Can somebody tell me why the FSF named a piece of their software after a truly grim piece of food that only the French enjoy? Is this to be followed by GnuBovril, GnuMarmite and GnuGrits?
Is there something fundamentally different about online businesses that mean that they seem to feel that they can avoid the law? Without meaning to put them down, it does seem like a disproportionate number of them have run into conflict with the legal system, and especially when it comes to the area of copyright.
Whilst we all agree that copyright needs to adapt to the new paradigm of online digital music, it does seem like "dot-coms" are jumping the gun and attempting to implement systems which are patently illegal under current laws rather than doing the sensible thing and lobbying for changes in the law. After all, what sensible company would risk the troubles that Napster and MP3.com have suffered?
Maybe it's because of the shortcomings in the viability of the "dot-com" model, in which profitability comes from selling equity rather than from making a real profit. With such an abstract model anyway, companies may feel that they have little to lose in taking the big risks of breaking the law. After all, if it wins, it could win big. And if it fails, well they'd probably have run out of money within a year or two anyway, like othercompanies have done recently.
You could have ended that sentence four words earlier.
But I didn't.
What makes you so sure the project would grind to a halt if Linus left? Very little development on this scale has been done in this way before. There is nothing in the past to compare this to that tells me Linus leaving would be a drastically bad thing. Some people (I'm not among them BTW) think it would even be good for Linux.
Because he, as well as being the ultimate arbiter of what happens to the kernel, is as important as a recognised and respected figurehead for the operating system. Just as RMS's loss would cut the heart out of the free software movement the loss of Linus would remove the guiding force behind the kernel.
After all, who is really big enough to pick up from where these two people have left off?
I don't mean to be insulting, but all I see in what you have said is that you are afraid because you don't understand why the Linux development model works. It seems you would be more comfortable seeing a more traditional approach, but for no rational reason.
Because at least with a traditional model there are well defined structures in place for who has overall control over design decisions, and the loss of any one person is something that won't cripple a project.
This article points out an area in which Linux has one major weakness over traditionally developed operating systems such as Windows, Solaris or even BeOS, and that is that essentially one man has control over the entire operating system, and it is his somewhat capricious wishes that govern the addition of new features and the acceptance of patches.
Whilst I'm sure Linus Torvaldes is a competent, possibly even brilliant programmer, his quirks make the entire project too reliant upon him - his disdain for CVS springs to mind as an important example. Were he to be hit by a bus tomorrow then development would be stunted as people like Alan and Inigo fight over the "hot seat", and the open source movement would fail without Linux.
What Linux needs is to be incorporated under law as a non-profit organisation which can then be run by Linus at CEO/CTO. This way they can implement a professional approach to things like source code control, copyright and trademark infringements, and reviewing new proposals for the kernel, like the one rejected by Linus for specific preemption points.
Unless this happens, the Linux operating system is left vulnerable, and if its creator should leave for any reason, its progress would most likely shudder to a halt.
Because of years of mainting the "status quo" within the US, certain skin tones will. The system DOES NOT WORK. The "Lord" does create us all equal, but in the US, more people are "equal" than others in the corporate world.
Yes, some people have been marked by the Devil as being his, and it is not suprising that in a decent Christian society that are unable to find the opportunities that God-fearing men do.
Do I smell a theology troll in our midst? Hmmm, for a moment I'll play along as though this isn't.
Ah yes, because anyone expressing doubts about/. doctrine is obviously a troll aren't they? But at least you condescend to reply.
By your logic, if I may be so bold as to call it that, you would only have experiments performed on those theories which have already been proven.
No, you'd only have theories proven by experiments that were possible. Not theories so divorced from reality that it isn't possible to test them.
If something has already been proven, what is the point of experimenting with it any further?
Errm, none. Anything more is just busywork, a waste of resources.
Only one who is of the theological mind set ever bothers to capitalize the "T" in truth.
Indeed, because there is truth, as in conversational truth, and Truth, as in the Truth of our Lord. Different things entirely.
Ya see folks, the Bible didn't cover nuclear physics, therefore none of this stuff really exists. Furthermore, since the Bible already tells us everything we ever needed to know about how the Earth came about this experimenting is completely useless.
Of course the Bible didn't cover those things, it was written thousands of years ago! What kind of fool do you take me for? But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
Would that be an RPG based on the books by Roger Zelazney (sp?)?
Yeah, the Amber Diceless RPG is based upon Zelazny's Amber books. The main game concentrates on the people and things revealed in the Corwin saga and is taken as the "core" ideas, whereas "Shadow Knight" (a supplement that contains at least as much as the original rulebook) contains all of the people and powers contained in the Merlin saga.
Damn fine game if you have an excellent Gamesmaster and players... there are very few mechanics (no dice rolls) and chapters full of GMing techniques and ideas. To create characters you bid for attributes (Strength, Endurance, Warfare and Psyche) in an auction and then get to buy powers, allies and other perks.
If you liked the books, its worth buying just for the information contained within them. For more information, see this page here.
Besides, any intelligent person knows that Harn (www.columbiagames.com) is the only good RGP.;-)
Harn? God, I haven't heard of that in about fifteen years...:) Anyway, every gamer knows that Champions is the best role-playing system out there. Or maybe the Amber system.
What does that say, that of my two favourite systems one has loads of dice and rules, and the other uses no dice and has about three rules?
... maybe Vampire should be used as a metaphor for the curse of having to develop parasitic proprietry software, thus sapping people of their resources. The ultimate aim of all programmers would then be represented by Golconda, the state of making a living writing GPLed software.
--- Jon E. Erikson
Re:Mage : the ascension == a must-read
on
Mage The Ascension
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, I've given up on active role-playing for quite a few years now, but I can still sit there and read the World of Darkness stuff because of the sheer richness and depth of the world it is set in. The emphasis on setting and storytelling that White Wolf have pushed for really shows, and practically every paragraph you read screams an adventure idea at you.
I can state my familiarity with Mage, having played it and other World of Darkness games before, but I can honestly never say that I've noticed the link between it and the modern emergence of the corporate republic and the changes to socioeconomic factors caused by the growth of the net. Or something like that anyway.
But let's take this analogy further. If Mage represents the struggle towards the new reality of the information age, what does say, Vampire represent? The parasitic nature of the corporate republic? And Werewolf? Perhaps the alienation of the geek, how they are both part of and outside of modern culture, and how their innermost self is not truly understood by normal people? I can't even think what Wraith or Changeling would represent.
Anyway, next week: How Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition is a metaphor for the struggle against software patents.
Why are people here naive enough to actually believe anything they hear about the next Star Wars movie? It seems blatently obvious that all of these rumours are being put about deliberately by Lucas and co. just to drum up extra interest in the film without paying for it.
After all, he's already shown how little he cares for the people that buy his films with his DVD and "special edition" video policy, so what's a bit of public manipulation to him? Just ignore the hype, go see the film if you have to (it must be nice having fans that will go no matter how crap the film is) and then realise that it's another massively overhyped CGI-driven movie for ten year old kids with no tolerance for a plot.
If that is the case, what possible arguements can we muster against things like internet regulation.
I'm afraid that there aren't any moral arguments than can be presented against allowing the agencies that protect us and our children to attempt to make the net a safer, more secure place for everyone. Strawman arguments for privacy only benefit those with something to hide, and allow criminals and terrorists to plan their campaigns behind the shield of anonymity. If we were supposed to be able to hide our wrongdoings, the Lord wouldn't have made us all different.
With the current increase in the amount of material like child pornography (up 19% last year according to FBI statistics) and terrorist manifestos, we need to have safeguards in place to deal with these threats. Unfortunately, the ivory tower academics that designed the net didn't think to include such measures, and as a result we're forced to add them now.
And what is the result? People with such petty, insignificant lives that no self-respecting law enforcement agency would want to snoop on them are complaining that their "privacy" is being violated. Wake up people, there are some very evil people out there, and it is our duty as decent Christians to do everything we can to help stop them.
My honest reaction to this on both a personal and professional level of interest is "who cares"? The latest industry figures for companies from the Fortune 500 down is that NetWare is well on the way to becoming deader than the prospects for the Star Trek franchise. People just aren't interested in it any more, and compatibility is becoming less of an issue every day as companies upgrade their architecture.
Since I've started following the rise of the open source movement as championed by the people's hero, RMS (by the way, what does the M stand for? or is it just a "hack" so he gets a tech-friendly TLA name?), I've seen more and more companies start to move their enterprise solutions onto open source platforms - mainly Linux, but some more daring pioneers are opting for BSD. This switch in the way that these companies operate is slowly filtering up to larger and larger companies, traditionally friends with Solaris systems or even "big irons".
I haven't heard NetWare spoken about for a couple of years, except for the odd customer trying to get rid of it and install something else. It seems to me that this is just another open source "toy" operating system which will founder on a sea of indifference. Linux and BSD have already captured almost all of the mindshare amongst the open source crowd, and alternatives are just not going to find it easy to muscle in.
So, I don't think that this project will go anywhere. Like too many open source projects, it falls into the category of "wishware" - it'll never get past version 0.001-pre6 alpha 3 or whatever.
Well it's not technically a pure CISC chip either since all instructions are internally translated to microcode. So adding 144 new instructions merely means adding more capability to the translation unit IIRC rather than changing the whole thing...
Which is that nobody wants to play them any more. Supply and demand is at play here. If people still wanted flight sims companies would be developing them.
Since obviously nobody wants or plays many of these types of games, I have to ask - who cares?
That infrastructure is in place to bring MORE MONEY and not to make athlete's life easier.
And? This money is for the event itself, not for the competitors! It goes towards paying for the huge costs involved in running an event of that size. As I said earlier, how else are they going to finance it?
I don't care. Why do they need the money in the first place?
Your lack of understanding of even rudimentary economics is truly astounding.
Maybe if the Olimpics will be in where child porn is legal would that be OK for you that they will advertise child porn during the show in order to make money for the infrastructure?
What are you talking about? What has child porn got to do with the Olympics? Obviously, not being paedophiles they're not going to be sponsered by a child porn ring are they?
I'm not denying that the web has the potential to offer comprehensive and professional reporting on a wide range of subjects, merely that it doesn't at the moment. Thanks to the manifest unprofitability of dot-coms they bend over to receive every time a commercial opportunity presents itself, and throw such concepts as "journalistic integrity" out of the door.
Until I see otherwise, I will remain unimpressed by the idea of online news.
When you think about carefully, the Spanish Empire rests upon a huge infrastructure, and this, unsuprisingly enough, costs a lot of money. How else are they going to obtain this money without sending mercenaries to rape and pillage in the New World.
What is all of this drivel supposed to mean? Are you trying to make some kind of "point" here? The IOC is hardly oppressing anybody, merely deciding on who gets to watch an event they own. Nothing could be fairer.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Your wish to make money does not take precedence over my right to share information.
Yes, I'm sure you can justify theft in many ways. But it's not your information, and just because you don't want to pay for it doesn't make it any less true. Sorry.
It's not just real-time streaming that's being banned, but also media credentials for on-line sports journalists.
To be honest the level of professionalism displayed by online journalists hardly lends any support to the claim that they deserve to be treated as professionals. I don't blame the IOC for being wary of the "accurate" and "unbiased" internet media.
but even more, the real problem is that the IOC is out of touch, out of the loop, and quite possibly too old to understand the internet, the people who use it, and why it is important.
And what are you basing this on? And forgive me for saying this, but why is the internet just so important?
Slashdot Mirror
Can somebody tell me why the FSF named a piece of their software after a truly grim piece of food that only the French enjoy? Is this to be followed by GnuBovril, GnuMarmite and GnuGrits?
---
Jon E. Erikson
Is there something fundamentally different about online businesses that mean that they seem to feel that they can avoid the law? Without meaning to put them down, it does seem like a disproportionate number of them have run into conflict with the legal system, and especially when it comes to the area of copyright.
Whilst we all agree that copyright needs to adapt to the new paradigm of online digital music, it does seem like "dot-coms" are jumping the gun and attempting to implement systems which are patently illegal under current laws rather than doing the sensible thing and lobbying for changes in the law. After all, what sensible company would risk the troubles that Napster and MP3.com have suffered?
Maybe it's because of the shortcomings in the viability of the "dot-com" model, in which profitability comes from selling equity rather than from making a real profit. With such an abstract model anyway, companies may feel that they have little to lose in taking the big risks of breaking the law. After all, if it wins, it could win big. And if it fails, well they'd probably have run out of money within a year or two anyway, like other companies have done recently.
---
Jon E. Erikson
You could have ended that sentence four words earlier.
But I didn't.
What makes you so sure the project would grind to a halt if Linus left? Very little development on this scale has been done in this way before. There is nothing in the past to compare this to that tells me Linus leaving would be a drastically bad thing. Some people (I'm not among them BTW) think it would even be good for Linux.
Because he, as well as being the ultimate arbiter of what happens to the kernel, is as important as a recognised and respected figurehead for the operating system. Just as RMS's loss would cut the heart out of the free software movement the loss of Linus would remove the guiding force behind the kernel.
After all, who is really big enough to pick up from where these two people have left off?
I don't mean to be insulting, but all I see in what you have said is that you are afraid because you don't understand why the Linux development model works. It seems you would be more comfortable seeing a more traditional approach, but for no rational reason.
Because at least with a traditional model there are well defined structures in place for who has overall control over design decisions, and the loss of any one person is something that won't cripple a project.
---
Jon E. Erikson
This article points out an area in which Linux has one major weakness over traditionally developed operating systems such as Windows, Solaris or even BeOS, and that is that essentially one man has control over the entire operating system, and it is his somewhat capricious wishes that govern the addition of new features and the acceptance of patches.
Whilst I'm sure Linus Torvaldes is a competent, possibly even brilliant programmer, his quirks make the entire project too reliant upon him - his disdain for CVS springs to mind as an important example. Were he to be hit by a bus tomorrow then development would be stunted as people like Alan and Inigo fight over the "hot seat", and the open source movement would fail without Linux.
What Linux needs is to be incorporated under law as a non-profit organisation which can then be run by Linus at CEO/CTO. This way they can implement a professional approach to things like source code control, copyright and trademark infringements, and reviewing new proposals for the kernel, like the one rejected by Linus for specific preemption points.
Unless this happens, the Linux operating system is left vulnerable, and if its creator should leave for any reason, its progress would most likely shudder to a halt.
---
Jon E. Erikson
I love orbital insertions in AC. If you get them first, you can easily wipe out other factions...
---
Jon E. Erikson
Because of years of mainting the "status quo" within the US, certain skin tones will. The system DOES NOT WORK. The "Lord" does create us all equal, but in the US, more people are "equal" than others in the corporate world.
Yes, some people have been marked by the Devil as being his, and it is not suprising that in a decent Christian society that are unable to find the opportunities that God-fearing men do.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Do I smell a theology troll in our midst? Hmmm, for a moment I'll play along as though this isn't.
Ah yes, because anyone expressing doubts about /. doctrine is obviously a troll aren't they? But at least you condescend to reply.
By your logic, if I may be so bold as to call it that, you would only have experiments performed on those theories which have already been proven.
No, you'd only have theories proven by experiments that were possible. Not theories so divorced from reality that it isn't possible to test them.
If something has already been proven, what is the point of experimenting with it any further?
Errm, none. Anything more is just busywork, a waste of resources.
Only one who is of the theological mind set ever bothers to capitalize the "T" in truth.
Indeed, because there is truth, as in conversational truth, and Truth, as in the Truth of our Lord. Different things entirely.
Ya see folks, the Bible didn't cover nuclear physics, therefore none of this stuff really exists. Furthermore, since the Bible already tells us everything we ever needed to know about how the Earth came about this experimenting is completely useless.
Of course the Bible didn't cover those things, it was written thousands of years ago! What kind of fool do you take me for? But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Would that be an RPG based on the books by Roger Zelazney (sp?)?
Yeah, the Amber Diceless RPG is based upon Zelazny's Amber books. The main game concentrates on the people and things revealed in the Corwin saga and is taken as the "core" ideas, whereas "Shadow Knight" (a supplement that contains at least as much as the original rulebook) contains all of the people and powers contained in the Merlin saga.
Damn fine game if you have an excellent Gamesmaster and players... there are very few mechanics (no dice rolls) and chapters full of GMing techniques and ideas. To create characters you bid for attributes (Strength, Endurance, Warfare and Psyche) in an auction and then get to buy powers, allies and other perks.
If you liked the books, its worth buying just for the information contained within them. For more information, see this page here.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Besides, any intelligent person knows that Harn (www.columbiagames.com) is the only good RGP. ;-)
Harn? God, I haven't heard of that in about fifteen years... :) Anyway, every gamer knows that Champions is the best role-playing system out there. Or maybe the Amber system.
What does that say, that of my two favourite systems one has loads of dice and rules, and the other uses no dice and has about three rules?
---
Jon E. Erikson
They're just GAMES Jon. They're not linked to anything but power fantasises....
Which Jon do you mean? I was trying to be funny...
---
Jon E. Erikson
... maybe Vampire should be used as a metaphor for the curse of having to develop parasitic proprietry software, thus sapping people of their resources. The ultimate aim of all programmers would then be represented by Golconda, the state of making a living writing GPLed software.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Yeah, I've given up on active role-playing for quite a few years now, but I can still sit there and read the World of Darkness stuff because of the sheer richness and depth of the world it is set in. The emphasis on setting and storytelling that White Wolf have pushed for really shows, and practically every paragraph you read screams an adventure idea at you.
---
Jon E. Erikson
I can state my familiarity with Mage, having played it and other World of Darkness games before, but I can honestly never say that I've noticed the link between it and the modern emergence of the corporate republic and the changes to socioeconomic factors caused by the growth of the net. Or something like that anyway.
But let's take this analogy further. If Mage represents the struggle towards the new reality of the information age, what does say, Vampire represent? The parasitic nature of the corporate republic? And Werewolf? Perhaps the alienation of the geek, how they are both part of and outside of modern culture, and how their innermost self is not truly understood by normal people? I can't even think what Wraith or Changeling would represent.
Anyway, next week: How Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition is a metaphor for the struggle against software patents.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Why are people here naive enough to actually believe anything they hear about the next Star Wars movie? It seems blatently obvious that all of these rumours are being put about deliberately by Lucas and co. just to drum up extra interest in the film without paying for it.
After all, he's already shown how little he cares for the people that buy his films with his DVD and "special edition" video policy, so what's a bit of public manipulation to him? Just ignore the hype, go see the film if you have to (it must be nice having fans that will go no matter how crap the film is) and then realise that it's another massively overhyped CGI-driven movie for ten year old kids with no tolerance for a plot.
---
Jon E. Erikson
If that is the case, what possible arguements can we muster against things like internet regulation.
I'm afraid that there aren't any moral arguments than can be presented against allowing the agencies that protect us and our children to attempt to make the net a safer, more secure place for everyone. Strawman arguments for privacy only benefit those with something to hide, and allow criminals and terrorists to plan their campaigns behind the shield of anonymity. If we were supposed to be able to hide our wrongdoings, the Lord wouldn't have made us all different.
With the current increase in the amount of material like child pornography (up 19% last year according to FBI statistics) and terrorist manifestos, we need to have safeguards in place to deal with these threats. Unfortunately, the ivory tower academics that designed the net didn't think to include such measures, and as a result we're forced to add them now.
And what is the result? People with such petty, insignificant lives that no self-respecting law enforcement agency would want to snoop on them are complaining that their "privacy" is being violated. Wake up people, there are some very evil people out there, and it is our duty as decent Christians to do everything we can to help stop them.
---
Jon E. Erikson
My honest reaction to this on both a personal and professional level of interest is "who cares"? The latest industry figures for companies from the Fortune 500 down is that NetWare is well on the way to becoming deader than the prospects for the Star Trek franchise. People just aren't interested in it any more, and compatibility is becoming less of an issue every day as companies upgrade their architecture.
Since I've started following the rise of the open source movement as championed by the people's hero, RMS (by the way, what does the M stand for? or is it just a "hack" so he gets a tech-friendly TLA name?), I've seen more and more companies start to move their enterprise solutions onto open source platforms - mainly Linux, but some more daring pioneers are opting for BSD. This switch in the way that these companies operate is slowly filtering up to larger and larger companies, traditionally friends with Solaris systems or even "big irons".
I haven't heard NetWare spoken about for a couple of years, except for the odd customer trying to get rid of it and install something else. It seems to me that this is just another open source "toy" operating system which will founder on a sea of indifference. Linux and BSD have already captured almost all of the mindshare amongst the open source crowd, and alternatives are just not going to find it easy to muscle in.
So, I don't think that this project will go anywhere. Like too many open source projects, it falls into the category of "wishware" - it'll never get past version 0.001-pre6 alpha 3 or whatever.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Whatever happened to RISC?
Well it's not technically a pure CISC chip either since all instructions are internally translated to microcode. So adding 144 new instructions merely means adding more capability to the translation unit IIRC rather than changing the whole thing...
---
Jon E. Erikson
Try this link at CNET for more information.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Which is that nobody wants to play them any more. Supply and demand is at play here. If people still wanted flight sims companies would be developing them.
Since obviously nobody wants or plays many of these types of games, I have to ask - who cares?
---
Jon E. Erikson
That infrastructure is in place to bring MORE MONEY and not to make athlete's life easier.
And? This money is for the event itself, not for the competitors! It goes towards paying for the huge costs involved in running an event of that size. As I said earlier, how else are they going to finance it?
I don't care. Why do they need the money in the first place?
Your lack of understanding of even rudimentary economics is truly astounding.
Maybe if the Olimpics will be in where child porn is legal would that be OK for you that they will advertise child porn during the show in order to make money for the infrastructure?
What are you talking about? What has child porn got to do with the Olympics? Obviously, not being paedophiles they're not going to be sponsered by a child porn ring are they?
---
Jon E. Erikson
Who in the Internet industry faces the journalistic standards of accountability and credibility?
From the website you link to... the answer:
Nobody!
Until they do, online news will continue to suck. I'm sure you mean well, but if wishes were fishes...
---
Jon E. Erikson
I'm not denying that the web has the potential to offer comprehensive and professional reporting on a wide range of subjects, merely that it doesn't at the moment. Thanks to the manifest unprofitability of dot-coms they bend over to receive every time a commercial opportunity presents itself, and throw such concepts as "journalistic integrity" out of the door.
Until I see otherwise, I will remain unimpressed by the idea of online news.
---
Jon E. Erikson
When you think about carefully, the Spanish Empire rests upon a huge infrastructure, and this, unsuprisingly enough, costs a lot of money. How else are they going to obtain this money without sending mercenaries to rape and pillage in the New World.
What is all of this drivel supposed to mean? Are you trying to make some kind of "point" here? The IOC is hardly oppressing anybody, merely deciding on who gets to watch an event they own. Nothing could be fairer.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Your wish to make money does not take precedence over my right to share information.
Yes, I'm sure you can justify theft in many ways. But it's not your information, and just because you don't want to pay for it doesn't make it any less true. Sorry.
---
Jon E. Erikson
It's not just real-time streaming that's being banned, but also media credentials for on-line sports journalists.
To be honest the level of professionalism displayed by online journalists hardly lends any support to the claim that they deserve to be treated as professionals. I don't blame the IOC for being wary of the "accurate" and "unbiased" internet media.
---
Jon E. Erikson
but even more, the real problem is that the IOC is out of touch, out of the loop, and quite possibly too old to understand the internet, the people who use it, and why it is important.
And what are you basing this on? And forgive me for saying this, but why is the internet just so important?
---
Jon E. Erikson