'the Linux community does not need to set up businesses with the specific intention of trying to "win" users from Microsoft; all we have to do is continue to develop software in the same way, and the users will make the switch all by themselves'.
Bless that guy that wrote this! Too many people are obsessed with making Linux (and Unix in general) the "Anti-Microsoft" operating system. I would much rather use a real OS than an alternative OS. What is this strange desire to make Linux an alternate operating system?
No. When I think of "push", I think of information I receive whether I request it or not. The advertisements in broadcasts are good examples of push. The actual broadcast program that I have selected to view is not.
The reason a keyboard and mouse is not like this(mostly the mouse) is because its position is always different. Your hand has to find it.
Which is why I prefer a trackball, especially my 3-button Logitech Trackman Marble that is no longer being manufactured. I always know where it is. Of course, I still have to move my hand off of the keyboard to use it, but it's a damn sight better than a mouse.
An interesting idea. As a libertarian I don't really like taxes. But in some situations they make a heck of a lot of sense. This is one of those cases.
Originally copyrights did have a payment (of sorts) to the public. In exchange for the copyright the author would publish the work, instead of keeping it secret under non-disclosure agreements. But that's laughable nowadays with century long terms and implicit contracts. A tax on copyrights restores the balance.
There is a problem with the scheme however. It's the Berne Convention. What's to prevent an author from publishing his or her work in a nation that doesn't have a copyright tax? Would the Bahamas become a copyright haven as well?
FreeBSD users are often elitist. But this is a very different thing from being "culty".
A significant (not a majority) number of Linux users are "culty" because it often seems as if they have made GNU and Linux their religion. To them Linux can do no wrong, and anyone not using it must be stupid, insane or a dupe of Microsoft.
Basically, what you're saying here is Bill Gates can give 3 million dollars out of pocket, instead of letting Microsoft do it for him.
So? Today we have Microsoft donating 6 million to a candidate. Tomorrow we have Bill Gates the voter donating 3 million to a candidate. Not perfect, but still better than today. Plus you don't get into immoral position of having to restrict people's rights to free speech and press based on their income.
There are laws against this already. But that doesn't stop it from happening.
So let's enforce the law.
You mean like... UNIONS?
No, I mean like PACs. A nnion is not formed to be an association of voters. It's the organization's charter and adherence to that charter that makes the difference.
As to PACs in a broader sense, I see nothing wrong with an individual donating money to a PAC. But I see a great deal wrong with some corporations setting up a PAC, donating millions to it, then allowing a few individuals to contribute as well, just to keep it legal.
You can't get rid of PACs with out getting rid of free speech and the right to associate.
p.s. You alternative proposals might work, but they have one big drawback in my mind: I don't want my money going to any candidate I do not support. If you give candidates money from the tax pool, that is precisely what you are doing.
What about "independent" ads paid for by entities other than registered voters?
That's problematic. On one hand you don't want corps/unions contributing to candidate indirectly. On the other hand, you don't want to throw free speech and press out the door.
You have got to be kidding! I get about twenty times the spam at work as I do at home. At home I just get one or two a week sent to webmaster, offering colocation, traffic enhancement, and other minor crap. But I work I get hardcore porn ads, Mrs. Mojimbo from Nigera, term life insurance, penile enlargements (add 4 inches!), diets (remove 4 inches!), and some stupid time traveller trying to get back home.
It's all my work's fault, of course. They inadvertently left an open relay in place long enough for us to get blacklisted by the good guys and primelisted by all the bad guys. It's fixed now, but damn! I get about 50 to 100 a day.
Here's a reform proposal guaranteed to piss off anyone with a vested interest in the current system:
1) Only registered voters in a particular region can contribute to candidates, campaigns or parties in that region (country, district, state, nation).
2) There are no limits to contributions, but they must be from registered voters.
3) Corporations and unions are not registered voters, and cannot contribute to any candidate or party. Only individual human beings can register to vote.
4) Corporations and unions may not direct or command any employee, member or executive to contribute to any political organization or campaign.
5) Registered voters may join an association of other registered voters for the purpose of pooling funds.
Okay,folks, this topic raises the question in my mind of which GUI toolkit will produce the best, "friendliest" interface.
Usability has nothing whatsoever to do with the toolkit. This is the Big Mistake the GUI Linux installers make: to think that you can create a more usable installer by using GTK+ instead of ncurses. The ONLY usability improvement to a GUI interface is that you don't have to cram the same amount of information into a 80x25 character display. But of course, if you're trying to cram more information than that into a screen, you need to ponder whether you're giving the user too much info in one chunk.
Design your interface properly and it won't matter what toolkit you use. Qt is a better cross-platform toolkit than GTK+, but you're going to have to pay for it on non-X11 platforms. Java is great, but is as slow as molasses on many platforms. Tk is ugly, but is fast and responsive. If you're a Python developer, you might want to look at wxWindows with Python.
But not matter what toolkit you use, remember that usability is something you design in, not program in.
I personally don't have much of a problem with bare-bones vanilla copyright. If you look at the history of software, that's not the problem. The problem is licensing.
Licensing (any licensing) places additional restrictions on top of copyright. They supercede copyright. Can't make archival copies? Blame the license. Can't reverse engineer the software? Blame the license. Can't post negative reviews? Blame the license.
[Not all licenses are licenses. GPL, BSD, and MIT are not true licenses, since they are not contracts. The GPL is close, but there is still no need to enter into any agreement in order to excercise any right granted by copyright.]
Copyright is a useful compromise. It's not perfect. It certainly curtails some unalienable/natural rights of the user. But the alternative is licensing. If copyright disappeared it would not affect software much, because you don't need a copyright if you have a EULA, NDA or other license. Copyrights, despite their faults, manage to place creative works into the public sphere, instead of keeping them in the private sphere.
Or to phrase it another way, copyrights are the nationalization of private creative works. As a borderline anarcho-capitalist, I am divided on this point. I can certainly see the FSF's position and understand the problem. But I don't think the anarcho-syndicalism of copyleft is the answer.
My opinion on a possible solution is to keep that useful-but-ever-so-putrid compromise of copyright, but make some minor to moderate alterations to it. Make it so that copyright cannot be superceded without an explicit contract agreed to before the distribution of the work commences. Limit the term of copyright to a reasonable span (25 years flat, for example). Place into public domain all works that have been abandoned. Allow greater copying and distribution rights to the public under certain situations (similar to the educational fair use exception). Etc. Etc. Etc.
I promise you that my personal actions will in no way affect your liberty. Which is why I will continue to use the BSD and MIT licenses for my own code. You might not agree with my choice, but my act of using them will in no way affect your life, liberty or property.
Obviously, you don't see this a value, but what the GPL is trying to accomplish is ensure that everyone the software is passed to has the same rights you do.
Ah! I get it now! The Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman are NOT for freedom. They are for equality.
I like equality, but I won't trade my liberty for it.
All freedom is individual, since the whole world is composed of individuals. The whole world can never be free until each individual is free.
That is why the individual must be the focus instead of the group. This is why free societies form their groups through cooperation rather than control.
I don't, but GNU does! In the guise of GNOME advocacy, GNU claims that Qt is bad because it is under the GPL and a commercial license. They point to their own GTK+ under the *LGPL* license as a superior model.
Either GPL+Proprietary is either a good licensing practice or is a bad licensing practice. You can't say it's good for MySQL AB and bad for Trolltech.
Stick to the concepts. There's nothing worse then spending a week learning one particular operating system, then having to use a different one later on.
Teach the concepts instead. For example, teach them about harddrive partitions, and not about a specific partitioning program. I don't care how much you know the Mandrake or Redhat partitioning GUIs in the installer, it won't do you any good when you're faced with fdisk. But if you know the concepts, you at least know the shape and pattern of what you need to do.
And teach them how to use the available documentation. Man pages. Info pages. How to use lynx or another textmode browser for html files. They will never know everything there is no know about UNIX, but they *can* know how to find out anything they might not know.
Finally, give each one in the class a different system. Use as many as you can scrounge up. FreeBSD, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, OpenBSD, etc. Then when you teach about partitioning the harddrive (for example), they'll realize that there are a dozen different right ways to do it.
As the old saw says, "If you learn Redhat you learn Redhat. If you learn Slackware you learn Linux." There is a kernel of truth in there. Someone who is exposed to just Redhat Linux isn't going to transition to a job working with Solaris as easily as someone who's been exposed to a couple of different distributions plus a BSD. You do NOT know what the tech world is going to be like in ten years, so don't make your students live in the past when they get there.
Start off by explaining "FREE". Explain both free as in speach and free as in beer... though maybe not in those terms considering the age group.
No no no! This is supposed to be a learning experience, not a religious indoctrination!
Step One: Pull out a dictionary.
Step Two: Look up "free", "speech" and "beer".
Step Three: Explain what Free Software is without the Gnuspeak and religion. Example: "Free Software is like free beer. You can always get it for zero cost, but it may be more convenient to pay for it. It is not like free speech, because free speech is an unalienable right, and not an entitlement or gift. Instead, Free Software is about sharing. Someone has made their own software free for you to use, copy, distribute and monkey around with. They have shared their software with you. People who share are much nicer people than those that try to force other people to share."
Slashdot Mirror
'the Linux community does not need to set up businesses with the specific intention of trying to "win" users from Microsoft; all we have to do is continue to develop software in the same way, and the users will make the switch all by themselves'.
Bless that guy that wrote this! Too many people are obsessed with making Linux (and Unix in general) the "Anti-Microsoft" operating system. I would much rather use a real OS than an alternative OS. What is this strange desire to make Linux an alternate operating system?
No. When I think of "push", I think of information I receive whether I request it or not. The advertisements in broadcasts are good examples of push. The actual broadcast program that I have selected to view is not.
The reason a keyboard and mouse is not like this(mostly the mouse) is because its position is always different. Your hand has to find it.
Which is why I prefer a trackball, especially my 3-button Logitech Trackman Marble that is no longer being manufactured. I always know where it is. Of course, I still have to move my hand off of the keyboard to use it, but it's a damn sight better than a mouse.
You're confusing "push" with something else. You see, getting information to the consumer is not limited to just push or pull. There's also broadcast.
If I don't want to receive ABC, I don't. If ABC really was push, then I would see it even if I were tuned into PBS.
An interesting idea. As a libertarian I don't really like taxes. But in some situations they make a heck of a lot of sense. This is one of those cases.
Originally copyrights did have a payment (of sorts) to the public. In exchange for the copyright the author would publish the work, instead of keeping it secret under non-disclosure agreements. But that's laughable nowadays with century long terms and implicit contracts. A tax on copyrights restores the balance.
There is a problem with the scheme however. It's the Berne Convention. What's to prevent an author from publishing his or her work in a nation that doesn't have a copyright tax? Would the Bahamas become a copyright haven as well?
I dunno, what the hell I'm talking about. ahhh sleep
yes, you were talking in your sleep again.
the possibility of sharing components and existing classes independently of the language that was used to create it.
Can that be any language, or only special languages like VB and C#? If this is available for any language, then why invent a new language like C#?
FreeBSD users are often elitist. But this is a very different thing from being "culty".
A significant (not a majority) number of Linux users are "culty" because it often seems as if they have made GNU and Linux their religion. To them Linux can do no wrong, and anyone not using it must be stupid, insane or a dupe of Microsoft.
Basically, what you're saying here is Bill Gates can give 3 million dollars out of pocket, instead of letting Microsoft do it for him.
So? Today we have Microsoft donating 6 million to a candidate. Tomorrow we have Bill Gates the voter donating 3 million to a candidate. Not perfect, but still better than today. Plus you don't get into immoral position of having to restrict people's rights to free speech and press based on their income.
There are laws against this already. But that doesn't stop it from happening.
So let's enforce the law.
You mean like... UNIONS?
No, I mean like PACs. A nnion is not formed to be an association of voters. It's the organization's charter and adherence to that charter that makes the difference.
As to PACs in a broader sense, I see nothing wrong with an individual donating money to a PAC. But I see a great deal wrong with some corporations setting up a PAC, donating millions to it, then allowing a few individuals to contribute as well, just to keep it legal.
You can't get rid of PACs with out getting rid of free speech and the right to associate.
p.s. You alternative proposals might work, but they have one big drawback in my mind: I don't want my money going to any candidate I do not support. If you give candidates money from the tax pool, that is precisely what you are doing.
What about "independent" ads paid for by entities other than registered voters?
That's problematic. On one hand you don't want corps/unions contributing to candidate indirectly. On the other hand, you don't want to throw free speech and press out the door.
You have got to be kidding! I get about twenty times the spam at work as I do at home. At home I just get one or two a week sent to webmaster, offering colocation, traffic enhancement, and other minor crap. But I work I get hardcore porn ads, Mrs. Mojimbo from Nigera, term life insurance, penile enlargements (add 4 inches!), diets (remove 4 inches!), and some stupid time traveller trying to get back home.
It's all my work's fault, of course. They inadvertently left an open relay in place long enough for us to get blacklisted by the good guys and primelisted by all the bad guys. It's fixed now, but damn! I get about 50 to 100 a day.
Here's a reform proposal guaranteed to piss off anyone with a vested interest in the current system:
1) Only registered voters in a particular region can contribute to candidates, campaigns or parties in that region (country, district, state, nation).
2) There are no limits to contributions, but they must be from registered voters.
3) Corporations and unions are not registered voters, and cannot contribute to any candidate or party. Only individual human beings can register to vote.
4) Corporations and unions may not direct or command any employee, member or executive to contribute to any political organization or campaign.
5) Registered voters may join an association of other registered voters for the purpose of pooling funds.
The unions don't represent the "real people". They represent the union leadership. Even the best unions just barely represent their own rank and file.
There's a heck of a lot of things I can build with just two or three different kinds of lego blocks.
Okay,folks, this topic raises the question in my mind of which GUI toolkit will produce the best, "friendliest" interface.
Usability has nothing whatsoever to do with the toolkit. This is the Big Mistake the GUI Linux installers make: to think that you can create a more usable installer by using GTK+ instead of ncurses. The ONLY usability improvement to a GUI interface is that you don't have to cram the same amount of information into a 80x25 character display. But of course, if you're trying to cram more information than that into a screen, you need to ponder whether you're giving the user too much info in one chunk.
Design your interface properly and it won't matter what toolkit you use. Qt is a better cross-platform toolkit than GTK+, but you're going to have to pay for it on non-X11 platforms. Java is great, but is as slow as molasses on many platforms. Tk is ugly, but is fast and responsive. If you're a Python developer, you might want to look at wxWindows with Python.
But not matter what toolkit you use, remember that usability is something you design in, not program in.
I personally don't have much of a problem with bare-bones vanilla copyright. If you look at the history of software, that's not the problem. The problem is licensing.
Licensing (any licensing) places additional restrictions on top of copyright. They supercede copyright. Can't make archival copies? Blame the license. Can't reverse engineer the software? Blame the license. Can't post negative reviews? Blame the license.
[Not all licenses are licenses. GPL, BSD, and MIT are not true licenses, since they are not contracts. The GPL is close, but there is still no need to enter into any agreement in order to excercise any right granted by copyright.]
Copyright is a useful compromise. It's not perfect. It certainly curtails some unalienable/natural rights of the user. But the alternative is licensing. If copyright disappeared it would not affect software much, because you don't need a copyright if you have a EULA, NDA or other license. Copyrights, despite their faults, manage to place creative works into the public sphere, instead of keeping them in the private sphere.
Or to phrase it another way, copyrights are the nationalization of private creative works. As a borderline anarcho-capitalist, I am divided on this point. I can certainly see the FSF's position and understand the problem. But I don't think the anarcho-syndicalism of copyleft is the answer.
My opinion on a possible solution is to keep that useful-but-ever-so-putrid compromise of copyright, but make some minor to moderate alterations to it. Make it so that copyright cannot be superceded without an explicit contract agreed to before the distribution of the work commences. Limit the term of copyright to a reasonable span (25 years flat, for example). Place into public domain all works that have been abandoned. Allow greater copying and distribution rights to the public under certain situations (similar to the educational fair use exception). Etc. Etc. Etc.
However, it's also full of extremist libertarians, which means that you get a full dose of political dogma when you go there
It's also balanced by extremist socialists in various guises, so you get the radical political dogma of your choosing.
I promise you that my personal actions will in no way affect your liberty. Which is why I will continue to use the BSD and MIT licenses for my own code. You might not agree with my choice, but my act of using them will in no way affect your life, liberty or property.
I read slashdot because it's so hard to find anything else intelligent to read
Keep searching...
Obviously, you don't see this a value, but what the GPL is trying to accomplish is ensure that everyone the software is passed to has the same rights you do.
Ah! I get it now! The Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman are NOT for freedom. They are for equality.
I like equality, but I won't trade my liberty for it.
All freedom is individual, since the whole world is composed of individuals. The whole world can never be free until each individual is free.
That is why the individual must be the focus instead of the group. This is why free societies form their groups through cooperation rather than control.
I don't see how you can find any fault with this.
I don't, but GNU does! In the guise of GNOME advocacy, GNU claims that Qt is bad because it is under the GPL and a commercial license. They point to their own GTK+ under the *LGPL* license as a superior model.
Either GPL+Proprietary is either a good licensing practice or is a bad licensing practice. You can't say it's good for MySQL AB and bad for Trolltech.
Stick to the concepts. There's nothing worse then spending a week learning one particular operating system, then having to use a different one later on.
Teach the concepts instead. For example, teach them about harddrive partitions, and not about a specific partitioning program. I don't care how much you know the Mandrake or Redhat partitioning GUIs in the installer, it won't do you any good when you're faced with fdisk. But if you know the concepts, you at least know the shape and pattern of what you need to do.
And teach them how to use the available documentation. Man pages. Info pages. How to use lynx or another textmode browser for html files. They will never know everything there is no know about UNIX, but they *can* know how to find out anything they might not know.
Finally, give each one in the class a different system. Use as many as you can scrounge up. FreeBSD, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, OpenBSD, etc. Then when you teach about partitioning the harddrive (for example), they'll realize that there are a dozen different right ways to do it.
As the old saw says, "If you learn Redhat you learn Redhat. If you learn Slackware you learn Linux." There is a kernel of truth in there. Someone who is exposed to just Redhat Linux isn't going to transition to a job working with Solaris as easily as someone who's been exposed to a couple of different distributions plus a BSD. You do NOT know what the tech world is going to be like in ten years, so don't make your students live in the past when they get there.
Start off by explaining "FREE". Explain both free as in speach and free as in beer... though maybe not in those terms considering the age group.
No no no! This is supposed to be a learning experience, not a religious indoctrination!
Step One: Pull out a dictionary.
Step Two: Look up "free", "speech" and "beer".
Step Three: Explain what Free Software is without the Gnuspeak and religion. Example: "Free Software is like free beer. You can always get it for zero cost, but it may be more convenient to pay for it. It is not like free speech, because free speech is an unalienable right, and not an entitlement or gift. Instead, Free Software is about sharing. Someone has made their own software free for you to use, copy, distribute and monkey around with. They have shared their software with you. People who share are much nicer people than those that try to force other people to share."