I work for a law firm. Our business is to produce legal documents and legal arguments. Our business is not accounting, yet we have accountants on staff. Our business is not records management, yet we have records management specialists on staff. Our business is not facility maintenance, yet we have facility maintainers on staff. Our business is not programming, yet we have programmers on staff.
We want software that works, so we can do our business. All commercial software is broken in some way (exceptions number in the single digits). Source code hinders your ability to have software that works. It follows that source code hiding hinders your ability to do your business.
what makes you think that throwing somebody at it in their spare cycles is going to help? We have 400 attorneys. A bug (misfeature, non-optimized routine, poorly designed UI, etc.) that costs us three minutes per attorney per day costs us $3000 daily. (average billing rate is $150/hr)It may be worth our while to hire a programmer at $50/hr to fix the problem. Without source code availability, we have no choice but to burn money on a daily basis.
If the people who designed and wrote the software can't find the bugs The bug may be specific to the way we use the software, or it may be preventing us from using the software the way we want. Perhaps we want a dialog box organized in the way that is most efficient for us. Maybe a program has its data path hardcoded and we want to store data someplace else. One program we have produces a hash that is used for the filename; I'd like to see a differenct algorithm used (for reasons to complex to go into now.) I'm hardly a programmer (I know a bit of C, a bit of VB), yet I'm confident that I could, by studying code, determine if these changes are feasible and locate where code needed to be changed. A pro could be hired to validate my opinions (or deny them!); another pro could be hired to do the work.
Here's another reason why source-code availability and the right to modify and recomile it is a good thing to have: companies go out of business. We use a program called Wealth Transfer Planning that is pretty cool; it automates the creation of wills, trusts, estate plans, etc. The company that makes it has disappeared. We are stuck with ALL our bugs and NO possibility of improvement to either the content or the engine.
There is no such thing as correct spelling. There is only consensus. Those big brown things with green bits all over them...do you think that 2,000 years ago the correct spelling was "TREE"?
This is actually one of the most interesting ideas I've seen...develop a database that dictionary writers can use.
Microsoft will HAVE to publish APIs etc. for patented features. How else can they get a patent? The whole point behind a patent is that you are granted a 100% legal monopoly for your product IN EXCHANGE for your full disclosure of your product.
The 1962 paper is interesting...Surprsingly the above paper doesn't mention the word 'packet' once, which is a bit of a contradiction if you claim to have invented 'packet switching'
He credits Davies with coining the term "packet switching." You seem to be saying that if you don't use the currently popular name when you first describe your idea, then you're not the originator of the idea...the guy who thinks up the popular name is the inventor.
By your reasoning, Newton, who coined the term "calculus" should get all the credit for the development of that branch of mathematics, and Leibniz should get none, since the German-speaking Leibniz didn't use the term "calculus." (In case you're not up on your history of mathematics, Leibniz independently co-developed calculus and is credited in many non-English speaking countries as the developer of that branch of mathematics.)
Your rhetorical skills are sorely lacking. First Davies is the inventor because everyone knows he is, and now he's the inventor because he was the first to name it by the name you know it by. Here's my question:
What's your evidence for your belief that Davies either developed the concepts prior to Kleinrock, did more significant development work than Kleinrock, or for some other reason has a stronger term to the title "Inventor of Packet Switchng"?
My position is that the title is about as valid as "Inventor of the World Wide Web" and that all these guys should take a lesson from Newton..."If I have seen farther than others, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants...
This isn't blind obedience. This is "The CEO said fix bugs this month. Here are the bug reports for our code. Anybody who doesn't fix one bug this month gets canned for insubordination. Anyone who has a problem can email billg@microsoft.com."
And I am widely acknowledged as the King of America.
Come on, read the article, find a flaw in his statements, and refute them. Kleinrock states that he analyzed packet switching mathematically in his 1962 thesis, something that Davies never did. Is he overstating? Does Davies have a publication that predates this? Did he develop/discover independently and then parlay that into the current technology? The latter would be a particularly cunning argument, if you can support it. But don't tell us "Oh, everybody says..." because it makes you sound like an idiot rather than an informed individual. And don't mind me, I'm just a normal largely ignorant slashdotizen.
Gore correctly and truthfully took credit for getting us the money to develop the Internet.
Right. I suppose you also believe that President Clinton did not perjure himself because he consciously defined "is" differently than his questioner.
Let's quote Al Gore...
"I took the initiative in creating the Internet." I'll grant that he didn't use the word "invent." I'll also suggest this analogy...
You work 70-hour weeks for a year to develop THE software technology that will rocket your startup into the ranks of the Fortune 500. Your manager goes to the CEO and says "I should be given money and power because I took the initiative in creating this new technology." Did he lie? According to you, no. Did he choose his words carefully so that the uninformed would be led to believe a mistruth? Absolutely.
To conclude, I say get out there, fight it from the other end - the end that consumers will understand. Sign up as many fake and real accounts as you like to demonstrate just how fallible the system is. I'm off to see if they prevent scripting...
This sort of thing generally goes under the name "spam".
Hey, ya big galoot! That's his exact point! YOU don't care enough about what he says to take action to hear what he says. So why do you take issues with his actions? Ever hear of a mail server? Or maybe an Exchange server with an internet mail connector? Ever hear of telnet? Ever hear of port 25? Ever hear of a batch file? Or maybe VBScript? If you wanted to, you could send him an email and subscribe to his list.
To me it's equivalent to providing an incumbant telecommunications infrastructure provider (like a cable-co or telco) exclusivity in a market
Your grasp of the obvious amazes me! "Exclusive" IS the word used in the U.S. Constitution in the passage that permits patents.
I approve of the patent for the lightbulb, but not a patent on the use of electricity to provide light! Funny you mention that. Had Edison patented "Using electricity to provide light", there would be NO patent barriers to ANY future electrical lights - whether they be LEDs, those nifty new electrochemicalphotoluminescent thingies, or something yet undreamed of. The broader the patent, the better, since the lifetime of the patent is quite short.
BTW, I would suggest that the lightbulb is an obvious concept. Everyone at Edison's time knew that if you heated a wire hot enough, it would glow. Everyone knew that oxygen caused oxidation. Everyone knew you could pump the air out of a bulb and create a vacuum which contained no oxygen. How, then, did Edison innovate?
Re-read the comment you replied to; it suggests something subtly different from what you suggest. Checkpointing intermediate results is not the same thing as checkpointing processes. To take a much oversimplifed example, I write a program to multiply a two-digit number by a one digit number. My program does the following:
1. Multiply ones digits
2. Multiply tens digit by ones digit
3. Multiply previous result by ten
4. Add results from steps 1 & 3
5. Display previous result.
If my program crashes at any point before step 5, I have to start all over. So, I save my intermediate results at step 1, step 2, step 3, and save my final result at step 4. This is checkpointing my intermediate steps.
Your suggestion, on the other hand, is to periodically save the entire system state. This is checkpointing the processes.
I see a need for both types of checkpointing - applications periodically checkpointing data (like the autosave feature in the market-leading word processor) and system-state saves (like the sleep feature of some laptops). Reliability and recoverability should be engineered in at all layers.
Because in US society, there are only three choices when someone does something wrong but not criminal:
1. Ignore it.
2. Ask the offender politely to stop
3. Sue.
(Violence, of course, is illegal)
#1 is guaranteed to produce no change in behavior.
#3 is guaranteed to produce a change in behavior (possibly not the change you want)
#2 will often work wonders if you are dealing with an individual who cares what you think.
#2 is guaranteed to produce no change in behavior when dealing with strangers who consciously choose to engage in behavior they know is offensive to you (spamming, for example).
So, when dealing with faceless entities, you have two effective choices:
1. Ignore
2. Sue
#1 is really best for your own mental health.
#2 is the only option that can possibly produce a change in behavior and is the only correct choice if you wish to better society by doing your part to eliminate anti-social behavior.
Don't like it? Don't hire them. This is equivalent to ignoring them. If they get hired by ANYONE, their behavior has been encouraged. They will do it again. They will tell their friends to do it. Eventually someone will write a book telling everyone how great it is to do this.
Or you can say "I will spend 30 minutes of every day ignoring stupid people. There is no point in growing an ulcer over it."
I maintain that if the copyright holder is unwilling to make a copy of his information to me at a FAIR price, then he is violating the spirit of copyright laws in the US (ie "to promote useful arts and sciences") and is violating my freedoms of speech and press (copyright and patents ARE infringements upon absolute freedom of speech and press but are permitted). Therefore, I feel morally correct in doing whatever I want with the information - read, write, execute, etc.
If I can legally buy the information it at a fair price, though, then I'm morally obligated to either buy the information or not possess the information.
That's a nifty idea. OK, I have some more extraordinary ideas. I think you should consider them long enough to figure out what would constitute reasonable proof:
1. I have X-RAY EYES! I can see through wood and glass but not lead. Static electricity can mess them up, though.
2. I have TELEKINETIC POWERS! I can move things by the power of THOUGHT! Static electricity can mess it up, though.
3. I am SUPERMAN! I can FLY! Static electricity can mess it up, though.
4. Peanut butter, injected directly into YOUR aorta will make YOU incredibly high! Unless there's some static electricity in you.
Etc. etc. My point is that extraordinarily silly claims should not be given the time of day, because there isn't enough time in the day.
Here's what I'd want before I considered the claim NOT silly:
Your sworn statements about the potential of your invention in documents filed with the SEC for the stock you are selling to finance the company you have created to develop and market your invention. In other words, create a situation where someone in a position of power has an interest in making you go to jail if you lie, and hand them the tools to send you to jail if you are lying. If you are willing to put your life on the line, I'll take a look at your perpetual motion machine ("Takes advantage of the trillions of free neutrinos streaming through our bodies every second!")
P.S. Anyone remember the scene from "Rendezvous with Rama" where Newton's laws of motion were proven not to be laws after all? That would work as proof, too.
OK. Let's go with "NO CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS!" Any candidate who accepts ANY money from ANYONE (except possibly their immediate family) immediately goes to the electric chair.
So the only way to afford running for national office is to ALREADY HAVE MONEY! That's right, by eliminating campaign contributions, you have guaranteed that the only people who will campaign for office will be the rich folk. Us po folk can run, but we'll get trampled 98% of the time.
What's the solution? Realize that MONEY = POWER, POWER = MONEY, always has, always will. This will never change.
You mean like the Dewey Decimal System? Or whatever it is that my college library used, where all the math texts were found under QAsomething instead of 510something?
Sure google will help me find the number one pants manufacturer [google.com] in terms of marketting, but what's an upstart with an immemorable name to do? (Set the wayback machine for 1950...)
Sure, people will remember the name of the number one pants manufacturer in terms of marketing, but what's an upstart with an immemorable name to do?
Answer now is the same as it was then...market your product and get brand recognition...make a quality product so that people will buy your pants again when the pair they just bought wears out in ten years.
Slashdot Mirror
Bulk transport system, car/truck - 1920's
The Roman roads would have sufficed, actually, so you're late by about two millenia.
I'll take this in reverse...
Our business is not writing this software.
I work for a law firm. Our business is to produce legal documents and legal arguments. Our business is not accounting, yet we have accountants on staff. Our business is not records management, yet we have records management specialists on staff. Our business is not facility maintenance, yet we have facility maintainers on staff. Our business is not programming, yet we have programmers on staff.
We want software that works, so we can do our business.
All commercial software is broken in some way (exceptions number in the single digits). Source code hinders your ability to have software that works. It follows that source code hiding hinders your ability to do your business.
what makes you think that throwing somebody at it in their spare cycles is going to help?
We have 400 attorneys. A bug (misfeature, non-optimized routine, poorly designed UI, etc.) that costs us three minutes per attorney per day costs us $3000 daily. (average billing rate is $150/hr)It may be worth our while to hire a programmer at $50/hr to fix the problem. Without source code availability, we have no choice but to burn money on a daily basis.
If the people who designed and wrote the software can't find the bugs
The bug may be specific to the way we use the software, or it may be preventing us from using the software the way we want. Perhaps we want a dialog box organized in the way that is most efficient for us. Maybe a program has its data path hardcoded and we want to store data someplace else. One program we have produces a hash that is used for the filename; I'd like to see a differenct algorithm used (for reasons to complex to go into now.) I'm hardly a programmer (I know a bit of C, a bit of VB), yet I'm confident that I could, by studying code, determine if these changes are feasible and locate where code needed to be changed. A pro could be hired to validate my opinions (or deny them!); another pro could be hired to do the work.
Here's another reason why source-code availability and the right to modify and recomile it is a good thing to have: companies go out of business. We use a program called Wealth Transfer Planning that is pretty cool; it automates the creation of wills, trusts, estate plans, etc. The company that makes it has disappeared. We are stuck with ALL our bugs and NO possibility of improvement to either the content or the engine.
There is no such thing as correct spelling. There is only consensus. Those big brown things with green bits all over them...do you think that 2,000 years ago the correct spelling was "TREE"?
This is actually one of the most interesting ideas I've seen...develop a database that dictionary writers can use.
Microsoft will HAVE to publish APIs etc. for patented features. How else can they get a patent? The whole point behind a patent is that you are granted a 100% legal monopoly for your product IN EXCHANGE for your full disclosure of your product.
The 1962 paper is interesting...Surprsingly the above paper doesn't mention the word 'packet' once, which is a bit of a contradiction if you claim to have invented 'packet switching'
He credits Davies with coining the term "packet switching." You seem to be saying that if you don't use the currently popular name when you first describe your idea, then you're not the originator of the idea...the guy who thinks up the popular name is the inventor.
By your reasoning, Newton, who coined the term "calculus" should get all the credit for the development of that branch of mathematics, and Leibniz should get none, since the German-speaking Leibniz didn't use the term "calculus." (In case you're not up on your history of mathematics, Leibniz independently co-developed calculus and is credited in many non-English speaking countries as the developer of that branch of mathematics.)
Your rhetorical skills are sorely lacking. First Davies is the inventor because everyone knows he is, and now he's the inventor because he was the first to name it by the name you know it by. Here's my question:
What's your evidence for your belief that Davies either developed the concepts prior to Kleinrock, did more significant development work than Kleinrock, or for some other reason has a stronger term to the title "Inventor of Packet Switchng"?
My position is that the title is about as valid as "Inventor of the World Wide Web" and that all these guys should take a lesson from Newton..."If I have seen farther than others, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants...
Passenger jets already have autopilots, ya karma whore.
This isn't blind obedience. This is "The CEO said fix bugs this month. Here are the bug reports for our code. Anybody who doesn't fix one bug this month gets canned for insubordination. Anyone who has a problem can email billg@microsoft.com."
Yup. Ten years from now, XP will be on the dunghill. So will his marriage, because he's incapable of prioritizing.
Microsoft Stops New Work To Fix Bugs
Microsoft To Fix Bugs, Stop New Work
Microsoft Shuts Down
(The latter is true only if they really are fixing bugs instead of writing new code...)
Case 1 20% Cheaper then case
MATH ERROR! MATH ERROR!
"A is X% cheaper than B" in English translates to:
A = B - B * X / 100
Or, take 20% of $500,000, subtract it from 500,000, and that's something that's 20% cheaper.
Your statement would have been more accurate as follows:
"Case 1 80% Cheaper then case 2" [sic]
It would have had much more impact to say this:
"Case 2 is 400% more expensive than case 1."
And I am widely acknowledged as the King of America.
..." because it makes you sound like an idiot rather than an informed individual. And don't mind me, I'm just a normal largely ignorant slashdotizen.
Come on, read the article, find a flaw in his statements, and refute them. Kleinrock states that he analyzed packet switching mathematically in his 1962 thesis, something that Davies never did. Is he overstating? Does Davies have a publication that predates this? Did he develop/discover independently and then parlay that into the current technology? The latter would be a particularly cunning argument, if you can support it. But don't tell us "Oh, everybody says
Gore correctly and truthfully took credit for getting us the money to develop the Internet.
Right. I suppose you also believe that President Clinton did not perjure himself because he consciously defined "is" differently than his questioner.
Let's quote Al Gore...
"I took the initiative in creating the Internet." I'll grant that he didn't use the word "invent." I'll also suggest this analogy...
You work 70-hour weeks for a year to develop THE software technology that will rocket your startup into the ranks of the Fortune 500. Your manager goes to the CEO and says "I should be given money and power because I took the initiative in creating this new technology." Did he lie? According to you, no. Did he choose his words carefully so that the uninformed would be led to believe a mistruth? Absolutely.
To conclude, I say get out there, fight it from the other end - the end that consumers will understand. Sign up as many fake and real accounts as you like to demonstrate just how fallible the system is. I'm off to see if they prevent scripting...
This sort of thing generally goes under the name "spam".
Hey, ya big galoot! That's his exact point! YOU don't care enough about what he says to take action to hear what he says. So why do you take issues with his actions? Ever hear of a mail server? Or maybe an Exchange server with an internet mail connector? Ever hear of telnet? Ever hear of port 25? Ever hear of a batch file? Or maybe VBScript? If you wanted to, you could send him an email and subscribe to his list.
how are the mobsers going to get rid of bodies if they can't throw them in the foundation of a new building anymore...
Hog farms. Hogs eat everything. Only fillings pass through intact...
To me it's equivalent to providing an incumbant telecommunications infrastructure provider (like a cable-co or telco) exclusivity in a market
Your grasp of the obvious amazes me! "Exclusive" IS the word used in the U.S. Constitution in the passage that permits patents.
I approve of the patent for the lightbulb, but not a patent on the use of electricity to provide light!
Funny you mention that. Had Edison patented "Using electricity to provide light", there would be NO patent barriers to ANY future electrical lights - whether they be LEDs, those nifty new electrochemicalphotoluminescent thingies, or something yet undreamed of. The broader the patent, the better, since the lifetime of the patent is quite short.
BTW, I would suggest that the lightbulb is an obvious concept. Everyone at Edison's time knew that if you heated a wire hot enough, it would glow. Everyone knew that oxygen caused oxidation. Everyone knew you could pump the air out of a bulb and create a vacuum which contained no oxygen. How, then, did Edison innovate?
Re-read the comment you replied to; it suggests something subtly different from what you suggest. Checkpointing intermediate results is not the same thing as checkpointing processes. To take a much oversimplifed example, I write a program to multiply a two-digit number by a one digit number. My program does the following:
1. Multiply ones digits
2. Multiply tens digit by ones digit
3. Multiply previous result by ten
4. Add results from steps 1 & 3
5. Display previous result.
If my program crashes at any point before step 5, I have to start all over. So, I save my intermediate results at step 1, step 2, step 3, and save my final result at step 4. This is checkpointing my intermediate steps.
Your suggestion, on the other hand, is to periodically save the entire system state. This is checkpointing the processes.
I see a need for both types of checkpointing - applications periodically checkpointing data (like the autosave feature in the market-leading word processor) and system-state saves (like the sleep feature of some laptops). Reliability and recoverability should be engineered in at all layers.
Because in US society, there are only three choices when someone does something wrong but not criminal:
1. Ignore it.
2. Ask the offender politely to stop
3. Sue.
(Violence, of course, is illegal)
#1 is guaranteed to produce no change in behavior.
#3 is guaranteed to produce a change in behavior (possibly not the change you want)
#2 will often work wonders if you are dealing with an individual who cares what you think.
#2 is guaranteed to produce no change in behavior when dealing with strangers who consciously choose to engage in behavior they know is offensive to you (spamming, for example).
So, when dealing with faceless entities, you have two effective choices:
1. Ignore
2. Sue
#1 is really best for your own mental health.
#2 is the only option that can possibly produce a change in behavior and is the only correct choice if you wish to better society by doing your part to eliminate anti-social behavior.
Don't like it? Don't hire them.
This is equivalent to ignoring them. If they get hired by ANYONE, their behavior has been encouraged. They will do it again. They will tell their friends to do it. Eventually someone will write a book telling everyone how great it is to do this.
Or you can say "I will spend 30 minutes of every day ignoring stupid people. There is no point in growing an ulcer over it."
ABSOLUTELY!
I maintain that if the copyright holder is unwilling to make a copy of his information to me at a FAIR price, then he is violating the spirit of copyright laws in the US (ie "to promote useful arts and sciences") and is violating my freedoms of speech and press (copyright and patents ARE infringements upon absolute freedom of speech and press but are permitted). Therefore, I feel morally correct in doing whatever I want with the information - read, write, execute, etc.
If I can legally buy the information it at a fair price, though, then I'm morally obligated to either buy the information or not possess the information.
That's a nifty idea. OK, I have some more extraordinary ideas. I think you should consider them long enough to figure out what would constitute reasonable proof:
1. I have X-RAY EYES! I can see through wood and glass but not lead. Static electricity can mess them up, though.
2. I have TELEKINETIC POWERS! I can move things by the power of THOUGHT! Static electricity can mess it up, though.
3. I am SUPERMAN! I can FLY! Static electricity can mess it up, though.
4. Peanut butter, injected directly into YOUR aorta will make YOU incredibly high! Unless there's some static electricity in you.
Etc. etc. My point is that extraordinarily silly claims should not be given the time of day, because there isn't enough time in the day.
Here's what I'd want before I considered the claim NOT silly:
Your sworn statements about the potential of your invention in documents filed with the SEC for the stock you are selling to finance the company you have created to develop and market your invention. In other words, create a situation where someone in a position of power has an interest in making you go to jail if you lie, and hand them the tools to send you to jail if you are lying. If you are willing to put your life on the line, I'll take a look at your perpetual motion machine ("Takes advantage of the trillions of free neutrinos streaming through our bodies every second!")
P.S. Anyone remember the scene from "Rendezvous with Rama" where Newton's laws of motion were proven not to be laws after all? That would work as proof, too.
"We are deeply disappointed that Ukraine has not passed an effective law and instead is rushing through an ineffective law."
"Ukraine's legislature is crafting its own law rather than rubber-stamping the one we provided."
OK. Let's go with "NO CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS!" Any candidate who accepts ANY money from ANYONE (except possibly their immediate family) immediately goes to the electric chair.
So the only way to afford running for national office is to ALREADY HAVE MONEY! That's right, by eliminating campaign contributions, you have guaranteed that the only people who will campaign for office will be the rich folk. Us po folk can run, but we'll get trampled 98% of the time.
What's the solution? Realize that MONEY = POWER, POWER = MONEY, always has, always will. This will never change.
You mean like the Dewey Decimal System? Or whatever it is that my college library used, where all the math texts were found under QAsomething instead of 510something?
Boy asks out girl who answers the phone at the pizza place.
Sure google will help me find the number one pants manufacturer [google.com] in terms of marketting, but what's an upstart with an immemorable name to do?
(Set the wayback machine for 1950...)
Sure, people will remember the name of the number one pants manufacturer in terms of marketing, but what's an upstart with an immemorable name to do?
Answer now is the same as it was then...market your product and get brand recognition...make a quality product so that people will buy your pants again when the pair they just bought wears out in ten years.