I've been developing Perl-based software for Web Services (see velocigen.com), and so far the best way to deal with all the changing standards (cough Microsoft cough) has been to damn the torpedoes and use modules like SOAP::Lite to hack together something that works now, with the intention of shoring it up when the standards change.
A perfect example is (bloody damn) WSDL. It's a great idea for a good standard, but it's a lousy specification thus far. I had to read between the lines a lot and select which parts of the standard I could reasonably implement. It worked, though; I have a working WSDL implementation, client and server; it may be the only one on the planet so far.:)
I should say that it is extremely cool once it works. We've been playing with it for a few weeks and we've done some amazing things. That alone makes it worthwhile.
...it will in fact bring about a stronger economy due to the fact that rather than having money tied in up in charitable foundations, it will be in more liquid forms, mainly equity.
Since when is equity liquid? How is $6 million more liquid when it's tied up in a plot of land than when it's being spent by a group like the Gorilla Foundation, which is creating hundreds of jobs in Hawaii to build a preserve?
Have you even thought about what a charitable foundation does?
IMO, revolutionary advances in computing are generally a matter of making things simpler and more elegant.
No, that would be incremental advances, like moving from the Newton to the PalmPilot. You take the revolutionary advance (stick all this processing power into a little tablet thing) and you simplify it (take out handwriting recognition, make it smaller, streamline the functions.)
A truly revolutionary advance is one that opens up a new realm of possibilities no matter how badly implemented it is. It's the shift in thinking that allows others to come along and make it more simple and elegant afterwards, not the other way around.
As an example, I'm using a collection of revolutionary advances (dynamic web site, web browser, network, GUI, personal computer, microprocessor, electronics, electricity) right now. I'm also benefitting from some increments (Perl, PCI, K6, AC), but they aren't the fundamental parts that make this process possible.
While I'm all for making computers easier to use, would typing "move all files beginning with the letter a to the directory called 'foo'" be any improvement over "mv a* foo" (or "move a* foo" for that matter)?
Sure, if you stick with the existing model of computer interaction and wedge a natural language interface on it.
However, that would be as useless as having a present-day CLI to low-level system functions only. "read disk sector 1023 from disk 4 via scsi interface 0 number 0 into memory address 1e75FOO" is a waste of even the simple CLIs we have now.
We need to go in the other direction. "Open my wedding photos." "Spell-check the latest draft of my current novel." "When did I receive an e-mail from my publisher with 'foo' in the subject?"
Yes, this means even more work than just parsing a natural language and would require a pretty sophisticated model of interaction, but isn't that the kind of challenge that produces revolutionary advances in computing?
I've always felt he was presented as a sort of tragic figure, who has an admirable goal (mutants being able to live in peace) but is going about it in a horribly wrong way.
Absolutely. Magneto (at least in the film, I haven't read the books) is the worst of all possible villains, the person with good intentions who carries them out in the most horrifying ways due to fear.
I personally thought that he was a refreshing change from the moustache-twirling two-dimensional baddies we've seen so much of lately. Very poignant in a world where most of the people out to destroy it think they're saving it from evil.
For those stuck on the HTML-as-program idea when dealing with the GPL, here's an illustration of the difference between derivative work and a product of that work:
Assume that I have an O'Reilly book, and the back of that book contains an order form. O'Reilly used say, TeX and Linux to produce the form. When I send the completed form to them, they process it through a GPLed OCR system and use TeX to create a response.
Should O'Reilly send me a CD with TeX, Linux, and the OCR program because I sent them an order? No. No one would expect that, even if O'Reilly could benefit the world by distributing the order processing system they developed.
So, why is it different when they use Perl, Apache and Linux to send me the order form and process its response? Yes, they might have developed a kick-ass ordering system and it would be nice of them to share, but that has nothing to do with the people who use the products of the system.
> I would suggest that slashdot install some cache servers and have all links point to the cache'ed version
Not likely, I'm afraid. Slashdot has enough trouble handling its own traffic without taking on the combined./-effect traffic of all the sites it mentions.
Fortunately, though, this is the Web, and you can set this service up yourself! Just let./ readers know and I'm sure you'll get lots of visitors real quick.;)
I agree. Posting the whole or significant part of a Microsoft-copyrighted work would be illegal, DCMA or no. It's like posting the text of that Stephen King digital short story without permission.
However, comments about Microsoft, the specification (including illustrative segments), or where it can be found would all fall under fair use and be protected by free speech.
RMS spoke about his background and free software reasoning at The Bazaar in December. Apparently, his yen for free software came out of the device driver market - his example was a laser printer with closed drivers and an NDA. To paraphrase, the printer had problems that Stallman's group could fix, but they weren't allowed to without an NDA. The group had fixed a similar problem with an older printer, so this outraged him. He got the bug for free and clear source and it stuck. You can see how he probably sees hardware as a fixed quantity and software as the gooey free-flowing stuff he can affect. Of course, that world-view doesn't take into account hardware patents, NDAs, interoperability breakers like Slot 1, and other hardware nonsense that we've had to deal with because hardware designs are proprietary. With open hardware specs under infectious licenses, we could be as free of that nonsense as we are of M$ nonsense now.
As someone who has read the Discworld novels practically in reverse order, I can second the sentiments about the 'Discword learning curve.'
On the other hand, The Truth is one of the few Discworld books that introduces an entirely new storyline and characters, so it's an excellent first-read for those unfamiliar with the Discworld series.
Other Discworld books that are good first reads are Pyramids, Small Gods, and the recently re-released The Color of Magic. Be careful, though: after springboarding into the Discworld universe with any of these books, you're likely to end up doing silly things like buying up every UK edition of Pratchett's books from London bookstores while on vacation.:)
Not to bash the VA/Andover thing, which is a fine idea, but I just realized that some of our favorite.org sites aren't even close to non-profit anymore. Slashdot, Themes.org, what's next? Gnome.org owned by Red Hat? Just me being a domain-name purist a little too late.:)
For a better look at Verne's vision of the future (and how accurate it could be), read his Paris in the Twentieth Century.
Originally written in 1863, it wasn't published until 1995. In it, Verne "predicts" fax machines, bank computers, and - more importantly - the overwhelming role of technology and business in defining culture. The foreword from 1995 explains how his technical predictions were quite plain based on the technology that was being developed at the time, but I find his portrayal of a culture that forgot its purpose to be much more amazing.
This book is definitely not a cheery glance at a time of spaceships, but rather a depressing look at what happens when we forget what all this technology is for.
I'm still amazed that open source software is considered separate from commercial software. Does Red Hat not make huge gobs of money from open source software? Is there anything in the GPL that prohibits commercializing a GPL'ed project?
Repeat it with me: One does not have to be closed to be commercially viable. That's just more FUD to be discarded.
Slashdot Mirror
The site for Constellation 3D, the company producing the FMD drives, is http://www.c-3d.net/.
I say just ignore it, and if whatever it is gets big, buy the O'Reilly book.
It's on its way. An author from XML.com has one in the works called Writing Web Services with SOAP.
I've been developing Perl-based software for Web Services (see velocigen.com), and so far the best way to deal with all the changing standards (cough Microsoft cough) has been to damn the torpedoes and use modules like SOAP::Lite to hack together something that works now, with the intention of shoring it up when the standards change.
A perfect example is (bloody damn) WSDL. It's a great idea for a good standard, but it's a lousy specification thus far. I had to read between the lines a lot and select which parts of the standard I could reasonably implement. It worked, though; I have a working WSDL implementation, client and server; it may be the only one on the planet so far. :)
I should say that it is extremely cool once it works. We've been playing with it for a few weeks and we've done some amazing things. That alone makes it worthwhile.
Speaking of nonsense...
...it will in fact bring about a stronger economy due to the fact that rather than having money tied in up in charitable foundations, it will be in more liquid forms, mainly equity.
Since when is equity liquid? How is $6 million more liquid when it's tied up in a plot of land than when it's being spent by a group like the Gorilla Foundation, which is creating hundreds of jobs in Hawaii to build a preserve?
Have you even thought about what a charitable foundation does?
IMO, revolutionary advances in computing are generally a matter of making things simpler and more elegant.
No, that would be incremental advances, like moving from the Newton to the PalmPilot. You take the revolutionary advance (stick all this processing power into a little tablet thing) and you simplify it (take out handwriting recognition, make it smaller, streamline the functions.)
A truly revolutionary advance is one that opens up a new realm of possibilities no matter how badly implemented it is. It's the shift in thinking that allows others to come along and make it more simple and elegant afterwards, not the other way around.
As an example, I'm using a collection of revolutionary advances (dynamic web site, web browser, network, GUI, personal computer, microprocessor, electronics, electricity) right now. I'm also benefitting from some increments (Perl, PCI, K6, AC), but they aren't the fundamental parts that make this process possible.
While I'm all for making computers easier to use, would typing "move all files beginning with the letter a to the directory called 'foo'" be any improvement over "mv a* foo" (or "move a* foo" for that matter)?
Sure, if you stick with the existing model of computer interaction and wedge a natural language interface on it.
However, that would be as useless as having a present-day CLI to low-level system functions only. "read disk sector 1023 from disk 4 via scsi interface 0 number 0 into memory address 1e75FOO" is a waste of even the simple CLIs we have now.
We need to go in the other direction. "Open my wedding photos." "Spell-check the latest draft of my current novel." "When did I receive an e-mail from my publisher with 'foo' in the subject?"
Yes, this means even more work than just parsing a natural language and would require a pretty sophisticated model of interaction, but isn't that the kind of challenge that produces revolutionary advances in computing?
I've always felt he was presented as a sort of tragic figure, who has an admirable goal (mutants being able to live in peace) but is going about it in a horribly wrong way.
Absolutely. Magneto (at least in the film, I haven't read the books) is the worst of all possible villains, the person with good intentions who carries them out in the most horrifying ways due to fear.
I personally thought that he was a refreshing change from the moustache-twirling two-dimensional baddies we've seen so much of lately. Very poignant in a world where most of the people out to destroy it think they're saving it from evil.
For those stuck on the HTML-as-program idea when dealing with the GPL, here's an illustration of the difference between derivative work and a product of that work:
Assume that I have an O'Reilly book, and the back of that book contains an order form. O'Reilly used say, TeX and Linux to produce the form. When I send the completed form to them, they process it through a GPLed OCR system and use TeX to create a response.
Should O'Reilly send me a CD with TeX, Linux, and the OCR program because I sent them an order? No. No one would expect that, even if O'Reilly could benefit the world by distributing the order processing system they developed.
So, why is it different when they use Perl, Apache and Linux to send me the order form and process its response? Yes, they might have developed a kick-ass ordering system and it would be nice of them to share, but that has nothing to do with the people who use the products of the system.
> I would suggest that slashdot install some cache servers and have all links point to the cache'ed version
Not likely, I'm afraid. Slashdot has enough trouble handling its own traffic without taking on the combined ./-effect traffic of all the sites it mentions.
Fortunately, though, this is the Web, and you can set this service up yourself! Just let ./ readers know and I'm sure you'll get lots of visitors real quick. ;)
I agree. Posting the whole or significant part of a Microsoft-copyrighted work would be illegal, DCMA or no. It's like posting the text of that Stephen King digital short story without permission.
However, comments about Microsoft, the specification (including illustrative segments), or where it can be found would all fall under fair use and be protected by free speech.
~chris
RMS spoke about his background and free software reasoning at The Bazaar in December. Apparently, his yen for free software came out of the device driver market - his example was a laser printer with closed drivers and an NDA.
To paraphrase, the printer had problems that Stallman's group could fix, but they weren't allowed to without an NDA. The group had fixed a similar problem with an older printer, so this outraged him. He got the bug for free and clear source and it stuck.
You can see how he probably sees hardware as a fixed quantity and software as the gooey free-flowing stuff he can affect.
Of course, that world-view doesn't take into account hardware patents, NDAs, interoperability breakers like Slot 1, and other hardware nonsense that we've had to deal with because hardware designs are proprietary. With open hardware specs under infectious licenses, we could be as free of that nonsense as we are of M$ nonsense now.
As someone who has read the Discworld novels practically in reverse order, I can second the sentiments about the 'Discword learning curve.'
On the other hand, The Truth is one of the few Discworld books that introduces an entirely new storyline and characters, so it's an excellent first-read for those unfamiliar with the Discworld series.
Other Discworld books that are good first reads are Pyramids, Small Gods, and the recently re-released The Color of Magic. Be careful, though: after springboarding into the Discworld universe with any of these books, you're likely to end up doing silly things like buying up every UK edition of Pratchett's books from London bookstores while on vacation. :)
Not to bash the VA/Andover thing, which is a fine idea, but I just realized that some of our favorite .org sites aren't even close to non-profit anymore. Slashdot, Themes.org, what's next? Gnome.org owned by Red Hat? Just me being a domain-name purist a little too late. :)
For a better look at Verne's vision of the future (and how accurate it could be), read his Paris in the Twentieth Century.
Originally written in 1863, it wasn't published until 1995. In it, Verne "predicts" fax machines, bank computers, and - more importantly - the overwhelming role of technology and business in defining culture. The foreword from 1995 explains how his technical predictions were quite plain based on the technology that was being developed at the time, but I find his portrayal of a culture that forgot its purpose to be much more amazing.
This book is definitely not a cheery glance at a time of spaceships, but rather a depressing look at what happens when we forget what all this technology is for.
I'm still amazed that open source software is considered separate from commercial software. Does Red Hat not make huge gobs of money from open source software? Is there anything in the GPL that prohibits commercializing a GPL'ed project?
Repeat it with me: One does not have to be closed to be commercially viable. That's just more FUD to be discarded.