I've a house containing thousands of real books, hundreds of TV episodes and movies, and enough music to fill a 200GB drive... and as a professional writer myself, I'm well aware of how important issues can be effectively treated in creative form. Star Trek (at least in its early forms) is an excellent example of entertainment also bringing about social change.
That said, I have seen little evidence that something like Galactica is going to make many people suddenly become active in real world issues. I suspect most people watch the show because of the sexy people and exciting action. Do you think Galactica will inspire a generation of new rocket scientists or get people involved in social issues? I don't.
I already work on a number of social and political problems; I'm very much aware of the problems in modern society. And perhaps working in those has lead me to seek escapism in my entertainment. I get bludgeoned all day about "issues"; when I lay back in my recliner, I want to relax and see hope.
Consider the people who accomplish great things, and then ask yourself if they spend a lot of time looking for inspiration in space operas.
This is serious TV. I was left mentally exhausted by many eposides last season. They dealt with so many issues that have relevance to many topics in present day life.
I prefer to become "mentally exhausted" by addressing real issues that affect real people. I don't see the point in getting all worked up over the trials and travails of fictional people.
The original series was campy -- and well, downright stupid at times. But at least Lorne Greene, Dirk Benedict, and company had a sense of humor.
I just watched the entire first season of the "new" Galactica, and probably won't watch the premeire tonight. *Everyone* in the series is carrying more angst than a yearful of soap operas. They're all dying, or question themselves, or fighting with friends and family, or trying to figure out if they're human... heck, the only happy person is the slutty Cylon! Not that there's anything wrong with hot Cylon babes or cute Korean chicks...;)
Now, I don't expect sweetness and light; heck, my favorite science fiction series are Farscape, Firefly, and Babylon 5, all of which had plenty of angst and drama and "bad things." But those series had hope and humor. Battlestar Galactica seems to be one big depression fest, and that just doesn't interest me.
[Blockquote][i]I mean, a car has legal uses, but, when criminals use a getaway car after robbing a bank, a car is an illegal device used for crime, regardless of the legal uses of the device.
Therefore, GM, Toyota, Ford, et al., need to be held responsible for the crimes committed using vehicles.
[/i][/blockquote]
Malarky.
Do auto manufacturers promote their cars as get-away vehicles? No.
Do file sharing networks openly promote their use for trading illegal files? Yes.
A vast gulf divides creating products that can be used for criminal activity, and designing products for crime.
Sorry the work of volunteers doesn't move fast enough for you.
No need to get your knickers in a knot.
First, not everyone working on KDE or Gnome or Linux or GCC is a volunteer; if anything, people being paid to work on major FOSS projects is becoming more and more common.
Second, just because you're doing volunteer work doesn't mean my points are invalid. If FOSS people are going to claim that they're as good as or better than the closed-source competition, they need to walk the talk.
Ignoring, for a moment, Dvorak's predictions for Linux's demise, he does have a very valid point that Linux/Gnome/KDE advocates seem to be missing:
The Linux world suffers from a lack of modern intuitive menus and commands. Anyone who has played with the Open Office Programs such as the Powerpoint clone called "Impress" soon finds themselves lost in a jungle of menu structures and naming conventions.
The problem isn't isolated to Impress; KDE and Gome applications tend either to mimic Windows equivalents, or have UI's with far too many menus, toolbars, tabs, sidebars, bells, whistles, and fruit baskets. GUI concepts change dramatically between releases (Gnome's file browser, anyone?), and there seems to be little or no documentation for many applications.
Unix-oriented developers tend to be both intelligent and arrogant; the assumption is that if a program is good enough for a geek, it's good enough for everyone else, too.
That isn't to say that Windows applications are any more consistent; even Excel and Word have annoying differences in menus and options, and programs these days are a web of menus and options. To change a program's behavior (on Windows, KDE, or Gnome), do I look for "Preferences" or "Options" or "Settings" or "Configure" in the menus? Something so simple, and yet so inconsistent.
Being "right" doesn't always (or even usually) mean you'll succeed, and just because FOSS developers think they have the moral high ground doesn't mean users are going to flock to their door. KDE and Gnome need to give people a reason to use them, by providing more intuitive interfaces and a better understanding of user's needs.
KPDF 3.4 is terrific; for the first time, there's a very good "free" PDF viewer. It handles searches, bookmarks, extracting text... overall, it's quite nice, and I haven't needed Acrobat 7.0 since KDPF 3.4 came out. Plus, KPDF runs on my AMD64 system, while Adobe's reader does not.
People who own PCs aren't going to stop playign games just because the big publishers run to the consoles.
Many small book publishers who succeed by finding specific niches and (in some cases) alternative distribution channels. It seems to me that games provide a similar opportunity -- which is why we're working on one here at Coyote Gulch. Nice little RPG/Strategy title, somewhat original premise and game mechanics, designed with casual gamers in mind, using OpenGL and Cairo. With any luck, it may find a following.
1. If you have other companies distributing your IP in a non-compliant manner, this would be a great time to "Lawyer-Up" and penalize the offenders. This truely is the American way.
Sadly, it is the American way. And it is quite difficult if the two primary culprits are in Europe. I've checked into this, and it's too expensive for a small company like mine. It's a sad day when honesty has to be enforced in a courtroom. It's not like I ask the moon for things; but some people will steal what they can, when they can, if they can get away wioth it.
2. If I was talented enough to write something Apache wanted I'd modify the project somewhat and sell the modified version to Apache. I can see some very nice annual license and support dollars. If they don't buy, then they don't want it enough. End of story.
The Apache people told me they don't buy anything. Jakarta and Cocoon both use/used Jisp as part of Apache. When I moved to the GPL, these groups got their knickers in a knot and demanded that I give Jisp to the Apache Foundation. These developers make money from Apache, yet not one of them offered anything more than an insistence that I change licenses. I offered them an Apache-exclusive license -- for free! -- but that wasn't good enoguh for them. SO they spent considerable time replacing Jisp (or at least that's what they said they'd do), when I offered several solutions. They just wanted womething for free, and when it wasn't free "their way", they wanted to take and control it.
3. Don't want to give support away? How about charging for support? $35 per support issue. Maybe an annual subscription price for those with deep pockets.
I do that -- $25 for a support situation. For example, this week, one of Senselogic's customers asked me a question. I politely told him that I charge a nominal fee for support, and have never heard from him again.
IBM and other entities would be foolish to ignore the free code being given away these days. WHich is why my next major project won't be open source. I have a family to feed, and open source just doesn't pay the bills anymore.
Open Source software would not be as "good" today if it weren't for corporate cash. However, corporate cash has also distorted development of important packages like GCC and Linux, where minority platforms and user communities get marginalized because the developers are focused on the needs of their corporate sponsors.
Those are simply the facts of life; the needs of Red Hat, IBM, and Novell outweigh the needs of many users, simply through the application of cash. Adam Smith would be pleased.
My frustration is with companies -- big and small -- who use free and open software without attribution or support for the original author. A case in point: I've stopped updating and upgrading Jisp, my Java database engine, because too many people, ranging from Apache (who want to take ownership from me over the GPL) to SenseLogic use Jisp without even so much as a thank you. I've found closed-source products that blatantly ship my JAR file to customers -- and to add insult to injury, some of these companies send their users to me for free tech support!
I've had two commercial compiler companies and two major distributions -- including Ubuntu -- tell me that they want to use Acovea for optimization, but they don't offer any funding or support. And it isn't just corporations: How many Gentoo users have sent me a donation or code? Two. How many support requests have I had from the Gentoo community? Hundreds. Leaching from others is human nature; the corporations merely reflect the community in general.
Okay, okay! SO I'm in a bad mood today, and I shouldn't generalize, and... mea culpa.
I just find it so frustrating that so many people don't seem to respect the right of creators to profit from their their work. (Note that profit need not be money -- it can be in making society better, or in scratching an itch, or in just having fun, too.)
For every person who supports local artists, there are thousands who download illegally. GPL violations are simply a symptom of a broader problem in our selfish society.
All the hand-wringing over "GPL violations" seems a tad hypocritcal when coming from a community (e.g., the "Slashdot" crowd) that supports "free-as-in-beer" music piracy and chortles at Microsoft's tribulations with software pirates.
GPL violations are rampant; companies know they can get away with it, and it certainly saves time and money. I've worked in companies where the first solution to a technical problem is a Google or Freshmeat search. And I've quit a high-paying job over (in part) the use of GPL'd code in a commercial, closed-source application.
These GPL-violating companies use logic very similar to that of music pirates: In their view, they're not hurting anyone. Do the companies reflect the general lack of ethics in society, or did they create an ethical void by their own selfish actions? I tend toward the latter explanation, but it still leaves us with theives complaining about bandits.
Respect breeds respect, folks. If you want a better society that respects the GPL, you need to respect other people's rights as well.
To keep down the noise, I've removed the comment about the value of babies. Sheesh.;)
I appreciate the responses herein, even the annoying ones.;) Frankly, I'd love to see people do much longer, in-depth reviews of FOSS projects, if only to spur attention to issues of quality.
For those folk who have opposing opinions to mine: Please feel free to publish your own comparison or review.
One benchmark *was* C++ (povray), and, in fact, I use KDE as my desktop. It just so happens that most code in a distribution is written in C.
I have quite a bit of heavily-templatized C++ in my library and customer code, but it is either proprietary (under NDA) or unsuitable to timing. As I state in the article, C++ programmers should seriously consider GCC 4.0 for it's imrpoved compile times, if nothing else.
Ah, the problem in selectign benchmarks and compiler flags.
I tried to treat GCC 4.0 as if I were a "normal" user, throwing the "obvious" best flags at each application. If I select specialized flags for each application, someone inevitably complains "but real people won't do that!"
So I get bit no matter which flags I use.
Now, insofar as profiling an such, see my Acovea work, which is how I find the best options for compiling.
I have three great daughters, all very different, and I had no idea what they would turn out to be when they were born. One of the most fun parts of parenting is watching your kids emerge with time.
No one in my family is bothered, so I guess I don;t see where the insult lies.
It's odd, then, how LAME's performance was dependent on the compiler used to generate the code. If the C compiler is unimportant, why did GCC 4.0 turn in results different from GCC 3.4.3?
That said, you do have a valid point about the LAME benchmark using assembler in certain bits. I'll pick something else next time around.
The fact that GCC 4.0 loses ground on number crunching (no assembler) didn't seem to get your notice. And an increase in kernel size, plus longer compiles, isn't good news for kernel developers.
Keep an eye on 4.0. Like a baby, we won't really appreciate its value until it's matured a bit.
...didn't you understand?
I'm more than happy to let GCC 4.0 mature. People should, however, have some sense of what 4.0 means and implies, which is what I was trying to convey in my article.
Why doesn't Microsoft properly support open, international standards like C99 and PNG? Microsoft is obviously a very capable company with exceptional resources, so the only explanation is that they don't want to be cooperative.
As a disclaimer: I've worked for Microsoft, and taken tiny bits of their money a decade ago for a book and some other trivial projects. I have no reason to hate MS on any personal level. My distaste for Microsoft and move to FOSS solutions is based on their business practices, the antics of people like Balmer, and their refusal to support internation standards. Give me complete CSS and PNG support in IE, give me open document standards, make working with NTFS easier via Samba, and implement complete international standards like C99. Then Microsoft will look a while lot better to me.
Slashdot Mirror
You misinterpret my meaning.
I've a house containing thousands of real books, hundreds of TV episodes and movies, and enough music to fill a 200GB drive... and as a professional writer myself, I'm well aware of how important issues can be effectively treated in creative form. Star Trek (at least in its early forms) is an excellent example of entertainment also bringing about social change.
That said, I have seen little evidence that something like Galactica is going to make many people suddenly become active in real world issues. I suspect most people watch the show because of the sexy people and exciting action. Do you think Galactica will inspire a generation of new rocket scientists or get people involved in social issues? I don't.
I already work on a number of social and political problems; I'm very much aware of the problems in modern society. And perhaps working in those has lead me to seek escapism in my entertainment. I get bludgeoned all day about "issues"; when I lay back in my recliner, I want to relax and see hope.
Consider the people who accomplish great things, and then ask yourself if they spend a lot of time looking for inspiration in space operas.
The first sentence above is a quote from the message I'm replying to. I forgot to make that clear.
This is serious TV. I was left mentally exhausted by many eposides last season. They dealt with so many issues that have relevance to many topics in present day life.
I prefer to become "mentally exhausted" by addressing real issues that affect real people. I don't see the point in getting all worked up over the trials and travails of fictional people.
The original series was campy -- and well, downright stupid at times. But at least Lorne Greene, Dirk Benedict, and company had a sense of humor.
I just watched the entire first season of the "new" Galactica, and probably won't watch the premeire tonight. *Everyone* in the series is carrying more angst than a yearful of soap operas. They're all dying, or question themselves, or fighting with friends and family, or trying to figure out if they're human... heck, the only happy person is the slutty Cylon! Not that there's anything wrong with hot Cylon babes or cute Korean chicks... ;)
Now, I don't expect sweetness and light; heck, my favorite science fiction series are Farscape, Firefly, and Babylon 5, all of which had plenty of angst and drama and "bad things." But those series had hope and humor. Battlestar Galactica seems to be one big depression fest, and that just doesn't interest me.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
OUCH!
Ahem. My current significant other informs me that she can take down zombies just fine. I'll take her word for it.
Malarky.
Do auto manufacturers promote their cars as get-away vehicles? No.
Do file sharing networks openly promote their use for trading illegal files? Yes.
A vast gulf divides creating products that can be used for criminal activity, and designing products for crime.
No need to get your knickers in a knot.
First, not everyone working on KDE or Gnome or Linux or GCC is a volunteer; if anything, people being paid to work on major FOSS projects is becoming more and more common.
Second, just because you're doing volunteer work doesn't mean my points are invalid. If FOSS people are going to claim that they're as good as or better than the closed-source competition, they need to walk the talk.
Ignoring, for a moment, Dvorak's predictions for Linux's demise, he does have a very valid point that Linux/Gnome/KDE advocates seem to be missing:
The problem isn't isolated to Impress; KDE and Gome applications tend either to mimic Windows equivalents, or have UI's with far too many menus, toolbars, tabs, sidebars, bells, whistles, and fruit baskets. GUI concepts change dramatically between releases (Gnome's file browser, anyone?), and there seems to be little or no documentation for many applications.
Unix-oriented developers tend to be both intelligent and arrogant; the assumption is that if a program is good enough for a geek, it's good enough for everyone else, too.
That isn't to say that Windows applications are any more consistent; even Excel and Word have annoying differences in menus and options, and programs these days are a web of menus and options. To change a program's behavior (on Windows, KDE, or Gnome), do I look for "Preferences" or "Options" or "Settings" or "Configure" in the menus? Something so simple, and yet so inconsistent.
Being "right" doesn't always (or even usually) mean you'll succeed, and just because FOSS developers think they have the moral high ground doesn't mean users are going to flock to their door. KDE and Gnome need to give people a reason to use them, by providing more intuitive interfaces and a better understanding of user's needs.
KPDF 3.4 is terrific; for the first time, there's a very good "free" PDF viewer. It handles searches, bookmarks, extracting text... overall, it's quite nice, and I haven't needed Acrobat 7.0 since KDPF 3.4 came out. Plus, KPDF runs on my AMD64 system, while Adobe's reader does not.
People who own PCs aren't going to stop playign games just because the big publishers run to the consoles.
Many small book publishers who succeed by finding specific niches and (in some cases) alternative distribution channels. It seems to me that games provide a similar opportunity -- which is why we're working on one here at Coyote Gulch. Nice little RPG/Strategy title, somewhat original premise and game mechanics, designed with casual gamers in mind, using OpenGL and Cairo. With any luck, it may find a following.
Sadly, it is the American way. And it is quite difficult if the two primary culprits are in Europe. I've checked into this, and it's too expensive for a small company like mine. It's a sad day when honesty has to be enforced in a courtroom. It's not like I ask the moon for things; but some people will steal what they can, when they can, if they can get away wioth it.
The Apache people told me they don't buy anything. Jakarta and Cocoon both use/used Jisp as part of Apache. When I moved to the GPL, these groups got their knickers in a knot and demanded that I give Jisp to the Apache Foundation. These developers make money from Apache, yet not one of them offered anything more than an insistence that I change licenses. I offered them an Apache-exclusive license -- for free! -- but that wasn't good enoguh for them. SO they spent considerable time replacing Jisp (or at least that's what they said they'd do), when I offered several solutions. They just wanted womething for free, and when it wasn't free "their way", they wanted to take and control it.
I do that -- $25 for a support situation. For example, this week, one of Senselogic's customers asked me a question. I politely told him that I charge a nominal fee for support, and have never heard from him again.
IBM and other entities would be foolish to ignore the free code being given away these days. WHich is why my next major project won't be open source. I have a family to feed, and open source just doesn't pay the bills anymore.
Open Source software would not be as "good" today if it weren't for corporate cash. However, corporate cash has also distorted development of important packages like GCC and Linux, where minority platforms and user communities get marginalized because the developers are focused on the needs of their corporate sponsors.
Those are simply the facts of life; the needs of Red Hat, IBM, and Novell outweigh the needs of many users, simply through the application of cash. Adam Smith would be pleased.
My frustration is with companies -- big and small -- who use free and open software without attribution or support for the original author. A case in point: I've stopped updating and upgrading Jisp, my Java database engine, because too many people, ranging from Apache (who want to take ownership from me over the GPL) to SenseLogic use Jisp without even so much as a thank you. I've found closed-source products that blatantly ship my JAR file to customers -- and to add insult to injury, some of these companies send their users to me for free tech support!
I've had two commercial compiler companies and two major distributions -- including Ubuntu -- tell me that they want to use Acovea for optimization, but they don't offer any funding or support. And it isn't just corporations: How many Gentoo users have sent me a donation or code? Two. How many support requests have I had from the Gentoo community? Hundreds. Leaching from others is human nature; the corporations merely reflect the community in general.
Actually, "organisation" and "centre" are valid spellings of those words.
Can you document these incidents? Or at least provide some pointers, like a district/city, so that someone could research this?
I hear lots of terrible tales about Microsoft and the BSA, but usually there's no one willing (or able) to go public or provide concrete evidence.
Okay, okay! SO I'm in a bad mood today, and I shouldn't generalize, and... mea culpa.
I just find it so frustrating that so many people don't seem to respect the right of creators to profit from their their work. (Note that profit need not be money -- it can be in making society better, or in scratching an itch, or in just having fun, too.)
For every person who supports local artists, there are thousands who download illegally. GPL violations are simply a symptom of a broader problem in our selfish society.
Ah, I just love intelligent responses like this one. I'd ask for some intellectual honesty, but at least one of those elements is missing, I'm afraid.
Flamebait, eh? :)
Can you please point out where what I've said isn't true?
All the hand-wringing over "GPL violations" seems a tad hypocritcal when coming from a community (e.g., the "Slashdot" crowd) that supports "free-as-in-beer" music piracy and chortles at Microsoft's tribulations with software pirates.
GPL violations are rampant; companies know they can get away with it, and it certainly saves time and money. I've worked in companies where the first solution to a technical problem is a Google or Freshmeat search. And I've quit a high-paying job over (in part) the use of GPL'd code in a commercial, closed-source application.
These GPL-violating companies use logic very similar to that of music pirates: In their view, they're not hurting anyone. Do the companies reflect the general lack of ethics in society, or did they create an ethical void by their own selfish actions? I tend toward the latter explanation, but it still leaves us with theives complaining about bandits.
Respect breeds respect, folks. If you want a better society that respects the GPL, you need to respect other people's rights as well.
To keep down the noise, I've removed the comment about the value of babies. Sheesh. ;)
I appreciate the responses herein, even the annoying ones. ;) Frankly, I'd love to see people do much longer, in-depth reviews of FOSS projects, if only to spur attention to issues of quality.
For those folk who have opposing opinions to mine: Please feel free to publish your own comparison or review.
I have no clue what you're talking about.
One benchmark *was* C++ (povray), and, in fact, I use KDE as my desktop. It just so happens that most code in a distribution is written in C.
I have quite a bit of heavily-templatized C++ in my library and customer code, but it is either proprietary (under NDA) or unsuitable to timing. As I state in the article, C++ programmers should seriously consider GCC 4.0 for it's imrpoved compile times, if nothing else.
Ah, the problem in selectign benchmarks and compiler flags.
I tried to treat GCC 4.0 as if I were a "normal" user, throwing the "obvious" best flags at each application. If I select specialized flags for each application, someone inevitably complains "but real people won't do that!"
So I get bit no matter which flags I use.
Now, insofar as profiling an such, see my Acovea work, which is how I find the best options for compiling.
My, my how people latch onto the smallest things.
I have three great daughters, all very different, and I had no idea what they would turn out to be when they were born. One of the most fun parts of parenting is watching your kids emerge with time.
No one in my family is bothered, so I guess I don;t see where the insult lies.
It's odd, then, how LAME's performance was dependent on the compiler used to generate the code. If the C compiler is unimportant, why did GCC 4.0 turn in results different from GCC 3.4.3?
That said, you do have a valid point about the LAME benchmark using assembler in certain bits. I'll pick something else next time around.
The fact that GCC 4.0 loses ground on number crunching (no assembler) didn't seem to get your notice. And an increase in kernel size, plus longer compiles, isn't good news for kernel developers.
What part of (from my conclusion):
I'm more than happy to let GCC 4.0 mature. People should, however, have some sense of what 4.0 means and implies, which is what I was trying to convey in my article.
Why doesn't Microsoft properly support open, international standards like C99 and PNG? Microsoft is obviously a very capable company with exceptional resources, so the only explanation is that they don't want to be cooperative.
As a disclaimer: I've worked for Microsoft, and taken tiny bits of their money a decade ago for a book and some other trivial projects. I have no reason to hate MS on any personal level. My distaste for Microsoft and move to FOSS solutions is based on their business practices, the antics of people like Balmer, and their refusal to support internation standards. Give me complete CSS and PNG support in IE, give me open document standards, make working with NTFS easier via Samba, and implement complete international standards like C99. Then Microsoft will look a while lot better to me.