I went from hating all his views before he even opened his mouth to not quite being sure where he stands.
If I had to paraphrase RMS' account of the conversation, it would be something like this, "I refused to answer his questions and quibbled about his use of language instead. He misunderstood me. What an idiot."
And isn't the whole point of technological advancement to make humans more comfortable, and life more enjoyable?
Good question. The answer may be yes, but not if by "make humans more comfortable" you really mean "make me more comfortable right now." How does the technology that makes you cooler affect everyone else on the planet? How 'bout future residents? Do non-human residents not matter at all?
The long-term indirect consequences of AC are huge. To pick just two things, think how population distribution has changed due to AC and they resulting change in energy use and land use. And consider the ability to move perishable goods around the world and what happens when native agriculture for local consumption is replaced with mono-cultured goodies to ship the rich countries.
I'm not saying these things are good or bad, but if we're considering what is the proper end of technological advancement, I really don't give a damn if you or I feel a little uncomfortable when the temperature gets a bit high.
Ok, maybe that's a bit strong, but user suggestions tend to attack the symptom of an underlying problem, not the problem itself. And that's when they are good suggestions. Many suggestions just display the user's lack of understanding of his own needs or the software's capabilities -- perhaps caused by a deficiency in the documentation.
Even users that aren't morons usually aren't programmers. So a genuinely good idea can be ignored as well because of a failure to communicate. They don't know the jargon. They may not understand the program structure of the functions they want to change, so the suggestion of a good feature sounds like the rantings of the uneducated.
Figuring out what would actually benefit the user is a non-trivial task and is definitely NOT just implementing user suggestions.
I'm not sure what.NET stuff you're referring to, but the Wordpad source I'm familiar with is just a UI wrapper around a RICHEDIT control, which is a black box.
Caldera took tremendous heat from the community when it announced per-seat commercial licensing for its 3.0 release, and at least some of the others involved in "UnitedLinux" have been reported to be considering similar plans.
As far as I can tell, this is what everybody is getting there knickers in a twist about. Caldera's licensing isn't news. The "others... have been reported to be considering..." bit is unsubstantiated flamebait. The only thing going on here is RMS taking the bait, which isn't news either.
I think there's a strong case to be made for free software, but this ain't it. Bruce Perens touts the money saved by not buying MS software, but completely ignores the much more significant expenditures on people to administer all this software. Does it cost more to administer sendmail than Exchange? Apache vs. IIS? Is in-house development with VB cheaper to get the same results as Java on Linux?
I'm not sure how the numbers balance out, but these concerns far outweigh the price of buying the software. If Mr. Perens is going to dip his toe in TCO waters, he'd be better be sure he can jump all the way in and not get himself drowned.
The aim here is to extend sensitivity. Ya can't do that in software. You can decrease the range in software, but if the hardware doesn't capture it, no amount of processing will make it magically appear.
While LGPL demands that developers contribute changes back to the community, BSD-style licenses do still encourage it. If a developer fails to put back changes, those changes may not be compatible with future improvements made to the community supported code.
Someone who takes and closes source from a BSD-style license is saying is that they don't believe future changes made by the community are worth opening their source for. If that opinion is justified, then the project is screwed. The project is in trouble because the community is not producing -- a problem unlikely to be fixed by changing to an LGPL style license.
If you're fresh out of school and looking for that first job in programming, a CS etc. degree is a definite plus. But still, any degree is a world better than none.
A couple years down the road, I don't think it matters much. My degree is in philosophy, but that hasn't hurt me. I just hired someone with a degree in music -- I never considered anyone without a bachelors degree.
One guy with some tech institute certificate tried to spin it as "equivalent of an associates degree." Didn't work.
The problem is more basic than that, and is the same problem afflicting virtually ALL subscription schemes on the internet. I'm no more likely to subscribe to any individual internet service than I am to subscribe to an individual cable channel. Certainly not at $10/month.
On the other hand, give me a subscription option that includes just about any subscription I'm likely to want (and 10x as many that I don't care about) and you could probably get me to part with $20, $30, maybe $40 each month. Sound like cable TV? Damn right.
People want flat fees and fees that cover a broad area. Until internet services companies provide that kind of structure, they will not make money from subscriptions. If they do provide such a pricing structure (see Netflix.com), they'll do just fine.
Teleoman makes a decent case for learning a new language now and then, but that has very little to do how we should judge Perl. It doesn't change the fact that Perl is a huge, ugly beast.
Maybe it's my failing, but I honestly don't know why any one chooses to use it with so many other (better) alternatives. Perl manages to be even more ugly and opaque than VB, with none of the (ostensibly) helpful ease-of-use features that VB has.
Explicit acknowledgement in their service agreement that I can use Linux, that I can run a web server (as long as its not commercial), that I can connect more than one computer. So what if my friends with Comcast may have faster connections, mine is fast enough.
...or whatever the hell they're calling it now. Also not free, but it does Windows, Windows CE, Linux, and they have an "Ultralight" version for embedding.
RDBMS are great for storing well-structured data, and no person, article, web page, or whatever that I've ever seen has suggested XML as an alternative.
On the other hand, a lot of data is semi-structured. It can benefit from being searchable in a straightforward manner, as XML can be, but how it will be searched isn't clear enough ahead of time to optimize an RDBMS schema for it. Furthermore, there is no reason why it needs to be accessed with a high level of performance. TPS don't matter, it's not going to be hit that hard and that long.
Just because an RDBMS may be best for an airline ticketing system, doesn't make it best for a medical record system.
IANAEE, so what's the feasibility of an 802.11lp (low power) standard that can talk to an 802.11b device (within 10 unobstructed meters)? Doesn't 802.11b have fallback speeds, slower than 11Mbps, for when the signal is too weak? Wouldn't this be a way to get the benefits of Bluetooth (low power) without having to use the protocol, which a lot of people seem to detest with a vehemance usually reserved for the Yankees?
Oh come on. This is way overkill for most development. I'm sure there are projects where mistakes could negatively affect a LAN or even the internet, but the great majority of development is extremely unlikely to do more than crash the development workstation. Bad network administration causes far more network wide problems that developer errors.
If the powers that be lock the registry to prevent writing to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, of course they're going to break a ton of apps. It's there for storing user settings.
OTOH, locking down HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE makes perfect sense and programmers who use it for user-settings should be shot. Twice.
Developers need to write the administrative portions, so they really can't be locked down. Giving a programmer a C compiler and no registry access is like giving a soldier an Uzi, but no ammo except rubber bands. Well almost.
I have no objection to Linux companies making money. No, that's not strong enough. I want Linux companies to make money.
In fact my agreement with you goes even further than that. Companies paying money for Linux is a good thing. Not as much money as they might pay MS, but some reasonable amount.
It is also, however, very good for a company not to have to worry about licensing every time that add a new workstation or server, or upgrade a computer, or decide that what had been a departmental server is now going to be a company-wide intranet or even internet server. Taking away that benefit is an action that makes it less likely that a company will pay for Linux, not more.
I work for a company that uses Linux minimally (no, the company hasn't paid anything for Linux, although I have) and only where I've set it up. As soon as I can make a good business case for employing more Linux boxen and supporting (i.e. paying for) one of the distros (SuSE!), I'll do so. To the extent that I've been laying the groundwork for making that case sometime in the future, the lack of licensing encumbrances is probably the point that I've stressed most.
Linux may be more stable, more secure, and perform better, but Windows is "good enough" and all the techs can administer it. If I argue for Linux on the basis of uptime, I will lose. If I argue for security or performance, same thing. If I argue that Linux is just as good as Windows for a mail/intranet/proxy/ftp/whatever server and that SuSE's administration tools are good enough that even Vinny could use them and that we won't have to worry about server licenses or CALs no matter what we do and that SuSE will give us better support that MS ever would at a fraction of the cost (is that true, BTW?), maybe, just maybe I'll have a shot.
Not, wrong in the moral sense, in the business sense.
One of the strongest arguments in Linux's favor in many business settings is the avoidance of licensing encumbrances. This is becoming even stronger with the licensing changes and copy protection coming with XP.
Caldera is shooting itself in the face with per seat licensing.
Re:yes, there is an eff.org but really get involve
on
Slashdot in Politics?
·
· Score: 1
How about instead of just donating money and hiring lawyers (please note eff.org in previous posts), we get someone, who represents the slashdot community, in a position of REAL power
Slashdot Mirror
If I had to paraphrase RMS' account of the conversation, it would be something like this, "I refused to answer his questions and quibbled about his use of language instead. He misunderstood me. What an idiot."
Good question. The answer may be yes, but not if by "make humans more comfortable" you really mean "make me more comfortable right now." How does the technology that makes you cooler affect everyone else on the planet? How 'bout future residents? Do non-human residents not matter at all?
The long-term indirect consequences of AC are huge. To pick just two things, think how population distribution has changed due to AC and they resulting change in energy use and land use. And consider the ability to move perishable goods around the world and what happens when native agriculture for local consumption is replaced with mono-cultured goodies to ship the rich countries.
I'm not saying these things are good or bad, but if we're considering what is the proper end of technological advancement, I really don't give a damn if you or I feel a little uncomfortable when the temperature gets a bit high.
Ok, maybe that's a bit strong, but user suggestions tend to attack the symptom of an underlying problem, not the problem itself. And that's when they are good suggestions. Many suggestions just display the user's lack of understanding of his own needs or the software's capabilities -- perhaps caused by a deficiency in the documentation.
Even users that aren't morons usually aren't programmers. So a genuinely good idea can be ignored as well because of a failure to communicate. They don't know the jargon. They may not understand the program structure of the functions they want to change, so the suggestion of a good feature sounds like the rantings of the uneducated.
Figuring out what would actually benefit the user is a non-trivial task and is definitely NOT just implementing user suggestions.
I'm not sure what .NET stuff you're referring to, but the Wordpad source I'm familiar with is just a UI wrapper around a RICHEDIT control, which is a black box.
You really ought to get DSL or something if it takes that long
I'm not sure how the numbers balance out, but these concerns far outweigh the price of buying the software. If Mr. Perens is going to dip his toe in TCO waters, he'd be better be sure he can jump all the way in and not get himself drowned.
The aim here is to extend sensitivity. Ya can't do that in software. You can decrease the range in software, but if the hardware doesn't capture it, no amount of processing will make it magically appear.
Someone who takes and closes source from a BSD-style license is saying is that they don't believe future changes made by the community are worth opening their source for. If that opinion is justified, then the project is screwed. The project is in trouble because the community is not producing -- a problem unlikely to be fixed by changing to an LGPL style license.
I wrote code for a living.
What is this "beta tester" thing?
People will be willing to spend more for an attractive box when they don't expect it to be obsolete in 3 years.
I'm sure someone at Samsung profoundly regrets the sales lost (both of them) by withholding monitors from Tom.
A couple years down the road, I don't think it matters much. My degree is in philosophy, but that hasn't hurt me. I just hired someone with a degree in music -- I never considered anyone without a bachelors degree.
One guy with some tech institute certificate tried to spin it as "equivalent of an associates degree." Didn't work.
On the other hand, give me a subscription option that includes just about any subscription I'm likely to want (and 10x as many that I don't care about) and you could probably get me to part with $20, $30, maybe $40 each month. Sound like cable TV? Damn right.
People want flat fees and fees that cover a broad area. Until internet services companies provide that kind of structure, they will not make money from subscriptions. If they do provide such a pricing structure (see Netflix.com), they'll do just fine.
Maybe it's my failing, but I honestly don't know why any one chooses to use it with so many other (better) alternatives. Perl manages to be even more ugly and opaque than VB, with none of the (ostensibly) helpful ease-of-use features that VB has.
Explicit acknowledgement in their service agreement that I can use Linux, that I can run a web server (as long as its not commercial), that I can connect more than one computer. So what if my friends with Comcast may have faster connections, mine is fast enough.
...or whatever the hell they're calling it now.
Also not free, but it does Windows, Windows CE, Linux, and they have an "Ultralight" version for embedding.
On the other hand, a lot of data is semi-structured. It can benefit from being searchable in a straightforward manner, as XML can be, but how it will be searched isn't clear enough ahead of time to optimize an RDBMS schema for it. Furthermore, there is no reason why it needs to be accessed with a high level of performance. TPS don't matter, it's not going to be hit that hard and that long.
Just because an RDBMS may be best for an airline ticketing system, doesn't make it best for a medical record system.
IANAEE, so what's the feasibility of an 802.11lp (low power) standard that can talk to an 802.11b device (within 10 unobstructed meters)? Doesn't 802.11b have fallback speeds, slower than 11Mbps, for when the signal is too weak? Wouldn't this be a way to get the benefits of Bluetooth (low power) without having to use the protocol, which a lot of people seem to detest with a vehemance usually reserved for the Yankees?
Oh come on. This is way overkill for most development. I'm sure there are projects where mistakes could negatively affect a LAN or even the internet, but the great majority of development is extremely unlikely to do more than crash the development workstation. Bad network administration causes far more network wide problems that developer errors.
OTOH, locking down HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE makes perfect sense and programmers who use it for user-settings should be shot. Twice.
Developers need to write the administrative portions, so they really can't be locked down. Giving a programmer a C compiler and no registry access is like giving a soldier an Uzi, but no ammo except rubber bands. Well almost.
What? Still? Hasn't anybody checked him yet?
In fact my agreement with you goes even further than that. Companies paying money for Linux is a good thing. Not as much money as they might pay MS, but some reasonable amount.
It is also, however, very good for a company not to have to worry about licensing every time that add a new workstation or server, or upgrade a computer, or decide that what had been a departmental server is now going to be a company-wide intranet or even internet server. Taking away that benefit is an action that makes it less likely that a company will pay for Linux, not more.
I work for a company that uses Linux minimally (no, the company hasn't paid anything for Linux, although I have) and only where I've set it up. As soon as I can make a good business case for employing more Linux boxen and supporting (i.e. paying for) one of the distros (SuSE!), I'll do so. To the extent that I've been laying the groundwork for making that case sometime in the future, the lack of licensing encumbrances is probably the point that I've stressed most.
Linux may be more stable, more secure, and perform better, but Windows is "good enough" and all the techs can administer it. If I argue for Linux on the basis of uptime, I will lose. If I argue for security or performance, same thing. If I argue that Linux is just as good as Windows for a mail/intranet/proxy/ftp/whatever server and that SuSE's administration tools are good enough that even Vinny could use them and that we won't have to worry about server licenses or CALs no matter what we do and that SuSE will give us better support that MS ever would at a fraction of the cost (is that true, BTW?), maybe, just maybe I'll have a shot.
One of the strongest arguments in Linux's favor in many business settings is the avoidance of licensing encumbrances. This is becoming even stronger with the licensing changes and copy protection coming with XP.
Caldera is shooting itself in the face with per seat licensing.