Please forgive me if I now unleash the full power of my razor sharp intellect, perspecacity and ability with confrontational rhetoric and respond thus:
I have some sympathy with your point of view, however, let me offer another nonetheless.
The software nerd, as opposed to those who view software merely as a means to get their work done, is more inclined to be interested in software "in the rough" than as a finished product. Thus release candidates are of particular interest.
What's more, since most people are somewhat "embeded" in their favorite enviroment (Windows lock in anyone?) they aren't likely to personally keep track of the development of platforms outside their own, even those that they have some genuine interest in.
I haven't used FreeBSD, but the posting of stories such as this keeps my interest up in doing so someday in a way that other news venues don't, because I don't see them.
And I don't really see that posting a few of these in anyway takes away from other Slashdot stories. I don't know that this story was posted instead of some other story as opposed to as well as the other story.
As with all Slashdot stories I read those that interest me and skip those that don't, just as I ignore the social pages of my local newspaper. I don't write letters to the editor complaining that they exist.
There is a tendency these days for even the technologists to look at a core technology wrapped up in a shiney new shell and view it as something essentially new and more technologically advanced.
This tendency is "good" for the industry but financially draining for the customer. The entire software industry rests upon this tendency and the recent recession in the purchasing of software by business represents a crack in this point of view. Office 97 works.
In point of fact the core technologies of all office software have been in place since the release of Visiscalc. Database, spreadsheet, text editor. Everything else is just variations on these and the latest new feature of Word is nothing more than a text editor macro attached to a button.
It's akin to painting a disposable razor pink instead of orange and calling it "for women," a technique that works distressingly well.
A Perl script wrapped up in Royal robes isn't "new technology" and a portable HD is just a portable HD.
Maybe I need to make an iPod clone, put it in a titanium case and call it the "Movie Meister" or something.
If the source code is freely distributable than the software will become available for free sooner or. . . well, just sooner actually.
The free trade in software is an innate consequence of the GPL and Stallman knows this damned well and the basic functionality that the GPL strives for is that people should be allowed to simply hand a copy of software to a friend freely and without fear of legal consequence.
So yes, the free availability is perfectly in keeping with Stallman's philosophy.
. . . sometimes non-violent resistance isn't the best strategy.
There has been violence? I must have missed that. Perhaps you are making the sort of conceptual mistake that Gandhi warned about, mistaking nonviolence with passivity.
Nonviolence as a technique is often based on direct confrontation, even to the extent of provoking it.
It's what the Irish refer to as "soft" weather. And yes, in moderation at least it can be quite pleasant and it keeps the climate overall moderate, like the Irish.
In other words, he has moved on to the highest plane of film making where he has to mix technology/screenplays and inform the audience, all at the same time. I vote for another something along the lines of the Bismark documentary before another Titanic. At least we didn't have to wait for the bloody Bismark to just frickin' sink already.
I think it is a great idea to get some of the most imaginative minds to offer ideas to scientists on how to send humans to mars.
Taking a cue from one of the most imaginative minds of the 20th century, Chuck Jones,I propose using a really, really big slingshot.
Einstein was an imaginitive man. It was his imagination that let jump right to true conlusions that no one else could see.
Richard Feynman was perhaps the most imaginative physicist ever. His notational systems alone are amazing.
However, both of these men had their imaginations and intuitions backed good, old fashioned, knowledge such as you might expect from man bearing the title "Doctor."
Einstein's statement is in no way to be interpreted as supporting the idea that "creative artistic types" are likely to come up with intuition based ideas of technical merit.
Arthur C. Clarke saw things in his stories few others could imagine.
But then Arthur C. Clarke had the knowledge to back that imagination up.
It really doesn't matter what you major in, there's still a good chance you'll end up working at Wal-Mart. I'm serious. The number of people who end with careers in their degree field is pitifully small. I don't know where the idea that college was trade school came from. The idea that it is an effective trade school is just daft. There's absolutely no evidence for it. It seems to be a myth generated to get young people to go to college instead getting right to something useful and profitable, keeping jobs open to older workers, much as child labor laws were originally concieved as a way of restricting those available to the job market and not really "for the children."
So my advice goes against the common grain. Go to college for an education. Enroll in a liberal arts program. That doesn't mean you can't major in CS, it just means you have to read some Shakespeare and take some modern dance as well.
The time to specialize is when you go for your Masters, at which time you'll have a much better idea of where you want to head and why.
For the most part you'll find that most jobs commonly available to a college graduate require the degree, but they don't really care overmuch about the degree is in. Shrub majored in history, not poli-sci. He could just as easily have majored in Sanskrit literature. It wouldn't have made a wit of difference to his career.
While an undergraduate take the advice every grandparent used to give. "Chemistry? That's nice dear, but learn a trade so you have something to fall back on." In my day grandparents had lived through some pretty hard times and knew what was what when it came to surviving in an uncertain economy.
Don't intern in your major. Most internships are pointless gopher jobs anyway. Make a friend in the electricians union. Learn to weld. Pick up double entry book keeping. Something like that. You'll end being happy you did at some point in your life.
There are a lot of guys working in the Buffalo steel mills who did a doctoral dissertation translating LOTR into Urdu or something like that. They aren't too proud to work for a living. The "I'll only program" mindset seems to be a peculiarity of the IT crowd.
Some of them are getting very hungry and starting to change their minds.
Six of the Samoan Islands are US territory, like Puerto Rico. You can go there as the employee of an American company, draw mainland wages plus remote assignment bonuses and live in a tropical paradise where the cost of living is peanuts. That means that if you play your cards right you can come home and be worth far more than if you stayed, having put your entire salary away.
Anyone who doesn't take a year or two in Somoa if given the chance is nuts.
No. They didn't take sides in the SCO vs. Linux debate, per se.
They poked fun at SCO executives (read Darl) response to the virus, their business record and their historical inability to handle a high traffic load.
Along the way they made copious fun of the Linux community, Slashdot, Hemos, Microsoft, Windows users, et al.
It was very frustrating to read week old letters when we had much faster mailing set up.
This statement, right here, has direct relevance to those who wonder why people in poor isolated communities might want email service before other things that we in rich developed countries might consider more important for them to have.
Legal advocates are never fair and unbiased. They are not supposed to be. That is the function of a judge.
However, if legal research finds a picture of Darl wearing a pair of shoes he says he never owned, well, than that's what they did. Bias doesn't even come into it.
Then it would be up to Darl to try to explain away the picture by saying it was Christmas and his cat DDOSed his regular shoes so he demanded that IBM loan him those, or some such nonesense.
And if it goes to trial Darl will have to try to put the glove on IBM.
Dude, the movies have all been in Chinese since Bruce Lee. What rock have you been hiding under? Go rent Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. They aren't even bothering to overdub them anymore they feel so confident.
"In German, und English, I know how to count down. Und I'm learing Chineeeeese" says Werner von Braun.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. As a Yank the first thing that springs to my mind is a nifty little classic British motorsports event.
Not that I've ever noted a personal tendency to represent the average American mind you.
KFG
Please forgive me if I now unleash the full power of my razor sharp intellect, perspecacity and ability with confrontational rhetoric and respond thus:
Huh?
KFG
I have some sympathy with your point of view, however, let me offer another nonetheless.
The software nerd, as opposed to those who view software merely as a means to get their work done, is more inclined to be interested in software "in the rough" than as a finished product. Thus release candidates are of particular interest.
What's more, since most people are somewhat "embeded" in their favorite enviroment (Windows lock in anyone?) they aren't likely to personally keep track of the development of platforms outside their own, even those that they have some genuine interest in.
I haven't used FreeBSD, but the posting of stories such as this keeps my interest up in doing so someday in a way that other news venues don't, because I don't see them.
And I don't really see that posting a few of these in anyway takes away from other Slashdot stories. I don't know that this story was posted instead of some other story as opposed to as well as the other story.
As with all Slashdot stories I read those that interest me and skip those that don't, just as I ignore the social pages of my local newspaper. I don't write letters to the editor complaining that they exist.
KFG
There is a tendency these days for even the technologists to look at a core technology wrapped up in a shiney new shell and view it as something essentially new and more technologically advanced.
This tendency is "good" for the industry but financially draining for the customer. The entire software industry rests upon this tendency and the recent recession in the purchasing of software by business represents a crack in this point of view. Office 97 works.
In point of fact the core technologies of all office software have been in place since the release of Visiscalc. Database, spreadsheet, text editor. Everything else is just variations on these and the latest new feature of Word is nothing more than a text editor macro attached to a button.
It's akin to painting a disposable razor pink instead of orange and calling it "for women," a technique that works distressingly well.
A Perl script wrapped up in Royal robes isn't "new technology" and a portable HD is just a portable HD.
Maybe I need to make an iPod clone, put it in a titanium case and call it the "Movie Meister" or something.
KFG
If the source code is freely distributable than the software will become available for free sooner or. . . well, just sooner actually.
The free trade in software is an innate consequence of the GPL and Stallman knows this damned well and the basic functionality that the GPL strives for is that people should be allowed to simply hand a copy of software to a friend freely and without fear of legal consequence.
So yes, the free availability is perfectly in keeping with Stallman's philosophy.
KFG
Slow news day perhaps...
Well yeah. SCO's down.
KFG
In other words, Cameron has knowledge.
KFG
. . . sometimes non-violent resistance isn't the best strategy.
There has been violence? I must have missed that. Perhaps you are making the sort of conceptual mistake that Gandhi warned about, mistaking nonviolence with passivity.
Nonviolence as a technique is often based on direct confrontation, even to the extent of provoking it.
KFG
I know, but the story didn't mention Seattle. I have to work with whatever shoddy material the straightman feeds me.
KFG
It's what the Irish refer to as "soft" weather. And yes, in moderation at least it can be quite pleasant and it keeps the climate overall moderate, like the Irish.
KFG
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call Portland 'ground zero' of anything. . .
Rain?
KFG
. . .just some documentary director.
In other words, he has moved on to the highest plane of film making where he has to mix technology/screenplays and inform the audience, all at the same time. I vote for another something along the lines of the Bismark documentary before another Titanic. At least we didn't have to wait for the bloody Bismark to just frickin' sink already.
KFG
I think it is a great idea to get some of the most imaginative minds to offer ideas to scientists on how to send humans to mars.
Taking a cue from one of the most imaginative minds of the 20th century, Chuck Jones,I propose using a really, really big slingshot.
Einstein was an imaginitive man. It was his imagination that let jump right to true conlusions that no one else could see.
Richard Feynman was perhaps the most imaginative physicist ever. His notational systems alone are amazing.
However, both of these men had their imaginations and intuitions backed good, old fashioned, knowledge such as you might expect from man bearing the title "Doctor."
Einstein's statement is in no way to be interpreted as supporting the idea that "creative artistic types" are likely to come up with intuition based ideas of technical merit.
Arthur C. Clarke saw things in his stories few others could imagine.
But then Arthur C. Clarke had the knowledge to back that imagination up.
KFG
Yes, but what's more important is that they (Americans) might be more inclined to appreciate what they (wherever) have.
KFG
You should google on KFG. Really.
KFG
It really doesn't matter what you major in, there's still a good chance you'll end up working at Wal-Mart. I'm serious. The number of people who end with careers in their degree field is pitifully small. I don't know where the idea that college was trade school came from. The idea that it is an effective trade school is just daft. There's absolutely no evidence for it. It seems to be a myth generated to get young people to go to college instead getting right to something useful and profitable, keeping jobs open to older workers, much as child labor laws were originally concieved as a way of restricting those available to the job market and not really "for the children."
So my advice goes against the common grain. Go to college for an education. Enroll in a liberal arts program. That doesn't mean you can't major in CS, it just means you have to read some Shakespeare and take some modern dance as well.
The time to specialize is when you go for your Masters, at which time you'll have a much better idea of where you want to head and why.
For the most part you'll find that most jobs commonly available to a college graduate require the degree, but they don't really care overmuch about the degree is in. Shrub majored in history, not poli-sci. He could just as easily have majored in Sanskrit literature. It wouldn't have made a wit of difference to his career.
While an undergraduate take the advice every grandparent used to give. "Chemistry? That's nice dear, but learn a trade so you have something to fall back on." In my day grandparents had lived through some pretty hard times and knew what was what when it came to surviving in an uncertain economy.
Don't intern in your major. Most internships are pointless gopher jobs anyway. Make a friend in the electricians union. Learn to weld. Pick up double entry book keeping. Something like that. You'll end being happy you did at some point in your life.
There are a lot of guys working in the Buffalo steel mills who did a doctoral dissertation translating LOTR into Urdu or something like that. They aren't too proud to work for a living. The "I'll only program" mindset seems to be a peculiarity of the IT crowd.
Some of them are getting very hungry and starting to change their minds.
KFG
Six of the Samoan Islands are US territory, like Puerto Rico. You can go there as the employee of an American company, draw mainland wages plus remote assignment bonuses and live in a tropical paradise where the cost of living is peanuts. That means that if you play your cards right you can come home and be worth far more than if you stayed, having put your entire salary away.
Anyone who doesn't take a year or two in Somoa if given the chance is nuts.
KFG
Should I speak any Indian languages?
Yes. English. This could prove a significant barrier to Americans.
KFG
Whatever you say, Mr. Eau de Rancid Big Mac.
KFG
No. They didn't take sides in the SCO vs. Linux debate, per se.
They poked fun at SCO executives (read Darl) response to the virus, their business record and their historical inability to handle a high traffic load.
Along the way they made copious fun of the Linux community, Slashdot, Hemos, Microsoft, Windows users, et al.
And it was funny.
KFG
It was very frustrating to read week old letters when we had much faster mailing set up.
This statement, right here, has direct relevance to those who wonder why people in poor isolated communities might want email service before other things that we in rich developed countries might consider more important for them to have.
Only substitute month for week.
KFG
Legal advocates are never fair and unbiased. They are not supposed to be. That is the function of a judge.
However, if legal research finds a picture of Darl wearing a pair of shoes he says he never owned, well, than that's what they did. Bias doesn't even come into it.
Then it would be up to Darl to try to explain away the picture by saying it was Christmas and his cat DDOSed his regular shoes so he demanded that IBM loan him those, or some such nonesense.
And if it goes to trial Darl will have to try to put the glove on IBM.
KFG
Dude, the movies have all been in Chinese since Bruce Lee. What rock have you been hiding under? Go rent Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. They aren't even bothering to overdub them anymore they feel so confident.
"In German, und English, I know how to count down.
Und I'm learing Chineeeeese" says Werner von Braun.
KFG
Which look surprisingly like the Ferrari's.
Substitute Bizzarrini if you like.
KFG
GNOME's logo desn't look like a monkey's print anyway.
It's just a pretty rare species is all. And not a monkey really, an ape. The Great Octal Ape. Found only in the deepest jungles of Cambridge, MA.
They do have a cousin though, the Lesser Bonoboctal Ape, found only in the misty, magical land known as Berserkly.
KFG