I don't NEED to be free to modify Oracle. I need to be free to decide whether or not I can use it, and if you accept their terms, fine. If not, fine, you're free to wait for a "free" alternative. I don't need anyone to keep "the temptation" of using it from me. I can make the decision based on my own needs. That's freedom.
If you want to be a slave to passion and develop a free Oracle clone the existence of a non-free Oracle shouldn't stop you, because that version doesn't exist for you.
Oracle isn't denying anyone's freedom by not releasing their source. This concept is simply wrong and is used to justify a desire to remove the options (sometimes know as freedom of action) from people who don't agree with your political viewpoint because you don't actually have much faith in the process you espouse. If you did, you wouldn't worry that the existence of "non-free" apps would "naturally" create complacency. Why "naturally"? Your acknowledgement of that strikes at the heart of the argument. It's natural for people to not want to do work that's already done, or we'd all still be busy inventing wheels.
As for Oracle and your "hacker" (can't anybody just be a programmer anymore?), simply put you have no right to demand other peoples property! It's theirs to give you or not. Enforced virtue is no virtue at all. It's like the Jon Katz thing, if you don't like his content or terms just don't follow the link, or don't buy his book. If it's not about money, then just tell the Oracle folks you'll buy their stuff if they provide the source or tools you want. If they get enough people doing this, they'll give it up. Or they'll be free to decline your business.
Besides, the whole concept is a moot point for anyone outside the small subset of computer users who are competent programmers. So this "freedom" is only for us high priests; the vast majority of users will never know it anyway. Why deny them the opportunity to buy what they want? What kind of freedom is that?
I'm sorry, but are we supposed to pray to him to not lead us into (Oracle) temptation, and deliver us from evil (corporations/proprietary code/calling Linux Linux)?
Hmm, where have I heard that before.... religion class! I think they called it "The Lord's Prayer". Am I the only ex-Catholic who noticed this?
Doesn't this seem a little, well funny for a rational person? Why yes, Bob, in any other human being, you'd say it was a Messiah complex. But RMS is different they say. How? He has integrity, and is willing to live his life that way. So do cannibals.There are plenty of functional nuts who believe in what they do. It doesn't make them RIGHT. Logic is NOT just for CODE, people.
Do you need to wait until he sticks his hand in his jacket and annouces he's invading Russia for somebody to see he's off the bloody deep end?
Substitute "Bill Gates" for RMS and "competition" for philosophy and the posts that defend him uncritically would sound like a ZD Talkback forum where people root for "MS ability to innovate".
It seems to me most of the people (including myself) who disagree with him actually take pains to point out that they're appreciative of the work he's done. He is clearly getting plenty of recognition; if he wasn't he wouldn't be the subject of so many interviews, would he? Isn't that recognition? What definition would you use?
He deliberately uses terms such as slavery to demean people/companies/concepts he doesn't agree with. Do you think anyone who's experienced REAL slavery would equate it with using Oracle? Oh sorry, I forgot you can actually make a living doing Oracle admin - at $90/hr! Some slavery huh?
While calling him a crackpot doesn't help anything, you can't expect people to listen to what amounts to an insult of your intelligence without getting something of that back. Y'know, like instant karma gonna get you.
What moderately intelligent adult is worried that Oracle will "tempt" him or her into buying it? What is this, Eve with an apple? We shouldn't be allowed to make that choice? If it's not crazy, it's certainly not freedom, either.
You're not interested in the essay, good or bad, it's just another excuse to spew your venom. I'm well-known for pouncing on spelling and other errors, but I'm mature enough to cut a guy some slack once in awhile if his heart's in the right place.
And using "every vernacular profanity"? I count 5 "damn" and 1 "shit" in the essay. I don't think even my mother would have a problem with that, given the length of it.
Finally you have resort to calling me illiterate, which I think pretty much proves my point that you're more interested in personal attacks than anything else.
1) Are you just functionally nasty? 2) Does anyone really care what pundits think? 3) Do you have any realization of the fact that you probably couldn't spell "bathroom" in his language? 4) I missed the adolescent rage in the piece. He seemed like a genuine nice person attempting to communicate, unlike your sorry ass. How many raging adolescents go out to do a little gardening when they've got a head of steam?
I worked at Princeton U's Plasma Physics Labs around '80-82 as a tech. The motor/generator set for the TFTR (last one built) weighed 270 tons, if that's any indication of why the "desk-top" part is cool about this story.
Now THAT was a cool job. That's where I first saw a trackball. It was hand-size, military-looking with two buttons at the top, and we had to build the interface ourselves.
I pretty much agree about Katz, but I just don't read him any more. No problem. I've read stuff by him that was worth it, so I still scan once in awhile, but I think his main purpose is self-promotion. He can't code (or write) and he still has to make a living after exiting his previous life. (I'd love some insider perspective on that from the TV people!)You expect an ex-TV guy to do anything but look for eyeballs? No.
I don't think much of Mr. Wood's take on Malda though. Functional illiterate? Give me a break. I've been programming for 20 yrs and this is damn good work here. I haven't seen anything about the guys who run SlashDot that indicates anything but integrity and honesty. My guess is they could make a lot more money selling their discussion code to ZD than they'll ever make off of book sales or SlashDot ads.
Oh, and speaking of self-referential, maybe Mr. Wood will someday write something that doesn't refer to himself as a resident of London, as if that matters.
Ballmer eating floppies yet?
on
Few Quickies
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· Score: 1
I'm still waiting for Stever Ballmer to eat a floppy, as he said he'd do when OS/2 could run Windows apps. That happened ages ago, and I never saw him munching down.
As far as the money goes, they should both donate $1B or so to the Red Cross or some charity NOT RELATED TO COMPUTERS.
For commonly used programs, there is some validity of his main point in that even with a lot of people looking at the source something could STILL go undetected for awhile. But it's just one aspect of security.
His take on insider security is considerably more flawed. He seriously misses (besides the root thing) the fact that as a developer of in-house applications I want to put the bad code in the financial application itself, and the way most companies work THAT could go undetected for years! In many companies, even large ones, a single programmer may be in charge of an important application. Code review wouldn't keep you from sliding something in at link time, a little fooling around in the source code control system... the possibilities are endless.
I think he's mainly interested in self promotion. There's no point in getting sucked into a ZDNET talkbalk or InfoWorld forum with a guy like that, because his whole interest is to generate controversy and get himself on television, or get quoted in industry mags. The best thing you can do is ignore him, or just continue to point out real security procedures.
Well, more like $2000 for a US trademark (and we're all that counts, right?:-)) but yes, that's the conclusion I've come to - do a trademark search first if you're really going to use it in business. As noted elsewhere, a search of the US Trademarks is definitely advised. I was recently sued by Porsche for infringement for reserving porscheservice.com for a client. Well hell, that's what they do; I was just trying to be descriptive, not infringe on Porsche AG. They had 3 years to take such an obvious name and didn't. And no, they didn't even bother to contact me so I could at least get credit for handing it over voluntarily. They won't even let you use the logo or a likeness of their cars to link to your own cars! That's just Dumb Business, but it turns out they've been doing the same thing for years in print.
As far as Big Business taking over the network, well, it was started by Big Academia and Big Science and Big Military, so that should be no surprise.
Well, what's the point in Apple? What's the point in Linux? It's another option. Once upon a time you could create innovative computers, now the best we can do is Apple's new colors. The good thing about the net (and Linux) is our tasks don't require a Wintel box. If hardware engineers could get back to playing with some interesting architectures it would be good for computing in general. I think they should just run BeOS or Linux on it this time instead of doing another OS.
OK, I'll disagree that he's unfit for office. Not that he didn't screw up big time, but considering he's been accused of everything including murder it's amazing he could function at all.
Nothing wrong with what's-his-name writing about it though.
Personally, I voted for him because he WAS a pot-smoking skirt-chasing draft-dodger. He'd be the last guy to push the big red button because there's always a new waitress at the local donut shop.
The answer is pretty simple - pay for the name when you register it. But as a defendant in the Porsche lawsuit who did nothing more than secure a reasonable name for a client I can tell you it doesn't take much for them to label you as a "cyber-squatter". Porsche didn't even bother to ask if I'd give up the name, just publicly labeled me a pirate. Defend your name? Sure, just take your lawyer to Virginia for a few weeks.
Okay, "no one" (not no-one) forces me to work with NT, but it's what came up the last time I got screwed on a contract, okay?
And it's "their ignorance" not "there ignorance" and "their choice of jobs" not "there choice in jobs" and "mentally deficient" not "mentally deficiant".
Now, what were you saying about ignorance and being deficient?
The point IS that most software has narrow application and wouldn't be worked on by a distributed group of volunteers because nobody volunteers to do that kind of thing. Get it? No proprietary software=many things we don't have. In that example it would equal much more soot in the air, or much higher electric bills.
As far as the consortium goes, the way reality works is that a "consortium" does fund it; that would be the set of power plants which buys the software. The company puts money into it and takes the risk that it WON'T be bought; that's why it remains proprietary. That's why there IS proprietary software. It's not evil, just a natural reaction to the normal process of funding a project.
My comments about his lifestyle were intended to point out that he wouldn't be capable of supporting a development effort IN the real world (i.e. not a gift lab from MIT) that required private facilities of the sort needed to build industrial software. And RMS was the one who gets up on his soapbox and says how pure he his for not having kids so he can be a better martyr. His reaction to the Xerox printer was that of a selfish child, and he can't even be honest that that's why he doesn't have kids. I'm also too selfish to have kids, but it's not to keep my work pure and I can admit as much. If following his creed requires living in a room and not having a life, then I think it's reasonable to reject his arguments on those grounds.
"they couldn't improve the programs they'd purchased, only buy expensive updates and replacements.. "
I'm sure writers who can't even install Linux are going to be re-writing Word, eh? Open source is of most use to companies who have people on board that can REALLY change the software so they don't have to worry about forced migrations and other nasty bits from vendors.
Is he really saying you have the rights to other people's privately-developed anything?
Does he really think most people want to ACTUALLY program the VCR when they can't set the time?
Real people just want stuff to work and not be taken to the cleaners for it. That's a far cry from "gimme the source to WordStar".
but he also said (re. writing proprietary software):
"I would have looked back and realized I had spent my life building walls and helping to divide and conquer people."
Isn't that what he does mostly?
I've spent my working life writing (mostly) "proprietary" software; I thought I was just helping to build power plants and video editing suites for people who didn't WANT to program it themselves. So, in case I get a burning desire to provide my local PSEG plant with "free" software, how many people in the open source community can I count on to turn their house into a coal-burning high-voltage supply for testing?
Maybe Richard would? No, he lives in a rented room... maybe his children... oh no, can't have kids, that would interfere with his work. Unlike Linus, I guess. What a great contrast between those two! Fortunately, I can just admit I don't have kids because I'm selfish.
I generally follow the advice of those who say "Hey, if you don't like it, don't read it." I've read Mr. Katz in Wired (hey did you know he wrote for Wired?) and generally enjoyed him. But don't look for him to do the obvious thing of just putting his stuff out on his own website, whether for free or not. Mr. Katz and most writer-wannabees I've known are not interested in a mechanism to make their words available for the masses (i.e. "getting published"), they're interested in validation and attention from book publishers and talk show hosts, because then they are taken seriously as "real writers" and the visionaries they usually want to be. Fair enough. Personally I find much of his work too pretentious for my taste, as indicated by thinking that getting traffic for your book could be described as "hacking the net" and what an amazing day it for all publishing and society or (again) that he wrote for Wired, etc. I'm sure he is sincere, which actually makes it worse in a way. If you think that Jon really wants to make a living at this, ask him how much he wants in cash money to write for your no-name website as I did after he got bounced from Wired. Despite a number of pleasant messages back-and-forth, when it comes to that he won't even respond. In my opinion, if he really believed in the power of the web and his work he'd have his own site and Rob could just post links to the public area. We could all donate $2 or otherwise subscribe to read his stuff online and he would be raking in the dough. Or not. As far as Slashdot is concerned, it's absolutely their business to make it all-Katz-all-the-time if they want, and if some of us go away because of it that'll just help their bandwidth issues. Just let them know if you vote with your feet so they can make an informed decision.
Slashdot Mirror
I posted and only got a 1. Sniff. sniff.
Now THAT was a classic April Fool's joke.
I don't NEED to be free to modify Oracle. I need to be free to decide whether or not I can use it, and if you accept their terms, fine. If not, fine, you're free to wait for a "free" alternative. I don't need anyone to keep "the temptation" of using it from me. I can make the decision based on my own needs. That's freedom.
If you want to be a slave to passion and develop a free Oracle clone the existence of a non-free Oracle shouldn't stop you, because that version doesn't exist for you.
Oracle isn't denying anyone's freedom by not releasing their source. This concept is simply wrong and is used to justify a desire to remove the options (sometimes know as freedom of action) from people who don't agree with your political viewpoint because you don't actually have much faith in the process you espouse. If you did, you wouldn't worry that the existence of "non-free" apps would "naturally" create complacency. Why "naturally"? Your acknowledgement of that strikes at the heart of the argument. It's natural for people to not want to do work that's already done, or we'd all still be busy inventing wheels.
As for Oracle and your "hacker" (can't anybody just be a programmer anymore?), simply put you have no right to demand other peoples property! It's theirs to give you or not. Enforced virtue is no virtue at all. It's like the Jon Katz thing, if you don't like his content or terms just don't follow the link, or don't buy his book. If it's not about money, then just tell the Oracle folks you'll buy their stuff if they provide the source or tools you want. If they get enough people doing this, they'll give it up. Or they'll be free to decline your business.
Besides, the whole concept is a moot point for anyone outside the small subset of computer users who are competent programmers. So this "freedom" is only for us high priests; the vast majority of users will never know it anyway. Why deny them the opportunity to buy what they want? What kind of freedom is that?
I'm sorry, but are we supposed to pray to him to not lead us into (Oracle) temptation, and deliver us from evil (corporations/proprietary code/calling Linux Linux)?
Hmm, where have I heard that before.... religion class! I think they called it "The Lord's Prayer". Am I the only ex-Catholic who noticed this?
Doesn't this seem a little, well funny for a rational person? Why yes, Bob, in any other human being, you'd say it was a Messiah complex. But RMS is different they say. How? He has integrity, and is willing to live his life that way. So do cannibals. There are plenty of functional nuts who believe in what they do. It doesn't make them RIGHT. Logic is NOT just for CODE, people.
Do you need to wait until he sticks his hand in his jacket and annouces he's invading Russia for somebody to see he's off the bloody deep end?
Substitute "Bill Gates" for RMS and "competition" for philosophy and the posts that defend him uncritically would sound like a ZD Talkback forum where people root for "MS ability to innovate".
It seems to me most of the people (including myself) who disagree with him actually take pains to point out that they're appreciative of the work he's done. He is clearly getting plenty of recognition; if he wasn't he wouldn't be the subject of so many interviews, would he? Isn't that recognition? What definition would you use?
He deliberately uses terms such as slavery to demean people/companies/concepts he doesn't agree with. Do you think anyone who's experienced REAL slavery would equate it with using Oracle? Oh sorry, I forgot you can actually make a living doing Oracle admin - at $90/hr! Some slavery huh?
While calling him a crackpot doesn't help anything, you can't expect people to listen to what amounts to an insult of your intelligence without getting something of that back. Y'know, like instant karma gonna get you.
What moderately intelligent adult is worried that Oracle will "tempt" him or her into buying it? What is this, Eve with an apple? We shouldn't be allowed to make that choice? If it's not crazy, it's certainly not freedom, either.
same people who sponsored and passed the Communications Decency Act.
Who?
You're not interested in the essay, good or bad, it's just another excuse to spew your venom. I'm well-known for pouncing on spelling and other errors, but I'm mature enough to cut a guy some slack once in awhile if his heart's in the right place.
And using "every vernacular profanity"? I count 5 "damn" and 1 "shit" in the essay. I don't think even my mother would have a problem with that, given the length of it.
Finally you have resort to calling me illiterate, which I think pretty much proves my point that you're more interested in personal attacks than anything else.
Not much of a "thinker", after all.
1) Are you just functionally nasty?
2) Does anyone really care what pundits think?
3) Do you have any realization of the fact that you probably couldn't spell "bathroom" in his language?
4) I missed the adolescent rage in the piece. He seemed like a genuine nice person attempting to communicate, unlike your sorry ass. How many raging adolescents go out to do a little gardening when they've got a head of steam?
Geez, some people....
I worked at Princeton U's Plasma Physics Labs around '80-82 as a tech. The motor/generator set for the TFTR (last one built) weighed 270 tons, if that's any indication of why the "desk-top" part is cool about this story.
:-)
Now THAT was a cool job. That's where I first saw a trackball. It was hand-size, military-looking with two buttons at the top, and we had to build the interface ourselves.
Uphill in the snow, both ways.
I pretty much agree about Katz, but I just don't read him any more. No problem. I've read stuff by him that was worth it, so I still scan once in awhile, but I think his main purpose is self-promotion. He can't code (or write) and he still has to make a living after exiting his previous life. (I'd love some insider perspective on that from the TV people!)You expect an ex-TV guy to do anything but look for eyeballs? No.
I don't think much of Mr. Wood's take on Malda though. Functional illiterate? Give me a break. I've been programming for 20 yrs and this is damn good work here. I haven't seen anything about the guys who run SlashDot that indicates anything but integrity and honesty. My guess is they could make a lot more money selling their discussion code to ZD than they'll ever make off of book sales or SlashDot ads.
Oh, and speaking of self-referential, maybe Mr. Wood will someday write something that doesn't refer to himself as a resident of London, as if that matters.
I'm still waiting for Stever Ballmer to eat a floppy, as he said he'd do when OS/2 could run Windows apps. That happened ages ago, and I never saw him munching down.
As far as the money goes, they should both donate $1B or so to the Red Cross or some charity NOT RELATED TO COMPUTERS.
For commonly used programs, there is some validity of his main point in that even with a lot of people looking at the source something could STILL go undetected for awhile. But it's just one aspect of security.
His take on insider security is considerably more flawed. He seriously misses (besides the root thing) the fact that as a developer of in-house applications I want to put the bad code in the financial application itself, and the way most companies work THAT could go undetected for years! In many companies, even large ones, a single programmer may be in charge of an important application. Code review wouldn't keep you from sliding something in at link time, a little fooling around in the source code control system... the possibilities are endless.
I think he's mainly interested in self promotion. There's no point in getting sucked into a ZDNET talkbalk or InfoWorld forum with a guy like that, because his whole interest is to generate controversy and get himself on television, or get quoted in industry mags. The best thing you can do is ignore him, or just continue to point out real security procedures.
Well, more like $2000 for a US trademark (and we're all that counts, right? :-)) but yes, that's the conclusion I've come to - do a trademark search first if you're really going to use it in business. As noted elsewhere, a search of the US Trademarks is definitely advised. I was recently sued by Porsche for infringement for reserving porscheservice.com for a client. Well hell, that's what they do; I was just trying to be descriptive, not infringe on Porsche AG. They had 3 years to take such an obvious name and didn't. And no, they didn't even bother to contact me so I could at least get credit for handing it over voluntarily. They won't even let you use the logo or a likeness of their cars to link to your own cars! That's just Dumb Business, but it turns out they've been doing the same thing for years in print.
As far as Big Business taking over the network, well, it was started by Big Academia and Big Science and Big Military, so that should be no surprise.
Well, what's the point in Apple? What's the point in Linux? It's another option. Once upon a time you could create innovative computers, now the best we can do is Apple's new colors. The good thing about the net (and Linux) is our tasks don't require a Wintel box. If hardware engineers could get back to playing with some interesting architectures it would be good for computing in general. I think they should just run BeOS or Linux on it this time instead of doing another OS.
Just my $0.02.
OK, I'll disagree that he's unfit for office. Not that he didn't screw up big time, but considering he's been accused of everything including murder it's amazing he could function at all.
Nothing wrong with what's-his-name writing about it though.
Personally, I voted for him because he WAS a pot-smoking skirt-chasing draft-dodger. He'd be the last guy to push the big red button because there's always a new waitress at the local donut shop.
The answer is pretty simple - pay for the name when you register it. But as a defendant in the Porsche lawsuit who did nothing more than secure a reasonable name for a client I can tell you it doesn't take much for them to label you as a "cyber-squatter". Porsche didn't even bother to ask if I'd give up the name, just publicly labeled me a pirate. Defend your name? Sure, just take your lawyer to Virginia for a few weeks.
Okay, "no one" (not no-one) forces me to work with NT, but it's what came up the last time I got screwed on a contract, okay?
And it's "their ignorance" not "there ignorance" and "their choice of jobs" not "there choice in jobs" and "mentally deficient" not "mentally deficiant".
Now, what were you saying about ignorance and being deficient?
The point IS that most software has narrow application and wouldn't be worked on by a distributed group of volunteers because nobody volunteers to do that kind of thing. Get it? No proprietary software=many things we don't have. In that example it would equal much more soot in the air, or much higher electric bills.
As far as the consortium goes, the way reality works is that a "consortium" does fund it; that would be the set of power plants which buys the software. The company puts money into it and takes the risk that it WON'T be bought; that's why it remains proprietary. That's why there IS proprietary software. It's not evil, just a natural reaction to the normal process of funding a project.
My comments about his lifestyle were intended to point out that he wouldn't be capable of supporting a development effort IN the real world (i.e. not a gift lab from MIT) that required private facilities of the sort needed to build industrial software. And RMS was the one who gets up on his soapbox and says how pure he his for not having kids so he can be a better martyr. His reaction to the Xerox printer was that of a selfish child, and he can't even be honest that that's why he doesn't have kids. I'm also too selfish to have kids, but it's not to keep my work pure and I can admit as much. If following his creed requires living in a room and not having a life, then I think it's reasonable to reject his arguments on those grounds.
Of course, some people would just say he apparently didn't bother to research this one purchase and has thus let it drive his life.
"they couldn't improve the programs they'd purchased, only buy expensive updates and replacements.. "
I'm sure writers who can't even install Linux are going to be re-writing Word, eh? Open source is of most use to companies who have people on board that can REALLY change the software so they don't have to worry about forced migrations and other nasty bits from vendors.
Is he really saying you have the rights to other people's privately-developed anything?
Does he really think most people want to ACTUALLY program the VCR when they can't set the time?
Real people just want stuff to work and not be taken to the cleaners for it. That's a far cry from "gimme the source to WordStar".
but he also said (re. writing proprietary software):
"I would have looked back and realized I had spent my life building walls and helping to divide and conquer people."
Isn't that what he does mostly?
I've spent my working life writing (mostly) "proprietary" software; I thought I was just helping to build power plants and video editing suites for people who didn't WANT to program it themselves. So, in case I get a burning desire to provide my local PSEG plant with "free" software, how many people in the open source community can I count on to turn their house into a coal-burning high-voltage supply for testing?
Maybe Richard would? No, he lives in a rented room... maybe his children... oh no, can't have kids, that would interfere with his work. Unlike Linus, I guess. What a great contrast between those two! Fortunately, I can just admit I don't have kids because I'm selfish.
It's on the SciFi channel after Star Trek. Around 9pm maybe?
That's exactly what I thought when I saw the article, but I don't know enough about Be OS to know how well it would fit the new architecture.
Oh yeah, were you on the Win95 FUD team at the time? No time to learn how to spell?
I generally follow the advice of those who say "Hey, if you don't like it, don't read it." I've read Mr. Katz in Wired (hey did you know he wrote for Wired?) and generally enjoyed him. But don't look for him to do the obvious thing of just putting his stuff out on his own website, whether for free or not. Mr. Katz and most writer-wannabees I've known are not interested in a mechanism to make their words available for the masses (i.e. "getting published"), they're interested in validation and attention from book publishers and talk show hosts, because then they are taken seriously as "real writers" and the visionaries they usually want to be. Fair enough. Personally I find much of his work too pretentious for my taste, as indicated by thinking that getting traffic for your book could be described as "hacking the net" and what an amazing day it for all publishing and society or (again) that he wrote for Wired, etc. I'm sure he is sincere, which actually makes it worse in a way. If you think that Jon really wants to make a living at this, ask him how much he wants in cash money to write for your no-name website as I did after he got bounced from Wired. Despite a number of pleasant messages back-and-forth, when it comes to that he won't even respond. In my opinion, if he really believed in the power of the web and his work he'd have his own site and Rob could just post links to the public area. We could all donate $2 or otherwise subscribe to read his stuff online and he would be raking in the dough. Or not. As far as Slashdot is concerned, it's absolutely their business to make it all-Katz-all-the-time if they want, and if some of us go away because of it that'll just help their bandwidth issues. Just let them know if you vote with your feet so they can make an informed decision.
Cheers....