Well, the review is seriously/.ed, so I don't know what it says, but...:
Not everybody care about games. I for one, haven't played a game on my box for as long as I had it. But, I stare at this screen for 13 hours a day, and all I care about is that the things I look at (no, it's not pr0n:-) ), doesn't make my eyeballs fall out.
I've got a Matrox G450, and I'm pretty happy about that. AFAIK, Matrox is supportive of Linux, they have themselves released GPLed software. It's not going to be my last Matrox card.
Forget it. It will go through. What happened was that the big corps said that patents is good for SMBs, and the patent offices here and there bought it. It's all about the money here in Europe too. It doesn't matter if something is obviously halting technological progress, if the big corps think that they will make more money.
Yeah, that's what I do too. I don't think the real problem is that Linux' word-like application sucks. The real problem is that the word processing concept is flawed....:-)
Around here (Norway), I saved about NOK 3000 (~ $250) by building my own system half a year ago, but that's a pretty high end system (was anyway). So for high end systems, you can, but for low-end boxes, there is no way to do that around here.
I'd like to run Debian on all my boxes (three of them), and basically, I think that it is not really about being bad to parents, but I'm being a bit tough on myself, no doubt.
As for the printer, I tried to set it up using KDEprint, which looks neat. I'll get the hang of it eventually, I just need to diagnose the real problem first, and I'm sure I can find somebody on a mailing list to help me out.
I just did the same thing, and I have major pains. I'm in it for the freedom, so it is OK by me. My parent's had an easy choice too: "well, you could stick to your old win95 computer, but you would not get any support from neither MS nor me"...
I'm on Debian Woody, and I've been fiddling with both KDE 2.2.2 and 3. Configuring the HP OfficeJet T65 is a major pain. I have an ad hoc-solution now that works OK on PS files. But those PS files created by KWord look nothing like they did on screen, and often, some of the words are lost at the end of lines.
I haven't got OpenOffice to import anything but it's native format. Is there some kind of subprocess that is supposed to do the filtering, that just dies? It's a hell to debug this stuff.
The really bad thing is though that this box is not on the net right now, so it is too hard to get to the docs and to the updates. Last night, I burnt OO debs on a CD, and when I got home, it turned out that the CD was corrupted.... Arrrrgh!
Well, I'm going to quite a lot of pain, some of it is definately not Linux' fault, but I think that if I hadn't been into it for freedom, I wouldn't have bothered.
I wonder how long it will be before AllTheWeb is threatened.
Could be interesting, since AllTheWeb is based in Norway, the same country where Operation Clambake is. They might say "DMCA, what?"
But then, they might not, since the index itself is probably in the US, and besides, our Big Sister Sunde thinks DMCA is Norwegian law anyway, so she'll be banging on the doors once she gets $cientology on the phone.
Well, many of Joel's myths are straw men, but I think he ignores some important things in his eagerness to tell us that it isn't about freedom.
The point he misses is that freedom is good for economy too. Freedom is what makes the jump onto the bandwagon a no-risk jump. Freedom is what makes the legal implications so clear, that you're not risking a lot by joining. When HP chose Debian as their basis for Linux development, it was because of the pains Debian developers go through to make sure their distro is truly free. It makes it very FUD-resistant, and that is something very important.
Why is it that people often assume that whats good for freedom is bad for economy, and whats bad for freedom is good for economy? While most of the IT industry may think that way, it doesn't need to be so.
AOL. Actually, I've been using alltheweb from time to time. It has happened that it has been able to dig up some really obscure things that Google hasn't found, but generally, I find that if there are at least twenty pages likely to come up with the search words, Google does a whole lot better job ranking them. That really counts a lot.
If formulated in a sensible way, I'm not so sure this would be bad. In fact, I think it might be good for Free Software-based business.
Obviously, preventing people from coding would be a Bad Thing[tm], but something that says "if you sell something, you are liable for what you sell" is not necessarily bad. It would mean that Red Hat would be liable towards whoever they sell their distro to, but J. Random Hacker would not be liable towards RH for whatever code he has written that is in RHs distro. Unless, of course, RH was paying J. Random Hacker.
So, what RH would be selling, is something valuable; they will be selling a warranty. Of course, prizes for the distro would go up, but I wouldn't say that is a Bad Thing[tm] By Default.
Moreover, suits will eventually understand what kind of product they're buying, and they will realize there is actually quite a lot of money in Free Software. Which isn't a Bad Thing[tm] By Default either. It may mean that distro-sellers can put an even greater effort in making things secure, which means better software for all of us.
Besides, we all know that Free Software is usually more solid than locked-up software, don't we? So, M$ will have something big coming their way, and that may be sufficient to open up the marketplace for Free Software, so that we can gain the foothold we need. If our software is better, M$ has a lot more to fear than we do. I mean, I'd love to sue them for the many megs of bandwidth Klez has robbed me of.
In conclusion, I don't think software liability is necessarily bad as long is it follows the money.
Well, CS exams has been much more friendly to me. I've got just a couple, though.
My first was really easy, and the second, well, the course sucked so much I had really given up the whole class one month in advance, but showed up at the exam anyway. They gave us a problem on non-natural splines that was really interesting, so I did well on that exam too. But it is the only exam problem that I can say has had that quality in my 8 years.
I've been arguing that physics exams, on the other hand, is a major problem for critical thinking. I even had an article in the journal "Physics World"about it.
Yeah, besides, my serves says: root@pooh:~> hdparm -t/dev/hda
/dev/hda: Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 6.75 seconds = 9.48 MB/sec
Though I admittedly don't really know what this means, something tells me that the bandwidth between my HD and the rest of the computer needs to improve a lot before I need to worry about the bandwidth outside the box...:-)
No, he is correct in what he is saying: As long as it is legal to hire monks to copy things using handwriting, fair use is okay. That's his argument, and that has been the argument in the DVD suits too.
Copyright doesn't exist to promote technology, you know. We have patents for that.;-)
What he is saying is that it is perfectly legitimate to halt advances in technology if it is needed to protect the business models of distributors of artistic works. Legislators think that too.
Besides, legislators may require that DRM opens the work at the expiry of copyright. They're probably going to do that to throw us a bone. It is then important to keep arguning that this is wrong.
I think you raise an important point. Obviously, this study is severly flawed, and may well have been bought by M$. But, really, does it matter? Even if it was financed by M$, does that mean the conclusions was influenced by M$?
We should be really careful about rejecting a study just because it was financed by somebody Big and Evil. It could backfire.
You know, most organizations need to take money from someone to keep up their work. Especially if you're fighting in court.
OK, say for example that EFF takes money from a consumer electronics manufacturer, that really don't want DRM, because it would hurt their business.
The next thing you know is RIAA screams "EFF is just a bunch of thieving lapdogs for the consumer electronics industry, stealing the bread off the table of the poor, starving artists."
Unless we focus on arguments, and show how arguments are flawed, this will certainly happen some day.
The FSF would of course disagree; they put ideology ahead of technology and have demonstrated that the "morality" of a project is more important than its success.
RMS supported Ogg's transition from LGPL to BSD-style. You should try to understand why, it is quite important.
Actually, I faced pretty much the same problem at home tonight.
I'm in it mostly for ideology. If Microsoft has it's way, I'm quite sure I will not in practice have rights such as voting rights in 30 years from now.
I've got Debian Woody on my parents' computer, and running KDE2.2.2 tonight, well, neither KWord nor OpenOffice 1.0 cuts it. They have lots of small bugs you just can't live with. I don't care about these apps, really, because I work more efficiently with LaTeX, but dad does.
For many users, they need to understand the ideology behind it. Perhaps it doesn't sell too good in the US, since nobody cares about freedom as long as they feel safe and have enough beer, but I know for sure that many people care about it here. Yeah, and dad, the old rioter, he is getting it. He understands that Linux isn't quite there yet, but as long as freedom is at stake, he can live with it (besides, he has to, because he doesn't go anywhere without me working on his box...:-) ).
So, if your ideology is that open source will always result in superiour software, well, then your ideology is flawed. But if your ideology is about freedom, then you have an argument.
I do of course realize that the issues are very complex when it comes to financial incentives. It will take a long time before we have established a broad range of working business models for free software, but the "enforced scarcity" model is unsustainable in the long run, so it has to happen. This is a long discussion that goes far beyond the current thread.
Yeah, and BTW, I think it is time free software developers stop running after MS when it comes to UIs. There are lots of good academic research on the topic that people could have a look at instead. But that's OT too.
You know, as a scientist and atheist, I have no problem responding "I have no clue" to a few questions. "God in the gaps" solves no problem, but has sometimes delayed scientific understanding by decades because scientists has not only had to deal with valid critisism, but also invalid dogma.
So, instead of answering "god did that", you should have the guts to answer "I have no clue". It takes a lot more, but it works better in the long run.
Well, it was seriously slashdotted for me, but I've been doing some thinking on the subject too. I once posted something to/. long ago too, but got rejected.
I posted something similar to shouldexist.org back then too. Just to share the thoughts.
(he seems to suffer from the Slashbot notion that developers who use a BSD license, for instance, are too stupid to realize they're allowing their code to be relicensed instead of grasping that the point is to offer code for use to whoever wants it),
Well, then why did he endorse the Ogg transition to BSD-style? I think he understands the issues perfectly well.
Yeah, I got a demo model server tower some time ago.
There's nothing better to build in, and the design is pretty appealing too.
My case has a millimeter of steel everywhere, and might survive some fire.
I've dropped Chieftec a note once or twice, and they are very responsive. I'll definately recommend Chieftec to anyone.
Re:Implications for Radio Astronomy. . .
on
Unlimited Airwaves
·
· Score: 2
I agree.
As much as I'd like to do away with scarcity, and as much as this argument:
I'm talking about free speech. Regulation of the airwaves has specifically included curbs on speech, such as the FCC's commands to the nation's TV and radio broadcasters about what may or may not be said on the air.
...appeals to me, being an astronomer, I fear that we here on earth will drown out the tiny signal that some day may put us on the track of something far greater than nice bandwidth.
I still don't know why IE doesn't. It keeps all those popups under control.
Well, the cynic in me says that's the reason. IE isn't a browser made for users. It is a browser made for web designers and businesses. If IE would do a lot to control popups, it would annoy content providers that rely on that kind of advertising.
Wouldn't be good...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Not everybody care about games. I for one, haven't played a game on my box for as long as I had it. But, I stare at this screen for 13 hours a day, and all I care about is that the things I look at (no, it's not pr0n :-) ), doesn't make my eyeballs fall out.
I've got a Matrox G450, and I'm pretty happy about that. AFAIK, Matrox is supportive of Linux, they have themselves released GPLed software. It's not going to be my last Matrox card.
IANAL, but AFAICS, yes. But you wouldn't really be competing with UL anyway, as what they really sell is the promise that "this will work".
Forget it. It will go through. What happened was that the big corps said that patents is good for SMBs, and the patent offices here and there bought it. It's all about the money here in Europe too. It doesn't matter if something is obviously halting technological progress, if the big corps think that they will make more money.
Yeah, that's what I do too. I don't think the real problem is that Linux' word-like application sucks. The real problem is that the word processing concept is flawed.... :-)
Around here (Norway), I saved about NOK 3000 (~ $250) by building my own system half a year ago, but that's a pretty high end system (was anyway). So for high end systems, you can, but for low-end boxes, there is no way to do that around here.
I'd like to run Debian on all my boxes (three of them), and basically, I think that it is not really about being bad to parents, but I'm being a bit tough on myself, no doubt.
As for the printer, I tried to set it up using KDEprint, which looks neat. I'll get the hang of it eventually, I just need to diagnose the real problem first, and I'm sure I can find somebody on a mailing list to help me out.
Well, if it was (and it probably was), what's wrong with it? I think it is a great way to recruit people, for all involved.
I'm on Debian Woody, and I've been fiddling with both KDE 2.2.2 and 3. Configuring the HP OfficeJet T65 is a major pain. I have an ad hoc-solution now that works OK on PS files. But those PS files created by KWord look nothing like they did on screen, and often, some of the words are lost at the end of lines.
I haven't got OpenOffice to import anything but it's native format. Is there some kind of subprocess that is supposed to do the filtering, that just dies? It's a hell to debug this stuff.
The really bad thing is though that this box is not on the net right now, so it is too hard to get to the docs and to the updates. Last night, I burnt OO debs on a CD, and when I got home, it turned out that the CD was corrupted.... Arrrrgh!
Well, I'm going to quite a lot of pain, some of it is definately not Linux' fault, but I think that if I hadn't been into it for freedom, I wouldn't have bothered.
Freedom is still Linux major selling point.
Could be interesting, since AllTheWeb is based in Norway, the same country where Operation Clambake is. They might say "DMCA, what?"
But then, they might not, since the index itself is probably in the US, and besides, our Big Sister Sunde thinks DMCA is Norwegian law anyway, so she'll be banging on the doors once she gets $cientology on the phone.
The point he misses is that freedom is good for economy too. Freedom is what makes the jump onto the bandwagon a no-risk jump. Freedom is what makes the legal implications so clear, that you're not risking a lot by joining. When HP chose Debian as their basis for Linux development, it was because of the pains Debian developers go through to make sure their distro is truly free. It makes it very FUD-resistant, and that is something very important.
Why is it that people often assume that whats good for freedom is bad for economy, and whats bad for freedom is good for economy? While most of the IT industry may think that way, it doesn't need to be so.
AOL. Actually, I've been using alltheweb from time to time. It has happened that it has been able to dig up some really obscure things that Google hasn't found, but generally, I find that if there are at least twenty pages likely to come up with the search words, Google does a whole lot better job ranking them. That really counts a lot.
Obviously, preventing people from coding would be a Bad Thing[tm], but something that says "if you sell something, you are liable for what you sell" is not necessarily bad. It would mean that Red Hat would be liable towards whoever they sell their distro to, but J. Random Hacker would not be liable towards RH for whatever code he has written that is in RHs distro. Unless, of course, RH was paying J. Random Hacker.
So, what RH would be selling, is something valuable; they will be selling a warranty. Of course, prizes for the distro would go up, but I wouldn't say that is a Bad Thing[tm] By Default. Moreover, suits will eventually understand what kind of product they're buying, and they will realize there is actually quite a lot of money in Free Software. Which isn't a Bad Thing[tm] By Default either. It may mean that distro-sellers can put an even greater effort in making things secure, which means better software for all of us.
Besides, we all know that Free Software is usually more solid than locked-up software, don't we? So, M$ will have something big coming their way, and that may be sufficient to open up the marketplace for Free Software, so that we can gain the foothold we need. If our software is better, M$ has a lot more to fear than we do. I mean, I'd love to sue them for the many megs of bandwidth Klez has robbed me of.
In conclusion, I don't think software liability is necessarily bad as long is it follows the money.
I've been arguing that physics exams, on the other hand, is a major problem for critical thinking. I even had an article in the journal "Physics World" about it.
Yeah, besides, my serves says: /dev/hda
:-)
root@pooh:~> hdparm -t
/dev/hda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 6.75 seconds = 9.48 MB/sec
Though I admittedly don't really know what this means, something tells me that the bandwidth between my HD and the rest of the computer needs to improve a lot before I need to worry about the bandwidth outside the box...
Copyright doesn't exist to promote technology, you know. We have patents for that. ;-)
What he is saying is that it is perfectly legitimate to halt advances in technology if it is needed to protect the business models of distributors of artistic works. Legislators think that too.
Besides, legislators may require that DRM opens the work at the expiry of copyright. They're probably going to do that to throw us a bone. It is then important to keep arguning that this is wrong.
I wasn't speaking about this response in particular, but rather about a general attitude you see a lot of around here.
We should be really careful about rejecting a study just because it was financed by somebody Big and Evil. It could backfire.
You know, most organizations need to take money from someone to keep up their work. Especially if you're fighting in court.
OK, say for example that EFF takes money from a consumer electronics manufacturer, that really don't want DRM, because it would hurt their business.
The next thing you know is RIAA screams "EFF is just a bunch of thieving lapdogs for the consumer electronics industry, stealing the bread off the table of the poor, starving artists."
Unless we focus on arguments, and show how arguments are flawed, this will certainly happen some day.
RMS supported Ogg's transition from LGPL to BSD-style. You should try to understand why, it is quite important.
I'm in it mostly for ideology. If Microsoft has it's way, I'm quite sure I will not in practice have rights such as voting rights in 30 years from now.
I've got Debian Woody on my parents' computer, and running KDE2.2.2 tonight, well, neither KWord nor OpenOffice 1.0 cuts it. They have lots of small bugs you just can't live with. I don't care about these apps, really, because I work more efficiently with LaTeX, but dad does.
For many users, they need to understand the ideology behind it. Perhaps it doesn't sell too good in the US, since nobody cares about freedom as long as they feel safe and have enough beer, but I know for sure that many people care about it here. Yeah, and dad, the old rioter, he is getting it. He understands that Linux isn't quite there yet, but as long as freedom is at stake, he can live with it (besides, he has to, because he doesn't go anywhere without me working on his box... :-) ).
So, if your ideology is that open source will always result in superiour software, well, then your ideology is flawed. But if your ideology is about freedom, then you have an argument.
I do of course realize that the issues are very complex when it comes to financial incentives. It will take a long time before we have established a broad range of working business models for free software, but the "enforced scarcity" model is unsustainable in the long run, so it has to happen. This is a long discussion that goes far beyond the current thread.
Yeah, and BTW, I think it is time free software developers stop running after MS when it comes to UIs. There are lots of good academic research on the topic that people could have a look at instead. But that's OT too.
So you just inserted another level.
You know, as a scientist and atheist, I have no problem responding "I have no clue" to a few questions. "God in the gaps" solves no problem, but has sometimes delayed scientific understanding by decades because scientists has not only had to deal with valid critisism, but also invalid dogma.
So, instead of answering "god did that", you should have the guts to answer "I have no clue". It takes a lot more, but it works better in the long run.
I posted something similar to shouldexist.org back then too. Just to share the thoughts.
Well, then why did he endorse the Ogg transition to BSD-style? I think he understands the issues perfectly well.
I've dropped Chieftec a note once or twice, and they are very responsive. I'll definately recommend Chieftec to anyone.
As much as I'd like to do away with scarcity, and as much as this argument:
Well, the cynic in me says that's the reason. IE isn't a browser made for users. It is a browser made for web designers and businesses. If IE would do a lot to control popups, it would annoy content providers that rely on that kind of advertising. Wouldn't be good... :-)