If you really believe this way, then you are perfectly free to excercise your own particular brand of "faith" and not vote.
In fact, anyone who feels that voting for President is akin to voting for Santa Claus should most definitely not vote, if only for the good of the rest of us.
While it is certainly true that belief does not make reality, disbelief can not affect reality either. Unless, of course, you are the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, in which case I think that I am going to wrap a towel around my head so that you will believe I have disappeared.
I don't feel like being eaten today.
In the meantime there is going to be a real election in just a few days, and the person that gets elected will have the power to send other heavily armed real people all over the world to blow things up. If you choose to believe that the selection of this person is not important (or not real) then don't come crying to the rest of us when the decisions made by this individual affects your life.
If everyone that agreed with Katz decided not to vote in the upcoming presidential election then we would almost certainly have a better outcome. After all, every idiot that believes that abstaining from the vote is more likely to influence government than voting clearly is a lunatic, and their vote would merely cancel out the vote of a rational person.
People, if you agree with Katz, please do society a favor and stay away from the polls.
You are correct. It had been a long time since I had taken a look at the APSL, and I couldn't remember exactly what was the source of the conflict when that license came out. I should have re-read the license, but I didn't, hoping instead that my recollection would be close enough. It wasn't. Here's an excerpt from the license that specifically tells you how the license can be terminated with prejudice:
Notwithstanding the foregoing, if applicable law prohibits or restricts You from fully and/or specifically complying with Sections 2 and/or 3 or prevents the enforceability of either of those Sections, this License will immediately terminate and You must immediately discontinue any use of the Covered Code and destroy all copies of it that are in your possession or control.
This frees Apple from responsibility should their software become illegal. It is certainly a far cry from the loophole that I cited in my origninal post.
The poster was pointing out that some licenses, like the first run of Apple's license on Darwin (which is basically all BSD code that they borrowed) allowed Apple to revoke your rights to use the software at any future point in time. In other words they could release it as "open source" and then later (when it was popular) say:
"Oops, it's not really open source anymore. Pay up or stop using Darwin."
RMS, Bruce Perens and others pointed out that such a license wasn't really "open source" and it certainly wasn't free software, and the license got changed.
ESR, and the Open Source boys, on the other hand, were willing to accept Apple's license.
If you don't have the intelligence to realize that failing to vote is the stupidest form of protest ever, then please don't vote.
On the other hand, Mr. Katz seems to think that the whole electoral process would be improved dramatically if a larger percent of the population voted, and that is simply not the case. Everyone votes in Peru (or pays a fine), and it doesn't stop them from electing some amazingly inept and corrupt politicians. At the very least our current system weeds out the most politically incompetent citizens. It takes a modicum of dedication and intelligence to register to vote, to know where the polls are, and to know when the election is. If voting were any easier we would get more completely uninformed people voting, and that would be bad. Right now even the voters that I disagree with politically at least had the good sense to realize that their vote counts. That counts for something.
The media machine, of which Mr. Katz is a part, doesn't see it that way, however. Theywould like to have more control over elections, and the easiest people to sway are the types of people that don't currently vote. Media people would love it if more sheeple got out and voted.
It would appear that not all politicians are clueless. Who would have thought.
This is especially interesting in light of the fact that filtering of the Internet at public libraries and such is a fairly popular stance. For example, both presidential candidates support some form of monitoring/filtering.
How refreshing. Perhaps there is hope for this country after all.
I still say that the standard response to each of these is "don't do that then!" I know scads of people that have absolutely no felony convictions. It is a trivial manner to live your life in such a way as to avoid them. Even if you are a pot smoker it is a trivial manner to never carry or sell a "felony" level of marijuana. Every pot smoker in the entire United States is probably aware what a "felony level" amount of pot for their jurisdiction is.
You have a good point about the murderer/rapist only getting 10 years in jail. Of course the "fix" for this is simple. Throw the murderer in jail forever (or, better yet, make sure that the murderer has full access to the legal system and when due process has run out execute him).
The fact of the matter is that people do not have the right to do stupid things and get away with them. People with a felony conviction should be especially careful not to drive 95 on the freeway, they should stay away from spray paint, and they should be careful not to carry too much dope around. People with two felony convictions should probably reconsider the people they hang around with. If not, they are going to end up in jail with their so-called friends for a very long time.
Seriously, how in the world do you rehabilitate someone that continues to act irresponsibly despite the fact that they know that they could go to jail for the rest of their lives? If you can't get the clue light to come on by the third felony I would submit that it is relatively safe to conclude that they are criminally stupid and should be locked up for their own protection. These laws are not arbitrary, and they were created by you and your fellow citizens. If you don't like them, work at getting them changed (though I doubt you will have much luck, most people frown on vandalism, reckless driving, and felony quantities of weed). Just don't come crying to me when you get caught three times committing a felony. It's not like it's a big secret that breaking these laws could land you in jail for a long time.
I am a very satisfied Debian user, but there certainly is a difference between a Debian install and a RedHat install, at least for a Intel desktop machine. RedHat does a much better job of finishing off the last niggly bits like automatically setting up X Windows, or getting your sound card to actually beep at you.
That being said, for servers, Debian's apt-get is a clear win. Perhaps RedHat will up the ante with their new update system, but I doubt it.
Or perhaps you should just not paint on people's walls. The beautty of three strike laws is that you get "three strikes." Any kid stupid enough to get caught three times vandalizing deserves to spend their life in prison.
Internet access that is paid for with public funds should be filtered. The filter lists should be open (and public as well), and there should be methods in place so that reasonable folks can get the information that they need at a public library. Blocking skin tones, while clever, would actually be a bad idea (IMHO). If you were looking for medical information, for example, blocking skin tones could prevent a problem. It's the classic case of Playboy versus National Geographic. One is pornography and the other is probably available in your children's elementary school. Librarians should have no trouble sorting this out, they've been doing it forever.
On the other hand, private Internet access should be just that private. The second you start mandating that ISPs keep histories of where their clients have been then you have a proven recipe for trouble. There are plenty of ways of finding out what your children have been looking at on the Internet. I currently use squid, but there are piles of software that do precisely that. And if you really want a squeaky clean ISP, there are plenty of those available as well. Let someone else do the filtering for you.
Gore is clearly cracked if he thinks that the answer is to force ISPs to keep track of where everyone surfs.
I don't know much about KDE, but I regularly use Gnome on a Cyrix P-150 Plus with 64M of ram. Programs take longer to start than they do on the spiffy new hardware that I have a work, but once they are up and running, there is very little difference.
Of course, I don't generally use that machine to render POV-ray scenes either. I do a fair bit of Python development, and you can always count on at least one copy of Emacs and several Mozilla windows open.
Yes, there will continue to be new and exciting developments, and these developments will continue to drive hardware sales. But for most things that people do the newest fancy-dan hardware is gross overkill. I mean really, who needs a Pentium IV to surf the web and do a little word processing?
Now, if you are going to develop some monstrous program in a compiled language, or if you are going to do a lot of graphics editting, or if you want to play the newest PC game, then it may be worth your while to spring for monstrous hardware, but otherwise it almost certainly isn't.
Consumers are starting to realize this. What's worse (for the PC manufacturers anyway) when consumers do go out and buy a new machine, a good percentage of them are spending $400 instead of $2000. After all, the difference between the $400 machine and the $2000 machine is that the $400 machine is obsolete 3 months earlier.
All in all, unless there is a serious change in how computers are used (like widespread use of voice recognition software or some other CPU burner) I think that the PC industry is in for more that just a speed bump.
I would certainly agree that there is a difference between a Cola commercial and Die Hard, and I would also concur that adults are much less likely to be influenced when making mooral decisions than trivial "cola" decisions.
However, I would also state that media can have a powerful influence on the formation of those values. Most children also have enough parent supervision so that they too can learn the difference between "cola" choices and moral choices, but many do not. In your DieHard example it would be fairly easy for children to infer that violence is an acceptable way to deal with one's "enemies." There have been several cases of small children taking handguns to school (under 8 years of age), these children almost certainly were influenced to some extent by the media. Even the worst of parents do not teach their children to shoot people the disagree with. The television, however, often portrays that very message. Of course, the media wants to blame hand guns (while at the same time using hand guns as an important part of much of their programming).
Many parents who are concerned for their children's welfare do not appreciate a media that is essentially working against us. Most of us aren't asking for much, but we are never going to get anywhere on this issue as long as the media keeps pretending that children are unaffected by the constant exposure to violence and sex. At the very least they need to acknowledge the fact that many of their customers don't appreciate their programming choices. Even if there wasn't a link between media violence and real violence the fact that so many people are upset about the issue should clue the media into the fact that something should be done. After all, we are customers too.
I am not for clearing the airwaves of things that I don't approve of. I understand that my values are not everyone's values, but it isn't asking too much to push for a little more control over what my children see.
Whenever the issue of violence or sexual content in the media comes up there is always a wave of people that trumpet how "harmless" these things are, and how little they affect the viewers. What I don't understand is that if the media is so powerless to affect the state of mind of their audience then why do companies pay them so much money for their advertisements?
Are they seriously trying to tell me that the 30 minutes of sex and violence in a television show has no affect on the viewers, but the 30 second commercial for a soft drink has a big enough affect on these same people to be worth thousands of dollars? Clearly it has to be one way or the other. Either the media has little affect (and the advertisers are getting ripped off) or it has a huge affect and the media is simply being disingenuous.
I have been using Galeon as my primary browser for the past week or so (before that I was using whatever mozilla that Debian's Woody includes), and I think that it is exactly what you are looking for.
It is basically the Gecko rendering engine wrapped in enough GTK+ so that it actually works as a browser. There's no HTML editor, nor is there a mail client, a news client, or an irc client. It's not skinnable, and it's even Gnome-ified so that it fits in well with your Gnome desktop (although it works fine without Gnome).
Basically it is pretty darn cool. I am quite impressed.
The problem is that the RIAA probably has the necessary muscle to force SDMI products down consumers throats. As soon as the RIAA finds a way to make SDMI work, they will guarantee that it is impossible to by a new music player of any sort that doesn't honor their wishes.
For now it is a trivial thing to make copies of your CDs, and rip MP3s to carry on your MP3 player, but in the future this will not be possible if the RIAA has there way.
So it won't only be the idiots that lose their fair use rights, you will lose your rights as well. They will essentially be able to control where, when and how you may listen to music that you have paid for. Your music collection will also probably "expire" and require re-licensing.
I am all for having SDMI fail in the marketplace, but I wouldn't feel sorry for a moment if someone "gave it a push." If the RIAA and their cronies had sunk billions of dollars into implementing SDMI and then had it broken, then we would definitely see it crash and burn.
Delays are better than an uncrackable SDMI implemented tomorrow, but the best possible outcome would have been for the RIAA and their hardware cronies to dump billions into hardware and software with big holes in it. As an added bonus many of their customers would have found their draconian stance on IP to be too restrictive, and sales would have dropped. Simply because the "pirated" versions were easier to use.
The RIAA isn't going to learn unless the lesson is painful. I am all for the RIAA making money from their copyrighted material, but not at the expense of my fair use rights.
Oh, and by the way, hopefully this will give Ogg Vorbis more of a chance. MP3s aren't bad but Ogg is better!
Fah, I doubt that the end of the world is around the corner. On the other hand, who would have guessed that the great depression was right around the corner from the roaring 20's.
However, you missed the point of the Motley Fool's article. Microsoft is not cheating, nor are their employees. The problem is that it is reckless. They are literally betting the farm on their stock price going up, and at the same time they are fueling it's devaluation.
The Motley fool is simply pointing out a very important truth. A company with the size and power of Microsoft should be a sure bet investment for stable and solid growth. Heck, Microsoft is on the DOW for crying out loud. Investors trust Microsoft, and they assume that their investments are safe for the future. And yet, despite all of this Microsoft continues to play the stock market game like they were a startup ramping up for an IPO. The blame should be laid with the entire board of directors (and the accountants in particular), hence the Motley fool blames "Microsoft" and not Bill Gates.
This is not to say that Microsoft might not be a smart investment right now. I would bet that they have a few more runs left in them, and the average investor (the ones that bought Amazon during the e-business craze) still feel that Microsoft is a blue chip stock.
You just have to make sure you are not holding the bag when the sky comes falling down.
Precisely. In fact, it sort of reminds me of the time I spent in Lima, Peru in the late 80's. Every time the government needed to pay their employees they would simply fire up the printing presses. The money they printed was beautiful, but inflation that this caused was absolutely astounding. The Inti went from 72 to the dollar to millions to the dollar in the space of two years.
Microsoft has been so important to the American economy, and investors have been so positive that Microsoft stock would continue to rise, that they have failed to realize the games that Microsoft is playing. Unfortunately when Microsoft does come crashing down to earth it is going to affect us all very deeply. Many 401Ks and and mutual funds are invested heavily in Microsoft (which is why the price has always gone up). When (and hopefully if) Microsoft tanks it's going to take the entire economy along with it.
I believe that there are a certain fixed number of stock shares for a company.
I used to think this was true as well. It's not. Microsoft can print up as many new shares as they want. All it takes is a rubber stamp approval from the board of directors. In fact, Microsoft "manufactured" $10 billion dollars worth of shares in 1999 and only bought back $3 billion dollars worth.
And that is why Microsoft's actions are so dangerous. They are literally betting the farm on the fact that their stock is going to continue to rise. If it doesn't they lose their largest single source of income.
If you really are interested I would take a look at the Fool's Report listed in the/. article. It explains the situation better than I could.
As long as there are two sides of an issue, then politics will continue to be an important part of our lives.
If/. is supposed to be taken as a model for future decision making then civilization is doomed. We can't even decide on something as simple as which text editor or scripting language to use. I can't possibly imagine sorting out more difficult topics like what to do with our dams on the lower Columbia, or how we should manage our forests so that they don't all burn down. Even worse a change to online politics will not change the landscape at all, it will simply re-arrange the people calling the shots. In the future it won't be the Democrats and the Republicans, it will be the Linuxistas the Beosians, the Slashdotians, and the Wired-ians.
If there is one thing that can be proved conclusively it is that the Internet has not added anything to the lost arts of diplomacy and compromise. People are less likely to compromise online than anywhere else.
Of course, Jon is old enough to know better about sweeping generalizations of this sort. Every rising generation believes that they hold the key to righting the "mistakes" of the past, and yet mostly all you get is smoke and noise. Like the hippies of yesteryear the online revolutionaries will soon find that politics is both necessary and beneficial.
It is true, however, that the mass-media is going to play an increasingly small part of the debate. As people begin to look for their information online they will soon realize that they can very effectively bypass the pundits and get right to the heart of the matter. Also the cost of broadcasting is going to fall until it is withing all of our reaches.
This will certainly change politics, but it will not destroy it.
Well said. I hadn't thought about the problems of mixing the current version of the GPL with possible new versions. I also agree that many projects would stick with the previous version of the GPL. The Linux kernel, LyX, KDE, and many others would almost certainly not switch.
However, the GPL has a feature that makes it likely that many projects would switch to the newer version. GPL code, as we all know, is viral in nature, but more importantly it acts like a one way door. Code from less restricted licenses like the BSD style licenses can be borrowed freely by GPL coders, but GPL code can not be "borrowed" for BSD style projects without changing the whole project into a GPL style project. That means that all it takes is one talented zealot to complete hi-jack a project. One highly popular GPLed module in any less restricted project is all it takes.
Not to mention the vast array of software controlled by the FSF. Gnome would almost certainly fall, and with it would go a fork of the new StarOffice code.
Of course, if you are right and the current GPL would be incompatible with a new GPL then there might be some hope for the people that disagree with RMS. However, my guess is that this could very easily be decided by the case that happened to come up in court. RMS and Co. would simply have to wait and sue the right violator. This would assure them of having the upper hand.
As for new projects not wanting to use the GPL I don't think that is likely to be the case either. If anything I see an acceleration towards the GPL, not away from it. Even just recently MySQL, StarOffice, and even QT have succumbed. Heck, RMS was able to convince TrollTech to do things his way by sheer force of will. Now the point of dynamic linking is moot when it comes to KDE. Besides, the GPL gives a definite advantage to corporations who release code as they can release the code under multiple licenses. Having the dynamic linking issue resolved only strengthens their case.
It appears to me that RMS is going to have his cake and eat it too. Which is a pity, as a developer I must admit that the BSD style licenses have definite advantages.
Ah yes, but RMS does have power to modify the GPL so that it means what he says. I don't, and neither do you. Sure, software released under previous versions of the GPL would still be available under the previous terms, but much (if not all) of the new development would come under the terms that RMS feels is most justified. This is because:
1) Many people trust RMS when it comes to licensing issues.
2) Many people agree with RMS when it comes to licensing issues.
3) Much of the software that is released under the GPL has the FSF as the copyright holder.
You are, of course, totally correct in your statements. And if we were talking about something static, like the purchase of some real estate, then RMS would have nothing more to say on the matter.
However, software is not static. My ancient Slackware CDs are not getting any work done right now. The license on that software is almost completely irrelevant to me. What matters to me, and to most software consumers (whether they be developers or just end users) is the license of the current version of the software. And as we all know, that can change.
If RMS changed the GPL so that it cleared up the dynamic linking ambiguity (and he does have that power), most current GPL develoers would use his new license. The anti-RMSes of the world could, I suppose, fork all of that GPL code and maintain it themselves under the old license, but they aren't very likely to do this. With some exceptions, of course. The Linux kernel proper would probably continue under the present version of the GPL. The FSF could still try the supposed violators of their old license (assuming they held the copyright), and they might even win. With a technical issue like this who knows what the judges would say. Even more importantly several big software companies might even side with the FSF (Microsoft would love to have code that dynamically links their DLLs become a derivative of their work).
In other words, developers and companies that fail to fall in line with RMS's view of the GPL could very well be screwed. Eventually the GPL is probably going to change to clear up ambiguities, and those groups that are on the wrong side of the new GPL line will be caught out in the cold. They will no longer be able to share code with the many FSF GPLed programs, and that is why many of us do pay attention to what RMS thinks on the issue of GPL compliance.
Although shouldn't it be copyright law, rather than RMS, that dictates what is and is not a derivative work? What if Microsoft slipped something into the Windows EULA saying that all programs that call the windows DLLs are derivative of those DLLs, and thus royalties must be paid to Microsoft for the distribution of the "derived" work?
The reason that it is RMS that decides what is and what isn't a derivative work under the GPL is that RMS wrote the GPL and has the power to change it.
To further use your example, Microsoft probably could change the license to Windows so that developers would have to pay a royalty for linking their DLLs. They won't do this because coercing developers into using basing their code on Microsoft DLLs is central to Microsoft's business plan, but Microsoft could change the license on their next round of software so that linking their libraries required royalties. There are plenty of other companies that charge you for the privilege of linking against their libraries.
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If you really believe this way, then you are perfectly free to excercise your own particular brand of "faith" and not vote.
In fact, anyone who feels that voting for President is akin to voting for Santa Claus should most definitely not vote, if only for the good of the rest of us.
While it is certainly true that belief does not make reality, disbelief can not affect reality either. Unless, of course, you are the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, in which case I think that I am going to wrap a towel around my head so that you will believe I have disappeared.
I don't feel like being eaten today.
In the meantime there is going to be a real election in just a few days, and the person that gets elected will have the power to send other heavily armed real people all over the world to blow things up. If you choose to believe that the selection of this person is not important (or not real) then don't come crying to the rest of us when the decisions made by this individual affects your life.
We probably won't believe that you exist.
If everyone that agreed with Katz decided not to vote in the upcoming presidential election then we would almost certainly have a better outcome. After all, every idiot that believes that abstaining from the vote is more likely to influence government than voting clearly is a lunatic, and their vote would merely cancel out the vote of a rational person.
People, if you agree with Katz, please do society a favor and stay away from the polls.
You are correct. It had been a long time since I had taken a look at the APSL, and I couldn't remember exactly what was the source of the conflict when that license came out. I should have re-read the license, but I didn't, hoping instead that my recollection would be close enough. It wasn't. Here's an excerpt from the license that specifically tells you how the license can be terminated with prejudice:
This frees Apple from responsibility should their software become illegal. It is certainly a far cry from the loophole that I cited in my origninal post.
Sorry for the misinformation.
The poster was pointing out that some licenses, like the first run of Apple's license on Darwin (which is basically all BSD code that they borrowed) allowed Apple to revoke your rights to use the software at any future point in time. In other words they could release it as "open source" and then later (when it was popular) say:
"Oops, it's not really open source anymore. Pay up or stop using Darwin."
RMS, Bruce Perens and others pointed out that such a license wasn't really "open source" and it certainly wasn't free software, and the license got changed.
ESR, and the Open Source boys, on the other hand, were willing to accept Apple's license.
If you don't have the intelligence to realize that failing to vote is the stupidest form of protest ever, then please don't vote.
On the other hand, Mr. Katz seems to think that the whole electoral process would be improved dramatically if a larger percent of the population voted, and that is simply not the case. Everyone votes in Peru (or pays a fine), and it doesn't stop them from electing some amazingly inept and corrupt politicians. At the very least our current system weeds out the most politically incompetent citizens. It takes a modicum of dedication and intelligence to register to vote, to know where the polls are, and to know when the election is. If voting were any easier we would get more completely uninformed people voting, and that would be bad. Right now even the voters that I disagree with politically at least had the good sense to realize that their vote counts. That counts for something.
The media machine, of which Mr. Katz is a part, doesn't see it that way, however. Theywould like to have more control over elections, and the easiest people to sway are the types of people that don't currently vote. Media people would love it if more sheeple got out and voted.
It would appear that not all politicians are clueless. Who would have thought.
This is especially interesting in light of the fact that filtering of the Internet at public libraries and such is a fairly popular stance. For example, both presidential candidates support some form of monitoring/filtering.
How refreshing. Perhaps there is hope for this country after all.
I still say that the standard response to each of these is "don't do that then!" I know scads of people that have absolutely no felony convictions. It is a trivial manner to live your life in such a way as to avoid them. Even if you are a pot smoker it is a trivial manner to never carry or sell a "felony" level of marijuana. Every pot smoker in the entire United States is probably aware what a "felony level" amount of pot for their jurisdiction is.
You have a good point about the murderer/rapist only getting 10 years in jail. Of course the "fix" for this is simple. Throw the murderer in jail forever (or, better yet, make sure that the murderer has full access to the legal system and when due process has run out execute him).
The fact of the matter is that people do not have the right to do stupid things and get away with them. People with a felony conviction should be especially careful not to drive 95 on the freeway, they should stay away from spray paint, and they should be careful not to carry too much dope around. People with two felony convictions should probably reconsider the people they hang around with. If not, they are going to end up in jail with their so-called friends for a very long time.
Seriously, how in the world do you rehabilitate someone that continues to act irresponsibly despite the fact that they know that they could go to jail for the rest of their lives? If you can't get the clue light to come on by the third felony I would submit that it is relatively safe to conclude that they are criminally stupid and should be locked up for their own protection. These laws are not arbitrary, and they were created by you and your fellow citizens. If you don't like them, work at getting them changed (though I doubt you will have much luck, most people frown on vandalism, reckless driving, and felony quantities of weed). Just don't come crying to me when you get caught three times committing a felony. It's not like it's a big secret that breaking these laws could land you in jail for a long time.
I am a very satisfied Debian user, but there certainly is a difference between a Debian install and a RedHat install, at least for a Intel desktop machine. RedHat does a much better job of finishing off the last niggly bits like automatically setting up X Windows, or getting your sound card to actually beep at you.
That being said, for servers, Debian's apt-get is a clear win. Perhaps RedHat will up the ante with their new update system, but I doubt it.
Or perhaps you should just not paint on people's walls. The beautty of three strike laws is that you get "three strikes." Any kid stupid enough to get caught three times vandalizing deserves to spend their life in prison.
Natural selection is not necessarily a bad thing.
Internet access that is paid for with public funds should be filtered. The filter lists should be open (and public as well), and there should be methods in place so that reasonable folks can get the information that they need at a public library. Blocking skin tones, while clever, would actually be a bad idea (IMHO). If you were looking for medical information, for example, blocking skin tones could prevent a problem. It's the classic case of Playboy versus National Geographic. One is pornography and the other is probably available in your children's elementary school. Librarians should have no trouble sorting this out, they've been doing it forever.
On the other hand, private Internet access should be just that private. The second you start mandating that ISPs keep histories of where their clients have been then you have a proven recipe for trouble. There are plenty of ways of finding out what your children have been looking at on the Internet. I currently use squid, but there are piles of software that do precisely that. And if you really want a squeaky clean ISP, there are plenty of those available as well. Let someone else do the filtering for you.
Gore is clearly cracked if he thinks that the answer is to force ISPs to keep track of where everyone surfs.
I don't know much about KDE, but I regularly use Gnome on a Cyrix P-150 Plus with 64M of ram. Programs take longer to start than they do on the spiffy new hardware that I have a work, but once they are up and running, there is very little difference.
Of course, I don't generally use that machine to render POV-ray scenes either. I do a fair bit of Python development, and you can always count on at least one copy of Emacs and several Mozilla windows open.
Yes, there will continue to be new and exciting developments, and these developments will continue to drive hardware sales. But for most things that people do the newest fancy-dan hardware is gross overkill. I mean really, who needs a Pentium IV to surf the web and do a little word processing?
Now, if you are going to develop some monstrous program in a compiled language, or if you are going to do a lot of graphics editting, or if you want to play the newest PC game, then it may be worth your while to spring for monstrous hardware, but otherwise it almost certainly isn't.
Consumers are starting to realize this. What's worse (for the PC manufacturers anyway) when consumers do go out and buy a new machine, a good percentage of them are spending $400 instead of $2000. After all, the difference between the $400 machine and the $2000 machine is that the $400 machine is obsolete 3 months earlier.
All in all, unless there is a serious change in how computers are used (like widespread use of voice recognition software or some other CPU burner) I think that the PC industry is in for more that just a speed bump.
I would certainly agree that there is a difference between a Cola commercial and Die Hard, and I would also concur that adults are much less likely to be influenced when making mooral decisions than trivial "cola" decisions.
However, I would also state that media can have a powerful influence on the formation of those values. Most children also have enough parent supervision so that they too can learn the difference between "cola" choices and moral choices, but many do not. In your DieHard example it would be fairly easy for children to infer that violence is an acceptable way to deal with one's "enemies." There have been several cases of small children taking handguns to school (under 8 years of age), these children almost certainly were influenced to some extent by the media. Even the worst of parents do not teach their children to shoot people the disagree with. The television, however, often portrays that very message. Of course, the media wants to blame hand guns (while at the same time using hand guns as an important part of much of their programming).
Many parents who are concerned for their children's welfare do not appreciate a media that is essentially working against us. Most of us aren't asking for much, but we are never going to get anywhere on this issue as long as the media keeps pretending that children are unaffected by the constant exposure to violence and sex. At the very least they need to acknowledge the fact that many of their customers don't appreciate their programming choices. Even if there wasn't a link between media violence and real violence the fact that so many people are upset about the issue should clue the media into the fact that something should be done. After all, we are customers too.
I am not for clearing the airwaves of things that I don't approve of. I understand that my values are not everyone's values, but it isn't asking too much to push for a little more control over what my children see.
Really, good for them. It is about time that code reuse was actually practiced by a Linux project.
Of course, I actually like Gnome so I might be biased :).
Whenever the issue of violence or sexual content in the media comes up there is always a wave of people that trumpet how "harmless" these things are, and how little they affect the viewers. What I don't understand is that if the media is so powerless to affect the state of mind of their audience then why do companies pay them so much money for their advertisements?
Are they seriously trying to tell me that the 30 minutes of sex and violence in a television show has no affect on the viewers, but the 30 second commercial for a soft drink has a big enough affect on these same people to be worth thousands of dollars? Clearly it has to be one way or the other. Either the media has little affect (and the advertisers are getting ripped off) or it has a huge affect and the media is simply being disingenuous.
I have been using Galeon as my primary browser for the past week or so (before that I was using whatever mozilla that Debian's Woody includes), and I think that it is exactly what you are looking for.
It is basically the Gecko rendering engine wrapped in enough GTK+ so that it actually works as a browser. There's no HTML editor, nor is there a mail client, a news client, or an irc client. It's not skinnable, and it's even Gnome-ified so that it fits in well with your Gnome desktop (although it works fine without Gnome).
Basically it is pretty darn cool. I am quite impressed.
The problem is that the RIAA probably has the necessary muscle to force SDMI products down consumers throats. As soon as the RIAA finds a way to make SDMI work, they will guarantee that it is impossible to by a new music player of any sort that doesn't honor their wishes.
For now it is a trivial thing to make copies of your CDs, and rip MP3s to carry on your MP3 player, but in the future this will not be possible if the RIAA has there way.
So it won't only be the idiots that lose their fair use rights, you will lose your rights as well. They will essentially be able to control where, when and how you may listen to music that you have paid for. Your music collection will also probably "expire" and require re-licensing.
I am all for having SDMI fail in the marketplace, but I wouldn't feel sorry for a moment if someone "gave it a push." If the RIAA and their cronies had sunk billions of dollars into implementing SDMI and then had it broken, then we would definitely see it crash and burn.
Delays are better than an uncrackable SDMI implemented tomorrow, but the best possible outcome would have been for the RIAA and their hardware cronies to dump billions into hardware and software with big holes in it. As an added bonus many of their customers would have found their draconian stance on IP to be too restrictive, and sales would have dropped. Simply because the "pirated" versions were easier to use.
The RIAA isn't going to learn unless the lesson is painful. I am all for the RIAA making money from their copyrighted material, but not at the expense of my fair use rights.
Oh, and by the way, hopefully this will give Ogg Vorbis more of a chance. MP3s aren't bad but Ogg is better!
Fah, I doubt that the end of the world is around the corner. On the other hand, who would have guessed that the great depression was right around the corner from the roaring 20's.
However, you missed the point of the Motley Fool's article. Microsoft is not cheating, nor are their employees. The problem is that it is reckless. They are literally betting the farm on their stock price going up, and at the same time they are fueling it's devaluation.
The Motley fool is simply pointing out a very important truth. A company with the size and power of Microsoft should be a sure bet investment for stable and solid growth. Heck, Microsoft is on the DOW for crying out loud. Investors trust Microsoft, and they assume that their investments are safe for the future. And yet, despite all of this Microsoft continues to play the stock market game like they were a startup ramping up for an IPO. The blame should be laid with the entire board of directors (and the accountants in particular), hence the Motley fool blames "Microsoft" and not Bill Gates.
This is not to say that Microsoft might not be a smart investment right now. I would bet that they have a few more runs left in them, and the average investor (the ones that bought Amazon during the e-business craze) still feel that Microsoft is a blue chip stock.
You just have to make sure you are not holding the bag when the sky comes falling down.
Precisely. In fact, it sort of reminds me of the time I spent in Lima, Peru in the late 80's. Every time the government needed to pay their employees they would simply fire up the printing presses. The money they printed was beautiful, but inflation that this caused was absolutely astounding. The Inti went from 72 to the dollar to millions to the dollar in the space of two years.
Microsoft has been so important to the American economy, and investors have been so positive that Microsoft stock would continue to rise, that they have failed to realize the games that Microsoft is playing. Unfortunately when Microsoft does come crashing down to earth it is going to affect us all very deeply. Many 401Ks and and mutual funds are invested heavily in Microsoft (which is why the price has always gone up). When (and hopefully if) Microsoft tanks it's going to take the entire economy along with it.
I used to think this was true as well. It's not. Microsoft can print up as many new shares as they want. All it takes is a rubber stamp approval from the board of directors. In fact, Microsoft "manufactured" $10 billion dollars worth of shares in 1999 and only bought back $3 billion dollars worth.
And that is why Microsoft's actions are so dangerous. They are literally betting the farm on the fact that their stock is going to continue to rise. If it doesn't they lose their largest single source of income. If you really are interested I would take a look at the Fool's Report listed in the /. article. It explains the situation better than I could.
As long as there are two sides of an issue, then politics will continue to be an important part of our lives.
If /. is supposed to be taken as a model for future decision making then civilization is doomed. We can't even decide on something as simple as which text editor or scripting language to use. I can't possibly imagine sorting out more difficult topics like what to do with our dams on the lower Columbia, or how we should manage our forests so that they don't all burn down. Even worse a change to online politics will not change the landscape at all, it will simply re-arrange the people calling the shots. In the future it won't be the Democrats and the Republicans, it will be the Linuxistas the Beosians, the Slashdotians, and the Wired-ians.
If there is one thing that can be proved conclusively it is that the Internet has not added anything to the lost arts of diplomacy and compromise. People are less likely to compromise online than anywhere else.
Of course, Jon is old enough to know better about sweeping generalizations of this sort. Every rising generation believes that they hold the key to righting the "mistakes" of the past, and yet mostly all you get is smoke and noise. Like the hippies of yesteryear the online revolutionaries will soon find that politics is both necessary and beneficial.
It is true, however, that the mass-media is going to play an increasingly small part of the debate. As people begin to look for their information online they will soon realize that they can very effectively bypass the pundits and get right to the heart of the matter. Also the cost of broadcasting is going to fall until it is withing all of our reaches.
This will certainly change politics, but it will not destroy it.
Have you tried here? I personally found the Introduction to LaTeX2e to be very helpful.
Well said. I hadn't thought about the problems of mixing the current version of the GPL with possible new versions. I also agree that many projects would stick with the previous version of the GPL. The Linux kernel, LyX, KDE, and many others would almost certainly not switch.
However, the GPL has a feature that makes it likely that many projects would switch to the newer version. GPL code, as we all know, is viral in nature, but more importantly it acts like a one way door. Code from less restricted licenses like the BSD style licenses can be borrowed freely by GPL coders, but GPL code can not be "borrowed" for BSD style projects without changing the whole project into a GPL style project. That means that all it takes is one talented zealot to complete hi-jack a project. One highly popular GPLed module in any less restricted project is all it takes.
Not to mention the vast array of software controlled by the FSF. Gnome would almost certainly fall, and with it would go a fork of the new StarOffice code.
Of course, if you are right and the current GPL would be incompatible with a new GPL then there might be some hope for the people that disagree with RMS. However, my guess is that this could very easily be decided by the case that happened to come up in court. RMS and Co. would simply have to wait and sue the right violator. This would assure them of having the upper hand.
As for new projects not wanting to use the GPL I don't think that is likely to be the case either. If anything I see an acceleration towards the GPL, not away from it. Even just recently MySQL, StarOffice, and even QT have succumbed. Heck, RMS was able to convince TrollTech to do things his way by sheer force of will. Now the point of dynamic linking is moot when it comes to KDE. Besides, the GPL gives a definite advantage to corporations who release code as they can release the code under multiple licenses. Having the dynamic linking issue resolved only strengthens their case.
It appears to me that RMS is going to have his cake and eat it too. Which is a pity, as a developer I must admit that the BSD style licenses have definite advantages.
Ah yes, but RMS does have power to modify the GPL so that it means what he says. I don't, and neither do you. Sure, software released under previous versions of the GPL would still be available under the previous terms, but much (if not all) of the new development would come under the terms that RMS feels is most justified. This is because:
1) Many people trust RMS when it comes to licensing issues.
2) Many people agree with RMS when it comes to licensing issues.
3) Much of the software that is released under the GPL has the FSF as the copyright holder.
You are, of course, totally correct in your statements. And if we were talking about something static, like the purchase of some real estate, then RMS would have nothing more to say on the matter.
However, software is not static. My ancient Slackware CDs are not getting any work done right now. The license on that software is almost completely irrelevant to me. What matters to me, and to most software consumers (whether they be developers or just end users) is the license of the current version of the software. And as we all know, that can change.
If RMS changed the GPL so that it cleared up the dynamic linking ambiguity (and he does have that power), most current GPL develoers would use his new license. The anti-RMSes of the world could, I suppose, fork all of that GPL code and maintain it themselves under the old license, but they aren't very likely to do this. With some exceptions, of course. The Linux kernel proper would probably continue under the present version of the GPL. The FSF could still try the supposed violators of their old license (assuming they held the copyright), and they might even win. With a technical issue like this who knows what the judges would say. Even more importantly several big software companies might even side with the FSF (Microsoft would love to have code that dynamically links their DLLs become a derivative of their work).
In other words, developers and companies that fail to fall in line with RMS's view of the GPL could very well be screwed. Eventually the GPL is probably going to change to clear up ambiguities, and those groups that are on the wrong side of the new GPL line will be caught out in the cold. They will no longer be able to share code with the many FSF GPLed programs, and that is why many of us do pay attention to what RMS thinks on the issue of GPL compliance.
Although shouldn't it be copyright law, rather than RMS, that dictates what is and is not a derivative work? What if Microsoft slipped something into the Windows EULA saying that all programs that call the windows DLLs are derivative of those DLLs, and thus royalties must be paid to Microsoft for the distribution of the "derived" work?
The reason that it is RMS that decides what is and what isn't a derivative work under the GPL is that RMS wrote the GPL and has the power to change it.
To further use your example, Microsoft probably could change the license to Windows so that developers would have to pay a royalty for linking their DLLs. They won't do this because coercing developers into using basing their code on Microsoft DLLs is central to Microsoft's business plan, but Microsoft could change the license on their next round of software so that linking their libraries required royalties. There are plenty of other companies that charge you for the privilege of linking against their libraries.
Something to think about.