Why didn't you just write "I disagree with the entire premise of the article", because that is what your words mean. And in the process you redefined the definition of "hack" to mean "write crap code". As if you didn't read the article, or have never met a real hacker. I hope you don't consider yourself one at this stage. By all means continue with the home-grown projects, but keep in mind that just being home-grown does not mean it has to be crap.
What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.
Wrong, that depends on the hacker. To qualify as a great hacker, the hacks have to be good by this metric too. A lot goes into being a great hacker, but this much is always true: greatness is on more than one level.
Absolute rubbish and revisionism. It was found as fact by more than one high court and upheld on appeal.
I find it outrageous and mildly disgusting that a Microsoft astromod would even consider gainsaying the point. But then it just goes to show, Microsoft is the same old Microsoft it has always been, and so is pretty much everybody in any way associated with the decrepit old monopolist.
How sad and cynical do you have to be to seriously believe that all the time and money Gates has spent, especially post-Microsoft, is some sort of elaborate ploy to make people think better of him?
...Gates has gone way above and beyond the billionaires club expectations. He has given away more than any other person in history, both in current or real dollar measurements.
Define "giving away". Merely transferring money to a foundation where he still exercises complete control over it without paying taxes does not count. What are the hard bottom line numbers on actual charitable donations by the Gates foundation that are not associated with projects like buying Microsoft software and drugs produced by companies in which he owns major investments? Or are you just going to stick with those unsupported sweeping claims.
I remeber BG running around in the 80's telling everyone he was going to give most of his fortune away when he turned 50, I was surpised he kept his word.
If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Bill Gates did no such thing as give away his fortune, he merely transferred it to a foundation to avoid taxes, and still exercises complete control over it. This is a matter of public record. Gates foundation invests the absolute minimum in actual charitable work that is required to maintain its charitable foundation status, and more often than not in less than worthy forms such as subsidizing the purchase of Microsoft software or subsidizing the purchase of patented drugs, cash flow that flows straight back in to Gates' considerable investments in major drug companies. As a philatrophist, Bill Gates is no Andrew Carnegie.
But say what you want about Microsoft or Bill Gates, but he sure has helped the world with the fortune he created during his lifetime.
Nice troll. That fortune constitutes money he took from the pockets of other people in the process of retarding progress in the software industry by ten years or so.
FreeCAD isn't that bad. It's a pain in the ass to use, but it's a free software 3D CAD program that mostly works.
Beat me to it. It's based on OpenCascade, a mature BREP library with impressive capabilities. Their plan is apparently to get the back end working well first, then pretty up the interface.
Apple corporate spinmods hate it when somebody calls patent troll Apple a patent troll. Hey, maybe instead of sending out your minions to troll social geek sites you should stop patent trolling, that is a much better way to stop being called a patent troll. Sending out your minions just makes me more critical, why should you be surprised.
The macbook air is also balanced perfectly, and does not tip over backwards.
Good joke. The only possible way the Macbook Air could be balanced "perfectly" is if the screen is prevented from opening up all the way. Perfect in your mind perhaps, not mine. As I say, a triumph of style over substance.
Now, your grasp of geometry would seem to be imperfect. If you want to minimize the weight for a given volume, which is a given, then you want to minimize the surface area, a sphere being the limit of that, but rather impractical. The optimum for a given area of keyboard and screen in a clamshell design is a rectangular prism, not a wedge. Once again, a triumph of style over substance. I could go on to mention the word "airhead" but I won't.
Patent troll Apple can get stuffed. This is what judge Posner is really saying. How about getting back to product design now, and leave the rest of us alone.
Both the patent and the wedge shape are stupid. I hate the wedge shape, it looks stupid. I like simple and regular. I don't want the thing I carry to be fat on one side and skinny on the other. Macheads that need some kind of style identity can have that. I don't want it, and I don't want any part of a victory of style over substance. And by the way, it's geometrically stupid: a wedge has less internal volume for its surface area. And its stupid from the point of view of stability: the device should be heavy on the front, not on the back, if you don't want it to tip over when the screen is tilted back.
Anyway, I don't want any more clamshell devices at all, if they are not full blown desktop replacement devices. For on the road, I just want a nicer way to carry my bluetooth keyboard along with my tablet.
True enough. However, that doesn't really matter. People who will not contribute will not contribute whether it is GPL, LGPL, BSD, or whatever. I guess it really comes down to why you are developing open source software at all. If you are doing it to show everyone how smart you are but you don't want to actually benefit anyone, GPL is the perfect solution. If you are altruistic and want to create something to help people, then you want it to be as easy to use as possible, available to the largest audience and guaranteed to remain free (that is, the GPL).
Slashdot Mirror
Why didn't you just write "I disagree with the entire premise of the article", because that is what your words mean. And in the process you redefined the definition of "hack" to mean "write crap code". As if you didn't read the article, or have never met a real hacker. I hope you don't consider yourself one at this stage. By all means continue with the home-grown projects, but keep in mind that just being home-grown does not mean it has to be crap.
Both your defintions are wrong, nice going.
What a hacker does not do, is produce a solution that will be easily maintained.
Wrong, that depends on the hacker. To qualify as a great hacker, the hacks have to be good by this metric too. A lot goes into being a great hacker, but this much is always true: greatness is on more than one level.
Where I work "hacker" is a derogatory term for coders who write non-maintainable solutions.
Must suck to work there.
Didn't bother even to read the summary?
You don't have to like the guy to realize he's buying himself a better place in history.
Too bad for Bill that the internet does not forget. Carnegie and Rockeller didn't have that problem.
See what I mean?
No one was FORCED to buy Windows
Absolute rubbish and revisionism. It was found as fact by more than one high court and upheld on appeal.
I find it outrageous and mildly disgusting that a Microsoft astromod would even consider gainsaying the point. But then it just goes to show, Microsoft is the same old Microsoft it has always been, and so is pretty much everybody in any way associated with the decrepit old monopolist.
How sad and cynical do you have to be to seriously believe that all the time and money Gates has spent, especially post-Microsoft, is some sort of elaborate ploy to make people think better of him?
It apparently works quite well on you.
No one was FORCED to buy Windows
Absolute rubbish and revisionism. It was found as fact by more than one high court and upheld on appeal.
He didn't give us Windows, he forced windows on us by having an exclusive contract with the PC vendors.
And Microsoft still does.
Can we please stop the shilling for BillyG now?
What, you hope that Microsoft employees will suddenly start feeling a need to behave ethically?
Define "giving away". Merely transferring money to a foundation where he still exercises complete control over it without paying taxes does not count. What are the hard bottom line numbers on actual charitable donations by the Gates foundation that are not associated with projects like buying Microsoft software and drugs produced by companies in which he owns major investments? Or are you just going to stick with those unsupported sweeping claims.
I remeber BG running around in the 80's telling everyone he was going to give most of his fortune away when he turned 50, I was surpised he kept his word.
If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Bill Gates did no such thing as give away his fortune, he merely transferred it to a foundation to avoid taxes, and still exercises complete control over it. This is a matter of public record. Gates foundation invests the absolute minimum in actual charitable work that is required to maintain its charitable foundation status, and more often than not in less than worthy forms such as subsidizing the purchase of Microsoft software or subsidizing the purchase of patented drugs, cash flow that flows straight back in to Gates' considerable investments in major drug companies. As a philatrophist, Bill Gates is no Andrew Carnegie.
what were they thinking when they dared to include web browser in their OS...
I believe it was something about cutting off Netscape's air supply
But say what you want about Microsoft or Bill Gates, but he sure has helped the world with the fortune he created during his lifetime.
Nice troll. That fortune constitutes money he took from the pockets of other people in the process of retarding progress in the software industry by ten years or so.
Indeed, history remembers Bill Gates for having little respect for the law.
FreeCAD isn't that bad. It's a pain in the ass to use, but it's a free software 3D CAD program that mostly works.
Beat me to it. It's based on OpenCascade, a mature BREP library with impressive capabilities. Their plan is apparently to get the back end working well first, then pretty up the interface.
Apple corporate spinmods hate it when somebody calls patent troll Apple a patent troll. Hey, maybe instead of sending out your minions to troll social geek sites you should stop patent trolling, that is a much better way to stop being called a patent troll. Sending out your minions just makes me more critical, why should you be surprised.
... the only Linux tablet which has any market momentum is Amazon's, and even that is quite negligible compared to the iPad.
You iCultists really break me up. What is negligible about 39% tablet market share, back in January?
The macbook air is also balanced perfectly, and does not tip over backwards.
Good joke. The only possible way the Macbook Air could be balanced "perfectly" is if the screen is prevented from opening up all the way. Perfect in your mind perhaps, not mine. As I say, a triumph of style over substance.
Now, your grasp of geometry would seem to be imperfect. If you want to minimize the weight for a given volume, which is a given, then you want to minimize the surface area, a sphere being the limit of that, but rather impractical. The optimum for a given area of keyboard and screen in a clamshell design is a rectangular prism, not a wedge. Once again, a triumph of style over substance. I could go on to mention the word "airhead" but I won't.
Patent troll Apple can get stuffed. This is what judge Posner is really saying. How about getting back to product design now, and leave the rest of us alone.
There is only one future in the computing industry and it is Apple iPad.
Haha, that's funny Mr Coward, with Linux tablets increasing exponentially.
Both the patent and the wedge shape are stupid. I hate the wedge shape, it looks stupid. I like simple and regular. I don't want the thing I carry to be fat on one side and skinny on the other. Macheads that need some kind of style identity can have that. I don't want it, and I don't want any part of a victory of style over substance. And by the way, it's geometrically stupid: a wedge has less internal volume for its surface area. And its stupid from the point of view of stability: the device should be heavy on the front, not on the back, if you don't want it to tip over when the screen is tilted back.
Anyway, I don't want any more clamshell devices at all, if they are not full blown desktop replacement devices. For on the road, I just want a nicer way to carry my bluetooth keyboard along with my tablet.
AMD released register level specs, that's even better.
True enough. However, that doesn't really matter. People who will not contribute will not contribute whether it is GPL, LGPL, BSD, or whatever. I guess it really comes down to why you are developing open source software at all. If you are doing it to show everyone how smart you are but you don't want to actually benefit anyone, GPL is the perfect solution. If you are altruistic and want to create something to help people, then you want it to be as easy to use as possible, available to the largest audience and guaranteed to remain free (that is, the GPL).
Fixed that for you.