really. even forcing the man to watch a movie repeated times - like Ludovico's technique in Clockwork Orange..
then being happy about having a hanged mans signed photo, after he was forced to watch your movie..
man, I respected the South Park guys, but this is sick
I've written a paper on this issue (downloadable from http://kormanybeszerzo.hu/ - but in Hungarian), where I found the most compelling approach is to:
identify the affected stakeholders, such as:
the society at large
the single citizen
the government agency
the IT solution provider
the IT sector at large
analyze the different procurement models & analyze the pros / cons in view of the stakeholders. for example, I analyzed the following models:
totally closed procumerment (closed source, but the governement agency doesn't even get the source code)
closed, the government agency keeps the source closed
open standards - closed source, but the components communicate via open standards / open protocols
open source - the procured solutions are opened up by the agency as a generic policy
point out the profound difference in effect to each stakeholder group in the various models. in short:
the closed models favour the single IT contractor and the government agency, because the contractor creates a vendor lock in -> thus sells overpriced solutions -> the premium is shared between the contractor and the decision makers at the agency (aka corruption)
the closed models are disadvantageous towards society, the citizen and the IT industry at large, because even though a lot of money was spent, the common wealth of the society was not increased, as the solutions can not be reused. (in contrast, a public road can be reused for private or commercial purposes by the community members)
the open models favour the society, the citizen and the IT industry at large, because they can re-use the common wealth that was created and financed by their own public money.
in the open models the decision makers at the government agency loose their opportunity for 'additional income', because of the lack of being able to specify a privileged supplier - thus they will be against such a change
in the open models, the agency's budget is decreased as a result - which means their influence between the agencies themselves is decreased. this can be countered by having them spend the same amount, but actually build on results achieved, not just buy the licenses for the same solutions every year, with no effective advancement in their range of solutions / service - in short: spend the same, achieve more
in my investigation, I've found that actually their is a shared interest between privileged suppliers and government agencies for using closed solutions - as the privileged supplier can sell overpriced solutions, while the decision makers at the agency get extra treats. this circle is most probably difficult to break.
the MS Flight Simulator was initially the product of subLOGIC, and written by Bruce Artwick. It's just that MS chose to brand and market the product. After a while, they just 'took' the source code, and started to develop it in-house. subLOGIC struggled to release its own versions, but unfortunately they failed. (For this ugly business strategy, I chose not buy MS FS ever.)
unfortunately it's the first - their idea is to create a proprietary product, that is better than the open source version, and market it.
I tried to make the case that there's a valid business model to be had even if the source code is contributed back to the community, as having a viable, working, reliable product is more than having a source code. just look at all the open source companies around. especially in this case, when it's not just a software solution - there's a hardware appliance to be made.
Richard M. Stallman wrote me an e-mail on my issue, which he agreed to being published as well. This is what he had to say:
For the sake of the free software community, assuming the program you are working on is useful (I don't know its name or what it does), please don't accept the contract you have been offered. Please tell them it would not be right to accept pay to deny the community what you have already planned to contribute.
If they plan to use their own improvements in-house, you could offer to work on those for them, as long as it doesn't stop you from contributing other things.
If they want to make a version to distribute to others as proprietary software, of course you should not help them do that.
thanks guys for the all the replies to my question. some questions were raised repeatedly, so let me try and answer them here:
- how much money are we talking about?
we're talking about at most 300 hours of work, with our regular hourly rate as a subcontractor (I'm in the subcontracting business anyway).
- how much effort was put already into this on my part?
what I'm doing, and what they are interested in is a refactoring of the project so as to improve quality and reliability. I've done about 3/5th of this already in my own time, while working on an art project. correlating with the 300 hours for the remaining 2/5ths, that's about 450 hours worth of work
- how are they making me abandon the open source project, as they only want to have exclusivity to some of the work?
by insisting on this exclusivity, I won't be able to contribute to the project without their lawyers being able to allege that I'm in fact sharing the results I mode for them originally
- how are they getting hold of my original effort this way?
what they are asking me is to finish the path which I started, which beginning does not make sense without the end. as they aim for exclusivity for the end of the route, one can't use the beginning in a meaningful way. it's like closing just a small part of a bridge - you can't pass the bridge without opening that part, no matter how small is the closed section. this way, the open parts become meaningless.
yes, this was my first though as well - are they going to ban practically _all_ hollywood movies, which "involve showing weapons with the aim of intimidation"? this is basically 99% of them. oh wait, in these movies, they actually kill people, not just intimidate them...
I've been running one for close to 2 years for just this purpose.
Runs symbian putty perfectly, does 802.11 for when you can get to it, has an ok real web browser, and does real email (imap/pop/smtp).
And on the plus side, actually fits in a pocket, and can support real typing.
Pity nokia seem to consider it a dead-end product, and go out of their way to ignore it. I'm also a Nokia E70 user, and the very reason I am is the full QWERTY keyboard that comes with it. It allows for two-thumb typing, which is quite ok for a device that really is the size of a cell phone and fits in your pocket.
But overall I wouldn't do too much systems administration with it - two thumbs are far from 10 fingers:)
IMHO this issue pretty much depends on the keyboard - for any serious work, you need a real keyboard, both in size and tactility (virtual keyboards just don't work for the lack of physical feedback)
maybe a phone with a proper screen size and an external foldable keyboard is the best solution?
your response is a prefect example of what I'm saying: you guys even agree with this kind of policing action. moreover, you even create an argument to support it - thus, this kind of behaviour is already internalized.
Looking at the project site itself: http://claraty.jpl.nasa.gov/ it seems that most pages are restricted. whenever I want to see some real documentation, it's asking for creditentials.
"Jó szerencse pölö Charles!" just doesn't make any sense. If you wanted to right: "Good luck, Charles!", you would say: "Jó szerencsét, Charles!". BTW, you'd rather say: "Jó szerencsét, Károly!" - as the name Charles is Károly in Hungarian. And yes, his original name is Simonyi Károly, written in this order as per the Hungarian custom of naming.
I just wonder how the "pölö" part came into the sentence - as it's not a word in our language. The closest I can think of that it's the pronounciation of the abbreviation "pl.", which is short for "például" - meaning: "for example". I guess you guys asked someone: "How do I say Good Luck in Hungarian?", and the answer might have been: "Jó szerencse, pl." meaning: "For example: Jó szerencsét".
well, the guy is hungarian, so it's quite natural he has a tokaji around. if you take a closer look, you'll see some other hungarian wines as well (kadarka, villanyi, etc.)
as they don't actually connect to the neurons, but read the neuron acticity patterns, probably through fast MRI scanners. and there's no feedback either - they don't send any data to the neurons (other then through the natural eye of the monkey in the tests)
Slashdot Mirror
really. even forcing the man to watch a movie repeated times - like Ludovico's technique in Clockwork Orange.. then being happy about having a hanged mans signed photo, after he was forced to watch your movie.. man, I respected the South Park guys, but this is sick
in my investigation, I've found that actually their is a shared interest between privileged suppliers and government agencies for using closed solutions - as the privileged supplier can sell overpriced solutions, while the decision makers at the agency get extra treats. this circle is most probably difficult to break.
yes, I'm also an X-Plane user - it's much better, and it's cross platform - works on Mac, Linux, Windows..
the MS Flight Simulator was initially the product of subLOGIC, and written by Bruce Artwick. It's just that MS chose to brand and market the product. After a while, they just 'took' the source code, and started to develop it in-house. subLOGIC struggled to release its own versions, but unfortunately they failed. (For this ugly business strategy, I chose not buy MS FS ever.)
Anyway, they might just chose to outsource again.
"It has been, traditionally, a company that supports open source â" especially in larger enterprises..."
like when was it when they ever supported open source in any context?
unfortunately it's the first - their idea is to create a proprietary product, that is better than the open source version, and market it.
I tried to make the case that there's a valid business model to be had even if the source code is contributed back to the community, as having a viable, working, reliable product is more than having a source code. just look at all the open source companies around. especially in this case, when it's not just a software solution - there's a hardware appliance to be made.
Richard M. Stallman wrote me an e-mail on my issue, which he agreed to being published as well. This is what he had to say:
For the sake of the free software community, assuming the program you are working on is useful (I don't know its name or what it does), please don't accept the contract you have been offered. Please tell them it would not be right to accept pay to deny the community what you have already planned to contribute.
(I won't say "open source community" because our community wasn't built by the ideas of open source. It was built by the szabad software movement. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.)
If they plan to use their own improvements in-house, you could offer to work on those for them, as long as it doesn't stop you from contributing other things.
If they want to make a version to distribute to others as proprietary software, of course you should not help them do that.
thing is - I didn't start the project itself, those who started it opted for the BSD license.
thanks guys for the all the replies to my question. some questions were raised repeatedly, so let me try and answer them here:
- how much money are we talking about?
we're talking about at most 300 hours of work, with our regular hourly rate as a subcontractor (I'm in the subcontracting business anyway).
- how much effort was put already into this on my part?
what I'm doing, and what they are interested in is a refactoring of the project so as to improve quality and reliability. I've done about 3/5th of this already in my own time, while working on an art project. correlating with the 300 hours for the remaining 2/5ths, that's about 450 hours worth of work
- how are they making me abandon the open source project, as they only want to have exclusivity to some of the work?
by insisting on this exclusivity, I won't be able to contribute to the project without their lawyers being able to allege that I'm in fact sharing the results I mode for them originally
- how are they getting hold of my original effort this way?
what they are asking me is to finish the path which I started, which beginning does not make sense without the end. as they aim for exclusivity for the end of the route, one can't use the beginning in a meaningful way. it's like closing just a small part of a bridge - you can't pass the bridge without opening that part, no matter how small is the closed section. this way, the open parts become meaningless.
kinda - the thing is, the original process is not allowed to execute as soon as the fork starts.. :)
yes, this was my first though as well - are they going to ban practically _all_ hollywood movies, which "involve showing weapons with the aim of intimidation"? this is basically 99% of them. oh wait, in these movies, they actually kill people, not just intimidate them...
I've been running one for close to 2 years for just this purpose.
:)
Runs symbian putty perfectly, does 802.11 for when you can get to it, has an ok real web browser, and does real email (imap/pop/smtp).
And on the plus side, actually fits in a pocket, and can support real typing.
Pity nokia seem to consider it a dead-end product, and go out of their way to ignore it. I'm also a Nokia E70 user, and the very reason I am is the full QWERTY keyboard that comes with it. It allows for two-thumb typing, which is quite ok for a device that really is the size of a cell phone and fits in your pocket.
But overall I wouldn't do too much systems administration with it - two thumbs are far from 10 fingers
IMHO this issue pretty much depends on the keyboard - for any serious work, you need a real keyboard, both in size and tactility (virtual keyboards just don't work for the lack of physical feedback)
maybe a phone with a proper screen size and an external foldable keyboard is the best solution?
I agree with you totally - I also find the Nintendo games very childish in visual design. Something that is hard to take 'seriously'.
but then again, consoles are usually for the casual or recreational players. but still, actually this makes it hard for me to accept ninendo as well
your response is a prefect example of what I'm saying: you guys even agree with this kind of policing action. moreover, you even create an argument to support it - thus, this kind of behaviour is already internalized.
this is really sad.
I'm pretty much sorry for you all.
I got almost sick watching the video, the obviously wanton brutality of the police.
but what is even more distrubing seeing the posts here that align with this police action.
you guys are so much in a police state by now, you even agree with these acts.. man...
Looking at the project site itself: http://claraty.jpl.nasa.gov/ it seems that most pages are restricted. whenever I want to see some real documentation, it's asking for creditentials.
n dex.php
:(
they even describe this in length here: http://claraty.jpl.nasa.gov/man/overview/access/i
so it's no free software, it seems...
eh :(
forgive my ignorance, but what does CRPG stand for? Is this some new phrase used instead of RPG?
"Jó szerencse pölö Charles!" just doesn't make any sense. If you wanted to right: "Good luck, Charles!", you would say: "Jó szerencsét, Charles!". BTW, you'd rather say: "Jó szerencsét, Károly!" - as the name Charles is Károly in Hungarian. And yes, his original name is Simonyi Károly, written in this order as per the Hungarian custom of naming.
I just wonder how the "pölö" part came into the sentence - as it's not a word in our language. The closest I can think of that it's the pronounciation of the abbreviation "pl.", which is short for "például" - meaning: "for example". I guess you guys asked someone: "How do I say Good Luck in Hungarian?", and the answer might have been: "Jó szerencse, pl." meaning: "For example: Jó szerencsét".
Ákos
a native Hungarian (speaker)
well, the guy is hungarian, so it's quite natural he has a tokaji around. if you take a closer look, you'll see some other hungarian wines as well (kadarka, villanyi, etc.)
as they don't actually connect to the neurons, but read the neuron acticity patterns, probably through fast MRI scanners. and there's no feedback either - they don't send any data to the neurons (other then through the natural eye of the monkey in the tests)
and really is an insult to Greenaway & the other artists mentioned in the article.
you mean it's a great effort that they can fly a re-usable spacecraft in half a years time? and when was it flown the last time?
it's not an effort, it's a shame. just shows how incapable the Space Shuttle program is...
Santa doesn't live in Norway, he lives in Finland, near Rovaniemi...
I can just recomment LASIK surgery. I've had it December 1999, and it has been quite a success. I don't need glasses ever since.