, to all those people who say that biofuel is bad because it increases food prices, I say: bullshit. If biofuel increases food prices, that's another benefit for the third world, and it's also a benefit for first world farmers, who currently get huge amounts of public handouts to keep them on the land.
This is another one of those stupid patents that gets granted these days.
But... I think this one is good. Think about it: only Microsoft-licensed products will be shut down: Microsoft phones, Microsoft cameras, Microsoft laptops, etc.
You keep trying to change the subject to distract from the simple, inescapable fact: Objective C is an unsafe programming language. And that makes it obsolete for GUI programming.
And for the few niches where unsafe languages are still being used (systems programming, numerics, graphics), Objective C is unsuitable as well because it lacks other important facilities.
Furthermore, Objective C compilers have been available for decades. Other languages have succeeded in that time. The fact that ObjC has seen no traction beyond Apple tells you that it simply isn't a good choice.
Now stop bullshitting, stop being an Apple fanboy troll, and face the facts.
Know matter how well you learn Objective C, it still is an unsafe language, it still allows buffer overflows, and it still doesn't provide bullet proof error handling.
Slashdot Mirror
Look at this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163603.aspx
Java has had full safety and sandboxing, dynamic loading and interprocedural optimization for more than a decade, and it wasn't even the first.
When Java came out, one of the first things people did was to write kernels with isolation provided at the language level. As you can see, it was a complete failure. Even the more modest attempts of running untrusted code inside Java is largely out the window; few applications really rely on Java sandboxing anymore. The only sandboxed code that everybody runs is Javascript.
Java failed at this because it just couldn't give reasonable backwards compatibility with the probably trillions of lines of source code out there. Microsoft isn't going to fare any better. Any system like this needs nearly universal adoption of the underlying virtual machine, and that's not going to happen with either the CLR or the JVM.
Apple's carefully constructed marketing bubble is being pierced.
Really, If you guys aren't paying attention to what's going on in Iraq right now and still harping on shit over a year old, I think maybe you shouldn't comment.
I'm sorry, but I don't get what you are trying to say. Are you saying that because the Iraqis are finally calming down a bit, it was all justified?
This are looking better in Iraq, things are working, and Iraq is coming closer and closer to a democratic government supported by the people of Iraq that is both effectual as well as capable.
The war cost us more than a trillion dollars, and it cost at least tens of thousands of lives. It's given political ammunition to US enemies and it has increased the terrorist threat against the US enormously.
You're an idiot if you try to sweep this under the rug and pretend that just because there's a lull, it was all worth it. Bush made an exceptionally bad decision, and we are all going to pay for it for decades to come.
This is about trying to get the person on MySpace who drove the girl to suicide for something. It's some prosecutor that's trying to score political points. He doesn't care if he sets a bad precedent and destroys the Internet, he just wants to make a name for himself.
http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/new_rules/20061020.html
You're really missing a bit of the subtlety of English. The statement is correct, just like the statement
"In the US, Blogging May Be Punishable By Prison"
is correct (for example, if you commit criminal copyright violations or fail to disclose your sources in a sensitive matter).
Well, the fact is. no matter what, people are going to want to write and sell proprietary software - this is what RMS has not grasped.
What you don't seem to grasp is that what people "want" doesn't define good public policy:
See, it works both ways. And, frankly, what people want actually matters a great deal more in a democracy than what Bill Gates wants.
The thing Mac OS X/NeXTStep gave the free software world is publicity, if anything.
Actually, most of Apple's marketing message about open source has been "thanks for the plumbing, but you can't write GUI software". That's bad publicity and hostile to open source.
With regards to Apple 'taking' from GNU/BSD - arguably, the same could be said of GNU taking from the original AT&T Unix.
What does that have to do with anything? You claimed that Apple and FOSS are an example of living together nicely, and they are not.
True, it didn't take any code, but it took many concepts, and I don't see RMS writing cheques to AT&T every week or so.
Quite right: AT&T and GNU also did not live together nicely, which supports my point even more.
The only reason Apple is succeeding is because they're making a damn good OS out of damn good components, including the tiny bits of GNU that are rattling around in there somewhere.
Geez, you really are an Apple marketing victim. OS X uses FOSS for its kernel, for its compiler, for many of its libraries, for its web browser, and for many of its servers and services. I suspect that if you count LOC, the majority of OS X is FOSS. Apple has given back nowhere near anything like what they have taken, and neither NeXT nor Apple would have been able to create anything like OS X by themselves. On the other hand, if Apple's FOSS software disappeared from the world, almost nobody would notice.
But he's also claiming that proprietary software is wrong in itself, regardless of who develops it.
I don't know whether I agree with RMS on his general view that all proprietary software is wrong. I think reasonable, limited copyright terms may be a good idea. Furthermore, I don't see any reason to believe that RMS harbors any illusions about the fact that proprietary software will be with us for a long time (otoh, I think it's also wrong to assume that we can say anything past a few decades in the future).
But your criticism of RMS isn't based on that general issue, you confound that general issue with RMS' criticism of Microsoft.
But RMS' views on Gates, BMGF, and Microsoft are well supported. From the point of view of a free market advocate and a proprietary developer, Gates, Microsoft, and BMGF are even more evil. Microsoft destroyed most of the software industry and replaced it with a cottage industry of visual basic hackers that write applications at Microsoft's convenience and leisure. Mozilla didn't get open sourced because its authors were raving free software lunatics or worshiped at Stallman's feet (they didn't even use a free software license), it got open source because Microsoft did everything in their power to kill this competitor. The "Go" case is even worse. As for BMGF, look at their project portfolio: they embody a media-savvy, self-promoting, self-serving "philanthropy" that kills initiative, scientific integrity, and free market-based development.
Microsoft killed company after innovative company in the 90's until, in the end, there wasn't no funding or spirit anymore to even start anything in any domain that Microsoft was in. Why bother develop better software if Microsoft is just going to destroy through their illegal monopoly and then, to top it all off, rip off your idea?
Converseley, the walls and bars of the GPL remain. This license is, in my view, unacceptable, because it refuses to link with proprietary software in any sense. [...] They can live together nicely - Mac OS X is an example of this. It includes FOSS components, but Apple still make their money by selling it with the additional software on top of the base system, Darwin.
That's the model Sun had (Sun started out almost all BSD), and Microsoft still killed them everywhere except enterprise servers. As for Apple, read about how Steve Jobs tried to rip off gcc to see why the GPL is important; to this day, Apple has not giving back a fraction of what they have taken.
The reason we have the GPL is because it's the only license that was strong enough to survive Microsoft's ruthless business tactics and avoid the kinds of abuses that NeXT/Apple attempted. Believe me, most software developers would have preferred a different outcome, but it's Microsoft's fault that it has come down to this polarized choice.
I didn't vote for Bush, jackass.
That is why I wrote "the stupidity of 'centrists' like you has brought us people like Bush"
And I wasn't the original AC. Learn to read.
Then your writing is bad, not my reading. It is reasonable for me to treat you as the original person unless you identify yourself as someone else joining the thread.
seeing as how I don't define myself in terms of one-dimensional thinking
But you do: your home page is called "The Centrist". That term means something specific in English, and it is defined by a one-dimensional view of US politics and defines precisely where you fit.
So very, very hilarious...
Unfortunately, stupidity like yours is not hilarious because it end up hurting people.
We can't allow Microsoft to interfere with politics, but we can't force EVERYONE to give away their software, which seems to be what RMS is proposing.
RMS does not want to force anybody to give anything away. In fact, the GPL is quite specific that there is no requirement to distribute your software. RMS simply isn't interested in whether or how you charge for your software.
The fact is, like it or not, proprietary software is here to stay, and we can't avoid it or stop it.
We certainly could do that quite easily, at least legally. The only reason proprietary software exists is because copyright law says it does. I lived for 20 years in a world where copyright law didn't recognize binary objects as copyrightable, and the sky certainly wasn't falling. Quite to the contrary: almost everything you take for granted today was developed back then, including the core technologies that MS Office and MS Windows are based on. I'm not saying we should, and it's clearly not going to happen, but the sky wouldn't fall if we did, Gates' whining notwithstanding.
Demonising proprietary software, and slandering its authors, is going to get us nowhere.
RMS isn't slandering authors of proprietary software in general, he is talking about Gates and Microsoft, a convicted monopolist that has a 20 year documented record of sleazy, anti-competitive business tactics, deliberate incompatibilities and bugs, security holes, and lack of originality.
I develop proprietary software, and Microsoft has been a blight on the proprietary software industry, harming not just innovation and competition, but also employment and career paths particularly for proprietary developers.
With regards to the Los Angeles Times, after the various inaccuracies (Gropegate etc) that have blighted it, you will forgive me if I am somewhat sceptical of what it reports.
Well, you don't need to believe the LA Times, you can just go to the BMGF web site. BMGF seems to be spending a lot of its time pushing Windows and squeezing babies. Their AIDS research has been widely criticized, etc.
And nobody ever shows that all this "charity" actually causes long-term improvements in the nations receiving it.
No nation has come out of poverty' is a bit of a silly statement, what is your definition of coming out of poverty?
Pick any accepted definition of development you like and try to find a country that has actually demonstrably developed to first world status as a result of foreign aid and charitable organizations.
Gates Foundation site and its pretty clear that they have the right idea in mind. You should have a look too instead of blindly criticising.
There's nothing "blind" about my criticism. A lot of their programs involve promoting Windows. Their health programs have been criticized widely for not being scientifically neutral. Their agricultural programs tend to involve promoting non-indigenous agricultural techniques. I don't think these people have the "right idea" in mind at all. In fact, I think they are largely irrelevant either way.
It isn't black or white like that.
Where did I say that it was "black or white"? I looked at BMGF. It's their particular brand of "philanthropy" that I think is harmful.
Instead these organisations tend to focus on specific tasks, immunisations of large proprtions of the population against a specific disease etc. that are going to eliminate that disease and provide economic benefit to the countries that way.
And where's the evidence that they are actually helping those nations in the long term? Why should a bunch of bureaucrats in Seattle have any idea how to fix public health or education in Africa? We can't even fix them at home. BMGF appears to be funding development of a malaria vaccine. Do you have any idea what the consequence would be if they succeeded?
This has nothing to do with your stance on computer software, it has to do with the fact that you think of Stallman as "an incredibly intelligent person who has the emotional development of a 15 year old". The problem isn't Stallman's emotional development, it's that you confuse conformity with being an adult.
And maybe I was jumping to conclusions based on your original posting, but your home page confirms it: you define yourself in terms of one-dimensional thinking, and your political views are merely platitudes. And, unfortunately, the stupidity of "centrists" like you has brought us people like Bush. Moron elects moron.
I don't agree with a lot of what Stallman says or wants, but there is actually something going on between his ears. With people like you, there's just a big, sucking vacuum.
Thanks for the answer. However, this still doesn't really explain how it prevents competitors from simply copying your hard-work, overhauling the GUI, slapping their logo on it and re-releasing it as their work.
Yes, and what's wrong with that? The programmer has already gotten paid for doing the work.
That might not be such a bad thing, but once Microsoft falls, why exactly would they continue to have a reason to pump money into software that pays them back nothing?
Because companies still need software to get their business functions done.
From my understanding, mostly being funded by Microsoft's competitors, like Google, Sun etc. who are hell-bent on weakening MS.
Very little open source software is developed in response to Microsoft. In fact, most open source software pre-dates its equivalent Microsoft products. Most open source software is developed in order to solve a problem that needs solving.
This is especially true for non service-oriented stuff like desktop applications, where you can't really charge a fee for continuous maintenance/consultancy/modifications.
That's actually where the market is moving.
But what's the reality behind this? How are they making the money to pay you if they just give away that software freely? Why would the company continue to fund software that doesn't give them any ROI?
But it does give them ROI: they need to get a job done, and the software helps them get it done more efficiently.
I'm not advocating a GPL-only world, and I don't think it's going to happen anyway. I'm just saying that Gates is bullshitting when he says that a GPL-only world would hurt programmers. A GPL-only world would hurt companies like Microsoft, but that's because Microsoft charge their customers many times over for the same programmer hour.
If Microsoft's claims of standardizing and simplifying desktop software were true, it would actually be Microsoft that would be putting programmers out of work in massive numbers.
It seems to me that RMS is stuck in a little world of his own. He doesn't understand that proprietary software is here to stay,
He understands that well. But we can do something about Microsoft in particular, and we can hopefully prevent another Microsoft from happening.
He is disparaging a charity
His criticism comes from the LA times, so complain to them. And the LA times is rational and justified in criticizing the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Shame on you, Richard Stallman. Shame on you.
No, shame on you by automatically assuming that because something is called a "charity" it actually is.
Third world nations need competitive economies, not selective meddling and handouts from publicity hungry US billionaires. And in order to get competitive economies, they need US and Europe to do something about their protectionism and monopolies. If anybody should understand that, it's self-proclaimed free market advocates like you and Gates.
The problem is people like you, not people like Stallman.
Apart from a few benevolent souls who produce software in their spare time, how exactly is completely free software a sustainable model?
Free software has nothing to do with whether it costs money, it has to do with what you can do with it. The fact that "free software" doesn't permit Gates-style business models is a side effect.
I still haven't really grasped what incentive a business would have of producing software without protecting their work.
Let's say the law required all software to be distributed under GPL-like terms. Do programmers just disappear? Not at all. Companies still need new software to support their businesses and they still hire and pay programmers to develop that. The requirement of GPL-like distribution may even lead to more programmers getting hired, if companies don't want to share their changes. Such a world is good for programmers. It is, however, bad for software companies, because it makes it hard to sell software.
How can you produce desktop software using such a model?
The exact same way it's being produced right now: companies pay programmers to develop the software, and then they ship it under the GPL. There are probably a lot more programmers employed developing open source desktop software right now than at Microsoft.
In some sense, Microsoft itself has brought about Stallman's utopia: realistically, in many domains, the only way to compete with Microsoft is to release under the GPL; no proprietary product can make it against Microsoft's ruthless and monopolistic business practices. And you know what? It's working well for programmers. It's a lot easier to get paid for developing open source desktop software than to land a job in the Microsoft Office group, and it's a lot more fun, too.
To even imply that such philanthropy is harming the thirld world is nothing less than criminal.
No, what is criminal is that people like you take it for granted that dumping large amounts of "aid" on third world countries is going to help them. There is not a single nation in the world that has come out of poverty through external aid.
but you can go too far.
Yes, you did go too far. It's people like you that condemn millions to die every year by offering them handouts and creating dependencies instead of real economic development and progress. You're the real criminal.
Here's an incredibly intelligent person who has the emotional development of a 15 year old.
Yes, Stallman's sense of right and wrong is something that teenagers frequently have and that many of them tend to lose sooner or later.
But losing it doesn't make you an adult, it merely makes you jaded.
That's your opinion and I don't agree with it.
So don't. The people that matter is the people who actually give a damn about their fellow human beings, and you will clearly never belong to that class of people.
One may dislike Bill and MS, but the foundation Bill started has really done some great things.
That is far from clear. There is a reasonable argument to be made that most foreign aid is harmful. In fact, libertarians and proponents of unfettered markets, the kind of people who hang out at Microsoft, should be quite sympathetic to those arguments.
has made other extremely rich people start to do similar charity activities.
More of a bad thing doesn't make it better.
Instead of focusing on criticizing Microsoft how about focus on making open source software that is not "as good" but rather "MUCH BETTER" than closed sourced equivalents?
Open source has been MUCH BETTER than closed source equivalents for as long as Microsoft has existed. Microsoft has, in fact, incorporated a lot of open source projects into their products.
Why doesn't Microsoft come up with a good and successful product themselves for once? Almost everything Microsoft has ever shipped was either something they bought or something they ripped off.
to be so awesome that it surpasses MS Office?
OpenOffice and KOffice will never be "awsome" because they are hamstrung by Microsoft Office compatibility; you can't be awesome if your primary user community demands compatibility with obsolete software.
But open source has long surpassed it with something better: browser based groupware, most of which is open source.
Sending low cost food to the third world on aid money isn't going to help thme.
The problem the third world has with food is not that it's too expensive, it's that it's too cheap. Food is the one commodity they can easily produce, and as long as it's cheap in world markets, they can't get their economies off the ground.
So, to all those people who say that biofuel is bad because it increases food prices, I say: bullshit. If biofuel increases food prices, that's another benefit for the third world, and it's also a benefit for first world farmers, who currently get huge amounts of public handouts to keep them on the land.
This is another one of those stupid patents that gets granted these days.
But... I think this one is good. Think about it: only Microsoft-licensed products will be shut down: Microsoft phones, Microsoft cameras, Microsoft laptops, etc.
You keep trying to change the subject to distract from the simple, inescapable fact: Objective C is an unsafe programming language. And that makes it obsolete for GUI programming.
And for the few niches where unsafe languages are still being used (systems programming, numerics, graphics), Objective C is unsuitable as well because it lacks other important facilities.
Furthermore, Objective C compilers have been available for decades. Other languages have succeeded in that time. The fact that ObjC has seen no traction beyond Apple tells you that it simply isn't a good choice.
Now stop bullshitting, stop being an Apple fanboy troll, and face the facts.
To their surprise, NASA scientists discovered that, try as they might, roasting a phoenix in an oven never results in well-done meat.
You give the impression of never having used Cocoa.
And you give the impression of not being particularly smart, since you confuse a programming language (Objective-C) with an API (Cocoa).
At least give some examples of what you consider to be better!
Just about any language that isn't intrinsically unsafe, regardless of which API you use with it, even Cocoa.
Know matter how well you learn Objective C, it still is an unsafe language, it still allows buffer overflows, and it still doesn't provide bullet proof error handling.