That's hilarious. I own a mini-van and so my children are hoodlums. I used to travel with my children in a Honda Civic hatchback. That car, which I still own, gets 40 MPG and will haul an acceptable amount of gear. However, there is no question that the mini-van is more comfortable. Now I am sure that I could get by with the Civic, but why should I? The mini-van gets 26 MPG and carries twice as much stuff while still giving my family more room (and it has air-conditioning to boot). The difference in fuel price is neglible, especially considering the fact that the mini-van is much safer.
For the record, my one-year old boy is a hoodlum, but my three-year-old girl is a perfect little lady.
As someone that has lived in several third world countries, I can tell you that the problems in the third world do not stem from lack of money, but rather from rampant corruption.
When someone in Africa starves, it is only because some tinpot dictator wants them to starve, for whatever reason. And when some child in Bolivia gets sick from drinking contaminated water it is only because some politico has embezzled the funds that should have gone to improving the water supply.
The sad part about the debts to most developing nations is that most of the monies were squandered or diverted into private accounts. However, in most cases forgiving those debts would just allow the current leaders to do the same thing all over again. The sad bit is that cleaning up corrupt governments is much harder than building water purification plants. Even the most advanced nations have fairly serious problems with corruption. Besides, no matter how much we gave other countries they would always suspect that we were holding out.
Historically speaking the power to do massive destruction has been a far greater deterrent than paying tribute. That's just the way things are.
Transmeta doesn't necessarily need Microsoft to succeed, but they do need some device that will sell millions of units. Right now their best bet is Microsoft's tablet PC. Microsoft is the only player that seems likely to spec a Crusoe in a device and then spend the advertising money that it will take to sell the darn thing.
So far devices that require a low power x86 compatible chip have been few and far between, and when such a chip has been necessary AMD and Intel have had chips that were competitive.
Not to mention the fact that road trips are hell in little cars. I just have two kids, but there is no way I would go back to travelling with the family in the Civic now that we have a mini-van. The mini-van is easily an order of magnitude more comfortable on long trips, and the extra space means we can bring more gear. And when you live in Idaho, almost all of your trips are long trips.
Yes, that is true. In the past Windows seemed to be free for most users. However, Microsoft hasn't become the most capitalized company in the history of the world without charging for their services. When PCs used to cost $2000 no one noticed Microsoft's contribution to the price, but now that the average computer costs far less than $2000 Microsoft's tax makes a big difference.
That is why you are beginning to see companies advertising computers without an operating system, or preloaded with Linux. Vendors, especially second and third tier vendors, are increasingly looking for ways to undercut the competition. Linux is an obvious answer. However, even Dell and HP don't bundle MS Office on their low end machines anymore.
What? You think that money doesn't play a role in politics in other countries? That's hilarious.
Most of the people that I have seen complaining about U.S. politics are folks that never bother to vote. People that vote realize that there is a lot more to a successful campaign than spreading money around. Don't believe me, get involved in your local political scene.
Hey, I agree. A bug report sent to RedHat is generally useful. At the very least it gives RedHat some feedback on what packages need sprucing up for the next version.
However, users expecting magic from an anonymous bug report that hasn't be researched at all are going to be disappointed. There is a somewhat better chance that someone will take pity on them than if they were to send a similar report to Microsoft, but that's just because some Free Software folks like using their free time to help people.
If you aren't willing to do some bug tracking yourself, then why should you expect someone else to do it in their "free" time? If you have a problem with a Free Software package you have one of three choices.
You can try a different package (perhaps a commercial product).
You can pay someone else to fix your problem (RedHat support for example).
You can do some troubleshooting yourself.
If gaim didn't compile on your RedHat box chances are very good that someone else has also had the same problem. A quick search of Gaim's mailing lists should turn up relevant posts. If no one else has had your particular problem then asking on the list is appropriate.
My experience with bug reports is that most mailing lists are quite friendly even when a particular "issue" is very well known. They might tell you to RTFM, but they probably will at least point you at the right part of TFM. It has also been my experience that Free Software hackers appreciate your help debugging their software, but only if you actually do the background work. If you expect Free Software hackers to be interested in your bug report you need to be prepared to either give them money or do enough homework so that you are a help instead of an inconvenience.
Participating in a free software project requires a certain amount of work. Part of the bug submitter's job is making sure that the bug they submit hasn't been submitted 400 times already, or worse yet isn't a FAQ. Bugzilla is a nifty tool, but if the users fill it full of crap because they can't waste their precious time doing a little research then Bugzilla becomes more of a hindrance than a help. After all, if the information in Bugzilla is crap, then it just wastes developer time and makes the project look bad because of the amount of bugs, most of which are bogus.
I imagine that nearly any Free Software hacker would fix your bug if you did your homework beforehand and made sure that it wasn't a duplicate bug. If you provide a simple test case that shows the bug your chances improve dramatically, and if you provide a patch then you might even get your name in the credits.
The fact of the matter is that bad code is better than no code. Otherwise you wouldn't be using a Free Software project that had bugs in it:). The good news is that over time, with enough user testing, all code becomes good code.
You misunderstand, I think that it is foolish to band together with other people to try and "fix" prices for my labor. Especially in a global marketplace. Let's pretend that American programmers pushed for shorter hours and more benefits. The direct result of this would be that even more jobs would be shipped overseas where people are willing to do the same thing for less.
Labor unions wouldn't work in China, not because they are illegal (as a communist country I have a hard time believing that organized labor is illegal), but because there is too few jobs for too many people. For every Chinese person willing to strike there are 400 others who would be happy to do the job at any wage. And if the entire Chinese nation decided to demand higher wages then capital would simply flow into some other country where labor is cheap. I grew up in Peru, and there are plenty of people that would be thrilled to work for almost any wage.
Unionizing American tech workers would do nothing more than guarantee that India became the next programming capital of the world. The fact is that the rest of the world is catching up with the U.S. when it comes to technology, and Free Software is only going to accelerate that trend.
I suppose I should make the distinction between Labor Unions and other assorted assocations that sometimes are called "Unions." There are plenty of times when it is in a person's best interests to organize into groups for social or political reasons. Industry associations and the chamber of commerce are nothing more than a group of like-minded folks trying to effect local or national politics. If this was all Unions did, then I would be 100% behind them. Heck, I have even been part of a Union.
I just wasn't so naive as to think that my Union representative had my best interests at heart. My Union rep wanted a piece of my paycheck, nothing more, nothing less. As a model employee I had no need of the Union for job protection, and as a low person on the seniority totem pole I could be guaranteed that advancement opportunities were impossible.
I have found that making myself invaluable to my employer is far more lucrative than using a Union to make me hard to fire. Your experience might be different.
If you want to hire (and pay) for a professional negotiator then that's your business. If you are a poor negotiator it might even be in your best interest. However, pretending that the Union boss is going to negotiate in your best interest and not the best interests of the Union and all the old cronies that have seniority is laughable.
You are also naive if you think that having a Union rep would allow Joe Geek to modify his employment contract. When you join a Union you invariably end up with the Union-negotiated contract which almost certainly doesn't have your best interests at heart but instead has the best interests of the senior employees and the Union representative.
Re:Maintence must be easier
on
Yahoo Moving to PHP
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I am a huge PostgreSQL fan myself, but for mostly-read databases (like most web databases) MySQL is hard to beat.
The problem is that KMart doesn't own the software, Microsoft does. Part of the fun of Microsoft's enterprise licensing schemes is that the licenses aren't resellable.
So KMart can sell the hardware behind bluelight.com, but they can't sell the software because they don't own it. KMart either should have A) bought the retail versions of all of the software they used (which are resellable), B) developed the site using Free Software. Microsoft is complaining because they gave KMart a substantial discount in return for KMart giving up the ability to resell the software, and Microsoft has every right to complain.
To put it in more colloquial terms, KMart made a deal with the devil, and now Microsoft is going to rip out their soul. The funny bit is that Microsoft says that GNU/Linux is an intellectual property destroyer.
I agree. KMart got what they paid for. They wanted licenses for a proprietary software product and that is what they got. It's not like there aren't alternatives.
Just one more reason why the Free part of "Free Software" is so important. KMart has spent a great deal of money developing a software product (their website) and now they can't sell it because they based their work on Microsoft's intellectual property.
What planet are you from? Have you actually read the QPL. Not only does it require that you distribute source code with your derivative works to the people you distribute binaries to, but it also requires that you make this software available to TrollTech should they ask for it. In other words the QPL is even worse than the GPL in that reguard. I can write a GPL program and sell it to a client and only myself and my client will have access to the source code. However, if I use QT with the QPL then TrollTech can demand a copy of the software as well, and they could theoretically resell this software to my client's competitors.
Here's the relevant clause:
If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software [TrollTech] requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one.
The QPL also requires everything that the GPL requires. If you choose to use the QPLed version of QT then you have to distribute your work with source, and you have to license your software in such a way so that the people receiving your software are also allowed to distribute the software (as long as they distribute the source code as well).
In short once you distribute software linked against the QPLed version of QT then it can never be closed again (much like the GPL).
Now, you can buy a commercial license for QT and then distribute commercial software based on QT. However, the QPL is every bit as viral as the GPL. In fact, it's worse.
Yes, RMS wants to phase out the LGPL, especially in those cases where Free Software has created a library that doesn't have a commercial software equivalent (libreadline). So far he hasn't been particularly persuasive. However, it simply isn't true that the GNU C++ libraries are GPLed, at least they aren't on my machine.
In fact, libreadline is the only example I can think of off hand of a GNU library that is GPLed. Even the Gnome and GTK libraries are LGPLed (as opposed to QT which is GPLed).
It is not every day that you meet someone who takes your side of this issue and still is completely logical in their reasoning. If you don't believe that art should receive copyright protection, then your stance on filesharing makes much more sense.
At this point I suppose if you don't have problems with doing something illegal (I suppose you could consider what you are doing civil disobedience), and if you don't have a problem going against the wishes of the other bands then more power to you.
Personally, I have lived in countries where copyright laws were very weakly enforced (Peru), and this didn't work out very well for anyone but the folks rich enough to own distribution and manufacturing channels. Artists are going to do their thing no matter what happens, but without a means of "owning" your work, then you are even less likely to be able to get paid.
Which is why I believe that honoring the artists wishes is important, even if I think that the artist is mistaken about filesharing, and even if they are working for the devil (err.. I mean the RIAA).
The argument shouldn't have anything to do with the music industry. The music industry is evil, we all know that, but that doesn't have anything to do with violating someone else's copyright.
Just think how upset you would be if I stole all your songs and said they were mine. Or worse, let's say I stole all the lyrics to your songs, set the to accordian music, and went on a world tour.
Music, in this sense, is just like software licenses. Just because you share does not give you the right to decide whether someone else wants to share. I might think that commercial closed source software is evil (I don't BTW), but that doesn't mean that I can share ISOs of Microsoft software with everyone I meet.
If you really want to bring down the established music industry then the best way to do this is to promote bands that work outside the system. Pimping bands that are part of the system doesn't hurt the record labels, it provides free advertisement for their bands. Worse yet, it's not even free as you are presumably paying for the bandwidth.
It was somewhat amusing to see that you not only offer your own music for free download, but also music from several other bands. Something tells me, however, that the Dead Milkmen haven't given you permission to do this.
Now, I can understand wanting to share your own music, but I don't understand why you feel you should be free to share someone else's copyrighted material.
Personally I don't complain, I just switch banks. There are plenty of banks eager for my business, and I have used online banking from several of them without problems.
As for losing "ridiculous amounts of functionality" I don't see what you mean. Online banking is pretty straightforward. I want to be able to see my transactions (a simple table), pay my bills online (a handful of simple forms), transfer funds (again, a handful of simple forms), and download my transactions into my accounting software. None of this is rocket science, and all of it can be done use bog-standard HTML and Javascript. My experience with most web pages that reject Galeon or Mozilla actually do work if you fudge your user agent.
Ah, my friend, it's all a matter of timing. NeXT and Be faced an entrenched Windows, but the early Mac operating systems faced DOS. The only reason that people bought DOS boxen was that they were considerably less expensive than the Mac hardware. If Apple would have opened up their hardware platform early on, then the Mac platform would have been far more competitive.
Microsoft's success is basically attributable to the success of commodity hardware. Competition in the PC compatible hardware realm has driven hardware down and made PCs attractive buys despite the fact that other systems had better software.
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That's hilarious. I own a mini-van and so my children are hoodlums. I used to travel with my children in a Honda Civic hatchback. That car, which I still own, gets 40 MPG and will haul an acceptable amount of gear. However, there is no question that the mini-van is more comfortable. Now I am sure that I could get by with the Civic, but why should I? The mini-van gets 26 MPG and carries twice as much stuff while still giving my family more room (and it has air-conditioning to boot). The difference in fuel price is neglible, especially considering the fact that the mini-van is much safer.
For the record, my one-year old boy is a hoodlum, but my three-year-old girl is a perfect little lady.
As someone that has lived in several third world countries, I can tell you that the problems in the third world do not stem from lack of money, but rather from rampant corruption.
When someone in Africa starves, it is only because some tinpot dictator wants them to starve, for whatever reason. And when some child in Bolivia gets sick from drinking contaminated water it is only because some politico has embezzled the funds that should have gone to improving the water supply.
The sad part about the debts to most developing nations is that most of the monies were squandered or diverted into private accounts. However, in most cases forgiving those debts would just allow the current leaders to do the same thing all over again. The sad bit is that cleaning up corrupt governments is much harder than building water purification plants. Even the most advanced nations have fairly serious problems with corruption. Besides, no matter how much we gave other countries they would always suspect that we were holding out.
Historically speaking the power to do massive destruction has been a far greater deterrent than paying tribute. That's just the way things are.
Transmeta doesn't necessarily need Microsoft to succeed, but they do need some device that will sell millions of units. Right now their best bet is Microsoft's tablet PC. Microsoft is the only player that seems likely to spec a Crusoe in a device and then spend the advertising money that it will take to sell the darn thing.
So far devices that require a low power x86 compatible chip have been few and far between, and when such a chip has been necessary AMD and Intel have had chips that were competitive.
Not to mention the fact that road trips are hell in little cars. I just have two kids, but there is no way I would go back to travelling with the family in the Civic now that we have a mini-van. The mini-van is easily an order of magnitude more comfortable on long trips, and the extra space means we can bring more gear. And when you live in Idaho, almost all of your trips are long trips.
Yes, that is true. In the past Windows seemed to be free for most users. However, Microsoft hasn't become the most capitalized company in the history of the world without charging for their services. When PCs used to cost $2000 no one noticed Microsoft's contribution to the price, but now that the average computer costs far less than $2000 Microsoft's tax makes a big difference.
That is why you are beginning to see companies advertising computers without an operating system, or preloaded with Linux. Vendors, especially second and third tier vendors, are increasingly looking for ways to undercut the competition. Linux is an obvious answer. However, even Dell and HP don't bundle MS Office on their low end machines anymore.
M-x viper-mode.
What? You think that money doesn't play a role in politics in other countries? That's hilarious.
Most of the people that I have seen complaining about U.S. politics are folks that never bother to vote. People that vote realize that there is a lot more to a successful campaign than spreading money around. Don't believe me, get involved in your local political scene.
Hey, I agree. A bug report sent to RedHat is generally useful. At the very least it gives RedHat some feedback on what packages need sprucing up for the next version.
However, users expecting magic from an anonymous bug report that hasn't be researched at all are going to be disappointed. There is a somewhat better chance that someone will take pity on them than if they were to send a similar report to Microsoft, but that's just because some Free Software folks like using their free time to help people.
If you aren't willing to do some bug tracking yourself, then why should you expect someone else to do it in their "free" time? If you have a problem with a Free Software package you have one of three choices.
If gaim didn't compile on your RedHat box chances are very good that someone else has also had the same problem. A quick search of Gaim's mailing lists should turn up relevant posts. If no one else has had your particular problem then asking on the list is appropriate.
My experience with bug reports is that most mailing lists are quite friendly even when a particular "issue" is very well known. They might tell you to RTFM, but they probably will at least point you at the right part of TFM. It has also been my experience that Free Software hackers appreciate your help debugging their software, but only if you actually do the background work. If you expect Free Software hackers to be interested in your bug report you need to be prepared to either give them money or do enough homework so that you are a help instead of an inconvenience.
Participating in a free software project requires a certain amount of work. Part of the bug submitter's job is making sure that the bug they submit hasn't been submitted 400 times already, or worse yet isn't a FAQ. Bugzilla is a nifty tool, but if the users fill it full of crap because they can't waste their precious time doing a little research then Bugzilla becomes more of a hindrance than a help. After all, if the information in Bugzilla is crap, then it just wastes developer time and makes the project look bad because of the amount of bugs, most of which are bogus.
I imagine that nearly any Free Software hacker would fix your bug if you did your homework beforehand and made sure that it wasn't a duplicate bug. If you provide a simple test case that shows the bug your chances improve dramatically, and if you provide a patch then you might even get your name in the credits.
The fact of the matter is that bad code is better than no code. Otherwise you wouldn't be using a Free Software project that had bugs in it :). The good news is that over time, with enough user testing, all code becomes good code.
You misunderstand, I think that it is foolish to band together with other people to try and "fix" prices for my labor. Especially in a global marketplace. Let's pretend that American programmers pushed for shorter hours and more benefits. The direct result of this would be that even more jobs would be shipped overseas where people are willing to do the same thing for less.
Labor unions wouldn't work in China, not because they are illegal (as a communist country I have a hard time believing that organized labor is illegal), but because there is too few jobs for too many people. For every Chinese person willing to strike there are 400 others who would be happy to do the job at any wage. And if the entire Chinese nation decided to demand higher wages then capital would simply flow into some other country where labor is cheap. I grew up in Peru, and there are plenty of people that would be thrilled to work for almost any wage.
Unionizing American tech workers would do nothing more than guarantee that India became the next programming capital of the world. The fact is that the rest of the world is catching up with the U.S. when it comes to technology, and Free Software is only going to accelerate that trend.
I suppose I should make the distinction between Labor Unions and other assorted assocations that sometimes are called "Unions." There are plenty of times when it is in a person's best interests to organize into groups for social or political reasons. Industry associations and the chamber of commerce are nothing more than a group of like-minded folks trying to effect local or national politics. If this was all Unions did, then I would be 100% behind them. Heck, I have even been part of a Union.
I just wasn't so naive as to think that my Union representative had my best interests at heart. My Union rep wanted a piece of my paycheck, nothing more, nothing less. As a model employee I had no need of the Union for job protection, and as a low person on the seniority totem pole I could be guaranteed that advancement opportunities were impossible.
I have found that making myself invaluable to my employer is far more lucrative than using a Union to make me hard to fire. Your experience might be different.
If you want to hire (and pay) for a professional negotiator then that's your business. If you are a poor negotiator it might even be in your best interest. However, pretending that the Union boss is going to negotiate in your best interest and not the best interests of the Union and all the old cronies that have seniority is laughable.
You are also naive if you think that having a Union rep would allow Joe Geek to modify his employment contract. When you join a Union you invariably end up with the Union-negotiated contract which almost certainly doesn't have your best interests at heart but instead has the best interests of the senior employees and the Union representative.
I am a huge PostgreSQL fan myself, but for mostly-read databases (like most web databases) MySQL is hard to beat.
The problem is that KMart doesn't own the software, Microsoft does. Part of the fun of Microsoft's enterprise licensing schemes is that the licenses aren't resellable.
So KMart can sell the hardware behind bluelight.com, but they can't sell the software because they don't own it. KMart either should have A) bought the retail versions of all of the software they used (which are resellable), B) developed the site using Free Software. Microsoft is complaining because they gave KMart a substantial discount in return for KMart giving up the ability to resell the software, and Microsoft has every right to complain.
To put it in more colloquial terms, KMart made a deal with the devil, and now Microsoft is going to rip out their soul. The funny bit is that Microsoft says that GNU/Linux is an intellectual property destroyer.
I agree. KMart got what they paid for. They wanted licenses for a proprietary software product and that is what they got. It's not like there aren't alternatives.
Just one more reason why the Free part of "Free Software" is so important. KMart has spent a great deal of money developing a software product (their website) and now they can't sell it because they based their work on Microsoft's intellectual property.
This kind of stuff already happens. When the business unit I currently work for was sold the buyer had to relicense all of our commercial software.
Will the Python one run under Jython? Just a thought.
What planet are you from? Have you actually read the QPL. Not only does it require that you distribute source code with your derivative works to the people you distribute binaries to, but it also requires that you make this software available to TrollTech should they ask for it. In other words the QPL is even worse than the GPL in that reguard. I can write a GPL program and sell it to a client and only myself and my client will have access to the source code. However, if I use QT with the QPL then TrollTech can demand a copy of the software as well, and they could theoretically resell this software to my client's competitors.
Here's the relevant clause:
The QPL also requires everything that the GPL requires. If you choose to use the QPLed version of QT then you have to distribute your work with source, and you have to license your software in such a way so that the people receiving your software are also allowed to distribute the software (as long as they distribute the source code as well).
In short once you distribute software linked against the QPLed version of QT then it can never be closed again (much like the GPL).
Now, you can buy a commercial license for QT and then distribute commercial software based on QT. However, the QPL is every bit as viral as the GPL. In fact, it's worse.
Yes, RMS wants to phase out the LGPL, especially in those cases where Free Software has created a library that doesn't have a commercial software equivalent (libreadline). So far he hasn't been particularly persuasive. However, it simply isn't true that the GNU C++ libraries are GPLed, at least they aren't on my machine.
In fact, libreadline is the only example I can think of off hand of a GNU library that is GPLed. Even the Gnome and GTK libraries are LGPLed (as opposed to QT which is GPLed).
It is not every day that you meet someone who takes your side of this issue and still is completely logical in their reasoning. If you don't believe that art should receive copyright protection, then your stance on filesharing makes much more sense.
At this point I suppose if you don't have problems with doing something illegal (I suppose you could consider what you are doing civil disobedience), and if you don't have a problem going against the wishes of the other bands then more power to you.
Personally, I have lived in countries where copyright laws were very weakly enforced (Peru), and this didn't work out very well for anyone but the folks rich enough to own distribution and manufacturing channels. Artists are going to do their thing no matter what happens, but without a means of "owning" your work, then you are even less likely to be able to get paid.
Which is why I believe that honoring the artists wishes is important, even if I think that the artist is mistaken about filesharing, and even if they are working for the devil (err.. I mean the RIAA).
The argument shouldn't have anything to do with the music industry. The music industry is evil, we all know that, but that doesn't have anything to do with violating someone else's copyright.
Just think how upset you would be if I stole all your songs and said they were mine. Or worse, let's say I stole all the lyrics to your songs, set the to accordian music, and went on a world tour.
Music, in this sense, is just like software licenses. Just because you share does not give you the right to decide whether someone else wants to share. I might think that commercial closed source software is evil (I don't BTW), but that doesn't mean that I can share ISOs of Microsoft software with everyone I meet.
If you really want to bring down the established music industry then the best way to do this is to promote bands that work outside the system. Pimping bands that are part of the system doesn't hurt the record labels, it provides free advertisement for their bands. Worse yet, it's not even free as you are presumably paying for the bandwidth.
Good luck with your band.
It was somewhat amusing to see that you not only offer your own music for free download, but also music from several other bands. Something tells me, however, that the Dead Milkmen haven't given you permission to do this.
Now, I can understand wanting to share your own music, but I don't understand why you feel you should be free to share someone else's copyrighted material.
Personally I don't complain, I just switch banks. There are plenty of banks eager for my business, and I have used online banking from several of them without problems.
As for losing "ridiculous amounts of functionality" I don't see what you mean. Online banking is pretty straightforward. I want to be able to see my transactions (a simple table), pay my bills online (a handful of simple forms), transfer funds (again, a handful of simple forms), and download my transactions into my accounting software. None of this is rocket science, and all of it can be done use bog-standard HTML and Javascript. My experience with most web pages that reject Galeon or Mozilla actually do work if you fudge your user agent.
Ah, my friend, it's all a matter of timing. NeXT and Be faced an entrenched Windows, but the early Mac operating systems faced DOS. The only reason that people bought DOS boxen was that they were considerably less expensive than the Mac hardware. If Apple would have opened up their hardware platform early on, then the Mac platform would have been far more competitive.
Microsoft's success is basically attributable to the success of commodity hardware. Competition in the PC compatible hardware realm has driven hardware down and made PCs attractive buys despite the fact that other systems had better software.