The more you know about certain things, the less you know about certain other things. Intrinsicly and irreducably. Your professor's philosophy is stymied by simple physics.:)
And I've been programming professionally in a wide variety of languages for over twenty-five years, and I still don't see what that has to do with the price of tea in china. You continue to ignore my point (deliberately?) so let me say it one more time:
"...there is no valid excuse that I've heard for NOT open sourcing it. I didn't even say it should be open-sourced. I'm simply pointing out that great-granparent's "reasons" for not open-sourcing it don't stand up to scrutiny, and the arguments for open-sourcing it, do, at least, have some validity, however minor."
It doesn't matter HOW bloody easy it is to deploy, the fact is that not open sourcing it is an unnecessary obstacle, however minor. I'm asking WHY THE HELL ARE THEY PUTTING OBSTACLES IN MY PATH, and all can you say is "well, gee, it's not that big of an obstacle." That's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT!
> Why would he omit any information about *who* sent him the email? That would seem highly relevant.
Yes, it is highly relevant. Only the copyright holders can sue for copyright violation. (Note: the GPL is a defense against charges of copyright violation--you cannot be sued for violating the GPL, only for violating copyright. The GPL gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card for copyright violation suits IF you follow its conditions. It serves no other purpose.)
> Unless it's from the FSF, the threat is kind of meaningless, is it not?
No, the FSF has NO SAY over anything unless they own the code! The GPL is basically a boilerplate license much like those legal forms you can buy at office supply stores. The FSF is no more in charge of GPL'd code in general than the company that printed the forms my landlord and I signed is in charge of house I rent.
Of course, the FSF does own some of the code in the kernel, and so they are one of the parties who this could meaningfully come from, but that's because they own (some of) the code, NOT because they "own" the license.
> If it truly is a problem, could he not do a bit of compile-the-driver-at-boot-time magic?
No. Although literal-minded programmers may hate it, the law actually takes intent into consideration. NeXT wanted to try this approach to distribute their Objective-C compiler as a proprietary add-on to GCC, but after consulting with their lawyers and the FSF's, they realized that their intent to deliver a combined GPL+proprietary system to their customers would nail them to the wall, despite the trickery, and it wasn't worth it. That's why GCC includes an Objective-C compiler today.
It's not clear to me that Kororaa actually has a problem, but if they do, "magic" trickery like this won't help them fix it.
IMO, IANAL, if you have legal questions, you should consult a lawyer, and NOT (for what should now be obvious reasons) your fellow nerds!:)
Actually, there's more Americans with a sense of humor than that. The problem is that we're all on the run or in hiding because the current Puritan, er, I mean Republican government is trying to have us all locked up in concentration camps, er, I mean Offshore Detention Facilities for Crimes Against the Church, er, I mean State. (It's so hard to tell the difference between those last two these days.);)
> If you feel that way, why do you care if it is open source.
I don't. I was responding to an argument for why it shouldn't be open sourced. I'm not saying it should be open-sourced, but I am saying that those arguments against open-sourcing it were nonsense.
I don't care, but what I fail to understand is why Sun cares so much! I have yet to hear one sensible argument against open-sourcing it, and, given that, any argument for open-sourcing it, no matter how weak, should carry the day. Unless Sun's management is full of idiots, which, frankly, is a suspicion I've nurtured for years. For mostly-unrelated reasons.
What part of "and supported by" don't you understand? You think maybe support is a non-issue in the real world?
Anyway, there's more involved than just downloading. It has to be deployed to all the machines I might want to use it on. I've got that automated for Debian. And yes, I could use some other mechanism for that one component, but that's a lot more flippin' work than you seem to be suggesting.
Oh, and not all my Linux boxes are x86. So you're asking me to do a whole lot more than just download.
And who said "Java sucks?" All I said is that there is no valid excuse that I've heard for NOT open sourcing it. I didn't even say it should be open-sourced. I'm simply pointing out that great-granparent's "reasons" for not open-sourcing it don't stand up to scrutiny, and the arguments for open-sourcing it, do, at least, have some validity, however minor.
> Who's to say that this won't crash everything plugged into an outlet?
Anyone with any sense? Here's a quick experiment you can run. Take one of those devices plugged into an outlet, and turn it 180 degrees. Did it stop working? No? Ok, you should be fine then!:p;)
> is it at all possible that a switch in the earth's polarity would damage/erase any data
No. The Earth's magnetic field is pervasive, but not very strong. And what there is has a negative/disruptive effect on magnetic media in any case. During the Earth's transition period, magnetically-stored data should be more safe, if anything. But probably not enough to measure.
When I worked for a HD company, years ago, we did find that one of our magnetic-layer deposition machines had a very slightly higher failure rate than the others, and that one did happen to be at ninety degrees to the others, and someone once suggested that it might be being affected by geomagnetism, but most of the engineers thought that was nonsense, and it was never investigated further, as far as I know. Frankly, I think it was just a slightly more flaky machine--it was the first one the company had built, IIRC.
> Exactly. I think that the people calling for Java to be open sourced don't get the concept.
On the contrary, I think it's you who doesn't get the concept! I like (for example) OpenBSD because they're very compulsive about the testing. Yet they are open source! No one is asking for Java-the-language to change! Or the development model. Java can continue to be developed and husbanded by Sun just fine, even if it's open source. All we are asking for is the right to control our own machines IF PROBLEMS ARISE! And the right for our vendors to provide better integration--even those of us who use open-source-only vendors!
There seems to be a large segment of the population who think that being "open source" means that anyone can modify the code and stick in whatever they want. Well, guess what--that's STUPID! Sure, Joe Blow could, in theory, make his own weirdo variant of Java, but WHO WOULD USE IT? If Sun's version is indeed as good as you claim, nobody is going to want any third-party variants! Whether or not it's open source! Microsoft might try to make an incompatible version? Here's some news for you--THEY ALREADY DID, and they named it C#!
Java being open-sourced is unlikely to have any impact on the language or how its developed. So, why do we care? Because having it be open-sourced is the ONLY WAY that it will EVER be included with and supported by Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, the BSDs, etc., etc., and many of us use those systems on a daily basis! And we see no sign (based on all the software included with those systems) that there would be any possible downside to an open-source Java.
So, please take your straw men and your red herrings and go peddle them elsewhere!
HEADLINE ALERT: some random guy on slashdot disagrees with a large collection of professional writers on the art and aesthetics of writing--obviously the writers are wrong, and the random slashdot guy is right!
Opinions are like noses--most people have one, but some are more snotty than others!:)
I strongly disagree with you about Haldeman and McDevitt--all writers have ups and downs, but Camouflage was one of Haldeman's best in years. And McDevitt keeps steadily getting better and better; in the last couple of years, he's moved from my "keep an eye on" column to my "must-buy" column. The Hercules Text is actually one of my least favorites of McDevitt's works. (If you want a good early McDevitt, try A Talent for War).
As for your personal choice, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, that was, I admit, a decent work and well-written, but also somewhat flawed and uneven. And, frankly, I found the topic, setting and story uninteresting and unoriginal. The surprising thing was how much I liked it despite all that. I did NOT find it "too strange"--much the opposite. Compared to China Miévelle, Gene Wolfe or even Tim Powers, it was downright pedestrian! And I am so tired of psuedo-Victoriana! I hoped the craze for this sort of thing would burn itself out fairly quickly, like the fascination with voudon that sprung up after Gibson's Count Zero, but unfortunately, it hasn't. Anyway, JS&MN already won the World Fantasy Award, so quicherbichen!:p;)
If you don't agree with the Nebula voters (and I admit that I often don't), then ignore the awards! Writers are strange beasts, and have different criteria for what they like than you or I. I've frequently been perplexed at what wins the Nebula, but I just chalk it up to "writers are odd".:)
Dimeadozen: not legal (although they do have standards, i.e. no official releases/commercial material).
Tradersden: similar to dimeadozen
COTapers: Now we're getting somewhere! Legal, but (mostly) limited to Colorado shows. Very tiny compared to Etree. There's a similar site for New Orleans, but I lost the link, unfortunately. There are also small sites devoted to particular bands (e.g. FishboneLive.org.
But if the original poster doesn't think Etree is "suited for an academic presentation", then I doubt if he'd think any differently about these smaller, Etree-like sites. Live rock-n-roll doesn't seem to be what he's after. Of course, I'm not exactly sure why....
On May 4th, slashdot covered the followup to this story. Now, three days later, they get around to mentioning the original story. I guess this doesn't actually qualify as a dupe, but it's definitely some sort of mutant nephew of a dupe, or something.
...assure your present employers that you will allow them to match any offers you might get from anyone else. That way they don't have to lose you unless they actually can't afford you. If they don't understand why you might be looking to improve your position--you don't want to be working there, and you should step up your job search!
Of course, if you hate your job, and wouldn't stay there even if they matched other offers, then you've got a problem. But again, you should step up your job search.
And if you're actually afraid of retribution just because you've got your resume out there...it's time to devote every spare waking moment to your job search!
> Now we just need a plug in for excel, publisher, powerpoint, etc!
From the/. summary (you didn't even have to RTFA, FF Sake!): "[...] allow translation of documents between Microsoft's binary (.doc,.xls,.ppt) or XML formats and ODF".
Do you even know what a.xls file is? Or a.ppt?
Publisher, I don't know--I don't even know what it is (have never used Office in my life), but at least two of the three that you list are obviously already covered. Even someeone like me, who has never used MS-Office (and has barely ever used MS-Windows) was able to figure out that much!
Mmmm....I see no signs that MS is starting to realize anything like that. On the other hand, it is this sort of thing that will, I am sure, eventually drive them (like IBM before them) to that realization. The main question in my mind is: will they learn from IBM's mistakes? IBM went through a great deal of pain learning these lessons, first making products that nobody wanted (MCA bus anyone?), then an ugly period of layoffs and multiple restructurings, and, finally, acceptance--reluctant at first, enthusiastic later on as they began to see the opportunities provided by a cooperative, rather than monopolistic, role.
My guess is that they probably won't learn from IBM's lessons. IBM spent decades in a competitive market before earning their monopoly position, so switching back to being competitive was not too great a leap for them. Microsoft, on the other hand, was handed their monopoly position on a silver platter, and has never really had to cope with a competitive market. They have no previous experience to fall back on.
On the other hand, Microsoft was very close to IBM at one time, and even played a fairly major role in IBM's downfall, so it's quite possible that they will have learned something from IBM's experiences, and will make the inevitable transition more smoothly.
On the gripping hand, it's hard to say what will eventually undermine MS's position and lead to their transition. Back in the day, many people were sure that DEC was poised to be the IBM-killer, but, in fact, it turned out to be their junior partners, Microsoft, and, to a lesser extent, Sun, who provided the one-two punch. So I'm always cautious about predicting just what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. A lot of people think Linux will be the MS-killer, but I think it's too early to say.
Finally, I fully agree that whatever happens, Microsoft is unlikely to actually die or go out of business. They're a big company, with a lot of money and customers, and they're not stupid, and they'll find a way to cope with the coming changes, even if it means transitioning their company into one that isn't evil.:)
Depends on how many nested levels of m4 macros that snippet expands to! If you think that identifying the snippet where the problem occurs means that you've solved the problem, then you've never worked with automake/autoconf. Or APL.:)
Another case where identifying the snippet may not be enough is when the problem is limited to one (or a just a few) platforms, and you don't have access to those platforms. Then you need access to the platform experts.
All of the example above (except APL) are drawn from my own experiences just within the last few months.
> Have you, personally, ever benefited from having the source code to your project freely available and dowloadable, instead of being kept under lock-and-key?
Do you mean me, personally, or do you mean the company I work for? No matter, the answer is yes in either case.
> Have you ever fixed a bug in your spare time?
Yes.
> Have you ever sought outside help (providing source code snippets) on a particularly nasty problem?"
For another similarly-themed song from Monty Python's great Eric Idle, see here: Pythononline > Plugs > Idlewild. Look near the top, where it says "Eric Idle presents... The FCC Song." Warning--not work-safe (Eric, unlike Family Guy, wasn't planning to have this one broadcast).
> Would this move Java up the desirability scale in your eyes?
It would certainly bring it across the threshold to something I might be willing to install on my machine. I'm not sure I'd actually be interested in using it for anything, but at least it would no longer be in the "completely unacceptable" column.
Of course, I'd probably wait till it was "apt-get"able. But I suspect that an actually-Free Java(tm) wouldn't have to wait long to find a Debian packager.
True, but on the other hand, very few people design and release software inspired by movies before those movies come out (not talking about spin-offs here, like video games based on the movie, but simply software inspired by the movie, which is what it sounds like this is).
Also, software has a non-zero creation time, just like movies. If someeone was using the software in 1992, the development on that software probably started no later than 1991, which is about the earliest possible time that work on JP could have started.
I don't think we have enough evidence yet to conclude that the software was or was not inspired by the movie, but I think we have enough to say that it seems unlikely.
If you dump drinking a quart of gin before work every morning, the quality of your code may improve. If you dump stabbing yourself in the legs with a sharp knife, the pain in your lower extremeties may decrease.
Unfortunately, I cannot stop using hungarian notation, cannot stop the breakfast gin, and cannot stop stabbing myself...because I was never stupid enough to start!:)
In this case, it sounds more like "those who do not understand Python".
Note, Python seems like a more appropriate comparison than Perl, because Python is interactive, while Perl is not, unless you do some funny ad-hackery. Although Perl does have that arbitary-kluginess that fits better with what I'd expect to see from MS. Actually, though, I would kind of like to see this system before passing judgement. Unfortunately, MS seems uninterested in supporting any platforms I'm willing to run, so that may take a while.
> Um, wasn't Linux supposed to break away from standards and uniformity
No--where on earth did you come up with that silly notion? Linux has achieved most of its success through leveraging existing standards (e.g. POSIX, TCP/IP, ISO language standards). The one that tries to "break away" from standards is MS, because standards don't promote customer lock-in. If you follow standards, then customers may be able to look at other vendors that follow the same standards.
Standards in Linux are not mandated (because you have the freedom to do whatever you want with the code, pretty much), but are greatly respected and generally followed when possible/reasonable. Standard-breaking Linux projects (and I admit there are some) are almost always completely outside of the mainstream.
> or is that just breaking away from Microsoft standards?
"Microsoft standards?" Isn't that an oxymoron?:)
What MS mostly has is ad-hoc, undocumented arbitrary code which the rest of the world is just supposed to accept as-is without questioning. The main notice they take of standards is when the see an opportunity to embrace-and-extend to subvert a standard (see ISO C, HTML, Java, Kerberos, etc., etc.)
> Sarcasm if you didn't get it.
Um...does that mean that you're a troll, rather than just a very clueless person? If so, then count me as trolled, but my post is really addressed to those who are clueless enough to think there's some validity at all to what you posted.
According to btdownloadcurses, the name of the file I'm currently downloading is: "ubuntu-6.06-beta-live-i386.iso". From that, I would have to say that it looks like Ubuntu considers this a beta, and slashdot got it right. Don't look so startled! It can happen!:)
I am going to be installing this on my aunt's machine, but only because she's going to be in town next week, and won't be in June. I'd rather wait, but sometimes one has to strike while the iron is hot. I expect it to be a major improvement over the out-of-date and harder-to-upgrade Linux distro she was using. I will be configuring her sshd to accept connections from my box (and not from the rest of the world), so I can do remote admin if necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
The more you know about certain things, the less you know about certain other things. Intrinsicly and irreducably. Your professor's philosophy is stymied by simple physics. :)
And I've been programming professionally in a wide variety of languages for over twenty-five years, and I still don't see what that has to do with the price of tea in china. You continue to ignore my point (deliberately?) so let me say it one more time:
"...there is no valid excuse that I've heard for NOT open sourcing it. I didn't even say it should be open-sourced. I'm simply pointing out that great-granparent's "reasons" for not open-sourcing it don't stand up to scrutiny, and the arguments for open-sourcing it, do, at least, have some validity, however minor."
It doesn't matter HOW bloody easy it is to deploy, the fact is that not open sourcing it is an unnecessary obstacle, however minor. I'm asking WHY THE HELL ARE THEY PUTTING OBSTACLES IN MY PATH, and all can you say is "well, gee, it's not that big of an obstacle." That's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT!
> Why would he omit any information about *who* sent him the email? That would seem highly relevant.
:)
Yes, it is highly relevant. Only the copyright holders can sue for copyright violation. (Note: the GPL is a defense against charges of copyright violation--you cannot be sued for violating the GPL, only for violating copyright. The GPL gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card for copyright violation suits IF you follow its conditions. It serves no other purpose.)
> Unless it's from the FSF, the threat is kind of meaningless, is it not?
No, the FSF has NO SAY over anything unless they own the code! The GPL is basically a boilerplate license much like those legal forms you can buy at office supply stores. The FSF is no more in charge of GPL'd code in general than the company that printed the forms my landlord and I signed is in charge of house I rent.
Of course, the FSF does own some of the code in the kernel, and so they are one of the parties who this could meaningfully come from, but that's because they own (some of) the code, NOT because they "own" the license.
> If it truly is a problem, could he not do a bit of compile-the-driver-at-boot-time magic?
No. Although literal-minded programmers may hate it, the law actually takes intent into consideration. NeXT wanted to try this approach to distribute their Objective-C compiler as a proprietary add-on to GCC, but after consulting with their lawyers and the FSF's, they realized that their intent to deliver a combined GPL+proprietary system to their customers would nail them to the wall, despite the trickery, and it wasn't worth it. That's why GCC includes an Objective-C compiler today.
It's not clear to me that Kororaa actually has a problem, but if they do, "magic" trickery like this won't help them fix it.
IMO, IANAL, if you have legal questions, you should consult a lawyer, and NOT (for what should now be obvious reasons) your fellow nerds!
Actually, there's more Americans with a sense of humor than that. The problem is that we're all on the run or in hiding because the current Puritan, er, I mean Republican government is trying to have us all locked up in concentration camps, er, I mean Offshore Detention Facilities for Crimes Against the Church, er, I mean State. (It's so hard to tell the difference between those last two these days.) ;)
> If you feel that way, why do you care if it is open source.
I don't. I was responding to an argument for why it shouldn't be open sourced. I'm not saying it should be open-sourced, but I am saying that those arguments against open-sourcing it were nonsense.
I don't care, but what I fail to understand is why Sun cares so much! I have yet to hear one sensible argument against open-sourcing it, and, given that, any argument for open-sourcing it, no matter how weak, should carry the day. Unless Sun's management is full of idiots, which, frankly, is a suspicion I've nurtured for years. For mostly-unrelated reasons.
What part of "and supported by" don't you understand? You think maybe support is a non-issue in the real world?
Anyway, there's more involved than just downloading. It has to be deployed to all the machines I might want to use it on. I've got that automated for Debian. And yes, I could use some other mechanism for that one component, but that's a lot more flippin' work than you seem to be suggesting.
Oh, and not all my Linux boxes are x86. So you're asking me to do a whole lot more than just download.
And who said "Java sucks?" All I said is that there is no valid excuse that I've heard for NOT open sourcing it. I didn't even say it should be open-sourced. I'm simply pointing out that great-granparent's "reasons" for not open-sourcing it don't stand up to scrutiny, and the arguments for open-sourcing it, do, at least, have some validity, however minor.
> Who's to say that this won't crash everything plugged into an outlet?
:p ;)
Anyone with any sense? Here's a quick experiment you can run. Take one of those devices plugged into an outlet, and turn it 180 degrees. Did it stop working? No? Ok, you should be fine then!
> is it at all possible that a switch in the earth's polarity would damage/erase any data
No. The Earth's magnetic field is pervasive, but not very strong. And what there is has a negative/disruptive effect on magnetic media in any case. During the Earth's transition period, magnetically-stored data should be more safe, if anything. But probably not enough to measure.
When I worked for a HD company, years ago, we did find that one of our magnetic-layer deposition machines had a very slightly higher failure rate than the others, and that one did happen to be at ninety degrees to the others, and someone once suggested that it might be being affected by geomagnetism, but most of the engineers thought that was nonsense, and it was never investigated further, as far as I know. Frankly, I think it was just a slightly more flaky machine--it was the first one the company had built, IIRC.
> Exactly. I think that the people calling for Java to be open sourced don't get the concept.
On the contrary, I think it's you who doesn't get the concept! I like (for example) OpenBSD because they're very compulsive about the testing. Yet they are open source! No one is asking for Java-the-language to change! Or the development model. Java can continue to be developed and husbanded by Sun just fine, even if it's open source. All we are asking for is the right to control our own machines IF PROBLEMS ARISE! And the right for our vendors to provide better integration--even those of us who use open-source-only vendors!
There seems to be a large segment of the population who think that being "open source" means that anyone can modify the code and stick in whatever they want. Well, guess what--that's STUPID! Sure, Joe Blow could, in theory, make his own weirdo variant of Java, but WHO WOULD USE IT? If Sun's version is indeed as good as you claim, nobody is going to want any third-party variants! Whether or not it's open source! Microsoft might try to make an incompatible version? Here's some news for you--THEY ALREADY DID, and they named it C#!
Java being open-sourced is unlikely to have any impact on the language or how its developed. So, why do we care? Because having it be open-sourced is the ONLY WAY that it will EVER be included with and supported by Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, the BSDs, etc., etc., and many of us use those systems on a daily basis! And we see no sign (based on all the software included with those systems) that there would be any possible downside to an open-source Java.
So, please take your straw men and your red herrings and go peddle them elsewhere!
> I read "Women Get Lots of Info From Male Feces".
:)
Man, I am SOOOOO glad I'm not the only one!!
HEADLINE ALERT: some random guy on slashdot disagrees with a large collection of professional writers on the art and aesthetics of writing--obviously the writers are wrong, and the random slashdot guy is right!
:)
:p ;)
:)
Opinions are like noses--most people have one, but some are more snotty than others!
I strongly disagree with you about Haldeman and McDevitt--all writers have ups and downs, but Camouflage was one of Haldeman's best in years. And McDevitt keeps steadily getting better and better; in the last couple of years, he's moved from my "keep an eye on" column to my "must-buy" column. The Hercules Text is actually one of my least favorites of McDevitt's works. (If you want a good early McDevitt, try A Talent for War).
As for your personal choice, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, that was, I admit, a decent work and well-written, but also somewhat flawed and uneven. And, frankly, I found the topic, setting and story uninteresting and unoriginal. The surprising thing was how much I liked it despite all that. I did NOT find it "too strange"--much the opposite. Compared to China Miévelle, Gene Wolfe or even Tim Powers, it was downright pedestrian! And I am so tired of psuedo-Victoriana! I hoped the craze for this sort of thing would burn itself out fairly quickly, like the fascination with voudon that sprung up after Gibson's Count Zero, but unfortunately, it hasn't. Anyway, JS&MN already won the World Fantasy Award, so quicherbichen!
If you don't agree with the Nebula voters (and I admit that I often don't), then ignore the awards! Writers are strange beasts, and have different criteria for what they like than you or I. I've frequently been perplexed at what wins the Nebula, but I just chalk it up to "writers are odd".
Dimeadozen: not legal (although they do have standards, i.e. no official releases/commercial material).
Tradersden: similar to dimeadozen
COTapers: Now we're getting somewhere! Legal, but (mostly) limited to Colorado shows. Very tiny compared to Etree. There's a similar site for New Orleans, but I lost the link, unfortunately. There are also small sites devoted to particular bands (e.g. FishboneLive.org.
But if the original poster doesn't think Etree is "suited for an academic presentation", then I doubt if he'd think any differently about these smaller, Etree-like sites. Live rock-n-roll doesn't seem to be what he's after. Of course, I'm not exactly sure why....
On May 4th, slashdot covered the followup to this story. Now, three days later, they get around to mentioning the original story. I guess this doesn't actually qualify as a dupe, but it's definitely some sort of mutant nephew of a dupe, or something.
...assure your present employers that you will allow them to match any offers you might get from anyone else. That way they don't have to lose you unless they actually can't afford you. If they don't understand why you might be looking to improve your position--you don't want to be working there, and you should step up your job search!
Of course, if you hate your job, and wouldn't stay there even if they matched other offers, then you've got a problem. But again, you should step up your job search.
And if you're actually afraid of retribution just because you've got your resume out there...it's time to devote every spare waking moment to your job search!
> Now we just need a plug in for excel, publisher, powerpoint, etc!
/. summary (you didn't even have to RTFA, FF Sake!): "[...] allow translation of documents between Microsoft's binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF".
.xls file is? Or a .ppt?
From the
Do you even know what a
Publisher, I don't know--I don't even know what it is (have never used Office in my life), but at least two of the three that you list are obviously already covered. Even someeone like me, who has never used MS-Office (and has barely ever used MS-Windows) was able to figure out that much!
Mmmm....I see no signs that MS is starting to realize anything like that. On the other hand, it is this sort of thing that will, I am sure, eventually drive them (like IBM before them) to that realization. The main question in my mind is: will they learn from IBM's mistakes? IBM went through a great deal of pain learning these lessons, first making products that nobody wanted (MCA bus anyone?), then an ugly period of layoffs and multiple restructurings, and, finally, acceptance--reluctant at first, enthusiastic later on as they began to see the opportunities provided by a cooperative, rather than monopolistic, role.
:)
My guess is that they probably won't learn from IBM's lessons. IBM spent decades in a competitive market before earning their monopoly position, so switching back to being competitive was not too great a leap for them. Microsoft, on the other hand, was handed their monopoly position on a silver platter, and has never really had to cope with a competitive market. They have no previous experience to fall back on.
On the other hand, Microsoft was very close to IBM at one time, and even played a fairly major role in IBM's downfall, so it's quite possible that they will have learned something from IBM's experiences, and will make the inevitable transition more smoothly.
On the gripping hand, it's hard to say what will eventually undermine MS's position and lead to their transition. Back in the day, many people were sure that DEC was poised to be the IBM-killer, but, in fact, it turned out to be their junior partners, Microsoft, and, to a lesser extent, Sun, who provided the one-two punch. So I'm always cautious about predicting just what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. A lot of people think Linux will be the MS-killer, but I think it's too early to say.
Finally, I fully agree that whatever happens, Microsoft is unlikely to actually die or go out of business. They're a big company, with a lot of money and customers, and they're not stupid, and they'll find a way to cope with the coming changes, even if it means transitioning their company into one that isn't evil.
Depends on how many nested levels of m4 macros that snippet expands to! If you think that identifying the snippet where the problem occurs means that you've solved the problem, then you've never worked with automake/autoconf. Or APL. :)
Another case where identifying the snippet may not be enough is when the problem is limited to one (or a just a few) platforms, and you don't have access to those platforms. Then you need access to the platform experts.
All of the example above (except APL) are drawn from my own experiences just within the last few months.
> Have you, personally, ever benefited from having the source code to your project freely available and dowloadable, instead of being kept under lock-and-key?
:)
Do you mean me, personally, or do you mean the company I work for? No matter, the answer is yes in either case.
> Have you ever fixed a bug in your spare time?
Yes.
> Have you ever sought outside help (providing source code snippets) on a particularly nasty problem?"
Yes.
Ok, that was easy. Next article.
For another similarly-themed song from Monty Python's great Eric Idle, see here: Pythononline > Plugs > Idlewild. Look near the top, where it says "Eric Idle presents... The FCC Song." Warning--not work-safe (Eric, unlike Family Guy, wasn't planning to have this one broadcast).
> Would this move Java up the desirability scale in your eyes?
It would certainly bring it across the threshold to something I might be willing to install on my machine. I'm not sure I'd actually be interested in using it for anything, but at least it would no longer be in the "completely unacceptable" column.
Of course, I'd probably wait till it was "apt-get"able. But I suspect that an actually-Free Java(tm) wouldn't have to wait long to find a Debian packager.
True, but on the other hand, very few people design and release software inspired by movies before those movies come out (not talking about spin-offs here, like video games based on the movie, but simply software inspired by the movie, which is what it sounds like this is).
Also, software has a non-zero creation time, just like movies. If someeone was using the software in 1992, the development on that software probably started no later than 1991, which is about the earliest possible time that work on JP could have started.
I don't think we have enough evidence yet to conclude that the software was or was not inspired by the movie, but I think we have enough to say that it seems unlikely.
> But if you dump hungarian notation [...]
:)
If you dump drinking a quart of gin before work every morning, the quality of your code may improve. If you dump stabbing yourself in the legs with a sharp knife, the pain in your lower extremeties may decrease.
Unfortunately, I cannot stop using hungarian notation, cannot stop the breakfast gin, and cannot stop stabbing myself...because I was never stupid enough to start!
In this case, it sounds more like "those who do not understand Python".
Note, Python seems like a more appropriate comparison than Perl, because Python is interactive, while Perl is not, unless you do some funny ad-hackery. Although Perl does have that arbitary-kluginess that fits better with what I'd expect to see from MS. Actually, though, I would kind of like to see this system before passing judgement. Unfortunately, MS seems uninterested in supporting any platforms I'm willing to run, so that may take a while.
> Um, wasn't Linux supposed to break away from standards and uniformity
:)
No--where on earth did you come up with that silly notion? Linux has achieved most of its success through leveraging existing standards (e.g. POSIX, TCP/IP, ISO language standards). The one that tries to "break away" from standards is MS, because standards don't promote customer lock-in. If you follow standards, then customers may be able to look at other vendors that follow the same standards.
Standards in Linux are not mandated (because you have the freedom to do whatever you want with the code, pretty much), but are greatly respected and generally followed when possible/reasonable. Standard-breaking Linux projects (and I admit there are some) are almost always completely outside of the mainstream.
> or is that just breaking away from Microsoft standards?
"Microsoft standards?" Isn't that an oxymoron?
What MS mostly has is ad-hoc, undocumented arbitrary code which the rest of the world is just supposed to accept as-is without questioning. The main notice they take of standards is when the see an opportunity to embrace-and-extend to subvert a standard (see ISO C, HTML, Java, Kerberos, etc., etc.)
> Sarcasm if you didn't get it.
Um...does that mean that you're a troll, rather than just a very clueless person? If so, then count me as trolled, but my post is really addressed to those who are clueless enough to think there's some validity at all to what you posted.
According to btdownloadcurses, the name of the file I'm currently downloading is: "ubuntu-6.06-beta-live-i386.iso". From that, I would have to say that it looks like Ubuntu considers this a beta, and slashdot got it right. Don't look so startled! It can happen! :)
I am going to be installing this on my aunt's machine, but only because she's going to be in town next week, and won't be in June. I'd rather wait, but sometimes one has to strike while the iron is hot. I expect it to be a major improvement over the out-of-date and harder-to-upgrade Linux distro she was using. I will be configuring her sshd to accept connections from my box (and not from the rest of the world), so I can do remote admin if necessary.