Right behinda ya here. This guy shows total ignorance from start to finish (see my full reply to the article). He's not just got a lot of things mixed up, he's put his brain in a shredder. He's there, in his own words, telling others how to approach the debate. Then he dismisses others' input on a trivial basis*, and ploughs on. The guy needs shooting. I'm just glad that he doesn't realise there's a world outside the USA. He was born there, he'll live and die there. We shall probably never meet. That is good for me. * The basis being the guy's pronunciation of Linux. He can refute this. What I want to know is, what ELSE did people there say? I know that I, for one, would be butting in every 15 seconds!
I acknowledge that Linus T says the "correct" pronunciation is Linucks. However, here in the UK, anybody I meet, technical or otherwise, and however Linux-aware they are (including a Linux webmaster and mudmaster) pronounce it "Lie-nucks". It just seems the natural way for a Britisher to pronounce the word. I get the feeling that this may go the way of words like "colo[u]r". As a techie, I can as easily type color as colour depending on the context, without realising I'm changing my spelling. (I nearly corrected the above; I said "color as colour", when I meant "colour as color") - out of any context, I find the two interchangeable now. But since this is the only assertion in the whole article I can in any way accept, I think I'm happy to let this one lie. Steve.
Firstly, the AT&T business; just because AT&T had a monopoly (in the US), and the net thrived despite that (The 'Net is international, fool!), doesn't mean that regulation is de facto good.
The free-leaflet thing; you can burn, destroy, hide, your copy of GPL s/w. What you can't do with a free leaflet is modify it and republish. Not "pass it on as unencumbered as they recieve it".
Then he gets on to the plus side; However, he's wrong again. If Linus decided to code Mozilla into the Kernel, it'd be pretty tricky for M$ to hack the kernel to remove it and use IE/Linux instead (if they chose do do such a thing).
Then the plus side of TCP/IP: it doesn't discriminate against packets. I don't know of a network protocol that does (and I've worked with Fibre, Token Ring, NetBLEURGH!, etc.... any ideas, anyone?!!!). Oh, but telco's could read packet headers if they chose, to remove any Linux, Audio, [insert whatever you think they may not like here] packets alongstream.
Then he goes on about - oh look, the Gov't intervened and broke AT&T's monopoly (again, IN THE USA... The 'Net doesn't only exist in America, [ insert own fave expletive here ]!!! ). Okay, at that point, it was mainly there, but surely we're talking about the INTERnet, not ARPAnet?
"Universities are fun, but they aren't enough to fuel commercial revolutions"... I had great fun, thanks. But back on-topic... Unix has its commercial power today because it was given free (source'n'all) to Uni's (due, again, to AT&T's monopoly ruling). The students then went into the workforce and applied what they knew to be good... Unix. Unix became the backbone of the internet, which *much later* had Win9x users join it! So don't give me that. Universities are VERY good places to start new technologies. Look at how strong Linux was in Unis a few years ago... Look at where it is now... getcha timelines right, I think you got the pages muddled up here.
[ he's repeating US-is-the-Net stuff here, to which I won't repeat my rebuttals against ]
And so he sums up. Open code and open telco's lead the way to open innovation.
This is of course all regulation
And so regulation is obviously the way forward for further innovation
So then he goes to people aged > 38 (natch, more respect when discussing technical issues. Born before 1962) and they say, "closed isn't okay, open isn't okay, something in-between will come up". And he accepts this?!!!
I don't know what this guy thinks he's achieved in this article, except to demonstrate his ignorance.
I am not the original poster. But I will give my answer to your questions (such as I can) I hold that we who are looking for reason behind life are using science and religion to do so. Between them, they can give us the answers we crave. If we want WHY, we ask religion. If we want HOW, we can ask science. These are all aspects of our humanity. We are body, mind, and spirit. These three parts of us have different questions and require differnet format answers. This doesn't mean that the truth is different, but my Body says, "How far can I jump?" because that applies to the body. My Mind asks, "How did my legs come to be?" because the the mind is there to think. My Spirit asks, "But how? Why?". To be more direct, I would say that I would find the Bible a nightmare to understand without originally knowing the God it describes, I wouldn't even know how to explain it without that knowledge. A previous poster has commented on this conundrum. But we need the Spirit (the "character of God") to interpret (compile) the Bible for us. (Note: This doesn't dumb-down, just interpret, ie, help us understand). For myself, I couldn't come to the Linux Kernel source with no knowledge of *nix and expect to understand it all. It'd be nice to have Linus by my side. With the Bible, I have that - that's why I called the Spirit the "character of God". S/He's always there whenever I read the Bible (and the rest of the time too, naturally!) so I have less (not NO ) problems interpreting what it means. So for example, with your example questions about Creation and Original Sin, I'll give example suggestions:
Science tries to describe HOW our world originated. The Bible has a completely different goal - WHY our world originated. (As an aside, if we wanted a fully detailed scientific description of the start of the Universe, how would we expect people 6,000+ years ago to have understood that well enough to pass it on, without the facility of written text?)
Original Sin
Okay, I don't see how we could have a conflict here since I can't see Science addressing this issue. Orig. Sin is a concept that we basically need to make a positive decision to accept God, that it's not the default. We're not forced into it, but that we have to make an active decision to accept God. I'm repeating myself already, it's so simple. I feel that the word "Sin" is the problem many people have with this concept. If we called it "Origial Freedom" it'd go down much better. Sin is a very old word for not accepting God and God's values - in a nutshell. So Originally (before we don't make an active decision), we are assumed not to have made that active decision. To be "Sinners". That's a very strong word, somehow. I think this must be cultural. All it means, is that as a "Sinner", I am not perfect. So, by default I am not perfect, in the same way that no OS IS perfectly secure. I am not assumed to be interested until I express an interest. This is the Free Will Defence in its simplest terms. If it were the other way round, I would see a real problem with non-believers... That means that a decision is made by our free will. The normal way this concept is argued against, is the idea of unborn or young children. For one thing, this is a small side-issue against the positive aspects of freedom against assumptions of acceptance. For another, it is difficult for any of us to know what a young child does understand - possibly more than we do!
So in terms of metaphor vs. literal, I find it often simple to see what is meant literally (If I wanted C18th people to understand the Big Bang theory (assuming that's correct), how would I go about telling someone 6000 yrs ago about it? And what good would it do them? And what would it mean now? Ditto C20th, C21st, C22nd?) So Creation is described in terms of what it MEANS, not HOW it was DONE. Pinning a man to a tree, however, is understood by the people of the time and those of use who live later in history. So make that a literal description. As I say, understanding the Linux Kernel is easier if you're a friend of Linus. Understanding the Bible is easier if you're a friend of the Author. You don't have to believe and accept all that either of them say, just get to know what they have to say, and what they have to offer, then make up your own mind what to install.
Don't be sorry at all for your opinion, whatever it is. Specifically, don't be sorry for this one. Find a religion which neither requires checking your brain out at the door (a good phrase, so I'll re-use it) nor accepting superstition and nonsense. So long as you don't check out brain@door, you can be sure of not accepting nonsense. Popular media has a strong habit of portraying the "limp vicar", "deluded X fanatic" where X is Christianity, Linux, you name it. I've met both, but it degrades X/nity no more than having a Win user taking on Linux degrades OSS. As OSS advocates (I assume we all are), we are happy every time someone trashes their FAT to install Linux. Simiarly, as Christians, we are joyous evey time someone accepts something
Proven
Reliable
Insert fave reason for Linux here, it probably applies to Christianity
and are similarly unhappy every time someone takes on something which is less than enough. Bullshit *IS* bullshit. Block it out. Take the truth. ONLY.
For myself, I left a few years whilst I was in a different part of the country - at Uni - and only saw the comm. members occasionally... whenever I did, there were always new people who didn't know me. I had longish hair when I left, returned with longer, with mohican, with hair-to-my-waist; I was always accepted as Steve. The hair made no difference. In the same timeframe (I did an industrial placement from Uni) I found that, in the "secular" world, I got vastly different treatment when appearing as a MetalHead with long hair than I did when wearing a suit (in situations such as "Can you change a note for some coins?" on the street, or in shops, etc). Even more so, the difference in the way my Bank treated me ("Can I please pretty please have a pound or two because I need some bread and milk?" - Fsck off! suddenly became, "Ah, Mr. P - let's see, you get xxxx income per month, can we help you at all?" once I'd graduated and started working) But the Church always saw me as me. I see some strong comparisons between the +ve benefits of OSS and the +ve benefits of the Church, but one differnece (and maybe it's technical and mainstram media-based) is that the OSS community can be much more critical, while the Church I can find much more accepting of differences. However, I must balance that by saying that the OSS community really bases things on technical ability alone, whilst the Church values people as people. So I guess I should expect (and I get) more from the Church.
I read the articles and site which started this article and I personally didn't find too much meat in them. Interesting, sure, but no single issue for/. to discuss. Oh my God(TM)! I thought - here goes/. on a downward flaming spiral into oblivion. Imagine my surprise when I read the responses and found the most of them rational and reasonable disucssions on Religion, Science, and the interaction between the two. I am not a Scientist, but a techie (which could be classes as a subset of scientist, I guess). I am also "Religios" - As in, I claim to be a Christian and an am active Church member. For myself, most people I know fall into one camp or the other - they're techies of they're Christians. The techs I know thru' work, the Xn's I know through Church. Some of the time, I dread the two groups meeting. Sometimes, I think that it would do both groups some good. A few years ago, some scientists (Uni lecturers, etc - it's a middle-class church) held a kind of conference on "The Cross and the Word", I think they called it. They wanted to discuss with other Christians their belief in Science. Explain to them that they weren't giving up their principles by following Science. In a similar way, I expected Xn's on/. to be "defending" their belief in God. In both discussions, there have been irritably few flames. From what I can conclude, there is no discrepancy between Science and Religion. So all I can guess, is that it's media hype. Sure, Emacs vs. Vi, BSD vs. Linux, Unix vs. M$, Big-Bang vs. 7-days-creation can all cause differences in preference. But the difference is, that the tech. "Religious Wars" are about man-made decisions; the Big-Bang and 7-days issues are both looking for answers. They are looking TOGETHER for the best answer for today. I personally believe that vi is preferrable to emacs to me. I also prefer *nix over M$ for most things. In such issues, "What you believe is up to you - it doesn't affect the validity of what I believe" is fine. I was expecting the same kind of answers from/. but they were not forthcoming. Therefore,/. is more enlightened than much of the Western world (in my experience). The reason that "I believe in religion X, you believe in Y - let's get on with life" doesn't work, whilst "I prefer text-editor V, you believe in text-editor E - let's get on with life" does, is that the former is making some major claims about what that life means. Call human life a file format, if you will. There is one document to be read and written to. It is in a format. Physics and Religion are working on that format - Reverse engineering. They have different takes on how to do that, sometimes, but they are all working on the one issue. There are many different questions to be asked about that format: Why does it exist? Why is it like it is? How can it be improved (eg, GM, Meditation)? What harms it and should be avoided? Indeed, should it be avoided? Science and Religion are both investigating all these as we sit around and read weblogs...... C'mon, I must have inflamed someone by now!
I find that in my community, the Church has little impact. However, I left my original area some years ago, and still visit the church in my "old" community. In that area, I see the church doing a lot for / with the local community (from Mums'n'Tots to Scouts, Youth Club, Charity investment, and Worldwide investment), much of which the local community takes for granted. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that they take it for granted -they should! Someone (dunno who) once said, "The Church is the only organisation I know of which exists purely for the benefit of its non-members". That, to me, summarises what the Church is for. As an offshoot, when the Church does that right, it's great PR and helps to generate more members, thus furthering its ability to achieve its goal. It could be said that Open Source works on a similar basis
A) We're not talking here about Religion vs. Science, but Religion WITH Scicene. B) If we were, I'm not convinced by your line of thinking. I get much spam about technical and non-technical services, I've never had any about religious issues. If you count Jehovah's Witnesses arriving at the door, try them with this:
How do you account for the JW claim that only 144,000 can enter the gates of Heaven, with respect to the fact that there are now more than 144,000?
Apart from JWs, who do a remarkable amount of work, (if you think about it, it's alt.jw.advocacy (no I don't know if that group exists) done before such things were thought of. It's also spam before that was named, too.) But I know that for myself, I get fed fanciful "scientific" claims through the mainstream media every day;/. spends much of its time refuting these articles; but very rarely, if ever, do I get real spiritual input from the mainstream media. It is unfortunate that I have to actively seek that out. But I guess it's better than spam.
Kewl! This sounds like mumbo-jumbo if you skim-read it, but it actually makes sense! (If you don't accept that, try reading the latest Linux kernel source!) I know that techies rely on proof often - I've spent the past few days writing scripts to prove that a data service either is or is not active. The scripts I wrote can prove it either way. However complex the computer, they're not yet dealing with "is there a God?", they're still on the level of "Has Oracle started up yet?" There *is* a difference between the two. That difference makes us human. That difference is that we are able to ask the question of our own accord. But we cannot answer it using our own mental abilites - we need to use our spiritual aspect, also. If this sounds like crap, think about this: I can REASON that I can or can't jump over a wall of a certain height. But I can't PROVE it without trying. So my reasoning is invalid by itself without experiential data. So my mind has limits. Some things I have to prove with my body. My reasoning may turn out wrong or right. But I have to try it to know for sure. Simiarly, I can REASON that there is or isn't a God. But I can't PROVE it either way. Again, my mind has limits. Some things I have to prove with my spirit. For myself, I jumped the wall.
More importantly, no religion is more correct than another. Christianity (ie, JC himself, direct quote) claims "No-one can come to the Father [ie, God] except through me." Other religions (eg, Islam) quote JC as a Prophet, but not the Son of God. Either this JC saying is correct or it isn't. There is no chance for them to be equally correct. JC must be
Investigated
Accepted
Denied
Ignored
Ignored
It has been said that "Ignorance is bliss". That saying is wrong.
It is interesting how many physicists turn to religion of some sort,
Or is it interesting that so many of the very people who are trying to understand and explain the beginning and working of our universe also have a belief in a Creator, while the lay who read a few sentences of Hawking, if that much, claim that "Science has disproved God" ??? To me, it's very telling that those who know the most about our world also believe in God. Those who know less don't. Draw your own conclusions. I'm not saying that knowledge, intelligence and understanding NECESSARILY lead to a belief in God, but they SO OFTEN do that it bears thinking about.
Myself, I work for a small firm who work on behalf of a much bigger firm (no names, it's only/. - who cares?) But much of my work is on customer sites, so while we have an office, I've done about 50-60 hours this week (not sure, not done the timesheet yet), so I'm gonna work from home tomorrow because I need a lie-in and see no need to put on a suit and sit bored in an office. Fortunately for me, my boss is cool with this. And yes, I do think I get more work done, unless I need to do testing on big expensive systems, which are only in the office's Lab. I can't afford a large disk array / etc at home (surprise!)
Leaving aside any "my-distro's better than yours" issues, I bought on RH5.1 cd from redhat.com. I then d/l'd RH6.1 and upgraded* (but hacked hdlist so it only "required" the RPMs I wanted, to answer someone else's comment). But my question applies to any distro...
Downloading RH6.1 took about 20-30 hours total, before I could do the U/grade. That's from the UK, where we basically have to pay for local calls (unlike the US, AFAIK). About 1p/min off-peak, much more at peak rate.
So is there any benefit in *linux.com offering an FTP install? People here seem to be interested in the idea, but for me it'd be a 30-hr connection to the net, which would cost far more than buying the CD (and be less reliable, and only do one install).
So what is the benefit to FTP install? Why do people so value "free" internet d/l of Linux, when it works out cheaper to buy the media anyway?
Steve.
* I dual-boot with M$Win as I sometimes need to create docs which will be properly MS-Word compliant, and don't trust anything else to do that (YET!...). Of course, Fat32 fscked up, I re-installed Winderz, which overwrote the bootblock, I'd lost my RH61 images, so used the RH51 CD to re-install, which didn't like it unless I installed certain RH51 RPMs so I did that and it fsck'd my RH61. So I forgot it and re-installed RH51. But now I want RH61 again. bleat.
It's interesting that the teacher seemed to assume that she'd know at least as much as her students. I thought most teachers (indeed, most over-25's, myself included) accepted that the younger generation are a lot more clued up on what's going on. However, there are two levels to this:
Having some knowledge and not knowing that there is more to know
Having enough knowledge to know where the holes are in your knowledge-base.
I'd just have assumed that when teaching technology, the teacher would be almost expecting people to come up with new things they've not heard of before. Maybe she didn't see licensing as technology, per se, so was surprised. I guess, just give her some URLs to read up on the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/ being the starting point, I guess!). At least that'll show her that it's not just you who'se loopy, but there are loads of us out here!
How circular;) An example of the flaming the article mentioned! Okay, so this article isn't saying much, and certainly nothing new, but the little it does say is right...
Frankly, if I ran any of these European countries, you'd bet your ass that I'd immediately condemn this spying as a hostile act of aggression, and work out treaties with other nations explicitly naming any further spying as an act of war, and military alliances to give the treaties TEETH. Unfortunately I am not in a position to say that I do run any of these Euros. However, I am a member of one (UK, to be precise). But I do immediately conden this as a host.. etc However, declaring spying as an act of war is a bit like declaring throwing a bomb at another country as an act of war. Whether we like it or not, at any level - regional, national, continental (OT Rant:yes, I know the US sees itself as a continent AND country, but LOOK AT A GLOBE!!!), organisations are at "war" with each other. M$ and NSCP/Sun/etc are at war, US and ROTW are at war, etc. It's just varying degrees. Whilst I'm not condoning industrial espionage between corporates, it is CERTAINLY wrong between a nation and another nations's industry.
Too right. I'm sure European COMPANIES spy on American Co.s and vice-versa. But to have STATE spies passing on INDUSTRIAL secrets is not part of their job. Frankly, from what little I know of most civil-service organisations, this level of cooperation seems somewhat optimistic, at best! But if they are doing this, and he's not pressed as an ex-employee, what's somebody trying to prove?
If this weren't happening, the taxpayers should complain Ahem, I beg your pardon? No, the world's not such a nice place, but this is not what I pay my taxes for. This is THEFT. Industrial Espionage. There is no pretty word for it. And it is NOT the job of the American (or any other) Government.
It's a shame that you posted anonymously, so I can't reply by email, but have to waste Slashdot's space by saying this... My post attempted to avoid any patronisation. But if you think OSS started in '95, you're wrong. That's when you joined it. Personally, I started using OSS around that time, since you ask (specifically 92/3). But it was going since way before then. I didn't create it. I never said that I did. I, too, *PAID* RedHat for my 5.1 CD. But not for the code that's on it; I paid them (I think about UKP30) for the CD media + postage; that seems reasonable. Plus they added their work on rpm, etc. to that. For free. It also included, par example, gcc, written largely by RMS. What's the issue? You've paid RH for some SW. You want to know what lines were written by RMS? I personally don't care *who* wrote what; it's free (as in speech) and it works. RMS is a great spokesperson for OSS. (Personally I'm not too keen on ESR I don't see how BSD is more free than GNU; maybe you can explain? I, too, if I chose, could make money from OSS. I never called myself a Marxist, though you applied that label to me. As it happens, I work on behalf of (DISCL: Not directly for) Sun Microsystems, a Capitalist.COM So don't guess that I'm naive or don't work for a living. I spend my days in corporate DataCenters. That's close enough to what's happening for me! As for "Younger Ones", I thank you for the complement. I'm 27 next week and feeling it!
I have a question for you: You seem to assume (old-world) that it's capitalism vs. socialism. I believe that OSS and the Net in general defies that simplicity. I also make a (pretty) decent living. I'm getting married in August and will have a wife and (eventually) family to support. I'm no great fan of a money-centric society, but I have to live in it. Like you, I have responsiblities. I find the word "normal" to be very dangerous. It's the kind of emotive word most people use to mean "people like me" - I dread a world of NORMAL PEOPLE. This is the C21st. A new order comes. It's not capitalism, socialism, nor nettism. It's just different. People incl. RMS, ESR and others have failed, so far, to define it. But I like it and I use it because it works for me. If "Modern Society" is M$, then Modern Society is not for me. If the future lies in OSS, I'm with it.
So in summary, you accuse me of being a naive Marxist. I'm neither. I want the best for my customers, who include Major financials, Mils (unfortunately), and.COMs. I believe that for me, and for certain customer requirements, OSS is the current best answer. Where it's valid, I say so. Where it's not, the same. Balance is the key. (This is getting somewhat off-topic from the original message posted here, but seems to be on-topic for the discussion sparked by this article.) This response isn't perfect, but I'd like a response so I can talk to you... Steve.
Great article - I'd not read this. What he actually says is: RMS: First, the meaning of the word "free". This is "jiyuu" in Japanese, and it doesn't refer to money. Also, people have lots of assumptions that they unconsciously make. Some people assume everyone is either a Capitalist or a Communist. Since I'm against proprietary software, they think I must be communist. Or people assume I'm jealous of people making a lot of money from software. People are so used to thinking that the important issue is money, it is hard to understand someone with a different priority. I've never opposed making money, and I'm not against selling copies of software. I'm opposed to taking away users' freedom. That's the issue. I think that says it all. Steve.
Dictionary.com: [Middle English communite, citizenry, from Old French from Latin commnits, fellowship, from commnis, common; see common.] Dictionary.com: communism \Com"mu*nism\, n. [F. communisme, fr. commun common.] So, same word.
Slashdot Mirror
Right behinda ya here.
This guy shows total ignorance from start to finish (see my full reply to the article). He's not just got a lot of things mixed up, he's put his brain in a shredder. He's there, in his own words, telling others how to approach the debate. Then he dismisses others' input on a trivial basis*, and ploughs on.
The guy needs shooting. I'm just glad that he doesn't realise there's a world outside the USA. He was born there, he'll live and die there. We shall probably never meet. That is good for me. * The basis being the guy's pronunciation of Linux. He can refute this. What I want to know is, what ELSE did people there say? I know that I, for one, would be butting in every 15 seconds!
I acknowledge that Linus T says the "correct" pronunciation is Linucks.
However, here in the UK, anybody I meet, technical or otherwise, and however Linux-aware they are (including a Linux webmaster and mudmaster) pronounce it "Lie-nucks". It just seems the natural way for a Britisher to pronounce the word. I get the feeling that this may go the way of words like "colo[u]r". As a techie, I can as easily type color as colour depending on the context, without realising I'm changing my spelling. (I nearly corrected the above; I said "color as colour", when I meant "colour as color") - out of any context, I find the two interchangeable now.
But since this is the only assertion in the whole article I can in any way accept, I think I'm happy to let this one lie. Steve.
Firstly, the AT&T business; just because AT&T had a monopoly (in the US), and the net thrived despite that (The 'Net is international, fool!), doesn't mean that regulation is de facto good.
... I had great fun, thanks. But back on-topic... Unix has its commercial power today because it was given free (source'n'all) to Uni's (due, again, to AT&T's monopoly ruling). The students then went into the workforce and applied what they knew to be good... Unix. Unix became the backbone of the internet, which *much later* had Win9x users join it! So don't give me that. Universities are VERY good places to start new technologies. Look at how strong Linux was in Unis a few years ago... Look at where it is now ... getcha timelines right, I think you got the pages muddled up here.
The free-leaflet thing; you can burn, destroy, hide, your copy of GPL s/w. What you can't do with a free leaflet is modify it and republish. Not "pass it on as unencumbered as they recieve it".
Then he gets on to the plus side; However, he's wrong again. If Linus decided to code Mozilla into the Kernel, it'd be pretty tricky for M$ to hack the kernel to remove it and use IE/Linux instead (if they chose do do such a thing).
Then the plus side of TCP/IP: it doesn't discriminate against packets. I don't know of a network protocol that does (and I've worked with Fibre, Token Ring, NetBLEURGH!, etc.... any ideas, anyone?!!!). Oh, but telco's could read packet headers if they chose, to remove any Linux, Audio, [insert whatever you think they may not like here] packets alongstream.
Then he goes on about - oh look, the Gov't intervened and broke AT&T's monopoly (again, IN THE USA... The 'Net doesn't only exist in America, [ insert own fave expletive here ]!!! ). Okay, at that point, it was mainly there, but surely we're talking about the INTERnet, not ARPAnet?
"Universities are fun, but they aren't enough to fuel commercial revolutions"
[ he's repeating US-is-the-Net stuff here, to which I won't repeat my rebuttals against ]
And so he sums up.
Open code and open telco's lead the way to open innovation.
This is of course all regulation
And so regulation is obviously the way forward for further innovation
So then he goes to people aged > 38 (natch, more respect when discussing technical issues. Born before 1962) and they say, "closed isn't okay, open isn't okay, something in-between will come up". And he accepts this?!!!
I don't know what this guy thinks he's achieved in this article, except to demonstrate his ignorance.
This is a troll, right?
Mattel can't revoke the GPL. Nor can the authors.
So the authors lied in their agreement.
Upshot:
Mattel lose. The software they bought is GPL.
The authors lose. Mattel can sue them for claiming falsehoods in their agreement.
But, can Mattel reverse-engineer the software, using the source as a "guide"?
I hold that we who are looking for reason behind life are using science and religion to do so. Between them, they can give us the answers we crave. If we want WHY, we ask religion. If we want HOW, we can ask science. These are all aspects of our humanity. We are body, mind, and spirit. These three parts of us have different questions and require differnet format answers. This doesn't mean that the truth is different, but my Body says, "How far can I jump?" because that applies to the body. My Mind asks, "How did my legs come to be?" because the the mind is there to think. My Spirit asks, "But how? Why?".
To be more direct, I would say that I would find the Bible a nightmare to understand without originally knowing the God it describes, I wouldn't even know how to explain it without that knowledge. A previous poster has commented on this conundrum. But we need the Spirit (the "character of God") to interpret (compile) the Bible for us. (Note: This doesn't dumb-down, just interpret, ie, help us understand).
For myself, I couldn't come to the Linux Kernel source with no knowledge of *nix and expect to understand it all. It'd be nice to have Linus by my side. With the Bible, I have that - that's why I called the Spirit the "character of God". S/He's always there whenever I read the Bible (and the rest of the time too, naturally!) so I have less (not NO ) problems interpreting what it means.
So for example, with your example questions about Creation and Original Sin, I'll give example suggestions:
Science tries to describe HOW our world originated. The Bible has a completely different goal - WHY our world originated.
(As an aside, if we wanted a fully detailed scientific description of the start of the Universe, how would we expect people 6,000+ years ago to have understood that well enough to pass it on, without the facility of written text?)
Okay, I don't see how we could have a conflict here since I can't see Science addressing this issue. Orig. Sin is a concept that we basically need to make a positive decision to accept God, that it's not the default. We're not forced into it, but that we have to make an active decision to accept God. I'm repeating myself already, it's so simple. I feel that the word "Sin" is the problem many people have with this concept. If we called it "Origial Freedom" it'd go down much better.
Sin is a very old word for not accepting God and God's values - in a nutshell. So Originally (before we don't make an active decision), we are assumed not to have made that active decision. To be "Sinners".
That's a very strong word, somehow. I think this must be cultural. All it means, is that as a "Sinner", I am not perfect. So, by default I am not perfect, in the same way that no OS IS perfectly secure. I am not assumed to be interested until I express an interest. This is the Free Will Defence in its simplest terms.
If it were the other way round, I would see a real problem with non-believers...
That means that a decision is made by our free will. The normal way this concept is argued against, is the idea of unborn or young children. For one thing, this is a small side-issue against the positive aspects of freedom against assumptions of acceptance. For another, it is difficult for any of us to know what a young child does understand - possibly more than we do!
So in terms of metaphor vs. literal, I find it often simple to see what is meant literally (If I wanted C18th people to understand the Big Bang theory (assuming that's correct), how would I go about telling someone 6000 yrs ago about it? And what good would it do them? And what would it mean now? Ditto C20th, C21st, C22nd?) So Creation is described in terms of what it MEANS, not HOW it was DONE. Pinning a man to a tree, however, is understood by the people of the time and those of use who live later in history. So make that a literal description.
As I say, understanding the Linux Kernel is easier if you're a friend of Linus. Understanding the Bible is easier if you're a friend of the Author. You don't have to believe and accept all that either of them say, just get to know what they have to say, and what they have to offer, then make up your own mind what to install.
Specifically, don't be sorry for this one.
Find a religion which neither requires checking your brain out at the door (a good phrase, so I'll re-use it) nor accepting superstition and nonsense.
So long as you don't check out brain@door, you can be sure of not accepting nonsense.
Popular media has a strong habit of portraying the "limp vicar", "deluded X fanatic" where X is Christianity, Linux, you name it. I've met both, but it degrades X/nity no more than having a Win user taking on Linux degrades OSS.
As OSS advocates (I assume we all are), we are happy every time someone trashes their FAT to install Linux. Simiarly, as Christians, we are joyous evey time someone accepts something
- Proven
- Reliable
- Insert fave reason for Linux here, it probably applies to Christianity
and are similarly unhappy every time someone takes on something which is less than enough.Bullshit *IS* bullshit. Block it out.
Take the truth.
ONLY.
For myself, I left a few years whilst I was in a different part of the country - at Uni - and only saw the comm. members occasionally ... whenever I did, there were always new people who didn't know me.
I had longish hair when I left, returned with longer, with mohican, with hair-to-my-waist; I was always accepted as Steve. The hair made no difference.
In the same timeframe (I did an industrial placement from Uni) I found that, in the "secular" world, I got vastly different treatment when appearing as a MetalHead with long hair than I did when wearing a suit (in situations such as "Can you change a note for some coins?" on the street, or in shops, etc).
Even more so, the difference in the way my Bank treated me ("Can I please pretty please have a pound or two because I need some bread and milk?" - Fsck off! suddenly became, "Ah, Mr. P - let's see, you get xxxx income per month, can we help you at all?" once I'd graduated and started working)
But the Church always saw me as me. I see some strong comparisons between the +ve benefits of OSS and the +ve benefits of the Church, but one differnece (and maybe it's technical and mainstram media-based) is that the OSS community can be much more critical, while the Church I can find much more accepting of differences.
However, I must balance that by saying that the OSS community really bases things on technical ability alone, whilst the Church values people as people. So I guess I should expect (and I get) more from the Church.
Oh my God(TM)! I thought - here goes
Imagine my surprise when I read the responses and found the most of them rational and reasonable disucssions on Religion, Science, and the interaction between the two.
I am not a Scientist, but a techie (which could be classes as a subset of scientist, I guess). I am also "Religios" - As in, I claim to be a Christian and an am active Church member.
For myself, most people I know fall into one camp or the other - they're techies of they're Christians. The techs I know thru' work, the Xn's I know through Church.
Some of the time, I dread the two groups meeting. Sometimes, I think that it would do both groups some good.
A few years ago, some scientists (Uni lecturers, etc - it's a middle-class church) held a kind of conference on "The Cross and the Word", I think they called it. They wanted to discuss with other Christians their belief in Science. Explain to them that they weren't giving up their principles by following Science. In a similar way, I expected Xn's on
In both discussions, there have been irritably few flames.
From what I can conclude, there is no discrepancy between Science and Religion.
So all I can guess, is that it's media hype.
Sure, Emacs vs. Vi, BSD vs. Linux, Unix vs. M$, Big-Bang vs. 7-days-creation can all cause differences in preference. But the difference is, that the tech. "Religious Wars" are about man-made decisions; the Big-Bang and 7-days issues are both looking for answers. They are looking TOGETHER for the best answer for today.
I personally believe that vi is preferrable to emacs to me. I also prefer *nix over M$ for most things. In such issues, "What you believe is up to you - it doesn't affect the validity of what I believe" is fine. I was expecting the same kind of answers from
Therefore,
Call human life a file format, if you will. There is one document to be read and written to. It is in a format. Physics and Religion are working on that format - Reverse engineering. They have different takes on how to do that, sometimes, but they are all working on the one issue. There are many different questions to be asked about that format: Why does it exist? Why is it like it is? How can it be improved (eg, GM, Meditation)? What harms it and should be avoided? Indeed, should it be avoided?
Science and Religion are both investigating all these as we sit around and read weblogs......
C'mon, I must have inflamed someone by now!
Steve.
I find that in my community, the Church has little impact. However, I left my original area some years ago, and still visit the church in my "old" community.
In that area, I see the church doing a lot for / with the local community (from Mums'n'Tots to Scouts, Youth Club, Charity investment, and Worldwide investment), much of which the local community takes for granted. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining that they take it for granted -they should! Someone (dunno who) once said, "The Church is the only organisation I know of which exists purely for the benefit of its non-members".
That, to me, summarises what the Church is for.
As an offshoot, when the Church does that right, it's great PR and helps to generate more members, thus furthering its ability to achieve its goal.
It could be said that Open Source works on a similar basis
B) If we were, I'm not convinced by your line of thinking. I get much spam about technical and non-technical services, I've never had any about religious issues.
If you count Jehovah's Witnesses arriving at the door, try them with this:
How do you account for the JW claim that only 144,000 can enter the gates of Heaven, with respect to the fact that there are now more than 144,000?
Apart from JWs, who do a remarkable amount of work, (if you think about it, it's alt.jw.advocacy (no I don't know if that group exists) done before such things were thought of. It's also spam before that was named, too.)But I know that for myself, I get fed fanciful "scientific" claims through the mainstream media every day;
It is unfortunate that I have to actively seek that out. But I guess it's better than spam.
Kewl!
This sounds like mumbo-jumbo if you skim-read it, but it actually makes sense! (If you don't accept that, try reading the latest Linux kernel source!)
I know that techies rely on proof often - I've spent the past few days writing scripts to prove that a data service either is or is not active.
The scripts I wrote can prove it either way.
However complex the computer, they're not yet dealing with "is there a God?", they're still on the level of "Has Oracle started up yet?"
There *is* a difference between the two. That difference makes us human. That difference is that we are able to ask the question of our own accord. But we cannot answer it using our own mental abilites - we need to use our spiritual aspect, also.
If this sounds like crap, think about this:
I can REASON that I can or can't jump over a wall of a certain height. But I can't PROVE it without trying. So my reasoning is invalid by itself without experiential data. So my mind has limits. Some things I have to prove with my body. My reasoning may turn out wrong or right. But I have to try it to know for sure.
Simiarly, I can REASON that there is or isn't a God. But I can't PROVE it either way. Again, my mind has limits. Some things I have to prove with my spirit.
For myself, I jumped the wall.
Christianity (ie, JC himself, direct quote) claims "No-one can come to the Father [ie, God] except through me."
Other religions (eg, Islam) quote JC as a Prophet, but not the Son of God.
Either this JC saying is correct or it isn't. There is no chance for them to be equally correct. JC must be
It has been said that "Ignorance is bliss". That saying is wrong.
Or is it interesting that so many of the very people who are trying to understand and explain the beginning and working of our universe also have a belief in a Creator, while the lay who read a few sentences of Hawking, if that much, claim that "Science has disproved God" ???
To me, it's very telling that those who know the most about our world also believe in God. Those who know less don't.
Draw your own conclusions.
I'm not saying that knowledge, intelligence and understanding NECESSARILY lead to a belief in God, but they SO OFTEN do that it bears thinking about.
Myself, I work for a small firm who work on behalf of a much bigger firm (no names, it's only /. - who cares?)
But much of my work is on customer sites, so while we have an office, I've done about 50-60 hours this week (not sure, not done the timesheet yet), so I'm gonna work from home tomorrow because I need a lie-in and see no need to put on a suit and sit bored in an office.
Fortunately for me, my boss is cool with this. And yes, I do think I get more work done, unless I need to do testing on big expensive systems, which are only in the office's Lab. I can't afford a large disk array / etc at home (surprise!)
Leaving aside any "my-distro's better than yours" issues, I bought on RH5.1 cd from redhat.com. I then d/l'd RH6.1 and upgraded* (but hacked hdlist so it only "required" the RPMs I wanted, to answer someone else's comment). But my question applies to any distro...
Downloading RH6.1 took about 20-30 hours total, before I could do the U/grade. That's from the UK, where we basically have to pay for local calls (unlike the US, AFAIK). About 1p/min off-peak, much more at peak rate.
So is there any benefit in *linux.com offering an FTP install? People here seem to be interested in the idea, but for me it'd be a 30-hr connection to the net, which would cost far more than buying the CD (and be less reliable, and only do one install).
So what is the benefit to FTP install? Why do people so value "free" internet d/l of Linux, when it works out cheaper to buy the media anyway?
Steve.
* I dual-boot with M$Win as I sometimes need to create docs which will be properly MS-Word compliant, and don't trust anything else to do that (YET!...). Of course, Fat32 fscked up, I re-installed Winderz, which overwrote the bootblock, I'd lost my RH61 images, so used the RH51 CD to re-install, which didn't like it unless I installed certain RH51 RPMs so I did that and it fsck'd my RH61. So I forgot it and re-installed RH51. But now I want RH61 again. bleat.
However, there are two levels to this:
- Having some knowledge and not knowing that there is more to know
- Having enough knowledge to know where the holes are in your knowledge-base.
I'd just have assumed that when teaching technology, the teacher would be almost expecting people to come up with new things they've not heard of before. Maybe she didn't see licensing as technology, per se, so was surprised.I guess, just give her some URLs to read up on the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/ being the starting point, I guess!). At least that'll show her that it's not just you who'se loopy, but there are loads of us out here!
Steve.
How circular ;) An example of the flaming the article mentioned!
Okay, so this article isn't saying much, and certainly nothing new, but the little it does say is right...
Frankly, if I ran any of these European countries, you'd bet your ass that I'd immediately condemn this spying as a hostile act of aggression, and work out treaties with other nations explicitly naming any further spying as an act of war, and military alliances to give the treaties TEETH.
Unfortunately I am not in a position to say that I do run any of these Euros. However, I am a member of one (UK, to be precise). But I do immediately conden this as a host.. etc
However, declaring spying as an act of war is a bit like declaring throwing a bomb at another country as an act of war. Whether we like it or not, at any level - regional, national, continental (OT Rant:yes, I know the US sees itself as a continent AND country, but LOOK AT A GLOBE!!!), organisations are at "war" with each other. M$ and NSCP/Sun/etc are at war, US and ROTW are at war, etc. It's just varying degrees.
Whilst I'm not condoning industrial espionage between corporates, it is CERTAINLY wrong between a nation and another nations's industry.
Too right.
I'm sure European COMPANIES spy on American Co.s and vice-versa. But to have STATE spies passing on INDUSTRIAL secrets is not part of their job.
Frankly, from what little I know of most civil-service organisations, this level of cooperation seems somewhat optimistic, at best!
But if they are doing this, and he's not pressed as an ex-employee, what's somebody trying to prove?
If this weren't happening, the taxpayers should complain
Ahem, I beg your pardon?
No, the world's not such a nice place, but this is not what I pay my taxes for. This is THEFT. Industrial Espionage. There is no pretty word for it. And it is NOT the job of the American (or any other) Government.
This is not at all what we need.
We're all OSS advocates.
Fragmentation is *exactly* what M$ and others are looking for to fuel their FUD.
My post attempted to avoid any patronisation. But if you think OSS started in '95, you're wrong. That's when you joined it. Personally, I started using OSS around that time, since you ask (specifically 92/3). But it was going since way before then. I didn't create it. I never said that I did.
I, too, *PAID* RedHat for my 5.1 CD. But not for the code that's on it; I paid them (I think about UKP30) for the CD media + postage; that seems reasonable. Plus they added their work on rpm, etc. to that. For free. It also included, par example, gcc, written largely by RMS.
What's the issue? You've paid RH for some SW. You want to know what lines were written by RMS? I personally don't care *who* wrote what; it's free (as in speech) and it works. RMS is a great spokesperson for OSS. (Personally I'm not too keen on ESR
I don't see how BSD is more free than GNU; maybe you can explain?
I, too, if I chose, could make money from OSS. I never called myself a Marxist, though you applied that label to me. As it happens, I work on behalf of (DISCL: Not directly for) Sun Microsystems, a Capitalist
I have a question for you:
You seem to assume (old-world) that it's capitalism vs. socialism. I believe that OSS and the Net in general defies that simplicity. I also make a (pretty) decent living. I'm getting married in August and will have a wife and (eventually) family to support. I'm no great fan of a money-centric society, but I have to live in it. Like you, I have responsiblities.
I find the word "normal" to be very dangerous. It's the kind of emotive word most people use to mean "people like me" - I dread a world of NORMAL PEOPLE.
This is the C21st. A new order comes. It's not capitalism, socialism, nor nettism. It's just different. People incl. RMS, ESR and others have failed, so far, to define it. But I like it and I use it because it works for me. If "Modern Society" is M$, then Modern Society is not for me. If the future lies in OSS, I'm with it.
So in summary, you accuse me of being a naive Marxist. I'm neither. I want the best for my customers, who include Major financials, Mils (unfortunately), and .COMs. I believe that for me, and for certain customer requirements, OSS is the current best answer. Where it's valid, I say so. Where it's not, the same.
Balance is the key.
(This is getting somewhat off-topic from the original message posted here, but seems to be on-topic for the discussion sparked by this article.)
This response isn't perfect, but I'd like a response so I can talk to you...
Steve.
Sorry, but I don't find any piracy advocating going on here.
Steve.
What he actually says is:
RMS: First, the meaning of the word "free". This is "jiyuu" in Japanese, and it doesn't refer to money.
Also, people have lots of assumptions that they unconsciously make. Some people assume everyone is either a Capitalist or a Communist. Since I'm against proprietary software, they think I must be communist. Or people assume I'm jealous of people making a lot of money from software. People are so used to thinking that the important issue is money, it is hard to understand someone with a different priority.
I've never opposed making money, and I'm not against selling copies of software. I'm opposed to taking away users' freedom. That's the issue.
I think that says it all.
Steve.
Dictionary.com: [Middle English communite, citizenry, from Old French from Latin commnits, fellowship, from commnis, common; see common.]
Dictionary.com: communism \Com"mu*nism\, n. [F. communisme, fr. commun common.]
So, same word.