Oh, boy. I just know I'm going to get killed here, but in IMHO Nasa has done more to harm space development in the US than anyone else. For decades, they went way out of their way to thwart private space ventures, and frankly, they invested in a lot of of programs that had awfull returns for the money. Do I even need to mention the two downed space shuttles, the hubble mirror, or the the ft vs meter fiasco for the mars mission? IMHO, if you love space, you should hate NASA and all the godawfull bureauocracy that has come with it. They're presence just keeps something better from replacing them.
MS could never invest in Linux boom without going against it's share holders. But if they give the shareholders cash instead, and the share holoders invested it themselves, then it is OK.
Actually the whole problem is that it is black and white, because in the "eyes of the internet" there is no difference between free speech content and say copyright content. You either half to attempt to manage controll over all of it, or none of it.
In every industry, in every sector - there are emerging two groups. One that want's to secure content controll in one form or another, and the other who doesn't want the burdon of imposing it. The simple fact is that the forces pulling them apart are far greater then the forces holding them together. Things have been pulling apart in a serious way for the last 20 years, but now with the internet reaching extreme proportions, and linux, and p2p - hold on because all hell is about to break loose.
It's alot easier to take a well designed software and give it a pretty GUI later on when priorities better permit than it is to take a pretty looking software and make it well designed after the fact.
More important than selling a CD for a "fair" price - is that the information age demands the free flow of information. Good or bad, pleasing or hatefull, it doesn't matter - society has reached a point where it can't grow without the assurance that the flow of content will not be controlled or monitored.
DRM may be usefull and possible for some applications, but they are trying to make it the standard rather than the exception, and they are trying to reign the cat in after it's jumped out of the bag. Our society can't go there even if it wants to.
What I do, is give a different email address to everyone who asks for one, if one of them gets too pesky with spam, I SMTP reject it with a message directing them to a webpage with my new email address in a GIF file with a background that thwarts optical character recogniotion.
So far, I've rejected thousands of spam, but never got one spam hit on my GIF email address.
Also, so far I haven't had to block all address to prevent random email attacks, but it would be easy enough to block all and add a new email every time I give out an email address if I wanted to.
You know, when I was a kid - I was failing all my spelling and grammer tests because I was always playing on this new device that noone ever herd of before called a personal computer (CBM actually). Anyhow, many of those girls who who did so well on their spelling and were praised by the teacher while I was put down ended up becomming secrataries, while I ended up holding high level IT jobs at fortune 50 companies. So yeah, I admit my spelling and grammer really suck, but you know what - I'm not a bit sorry for it, and it hasn't really hurt me.
That is, if you buy anything. I renember one time I was in canada and I bought a pack of chewing gum - thinking wow! what a great price. Then I brought it to the register and they tallied up the tax and I was nearly floored.
There are some other funny things about Canada too, trying to find a restruant in torranto that served lemmonade was a lost cause, and one time I went to McDonnalds and they asked me if I wanted viniger with my fries - when I gestured WTF, the lady behind the couter said - "you must be an American":)
When I wnet thru customs, I made the mistake of saying I was there for work. I went thru this long and tedious procedure to prove to them that I wasn't going to steal Canadian jobs. I think I slipped past all the BS, because they didn't know what SCO Unix was. Yes I know, I'm so ashamed, thank God for Linux. (I told by boss back in 95 that SCO scuked and Linux was going to take over, they laughed and mocked me out of the company, well look now who'se laughing!:)
Anyhow, if you hate American taxes and don't like the honesty-level in American politics, I would say you will hate Canada. If they're not a problem to you and you want free medical care at every one elses expense, then you probably won't find it so bad.
One time I attended a speech given by ESR, when he asked the programmers to raise their hands - almost everyone in the auditorium raised their hands, when he asked how many worked for a "commercial" software company rather than in house - I'd say less than 25% raised their hands. I think that says it all about the job picture right there.
Not to be crass, but ARM is like the plantation masters who were kind to "their negros". Just wait till a slave tries to escape and you'll see just how nice they really are.
Sure, ARM is easier going than alot of other outfits, and we don't notice them as much because they deal mostly with companies instead of individuals so their effects on peoples liberty aren't directly noticed as much. But's lets make no mistake about it, there is no nice way to enforce patents any more than there is a nice way to rape people, sooner or later something is going to half to give.
Further down thread you will find complaints about how ARM shut down an open source core project at www.opencores.com. As this kind of movement gets more and more popular - don't be supprised when their nasty side starts to reveal itself.
I read about dtrace in detail, it is quite cool. Of course they are releasing it, because that kind of tool is usefull far more often on high end high cost computers, but it is still cool. When I was refering to BS, I was refering to all the other propaganda coming from Sun. Like....
No.... they would not have you hapilly running Solaris X86 - they only hapially do that when it becomes obvious that they cant push a bunch of overpriced SPARC servers on you. I guess they figure it's better to have you as a customer on an x86 then to have no customer at all.
Once again, you are what you hold yourself accountable to. In most situations, Sun simply can't compete against the x86 head to head. I know that offends many a Sun engineer, well sorry - it's not personal - I didn't create that reality.
There's an old saying, "you are what you hold yourself accountable to".
In that sense, Sun is no Microsoft. They are a hardware company that provides services, plain and simple. The only reason why they are cold to Linux is because it pits Sun servers directly against x86 commodity PC's - otherwise they are all for it.
Once the dust settles on their bread and butter revenue stream, you can better believe that they will be open-source all the way. But right now they need to force some differentation with their hardware because in most cases they simply can't compete against an x86 farm in the server space. All the rest of the BS about new accomplishment is just propaganda, I would ignore it.
I consider myself libertarian, but unfortunately there are alot of libertarians out there that still see copyright as some kind of free market property right rather than the obtusive, intrusive, overbearing government regulation on information use that it really is. I guess if someone declares something a property right for long enough, people will start to believe it.
On the other hand most libertarians do recognise that there are god laws that justly address damaging choices, vs bad laws that simply try to controll peoples choices (usually on the grounds that if people have that choice, they will do damaging things, eg making gun ownership illegal because people can misuse guns). This law is clearly about controling choices, and not about justice.
It is a very sad one too, because every indication is that all the next generation technology will be p2p. Be it for CPU, files, calls, data, collaberation, searching, and even finance.
Then again free religion and free slaves were "extreme" views, and the Earth being a round planet that is not the center of the universe was so extreme people were mudered over it. Sometimes, it's just more important to be right.
This change is really symbolic of a change in tactics. That is, the media industries previously tried to lock in their copyright monopolies by microregulation of all the hardware industries, who are now revolting.
So now they've switched gears. They are now going to try to lock in their monopoly by using total DRM, and probably resort suvere hardball tactics - which may even include mafia style physical violence and sabatoge of people or companies that are found trying to bypass it. Seriously, if a few burnt down buildings and a few broken legs etc... keep 100Million in revenue from slipping away, they won't hesitate.
Like most things that take away freedom, the patent system will always be under pressure to encroach more and more which will always lead to problems like this.
When you assert the right to punish people who copy and immitate for any reason, innocent people are going to get hurt no matter how nice you try to be.
Well, if they can see how it causes harm and problems for a small institution to regulate the airwaves on a small basis, then why can't they see how it causes harm and problem when a large institution regulates airwaves on a large basis?
When you say you have a right to impose a non-free license, what you are syaing is that you have the right to use the force and power of the federal government to coerce someone not to copy something freely at their disposal. While this might be bearable in the physical world, in the information age it simply won't work. Copyrights half to die and the reason why free licenses are so successfull is because they most closely mimic this effect. I think it's a mistake to treat non-free licenses like just another flavor of ice-cream. What this implies is that truth behind free software is just an opinion. The fact is free licenses are better and necissary because non-free licenese by their very nature are coercive and restrictive on others right to copy things freely at their disposal - a right that will be absolutely essential in the years to come.
All through the dot.com bubble, I always wondered what forces frove CEO pay to be so high. After all, I could see why a good CEO is highly valuable, but not that valuable relatively and if you measured performance many were actually worthless.
Well more and more the answer seems like that their pay wasn't driven by true free market demand , but rather by the fact that companies could effectively pay an infinite amount of options - and it wouldn't show up anywhere on the bottom line.
I ask you, what would happen if you could go to wal-mart and charge it, but nothing would show up on your credit card statement?
This is also the exact generation that didn't experience the cold war. During that time we herd all sorts of 'facts' as to why the USSR was a 'better system' and the US was just a pushy tyrant, and why our leaders that promoted US interests were so evil. But if you ignored all the crap and believed that political liberty was an end in itself (and not social guarantees coerced at other peoples expense) Then which system was better wasn't even a question.
Well the same is true today. If you see geopolitical liberty as an end in itself, then it becomes clear that it is the best way to fight terrorisim, and the war in Iraq makes alot of sense. If not, it probalby makes no sense at all. Either way, all the other accusations are just crap, it's the big picture that is the issue.
I for one, don't really have much of a problem with ESR's personality, or his ego. But Microsoft isn't the only thing he's attacking, time and time again he has gone out of his way to attack people who see information freedom as an end in itself rather than some kind of karmic market based revenge. To quote....
The thing not to do is talk abstractions. FSF-style propaganda about freedom or user's rights has its uses occasionally, but it will register on this campaign's target audience of bottom-line-fixated IT managers as irrelevant or nutty.
Well the fact is raw market forces are going to push linux to the top wether fixated IT managers are willing to get it or not. All this does is just watter down the effect of everything everybody has fought for. History has shown that prosperity comes thru making liberty an end in itself, not fixating on the bottom line. Free markets are about freedom first, then markets. Big business is the follower of the market, not the leader.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, boy. I just know I'm going to get killed here, but in IMHO Nasa has done more to harm space development in the US than anyone else. For decades, they went way out of their way to thwart private space ventures, and frankly, they invested in a lot of of programs that had awfull returns for the money. Do I even need to mention the two downed space shuttles, the hubble mirror, or the the ft vs meter fiasco for the mars mission? IMHO, if you love space, you should hate NASA and all the godawfull bureauocracy that has come with it. They're presence just keeps something better from replacing them.
MS could never invest in Linux boom without going against it's share holders. But if they give the shareholders cash instead, and the share holoders invested it themselves, then it is OK.
Actually the whole problem is that it is black and white, because in the "eyes of the internet" there is no difference between free speech content and say copyright content. You either half to attempt to manage controll over all of it, or none of it.
In every industry, in every sector - there are emerging two groups. One that want's to secure content controll in one form or another, and the other who doesn't want the burdon of imposing it. The simple fact is that the forces pulling them apart are far greater then the forces holding them together. Things have been pulling apart in a serious way for the last 20 years, but now with the internet reaching extreme proportions, and linux, and p2p - hold on because all hell is about to break loose.
It's alot easier to take a well designed software and give it a pretty GUI later on when priorities better permit than it is to take a pretty looking software and make it well designed after the fact.
I'll probably lose karma for this. "Gee Bill, what the hell is that Gaim-y smell? Is it your phone?"
:)
That's funny, I thought all innovation came from M$ - because they have "intellectual property"
More important than selling a CD for a "fair" price - is that the information age demands the free flow of information. Good or bad, pleasing or hatefull, it doesn't matter - society has reached a point where it can't grow without the assurance that the flow of content will not be controlled or monitored.
DRM may be usefull and possible for some applications, but they are trying to make it the standard rather than the exception, and they are trying to reign the cat in after it's jumped out of the bag. Our society can't go there even if it wants to.
What I do, is give a different email address to everyone who asks for one, if one of them gets too pesky with spam, I SMTP reject it with a message directing them to a webpage with my new email address in a GIF file with a background that thwarts optical character recogniotion.
So far, I've rejected thousands of spam, but never got one spam hit on my GIF email address.
Also, so far I haven't had to block all address to prevent random email attacks, but it would be easy enough to block all and add a new email every time I give out an email address if I wanted to.
You know, when I was a kid - I was failing all my spelling and grammer tests because I was always playing on this new device that noone ever herd of before called a personal computer (CBM actually). Anyhow, many of those girls who who did so well on their spelling and were praised by the teacher while I was put down ended up becomming secrataries, while I ended up holding high level IT jobs at fortune 50 companies. So yeah, I admit my spelling and grammer really suck, but you know what - I'm not a bit sorry for it, and it hasn't really hurt me.
That is, if you buy anything. I renember one time I was in canada and I bought a pack of chewing gum - thinking wow! what a great price. Then I brought it to the register and they tallied up the tax and I was nearly floored.
:)
:)
There are some other funny things about Canada too, trying to find a restruant in torranto that served lemmonade was a lost cause, and one time I went to McDonnalds and they asked me if I wanted viniger with my fries - when I gestured WTF, the lady behind the couter said - "you must be an American"
When I wnet thru customs, I made the mistake of saying I was there for work. I went thru this long and tedious procedure to prove to them that I wasn't going to steal Canadian jobs. I think I slipped past all the BS, because they didn't know what SCO Unix was. Yes I know, I'm so ashamed, thank God for Linux. (I told by boss back in 95 that SCO scuked and Linux was going to take over, they laughed and mocked me out of the company, well look now who'se laughing!
Anyhow, if you hate American taxes and don't like the honesty-level in American politics, I would say you will hate Canada. If they're not a problem to you and you want free medical care at every one elses expense, then you probably won't find it so bad.
This is intentionally inducing .....
BPAC
It is also called free speech.
One time I attended a speech given by ESR, when he asked the programmers to raise their hands - almost everyone in the auditorium raised their hands, when he asked how many worked for a "commercial" software company rather than in house - I'd say less than 25% raised their hands. I think that says it all about the job picture right there.
Not to be crass, but ARM is like the plantation masters who were kind to "their negros". Just wait till a slave tries to escape and you'll see just how nice they really are.
Sure, ARM is easier going than alot of other outfits, and we don't notice them as much because they deal mostly with companies instead of individuals so their effects on peoples liberty aren't directly noticed as much. But's lets make no mistake about it, there is no nice way to enforce patents any more than there is a nice way to rape people, sooner or later something is going to half to give.
Further down thread you will find complaints about how ARM shut down an open source core project at www.opencores.com. As this kind of movement gets more and more popular - don't be supprised when their nasty side starts to reveal itself.
I read about dtrace in detail, it is quite cool. Of course they are releasing it, because that kind of tool is usefull far more often on high end high cost computers, but it is still cool. When I was refering to BS, I was refering to all the other propaganda coming from Sun. Like ....
.... they would not have you hapilly running Solaris X86 - they only hapially do that when it becomes obvious that they cant push a bunch of overpriced SPARC servers on you. I guess they figure it's better to have you as a customer on an x86 then to have no customer at all.
No
Once again, you are what you hold yourself accountable to. In most situations, Sun simply can't compete against the x86 head to head. I know that offends many a Sun engineer, well sorry - it's not personal - I didn't create that reality.
Well, if the inflatable hotels were shaded by inflatable water tanks, it might just work. Or perhaps some kind of artifical magnetic field too.
There's an old saying, "you are what you hold yourself accountable to".
In that sense, Sun is no Microsoft. They are a hardware company that provides services, plain and simple. The only reason why they are cold to Linux is because it pits Sun servers directly against x86 commodity PC's - otherwise they are all for it.
Once the dust settles on their bread and butter revenue stream, you can better believe that they will be open-source all the way. But right now they need to force some differentation with their hardware because in most cases they simply can't compete against an x86 farm in the server space. All the rest of the BS about new accomplishment is just propaganda, I would ignore it.
I consider myself libertarian, but unfortunately there are alot of libertarians out there that still see copyright as some kind of free market property right rather than the obtusive, intrusive, overbearing government regulation on information use that it really is. I guess if someone declares something a property right for long enough, people will start to believe it.
On the other hand most libertarians do recognise that there are god laws that justly address damaging choices, vs bad laws that simply try to controll peoples choices (usually on the grounds that if people have that choice, they will do damaging things, eg making gun ownership illegal because people can misuse guns). This law is clearly about controling choices, and not about justice.
It is a very sad one too, because every indication is that all the next generation technology will be p2p. Be it for CPU, files, calls, data, collaberation, searching, and even finance.
Here, this should give you a taste of the extreme side of patent hatred (written by me, of course)
extreme patent hatred
Then again free religion and free slaves were "extreme" views, and the Earth being a round planet that is not the center of the universe was so extreme people were mudered over it. Sometimes, it's just more important to be right.
This change is really symbolic of a change in tactics. That is, the media industries previously tried to lock in their copyright monopolies by microregulation of all the hardware industries, who are now revolting.
... keep 100Million in revenue from slipping away, they won't hesitate.
So now they've switched gears. They are now going to try to lock in their monopoly by using total DRM, and probably resort suvere hardball tactics - which may even include mafia style physical violence and sabatoge of people or companies that are found trying to bypass it. Seriously, if a few burnt down buildings and a few broken legs etc
Like most things that take away freedom, the patent system will always be under pressure to encroach more and more which will always lead to problems like this.
When you assert the right to punish people who copy and immitate for any reason, innocent people are going to get hurt no matter how nice you try to be.
Well, if they can see how it causes harm and problems for a small institution to regulate the airwaves on a small basis, then why can't they see how it causes harm and problem when a large institution regulates airwaves on a large basis?
When you say you have a right to impose a non-free license, what you are syaing is that you have the right to use the force and power of the federal government to coerce someone not to copy something freely at their disposal. While this might be bearable in the physical world, in the information age it simply won't work. Copyrights half to die and the reason why free licenses are so successfull is because they most closely mimic this effect. I think it's a mistake to treat non-free licenses like just another flavor of ice-cream. What this implies is that truth behind free software is just an opinion. The fact is free licenses are better and necissary because non-free licenese by their very nature are coercive and restrictive on others right to copy things freely at their disposal - a right that will be absolutely essential in the years to come.
All through the dot.com bubble, I always wondered what forces frove CEO pay to be so high. After all, I could see why a good CEO is highly valuable, but not that valuable relatively and if you measured performance many were actually worthless.
Well more and more the answer seems like that their pay wasn't driven by true free market demand , but rather by the fact that companies could effectively pay an infinite amount of options - and it wouldn't show up anywhere on the bottom line.
I ask you, what would happen if you could go to wal-mart and charge it, but nothing would show up on your credit card statement?
This is also the exact generation that didn't experience the cold war. During that time we herd all sorts of 'facts' as to why the USSR was a 'better system' and the US was just a pushy tyrant, and why our leaders that promoted US interests were so evil. But if you ignored all the crap and believed that political liberty was an end in itself (and not social guarantees coerced at other peoples expense) Then which system was better wasn't even a question.
Well the same is true today. If you see geopolitical liberty as an end in itself, then it becomes clear that it is the best way to fight terrorisim, and the war in Iraq makes alot of sense. If not, it probalby makes no sense at all. Either way, all the other accusations are just crap, it's the big picture that is the issue.
next thing you know, they'll be trying to nickle and dime away our right to bear arms on the grounds that people don't kill people, guns do ....
.... oops, uh, nevermind.
I for one, don't really have much of a problem with ESR's personality, or his ego. But Microsoft isn't the only thing he's attacking, time and time again he has gone out of his way to attack people who see information freedom as an end in itself rather than some kind of karmic market based revenge. To quote ....
The thing not to do is talk abstractions. FSF-style propaganda about freedom or user's rights has its uses occasionally, but it will register on this campaign's target audience of bottom-line-fixated IT managers as irrelevant or nutty.
Well the fact is raw market forces are going to push linux to the top wether fixated IT managers are willing to get it or not. All this does is just watter down the effect of everything everybody has fought for. History has shown that prosperity comes thru making liberty an end in itself, not fixating on the bottom line. Free markets are about freedom first, then markets.
Big business is the follower of the market, not the leader.