In Britain, the institutions of government are trusted
and respected, and can be relied upon to do their job in a fair manner. I can't figure out if you're on drugs, a 70 year old Tory peer or joking.
Also, Britain is a small
and densly populated country, meaning that the typival Briton knows and trusts his fellow man. Tory peer, got to be.
While on that subject, could those folks writing these types of things stop writing Linux apps, and start writing Unix apps, please?
Good call, Linux was originally written to be UNIX-compatible, so that "standard" UNIX code would run on Linux almost unaltered. Write code for UNIX/POSIX/BSD and it will work fine under Linux, but will give other people the chance to use it too. It can't be that hard, people have managed to code for UNIX for decades without Linux-specific calls.
I'm a Linux user but now also run FreeBSD after using it at work and realising that almost everything I like about linux is a unix feature, not something special to linux (as the GNU project tries to point out with "GNU/Linux"). All linux boxen are unix, but not all unix is linux boxen!
As an aside, can anyone tell me whether the linux-compatibility features of FreeBSD can handle linux-specific calls, or just run the binaries when they contain only calls supported by FreeBSD?
The problem with Sun hardware is that it's simply too expensive for what it does. you mean it's too expensive for what you do? They're not aiming to sell it to desktop users and linux hobbyists, while power users (of whatever kind) want what Sun offer they'll still make money from their current price strategy.
No it's staffed by people with law degrees and experience in patent law not parrots.
And on top of that, the only person I've ever met who works for the Patent Office (the British one, that is) has a PhD in Physics. As it happens he specialises in telecoms patents.
Hope this doesn't spoil anybody's "nobody understands us geeks" reality tunnel too much;)
I completely agree that models and metaphors ARE what our *thoughts* are made of... however, I think you are largely overstating... your stronger proposition, that models and metaphors are the world itself.
How do you distinguish between "the world itself" and our thoughts (specifically, our perceived impression of the world.) Our only knowledge of the world is that shown to us by our model of the world. Our model is based on our perceptions, which are not all-encompassing. We only see in a tiny range of the electro-magnetic spectrum (this is extended by mechanical means of "seeing" radio/gamma/UV etc. but most people don't integrate astronomical measurements into their worldview/model!) we don't "see" patterns of smells in the way some animals (apparently) do (snakes, for instance.)
AFAIK no-one has ever seen "the world", only some properties of it, and Heisenberg would suggest that at the lowest level you never can see it all, your knowledge is limited to measuring ("seeing") one or other of a pair of conjugate variables.
So, if we can't see "the world", only a model (however complex and however large a set of data the model is based on) then our best model is, as far as we can ever be concerned, indistinguishable from "the world", then is it at all meaningful to say that the world is distinct from our models?
and I do think that the word "truth" still *sometimes* makes sense.
Me too, but that's not to say that two completely contradictory "facts" (statements) can't both be "true" in different models. Would you disagree that a fundamentalist creationist christian, a zen monk and a hindu ascetic live in different worlds, with contradictory explanations for their experiences? I think they're all right when they say theirs is the true description of the world (although the zen monk would be unlikely to make such a claim.) I think they're wrong when they say their's is the one true description.
redi
"Luke, you're going to find that many of the
truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." -- Obi Wan
--
Re:Who really needs a lesson
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 2
I was going to moderate on this topic, but I had to post a reply to this:
Juries are
also told on many occasions they can't talk about the case. Why? What is the legal system afraid of? Are they
scared that a newspaper may alter that perceived reality,
err, yes!
and reveal the truth?
are you fukcing stupid? do you think what the papers tell you is always true and impartial? CNN never misleads?/. is a source of oracular wisdom? wake the fukc up!
damn, now i have to spend my mod pts on another topic, and I wanted to give grahamsz a point (although he's wrong about RIP being slipped in quietly, don't you read the trade press?)
Having read the article, I'm wondering something, and would like someone who knows about this to answer it for me. I didn't realise that so much of the GNU toolchain was shared between the various apps (well, I thought they were separate apps, now I see them as modules in a single system, whatever.) Is it a good idea to have them so interdependent? What I mean is that not everyone who uses GCC wants to use gdb, are there any possible gotchas involved in making them all share so much? I realise they have already been part of this tree for a wile, but that doesn't mean there can't be problems that have already been introduced (does it?) I'm not trying to argue against merging anything, as I know next to nothing about the internals of any of the tools, I'm just curious. thanks to anyone who can give an answer,
If these license issues generate so many discussions with lots of confused developers, then maybe these licenses are too complicated for developers. Either simplify and clairify these damned things once and for all, or make "license/copyright law" a part of the CS curriculum.
I think I prefer the second suggestion. I think the problem is with lazy developers, who consider the legal and copyright-related side to be below them, or just not applicable.
If you want to use GPLed code, RTFL! (that's an L for license)
Weakening the terms of the licenses in order to help lazy developers be categorised as Open Source will only harm the Open Source "brand" as it becomes easier to violate the terms and for closed-source apps to claim they're OSS.
I think there should be a new license set up for distributed output applications.
NO! The output that the app produces might be (and probably is) confidential, copyrighted or otherwise protected and only intended for viewing by some parties. If the fact that it was served or generated by a GPLed app meant the output was covered by the GPL it would be impossible to keep that data private! If GPLed software is to be successful in commercial environments (as I know it can be) you can't possibly put this sort of insane restriction on it! It would mean that any website providing subscription-only content couldn't use any GPLed software, as the output would instantly become publicly distributable! Please see my earlier post (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/07/13/1831 245&cid=221) for a better explanation of why there is no need for a new license, the GPL covers this situation perfectly, as long as you realise it wasn't intended to cover data, only software, algorithms and such like.
It doesn't matter if a program produces HTML, TXT, or XML (all textual), or GIF, JPG, or PNG (binary). The bottom line is that they're all products of the program, not derivative of the program.
I might have totally mis-understood the point of the GPL (and this thread), but the quote above seems one of the first relevant posts on this topic. The info the user sees when using your app/site is output, and is not covered by the GPL. The output may well be copyrighted to you (or other parties) and non-distributable, but this doesn't violate the GPL. The "program" is the server-side code that generates the output. In your case this happens to be a set of scripts not a compiled binary, but I think that's irrelevant. I work as a web developer on a similar web-based app giving access to a database using a custom Apache module connecting to MySQL. We couldn't sell our server binary to another party who wanted to run a similar system without providing the sources, because our app is a derivative of apache and MySQL, but the output of the site is accessible only to users who've logged on and have paid for access to the appropriate info. I think it would be insane if the GPL implied that our proprietarry data must be freely distributable because it is served by a modified apache server. How the hell are open-source apps ever going to be used in commercial settings if using them means all your corporate data must be given to the public?!?! If a firm kept it's accounts in a MySQL DB should anyone be able to ask to see them? NO!
You are only required to distribute the code if you charge for the server app, not if you charge for data served by it. This means the problem stated (That means that someone could make a website out of a derivitive work and never have to open or disclose their code) doesn't exist. If someone charges people for their script-based server app, they can't help but supply the sources, they're human-readable scripts! The only way they could prevent someone who buys the server app from seeing the sources would be to re-write it as a binary (e.g. make it an apache module written in C), but then the GPL applies!
Have I missed the point, or is this just not an issue?
I came up with a (far from rigorous) proof a couple of years ago as to why technological advancement won't (or even can't) lead to increased leisure time. Damned if I can remember it though:) It was based on the observation that although printing presses, computers, video cameras, nearly instant global communications etc. have increased the productivity of almost all businesses a thousand-fold, most of us work just as many hours per week as our ancestors. This means most businesses should have been able to reduce their employees' hours a thousand-fold while keeping profits stable. This is obviously unrealistic, but it would surely be possible to reduce hours by a third and still make extra profits. However, businesses have responded to increases in productivity by keeping hours constant so that profits soar vastly (which affects inflation and usury and interest rates, so the employees need higher wages, so the profits don't stretch as far, so the employees have to work harder to stay in the same place but that's for another day...) Unfortunately, I can't remember where the argument went from here, but it was something to do with new technology also needing more time spent developing/maintaining it by more and more highly skilled techies, who lose even more leisure time. Anyway, back to work....
This might lead back to consumerville in the form of very sophisticated mood clothing, that matches both your mood and the room you are in. Through practice you could learn to manipulate the clothing to convey subtle accents or advertise a specific mood.
This reminds me of an idea I loved from a Michael Marshall Smith book, where every building is covered in something like this pr0n stuff and the colours/patterns are controlled by a central computer for the whole city, and clothing is made of it too. The hero of the story (who has impeccable taste in patterns on his clothes) gets home one day to find an email from the central computer thanking him for being so colour co-ordinated and saying what a pleasure it was to work with him today.
Bet you thought this post would be more interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
In Britain, the institutions of government are trusted and respected, and can be relied upon to do their job in a fair manner.
I can't figure out if you're on drugs, a 70 year old Tory peer or joking.
Also, Britain is a small and densly populated country, meaning that the typival Briton knows and trusts his fellow man.
Tory peer, got to be.
--
Good call, Linux was originally written to be UNIX-compatible, so that "standard" UNIX code would run on Linux almost unaltered. Write code for UNIX/POSIX/BSD and it will work fine under Linux, but will give other people the chance to use it too. It can't be that hard, people have managed to code for UNIX for decades without Linux-specific calls.
I'm a Linux user but now also run FreeBSD after using it at work and realising that almost everything I like about linux is a unix feature, not something special to linux (as the GNU project tries to point out with "GNU/Linux").
All linux boxen are unix, but not all unix is linux boxen!
As an aside, can anyone tell me whether the linux-compatibility features of FreeBSD can handle linux-specific calls, or just run the binaries when they contain only calls supported by FreeBSD?
--
The problem with Sun hardware is that it's simply too expensive for what it does.
you mean it's too expensive for what you do? They're not aiming to sell it to desktop users and linux hobbyists, while power users (of whatever kind) want what Sun offer they'll still make money from their current price strategy.
--
And on top of that, the only person I've ever met who works for the Patent Office (the British one, that is) has a PhD in Physics. As it happens he specialises in telecoms patents. ;)
Hope this doesn't spoil anybody's "nobody understands us geeks" reality tunnel too much
--
nice point
--
How do you distinguish between "the world itself" and our thoughts (specifically, our perceived impression of the world.) Our only knowledge of the world is that shown to us by our model of the world. Our model is based on our perceptions, which are not all-encompassing. We only see in a tiny range of the electro-magnetic spectrum (this is extended by mechanical means of "seeing" radio/gamma/UV etc. but most people don't integrate astronomical measurements into their worldview/model!) we don't "see" patterns of smells in the way some animals (apparently) do (snakes, for instance.)
AFAIK no-one has ever seen "the world", only some properties of it, and Heisenberg would suggest that at the lowest level you never can see it all, your knowledge is limited to measuring ("seeing") one or other of a pair of conjugate variables.
So, if we can't see "the world", only a model (however complex and however large a set of data the model is based on) then our best model is, as far as we can ever be concerned, indistinguishable from "the world", then is it at all meaningful to say that the world is distinct from our models?
and I do think that the word "truth" still *sometimes* makes sense.Me too, but that's not to say that two completely contradictory "facts" (statements) can't both be "true" in different models. Would you disagree that a fundamentalist creationist christian, a zen monk and a hindu ascetic live in different worlds, with contradictory explanations for their experiences? I think they're all right when they say theirs is the true description of the world (although the zen monk would be unlikely to make such a claim.) I think they're wrong when they say their's is the one true description.
redi
"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." -- Obi Wan--
Juries are also told on many occasions they can't talk about the case. Why? What is the legal system afraid of? Are they scared that a newspaper may alter that perceived reality,
err, yes!
and reveal the truth?
are you fukcing stupid? do you think what the papers tell you is always true and impartial? CNN never misleads? /. is a source of oracular wisdom?
wake the fukc up!
damn, now i have to spend my mod pts on another topic, and I wanted to give grahamsz a point (although he's wrong about RIP being slipped in quietly, don't you read the trade press?)
redi
--
Is it a good idea to have them so interdependent?
What I mean is that not everyone who uses GCC wants to use gdb, are there any possible gotchas involved in making them all share so much? I realise they have already been part of this tree for a wile, but that doesn't mean there can't be problems that have already been introduced (does it?)
I'm not trying to argue against merging anything, as I know next to nothing about the internals of any of the tools, I'm just curious.
thanks to anyone who can give an answer,
jon
--
A friend of mine keeps a pointless list of 55 different "IXs", from A/UX to XENIX.
Bet you don't know them all!
redi
--
I think I prefer the second suggestion. I think the problem is with lazy developers, who consider the legal and copyright-related side to be below them, or just not applicable.
If you want to use GPLed code, RTFL! (that's an L for license)
Weakening the terms of the licenses in order to help lazy developers be categorised as Open Source will only harm the Open Source "brand" as it becomes easier to violate the terms and for closed-source apps to claim they're OSS.
jon
--
NO!1 245&cid=221) for a better explanation of why there is no need for a new license, the GPL covers this situation perfectly, as long as you realise it wasn't intended to cover data, only software, algorithms and such like.
The output that the app produces might be (and probably is) confidential, copyrighted or otherwise protected and only intended for viewing by some parties. If the fact that it was served or generated by a GPLed app meant the output was covered by the GPL it would be impossible to keep that data private! If GPLed software is to be successful in commercial environments (as I know it can be) you can't possibly put this sort of insane restriction on it! It would mean that any website providing subscription-only content couldn't use any GPLed software, as the output would instantly become publicly distributable! Please see my earlier post (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/07/13/183
redi
--
The bottom line is that they're all products of the program, not derivative of the program.
I might have totally mis-understood the point of the GPL (and this thread), but the quote above seems one of the first relevant posts on this topic. The info the user sees when using your app/site is output, and is not covered by the GPL. The output may well be copyrighted to you (or other parties) and non-distributable, but this doesn't violate the GPL. The "program" is the server-side code that generates the output. In your case this happens to be a set of scripts not a compiled binary, but I think that's irrelevant. I work as a web developer on a similar web-based app giving access to a database using a custom Apache module connecting to MySQL. We couldn't sell our server binary to another party who wanted to run a similar system without providing the sources, because our app is a derivative of apache and MySQL, but the output of the site is accessible only to users who've logged on and have paid for access to the appropriate info. I think it would be insane if the GPL implied that our proprietarry data must be freely distributable because it is served by a modified apache server. How the hell are open-source apps ever going to be used in commercial settings if using them means all your corporate data must be given to the public?!?! If a firm kept it's accounts in a MySQL DB should anyone be able to ask to see them? NO!
You are only required to distribute the code if you charge for the server app, not if you charge for data served by it. This means the problem stated (That means that someone could make a website out of a derivitive work and never have to open or disclose their code) doesn't exist. If someone charges people for their script-based server app, they can't help but supply the sources, they're human-readable scripts! The only way they could prevent someone who buys the server app from seeing the sources would be to re-write it as a binary (e.g. make it an apache module written in C), but then the GPL applies!
Have I missed the point, or is this just not an issue?
redi
--
I came up with a (far from rigorous) proof a couple of years ago as to why technological advancement won't (or even can't) lead to increased leisure time. Damned if I can remember it though :)
It was based on the observation that although printing presses, computers, video cameras, nearly instant global communications etc. have increased the productivity of almost all businesses a thousand-fold, most of us work just as many hours per week as our ancestors.
This means most businesses should have been able to reduce their employees' hours a thousand-fold while keeping profits stable. This is obviously unrealistic, but it would surely be possible to reduce hours by a third and still make extra profits. However, businesses have responded to increases in productivity by keeping hours constant so that profits soar vastly (which affects inflation and usury and interest rates, so the employees need higher wages, so the profits don't stretch as far, so the employees have to work harder to stay in the same place but that's for another day...)
Unfortunately, I can't remember where the argument went from here, but it was something to do with new technology also needing more time spent developing/maintaining it by more and more highly skilled techies, who lose even more leisure time. Anyway, back to work....
--
This reminds me of an idea I loved from a Michael Marshall Smith book, where every building is covered in something like this pr0n stuff and the colours/patterns are controlled by a central computer for the whole city, and clothing is made of it too. The hero of the story (who has impeccable taste in patterns on his clothes) gets home one day to find an email from the central computer thanking him for being so colour co-ordinated and saying what a pleasure it was to work with him today.
Bet you thought this post would be more interesting.
--