Because, when I read it, it specifically said that Dr. Who was an exception and does not qualify as science fiction. And then it went on with something about the population of elephants tripling in the last six months that I didn't quite understand....:)
Actually, it's good to point out that "string theory" is a non-scientific theory just like intelligent design. Then they can't use the excuse that we're just persecuting them because we hate religion or something. Science has standards, and neither ST nor ID meet the standards necessary to be called a scientific theory.
Oh, and ID has nothing to do with any religious book. People who argue that know as little about ID as they do about string theory. Although I admit that's beside the point--the creationists who've latched onto the ID label are too stupid to understand the distinction, let alone any of the rest of this discussion. But bottom line, I think that rejecting string theory on the grounds that it's not science is a Good Thing in the war against religious nuts who yammer about "intelligent design" without knowing what it means. It helps eliminate accusations of bias.
What makes you think the answer isn't "both of the above"? About the only market segment I can think of that displays less acumen and need to justify outrageous prices is the audiophile market. And if you can figure out how to market to both! "Yeah, man, you really need this gold-foil-wrapped video cable at a low, low price of only $400! Without it, your pixels will be rendered 2% less effectively!":)
I see nothing in the post that indicates he's looking for free "as in beer"! All he said was "free". Does he have to capitalize it before you're willing to read a request for freedom in there? I mean, I don't know if he meant free-as-in-speech or -as-in-beer, but I certainly don't see anything that would justify leaping the conclusion that he meant -as-in-beer.
As for "those of us who make it our life's work"...get over it! I started writing sort routines in assembler in the late seventies, but I'm not bothered by the fact that the C standard now has quicksort and C++ has even more sorting options. Life goes on, and you find new challenges. Personally, I'm happy to be working on higher level stuff these days!
Yup, definitely a classic, and the first thing I thought of, too. One of my favorite lines: "Meanwhile, tens of millions of sperm swarm in the air over Metropolis."
Larry Niven's mind seems to be capable of going places I would tend to avoid, at all costs!:)
> "is it worth spending tens of thousands of dollars a year of public money to house and feed a spammer?"
Capital punishment is much more cost effective, and tends to have a fairly low recidivism rate.
But even cheaper would be to simply declare them vermin, and allow them to be shot on sight. Ranchers in southwest used to hang coyote skins on their fences to scare away other coyotes. I think a few spammer skins hung on the fences of Research Triangle and Silicon Valley businesses might go a long way towards solving the problem of spam.:)
(Note: I didn't fail to RTFA because I'm lazy or stupid, but because slashvertizements and blog-pimping has gotten so common on slashdot's front page that I always browse the comments looking for "a better/more informative link is X" before clicking through on any articles. It's a sad commentary on slashdot's "editorial standards" that I'm more willing to trust random slashdot posters than I am to trust the people in charge.)
Anyway, anecdotal evidence of a single Maxtor drive exploding is hardly news. It could have been a power supply short or something like that. Let me know when someone detects a trend.
Wow, I just bought a Linspire machine last week that was on sale at Fry's for $129.00 + tax. Not that I'm running Linspire, of course. I dropped in my old HD with Debian on it. (Dropped in a few other things too, but that's beside the point.) But I've still got the Linspire HD, and haven't even reformatted it yet. If I don't have to pay for CNR, I might even plug it in and play with it first.
I still think I made the right choice by setting up my aunt with Ubuntu instead of Linspire, but I might have to take a closer look at Linspire now. Especially since I just happen to have a copy here.:)
I have to say that I was very happy to not give money to MS. Whatever else you might say about Linspire, they do make it easier to buy a pre-assembled, burnt-in machine without paying the MS tax, and I think that's a good thing. The sales-droid at Fry's did try to talk me out of buying the machine (they don't make any commission on the in-house brands), but as soon as I said, "I don't want to give Microsoft any money," she stopped arguing and got me my box.:)
What are you, blind? I don't think I've ever used any bulb over 100-watt in my entire life! And at the moment, I don't think we have anything in the house over 60W (or 60W-equivalent CF). Yes, the house is dimmer at night than during the day, but it's plenty bright enough to read or engage in other normal activities. I find that having less light at night helps me calm down and relax. I've also found that the bluer light of the CFs makes it easier to see with less light, even with my aging eyes. And the lower power bills are definitely a sight for sore eyes!:)
That assumes you give a rat's ass about people who are stupid enough to be running Windows. And who won't let you boot your knoppix disc, which would make the whole issue moot. People like that deserve random crap in their registry!:)
Ok, ok, I'm joking. I didn't know there was a portaputty, but I'm definitely going to get it now. Thanks.
With "Universal Pictures", I'm only risking $10 or so. With "Virgin Galactic", I'm risking my life. I'm much more willing to allow stupid people to try to entertain me than I am to allow them to strap huge amounts of explosives to my ass!;)
p.s. while my original post and this one were both tongue-in-cheek, I do have to say that I think whoever came up with the name "Universal Pictures" does deserve to be slapped around with a wet cluefish. Although I suppose I might need a time machine to do so at this point. Oh well.:)
Virgin "Galactic"? If these people are too stupid to know the difference between a galaxy and a planet, there's no way in hell I'm going to trust them with my precious body!:)
> Multiple people cannot have the copyright on the whole of the song
Actually, for any given instance of a song, there's usually at least three copyrights on the whole of the song: the songwriter's copyright on the composition, the performer's copyright on the performance, and the recorder's copyright on the particular recording. The last one mainly comes up with bands that allow taping at their live performances, especially when multiple people are recording the same show, but it exists, and it matters.
There are also, as cpt kangarooski points out, circumstances under which the composition alone can have multiple copyright holders. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. An actual recording of a performance of a song can have dozens of copyrights on the whole thing.
> My boss has exactly the opposite talent. If something is working perfectly and has been running properly for days, weeks, or even months, it will go haywire thirty seconds after he walks up to look over your shoulder.
That can actually be useful! You just have to make sure you include him as a regular part of the testing cycle. Seriously. I've worked with people like that, and, although it can be horrifying at first, once you get used to it, they can be extremely valuable.
The only problem is people who cause things to go haywire only when you don't want them to, and not when you do.:)
> "Well, I confess that only now I fully understand why Linux, Mozilla, TrueCrypt, and other open source projects register their names as trademarks"
In the case of Linux(tm), it's precisely because back in the mid-nineties, someone named William Della Croce, Jr. tried to hijack the mark and extort money from various vendors and publishers. It took a year, and a bunch of money, to get the matter resolved and the trademark reassigned to Linus.
It was an ugly and sordid affair, and I really wish there were better alternatives than either registering a mark or allowing it to be attacked by trolls. Prior use of a mark--even an unregistered mark--does (or should) count against trolls, at least in the US, but it can still be a hassle to fight them off if the mark's not registered. Personally, I would like to see the term "Linux" become a generic term (like "Aspirin"), but I can understand why Linus is reluctant to allow that to happen after the Dell Croce incident.
Bottom line: stupid people don't care; smart people have already remapped the key to something useful, and probably don't want to be bothered to rearrange everything again. (I have it mapped to the compose key.) So it's only the semi-dumb--the people who are smart enough to notice that something's wrong, but not smart enough to do anything about it--who could possibly care.
Crap. That probably means it's going to happen, doesn't it? If the semi-dumb can fuck up something useful, just to avoid a little confusion themselves, they will, won't they? This idiot will probably succeed in removing all "un-useful" (i.e. remappable) keys from any convenient locations, screwing those of use who want to map in something extra. 'Cause nothing matches the power of the semi-dumb. [sigh]
I know you meant the comment about "go work on HURD" to be ironic, but the fact is that there is a not-so-experimental project that actually will allow me to dump Linus's stupid kernel without giving up all the meaty GNU goodness I love, and I am seriously considering a switch to GNU/BSD in the not-too-distant future. For a number of reasons.
Anyway, this isn't about taking away Linus' freedom to chose the license for his own software. He already did that, long ago, and GPLv3 is not it. Even if he wanted to, he'd have a very hard time switching Linux to GPLv3 at this point. But he's out there playing politician, trying to influence other people's license choices, and that makes him fair game for debate. (Especially when he says stupid things or misinterprets the plain terms of a license he isn't even using.) Or are you trying to say that only Linus is allowed to try to influence people?
> "1. locked digital media > This is where the GPLv3 works"
Sort of. If someone wants to include a DRM'd player on an otherwise free system (including GPLv3), there's no problem. That's simply bundling. But yes, they would have to write the media-player component from scratch if they wanted it to have DRM. The rest of the system could be GPLv3 (or LGPLv3) though.
> "2. locked FOSS-using devices (the Tivo scenario) > I think the FSF, and software developers advocating GPLv3, are seriously overstepping their bounds here. Basically, they're telling hardware developers that in order to use FOSS, not only do they need to give freely what they freely received (which is just reasonable), but they also have to make THEIR OWN product convertable to any use their customers see fit."
No they are NOT overstepping their bounds. The whole point of the GPL is and always has been to ensure that someone who receives the code has the same rights and freedoms as the person who provided it (not counting any additional rights reserved to the actual copyright holders). The FSF is simply telling hardware developers that they don't have any special additional rights to control the software (not their software, remember) simply because they are working in hardware rather than software. This simply puts the hardware developers on the same footing that software developers (such as me) have been on with respect to GPL'd software all along.
The point of the GPL has always been to ensure an equal footing for everyone, rather than have separate classes of "developers" and "users". Everyone is potentially a developer. The TiVo model undermines that by making TiVo a privileged developer. The GPLv3 is merely closing a loophole that was never supposed to be there in the first place.
> "The net result will simply be that hardware developers will stop considering the use of FOSS"
Yes, and that's fine. Although I will correct that to say "SOME hardware developers". And that's no different from the fact that some software developers will not consider using FLOSS for similar reasons. The fact is that if hardware developers can't make money out of selling hardware, there's something wrong with them! Your arguments for hardware developers using non-free software make MORE sense for software developers than hardware developers. And yet, somehow, software developers seem perfectly able to use and make money off of FLOSS. Why are hardware developers so special? Why do they deserve their own privileged class with respect to FLOSS users/developers?
Why should these hardware developers get special benefits from the hard work of an international community of software developers dedicated to the principle of sharing? Why should hardware developers, and hardware developers alone, be able to ignore the principles of sharing that everyone else is subject to? Why should hardware developers be able to sell me a copy of my code--code I wrote and licensed under the GPL--without allowing me to enhance/fix it, when I specifically released it under a license that was intended to prevent that?
It seems to me that Linus (and you) are identifying too much with the hardware developers and forgetting the perspective of software developers! Let alone end users. Software developers have been learning to come to terms with the GPL for years (in my case, close to two decades). We've figured out how to go on making money even in an environment of freedom. Why are hardware developers so special that they don't need to go through the same process? And face the same alternatives (develop your own software from scratch, with all the extra work and insecurity that implies, if you don't want to share or play nice).
Arguments about "more people will develop for/with free software if we simply don't insist that it be free" have always been stupid and always will be. (Although they are raised on a regular basis.) This is not, and neve
> "You'll notice he/she wasn't looking for a color printer."
No, he said "[c]olor is not so important". That is a LOT different than saying "I don't want a color printer". Secondly, as someone else pointed out, this is a slashdot discussion, which means that other people may be reading this because they have similar, but not identical requirements! Thirdly, even if it's not a deciding factor for him, it may still be a factor for him to consider. Just because you don't give a shit about your own personal rights and freedoms doesn't mean that everyone is as stupid as you. I am in the market for a laser printer, and I hadn't seen that list. It may or may not influence my final decision, but I'm very glad to have the information!
> All you EFF fanatics need to grow up
Yeah, and all you trolls need to crawl back under your bridges! Providing information that some may find useful is not a sign of immaturity. Refusing to consider the implications of your actions is. Other things being equal, I would prefer to have a printer which does NOT add semi-random yellow dots to my images, no matter WHAT the intent of those dots is! When I tell my printer to print something, I would rather have it print what I told it, not something similar-but-pre-marked-for-law-enforcement. Whether or not I'm an "EFF fanatic" (which I'm not).
Walmart's trying to emulate Open Source? No, wait, I mean, Microsoft's trying to emulate MySpace? Sorry, too many articles about too many vile scumbags pretending to be cool in too short a period of time. I'm getting them all mixed up.:)
QA costs are part of the initial costs to develop. And one of the most widely variable parts. Higher quality code costs more to create. That's why I'm curious how (if at all) they're estimating the quality costs.
What kind of QA costs are they assuming? If they're basing their estimates on MS's QA costs, they may be coming in as much as an order of magnitude low!:)
It doesn't seem to say anything about how they do their estimation. An accurate estimate would have to take into account (among other things) bugs per LOC, a number which is VERY expensive to reduce and hard to measure (especially from the outside).
This could actually be enough to convince me to switch AWAY from Firefox! There's plenty of other browsers that come with Debian, and many of them are reputed to be quite good. If Firefox is going to be switching their focus from quality to marketing, well, that's not the kind of thing I want to be associated with. I'm definitely not going to submit my name for this list (even though I'm well qualified to be on it--I converted three people this month alone). And I'll even continue to recommend Firefox to Windows users (who need all the help they can get). But I see no reason to waste my own disk space on such nonsense!
No, they weren't wrong! (Probably.) Read it again:
"c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)"
You can only accompany it with an offer you received if you received such an offer! Most GPL software is distributed under Subsection a (source included), rather than Subsection b (three-year offer). Which means that Subsection c is usually meaningless.
Slashdot Mirror
Because, when I read it, it specifically said that Dr. Who was an exception and does not qualify as science fiction. And then it went on with something about the population of elephants tripling in the last six months that I didn't quite understand.... :)
Actually, it's good to point out that "string theory" is a non-scientific theory just like intelligent design. Then they can't use the excuse that we're just persecuting them because we hate religion or something. Science has standards, and neither ST nor ID meet the standards necessary to be called a scientific theory.
Oh, and ID has nothing to do with any religious book. People who argue that know as little about ID as they do about string theory. Although I admit that's beside the point--the creationists who've latched onto the ID label are too stupid to understand the distinction, let alone any of the rest of this discussion. But bottom line, I think that rejecting string theory on the grounds that it's not science is a Good Thing in the war against religious nuts who yammer about "intelligent design" without knowing what it means. It helps eliminate accusations of bias.
What makes you think the answer isn't "both of the above"? About the only market segment I can think of that displays less acumen and need to justify outrageous prices is the audiophile market. And if you can figure out how to market to both! "Yeah, man, you really need this gold-foil-wrapped video cable at a low, low price of only $400! Without it, your pixels will be rendered 2% less effectively!" :)
I see nothing in the post that indicates he's looking for free "as in beer"! All he said was "free". Does he have to capitalize it before you're willing to read a request for freedom in there? I mean, I don't know if he meant free-as-in-speech or -as-in-beer, but I certainly don't see anything that would justify leaping the conclusion that he meant -as-in-beer.
As for "those of us who make it our life's work"...get over it! I started writing sort routines in assembler in the late seventies, but I'm not bothered by the fact that the C standard now has quicksort and C++ has even more sorting options. Life goes on, and you find new challenges. Personally, I'm happy to be working on higher level stuff these days!
Yup, definitely a classic, and the first thing I thought of, too. One of my favorite lines: "Meanwhile, tens of millions of sperm swarm in the air over Metropolis."
:)
Larry Niven's mind seems to be capable of going places I would tend to avoid, at all costs!
> "is it worth spending tens of thousands of dollars a year of public money to house and feed a spammer?"
:)
Capital punishment is much more cost effective, and tends to have a fairly low recidivism rate.
But even cheaper would be to simply declare them vermin, and allow them to be shot on sight. Ranchers in southwest used to hang coyote skins on their fences to scare away other coyotes. I think a few spammer skins hung on the fences of Research Triangle and Silicon Valley businesses might go a long way towards solving the problem of spam.
Not reading TFA...
:)
There were ads on that page?
(Note: I didn't fail to RTFA because I'm lazy or stupid, but because slashvertizements and blog-pimping has gotten so common on slashdot's front page that I always browse the comments looking for "a better/more informative link is X" before clicking through on any articles. It's a sad commentary on slashdot's "editorial standards" that I'm more willing to trust random slashdot posters than I am to trust the people in charge.)
Anyway, anecdotal evidence of a single Maxtor drive exploding is hardly news. It could have been a power supply short or something like that. Let me know when someone detects a trend.
Wow, I just bought a Linspire machine last week that was on sale at Fry's for $129.00 + tax. Not that I'm running Linspire, of course. I dropped in my old HD with Debian on it. (Dropped in a few other things too, but that's beside the point.) But I've still got the Linspire HD, and haven't even reformatted it yet. If I don't have to pay for CNR, I might even plug it in and play with it first.
:)
:)
I still think I made the right choice by setting up my aunt with Ubuntu instead of Linspire, but I might have to take a closer look at Linspire now. Especially since I just happen to have a copy here.
I have to say that I was very happy to not give money to MS. Whatever else you might say about Linspire, they do make it easier to buy a pre-assembled, burnt-in machine without paying the MS tax, and I think that's a good thing. The sales-droid at Fry's did try to talk me out of buying the machine (they don't make any commission on the in-house brands), but as soon as I said, "I don't want to give Microsoft any money," she stopped arguing and got me my box.
Are you kidding? The refill cartridges for those are nearly as expensive as the whole printer! :)
What are you, blind? I don't think I've ever used any bulb over 100-watt in my entire life! And at the moment, I don't think we have anything in the house over 60W (or 60W-equivalent CF). Yes, the house is dimmer at night than during the day, but it's plenty bright enough to read or engage in other normal activities. I find that having less light at night helps me calm down and relax. I've also found that the bluer light of the CFs makes it easier to see with less light, even with my aging eyes. And the lower power bills are definitely a sight for sore eyes! :)
That assumes you give a rat's ass about people who are stupid enough to be running Windows. And who won't let you boot your knoppix disc, which would make the whole issue moot. People like that deserve random crap in their registry! :)
Ok, ok, I'm joking. I didn't know there was a portaputty, but I'm definitely going to get it now. Thanks.
With "Universal Pictures", I'm only risking $10 or so. With "Virgin Galactic", I'm risking my life. I'm much more willing to allow stupid people to try to entertain me than I am to allow them to strap huge amounts of explosives to my ass! ;)
:)
p.s. while my original post and this one were both tongue-in-cheek, I do have to say that I think whoever came up with the name "Universal Pictures" does deserve to be slapped around with a wet cluefish. Although I suppose I might need a time machine to do so at this point. Oh well.
Virgin "Galactic"? If these people are too stupid to know the difference between a galaxy and a planet, there's no way in hell I'm going to trust them with my precious body! :)
> Multiple people cannot have the copyright on the whole of the song
Actually, for any given instance of a song, there's usually at least three copyrights on the whole of the song: the songwriter's copyright on the composition, the performer's copyright on the performance, and the recorder's copyright on the particular recording. The last one mainly comes up with bands that allow taping at their live performances, especially when multiple people are recording the same show, but it exists, and it matters.
There are also, as cpt kangarooski points out, circumstances under which the composition alone can have multiple copyright holders. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. An actual recording of a performance of a song can have dozens of copyrights on the whole thing.
> My boss has exactly the opposite talent. If something is working perfectly and has been running properly for days, weeks, or even months, it will go haywire thirty seconds after he walks up to look over your shoulder.
:)
That can actually be useful! You just have to make sure you include him as a regular part of the testing cycle. Seriously. I've worked with people like that, and, although it can be horrifying at first, once you get used to it, they can be extremely valuable.
The only problem is people who cause things to go haywire only when you don't want them to, and not when you do.
> "Well, I confess that only now I fully understand why Linux, Mozilla, TrueCrypt, and other open source projects register their names as trademarks"
In the case of Linux(tm), it's precisely because back in the mid-nineties, someone named William Della Croce, Jr. tried to hijack the mark and extort money from various vendors and publishers. It took a year, and a bunch of money, to get the matter resolved and the trademark reassigned to Linus.
It was an ugly and sordid affair, and I really wish there were better alternatives than either registering a mark or allowing it to be attacked by trolls. Prior use of a mark--even an unregistered mark--does (or should) count against trolls, at least in the US, but it can still be a hassle to fight them off if the mark's not registered. Personally, I would like to see the term "Linux" become a generic term (like "Aspirin"), but I can understand why Linus is reluctant to allow that to happen after the Dell Croce incident.
Bottom line: stupid people don't care; smart people have already remapped the key to something useful, and probably don't want to be bothered to rearrange everything again. (I have it mapped to the compose key.) So it's only the semi-dumb--the people who are smart enough to notice that something's wrong, but not smart enough to do anything about it--who could possibly care.
Crap. That probably means it's going to happen, doesn't it? If the semi-dumb can fuck up something useful, just to avoid a little confusion themselves, they will, won't they? This idiot will probably succeed in removing all "un-useful" (i.e. remappable) keys from any convenient locations, screwing those of use who want to map in something extra. 'Cause nothing matches the power of the semi-dumb. [sigh]
I know you meant the comment about "go work on HURD" to be ironic, but the fact is that there is a not-so-experimental project that actually will allow me to dump Linus's stupid kernel without giving up all the meaty GNU goodness I love, and I am seriously considering a switch to GNU/BSD in the not-too-distant future. For a number of reasons.
Anyway, this isn't about taking away Linus' freedom to chose the license for his own software. He already did that, long ago, and GPLv3 is not it. Even if he wanted to, he'd have a very hard time switching Linux to GPLv3 at this point. But he's out there playing politician, trying to influence other people's license choices, and that makes him fair game for debate. (Especially when he says stupid things or misinterprets the plain terms of a license he isn't even using.) Or are you trying to say that only Linus is allowed to try to influence people?
> "1. locked digital media
> This is where the GPLv3 works"
Sort of. If someone wants to include a DRM'd player on an otherwise free system (including GPLv3), there's no problem. That's simply bundling. But yes, they would have to write the media-player component from scratch if they wanted it to have DRM. The rest of the system could be GPLv3 (or LGPLv3) though.
> "2. locked FOSS-using devices (the Tivo scenario)
> I think the FSF, and software developers advocating GPLv3, are seriously overstepping their bounds here. Basically, they're telling hardware developers that in order to use FOSS, not only do they need to give freely what they freely received (which is just reasonable), but they also have to make THEIR OWN product convertable to any use their customers see fit."
No they are NOT overstepping their bounds. The whole point of the GPL is and always has been to ensure that someone who receives the code has the same rights and freedoms as the person who provided it (not counting any additional rights reserved to the actual copyright holders). The FSF is simply telling hardware developers that they don't have any special additional rights to control the software (not their software, remember) simply because they are working in hardware rather than software. This simply puts the hardware developers on the same footing that software developers (such as me) have been on with respect to GPL'd software all along.
The point of the GPL has always been to ensure an equal footing for everyone, rather than have separate classes of "developers" and "users". Everyone is potentially a developer. The TiVo model undermines that by making TiVo a privileged developer. The GPLv3 is merely closing a loophole that was never supposed to be there in the first place.
> "The net result will simply be that hardware developers will stop considering the use of FOSS"
Yes, and that's fine. Although I will correct that to say "SOME hardware developers". And that's no different from the fact that some software developers will not consider using FLOSS for similar reasons. The fact is that if hardware developers can't make money out of selling hardware, there's something wrong with them! Your arguments for hardware developers using non-free software make MORE sense for software developers than hardware developers. And yet, somehow, software developers seem perfectly able to use and make money off of FLOSS. Why are hardware developers so special? Why do they deserve their own privileged class with respect to FLOSS users/developers?
Why should these hardware developers get special benefits from the hard work of an international community of software developers dedicated to the principle of sharing? Why should hardware developers, and hardware developers alone, be able to ignore the principles of sharing that everyone else is subject to? Why should hardware developers be able to sell me a copy of my code--code I wrote and licensed under the GPL--without allowing me to enhance/fix it, when I specifically released it under a license that was intended to prevent that?
It seems to me that Linus (and you) are identifying too much with the hardware developers and forgetting the perspective of software developers! Let alone end users. Software developers have been learning to come to terms with the GPL for years (in my case, close to two decades). We've figured out how to go on making money even in an environment of freedom. Why are hardware developers so special that they don't need to go through the same process? And face the same alternatives (develop your own software from scratch, with all the extra work and insecurity that implies, if you don't want to share or play nice).
Arguments about "more people will develop for/with free software if we simply don't insist that it be free" have always been stupid and always will be. (Although they are raised on a regular basis.) This is not, and neve
> "You'll notice he/she wasn't looking for a color printer."
No, he said "[c]olor is not so important". That is a LOT different than saying "I don't want a color printer". Secondly, as someone else pointed out, this is a slashdot discussion, which means that other people may be reading this because they have similar, but not identical requirements! Thirdly, even if it's not a deciding factor for him, it may still be a factor for him to consider. Just because you don't give a shit about your own personal rights and freedoms doesn't mean that everyone is as stupid as you. I am in the market for a laser printer, and I hadn't seen that list. It may or may not influence my final decision, but I'm very glad to have the information!
> All you EFF fanatics need to grow up
Yeah, and all you trolls need to crawl back under your bridges! Providing information that some may find useful is not a sign of immaturity. Refusing to consider the implications of your actions is. Other things being equal, I would prefer to have a printer which does NOT add semi-random yellow dots to my images, no matter WHAT the intent of those dots is! When I tell my printer to print something, I would rather have it print what I told it, not something similar-but-pre-marked-for-law-enforcement. Whether or not I'm an "EFF fanatic" (which I'm not).
Walmart's trying to emulate Open Source? No, wait, I mean, Microsoft's trying to emulate MySpace? Sorry, too many articles about too many vile scumbags pretending to be cool in too short a period of time. I'm getting them all mixed up. :)
QA costs are part of the initial costs to develop. And one of the most widely variable parts. Higher quality code costs more to create. That's why I'm curious how (if at all) they're estimating the quality costs.
What kind of QA costs are they assuming? If they're basing their estimates on MS's QA costs, they may be coming in as much as an order of magnitude low! :)
It doesn't seem to say anything about how they do their estimation. An accurate estimate would have to take into account (among other things) bugs per LOC, a number which is VERY expensive to reduce and hard to measure (especially from the outside).
This could actually be enough to convince me to switch AWAY from Firefox! There's plenty of other browsers that come with Debian, and many of them are reputed to be quite good. If Firefox is going to be switching their focus from quality to marketing, well, that's not the kind of thing I want to be associated with. I'm definitely not going to submit my name for this list (even though I'm well qualified to be on it--I converted three people this month alone). And I'll even continue to recommend Firefox to Windows users (who need all the help they can get). But I see no reason to waste my own disk space on such nonsense!
No, they weren't wrong! (Probably.) Read it again:
"c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)"
You can only accompany it with an offer you received if you received such an offer! Most GPL software is distributed under Subsection a (source included), rather than Subsection b (three-year offer). Which means that Subsection c is usually meaningless.