It's really not much different than the techno-babble bullshiz that they say on Star Trek - the words are unimportant, but it's important that it sound real.
You mean what they say in star trek is not real!! you broke my dreams! you son of a b*tch.
I believe you got it wrong. You are not saving money because you are not paying the license anymore. You are saving money because the openness of the code make it more reusable and more efficient.
I believe what GP meant is that since we are saving 1 trillion dollars we are firing x thousands software developers. He is looking at a bigger picture, whatever how software is produced if we pay less money it means we hire less people.
My question to GP would be, when you are at the super market, do you buy the expensive cereal bars to make sure marketing people an still be employed ? Of course you don't.
The important point in TFA is that FOSS business is more efficient, due to code reusability and more efficient testing. Which I believe is a good thing. To know if people are going to be fired the question would be: will people/companies reduce their cost or will theyget better software for the same price ?
PS : Hey that's the second time I am replying to one of your comments today:)
Ok, I don't want to post only a "mod parent up" so I'll say something related.
I was looking a few years ago for some software to handle my personal schedule. I first looked at google calendar but it came useless on a mobile device without internet connexion. So I had a look at evolution or other software. And they suck so much (memory) that I decided not to use them. I finally found a ncurses based calendar( http://culot.org/calcurse/ if you are interested ). It was fast, efficient and free. I was happy
I finally crossed a bug in calcurse. I just corrected it and send a patch to the author. I also needed some more command line interface to do automatic visual alerts on my computer. I just wrote the piece of code I needed and send it to the author.
In conclusion, the author would have to write the software anyway because he needed it. His cost was publishing the software online, in other word nothing. What did he got in return ? patches and new functionnality. So he won something by publishing it. What about me, I got a working and light calendar application I was able to customize it to fit my needs. I am even currently using it on my maemo tablet and will soon write some desktop applet to have better integration. Clearly I won something by using/debugging/improving it; I skiped all the basics of the application; it was already written.
So clearly this was a non commercial example and it does not addresses GP's comments:
I'd be pretty pissed to see folks in big offices making real nice livings off of software that I designed and developed and tested.
I would say I do not really care. I had to write it anyway. I would even be happy to be of any use to a greater community. With a bit of luck, they would even contribute back to your code oremploy you to maintain it. In any way, I would not have lost anything; perhaps just not win as much as I could. But as long as I can eat, feed my familly (ok, I do not have a family. yet) and have some fun. I don't care if some other guy is making money out of my work.
The conclusion of the benchmark seem pretty unclear to me. comparing a development versin with debugging compiled with different compilers on different operating systems lead to different result.
I could have guessed that. I believe a benchmark is useless without a good insight of why the performance are different and how to correct the problem.
Well, I have been living in the US for a year. So I do not know and understand all the choice yet. But from what I saw, there is far more visiblity in the US than in europe.:)
In the US (not all the state I think), there is turn-on-red which means you can always turn right (provided you are on the most right lane) but you must yield if the traffic light is red. Turn on red is the common thing and it is specified when it is forbidden. Whereas in France, the opposite is used : you can not turn unless the right green arrow is lit.
I believe the rule is turn on red in the US because the roads are new and built with good visibility. When there is no visibility turn on red is forbidden. Whereas in France at most intersections turn on red would be dangerous due to the lack of visibility. Therefore turn on red is the exception.
I notice you went out of your way to say "non-criminal" rather than claiming that traffic violations are civil, so I assume you already know that you're muddying the waters.
In fact I just didn't knew. I thought it might be different, something as a part of it is federal.
This does not change the fact that the kind of law you sue over -- civil law -- does not include running a red.
I agree it does not (neither in the US nor in France). But it could make sense.
By contrast, in an individual lawsuit if the judge and jury want to send a message to the defendant they can award punitive damages which really do hurt.
I agree with that. My point is that as an individual I would not sue for 10$ hoping the judge/jury will award punitive damage. Whereas if I am a lawyer my whole point will be to get punitive damage. In one case it will stay as it is in the other one someone may (or may not) do it.
I dont like lawyer, but I like unfair companies even less.:)
In brief, I believe that being able to sue for any illegal activities whether you are concerned or not may improve the overall good. (Being honest, it may also lead to a lot of junk and stupid trial)
Despite I am using linux on all my machines, there are a lot of companies relying on exchange (server side) and outlook (client side). I never use them, but I have been told that FOSS replacements are not as good as the original.
You could also try to run it in wine
Also, there still are a lot of problem with wifi (despite it is more a laptop problem than a desktop one)
Hmm... ok, well the law does not respect your claim that you have an interest in seeing civil law used to resolve disputes of which you are not a part. Do you respect the law in that regard, or only the laws you agree with?
US laws seem to be like this. I do my best to respect the law as I understand it. The US legal system not allowing me to complain for an unlawful event is an other matter. And I respect it as it is. It does not means I do want it to change. (Well, I do not care that much about US laws)
You are interested in non-criminal law being respected. You do not want everybody to pass when traffic lights are red. It is not criminal laws but you still want it to be enforced.
In any case, class action suits as implemented in the American law system are anything but an example of how a sane system might work. The only party that benefits from most class action suits is the lawyer; the plaintifs who don't opt out typically get $10 coupons for the defendant's product or service.
I think it is all about incentive. No one is going to sue for 10 bucks but a lawyer will sue for million he will get. If I was a company perhaps I will think about it before trying something illegal no individual will complain about.
I do not read US newspapers enough to see how it applies in practice but it seems to have nice properties.
comments all over/. are worried about the signal-noise ratio. It is sure that it will be used for spamming/defacing purpose. But using private comment server or user based white listing or even friend approved comments, you will improve the experience. Of course, it will reduce the amount of comments you will access. But probably for the best.
I believe that law should be respected. full stop. My interest as a citizen of a country is that laws are respected. It is the only point in having a state.
I believe US laws allow a lawyer to sue in the name of someone that may not agree with the lawsuit. I think it is linked with class actions but I am not sure of it.
There are case where you can not sue due to the costs of the lawsuit or due to pressure applied on you. It is classical in employer/employee relation. It is classical in France in the employment-on-demand system which are sometimes completely illegal. But the employee says nothing because he/she does not want to sleep under a bridge.
Any sane legal system should let ANYBODY sue over ANY illegal thing. Unfortunately, it is not like this in France.
IANAL but I believe in France the only thing you need to be allowed to sue is to have something to gain. Here AFAP have access to the source code to gain, therefore is allowed to sue.
I wish I had a billion mod points for you. I am really looking forward when the internet will become decentralized again. It was engineered to be decentralized but is in practice very centralized. People should host distributed services. I am still stunned people put videos on youtube. It would be so much better to host them on a p2p network. Implementing that should be fairly easy from freenet.
Would you? Really? Cause I have been using Linux exclusively for my servers, desktops and notebooks for years and I didn't know there was a "laptop" ubuntu. Or suse. Or redhat.
When you install debian there is a "laptop" mode you an choose at the installation. However, I have no clue what it contains
I believe the config is relevant. Some hardware only have creepy linux driver which prevent using hardware acceleration. The difference in battery life time will differ from one machine to the other. So the config IS relevant.
Slashdot Mirror
It's really not much different than the techno-babble bullshiz that they say on Star Trek - the words are unimportant, but it's important that it sound real.
You mean what they say in star trek is not real!! you broke my dreams! you son of a b*tch.
The naysayers use this as an argument against FOSS saying that it undermines the industry and therefor the economy.
FOSS is developed and used by communist and anarchist, DON'T YOU KNOW ?!?!
I believe you got it wrong. You are not saving money because you are not paying the license anymore. You are saving money because the openness of the code make it more reusable and more efficient.
No blonde girl dancing naked on my desk ? I am not getting it!
I believe what GP meant is that since we are saving 1 trillion dollars we are firing x thousands software developers. He is looking at a bigger picture, whatever how software is produced if we pay less money it means we hire less people.
My question to GP would be, when you are at the super market, do you buy the expensive cereal bars to make sure marketing people an still be employed ? Of course you don't.
The important point in TFA is that FOSS business is more efficient, due to code reusability and more efficient testing. Which I believe is a good thing. To know if people are going to be fired the question would be: will people/companies reduce their cost or will theyget better software for the same price ?
PS : Hey that's the second time I am replying to one of your comments today :)
sudo mod me up
Hey mods, read the signature as well!
Ok, I don't want to post only a "mod parent up" so I'll say something related.
I was looking a few years ago for some software to handle my personal schedule. I first looked at google calendar but it came useless on a mobile device without internet connexion. So I had a look at evolution or other software. And they suck so much (memory) that I decided not to use them. I finally found a ncurses based calendar( http://culot.org/calcurse/ if you are interested ). It was fast, efficient and free. I was happy
I finally crossed a bug in calcurse. I just corrected it and send a patch to the author. I also needed some more command line interface to do automatic visual alerts on my computer. I just wrote the piece of code I needed and send it to the author.
In conclusion, the author would have to write the software anyway because he needed it. His cost was publishing the software online, in other word nothing. What did he got in return ? patches and new functionnality. So he won something by publishing it. What about me, I got a working and light calendar application I was able to customize it to fit my needs. I am even currently using it on my maemo tablet and will soon write some desktop applet to have better integration. Clearly I won something by using/debugging/improving it; I skiped all the basics of the application; it was already written.
So clearly this was a non commercial example and it does not addresses GP's comments:
I'd be pretty pissed to see folks in big offices making real nice livings off of software that I designed and developed and tested.
I would say I do not really care. I had to write it anyway. I would even be happy to be of any use to a greater community. With a bit of luck, they would even contribute back to your code oremploy you to maintain it. In any way, I would not have lost anything; perhaps just not win as much as I could. But as long as I can eat, feed my familly (ok, I do not have a family. yet) and have some fun. I don't care if some other guy is making money out of my work.
The conclusion of the benchmark seem pretty unclear to me. comparing a development versin with debugging compiled with different compilers on different operating systems lead to different result.
I could have guessed that. I believe a benchmark is useless without a good insight of why the performance are different and how to correct the problem.
Haha, you obviously don't live in the US.
Well, I have been living in the US for a year. So I do not know and understand all the choice yet. But from what I saw, there is far more visiblity in the US than in europe. :)
BTW, thanks for the extra info.
In the US (not all the state I think), there is turn-on-red which means you can always turn right (provided you are on the most right lane) but you must yield if the traffic light is red. Turn on red is the common thing and it is specified when it is forbidden. Whereas in France, the opposite is used : you can not turn unless the right green arrow is lit.
I believe the rule is turn on red in the US because the roads are new and built with good visibility. When there is no visibility turn on red is forbidden. Whereas in France at most intersections turn on red would be dangerous due to the lack of visibility. Therefore turn on red is the exception.
it seems the comments about barrelfish got mixed with the one on corona ca. Can some one hear cowboy neal horse coming to rescue us ?
I notice you went out of your way to say "non-criminal" rather than claiming that traffic violations are civil, so I assume you already know that you're muddying the waters.
In fact I just didn't knew. I thought it might be different, something as a part of it is federal.
This does not change the fact that the kind of law you sue over -- civil law -- does not include running a red.
I agree it does not (neither in the US nor in France). But it could make sense.
By contrast, in an individual lawsuit if the judge and jury want to send a message to the defendant they can award punitive damages which really do hurt.
I agree with that. My point is that as an individual I would not sue for 10$ hoping the judge/jury will award punitive damage. Whereas if I am a lawyer my whole point will be to get punitive damage. In one case it will stay as it is in the other one someone may (or may not) do it.
I dont like lawyer, but I like unfair companies even less. :)
In brief, I believe that being able to sue for any illegal activities whether you are concerned or not may improve the overall good. (Being honest, it may also lead to a lot of junk and stupid trial)
Despite I am using linux on all my machines, there are a lot of companies relying on exchange (server side) and outlook (client side). I never use them, but I have been told that FOSS replacements are not as good as the original.
You could also try to run it in wine
Also, there still are a lot of problem with wifi (despite it is more a laptop problem than a desktop one)
Hmm... ok, well the law does not respect your claim that you have an interest in seeing civil law used to resolve disputes of which you are not a part. Do you respect the law in that regard, or only the laws you agree with?
US laws seem to be like this. I do my best to respect the law as I understand it. The US legal system not allowing me to complain for an unlawful event is an other matter. And I respect it as it is. It does not means I do want it to change. (Well, I do not care that much about US laws)
You are interested in non-criminal law being respected. You do not want everybody to pass when traffic lights are red. It is not criminal laws but you still want it to be enforced.
In any case, class action suits as implemented in the American law system are anything but an example of how a sane system might work. The only party that benefits from most class action suits is the lawyer; the plaintifs who don't opt out typically get $10 coupons for the defendant's product or service.
I think it is all about incentive. No one is going to sue for 10 bucks but a lawyer will sue for million he will get. If I was a company perhaps I will think about it before trying something illegal no individual will complain about.
I do not read US newspapers enough to see how it applies in practice but it seems to have nice properties.
comments all over /. are worried about the signal-noise ratio. It is sure that it will be used for spamming/defacing purpose. But using private comment server or user based white listing or even friend approved comments, you will improve the experience. Of course, it will reduce the amount of comments you will access. But probably for the best.
In the wii, downloadable upgrade must be done in the game itself since there is no operating system running when the game run. marcan explains that very well in http://hackmii.com/2009/02/why-the-wii-will-never-get-any-better/
I believe that law should be respected. full stop. My interest as a citizen of a country is that laws are respected. It is the only point in having a state.
I believe US laws allow a lawyer to sue in the name of someone that may not agree with the lawsuit. I think it is linked with class actions but I am not sure of it.
There are case where you can not sue due to the costs of the lawsuit or due to pressure applied on you. It is classical in employer/employee relation. It is classical in France in the employment-on-demand system which are sometimes completely illegal. But the employee says nothing because he/she does not want to sleep under a bridge.
I would like so much the cheerleaders to be free...
Any sane legal system should let ANYBODY sue over ANY illegal thing. Unfortunately, it is not like this in France.
IANAL but I believe in France the only thing you need to be allowed to sue is to have something to gain. Here AFAP have access to the source code to gain, therefore is allowed to sue.
I agree. Models in ads should never wear clothes!
I wish I had a billion mod points for you. I am really looking forward when the internet will become decentralized again. It was engineered to be decentralized but is in practice very centralized. People should host distributed services. I am still stunned people put videos on youtube. It would be so much better to host them on a p2p network. Implementing that should be fairly easy from freenet.
This game is for chicks : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMKTdrQqpNk&feature=PlayList&p=FA61A91B8C81A86E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5
My wireless network is kept open. I prefer to be sure that it is not safe than believe it is :) BTW, I call it ParasiteNet. :)
Would you? Really? Cause I have been using Linux exclusively for my servers, desktops and notebooks for years and I didn't know there was a "laptop" ubuntu. Or suse. Or redhat.
When you install debian there is a "laptop" mode you an choose at the installation. However, I have no clue what it contains
I believe the config is relevant. Some hardware only have creepy linux driver which prevent using hardware acceleration. The difference in battery life time will differ from one machine to the other. So the config IS relevant.
mmm, that's true. my mistake. (why did I believed there was prime number involved ?)