I'm not sure why you read arrogance into what I wrote. I'm not "giving permission" to anyone to develop commercial software that is sold as a product. I don't have authority over anyone to control whether they charge or don't charge for their products.
Rather, I'm explaining to FOSS fundamentalists that it is OK for software to be sold as a product, and providing a rationale as to why.
I hope you can re-read what I wrote originally and remove your initial prejudice.
Broad problems that have software solutions will tend to have a lot of people who need the solution, and will tend to be cheap and/or free. Either the market base will be so large that developers can recoup costs by charging only a small amount per license, or else the industry or community will fund them in some other way. Such as companies that hire developers to work on open source projects for some application which the company uses as a tool rather than sells as a product.The OSS project gets professional developers working on it, and their contributions are shared with the OSS community, and then everyone benefits.
Narrow problems that have software solutions will tend to have fewer people who need (or merely want) the solution, and will tend to cost more.
My take on this is this:
I love open source, and I love free software. But to me, so long as there's a solution to the problem, that's what matters most of all. It's better from my perspective if that solution is free/Free. It's acceptable, if no free solution exists, to pay for something, in the sense that economically supporting a good solution is a good thing. I'd rather provide economic support to open source projects than to closed source projects, but really, I want solutions to my problems, and I'll support economically any solution if I need to, as long as I feel it's a good, worthwhile solution.
Due to the nature of open source projects, it's almost always optional to provide that support, and by contrast it's usually not optional to pay for closed-source software solutions ("pirating" notwithstanding). So for the most part, my economic contributions to software projects tend to skew toward closed source, even thought the amount of closed source software I use is pretty low. Which, I think, is unfortunate, given that I would prefer to support open projects. I don't contribute monetarily to most OSS projects, because I'm not required to. I pretty much only pay for software if I absolutely have to (I need the solution, and the only viable solutions require you to pay for them.)
My point in all this is that, it's OK for small projects to charge for the solution if that's the best way for them to fund themselves. I wouldn't expect independent game developer to create FOSS games just to share them with the Android community for nothing. I don't need to play a game on my cell phone, but if I decide I want to, and there's a particular game that I really like the look of, I'll gladly pay a reasonable amount to support the project. For software that provides broad solutions to common problems, I'd expect that to be built in to the phone already, or implemented by a community of OSS developers who probably get funding in some way other than direct sales of software licenses.
having seen healers run backwards into a new mob, tanks which run around between enemies trying to take aggro from other characters who don't need it, and damage dealers who have no concept of aggro mitigation,
So if you do end up in a similar situation, the best thing is to be calm and acquiescent in the moment, and then sue the hell out of them later.
If you can't expect to sue and win when they beat the shit out of you over nothing, then how can you expect to sue and win when you acquiesce and turn the whole thing into a non-incident?
Why do processors need decimal number support? 10 is just an arbitrary number humans picked because they happen to have 10 fingers. There's no connection between that and computers.
Yes there is; the human. Humans use base-10 quite a bit, and they use computers quite a bit. It therefore makes a great deal of sense for humans to want to be able to use base-10 when they are using computers. In fact, it's not at all surprising.
Peak Oil was really just the beginning. If nuclear energy were to take off, we would be out of uranium before the first year was over. This points to a deadly flaw in the use of natural resources as the basis for energy sources. If you have to mine it, drill it, or harvest it, you will always run the risk of running out of it.
Shit, you're right. From now on, supernatural resources it is. I'm heading to Home Depot after work today for my prayer-fueled power generator.
However, an additional 300M Chinese (~23%) are learning english. That is an awful lot of young impressionable students.
Just curious, how many of the 2M chinese-speaking Americans are ethnically Chinese? My guess is the percentage of Americans who are of non-Asian descent who speak Chinese (Ie, non-Chinese-Americans who took the effort to learn Chinese on their own initiative, as opposed to Chinese-speaking Asian Americans who "inherited" chinese speaking from their parents) is a much smaller percentage than this 0.57% suggests. How many students do we have enrolled in our public schools who even have an option to learn Chinese as a second language?
Look around your office and read random words off of random things in plain view. Incorporate these into your password. If you forget a password, just look around the room and you'll have mnemonics built into the decor. Just don't get lazy and type literally exactly what you see. Use it as the basis for your passwords, only.
IF these people are truly smart enough to rule the world (or an aspect of it), they know better than to try to control every single individual in it.
OR, They're counting on you to believe this. It's positively diabolical.
In truth, the term "smart enough to rule the world" is meaningless. There's no such thing. There is simply the fact that people and organizations with varying levels of power and intelligence are struggling to manage the affairs of the world. They are doing a $adjective job of it. It may be that some of their methods include hiding or distorting information, for reasons they hope are good for themselves and the world as a whole, but primarily themselves and those who are closest to them. If that means screwing over everyone else, it's possible that some people would do it -- particularly if it means screwing over future generations who can in no way impede actions being taken now, before they are even born.
This is the correct argument, but you have it backward. If it's OK for MS to "steal" (by the definition that MS accepts for the word) then MS should allow people to "steal" Windows, and stop complaining about, trying to stop, prosecuting, software piracy. They should amend their EULA to allow users to decompile, reverse engineer, and modify their binaries.
Besides, it's not as though GPL code is anti-copyright.
I get annoyed when I try to scroll a window in Chrome and it's so fast I can't control it easily.
I'll be keeping firefox around for as long as there's no adblock and no flashblock for Chrome. Chrome wins the instant they're compatible with Mozilla plugins.
I'm glad that there's once again some vibrant competition in the browser sphere.
I mostly use Firefox. But, I have IE8, Chrome installed on my PC as well. How do you work out marketshare from that?
It seems that "they" must base it off of server log statistics, which show actual use. That seems like the most sensible approach, but really, if in a parallel universe these three browsers all cost money for a license, all three companies would be happy (and I would not be) -- they'd have their money from the sale of license, and why would they care if I generally prefer to use one over the other?
The other question I have is, I don't know how marketshare stats are done to filter the results to account for user agent impersonation. I don't have any idea how widespread this is still, but a few years ago it was quite common to impersonate IE in order to get "bad" webservers to serve pages when they were set up to break Firefox because "bad" web developers were only testing for IE, and configured their web app to check for user agent and fail if it wasn't IE, even though other browsers might well be able to handle the code that it would have served them. Do they have a method to account for this?
Not every rift is going to become an ocean like Atlantic. Some fail, as did the rift under the Big Lakes. Correct my rusty geology if I'm wrong.
I live by the Great Lakes, and I have always understood that the lakes were carved out by glaciers during the last ice age. I've never heard this failed rift explanation. What's your source for this info?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure why you read arrogance into what I wrote. I'm not "giving permission" to anyone to develop commercial software that is sold as a product. I don't have authority over anyone to control whether they charge or don't charge for their products.
Rather, I'm explaining to FOSS fundamentalists that it is OK for software to be sold as a product, and providing a rationale as to why.
I hope you can re-read what I wrote originally and remove your initial prejudice.
Broad problems that have software solutions will tend to have a lot of people who need the solution, and will tend to be cheap and/or free. Either the market base will be so large that developers can recoup costs by charging only a small amount per license, or else the industry or community will fund them in some other way. Such as companies that hire developers to work on open source projects for some application which the company uses as a tool rather than sells as a product.The OSS project gets professional developers working on it, and their contributions are shared with the OSS community, and then everyone benefits.
Narrow problems that have software solutions will tend to have fewer people who need (or merely want) the solution, and will tend to cost more.
My take on this is this:
I love open source, and I love free software. But to me, so long as there's a solution to the problem, that's what matters most of all. It's better from my perspective if that solution is free/Free. It's acceptable, if no free solution exists, to pay for something, in the sense that economically supporting a good solution is a good thing. I'd rather provide economic support to open source projects than to closed source projects, but really, I want solutions to my problems, and I'll support economically any solution if I need to, as long as I feel it's a good, worthwhile solution.
Due to the nature of open source projects, it's almost always optional to provide that support, and by contrast it's usually not optional to pay for closed-source software solutions ("pirating" notwithstanding). So for the most part, my economic contributions to software projects tend to skew toward closed source, even thought the amount of closed source software I use is pretty low. Which, I think, is unfortunate, given that I would prefer to support open projects. I don't contribute monetarily to most OSS projects, because I'm not required to. I pretty much only pay for software if I absolutely have to (I need the solution, and the only viable solutions require you to pay for them.)
My point in all this is that, it's OK for small projects to charge for the solution if that's the best way for them to fund themselves. I wouldn't expect independent game developer to create FOSS games just to share them with the Android community for nothing. I don't need to play a game on my cell phone, but if I decide I want to, and there's a particular game that I really like the look of, I'll gladly pay a reasonable amount to support the project. For software that provides broad solutions to common problems, I'd expect that to be built in to the phone already, or implemented by a community of OSS developers who probably get funding in some way other than direct sales of software licenses.
having seen healers run backwards into a new mob, tanks which run around between enemies trying to take aggro from other characters who don't need it, and damage dealers who have no concept of aggro mitigation,
THAT'S A 50 DKP MINUS!
Is it an African or a European octopus?
Neither, it's Australian. I don't know if there's a joke for that, though.
Oh wait, "That's not a coconut 'ouse. THIS is a coconut house!"
Also, some kind of Steve Irwin impersonation.... "Cor blimey, Oi wish oi had one a them coconut 'alves protectin' me from that sting ray!"
Oh, they COULD do that, but then their customers would stop paying for them. The viewing public is the product, always remember.
The question isn't "Is console gaming dying," but rather, "How many extra lives has it racked up?"
If electricity hadn't become ubiquitous, we'd have a lot less carbon being emitted today from power plants.
If you can't expect to sue and win when they beat the shit out of you over nothing, then how can you expect to sue and win when you acquiesce and turn the whole thing into a non-incident?
Why do processors need decimal number support? 10 is just an arbitrary number humans picked because they happen to have 10 fingers. There's no connection between that and computers.
Yes there is; the human. Humans use base-10 quite a bit, and they use computers quite a bit. It therefore makes a great deal of sense for humans to want to be able to use base-10 when they are using computers. In fact, it's not at all surprising.
a company that delivers something useful and dont engage in illegal practices are freaking awesome
That is so awesome.
Bang! Zoom! To the moon.
The average IQ of a moderator these days sits somewhere between a sea sponge and a dog turd.
Hey! Why are you insulting dog turds?
Think about it. Think about it like a cat.
I can haz brain simulation?
I can haz brain simulation?
It's been Sunbelt Personal Rrhea for a few years now. If you haven't updated, you probably should.
Peak Oil was really just the beginning. If nuclear energy were to take off, we would be out of uranium before the first year was over. This points to a deadly flaw in the use of natural resources as the basis for energy sources. If you have to mine it, drill it, or harvest it, you will always run the risk of running out of it.
Shit, you're right. From now on, supernatural resources it is. I'm heading to Home Depot after work today for my prayer-fueled power generator.
The non-rhetorical answer:
10M Fluent english speakers in China (0.77%) vs
2M Fluent chinese speakers in the US (0.57%)
However, an additional 300M Chinese (~23%) are learning english. That is an awful lot of young impressionable students.
Just curious, how many of the 2M chinese-speaking Americans are ethnically Chinese? My guess is the percentage of Americans who are of non-Asian descent who speak Chinese (Ie, non-Chinese-Americans who took the effort to learn Chinese on their own initiative, as opposed to Chinese-speaking Asian Americans who "inherited" chinese speaking from their parents) is a much smaller percentage than this 0.57% suggests. How many students do we have enrolled in our public schools who even have an option to learn Chinese as a second language?
Look around your office and read random words off of random things in plain view. Incorporate these into your password. If you forget a password, just look around the room and you'll have mnemonics built into the decor. Just don't get lazy and type literally exactly what you see. Use it as the basis for your passwords, only.
OR, They're counting on you to believe this. It's positively diabolical.
In truth, the term "smart enough to rule the world" is meaningless. There's no such thing. There is simply the fact that people and organizations with varying levels of power and intelligence are struggling to manage the affairs of the world. They are doing a $adjective job of it. It may be that some of their methods include hiding or distorting information, for reasons they hope are good for themselves and the world as a whole, but primarily themselves and those who are closest to them. If that means screwing over everyone else, it's possible that some people would do it -- particularly if it means screwing over future generations who can in no way impede actions being taken now, before they are even born.
I hired a band of six-piece midget mariachi band to follow me around. I had to buy a mini-bus, but it's by far the best solution.
This is the correct argument, but you have it backward. If it's OK for MS to "steal" (by the definition that MS accepts for the word) then MS should allow people to "steal" Windows, and stop complaining about, trying to stop, prosecuting, software piracy. They should amend their EULA to allow users to decompile, reverse engineer, and modify their binaries.
Besides, it's not as though GPL code is anti-copyright.
I get annoyed when I try to scroll a window in Chrome and it's so fast I can't control it easily.
I'll be keeping firefox around for as long as there's no adblock and no flashblock for Chrome. Chrome wins the instant they're compatible with Mozilla plugins.
I'm glad that there's once again some vibrant competition in the browser sphere.
I mostly use Firefox. But, I have IE8, Chrome installed on my PC as well. How do you work out marketshare from that?
It seems that "they" must base it off of server log statistics, which show actual use. That seems like the most sensible approach, but really, if in a parallel universe these three browsers all cost money for a license, all three companies would be happy (and I would not be) -- they'd have their money from the sale of license, and why would they care if I generally prefer to use one over the other?
The other question I have is, I don't know how marketshare stats are done to filter the results to account for user agent impersonation. I don't have any idea how widespread this is still, but a few years ago it was quite common to impersonate IE in order to get "bad" webservers to serve pages when they were set up to break Firefox because "bad" web developers were only testing for IE, and configured their web app to check for user agent and fail if it wasn't IE, even though other browsers might well be able to handle the code that it would have served them. Do they have a method to account for this?
Not every rift is going to become an ocean like Atlantic. Some fail, as did the rift under the Big Lakes. Correct my rusty geology if I'm wrong.
I live by the Great Lakes, and I have always understood that the lakes were carved out by glaciers during the last ice age. I've never heard this failed rift explanation. What's your source for this info?
Fuck it, we're waiting for Windows 8.