The fact that OOXML is not possible to implement is a side issue here. C# is a useless, extraneous, Microsoft-owned (don't kid yourself about the paper standards body) standard, intended only for addicting more people to Microsoft. That is what it shares with OOXML, and that is what condemns it.
No. I have no interest in C#, period. I've seen enough of what it's supposed to do and how it's supposed to fix (the wrong) problems in Java, and I know how Microsoft has failed consistently (and still fails) to understand the real power and purpose of computing.
Microsoft wants, not even a business tool, but an easy busybox to sell to people who think that busyboxes are what it takes to keep the workers docile. C#, unless they've down things that everyone says they have not, is just another tool for making busyboxes.
Microsoft needs only to have it appear to be cross-platform. That is not even aligned to the GNU goals, relative to it, which are far more generous towards it than I am.
You're going to tell me that Microsoft developed C# out of the goodness of their hearts, because Java is so limited, and that it has nothing at all to do with Microsoft responding to Sun's insistence that Microsoft refrain from embracing and extending Java?
Do you really [generic: induced-epithet.verb] like that?
If you like to ignore current events, so that you don't acknowledge the storm over ooxml, and the damage the spec took, nor the (documented) fact that c# was Microsoft's response to Sun telling them that they weren't going to be allowed to embrace and extend Java, not to mention the recent suits Microsoft has pursued over FAT, well, there's not much use talking about whether Adobe has been significantly more circumspect in what they've done with pdf and such.
Nor will it help to point out (yet again) that refraining from putting mono in the default distribution is in no way a ban. (I assume you know how to install packages?)
I've been burned by Microsoft often enough that I know I don't want to go there again. And I have not once been disappointed that failing to go with their stuff.
OOXML is evidence that Microsoft cannot be prevented from abusing standards the get involved with, especially standards they sponsor.
Besides, C# is just like VB, solving the wrong problems, helping people use the wrong solutions. I'm not a fan of Java, but C# is definitely several more leaps in the wrong directions.
Small patent trolls will come out of the woodwork anyway. You don't really want to base much of an argument relative to putting mono in a default install on small patent trolls.
And we should note that the guys in charge of Microsoft own (controlling interest in) a few patent trolls, but that really is beside the point.
We know from past experience that Microsoft will not openly attack a competitor if it thinks that will cost them mindshare. Unless they think they gain offsetting mindshare.
We also know that the will attack the enemy by underhanded means. No, their patent trolls probably will not attack Linux based on mono, but some lapdog patent troll which cannot be directly traced to them will use something in mono to attack members of the Linux community.
We've seen it happen.
We have seen some of their lapdogs exposed, others we have only seen indirect evidence of the connections.
We have not seen any evidence that they intend to quit doing it.
But the risk is the underlining point, not the main point.
The point here is what you push on the end user versus what you merely enable.
Do you make/let the end user go find Tomboy for him-/herself or do you give it to him for his/her efforts at downloading and installing your distribution. The former approach is neutral. The latter approach legitimizes mono and encourages people to use it.
If you think mono is wonderful stuff, then I suppose it's worth the known risk, to you. VB was wonderful stuff to managers who had never been able to figure out how to use a command line or read raw text.
But the use of VB is what established Microsoft as a legitimate "business" software company.
Using mono now is repeating the mistake of using MS-DOS, MSVB, MSIE, MS Foundation Classes, MSVS, MSOffice, MSWindows, etc. They were not usually better in the long run, although you do have to be willing to be the tortoise instead of the hare if you use the options. Patent traps are not the only traps in Microsoft's stuff.
Anyway, yes, don't prevent individual users, individual companies from using mono if they choose to. Not including mono in the default distribution in no way prevents people who want it from loading it.
But, now, don't push it on the individual users, hidden underneath an application like Tomboy, that could well become yet another hidden psychological dependency that Microsoft salesman will tell their customers (with a nudge and a wink) that you have to buy Microsoft to get (and so you might as well get the real thing from Microsoft, and, no, all that stuff about malware isn't really true, of course, computers are supposed to start running slow after a while, that's why you should buy MSWindows 21 or whatever, etc., etc., and a glad-hand slap on the back).
Patents, in their current form and use, are clotting up pretty much every industry these days.
They were originally meant to be limited monopolies, but because the Constitutions says limited time (but nothing about monopoly, per se), lawyers and legislators and judges have been having a field day making pretty much every industry a king-of-the-hill competition.
There was a time when we were supposed to want to protect the market, the economy, and society in general from king-of-the-hill games.
Do you remember what life was like when you were a month old?
Yes.
Before you developed the capability to retain, attach meaning to, and otherwise organize memories and experiences?
How much do you remember of your elementary school experience, especially the first grade? How about preschool?
Bigger question: How much do you remember of your life before school? Before you developed the capability to retain, attach meaning to, and otherwise organize memories and experiences?
Have you ever dug back to see what you remember, to probe at how the memories have been overlaid by the memories and structure of later experience?
I suppose you'll claim I'm fooling myself, but I do have memories from way back. The framework has changed, so it is hard to tell what is backward projection and what is actual memory in some cases. In order to get way back, I have to discard most of the somewhat artificial structure of "learning" imposed by schooling and other structured experiences I gained as I grow older.
The memories are inherently difficult to pinpoint and identify precisely because of the differences in context. But they are there. Some of them are indirect, memories of memories like the memory of the shock of the change from diaper to underpants, and the memory of the shock of switching from the breast to solid food. But they are there.
Now, you can claim that I'm making it up or imagining it all you want. I suppose you will. But let me propose this to you -- you claim went through a period after your birth in which you claim you were not "human". You would not be here arguing with me unless someone had decided that, in spite of your inability to do "human" things, you were worth keeping alive.
Before she'd be able to talk about "all the things that she's had to put up with", she'd have to develop those capabilities. In other words, it ain't gonna happen before "a doctor might figure out how to unlock the processes of development".
And you're going to gamble the value of a life against your confidence that it ain't gonna happen. Right?
I know it's a long shot, but, maybe her telling us about her unique experience would provide us with clues to the more difficult questions about certain of the so-called soft sciences?
It's an impossibility. It's like trying to use a tape recorder that hasn't been assembled, with no batteries included, and no recording medium. the capability isn't there, any more than it is with anyone who functions at the level of a 0-to-3-month old (the article has claims from the mother that she functions like a "toddler between 9 months and 1 year", but Brooke's lack of any ability to mimic speech says this is just wishful thinking - and even then, you wouldn't get anything useful).
If this particular "tape recorder" were completely unassembled, she would not be alive. Period.
The fact that she lives without the aid of machines running her heart and lungs is strong evidence of partial development of the nervous system, including some brain function. The batteries are not just included, they are in place, and the machine is partially functioning.
I don't know where you're getting the claim that the medium and the recording mechanism are not there. All we know for sure is not functioning is the playback mechanism. (We do no some of the other parts are not functioning well, but we do not know they are not functioning. In fact, from what we have, we can make a strong case that some of the important parts are partially functioning.)
Unless you're privy to some diagnostic technology that I've never heard of, in which case, please make the technology available to the rest of us. I'm sure doctors could put it to good use.
I don't condone suicide missions, and I'm not trying to justify the attack on the world trade center, but, in a very real sense, the situation in (the Sudan), Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. are rather a product of a "free" people being not brave enough to uphold our freedoms the right way.
Free people respect each others' freedoms.
Free people respect other peoples' freedoms, as well.
Free people share when they have more than enough, and I don't mean sharing infectious diseases.
Free people are willing to put themselves out to help others on occasion.
We (including western Europe) tried to protect our freedoms by forcibly converting the "savage races" to Christianity, a completely self-contradictory effort.
We tried to protect our material prosperity by, not just giving people in "undeveloped" countries new opportunities to work, but letting the economic and political differences excuse in taking excessively more than we should have.
When we should have been setting an example of freedom that included self-control, well, look at how we have rewarded the "freedom" of expression in popular theater and literature. Why do we, as a society, claim that we are free when we are so willing to spend our valuable time and money on bondage and fetish? That's not freedom.
And so forth.
And, now that we find that we have raced to the bottom and won, protecting our "freedoms" and "prosperity" the wrong way until there is nothing left to protect, we turn back to the old ways of oppression. Copyright abuse and mandatory ID is just the tip of the iceberg.
At the very least, you might consider that sometime before she dies a doctor might figure out how to unlock the processes of development?
And, maybe, becoming able to talk, she'll be able to talk about all the things that she's had to put up with?
I know it's a long shot, but, maybe her telling us about her unique experience would provide us with clues to the more difficult questions about certain of the so-called soft sciences?
I mean, these are just extensions of the stock arguments about taking utilitarian social theory too far. Are you completely unfamiliar with that?
It seems to me that if you have a single thread responding to multiple requests, a single slip in the code anywhere past the the pool is going to open every connection to the pool to every other.
If not, the pool will have to have some sort of wall between connections, and there will be a way to attack the wall.
Thus, IIS may not be "vulnerable" to this version of the attack, but it will be vulnerable to an attack modified to whatever attempt IIS makes at putting up a wall, and it will also (because we know that no programer or pool of programers is perfect) be vulnerable to all sorts of cross-talk between connections.
A hypothesis built on unprovable assumptions is basically a hypothesis contrary to fact.
I'm sure you know this, but I'll repeat. When you deliberately start from a known false assumption, you can conclude anything and no one can prove you wrong. Example (should you really need one):
-- Teacher, if it hadn't rained yesterday, I'd have not only finished my report, I'd have done an "A" job on it. I promise. So you should give me an "A". --
Okay, the failure to pirate is in many senses a known falsehood, but it's such an emotionally burdened falsehood that it's going to be hard for most people to point the falsehood out in public. Unprovable assumptions often have such known false assumptions hidden somewhere underneath them.
The unprovable assumption is your "net loss" assumption.
Net gain may not be "provable" but many statistical experiments demonstrating net gain have been performed. Attempts to prove net loss have been notoriously tortured.
And there is even a theory in circulation to explain the net gain. It goes like this:
If I have never heard a song, I'm not likely to buy it. If I have heard a song and liked it, I'm much more likely to buy it.
I know that the claim of net loss inserts an assertion here, that if I have the song already, I will feel no need to buy it, but that assumes that I have no sense of ethics or consequences, and no sympathy for the very artists whose work I find myself fond of listening to.
Self-interest can be unenlightened in precisely two cases: when people have no conscience because they have no conscience, and when people cease to be able to think clearly because the law has become too oppressive. Neither case is a good indication for a free society.
So, if you are theorizing net loss in a free society, I'm telling you that you're making wrong assumptions, drawing wrong conclusions, and should re-consider what you are saying.
There have been cases where a court has re-interpreted a law and thus effectively re-written the law.
But we aren't asking for a re-interpretation.
We want the court to tell Congress (and the lobbies ) to either go back to the drawing board or do without this particular attempt to regulate "right" behavior.
Preferably the latter.
(Sure seems to be an awful lot of money in attempts to legislate "right" behavior these days.)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm probably going to burn karma, but I think I'll point something out.
There is a problem with murder scenes in movies, too.
Talking about can't parse English.
The fact that OOXML is not possible to implement is a side issue here. C# is a useless, extraneous, Microsoft-owned (don't kid yourself about the paper standards body) standard, intended only for addicting more people to Microsoft. That is what it shares with OOXML, and that is what condemns it.
No. I have no interest in C#, period. I've seen enough of what it's supposed to do and how it's supposed to fix (the wrong) problems in Java, and I know how Microsoft has failed consistently (and still fails) to understand the real power and purpose of computing.
Microsoft wants, not even a business tool, but an easy busybox to sell to people who think that busyboxes are what it takes to keep the workers docile. C#, unless they've down things that everyone says they have not, is just another tool for making busyboxes.
Microsoft needs only to have it appear to be cross-platform. That is not even aligned to the GNU goals, relative to it, which are far more generous towards it than I am.
You're going to tell me that Microsoft developed C# out of the goodness of their hearts, because Java is so limited, and that it has nothing at all to do with Microsoft responding to Sun's insistence that Microsoft refrain from embracing and extending Java?
Do you really [generic: induced-epithet.verb] like that?
If you like to ignore current events, so that you don't acknowledge the storm over ooxml, and the damage the spec took, nor the (documented) fact that c# was Microsoft's response to Sun telling them that they weren't going to be allowed to embrace and extend Java, not to mention the recent suits Microsoft has pursued over FAT, well, there's not much use talking about whether Adobe has been significantly more circumspect in what they've done with pdf and such.
Nor will it help to point out (yet again) that refraining from putting mono in the default distribution is in no way a ban. (I assume you know how to install packages?)
Code a (stupid) activation function because you (think you) can.
This is called, of course, blind hacking. Some people can't tell the difference between a computer and a magic box.
I've been burned by Microsoft often enough that I know I don't want to go there again. And I have not once been disappointed that failing to go with their stuff.
OOXML is evidence that Microsoft cannot be prevented from abusing standards the get involved with, especially standards they sponsor.
Besides, C# is just like VB, solving the wrong problems, helping people use the wrong solutions. I'm not a fan of Java, but C# is definitely several more leaps in the wrong directions.
Small patent trolls will come out of the woodwork anyway. You don't really want to base much of an argument relative to putting mono in a default install on small patent trolls.
And we should note that the guys in charge of Microsoft own (controlling interest in) a few patent trolls, but that really is beside the point.
We know from past experience that Microsoft will not openly attack a competitor if it thinks that will cost them mindshare. Unless they think they gain offsetting mindshare.
We also know that the will attack the enemy by underhanded means. No, their patent trolls probably will not attack Linux based on mono, but some lapdog patent troll which cannot be directly traced to them will use something in mono to attack members of the Linux community.
We've seen it happen.
We have seen some of their lapdogs exposed, others we have only seen indirect evidence of the connections.
We have not seen any evidence that they intend to quit doing it.
But the risk is the underlining point, not the main point.
The point here is what you push on the end user versus what you merely enable.
Do you make/let the end user go find Tomboy for him-/herself or do you give it to him for his/her efforts at downloading and installing your distribution. The former approach is neutral. The latter approach legitimizes mono and encourages people to use it.
If you think mono is wonderful stuff, then I suppose it's worth the known risk, to you. VB was wonderful stuff to managers who had never been able to figure out how to use a command line or read raw text.
But the use of VB is what established Microsoft as a legitimate "business" software company.
Using mono now is repeating the mistake of using MS-DOS, MSVB, MSIE, MS Foundation Classes, MSVS, MSOffice, MSWindows, etc. They were not usually better in the long run, although you do have to be willing to be the tortoise instead of the hare if you use the options. Patent traps are not the only traps in Microsoft's stuff.
Anyway, yes, don't prevent individual users, individual companies from using mono if they choose to. Not including mono in the default distribution in no way prevents people who want it from loading it.
But, now, don't push it on the individual users, hidden underneath an application like Tomboy, that could well become yet another hidden psychological dependency that Microsoft salesman will tell their customers (with a nudge and a wink) that you have to buy Microsoft to get (and so you might as well get the real thing from Microsoft, and, no, all that stuff about malware isn't really true, of course, computers are supposed to start running slow after a while, that's why you should buy MSWindows 21 or whatever, etc., etc., and a glad-hand slap on the back).
Patents, in their current form and use, are clotting up pretty much every industry these days.
They were originally meant to be limited monopolies, but because the Constitutions says limited time (but nothing about monopoly, per se), lawyers and legislators and judges have been having a field day making pretty much every industry a king-of-the-hill competition.
There was a time when we were supposed to want to protect the market, the economy, and society in general from king-of-the-hill games.
here.
While I disagree about the idea that M$ (No, I am not twitter.) would not be stupid enough to bring suit over mono, that post really explains it all.
Take a deep breath and think twice.
Read up on oxml or ooxml or whatever "standard" microsoft is proposing to replace odf with.
Do you remember what life was like when you were a month old?
Yes.
Before you developed the capability to retain, attach meaning to, and otherwise organize memories and experiences?
How much do you remember of your elementary school experience, especially the first grade? How about preschool?
Bigger question: How much do you remember of your life before school? Before you developed the capability to retain, attach meaning to, and otherwise organize memories and experiences?
Have you ever dug back to see what you remember, to probe at how the memories have been overlaid by the memories and structure of later experience?
I suppose you'll claim I'm fooling myself, but I do have memories from way back. The framework has changed, so it is hard to tell what is backward projection and what is actual memory in some cases. In order to get way back, I have to discard most of the somewhat artificial structure of "learning" imposed by schooling and other structured experiences I gained as I grow older.
The memories are inherently difficult to pinpoint and identify precisely because of the differences in context. But they are there. Some of them are indirect, memories of memories like the memory of the shock of the change from diaper to underpants, and the memory of the shock of switching from the breast to solid food. But they are there.
Now, you can claim that I'm making it up or imagining it all you want. I suppose you will. But let me propose this to you -- you claim went through a period after your birth in which you claim you were not "human". You would not be here arguing with me unless someone had decided that, in spite of your inability to do "human" things, you were worth keeping alive.
Before she'd be able to talk about "all the things that she's had to put up with", she'd have to develop those capabilities. In other words, it ain't gonna happen before "a doctor might figure out how to unlock the processes of development".
And you're going to gamble the value of a life against your confidence that it ain't gonna happen. Right?
It's an impossibility. It's like trying to use a tape recorder that hasn't been assembled, with no batteries included, and no recording medium. the capability isn't there, any more than it is with anyone who functions at the level of a 0-to-3-month old (the article has claims from the mother that she functions like a "toddler between 9 months and 1 year", but Brooke's lack of any ability to mimic speech says this is just wishful thinking - and even then, you wouldn't get anything useful).
If this particular "tape recorder" were completely unassembled, she would not be alive. Period.
The fact that she lives without the aid of machines running her heart and lungs is strong evidence of partial development of the nervous system, including some brain function. The batteries are not just included, they are in place, and the machine is partially functioning.
I don't know where you're getting the claim that the medium and the recording mechanism are not there. All we know for sure is not functioning is the playback mechanism. (We do no some of the other parts are not functioning well, but we do not know they are not functioning. In fact, from what we have, we can make a strong case that some of the important parts are partially functioning.)
Unless you're privy to some diagnostic technology that I've never heard of, in which case, please make the technology available to the rest of us. I'm sure doctors could put it to good use.
Way down here, no one will see this, but it has been said by others.
Stay and fight for freedom where you are. That's the only real way to be free.
But you do need to know what real freedom is.
Troll, maybe. But not flamebait.
Mars or the Moon.
Which is why so many geeks are interested in space travel.
But if you don't lose your chains before you go, you just take the chains with you.
Real freedom is inside.
That's an illusion.
Japan?
(Yeah, yeah, I know.)
If you're really proud of the old UK, move back and try to change it.
Or stay where you are and get involved in politics there.
I don't condone suicide missions, and I'm not trying to justify the attack on the world trade center, but, in a very real sense, the situation in (the Sudan), Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. are rather a product of a "free" people being not brave enough to uphold our freedoms the right way.
Free people respect each others' freedoms.
Free people respect other peoples' freedoms, as well.
Free people share when they have more than enough, and I don't mean sharing infectious diseases.
Free people are willing to put themselves out to help others on occasion.
We (including western Europe) tried to protect our freedoms by forcibly converting the "savage races" to Christianity, a completely self-contradictory effort.
We tried to protect our material prosperity by, not just giving people in "undeveloped" countries new opportunities to work, but letting the economic and political differences excuse in taking excessively more than we should have.
When we should have been setting an example of freedom that included self-control, well, look at how we have rewarded the "freedom" of expression in popular theater and literature. Why do we, as a society, claim that we are free when we are so willing to spend our valuable time and money on bondage and fetish? That's not freedom.
And so forth.
And, now that we find that we have raced to the bottom and won, protecting our "freedoms" and "prosperity" the wrong way until there is nothing left to protect, we turn back to the old ways of oppression. Copyright abuse and mandatory ID is just the tip of the iceberg.
Since I have to have some text here, I'll explain what shouldn't be necessary.
Do you feel as if you were your parents' toy?
If so, it's not an uncommon experience.
At the very least, you might consider that sometime before she dies a doctor might figure out how to unlock the processes of development?
And, maybe, becoming able to talk, she'll be able to talk about all the things that she's had to put up with?
I know it's a long shot, but, maybe her telling us about her unique experience would provide us with clues to the more difficult questions about certain of the so-called soft sciences?
I mean, these are just extensions of the stock arguments about taking utilitarian social theory too far. Are you completely unfamiliar with that?
Well, it is a little embarrassing to have your elementary students give you the "kancho".
It seems to me that if you have a single thread responding to multiple requests, a single slip in the code anywhere past the the pool is going to open every connection to the pool to every other.
If not, the pool will have to have some sort of wall between connections, and there will be a way to attack the wall.
Thus, IIS may not be "vulnerable" to this version of the attack, but it will be vulnerable to an attack modified to whatever attempt IIS makes at putting up a wall, and it will also (because we know that no programer or pool of programers is perfect) be vulnerable to all sorts of cross-talk between connections.
A hypothesis built on unprovable assumptions is basically a hypothesis contrary to fact.
I'm sure you know this, but I'll repeat. When you deliberately start from a known false assumption, you can conclude anything and no one can prove you wrong. Example (should you really need one):
--
Teacher, if it hadn't rained yesterday, I'd have not only finished my report, I'd have done an "A" job on it. I promise. So you should give me an "A".
--
Okay, the failure to pirate is in many senses a known falsehood, but it's such an emotionally burdened falsehood that it's going to be hard for most people to point the falsehood out in public. Unprovable assumptions often have such known false assumptions hidden somewhere underneath them.
The unprovable assumption is your "net loss" assumption.
Net gain may not be "provable" but many statistical experiments demonstrating net gain have been performed. Attempts to prove net loss have been notoriously tortured.
And there is even a theory in circulation to explain the net gain. It goes like this:
If I have never heard a song, I'm not likely to buy it. If I have heard a song and liked it, I'm much more likely to buy it.
I know that the claim of net loss inserts an assertion here, that if I have the song already, I will feel no need to buy it, but that assumes that I have no sense of ethics or consequences, and no sympathy for the very artists whose work I find myself fond of listening to.
Self-interest can be unenlightened in precisely two cases: when people have no conscience because they have no conscience, and when people cease to be able to think clearly because the law has become too oppressive. Neither case is a good indication for a free society.
So, if you are theorizing net loss in a free society, I'm telling you that you're making wrong assumptions, drawing wrong conclusions, and should re-consider what you are saying.
There have been cases where a court has re-interpreted a law and thus effectively re-written the law.
But we aren't asking for a re-interpretation.
We want the court to tell Congress (and the lobbies ) to either go back to the drawing board or do without this particular attempt to regulate "right" behavior.
Preferably the latter.
(Sure seems to be an awful lot of money in attempts to legislate "right" behavior these days.)
Corporations are big. "When you punish a corporation, you punish a lot of people, including innocent bystanders."
Or so the theory goes.