Caldera bought SCO, renamed to SCO then sued IBM. If you think back a few years, you'll remember Caldera buying the rights to DR-DOS and suing Microsoft - but that time everybody cheered.
Wasn't the DR-DOS claim based on abuse of monopoly, and not supposed copyright infringement?
And I have no idea whether or not SCO's claim is spurious. But those that have gotten angry have listed that as their excuse.
Oh no no please not that ! I hate it when a software try to guess what I wan to do, this is the obsession of Billy Gate and it's one reason why Microsoft software sucks.
Actually, the reason that it sucks is that it (1) doesn't have exceptions for everything and (2) isn't given a hand on every part of the system.
I hate it when Word pretends to guess my formatting or what I want to type, because it's most of the Wrong ! one of the first thing I do is to deactivate the option which makes that possible.
Firstly: You can change the default formats in Word if you really want to, and you can undo most of the automatic changes with a backspace. (You can also tell it to not do some things--like those @#$!%ing wizards--and to do others, like correcting em-dashes or making numbered lists.)
Secondly: There really should be a word processor that doesn't try and do everything, but just hits all of the things that common word-processors do. Spellcheck, autocorrect of punctuation, maybe a grammar-checker, manual application of the RTF (or HTML) formats--and that's IT.
(And the first person to suggest LaTeX gets slapped.)
If the US military goes mad, then perhaps they will declare war on India, fixing part of the "problem".
India? Go Mad? Nah, this is the standard policy that the crackpots think the crackpots in charge would follow.
We'd look for an excuse to go to war with India--and if that didn't work, we'd engage them in harsh trade tactics until they change their mind.
Anyhow, Pakistan looks like they might do it first.:) In Diplomacy, as in War, it's good to have allies--but it's better to have people who will help you without you asking.
It's purely a race to the bottom. Look for the United States to become the world's most powerful third world nation within a generation, displacing Russia. Kiss your Constitutional rights goodbye - they'll be auctioned off to the highest bidders (corporate America and the religious fanatics).
Actually, if push comes to shove, look to the US to use its extremely well-paid for military might to wage a "worker's rights" battle across the country.
It's a natural extension of Free Trade, which both Democrats and Republicans seem to like. The only way to not lose labor is to make all the places of cheap labor start to raise their standards--which will, eventually, be better for the workers and the companies.
The places that are paying $1 a day now will, tomorrow, pay lower-class American wages--and have shopping malls and all the other American-style goods.
Of course, I could be wrong, and our planet could move to a system that's less vapish and consumerist--but I doubt that we won't move closer as one "common market", rather than each petty nation (and I'm including USA in this) being its own "common market."
They should know the difference between "intelligent design" creationism and the "young-earth" version, so they can be prepared to refute creationist arguments.
I'd go farther than that.
They should undertsand why and where each idea is valid--and be able to tell a student why science works off of evolution, rather than the others.
For both forms of Creationism, the 'refutation' is essentially "if the Universe was created, it was done so to show us the principles of how it works, and that's what we're learning in this class."
Science should not try and refute religion--rather, it should review religious claims and include or ignore them according to their merit.
"Us" is my civilization--which would be roughly 100 nation-states with a linage, through direct population or through civilizing colonialism--and "them" is "random petty nutballs who want to get away with what they can."
Ok, so this answers my question. You are brainwashed. Yes, the USA bombed the hell out of the already war torn Afganistan. Nothing they hadn't seen already... just more death and destruction, and yet again the ruling government changes hands. Yes, the USA rebuilt Japan and Germany, but the same isn't being done for Afganistan. The new Afgani leader is not being given enough economic aid to properly rebuild a society's infustructure, as was done in Japan, for example. Instead, the USA concerned itself with liberal issues such as a women's right to wear whatever clothes she wishes.
You're right. We should be doing more--and rebuilding the enemy will be an important phase in the War on Terrorism--but first there's a little matter of actually beating the enemy first.
I tell you what. I'm a US citizen. I'll write a letter, tomorrow, to my President, my Representative, and my two Senators, urging them to make Afghanistan their #1 foreign-aid priority--before any other country, period--and to see that we give them as big a share of the US aid-dollar pie as they ask for.
USA the republic is long since dead. Long live USA the empire! Just in case you don't know your history, after empire comes the fall.
Yeah, I mean, just look at China and Japan, and how they got torn apart--or Britain! Or France!
Modern Empires don't 'fall' in the classic sense. They grant their subject-states autonomy, and they endure for far longer than any historical empire.
It'll be a grand day when the US has no need of a military, no need to spend foreign-aid, and no reason to worry about attacks of any kind--from terrorists or other nations. I hope to see this day within my lifetime.
But before that day comes, it would be a sin to not do everything we can to make the whole world a better place. At the risk of having racist undertones, the Rich Country has a burden to raising up all the rest of the world to share and enjoy the fruit of the Rich Country's luck and labor.
What gives you the right to go and attack these countries just because they are your flavour of the month?!
You're an idiot--and quite possibly an athiest troll-zealot. I never said (in that post) that we should go to war. And we certainly shouldn't go to war willy-nilly.
What we SHOULD do is love our enemies and show the same compassion towards them that we do to our own citizens. Jesus Christ never said "don't go to war." He told us to realize that God judges us not just on our actions, but on our thoughts--and that we should never give up doing the right thing, always give more than is asked, and (by way of Paul) that if we do fight, to do so honorably and ethically.
Oh, and I have heard bits and pieces about Afghanistan. I suspect that, after we bomb the snot out of Iraq and they're no longer a concern, Afghanistan will be back to being a semi-regular staple of foreign policy.
Oh, and where exactly did you hear that the Taliban had control of some of Afghanistan again? I haven't heard that one, and I didn't expect it.
Just when will it stop?
When the first-world stops being so damn greedy and lazy and gives the second- and third- worlds the level playing field that we all deserve.
Our chance to "leave it alone" was lost to our civiliation when the first colonies were founded. We have to see this through to an end before we have the right to stop working to make every former colonial state into a real country with a stable government--and even then, we'll still have a reason to keep on helping out however we can.
Actually, that's just it. ANYONE can stop a vicious cycle--from the inside.
From outside the vicious cycle of hate, all we can do is bomb them randomly and offer our symathies (and tax breaks;) ) to the survivors of our new 51st-60th states.
Anyone else think these kinds of games are partly the reason why we're going to invade Iraq, North Korea, and various African countries once we're done there?
Nope. We were fighting wars long before video game came about; they just make us good at using the drones.
Violence breed violence and encourages hate. Why do we love to hate?
Because hate encourages violence, they hate us, and thus they visit violence upon us and we visit violence upon them.
This is why "love thy enemy" is such an important part of our culture. We bomb Afghanistan out of the stone age, and then hold their hand as they struggle to sort out all the damage their ex-ruler did. We did the same thing with Japan and Germany, and we'll do the same thing with Iraq.
The interesting part is, we're a pretty unpredictable experiment because we can sit here and debate this.
PLEASE tell me that you're not anthromorphosizeing evolution!
Humanity is no more or less predictable than any other species on the planet. We just happen to have intelligence, which makes us far more "fit" to a variety of changing climes than any other creature on the planet--barring, maybe, cockroaches.
Considering our species an "experiment" linguistically supposes some other sentient force--either the Almighty God, a neo-pagan manifestsation of nature, or some random aliens. If you didn't mean to say this, then please don't phrase your words like you do.
(And if you DID mean to say it--what's to say that we're not going to be due for another intervention?)
Because I have to make a semi-permanent copy of the software to use it; it can't run directly from the CD and very-temporary copies in RAM. This may or may not violate copyright--I have no idea.
Secondly, why would it cost so much. I buy books, movies, music, etc. with no licensure whatsoever. It doesn't seem to cost a hell of a lot because of that.
A book (novel) can be done by, oh, about five people in total. Music by a bit more, and movies a bit more than that--but both music and movies have alternate methods of revenue than selling copies.
Home software, on the other hand, is strictly a "sell the copy" idea--and it requires all of the non-artistic skills that go into making a book, plus (on the major app level) easily a hundred times the effort of the main producer.
If MS were ordered to sell an EULA-free version of Office or Windows, I guarantee that it would cost more.
Software licensure is archaic. It dates back to a time when software wasn't copyrightable, and contracts had to provide all protection.
When was that? As far as I know, software has _always_ been copyrightable--it just wasn't a commonly exerted right.
This having not been the state of affairs for decades now, basically, there's simply no need for them in the typical instance.
You're right. They're there because those in the business see to benefit to justify removing them.
Sure. Just, to be safe, realize that I'm not a lawyer--just an author who thinks he understands copyright law. If you want legal advice, call your local bar association for a lawyer referral.
The begining state is the Federal Copyright law. If MS were to hand me a CD with Office 11 on it, without any license, it'd still be covered by the established copyright law. I could use it, or not use it and give it away, and probably even make a backup copy of it. Then again, I might not be able to even install the darn thing--and for MS to give me that CD, it'd cost upwards of two thousdand dollars.
By allowing MS to add additional restrictions beyond Title 17, they can take "payment" in the form of additional rights (like reverse-engineering) that I give up to take their software. This is the exact same principle that applies to any other purchase or contract, btw.
At any rate, at least in the realm of ordinary store-bought software, why should we permit licensure of use at all? Site licenses I can see being allowable within limits; licenses regarding matters other than use (such as the GPL) I have no problems with.
I absolutely and totally agree with you. Store-bought licenses should not be covered by anything except for a specifically crafted federal copyright code, that establishes and codifies the reasonable expectations of software authors and software purchasers into law.
The real problem with EULAs is that they're non-negotiable, and the software companies are often lax in both granting the refunds that the EULA promises and enforcing their end of the licensing agreement. Microsoft has no real reason to stop college-level piracy of their work; even those that refuse to pay the barely-covering-the-shipping cost for a student license are contributing to the most vaulable aspect of MS's software--its network of users.
As for the GPL--I'm getting sick of it being shown (in products like winGIMP) as an EULA. *sigh*
A generic adhesive EULA though.... I see no reason to permit such things on as wide scales as we've been seeing it.
Neither do I. I'd love to see the S.C. step in and say "NO!" to store-bought, shink-wraped, non-negotiable EULAs.
Basically, I do agree that if you do the math, these are only useful as weapons designed to follow-up with a pre-emptive attack. These are hence profoundly destabilizing and so they will provide no security for the US.
That only works for stable enemies. If we only had to deal with relatively stable foes, such as the USSR or China (or even N. Korea!), then we wouldn't worry.
But our enemies since, oh, 1990 have been, without pause, rather unpredictable cooks.
The proposed title 17 section 123(b) is crippled in that it doesn't apply to barring licensure of software in ways that would impede limits on copyright in title 17. Nice as this generally is, it's still not going far enough in protecting customers and promoting science.
Bah.
If a software license doesn't go beyond Title 17, then it's no license at all and just a single sold copy.
Change the industry, and then you'll be justified in changing the law.
If our only judge were Occam's Razor, we'd all beleieve in neo-pagan religions.
Consider a theory which tells us that two particles with mass attract each other, and tells us the force with which they attract. "gods and pixies cause it" isn't even comparable, because it doesn't explain as much. OTOH, a theory telling us that they attract, and with how much force, and additionally that it's "gods and pixies" which are doing it would be the theory that should be discounted in preference to the former theory, according to Occam's Razor.
Arguments of complexity, missing detail, and provability are all beyond the scope of Occam's Razor. It is NOT the end-all and be-all of science; rather, it's a "last guess rule" when all other scientific methods have been exhausted.
The only scientific test that the theory of Religion fails is Occam's razor and that is not a hard-and-fast test, just a general rule of thumb.
Acutally, "gods and pixies did it" is far simpler than the various scientific explanations. If our only judge were Occam's Razor, we'd all beleieve in neo-pagan religions.
Intelligent Design says that a Designer is behind the behavior of the universe, but makes no scientific statements, and can not be falsified
Question: How do you scientifically test a thing to see if it was created by an intelligence, when you can't talk to the supposed creator or compare your thing to "natural" things?
I think that if kids are old enough to have an M16 tossed into their hands and told to go die for their country, they are old enough to have a couple of beers.
Actually, if you DO Have an M16 tossed into your hands, you can (within the same regulations of guys five years your elder) get as drunk as anyone else.
Written, yes. Printed, no. Gutenburg invented the printing press [ideafinder.com] about 550 years ago. Before that it was all handwriting. Unless you count evidence from China using clay printing processes 450 years before. [dotprint.com]
To be pendantic, Gutenburg invented moveable type, which was an improvement over the wood-cut printing press.
Of course, I have no idea how much this art form predates Gutenberg--although I do believe that it was never used for books.
I agree with you, and apologize. I may have been ambiguous, but I didn't realize Open Source carried with it the connotation of forced open source like the GPL stipulates. Isn't BSD style licensing considered open source?
Outside of actual writers of BSD and the FSF, no one really cares about the distinction between "Open Source" and "Free Software." If you use these terms, remember to phrase them in such a way that your meaning is clear: i.e., instead of saying "Open Source", say "Open Source (not GPL)"
The logic behind this--that the taxpayers paid for it--is defeated by the realization that not all taxpayers want to be forced to "pay twice" by OSSing their derivitive works of gov't funded software.
Government funding should equal _Public Domain_. Anything else (except maybe a BSD style license, which is nearly PD) is stealing from the taxpayers.
My ISP and my cable company are the same legal person, same bill--and I can even rent a specalized "TV computer" from them if I want to.
Wait until digital HDTV becomes prominent, and network-wired houses are as common as telephone lines today. TV and PC will converge--it's just going to move along a multistep process at the speed of the slowest partner.
Slashdot Mirror
Caldera bought SCO, renamed to SCO then sued IBM. If you think back a few years, you'll remember Caldera buying the rights to DR-DOS and suing Microsoft - but that time everybody cheered.
Wasn't the DR-DOS claim based on abuse of monopoly, and not supposed copyright infringement?
And I have no idea whether or not SCO's claim is spurious. But those that have gotten angry have listed that as their excuse.
We're not up in arms because SCO is trying to protect it's IP.
"We" are up in arms becuase SCO is making a spurious claim. They might as well say the same thing about Windows NT.
SLAP!
Oh no no please not that ! I hate it when a software try to guess what I wan to do, this is the obsession of Billy Gate and it's one reason why Microsoft software sucks.
Actually, the reason that it sucks is that it (1) doesn't have exceptions for everything and (2) isn't given a hand on every part of the system.
I hate it when Word pretends to guess my formatting or what I want to type, because it's most of the Wrong ! one of the first thing I do is to deactivate the option which makes that possible.
Firstly: You can change the default formats in Word if you really want to, and you can undo most of the automatic changes with a backspace. (You can also tell it to not do some things--like those @#$!%ing wizards--and to do others, like correcting em-dashes or making numbered lists.)
Secondly: There really should be a word processor that doesn't try and do everything, but just hits all of the things that common word-processors do. Spellcheck, autocorrect of punctuation, maybe a grammar-checker, manual application of the RTF (or HTML) formats--and that's IT.
(And the first person to suggest LaTeX gets slapped.)
If the US military goes mad, then perhaps they will declare war on India, fixing part of the "problem".
:) In Diplomacy, as in War, it's good to have allies--but it's better to have people who will help you without you asking.
India? Go Mad? Nah, this is the standard policy that the crackpots think the crackpots in charge would follow.
We'd look for an excuse to go to war with India--and if that didn't work, we'd engage them in harsh trade tactics until they change their mind.
Anyhow, Pakistan looks like they might do it first.
It's purely a race to the bottom. Look for the United States to become the world's most powerful third world nation within a generation, displacing Russia. Kiss your Constitutional rights goodbye - they'll be auctioned off to the highest bidders (corporate America and the religious fanatics).
Actually, if push comes to shove, look to the US to use its extremely well-paid for military might to wage a "worker's rights" battle across the country.
It's a natural extension of Free Trade, which both Democrats and Republicans seem to like. The only way to not lose labor is to make all the places of cheap labor start to raise their standards--which will, eventually, be better for the workers and the companies.
The places that are paying $1 a day now will, tomorrow, pay lower-class American wages--and have shopping malls and all the other American-style goods.
Of course, I could be wrong, and our planet could move to a system that's less vapish and consumerist--but I doubt that we won't move closer as one "common market", rather than each petty nation (and I'm including USA in this) being its own "common market."
They should know the difference between "intelligent design" creationism and the "young-earth" version, so they can be prepared to refute creationist arguments.
I'd go farther than that.
They should undertsand why and where each idea is valid--and be able to tell a student why science works off of evolution, rather than the others.
For both forms of Creationism, the 'refutation' is essentially "if the Universe was created, it was done so to show us the principles of how it works, and that's what we're learning in this class."
Science should not try and refute religion--rather, it should review religious claims and include or ignore them according to their merit.
Iraq has never attacked the USA!
Who said I was talking about Iraq or the USA?
"Us" is my civilization--which would be roughly 100 nation-states with a linage, through direct population or through civilizing colonialism--and "them" is "random petty nutballs who want to get away with what they can."
Ok, so this answers my question. You are brainwashed. Yes, the USA bombed the hell out of the already war torn Afganistan. Nothing they hadn't seen already... just more death and destruction, and yet again the ruling government changes hands. Yes, the USA rebuilt Japan and Germany, but the same isn't being done for Afganistan. The new Afgani leader is not being given enough economic aid to properly rebuild a society's infustructure, as was done in Japan, for example. Instead, the USA concerned itself with liberal issues such as a women's right to wear whatever clothes she wishes.
You're right. We should be doing more--and rebuilding the enemy will be an important phase in the War on Terrorism--but first there's a little matter of actually beating the enemy first.
I tell you what. I'm a US citizen. I'll write a letter, tomorrow, to my President, my Representative, and my two Senators, urging them to make Afghanistan their #1 foreign-aid priority--before any other country, period--and to see that we give them as big a share of the US aid-dollar pie as they ask for.
USA the republic is long since dead. Long live USA the empire! Just in case you don't know your history, after empire comes the fall.
Yeah, I mean, just look at China and Japan, and how they got torn apart--or Britain! Or France!
Modern Empires don't 'fall' in the classic sense. They grant their subject-states autonomy, and they endure for far longer than any historical empire.
It'll be a grand day when the US has no need of a military, no need to spend foreign-aid, and no reason to worry about attacks of any kind--from terrorists or other nations. I hope to see this day within my lifetime.
But before that day comes, it would be a sin to not do everything we can to make the whole world a better place. At the risk of having racist undertones, the Rich Country has a burden to raising up all the rest of the world to share and enjoy the fruit of the Rich Country's luck and labor.
What gives you the right to go and attack these countries just because they are your flavour of the month?!
You're an idiot--and quite possibly an athiest troll-zealot. I never said (in that post) that we should go to war. And we certainly shouldn't go to war willy-nilly.
What we SHOULD do is love our enemies and show the same compassion towards them that we do to our own citizens. Jesus Christ never said "don't go to war." He told us to realize that God judges us not just on our actions, but on our thoughts--and that we should never give up doing the right thing, always give more than is asked, and (by way of Paul) that if we do fight, to do so honorably and ethically.
Oh, and I have heard bits and pieces about Afghanistan. I suspect that, after we bomb the snot out of Iraq and they're no longer a concern, Afghanistan will be back to being a semi-regular staple of foreign policy.
Oh, and where exactly did you hear that the Taliban had control of some of Afghanistan again? I haven't heard that one, and I didn't expect it.
Just when will it stop?
When the first-world stops being so damn greedy and lazy and gives the second- and third- worlds the level playing field that we all deserve.
Our chance to "leave it alone" was lost to our civiliation when the first colonies were founded. We have to see this through to an end before we have the right to stop working to make every former colonial state into a real country with a stable government--and even then, we'll still have a reason to keep on helping out however we can.
I'm not saying anyone can fix the problem
;) ) to the survivors of our new 51st-60th states.
Actually, that's just it. ANYONE can stop a vicious cycle--from the inside.
From outside the vicious cycle of hate, all we can do is bomb them randomly and offer our symathies (and tax breaks
Anyone else think these kinds of games are partly the reason why we're going to invade Iraq, North Korea, and various African countries once we're done there?
Nope. We were fighting wars long before video game came about; they just make us good at using the drones.
Violence breed violence and encourages hate. Why do we love to hate?
Because hate encourages violence, they hate us, and thus they visit violence upon us and we visit violence upon them.
This is why "love thy enemy" is such an important part of our culture. We bomb Afghanistan out of the stone age, and then hold their hand as they struggle to sort out all the damage their ex-ruler did. We did the same thing with Japan and Germany, and we'll do the same thing with Iraq.
The interesting part is, we're a pretty unpredictable experiment because we can sit here and debate this.
PLEASE tell me that you're not anthromorphosizeing evolution!
Humanity is no more or less predictable than any other species on the planet. We just happen to have intelligence, which makes us far more "fit" to a variety of changing climes than any other creature on the planet--barring, maybe, cockroaches.
Considering our species an "experiment" linguistically supposes some other sentient force--either the Almighty God, a neo-pagan manifestsation of nature, or some random aliens. If you didn't mean to say this, then please don't phrase your words like you do.
(And if you DID mean to say it--what's to say that we're not going to be due for another intervention?)
Firstly, why couldn't you install it?
Because I have to make a semi-permanent copy of the software to use it; it can't run directly from the CD and very-temporary copies in RAM. This may or may not violate copyright--I have no idea.
Secondly, why would it cost so much. I buy books, movies, music, etc. with no licensure whatsoever. It doesn't seem to cost a hell of a lot because of that.
A book (novel) can be done by, oh, about five people in total. Music by a bit more, and movies a bit more than that--but both music and movies have alternate methods of revenue than selling copies.
Home software, on the other hand, is strictly a "sell the copy" idea--and it requires all of the non-artistic skills that go into making a book, plus (on the major app level) easily a hundred times the effort of the main producer.
If MS were ordered to sell an EULA-free version of Office or Windows, I guarantee that it would cost more.
Software licensure is archaic. It dates back to a time when software wasn't copyrightable, and contracts had to provide all protection.
When was that? As far as I know, software has _always_ been copyrightable--it just wasn't a commonly exerted right.
This having not been the state of affairs for decades now, basically, there's simply no need for them in the typical instance.
You're right. They're there because those in the business see to benefit to justify removing them.
Could you clarify your statement, please?
Sure. Just, to be safe, realize that I'm not a lawyer--just an author who thinks he understands copyright law. If you want legal advice, call your local bar association for a lawyer referral.
The begining state is the Federal Copyright law. If MS were to hand me a CD with Office 11 on it, without any license, it'd still be covered by the established copyright law. I could use it, or not use it and give it away, and probably even make a backup copy of it. Then again, I might not be able to even install the darn thing--and for MS to give me that CD, it'd cost upwards of two thousdand dollars.
By allowing MS to add additional restrictions beyond Title 17, they can take "payment" in the form of additional rights (like reverse-engineering) that I give up to take their software. This is the exact same principle that applies to any other purchase or contract, btw.
At any rate, at least in the realm of ordinary store-bought software, why should we permit licensure of use at all? Site licenses I can see being allowable within limits; licenses regarding matters other than use (such as the GPL) I have no problems with.
I absolutely and totally agree with you. Store-bought licenses should not be covered by anything except for a specifically crafted federal copyright code, that establishes and codifies the reasonable expectations of software authors and software purchasers into law.
The real problem with EULAs is that they're non-negotiable, and the software companies are often lax in both granting the refunds that the EULA promises and enforcing their end of the licensing agreement. Microsoft has no real reason to stop college-level piracy of their work; even those that refuse to pay the barely-covering-the-shipping cost for a student license are contributing to the most vaulable aspect of MS's software--its network of users.
As for the GPL--I'm getting sick of it being shown (in products like winGIMP) as an EULA. *sigh*
A generic adhesive EULA though.... I see no reason to permit such things on as wide scales as we've been seeing it.
Neither do I. I'd love to see the S.C. step in and say "NO!" to store-bought, shink-wraped, non-negotiable EULAs.
Basically, I do agree that if you do the math, these are only useful as weapons designed to follow-up with a pre-emptive attack. These are hence profoundly destabilizing and so they will provide no security for the US.
That only works for stable enemies. If we only had to deal with relatively stable foes, such as the USSR or China (or even N. Korea!), then we wouldn't worry.
But our enemies since, oh, 1990 have been, without pause, rather unpredictable cooks.
The proposed title 17 section 123(b) is crippled in that it doesn't apply to barring licensure of software in ways that would impede limits on copyright in title 17. Nice as this generally is, it's still not going far enough in protecting customers and promoting science.
Bah.
If a software license doesn't go beyond Title 17, then it's no license at all and just a single sold copy.
Change the industry, and then you'll be justified in changing the law.
If our only judge were Occam's Razor, we'd all beleieve in neo-pagan religions.
Consider a theory which tells us that two particles with mass attract each other, and tells us the force with which they attract. "gods and pixies cause it" isn't even comparable, because it doesn't explain as much. OTOH, a theory telling us that they attract, and with how much force, and additionally that it's "gods and pixies" which are doing it would be the theory that should be discounted in preference to the former theory, according to Occam's Razor.
Arguments of complexity, missing detail, and provability are all beyond the scope of Occam's Razor. It is NOT the end-all and be-all of science; rather, it's a "last guess rule" when all other scientific methods have been exhausted.
The only scientific test that the theory of Religion fails is Occam's razor and that is not a hard-and-fast test, just a general rule of thumb.
Acutally, "gods and pixies did it" is far simpler than the various scientific explanations. If our only judge were Occam's Razor, we'd all beleieve in neo-pagan religions.
Intelligent Design says that a Designer is behind the behavior of the universe, but makes no scientific statements, and can not be falsified
Question: How do you scientifically test a thing to see if it was created by an intelligence, when you can't talk to the supposed creator or compare your thing to "natural" things?
I think that if kids are old enough to have an M16 tossed into their hands and told to go die for their country, they are old enough to have a couple of beers.
Actually, if you DO Have an M16 tossed into your hands, you can (within the same regulations of guys five years your elder) get as drunk as anyone else.
Written, yes. Printed, no. Gutenburg invented the printing press [ideafinder.com] about 550 years ago. Before that it was all handwriting. Unless you count evidence from China using clay printing processes 450 years before. [dotprint.com]
To be pendantic, Gutenburg invented moveable type, which was an improvement over the wood-cut printing press.
Of course, I have no idea how much this art form predates Gutenberg--although I do believe that it was never used for books.
I agree with you, and apologize. I may have been ambiguous, but I didn't realize Open Source carried with it the connotation of forced open source like the GPL stipulates. Isn't BSD style licensing considered open source?
Outside of actual writers of BSD and the FSF, no one really cares about the distinction between "Open Source" and "Free Software." If you use these terms, remember to phrase them in such a way that your meaning is clear: i.e., instead of saying "Open Source", say "Open Source (not GPL)"
I feel like open source should be a requirement.
The logic behind this--that the taxpayers paid for it--is defeated by the realization that not all taxpayers want to be forced to "pay twice" by OSSing their derivitive works of gov't funded software.
Government funding should equal _Public Domain_. Anything else (except maybe a BSD style license, which is nearly PD) is stealing from the taxpayers.
Er, they have.
My ISP and my cable company are the same legal person, same bill--and I can even rent a specalized "TV computer" from them if I want to.
Wait until digital HDTV becomes prominent, and network-wired houses are as common as telephone lines today. TV and PC will converge--it's just going to move along a multistep process at the speed of the slowest partner.
For two-thousand years, Christians have had a prophecy regarding the identification of every man, woman and child on this planet.
Not identification--forced tattooing.