Why not consider the Iliad? It's an open (linux) platform, has wifi, a better screen than either of the others, and you can annotate books & make notes w/ the stylus. A bit pricier, tho:
The license is non-free because:
on
The LDP and Debian
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· Score: 2, Informative
The LDP boilerplate license reads (in part):
Copyright (c) 2000 by John Doe (change to your name)
Please freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document in any format. It's requested that corrections and/or comments be fowarded to the document maintainer. You may create a derivative work and distribute it provided that you:
1. Send your derivative work (in the most suitable format such as sgml) to the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) or the like for posting on the Internet. If not the LDP, then let the LDP know where it is available.
The problem with this is that it doesn't distinguish between creating and distributing derived works. As is, the license requires you to send any derived works, even those created in the privacy of your own home and not distributed to anyone else, to the LDP.
Have you ever wondered why the letters on your keycaps never wear off? Have you seen a cheap keyboard where they did?
The pigment is embedded in the plastic, not just a thin layer that's painted on. Take a durable material (granite or maybe ceramic -- ceramic would certainly be easier). Make the letters of the inscription be veins of tinted material that go all the way through.
That way, no matter how worn down the monument gets, the writing will still be readable, especially if the surface is ground down a bit.
Thermodynamics tell us that in a closed system entropy stays the same or increases. The Earth is not a closed system (think sunlight, meteors), and human society is, as a system, about as 'open' as you could possibly get.
Below are some of the correspondences between the GPL and this EULA. Sorry for the funny formating.
Gnu GPL:
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
MS ZIS EULA:
Other Limitations. You may not copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
Gnu GPL:
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
MS ZIS EULA:
Intellectual Property Claims. If, as a result of an intellectual property claim, conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from compliance with the terms and conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute the Program so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then you may not distribute the Program at all.
Gnu GPL:
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
MS ZIS EULA:
Modification. You may modify the Program or create derivative works and copy and distribute such modifications or derivative works, provided that you also: (i) cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change so that the recipients know they are not receiving the original Program; (ii) cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole to all third parties under the terms of this License; and (iii) provide notice to users under the same terms of distribution as set forth in Sections 1(a)(i), 1(a)(ii) and 1(a)(iii) above.
the really interesting stuff is yet to come..
on
Planet Gattaca
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· Score: 1
Right now, all geneticists can do is cut and paste existing genes, not design new ones. What will really be interesting is the possibility of making entirely new genes. This will require simulations of protein folding, as well as other biological processes. IBM's Blue Gene will be a start, but it will take a machine many orders of magnitude faster to make this a practical possibility (maybe 10-20 years later).
The criteria for an 'odd' day, as used in the article above, is:
Is each digit in the day, month, and year odd, when each of these quantities is written with no leading zeros? (if you write 01, why not write 001, or 000000001; this would lead to there being only even days)
21/11/1999 (this Sunday) is NOT an odd day, since although 21 is an odd number, one of its digits (2) is an even number.
Yes, 11/11/1999, 13/11/1999, 1/11/1999, 9/9/1999, 1/1/1999, etc are all odd days. If the year is composed of odd digits, you get a lot of odd days, but no even days. By the same token, an even digited year yeilds only even days - no odd.
The point is that today is the last odd day this year, and after that, we won't see any more odd days for 1100 years. This is because all the years will have '2' as their first digit. 3111 is the next year after 1999 with all odd digits, so that will be the next year with an odd day in it.
In a few years (8000), the division between odd and even years will be even greater. 28/8/8888 will be the last even day until 2/2/20000 (yes, 20K). The period after 28/8/28888, until 1/1/31111 (2333 years) will have no odd or even days at all. Eventually we'll see/. postings about the last odd day for 1E9 years, instead of a paltry 1100 or so. (Note to those readers currently 'under age': No matter how slowly it seems to be approaching, you will definitely be able to buy beer by then.)
The X server is independent from the kernel in the same way that the monitor is independent from the machine: if the monitor goes out, the system keeps running, but you're probably not going to get much done.
The X server can't actually cause a kernel panic, but it does take control of the mouse and the keyboard. If it crashes badly enough, it can effectively cut off the console. If the machine is networked, you could go to another machine on the network, telnet in, and reboot. If not, you're pretty much forced to hit the 'ol reset button. In the ~3 years I have used XFree86 on Linux, I have had this happen maybe 3 times. I've found that the trick is to watch the memory footprint of X. When it gets too huge, restart X. I wind up doing this once every week or two.
Your IP addr. is transmitted to every web site you visit...
Sprint probably doesn't have an IP for each phone which might be hooked up to this service, so they have to use masqueradeing; maybe they use your phone # as the port. Is there a place in a HTTP header for 'phone number'???
I agree. There's very little benefit to this compiler for most of us, I think, unless the optimizations it has are rolled into EGCS. Could a distribution be compiled with it? (Scary thought) The compiler isn't going to help anybody develop any Free software, and it's not going to help me, so why should I cheer?
What a tangled web *YOU* weave!
on
RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
I don't think that the FSF operates *quite* the way you seem to think. If you want to accuse them of prevaricating, it's probably best not to use such pretentiously flowery prose. I mean, is your post a joke? You'd be easier to take seriously if you just calmly, simply said what you had to say.
Do you really think rms and the FSF are insincere? What do you think there ultimate nefarious goal is? To enslave everyone with software they can do whatever they want with except make it less free (I'm not addressing the ultimate definition of free here, but surely you must agree that the Gnu GPL is relatively more free than, say, a Microsoft EULA)? Just because someone has a different outlook on something and thereby uses a word to mean something different (tho related) to what you mean by it, doesn't mean they're lying.
As for the GNU acronym, Gnu is Not Unix, this is a joke. It was a clever and humorous way to avoid a lawsuit, but no-one is actually fooled. Jokes (some forms of jokes, at any rate) and lies are similar in that they are both deliberate untruths, but lies differ in that they are told with the intent to deceive, whereas jokes are told with the intent to make you laugh.
Can you produce any example of where either of these so called lies was believed by anyone (and this doesn't mean someone agreeing w/ rms's definition of free, it means (based on what you said) someone being duped into thinking GPL==Public Domain by reading (not by their failure to read) the FSF's pages). If so, were such people actually harmed? If they were, how did this benefit the FSF as a result. In closing, please try to lighten up. If you're this grumpy all the time, it's probably taking years off your life.
One of the problems w/ moderation previously discussed was the power of moderators to lord it over everyone else. Expanding the domain of moderators is a good step to correct this, but what if no-one knew whether they were a moderator or not?? It could work like this:
Everyone gets moderation controls on every comment (except their own and replies to same).
Even tho everyone gets the controls, they don't always actually affect the alignment on a comment. (it might be good to conceal whether the 'moderation' had an affect by either having a user's own ratings always, or never work for them)
Moderator status is determined by a combination of posting alignment and a 'moderator rating' (see below)
If you're not a moderator, then you are a metamoderator. When a MM(metamod) disagrees w/ an M's rating, the M's moderator rating falls a little bit, reducing their power as a moderator and eventually removing their moderator status. By the same token, an agreement of MM's raises the moderator rating (MR)
Posting alignment should affect the power of a metamoderator (along w/ any previous moderator rating) ie, a mindless flamer shouldn't have a great effect on anything (they should be able to say what they want, but the whole point of this system is to let the rest of us (presumtuous of me eh?;) ignore them if desired.
MRs should decay over time, to allow a failed moderator a second chance (after a period of time commensurate w/ the depth of failure
I found this article at The Register. It talks about notices recieved by User Friendly, Segfault, BeDope, and OTB. There's a bit at the bottom (seemingly unrelated) about April Fools Day. There was another article, which seems to have disappeared about how The Register had been told not to give away the April Fools joke that was the subject of a conspiracy of humour sites. Pretty fishy...
The problem with IP, as I see it, is the inherent reduction of physical property rights in order to enforce it. You are only free to use your physical property in ways that don't infringe on my intellectual property, even though you cause no harm to me, or anyone else. Arguments for physical property as a natural right are much stronger than those for IP (as pointed out before, the framers of the U.S. constitution rejected IP as a natural right). So I would propose the idea that some rights are stronger than others. E.g., it's not justifiable to shoot someone who's stealing your TV, unless they threaten your life, or the life of someone else. So in that case, your right to own and defend your property is superceded by the right of the would-be theif to live.
If you'll buy that for a quarter, consider this: The argument that IP helps promote progress in science and technology is a rather weak end-justifies-the-means sort of a thing. Allowing pharmaceutical companies to kidnap the homeless or welfare recipients to use in drug trials and experiments would no doubt advance medical technology, but we're not going to do that, are we?
Instead of extending copyright one year per year (on average), congress should continually reduce its duration and strength until a serious reduction in content creation and innovation is seen (the creativity and innovation made possibly by the reduction (when works go out of copyright/patents expire other authors/inventors can springboard off the older works) should be taken into account as well).
Any free OS Built w/ non-free tools would be a Bad-Thing IMHO. This is alot like the problems w/ using non-free libs (a la Qt (before FreeQT licence)). However, if it is gcc/egcs they mean, great. It would also be nice to have optimizations for other proc. (like G4 and AltiVec).
Slashdot Mirror
Why not consider the Iliad? It's an open (linux) platform, has wifi, a better screen than either of the others, and you can annotate books & make notes w/ the stylus. A bit pricier, tho:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad
The problem with this is that it doesn't distinguish between creating and distributing derived works. As is, the license requires you to send any derived works, even those created in the privacy of your own home and not distributed to anyone else, to the LDP.
The pigment is embedded in the plastic, not just a thin layer that's painted on. Take a durable material (granite or maybe ceramic -- ceramic would certainly be easier). Make the letters of the inscription be veins of tinted material that go all the way through.
That way, no matter how worn down the monument gets, the writing will still be readable, especially if the surface is ground down a bit.
Thermodynamics tell us that in a closed system entropy stays the same or increases. The Earth is not a closed system (think sunlight, meteors), and human society is, as a system, about as 'open' as you could possibly get.
Gnu GPL:
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
MS ZIS EULA:
Other Limitations. You may not copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
Gnu GPL:
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
MS ZIS EULA:
Intellectual Property Claims. If, as a result of an intellectual property claim, conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from compliance with the terms and conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute the Program so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then you may not distribute the Program at all.
Gnu GPL:
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
MS ZIS EULA:
Modification. You may modify the Program or create derivative works and copy and distribute such modifications or derivative works, provided that you also: (i) cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change so that the recipients know they are not receiving the original Program; (ii) cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole to all third parties under the terms of this License; and (iii) provide notice to users under the same terms of distribution as set forth in Sections 1(a)(i), 1(a)(ii) and 1(a)(iii) above.
Right now, all geneticists can do is cut and paste existing genes, not design new ones. What will really be interesting is the possibility of making entirely new genes. This will require simulations of protein folding, as well as other biological processes. IBM's Blue Gene will be a start, but it will take a machine many orders of magnitude faster to make this a practical possibility (maybe 10-20 years later).
Is each digit in the day, month, and year odd, when each of these quantities is written with no leading zeros? (if you write 01, why not write 001, or 000000001; this would lead to there being only even days)
21/11/1999 (this Sunday) is NOT an odd day, since although 21 is an odd number, one of its digits (2) is an even number.
Yes, 11/11/1999, 13/11/1999, 1/11/1999, 9/9/1999, 1/1/1999, etc are all odd days. If the year is composed of odd digits, you get a lot of odd days, but no even days. By the same token, an even digited year yeilds only even days - no odd.
The point is that today is the last odd day this year, and after that, we won't see any more odd days for 1100 years. This is because all the years will have '2' as their first digit. 3111 is the next year after 1999 with all odd digits, so that will be the next year with an odd day in it.
In a few years (8000), the division between odd and even years will be even greater. 28/8/8888 will be the last even day until 2/2/20000 (yes, 20K). The period after 28/8/28888, until 1/1/31111 (2333 years) will have no odd or even days at all. Eventually we'll see /. postings about the last odd day for 1E9 years, instead of a paltry 1100 or so. (Note to those readers currently 'under age': No matter how slowly it seems to be approaching, you will definitely be able to buy beer by then.)
If WinCE source was opened, even under a SCSL type license, it could be a real boon to efforts to port linux to WinCE handhelds.
The X server can't actually cause a kernel panic, but it does take control of the mouse and the keyboard. If it crashes badly enough, it can effectively cut off the console. If the machine is networked, you could go to another machine on the network, telnet in, and reboot. If not, you're pretty much forced to hit the 'ol reset button. In the ~3 years I have used XFree86 on Linux, I have had this happen maybe 3 times. I've found that the trick is to watch the memory footprint of X. When it gets too huge, restart X. I wind up doing this once every week or two.
Sprint probably doesn't have an IP for each phone which might be hooked up to this service, so they have to use masqueradeing; maybe they use your phone # as the port. Is there a place in a HTTP header for 'phone number'???
perl -e 'while(<>){ tr/01//cd; print pack("B*",$_); }'
(echo the binary digits; pipe 'em into this)
I agree. There's very little benefit to this compiler for most of us, I think, unless the optimizations it has are rolled into EGCS. Could a distribution be compiled with it? (Scary thought) The compiler isn't going to help anybody develop any Free software, and it's not going to help me, so why should I cheer?
Do you really think rms and the FSF are insincere? What do you think there ultimate nefarious goal is? To enslave everyone with software they can do whatever they want with except make it less free (I'm not addressing the ultimate definition of free here, but surely you must agree that the Gnu GPL is relatively more free than, say, a Microsoft EULA)? Just because someone has a different outlook on something and thereby uses a word to mean something different (tho related) to what you mean by it, doesn't mean they're lying.
As for the GNU acronym, Gnu is Not Unix, this is a joke . It was a clever and humorous way to avoid a lawsuit, but no-one is actually fooled. Jokes (some forms of jokes, at any rate) and lies are similar in that they are both deliberate untruths, but lies differ in that they are told with the intent to deceive, whereas jokes are told with the intent to make you laugh.
Can you produce any example of where either of these so called lies was believed by anyone (and this doesn't mean someone agreeing w/ rms's definition of free, it means (based on what you said) someone being duped into thinking GPL==Public Domain by reading (not by their failure to read) the FSF's pages). If so, were such people actually harmed? If they were, how did this benefit the FSF as a result. In closing, please try to lighten up. If you're this grumpy all the time, it's probably taking years off your life.
- Everyone gets moderation controls on every comment (except their own and replies to same).
- Even tho everyone gets the controls, they don't always actually affect the alignment on a comment. (it might be good to conceal whether the 'moderation' had an affect by either having a user's own ratings always, or never work for them)
- Moderator status is determined by a combination of posting alignment and a 'moderator rating' (see below)
- If you're not a moderator, then you are a metamoderator. When a MM(metamod) disagrees w/ an M's rating, the M's moderator rating falls a little bit, reducing their power as a moderator and eventually removing their moderator status. By the same token, an agreement of MM's raises the moderator rating (MR)
- Posting alignment should affect the power of a metamoderator (along w/ any previous moderator rating) ie, a mindless flamer shouldn't have a great effect on anything (they should be able to say what they want, but the whole point of this system is to let the rest of us (presumtuous of me eh?
;) ignore them if desired. - MRs should decay over time, to allow a failed moderator a second chance (after a period of time commensurate w/ the depth of failure
I could go on, but igottago..User Friendly pioneered the use of phase inversion couplings to enhance the inverse polarity of Foolitron pulses.
I found this article at The Register. It talks about notices recieved by User Friendly, Segfault, BeDope, and OTB. There's a bit at the bottom (seemingly unrelated) about April Fools Day. There was another article, which seems to have disappeared about how The Register had been told not to give away the April Fools joke that was the subject of a conspiracy of humour sites. Pretty fishy...
If you'll buy that for a quarter, consider this: The argument that IP helps promote progress in science and technology is a rather weak end-justifies-the-means sort of a thing. Allowing pharmaceutical companies to kidnap the homeless or welfare recipients to use in drug trials and experiments would no doubt advance medical technology, but we're not going to do that, are we?
Instead of extending copyright one year per year (on average), congress should continually reduce its duration and strength until a serious reduction in content creation and innovation is seen (the creativity and innovation made possibly by the reduction (when works go out of copyright/patents expire other authors/inventors can springboard off the older works) should be taken into account as well).
Please. This "Feature" hardly rises above the level of a flame. How about a TC-free distro (no perl I guess).
Any free OS Built w/ non-free tools would be a Bad-Thing IMHO. This is alot like the problems w/ using non-free libs (a la Qt (before FreeQT licence)). However, if it is gcc/egcs they mean, great. It would also be nice to have optimizations for other proc. (like G4 and AltiVec).