"Things they can't pay for", to a certain extent assumes that you're not getting a good deal on your tax money.
National healthcare (Presuming that is what your talking about, rather than some generic strawman 'Dems will raise taxes' fit) is actually pretty easy to pay for - it's an investment strategy that saves us more as a nation than it costs.
As far as 'pockets of corporations' goes? Um - based on what? Obama at least has shown that he really *doesn't* need corporate money to get by.
Looks to me like Obama is pretty tech friendly in a 'gets it' kind of way.
I was certainly leaning Democratic anyway (I suppose I can't call myself an independent this year since I voted in the Primary), but it's good to know that Obama doesn't have any positions there that are going to give me hives.
McCain seems to be trying to be a Ted Stevens technologist, without admitting to it. Just because Net neutrality might inconvenience a company in some way doesn't mean it's a bad thing, and the neat theory of "We're going to hold the telecoms responsible - we just don't have any plans to investigate them" *does* give me hives.
Yes IEtab and stumble are compatible NOW, but werent for several days...
If you know what you are doing then disable the compat check for a couple of days...
And yes I know you can edit the extensions directly, but either they are going to get upgraded (like stumble) or they arnt (like Better Gmail2). Interestingly enough I took you at your word, but Beta 5 *still* listed ietab as incompatible, no updates available when I updated.
Works fine though, never killed it, never updated it further.
I will grant that I may still be (actually, almost certainly am) missing something here - but the way I read the FAQ, it says, fairly specifically, "This is the situation Daengbo is describing, and no, you don't need to GPL the program."
Looking through the internet, either there are a *lot* of people confused by any distinction between Linking and prelinking, or the two terms are actually interchangeable - I'm not finding anyone preaching a specific distinction out there. It seems like there has to be one since the FAQ itself notes that if you can link you can prelink, implying that they don't consider it the same.
But, I'm not sure why this FAQ says you can link, if that is what the LGPL is for.
Ah - Bull. You should have realized yourself that you were implementing a strawman argument when I said Gimp, and you responded with MS-Paint.
Now, you might be able to make an argument that I was able to start with Gimp because there are already pictures out there for me to practice on, but honestly, even attempting to do stuff on pre-existing files in Blender is an exercise in frustration, so I think it's a minor factor, but the end of the day answer is that I don't even buy into that.
Sorry - an intrinsic part of how people learn is that they get feedback - what's an improvement, what was overcomplicating the problem, what was uglier, and they get it incrementally. Even flying a jet plane across the atlantic typically starts with flying a plane, *not* across the atlantic. Flying during the day, flying during the night, learning to ignore where you think things are and trust your instruments.
Gimp gives you that feedback. Indeed, MS-paint gives you that feedback. Blender doesn't.
And if you tried to train pilots to fly across the Atlantic on instrument flying without running them through each stage of getting better at it, one at a time, you'd get a lot of crashed planes.
Quicktime was the first app that sprung to my mind - I won't install it anymore. It get's it's little grubby fingerprints *everywhere*.
Mplayer will run everything I've seen Quicktime run, and it's well behaved and you can tweak it from the commandline - I've long since just added the Mplayer options for looping video (for electricsheep, because some of them are, ah cool) and playing stuff full screen.
Because the question is regarding 'Linking'. Incorporating code into your (Non-GPL) program violates the GPL. Yet using linked libraries, does not.
Unless there is some subtle reason the plain face reading of the question and the FAQ is wrong (And that's not sarcasm - I only code as a hobby. There may *well* be just such a subtle reason), it seems to me that the question was about linking libraries, the GPL faq spoke to linking libraries, and answering as though the question asked about actually using code internally in your new program is confusing the issue.
[EricIdleMode=1] "Another of the fine European Linux distributions, Exherbo Linux speaks to the casual user and developer alike and what it say is "Get Out", rather like a compiled version of the Amityville Horror. With packages that work as advertised primarily because they are advertised as not working, no install media, no support, and a declared lack of interest in supporting such features as "Usability", Exherbo takes truth in advertising to previously unseen, and indeed unsought for levels.
If you have found Slackware Linux to be far too overrun with friendly advice for the new user, and Linux in general to be degraded by a desire for it to do useful work for people, then Exherbo Linux is almost certainly the distribution for you." [EricIdleMode=0]
Pug
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements.
on
Blender 2.46 Released
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I'd like to see the interface get to a point where you can actually jump in and do something with it. Everytime I've tried to learn Blender, it has felt like High school Art class all over again - "Oh, after loads of work and effort, I have created . . a cup. An ugly cup. Crap. I *hate* this fucking class!"
Gimp, whatever other peoples complaints about the interface, I can at least do things and come back with a product that, if not professional quality, I can look at with some pride and pleasure, and try to do something slightly more sophisticated using new features each time I work with it it. Am I good - Probably not. But I can *do* things with it.
It's only about twice the price of a radio alarm clock I've been darn near desperate enough to get (With a separate alarm every day), with a *lot* more features.
Cutesy - yeah. But cutesy in a reasonable way, not sickeningly so, and with a nice feature set. I may wait till it gets reviewed for the technical aspects by someone I trust like consumer reports - can it take being knocked off the bedside table, does it wear well, if you have a power outage how long does the battery last, et al.
But, if it's put together well, I'm probably going to buy this or something like it. Not till I get some other stuff paid down. But It's a good idea, all around.
The canon source disagrees with you: per http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
Does prelinking a GPLed binary to various libraries on the system, to optimize its performance, count as modification?
No. Prelinking is part of a compilation process; it doesn't introduce any license requirements above and beyond what other aspects of compilation would. If you're allowed to link the program to the libraries at all, then it's fine to prelink with them as well. If you distribute prelinked object code, you need to follow the terms of section 6.
When we say "copy code", we mean just that: you're taking a section of code from one source, with or without modification, and inserting it into your own program, thus forming a work based on the first section of code. âoeUse a libraryâ means that you're not copying any source directly, but instead interacting with it through linking, importing, or other typical mechanisms that bind the sources together when you compile or run the code.
I wasn't terribly impressed when my neverwinter nights modules started doing this - it was slow and unwieldy.
I've been looking forward to Spore, to a point of putting off putting a new system together until I see it's requirements, but if I'm going to have to put up with this kind of BS slowing me down, I may not bother.
It's just not worth the mess of having to deal with it - I'm having fun with Ubuntu, I have older games I still haven't beat, and I appear to have suddenly hit a "This program requires resources in excess of your current 'Fuck It' limit. Increase 'Fuck it' limit? [Yes][No]" Error.
5 REM This program is not licensed to be used in conjunction with World of Warcraft, Microsoft Windows, or similar software. Use of this program or possession of it's source code in conjunction with such programs shall be considered a copyright violation with statutory damages of $750 per infraction.
10 Print "pwned" 20 goto 10 30 Print "Profit"
40 REM Copyright 2008 pugugly@slashdot.org All rights endured.
Dear Blizzard Software, I would like my money please. Thanks.
The hardware that you happen to have is irrelevant to my argument. Your original argument is "The industry norm today is to provide open drivers and/or open specs", Well, if that were true, then the exact hardware would be irrelevant, but since it's not, then the hardware I happen to have suddenly becomes, y'know, relevant
Sure, if you buy random hardware you'll probably get some that doesn't have in-kernel drivers. If you wanted to actually chose hardware intentionally though you'd have little trouble finding hardware with full in-kernel (or in-X.org) support. But, in point of fact, if you need to put desktop linux in reach, then people need to be able to depend on using that random piece of hardware that they want. That may be a video card, a tuner, a scanner - they decided they need it - AND XP SUPPORTS IT!
Whether *you think they need it or not is kinda, irrelevant.
The latter is the only property that really matters to anyone except for hobbyists trying to install stuff on their old computers. If Dell wants to build machines that work perfectly, they can do that today (and they do it). If they want to favor vendors who have in-kernel drivers, they have that option (and they've declared that they'll do so).
There may never be drivers for the hardware that you already have - but that doesn't matter in the market at all, because that hardware has already been sold. If you want to buy new hardware (buy - that means that it matters to the market), you can chose supported hardware.
That's just kinda - silly. We're not talking about old hardware. This is about new, upcoming hardware. THe hardware you were saying is already supported, when it verifiably isn't.
Your premises are wrong, and from them your logic does not follow.
Pretty much - the "Great Filter" is an interesting concept, but his exploration of it is, frankly, sloppy, and has massive assumptions.
For instance - multiple civilizations, each of which has staked out territory, with 'interstices' where other intelligent life has a chance to grow.
Genuinely benevolent civilizations, which protect younger species.
Other life has tended to evolve in other environments. They are not interested in ours (yet).
We *are* the result of Von Neumann machines. Brotherhood of Humanities is not a metaphor, Wave Hi!
Some unknown feature has resulted in evolution being ever so slightly faster here than is typical (The reverse of a great filter). Best bet might be the Dual Planet nature of the Moon - there can't be *that* many planetary collisions that result in a stable double planet system, and tidal pools seem to have had some effect.
No unknown feature has either accelerated or stagnated our evolution - in fact the evolution of life has so many lucky breaks and bad moments that it evens out over an extraordinary narrow period of time, and planets develop intelligent life capable of spaceflight within a very narrow band of a million years or less. All the Science Fiction Movies are right, and the Alien women are all sexy amazon babes (The humanoid ones anyway).
I think the Great Filter is probably a legitimate factor as well - I think of Cosmos and the Encyclopedia Galactica entries "Chance of survival (per Century) 43%" - I don't doubt that civilizations have half lives and recurring themes.
But that's, what, seven possibilities off the top of my head, none of which evidently crossed his mind?
Saying you're interested in just this one aspect without dealing with other possibilities would be a fair options. Ignoring them (and the other 347 I didn't think of) entirely is just kinda sloppy.
The industry norm among specific types of components is for open source drivers - Drives, networking, anything you would see on a server.
Not for a vast number of other components, video cards, some wireless, cell phone drivers, TV tuners, Radio Tuners, etcetera etcetera. My Graphics card won't do 3-D graphic without ATI's restricted driver, my mothers ubuntu partition has yet to notice she has an HD-TV and Digital radio tuner.
Everytime I've switched out a monitor has been a pain far above and beyond what I consider reasonable for something that can be described in terms of v-sync and h-sync, and frequency.
So no - sorry, your premise is counterfactual. I'd like to see open source become an industry norm, and I suspect it will happen pretty soon - it's felt like we're hitting a tipping point for a couple years now, and I think companies are going to be to be on top of it, or get buried under it - but not yet it ain't.
I agree with the developers on this one. Saying you have a design principle that you intend to stick by and, y'know, actually sticking by it, is not a bad idea.
I think Pidgin will be better for it - that kind of feature should be a plugin, and my *suspicion* is that in the long term, a bunch of people forking pidgin to implement one difference in the GUI that they disagree with will be a bunch of people that will never be able to turn down the next feature and the next feature - and you'll end up with a "SuperPidgin" kludgy messenger that does a thousand things half arsedly, none of them well.
After all - if the GUI preference between an expanding GUI and a manually set one is important enough to fork, it's going to require a really arrogant developer to say *my* preference shouldn't have an option too.
I think the smart money is to stay with Pidgin. I would even go so far as to say I think this decision *establishes* that the smart money is to stay with Pidgin.
Helpdesk tends to reward renaissance, jack of all trades types in a market that is typically a specialists market.
This is it's own advantage and disadvantage - the advantage is that you get to see more of an organization - I work for a corporate helpdesk here in the U.S. that goes toe to toe with the Indian companies by justifying our greater expense with stronger customer service and a range of skills. I have talked to clients in Japan, Germany, Korea,China, Mexico - well, just about everywhere, doing just about everything, (Including having a long drawn out conversation about U.S. foreign policy and economic factors versus India and China with someone while I got his copy of notes working before he went to a diplomatic reception. I enjoyed it - he may have considerd me a parochial hick, but *I* had fun).
The disadvantage is that to shine as a specialist, you need to be *damn* good across a pretty narrow, well defined range that you can study up on day to day. To be good enough at helpdesk to shine, you have to be *pretty darn* good across a broad range of badly defined and overlapping skills.
It's certainly not a *safe* route to advancement - it requires an eclecticism not rewarded most other places. But if you have it, you can do fairly well at it.
The point that Canonical tries to have it both ways - that (despite the clarity in distinguishing them in the OS) it isn't entirely opensource in practice, but it wants to act as if it were to market itself to opensource advocates - well, he has a valid point.
That said - it is, essentially, calling them on a marketing decision. Fair enough - they are allowed to make a marketing decision which is deceptive without being dishonest, he is allowed to call them on it.
But saying that they have a product which is not open source, and that in turn means they're selling out? Umm - no. Maybe it means they are not pure of heart and soul, but I'm okay with that. Most companies that support opensource aren't doing out of some deep, abiding divine spark. I seem to recall IBM has one or two closed source products lying around somewhere - .
There *is* a dichotomy between making opensource products and making a sell-able product, and I haven't seen a good way to make a profit *just* selling a useful product as open source yet, without incurring some kind of subscription based support service for it.
If someone can come up with a way to make GPL'd open source product so well made it doesn't *need* support, and still manage to sell the darn thing and make money at it, they will resolve this dichotomy. I'm not sure I see how to do it (yet), but it seems to me to be the problem that needs resolved.
The FBI has been assured that there is no way whatsover that these could be used in this manner, all investigations have been dropped as per new orders from the Justice Department and NSA and signed by Attorney General Hu Jintao . . .
Slashdot Mirror
"Things they can't pay for", to a certain extent assumes that you're not getting a good deal on your tax money.
National healthcare (Presuming that is what your talking about, rather than some generic strawman 'Dems will raise taxes' fit) is actually pretty easy to pay for - it's an investment strategy that saves us more as a nation than it costs.
As far as 'pockets of corporations' goes? Um - based on what? Obama at least has shown that he really *doesn't* need corporate money to get by.
Pug
Looks to me like Obama is pretty tech friendly in a 'gets it' kind of way.
I was certainly leaning Democratic anyway (I suppose I can't call myself an independent this year since I voted in the Primary), but it's good to know that Obama doesn't have any positions there that are going to give me hives.
McCain seems to be trying to be a Ted Stevens technologist, without admitting to it. Just because Net neutrality might inconvenience a company in some way doesn't mean it's a bad thing, and the neat theory of "We're going to hold the telecoms responsible - we just don't have any plans to investigate them" *does* give me hives.
Pug
This seems like a good spot to post "Insanity = Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.".
Although . . . they keep doing this over and over, and every time, I keep expecting them to get smarter.
Maybe "Really Crazy = Expecting the insane to get better."?
Pug
If you know what you are doing then disable the compat check for a couple of days...
And yes I know you can edit the extensions directly, but either they are going to get upgraded (like stumble) or they arnt (like Better Gmail2). Interestingly enough I took you at your word, but Beta 5 *still* listed ietab as incompatible, no updates available when I updated.
Works fine though, never killed it, never updated it further.
Weird - Pug
I will grant that I may still be (actually, almost certainly am) missing something here - but the way I read the FAQ, it says, fairly specifically, "This is the situation Daengbo is describing, and no, you don't need to GPL the program."
Looking through the internet, either there are a *lot* of people confused by any distinction between Linking and prelinking, or the two terms are actually interchangeable - I'm not finding anyone preaching a specific distinction out there. It seems like there has to be one since the FAQ itself notes that if you can link you can prelink, implying that they don't consider it the same.
But, I'm not sure why this FAQ says you can link, if that is what the LGPL is for.
Ah - Bull. You should have realized yourself that you were implementing a strawman argument when I said Gimp, and you responded with MS-Paint.
Now, you might be able to make an argument that I was able to start with Gimp because there are already pictures out there for me to practice on, but honestly, even attempting to do stuff on pre-existing files in Blender is an exercise in frustration, so I think it's a minor factor, but the end of the day answer is that I don't even buy into that.
Sorry - an intrinsic part of how people learn is that they get feedback - what's an improvement, what was overcomplicating the problem, what was uglier, and they get it incrementally. Even flying a jet plane across the atlantic typically starts with flying a plane, *not* across the atlantic. Flying during the day, flying during the night, learning to ignore where you think things are and trust your instruments.
Gimp gives you that feedback. Indeed, MS-paint gives you that feedback. Blender doesn't.
And if you tried to train pilots to fly across the Atlantic on instrument flying without running them through each stage of getting better at it, one at a time, you'd get a lot of crashed planes.
Pug
Quicktime was the first app that sprung to my mind - I won't install it anymore. It get's it's little grubby fingerprints *everywhere*.
Mplayer will run everything I've seen Quicktime run, and it's well behaved and you can tweak it from the commandline - I've long since just added the Mplayer options for looping video (for electricsheep, because some of them are, ah cool) and playing stuff full screen.
There just is no good reason for Quicktime.
Because the question is regarding 'Linking'. Incorporating code into your (Non-GPL) program violates the GPL. Yet using linked libraries, does not.
Unless there is some subtle reason the plain face reading of the question and the FAQ is wrong (And that's not sarcasm - I only code as a hobby. There may *well* be just such a subtle reason), it seems to me that the question was about linking libraries, the GPL faq spoke to linking libraries, and answering as though the question asked about actually using code internally in your new program is confusing the issue.
Pug
I'm so sick and tired of hearing you brag about your tinfoil hat. If only there was some way to shut you up about that . . . oh, hey . . .
{Grin} - Pug
I can call my self Tee Man! Wearing My Tee-Shirt, I shall fight for truth, justice, and the almighty Buck! In my secret identity as Mr. (&*%^)$(^$)
Ow - quit hitting me Mr. T - I would never have gone there!
Pug
[EricIdleMode=1]
"Another of the fine European Linux distributions, Exherbo Linux speaks to the casual user and developer alike and what it say is "Get Out", rather like a compiled version of the Amityville Horror. With packages that work as advertised primarily because they are advertised as not working, no install media, no support, and a declared lack of interest in supporting such features as "Usability", Exherbo takes truth in advertising to previously unseen, and indeed unsought for levels.
If you have found Slackware Linux to be far too overrun with friendly advice for the new user, and Linux in general to be degraded by a desire for it to do useful work for people, then Exherbo Linux is almost certainly the distribution for you."
[EricIdleMode=0]
Pug
I'd like to see the interface get to a point where you can actually jump in and do something with it. Everytime I've tried to learn Blender, it has felt like High school Art class all over again - "Oh, after loads of work and effort, I have created . . a cup. An ugly cup. Crap. I *hate* this fucking class!"
Gimp, whatever other peoples complaints about the interface, I can at least do things and come back with a product that, if not professional quality, I can look at with some pride and pleasure, and try to do something slightly more sophisticated using new features each time I work with it it. Am I good - Probably not. But I can *do* things with it.
Blender has never gotten to that point with me.
"Oh, look I made a cup in Blender!" - {G}
Pug
It's only about twice the price of a radio alarm clock I've been darn near desperate enough to get (With a separate alarm every day), with a *lot* more features.
Cutesy - yeah. But cutesy in a reasonable way, not sickeningly so, and with a nice feature set. I may wait till it gets reviewed for the technical aspects by someone I trust like consumer reports - can it take being knocked off the bedside table, does it wear well, if you have a power outage how long does the battery last, et al.
But, if it's put together well, I'm probably going to buy this or something like it. Not till I get some other stuff paid down. But It's a good idea, all around.
Pug
per http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html Does prelinking a GPLed binary to various libraries on the system, to optimize its performance, count as modification?
No. Prelinking is part of a compilation process; it doesn't introduce any license requirements above and beyond what other aspects of compilation would. If you're allowed to link the program to the libraries at all, then it's fine to prelink with them as well. If you distribute prelinked object code, you need to follow the terms of section 6. When we say "copy code", we mean just that: you're taking a section of code from one source, with or without modification, and inserting it into your own program, thus forming a work based on the first section of code. âoeUse a libraryâ means that you're not copying any source directly, but instead interacting with it through linking, importing, or other typical mechanisms that bind the sources together when you compile or run the code.
Which is why the GPL makes it require so very little effort to do so.
So long as the profit exceeds the effort required, then you are better off contributing to the "Public Good".
Pug
I wasn't terribly impressed when my neverwinter nights modules started doing this - it was slow and unwieldy.
I've been looking forward to Spore, to a point of putting off putting a new system together until I see it's requirements, but if I'm going to have to put up with this kind of BS slowing me down, I may not bother.
It's just not worth the mess of having to deal with it - I'm having fun with Ubuntu, I have older games I still haven't beat, and I appear to have suddenly hit a "This program requires resources in excess of your current 'Fuck It' limit. Increase 'Fuck it' limit? [Yes][No]" Error.
[No]
Pug
5 REM This program is not licensed to be used in conjunction with World of Warcraft, Microsoft Windows, or similar software. Use of this program or possession of it's source code in conjunction with such programs shall be considered a copyright violation with statutory damages of $750 per infraction.
10 Print "pwned"
20 goto 10
30 Print "Profit"
40 REM Copyright 2008 pugugly@slashdot.org All rights endured.
Dear Blizzard Software, I would like my money please. Thanks.
Whether *you think they need it or not is kinda, irrelevant. The latter is the only property that really matters to anyone except for hobbyists trying to install stuff on their old computers. If Dell wants to build machines that work perfectly, they can do that today (and they do it). If they want to favor vendors who have in-kernel drivers, they have that option (and they've declared that they'll do so).
There may never be drivers for the hardware that you already have - but that doesn't matter in the market at all, because that hardware has already been sold. If you want to buy new hardware (buy - that means that it matters to the market), you can chose supported hardware.
That's just kinda - silly. We're not talking about old hardware. This is about new, upcoming hardware. THe hardware you were saying is already supported, when it verifiably isn't.Your premises are wrong, and from them your logic does not follow.
Pug
Pretty much - the "Great Filter" is an interesting concept, but his exploration of it is, frankly, sloppy, and has massive assumptions.
For instance - multiple civilizations, each of which has staked out territory, with 'interstices' where other intelligent life has a chance to grow.
Genuinely benevolent civilizations, which protect younger species.
Other life has tended to evolve in other environments. They are not interested in ours (yet).
We *are* the result of Von Neumann machines. Brotherhood of Humanities is not a metaphor, Wave Hi!
Some unknown feature has resulted in evolution being ever so slightly faster here than is typical (The reverse of a great filter). Best bet might be the Dual Planet nature of the Moon - there can't be *that* many planetary collisions that result in a stable double planet system, and tidal pools seem to have had some effect.
No unknown feature has either accelerated or stagnated our evolution - in fact the evolution of life has so many lucky breaks and bad moments that it evens out over an extraordinary narrow period of time, and planets develop intelligent life capable of spaceflight within a very narrow band of a million years or less. All the Science Fiction Movies are right, and the Alien women are all sexy amazon babes (The humanoid ones anyway).
I think the Great Filter is probably a legitimate factor as well - I think of Cosmos and the Encyclopedia Galactica entries "Chance of survival (per Century) 43%" - I don't doubt that civilizations have half lives and recurring themes.
But that's, what, seven possibilities off the top of my head, none of which evidently crossed his mind?
Saying you're interested in just this one aspect without dealing with other possibilities would be a fair options. Ignoring them (and the other 347 I didn't think of) entirely is just kinda sloppy.
I for one welcome our sexy amazon babe overlords.
Pug
Not really no.
The industry norm among specific types of components is for open source drivers - Drives, networking, anything you would see on a server.
Not for a vast number of other components, video cards, some wireless, cell phone drivers, TV tuners, Radio Tuners, etcetera etcetera. My Graphics card won't do 3-D graphic without ATI's restricted driver, my mothers ubuntu partition has yet to notice she has an HD-TV and Digital radio tuner.
Everytime I've switched out a monitor has been a pain far above and beyond what I consider reasonable for something that can be described in terms of v-sync and h-sync, and frequency.
So no - sorry, your premise is counterfactual. I'd like to see open source become an industry norm, and I suspect it will happen pretty soon - it's felt like we're hitting a tipping point for a couple years now, and I think companies are going to be to be on top of it, or get buried under it - but not yet it ain't.
Pug
I agree with the developers on this one. Saying you have a design principle that you intend to stick by and, y'know, actually sticking by it, is not a bad idea.
I think Pidgin will be better for it - that kind of feature should be a plugin, and my *suspicion* is that in the long term, a bunch of people forking pidgin to implement one difference in the GUI that they disagree with will be a bunch of people that will never be able to turn down the next feature and the next feature - and you'll end up with a "SuperPidgin" kludgy messenger that does a thousand things half arsedly, none of them well.
After all - if the GUI preference between an expanding GUI and a manually set one is important enough to fork, it's going to require a really arrogant developer to say *my* preference shouldn't have an option too.
I think the smart money is to stay with Pidgin. I would even go so far as to say I think this decision *establishes* that the smart money is to stay with Pidgin.
Pug
Helpdesk tends to reward renaissance, jack of all trades types in a market that is typically a specialists market.
This is it's own advantage and disadvantage - the advantage is that you get to see more of an organization - I work for a corporate helpdesk here in the U.S. that goes toe to toe with the Indian companies by justifying our greater expense with stronger customer service and a range of skills. I have talked to clients in Japan, Germany, Korea,China, Mexico - well, just about everywhere, doing just about everything, (Including having a long drawn out conversation about U.S. foreign policy and economic factors versus India and China with someone while I got his copy of notes working before he went to a diplomatic reception. I enjoyed it - he may have considerd me a parochial hick, but *I* had fun).
The disadvantage is that to shine as a specialist, you need to be *damn* good across a pretty narrow, well defined range that you can study up on day to day. To be good enough at helpdesk to shine, you have to be *pretty darn* good across a broad range of badly defined and overlapping skills.
It's certainly not a *safe* route to advancement - it requires an eclecticism not rewarded most other places. But if you have it, you can do fairly well at it.
Or, at least I feel I'm doing okay at it.
Pug
I also think he is overselling that point.
The point that Canonical tries to have it both ways - that (despite the clarity in distinguishing them in the OS) it isn't entirely opensource in practice, but it wants to act as if it were to market itself to opensource advocates - well, he has a valid point.
That said - it is, essentially, calling them on a marketing decision. Fair enough - they are allowed to make a marketing decision which is deceptive without being dishonest, he is allowed to call them on it.
But saying that they have a product which is not open source, and that in turn means they're selling out? Umm - no. Maybe it means they are not pure of heart and soul, but I'm okay with that. Most companies that support opensource aren't doing out of some deep, abiding divine spark. I seem to recall IBM has one or two closed source products lying around somewhere - .
There *is* a dichotomy between making opensource products and making a sell-able product, and I haven't seen a good way to make a profit *just* selling a useful product as open source yet, without incurring some kind of subscription based support service for it.
If someone can come up with a way to make GPL'd open source product so well made it doesn't *need* support, and still manage to sell the darn thing and make money at it, they will resolve this dichotomy. I'm not sure I see how to do it (yet), but it seems to me to be the problem that needs resolved.
Pug
Oh Oh - I seen this one - the command was simply "Sleep"!
Then the borg cube blew up!
Pug
The FBI has been assured that there is no way whatsover that these could be used in this manner, all investigations have been dropped as per new orders from the Justice Department and NSA and signed by Attorney General Hu Jintao . . .
heeyy waitaminute . . .
Pug