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User: sydb

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  1. Re:Sigh, Devil's Advocate again... on When Is a Con Not a Con? · · Score: 1

    I don't understand your question. What about real stuff indeed? Maybe you don't see the value of food, or medical treatment, for example, but most people do. If you don't see the value of food then I encourage you not to seek it out!

    If gamers decide to give their toy money value, they need to set up a toy police force to protect their interests. Whether or not that is funded through real money is immaterial. But the real police force, funded by people with real cash, is reserved for use in fighting real crime.

  2. Re:I've wondered about Debian on Debian Kicks Jörg Schilling · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are some software that say or 'gpl v2 or any later version' but if even 1 package (ie: the kernel) doesn't say that, then the whole distro can forget it.

    What are you talking about? A distro is "mere aggregation" which is allowed by the GPL. Debian includes software with GPL-incompatible licenses, such as Apache.

  3. Re:Sigh, Devil's Advocate again... on When Is a Con Not a Con? · · Score: 1

    The value of pretend money in a game has nothing to do with the amount of time or effort involved in amassing it, but rather to do with the player's agreements with game organiser. If there is no agreement that the toy money is backed by real cash, then it has only toy value. And even if there is agreement, the rules of the game determine would determine whether money has been stolen or not. If there are no rules then you can assume total anarchy, and if there are rules then you need to take your issue up with the game organiser.

    The reason real money has real value is that everybody agrees it does, especially people who sell stuff. No-one outside the game gives a flying **** about the toy money that game players may win, lose, steal or whatever within a game, and that includes the police and courts, whose job it is to worry about the real money that everybody agrees is real, not the toy stuff which is a concern of a fraction of the kids and overgrown kids with time on their hands to play the game.

  4. Re:And the worst part is... on Trouble on the Debian Front? · · Score: 1

    At the risk of sustaining an off-topic thread...

    The people in R&D are typically the people with whom the movers and shakers in a business have the most interaction, maybe via a project management interface, and the business ends up getting all their advice from them, like it'll work first time and there's no need to test because it's a quite straightforward system. Then the business takes that attitude with operations and engineering when that group tries to bring sense and order to an implementation. It doesn't matter where risk takers work, they're always going to cause problems. The workable solution is for supposedly intelligent people ("alpha geeks") to understand the environment in which they work, and act appropriately. I mean, all that it takes is to behave like an adult.

    It's wrong to hive off good technical people into R&D, and in my experience most places don't do that anyway.

  5. Re:Don't be so Victorian and naive! on Radio Shack E-Fires 400 Workers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's funny, the OP didn't say or even hint at anything about Victorian values or the Empire yet your argument is that it's naive to hark back to those days. Maybe your fighting some kind of inner conflict. Common decency is actually fairly, well, common, because contrary to popular belief, some managers are human too.

  6. Re:Sad on OpenDarwin Project Shutting Down · · Score: 1

    That's OK, I didn't say it would not have existed without the GPL. I said I think GPL licensing had a significant positive factor in it's rapid growth.

    Above and beyond developers' passion, it's worth noting that - as you know - GNU existed before Linux, and having Linux GPLed means that they are very easy bedfellows. This must have helped, and I think still helps. GNU has vocal proponents in the shape of Stallman and the FSF, while the BSD arena doesn't seem to have a similar counterpart.

  7. Re:Sad on OpenDarwin Project Shutting Down · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course the GPL is relevant to Linux's success; it comes with a political / philosophical movement behind it. Whether or not that matters to end users is not so important, but a lot of hackers seem to be motivated by the philosophy. Without the hackers, there would be no Linux.

  8. Re:Where's the !? on Linux/Mac/Windows File Name Friction · · Score: 1

    I've wasted my time and yours. I apologise.

  9. Re:Where's the !? on Linux/Mac/Windows File Name Friction · · Score: 1

    I have returned my crack pipe to it's pouch. Thanks.

  10. Re:Where's the !? on Linux/Mac/Windows File Name Friction · · Score: 1

    My god you're right, what was I thinking?

  11. Re:Where's the !? on Linux/Mac/Windows File Name Friction · · Score: 1

    The article also erroneously claims that Linux doesn't support a / in filenames. At least in EXT2/3, you can quote the / just as you can escape a !, with a \ or by "putting quotation/speech marks around the whole name!"

    Basically a stupid article which does more to confuse people than to educate.

  12. Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, on Google to Test PayPal Rival · · Score: 1

    It's nothing to do with what I expect, it's to do with whether or not search results are cluttered with crap.

  13. Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, on Google to Test PayPal Rival · · Score: 1

    It's reverse psychology. If you put "I just know I'll be modded down for this, but..." in your post, all the mods who would mod you down suddenly think "Wait, I'm not that shallow, I'll give you a chance, I'll mod you UP!" This gives them a satisfying sense of independent mindedness. It has long been thus. Personally, if I see "Mod me down", I do mod you down, just to fuck you up.

  14. Re:I like google as much as the next /.er, on Google to Test PayPal Rival · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What are you searching for? Whenever I am looking for technical information on a particular model of something, I invariably get kelkoo, ciao, comparestoreprices or some such parasitic bilge cluttering up my results.

  15. Re:More coffee = less acetaminophen = less liver d on Study Says Coffee Protects Against Cirrhosis · · Score: 1

    So your saying that what the medical community has mistaken for alcoholic cirrhosis all these years is actually caused by drinkers taking painkillers? There are a lot of drinkers who fight their hangovers with more alcohol. Presumably their livers are OK too.

  16. Re:and the seller... on Online Revenge · · Score: 1

    Dunno, according to Wikipedia, extortion requires threat or coercion. This has neither. Of course, WINAL.

  17. Re:No indie hits...?! on Why There Are No Hit Indie Games · · Score: 1

    Well, I don't think it has anything to do with fair use. We don't even have fair use in the UK, the equivalent is called fair dealing and has different rules than fair use in the US (though I can see you are probably from the UK.)

    However having thought about it someone's face can't be copyright protected because it's not a covered work; but you've ignored all of my other points...

  18. Re:No indie hits...?! on Why There Are No Hit Indie Games · · Score: 1

    I think there is an issue for sports simulation type games. The big games in the market feature voice overs from professional commentators, real world teams and players, advertising hoardings round the pitch with real world adverts, and competitions with real world names. These make the games more realistic - despite the inherent deplorability of selling a game containing adverts - and even with good gameplay I think many gamers would spurn a totally virtual soccer game, because "it's rubbish" compared to games with these features.

    Now, I don't think it would be impossible to release a Free Software game with these features, but the work involved in obtaining permission and original artwork is not insignificant, and the Free Sofware community is not used to doing it.

    On the plus side, maybe real-world tie-ins could be a way of funding Free Software games. However, I think the original artwork for company logos and people's faces, names and voices etc. would have to be covered by a non-free license, for fairly obvious reasons.

  19. Re:One man's "useful" is another man's "treacherou on Kororaa Accused of Violating GPL · · Score: 1

    Each to his own, at least I'm not complaining about something that isn't about to change.

  20. Re:One man's "useful" is another man's "treacherou on Kororaa Accused of Violating GPL · · Score: 1

    If you don't like it, find another club. You are welcome to leave the GPL club. The Linux community can want whatever it wants for Linux, but until the Linux developers decide to release Linux under a different license, being a member of the Linux community means being a member of the GPL club too. Again if you don't like it, no-one will miss you. In fact I want you to leave, because your presence taints the community, like a proprietary module taints our kernel. Goodbye and good riddance!

  21. Re:Distributed not that hard. on Torvalds on the Microkernel Debate · · Score: 1

    You're right, it is all about pushing blame further up the chain. In the real world, specs serve a dual purpose - an engineer will use one to try and build a better system. Then, when it turns out the system doesn't do what the customer wants, because the customer never really knows what they want otherwise they would design it themselves, it gives the engineer a stick to beat the customer with.

    The best thing would be if the customer and the engineer were the same person, but then they would have to be skilled and intelligent, so that won't happen...

    But this is off topic. oops!

  22. Re:I preferred the old odd/even split on Time for a Linux Bug-Fixing Cycle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But FreeBSD is a complete operating system, whereas Linux is a kernel. If you run Debian GNU/Linux, then critical (security) fixes will be issued for your current kernel, without backporting bugs. That is the job of the distro maintainers, not of the Linux (*kernel*) developers.

    It's about time people realised that the distinction between Linux the kernel and GNU/Linux the operating system is a real and important one, not just RMS whinging (although I agree with his whinge anyway).

  23. Re:Maybe..just maybe.. M$ is starting to see... on ODF Offers MS Word Plugin to MA · · Score: 1

    IBM sells hardware, services, and despite their image here, a shitload of proprietary software licenses. Not that they don't do some good things, but they are not Saints of the Church of Emacs.

  24. Re:Microsoft always goes it alone? on Microsoft/Yahoo Merger to Take on Google? · · Score: 1

    I live on the fringes of the world of Microsoft but I seem to remember Visio (the company) were pretty successful before Microsoft bought the company. Also, my impression of the product was always one of tight integration with Windows and Office which suggested the companies had co-operated, but that is just my speculation.

  25. Re:You have to feel for the guy on RMS Views on Linux, Java, DRM and Opensource · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Absolutely nothing. Where does Stallman say you shouldn't be paid money for writing software? Hint: nowhere.