The point of GNU is to provide a system of software that does not inhibit the Freedoms of its users to use, share, modify or distribute the code.
To the extent that this is opposite of the proprietary software model, it is "against" proprietary software. That doesn't mean that the point is to "hurt" Bill Gates, or any other person or company. If they lose business in the face of a superior system that doesn't enslave its users, then so be it. But that isn't the direct goal of GNU.
Fair enough, but I think you must admit, it's orders of magnitude better than Are you being served? My only point was, intelligent, culture-specific entertainment can be successfully exported to other cultures. It isn't necessarily required to appeal to the lowest common denominator (although that often happens, of course).
This is one of the reasons Hollywood is so smart. They know that it does not pay to make too complicated a plot, because, if they do, the film will not play well in Tokyo. I learnt this lesson the hard way. I came to the US from Britain. For some reason, PBS stations seem to think that Britain's "best" exports are "Keeping Up Appearances" and "Are You Being Served?". For me, that is deeply humiliating.
It doesn't always work out that way. I, probably like most other USians, consider Britain's "best" TV export to be "Monty Python". This, despite the fact that MP is very smart, and very British.
Well, if MS was giving this software away out of altruism (or even merely as a tax shelter), it would be a different matter. The fact is, they are using it as a dodge out of a legitimate class-action suit that alleged shoddy business practices that had nothing whatsoever to do with schoolchildren.
That makes it a smokescreen. The original poster is right, this isn't going to cost MS anywhere near 1 Gigadollar. It's much less than a slap on the wrist, and does nothing to prevent, or even discourage, MS from misbehaving in the future. It's a crock, any way you look at it.
The big changes aren't visible
on
KDE 3.0 Screenshots
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Keep in mind, there isn't much new screen candy in KDE 3.0; a lot of the changes are in the libraries. The biggest change is the port to Qt 3.0, which provides database-aware widgets, improved Qt Designer, bi-di text support, a new regexp class, among other things.
There are also many new applications being added to KDE.
"Maybe now we can put disasters like the Hubble distorted lens, and the Mars lander crash behind us"
Let's not forget that your first "disaster" was eventually fixed. The loss of the Mars probes was regrettable, but I wouldn't classify them as disasters, either. The thing is, it's extremely hard to send a probe to Mars. Goldin's "Better, Faster, Cheaper" initiative was implemented in direct recognition of the probability that deep space missions will occassionally be lost, so by having many smaller missions instead of few large missions, the loss of individual missions, when (not if) they occur, will not be disasters to the overall program.
I can't understand why Alan claims to have a legitimate concern of getting arrested on his next visit to the US. I mean it's one thing to publish code that exploits somebody else's lackluster security features (i.e., Skylarov); it's quite something else to simply publish the security status of your own code base.
Surely the DMCA, as bad as it is, can't send someone to jail for disclosing their *own* security info? (OK, so the kernel isn't technically Alan's, but he is the code's primary maintainer). I mean, who would be the complaintant in the case? Would they not have to demonstrate some kind of damage that resulted from the alleged misdeed?
Someone help me out, I simply can't believe there's a legitimate reason to fear arrest in this case. Surely, he's just making a point, right?
If not...my God. WTF happened to my country? I want it back.
Good points. I agree with you that the difference between "expressive" and "functional" is somewhere between unworkably vague and nonexistent. I wasn't being devil's advocate per se, but I was looking at it from the point of view of the court. The fact that what people can read and what computers can read are pretty much mutually exclusive makes it easy to draw a distinction between expression and function at the compiler.
Careful. A big part of the recognition that source code is free speech is that it is not only functional, but also expressive. You seem to be saying that because the object code is functionally identical to the source code, it must therefore be protected speech also. However, one can think of object code as the information contained in the source code, stripped of all its expressive content, and reduced to a purely functional form. If this is the case, then one could argue that object code is no longer speech.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just some things to think about.
I think you're definition of communication is a bit too narrow. Yes, even programmers don't communicate using source code when they discuss last night's ball game, or where to have lunch. However, source code *is* the preferred way for programmers to communicate to each other, how to make a computer do things.
This is why OSD is so important and successful. If source code was not a valid means of communication between programmers, there would be no reason to show anyone else your code. Keep in mind, you never show the computer the source code, it must first be compiled/interpreted to machine language. The source itself is for human eyes only.
Re:You might want to do the same
on
Review: K-PAX
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· Score: 1
>Actually I use my pager for a timepiece since
>the battery died in my watch and I never got
>around to fixing it, but your point is still
>taken. Heh.
In that case, you are using an atomic clock to keep time, albeit indirectly.:)
Eh? Han Solo made the Kessel run in 12 *parsecs*.
I'm assuming that's the quote you're referring to? Or did Lucas give him another zinger with light years in it?
Re:You might want to do the same
on
Review: K-PAX
·
· Score: 1
You're confusing mass with weight. Even in zero gravity, objects have mass. You can define mass independently of the local gravitational field using inertia. That is, the harder it is to get something moving (or to stop something that's moving), the more mass it has.
Time is simpe to define in a standard way that isn't specific to the motions of the planets in our solar system. For example, you can define "one second" to be 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a cesium-133 atom, since all cesium-133 atoms in the Universe behave in exactly the same way (a statement of the Cosmological Principle). In fact, this is the basis for modern timekeeping with atomic clocks. Heck, even your wristwatch uses a conceptually similar oscillating quartz crystal to keep time.
Re:You might want to do the same
on
Review: K-PAX
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· Score: 1
The parsec is just as specific to Earth as the light year is. In this case, the parallactic "wobble" of a nearby star is in response to the Earth's motion around the Sun. If the earth had a larger orbit, the star would appear to wobble more, and a parsec would be a longer distance.
Since we're nitpicking...
on
Review: K-PAX
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· Score: 1
The science of astronomy is practiced by "astronomers". The superstition of astrology is practiced by "astrologers".
Sorry, one of my pet peeves.
Re:What happens after the credits?
on
Review: K-PAX
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· Score: 1
The interesting part of this final scene is that they used an actual starfield in the shot! In almost every Hollywood through-the-eyepiece shot I've ever seen, it's some fake field of view.
This one was of the constellation Taurus, including the Pleiades. Nice!
I'm a bit late, but NS 4.x cannot render the following page properly, which passes both the W3C HTML 4.0 and CSS validators:
http://kstars.sourceforge.net
In particular, the image in the left menubar is never properly sized (and it is often not even the right image!) Worse yet, if you hit reload, you'll often get different results. That *can't* be good. (In case you only have NS4, the left menubar is supposed to contain a screenshot followed by a series of links, all on a blue background with a black border. The W3C banner is *not* supposed to be there.)
"Mouse != GUI. Stanford had nothing to do with the development of the GUI."
You're mistaken. Follow the link I gave in my previous post. Doug Engelbart is credited with inventing the world's first GUI as well as the world's first mouse. At Stanford.
Slashdot Mirror
The point of GNU is to provide a system of software that does not inhibit the Freedoms of its users to use, share, modify or distribute the code.
To the extent that this is opposite of the proprietary software model, it is "against" proprietary software. That doesn't mean that the point is to "hurt" Bill Gates, or any other person or company. If they lose business in the face of a superior system that doesn't enslave its users, then so be it. But that isn't the direct goal of GNU.
Fair enough, but I think you must admit, it's orders of magnitude better than Are you being served? My only point was, intelligent, culture-specific entertainment can be successfully exported to other cultures. It isn't necessarily required to appeal to the lowest common denominator (although that often happens, of course).
This is one of the reasons Hollywood is so smart. They know that it does not pay to make too complicated a plot, because, if they do, the film will not play well in Tokyo. I learnt this lesson the hard way. I came to the US from Britain. For some reason, PBS stations seem to think that Britain's "best" exports are "Keeping Up Appearances" and "Are You Being Served?". For me, that is deeply humiliating.
It doesn't always work out that way. I, probably like most other USians, consider Britain's "best" TV export to be "Monty Python". This, despite the fact that MP is very smart, and very British.
Well, if MS was giving this software away out of altruism (or even merely as a tax shelter), it would be a different matter. The fact is, they are using it as a dodge out of a legitimate class-action suit that alleged shoddy business practices that had nothing whatsoever to do with schoolchildren.
That makes it a smokescreen. The original poster is right, this isn't going to cost MS anywhere near 1 Gigadollar. It's much less than a slap on the wrist, and does nothing to prevent, or even discourage, MS from misbehaving in the future. It's a crock, any way you look at it.
Don't worry, AC; It's more like a dust cloud than a rock cloud. :)
"American (your food tastes too damn good!)"
Really? Thanks, man. That's the first time I've ever heard a non-American say they like American food.
...tribbles!
Keep in mind, there isn't much new screen candy in KDE 3.0; a lot of the changes are in the libraries. The biggest change is the port to Qt 3.0, which provides database-aware widgets, improved Qt Designer, bi-di text support, a new regexp class, among other things.
There are also many new applications being added to KDE.
"Maybe now we can put disasters like the Hubble distorted lens, and the Mars lander crash behind us"
Let's not forget that your first "disaster" was eventually fixed. The loss of the Mars probes was regrettable, but I wouldn't classify them as disasters, either. The thing is, it's extremely hard to send a probe to Mars. Goldin's "Better, Faster, Cheaper" initiative was implemented in direct recognition of the probability that deep space missions will occassionally be lost, so by having many smaller missions instead of few large missions, the loss of individual missions, when (not if) they occur, will not be disasters to the overall program.
Will you be following Alan Cox's lead by withholding security patch information from the kernel Changelogs?
Indeed, and that's the exactly the kind of mental gymnastics that Lucas's people used to explain the goof post facto.
Hey, one of you IANAL-types. Help me out here.
I can't understand why Alan claims to have a legitimate concern of getting arrested on his next visit to the US. I mean it's one thing to publish code that exploits somebody else's lackluster security features (i.e., Skylarov); it's quite something else to simply publish the security status of your own code base.
Surely the DMCA, as bad as it is, can't send someone to jail for disclosing their *own* security info? (OK, so the kernel isn't technically Alan's, but he is the code's primary maintainer). I mean, who would be the complaintant in the case? Would they not have to demonstrate some kind of damage that resulted from the alleged misdeed?
Someone help me out, I simply can't believe there's a legitimate reason to fear arrest in this case. Surely, he's just making a point, right?
If not...my God. WTF happened to my country? I want it back.
Good points. I agree with you that the difference between "expressive" and "functional" is somewhere between unworkably vague and nonexistent. I wasn't being devil's advocate per se, but I was looking at it from the point of view of the court. The fact that what people can read and what computers can read are pretty much mutually exclusive makes it easy to draw a distinction between expression and function at the compiler.
Careful. A big part of the recognition that source code is free speech is that it is not only functional, but also expressive. You seem to be saying that because the object code is functionally identical to the source code, it must therefore be protected speech also. However, one can think of object code as the information contained in the source code, stripped of all its expressive content, and reduced to a purely functional form. If this is the case, then one could argue that object code is no longer speech.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just some things to think about.
I think you're definition of communication is a bit too narrow. Yes, even programmers don't communicate using source code when they discuss last night's ball game, or where to have lunch. However, source code *is* the preferred way for programmers to communicate to each other, how to make a computer do things.
This is why OSD is so important and successful. If source code was not a valid means of communication between programmers, there would be no reason to show anyone else your code. Keep in mind, you never show the computer the source code, it must first be compiled/interpreted to machine language. The source itself is for human eyes only.
>Actually I use my pager for a timepiece since
:)
>the battery died in my watch and I never got
>around to fixing it, but your point is still
>taken. Heh.
In that case, you are using an atomic clock to keep time, albeit indirectly.
Eh? Han Solo made the Kessel run in 12 *parsecs*.
I'm assuming that's the quote you're referring to? Or did Lucas give him another zinger with light years in it?
You're confusing mass with weight. Even in zero gravity, objects have mass. You can define mass independently of the local gravitational field using inertia. That is, the harder it is to get something moving (or to stop something that's moving), the more mass it has.
Time is simpe to define in a standard way that isn't specific to the motions of the planets in our solar system. For example, you can define "one second" to be 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a cesium-133 atom, since all cesium-133 atoms in the Universe behave in exactly the same way (a statement of the Cosmological Principle). In fact, this is the basis for modern timekeeping with atomic clocks. Heck, even your wristwatch uses a conceptually similar oscillating quartz crystal to keep time.
The parsec is just as specific to Earth as the light year is. In this case, the parallactic "wobble" of a nearby star is in response to the Earth's motion around the Sun. If the earth had a larger orbit, the star would appear to wobble more, and a parsec would be a longer distance.
The science of astronomy is practiced by "astronomers". The superstition of astrology is practiced by "astrologers".
Sorry, one of my pet peeves.
The interesting part of this final scene is that they used an actual starfield in the shot! In almost every Hollywood through-the-eyepiece shot I've ever seen, it's some fake field of view.
This one was of the constellation Taurus, including the Pleiades. Nice!
I'm a bit late, but NS 4.x cannot render the following page properly, which passes both the W3C HTML 4.0 and CSS validators:
http://kstars.sourceforge.net
In particular, the image in the left menubar is never properly sized (and it is often not even the right image!) Worse yet, if you hit reload, you'll often get different results. That *can't* be good. (In case you only have NS4, the left menubar is supposed to contain a screenshot followed by a series of links, all on a blue background with a black border. The W3C banner is *not* supposed to be there.)
that can't be a GSOD, it has a (presumably functional) OK button.
"Mouse != GUI. Stanford had nothing to do with the development of the GUI."
You're mistaken. Follow the link I gave in my previous post. Doug Engelbart is credited with inventing the world's first GUI as well as the world's first mouse. At Stanford.
The mouse was invented by Douglas C. Engelbart at Stanford