Bottom line, I won't touch GPL for anything that might make my mainline code become a derivative work and force it all to become GPL'd. BSD'sh licenses cannot do this to my mainline code, so I can use their stuff and contribute anything I think they will find useful.
I have a news flash: the GPL has no such mystical powers as being able to force your code to "become a derivative work" or "become GPL'ed".
If your code is derived from some other code base, then it is. If it is not, then it is not. The GPL has nothing to do with this. If you want total control over your source code, don't derive it from anything you don't own, no matter what the license is.
The GPL also cannot force anything else to suddenly become GPL'ed. If you derive from GPL code, then yes, your code may not be legally redistributable unless it is also available under the GPL. But again, no magic: you chose to derive, you have to play by the rules. This is true of every software license--commercial, Open Source, whatever.
I agree. You must agree, however, that usage of the word 'must' does not necessarily imply much other than that the writer is arguing for a certain position.
There are lots of people in the world bringing waterboards, but RMS is hardly one of them.
This principle of going with the provider you can sue over the one you can rely on is becoming far too prevalent.
However, in a more general sense, I'd prefer that my systems didn't go down rather than being able to point the finger when they do.
Philosophically I agree with you. Pragmatically, in most companies, this is a losing strategy. I've seen many managers whose fundamental strategy is to outsource everything, and despite their often utter incompetence, I have to admit that they maintain a very high pay/skill ratio for themselves. And Microsoft, for example, makes quite a meal catering to these types.
I agree that that's probably the primary explanation. The boss might reasonably also be asking himself, though, whether
the employee can really make cables as well as a typical vendor
this is really cost effective when you consider all of the costs/risks involved
(including the risk that said employee will quit or get run over by a bus)
he can shift this expense onto his capital budget (which may not be tightly constrained), leaving more labor available (which might be more restricted).
For be it from me to take up for PHBs, but still, it's not obvious from the post that the boss is wrong here.
One final question: Has the OP asked himself whether this is really what he'd like to be spending his time doing, given the available alternatives? I've been through episodes like this myself, and learned to realize that there's no reason putting yourself though hell to save a few bucks or make things better for people that (at best) won't care anyway. Cast not your pearls before swine, etc.
Maybe you should read it. That was an essay, not an RFC. Furthermore, even RFC "MUST"s apply only within the context of the RFC (e.g., "If you wish to be considered an Internet troll, you MUST do X, Y, and Z.")
However, according to Zawinski's Law, it also needs to read mail...
When ignorance looks like this, 'tis folly to be..
on
Cosmetic Neurology
·
· Score: 1
I meant a drug that would make the taker of the drug more attractive, though dumb as a post. In other words, given the chance, how many of us would choose to look like Brad or Angelina, even if it came with the mental limitations of the average actor?
If a nootropic came to exist that made you a whole bunch smarter, and a whole bunch less creative with no other obvious side effects - I think you can kiss creativity goodbye.
Imagine what we'd do with a drug that made people a whole bunch more attractive, albeit incredibly stupid...
I installed it on an old (even for then) POS 16MHz 386 PC we had sitting in a corner at work. Mostly I remember running 'find/' over and over again, marveling at how outrageously fast it was compared to the Sun Sparcstations (1+'s or 2's?) that we used for real work. Not an entirely fair comparison, since the Sun's used bitmapped graphics for everything, whereas Linux in console mode gets to use character-mode video hardware. Still, it was a revelation.
A few years later, I was developing an early web site, and damned if that thing didn't run faster on underpowered Compaq Aero 486SX than it did on the Sun boxes we had there. At that point, Sun had just switched to "Slowlaris", and I really can't think of any Sun box since that I've seen match Linux for speed. They did/do still support larger, more enterprisey hardware, of course.
In my day, I spent hundreds of hours playing Quake (and I don't think I've seen anything that matched it), but I no longer have the time, energy, patience, or remaining carpal tunnel capacity to put up with learning some game's 17 inverse lower Egyptian Ninja super power spin moves. Plus, I have little kids and a wife, so unfortunately the spurting gore- and slut-fests are out.
When I get home from a long day at work, I want to blow up easy-to-hit baddies for a while, or walk around in an interesting and well-written environment. I don't want to see "game over" or even be sent back to the "beginning of the level". Better yet, the game should come with a "god mode" accessible from the very beginning--I bought the damn thing, I'll decide how much I'd like to "cheat".
I'm having trouble finding good games like this, but I have plenty of money burning a hole in my pocket if someone can point them out to me. Zelda Wind Waker was not too bad, though really too difficult to be really entertaining. At this point, Lego Star Wars is about as good as I've found.
That's what "casual" is to me. I have a Wii. Game suggestions welcome.
...suddenly the community isn't happy and it's fork fork fork
Okay, but unhappy customers are going to leave anyway. Is this really any worse than having them flee to your commercial competitor?
Also, with this "downside", there is a balancing upside, which is that having your source code be Open Source is a substantial benefit for your customers. When I'm choosing vendors, if there's a serious competitor offering an Open Source product, that all but rules out the closed alternatives.
Why exactly does it merit any research? This is not riddle posed by Nature... You are not advancing scientific progress by figuring out somebody's scheme.
Good grief. If you're trying to find out something that you can't just go look up at the library, and you're forming and testing hypotheses to do so, that could reasonably be called "research". Don't be so pedantic.:-)
(Anyway, it may well turn out that Nature is just stuff that someone already knows all the answers perfectly to and just doesn't want to tell you.)
True, I can multitask while the TV is showing something I've seen or do not care about.
Actually, I do fairly well watching episodes of TV shows that I've already watched into the ground (e.g., MASH). Because I know exactly what's going to happen, I can tune in and out at any time without missing anything. It's kind of meditative.
I also agree about the headphones. Perhaps these two are related.
The GPL only exists to ameliorate the ill effects of copyright. I think (and I believe he has said) that RMS would much prefer that copyright go away, at least with respect to software.
Obese people eat more calories than they burn. You might be able to come up with reasons why they do (perhaps microbial based reasons) - and therefor come up with ways to mitigate that behavior - the fact remains, they eat too many calories. Barring rare disease (exceedingly rare) that's the only explanation for their obesity
True enough, but that's like telling someone who's on fire that they need to decrease their temperature. True, but not very helpful practically, in the absence of a lot more help.
Metabolism is complicated, but there's only so much variation possible. For one person to have a metabolism 3 to 4 times more efficient than someone else's (without the second person having an obvious problem) isn't possible.
Perhaps, but a two-fold difference is not required to cause a problem. In fact, our energy balance mechanisms are spectacularly precise, and only a minor imbalance is required to cause problems. If you consume 1% more calories than you need each day for 20 years, you will be quite obese at the end of this period. There's not a person alive who can intentionally regulate their calrorie intake at this level of precision. We all rely on our unconscious mechanisms, over which we unfortunately have fairly limited control.
Yeah, I was joking--I know Google has better taste than to distribute something that won't work well in a straight Linux environment (unlike some other wannabe companies that shall remain nameless).
If I remember correctly it's even based on Ant.
You say that as if it's a good thing.;-)
I haven't done heavy Java development since before Ant had really caught on, but as far as I can tell, it was written to pave over Windows' entirely incompetent set of command-line tools. And maybe to catch the XML train, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but just makes Antfiles utterly unreadable to my eyes. (Even the tiny example on the Wikipedia page makes me want to hurl.)
If it makes you feel any better, the job titles for "people who make computers do useful things" are virtually useless as well. Over my (long) career I've found that you usually can't tell what someone does (or is capable of) by looking at their job title even if you're familiar with the title structure of the company. For places you're not familiar with, it's totally hopeless.
As far as I can tell, job titles primarily exist to give HR the impression they understand what's going on. Beyond that, I mostly favor general titles ("Member of the Technical Staff") or whimsical ones ("Data Mortician"), and I think we should get to choose our own.
Slashdot Mirror
anti-capitalist hippie and the gun-loving greaseball
Most Open Source licenses are less capitalist than the GPL, and ESR does love guns, but I don't think he's a "greaseball".
Bottom line, I won't touch GPL for anything that might make my mainline code become a derivative work and force it all to become GPL'd. BSD'sh licenses cannot do this to my mainline code, so I can use their stuff and contribute anything I think they will find useful.
I have a news flash: the GPL has no such mystical powers as being able to force your code to "become a derivative work" or "become GPL'ed".
If your code is derived from some other code base, then it is. If it is not, then it is not. The GPL has nothing to do with this. If you want total control over your source code, don't derive it from anything you don't own, no matter what the license is.
The GPL also cannot force anything else to suddenly become GPL'ed. If you derive from GPL code, then yes, your code may not be legally redistributable unless it is also available under the GPL. But again, no magic: you chose to derive, you have to play by the rules. This is true of every software license--commercial, Open Source, whatever.
Thanks!!
He likes to pretend/delude himself into thinking that he's speaking from a position of authority.
If RMS is not authoritative on this subject, I truly cannot imagine what a person could possibly do to achieve that status.
I agree. You must agree, however, that usage of the word 'must' does not necessarily imply much other than that the writer is arguing for a certain position.
There are lots of people in the world bringing waterboards, but RMS is hardly one of them.
Chill out, dickwad. :-)
This principle of going with the provider you can sue over the one you can rely on is becoming far too prevalent.
However, in a more general sense, I'd prefer that my systems didn't go down rather than being able to point the finger when they do.
Philosophically I agree with you. Pragmatically, in most companies, this is a losing strategy. I've seen many managers whose fundamental strategy is to outsource everything, and despite their often utter incompetence, I have to admit that they maintain a very high pay/skill ratio for themselves. And Microsoft, for example, makes quite a meal catering to these types.
I agree that that's probably the primary explanation. The boss might reasonably also be asking himself, though, whether
For be it from me to take up for PHBs, but still, it's not obvious from the post that the boss is wrong here.
One final question: Has the OP asked himself whether this is really what he'd like to be spending his time doing, given the available alternatives? I've been through episodes like this myself, and learned to realize that there's no reason putting yourself though hell to save a few bucks or make things better for people that (at best) won't care anyway. Cast not your pearls before swine, etc.
Really? He should read RFC 2119.
Maybe you should read it. That was an essay, not an RFC. Furthermore, even RFC "MUST"s apply only within the context of the RFC (e.g., "If you wish to be considered an Internet troll, you MUST do X, Y, and Z.")
However, according to Zawinski's Law, it also needs to read mail...
I meant a drug that would make the taker of the drug more attractive, though dumb as a post. In other words, given the chance, how many of us would choose to look like Brad or Angelina, even if it came with the mental limitations of the average actor?
If a nootropic came to exist that made you a whole bunch smarter, and a whole bunch less creative with no other obvious side effects - I think you can kiss creativity goodbye.
Imagine what we'd do with a drug that made people a whole bunch more attractive, albeit incredibly stupid...
Isn't there an expensive series of pills with occasional lethal side effects I can take instead?
I installed it on an old (even for then) POS 16MHz 386 PC we had sitting in a corner at work. Mostly I remember running 'find /' over and over again, marveling at how outrageously fast it was compared to the Sun Sparcstations (1+'s or 2's?) that we used for real work. Not an entirely fair comparison, since the Sun's used bitmapped graphics for everything, whereas Linux in console mode gets to use character-mode video hardware. Still, it was a revelation.
A few years later, I was developing an early web site, and damned if that thing didn't run faster on underpowered Compaq Aero 486SX than it did on the Sun boxes we had there. At that point, Sun had just switched to "Slowlaris", and I really can't think of any Sun box since that I've seen match Linux for speed. They did/do still support larger, more enterprisey hardware, of course.
In my day, I spent hundreds of hours playing Quake (and I don't think I've seen anything that matched it), but I no longer have the time, energy, patience, or remaining carpal tunnel capacity to put up with learning some game's 17 inverse lower Egyptian Ninja super power spin moves. Plus, I have little kids and a wife, so unfortunately the spurting gore- and slut-fests are out.
When I get home from a long day at work, I want to blow up easy-to-hit baddies for a while, or walk around in an interesting and well-written environment. I don't want to see "game over" or even be sent back to the "beginning of the level". Better yet, the game should come with a "god mode" accessible from the very beginning--I bought the damn thing, I'll decide how much I'd like to "cheat".
I'm having trouble finding good games like this, but I have plenty of money burning a hole in my pocket if someone can point them out to me. Zelda Wind Waker was not too bad, though really too difficult to be really entertaining. At this point, Lego Star Wars is about as good as I've found.
That's what "casual" is to me. I have a Wii. Game suggestions welcome.
...suddenly the community isn't happy and it's fork fork fork
Okay, but unhappy customers are going to leave anyway. Is this really any worse than having them flee to your commercial competitor?
Also, with this "downside", there is a balancing upside, which is that having your source code be Open Source is a substantial benefit for your customers. When I'm choosing vendors, if there's a serious competitor offering an Open Source product, that all but rules out the closed alternatives.
Why exactly does it merit any research? This is not riddle posed by Nature... You are not advancing scientific progress by figuring out somebody's scheme.
Good grief. If you're trying to find out something that you can't just go look up at the library, and you're forming and testing hypotheses to do so, that could reasonably be called "research". Don't be so pedantic. :-)
(Anyway, it may well turn out that Nature is just stuff that someone already knows all the answers perfectly to and just doesn't want to tell you.)
Wasn't this the plot of some Dilbert strip?
True, I can multitask while the TV is showing something I've seen or do not care about.
Actually, I do fairly well watching episodes of TV shows that I've already watched into the ground (e.g., MASH). Because I know exactly what's going to happen, I can tune in and out at any time without missing anything. It's kind of meditative.
I also agree about the headphones. Perhaps these two are related.
Fuck the GPL. With no copyright it's unneeded.
The GPL only exists to ameliorate the ill effects of copyright. I think (and I believe he has said) that RMS would much prefer that copyright go away, at least with respect to software.
Obese people eat more calories than they burn. You might be able to come up with reasons why they do (perhaps microbial based reasons) - and therefor come up with ways to mitigate that behavior - the fact remains, they eat too many calories. Barring rare disease (exceedingly rare) that's the only explanation for their obesity
True enough, but that's like telling someone who's on fire that they need to decrease their temperature. True, but not very helpful practically, in the absence of a lot more help.
Metabolism is complicated, but there's only so much variation possible. For one person to have a metabolism 3 to 4 times more efficient than someone else's (without the second person having an obvious problem) isn't possible.
Perhaps, but a two-fold difference is not required to cause a problem. In fact, our energy balance mechanisms are spectacularly precise, and only a minor imbalance is required to cause problems. If you consume 1% more calories than you need each day for 20 years, you will be quite obese at the end of this period. There's not a person alive who can intentionally regulate their calrorie intake at this level of precision. We all rely on our unconscious mechanisms, over which we unfortunately have fairly limited control.
Yeah, I was joking--I know Google has better taste than to distribute something that won't work well in a straight Linux environment (unlike some other wannabe companies that shall remain nameless).
If I remember correctly it's even based on Ant.
You say that as if it's a good thing. ;-)
I haven't done heavy Java development since before Ant had really caught on, but as far as I can tell, it was written to pave over Windows' entirely incompetent set of command-line tools. And maybe to catch the XML train, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but just makes Antfiles utterly unreadable to my eyes. (Even the tiny example on the Wikipedia page makes me want to hurl.)
Picking up Android development was as easy as it could be. Just downloaded Eclipse and installed the Android plugin.
So, doesn't work with vi or emacs, eh?
If it makes you feel any better, the job titles for "people who make computers do useful things" are virtually useless as well. Over my (long) career I've found that you usually can't tell what someone does (or is capable of) by looking at their job title even if you're familiar with the title structure of the company. For places you're not familiar with, it's totally hopeless.
As far as I can tell, job titles primarily exist to give HR the impression they understand what's going on. Beyond that, I mostly favor general titles ("Member of the Technical Staff") or whimsical ones ("Data Mortician"), and I think we should get to choose our own.