If open source is a viable way to make a business, there is just one way to prove it, companies that makes a profit.
That's not the point. Free Software is free because it is free, not so someone can figure out a way to make money on it.
Free Software is free (and thanks to GPL, *stays* free) for software developers and software users -- so they can use and improve the software into perpetuity without worrying about apple, ms, aol, etc throwing a bunch of lawyers at you.
Free Software does *not* exist to provide a base of "acceptable" software for apple, ms, aol, etc to absorb into it's proprietary, binary black box for them to embrace and extend, without contributing the code back to the developer community.
Without the GPL, apple, ms, aol etc can happily say: What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine. That's what they want to say.
I, for one, am glad RMS does what he does.
He is stringent enough in his standards that he is the endpoint of the long and slippery slope of free vs proprietary software. Most other people fall somewhere in the middle, which for good or bad is a fact of life.
But without him anchoring the argument, I think we would all be in deep shit, because the other end of the slope -- apple, ms, aol -- aren't going away anytime soon, either.
The surface changes would end up being very geometric in the sense that it would likely be in shapes based in straight lines and regular curvatures. From an Earth's eye perspective, the moon would end up looking more like the "Death Star."
Or Asimov's Trantor. Yes, I know how that ended up, but that would still be cool. How soon can we get started?
sub assume ()
{
nature = good;
trees = good;
spotted owl = good;
technology = bad;
business = bad;
man = bad;
}
Execution aborted due to compilation error: Bad assume function.
Go hug a tree, you nut.
Re:they shouldn't be able to do this
on
Mining On The Moon
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The whole universe was not put here so that we could carefully destroy planets one at a time.
Let's clarify: The universe does not exist for a reason. It simply exists.
We also have no intrinsic relationship with the universe, other than the fact that we are in it: it was here long before us and will mostly likely be here long after we're gone.
(I say "mostly likely" because I'm confident but not positive that we -- humanity -- are never going away either, but people call me arrogant about this)
The universe was not "put here" by anyone or for anyone. And even if it were, there is no way to know who did it or to what end. So stop being a dumass with your extra-terrestrial environmental alarmism.
Now, let's get one defintion straight. In a non-judgmental (non-"workers-of-the-world-unite") definition, exploit means, simply: To employ to the greatest possible advantage
I think that's exactly what we should do with the universe, go up there exploit the resources to our greatest advantage, bring stuff back here to improve the human lot, and repeat. That's what we do: we manipulate our enviroment to make our live's better That's why we have a gamecube and don't live in caves. We do everything we can to make our lives better.
We often disagree on what "better" is -- and that's why we have Amish people who like things the way they were 200 years ago. That's fine. Go build a barn. But stay the fuck out of the way of the rest of us.
We're not perfect. We screw things up. But, all in all, each generation is better off than the one before it. We live longer, we're healthier, we work less, etc. That's what we do.
The universe is an infinitely big place. Remember, the Milky Way Galaxy could blink out of existence and the universe wouldn't bat an eye. We are not cosmic park rangers.
So please pull your head out of your ass and get with the program: We have a lot of work to do.
It'll probably be a centuries before we get out of this rinky-dink solar system. We've got to get busy putting people on the moon, on mars, on io, on europa, on venus. We've got asteroids to turn into space stations.
And don't be a pussy about limited resources. Eventually, our sun will go red giant and fry all the inner planets to a crisp. That means all these precious resources have a built-in shelf-life already, no matter what we do.
By then, we had better be somewhere else. If we have to suck all the gas out of Jupiter to give us the juice to do that, then so be it.
Once we get off this puny planet, that's the scale of things. Hell, that's the beginning of the scales of things. The universe is infinite!
Note: I could go on. I can be anti-corporate also. I didn't say *how* we should do this, only that we *should* -- now. And that business interests in and of themselves are not evil.
It would be much cooler to take other peoples' brain activity when dreaming, amplify it, and reproduce it in other people by affixing electrodes to their skulls.
The U.S. has spent years trying NOT to make it easy for China to trade with the world (and join the WTO) because of it's human right's violations.
What are you talking about? For all our talk, China always got Most Favored Nation trading status, and eventually got it permanently to where we didn't have to vote on it annually.
China is about as marxist as my left nipple. Its politico-economic situation is a weird, bastard stepchild between military-owned capitalism, nationalism,
communism and nepotism. Marxism it is not.
IIRC, During WWII in England, the govt had taken down all the street signs and stopped the sale of maps. This was to stop (or at least slow down) german spies who made it to the shore.
Street signs are back up and we can all buy maps of london.
How is this any different?
Not that I support this action. I'm ambivalent at best. I do think Bush is abusing his power to some degree. But OTOH, I don't want the "Detailed Security Plans for Nuclear Reactor X" manual easily available to Osama and his cronies, either.
Would you rather your taxes were spent keeping these kids in prison?
I would rather my taxes be spent by cutting a check in my name in the exact dollar amount they took from me -- minus the 34 cents for a stamp to mail that check to me in first class envelope.
Re:Microsoft commments on the in-store Xbox situat
on
Crashing Xbox Kiosks
·
· Score: 0
MS pr hack says: "Overall, the displays are working great and we are on track to achieve our goal of having 100% of the Xbox interactive displays working correctly and demonstrating the Xbox difference."
Uh-huh. "On track?" You mean the original was to send out some broken units and fix them after they've been shipped and set up in stores? You're staying "on track" with that plan?
The "track" wasn't to have 100% of units *shipping* in a functional state?
They had a demo xbox at a Target near my house. It wasn't there a few days earlier, the last time I went.
I saw the glossy sign above the monitor, was surprised to see it there, and was more surprised to *not* see a horde of 14-year-olds fondling the controls.
I walked over to try my hand at whatever demo game they had running, only to find out it was abandoned: the damn thing was frozen.
Oh well, the glossy sign above the monitor looked nice.
Damn. I'm trying to read the article just ten minutes after it's posted on/., and the target site is already not responding. #$@#!
Idea for Slashdot Premium Service: Sell access to an "advance-edition" of the home page. Stories posted to slashdot go to the advance edition first, then surface on the home page an hour later. People who subscribe to the advance edition get email alerts. These subsribers could read the article while site is still responding, and have a better chance at getting the first post (and modded down).
Of course, this wouldn't work if all 250k/. readers signed up, but you get the idea.
Eventually, when CD burners, Minidiscs and car MP3 players become cheap and popular enough, how do you propose artists make a living in this new world order?
Concerts and merchandising. Yes, they can still make millions.
Some cable & DSL ISPs have responded to attacks from Nimda and Code Red controlled machines by blocking those machines causing the problem. However some, including AT&T, responded by blocking port 80 on their entire userbase, eliminating cable-based Apache sites as well as infected Microsoft-IIS machines.
Bummer. At least Road Runner has blocked port 80 yet. But I suppose it's only a matter of time.
Traditionally we Canadians love needling Americans like a younger sibling needles their big sibling, but in all honesty, anyone who wants to settle down north of the 49th will be welcomed with open arms.
I'd like to, but it's too cold, and you don't allow pr0n.
LEGOs were such an integral part of my growing up, I can't imagine growing up without them.
Same here. But, then, the legos didn't have to compete with Nintendo64 or PlayStation 2.
I had legos, lincoln logs, *and* tinker toys. And I had the original Nintendo. About the time SuperNintendo came out, I realized that women were pretty interesting creatures.
Speaking of favorite toys -- the old die-cast metal Transformer simply can't be beat. I wish my little brother hadn't broken my SkyFire toy - a full foot tall Macross Valkrie. Awesome. Have you seen what those are going for on ebay now? WOW!
The scramjet's engines then ignited, and the object moved another 260 feet, in just 30 milliseconds, before it came to rest in a series of steel plates designed to halt the flight.
I can juggle for 30 milliseconds.
I can ride a unicyle for 30 milliseconds.
I'm as big a technophile as the next guy, but this smells like an $800k proof-of-concept, engineered to be a PR success?
Too bad there aren't any accompanying pictures, but with a flight time of less than a second, I guess they'd be hard to get.
"Stock trades are one of the most sensitive, secure and important kinds of transactions that exist,? said John Patrick, vice president of Internet technology at IBM. ?This deal has removed any doubt that Linux is ready for the mainstream and that it can play a major role in electronic businesses of all kinds and sizes."
This is not something I was expecting. Wonderful news! Linux can no longer be dismissed as a 'hacker' or 'hobby' operating system. It's industrial-strength!
LUSER: "You use Linux? I read in Micosoft Press Release Daily that it's not a real operating system, it's not reliable...."
ME: "Yeah, well, IBM and the NYSE doesn't think so. You're fund manager trades your stocks over a linux-based network."
Slashdot Mirror
If open source is a viable way to make a business, there is just one way to prove it, companies that makes a profit.
That's not the point. Free Software is free because it is free, not so someone can figure out a way to make money on it.
Free Software is free (and thanks to GPL, *stays* free) for software developers and software users -- so they can use and improve the software into perpetuity without worrying about apple, ms, aol, etc throwing a bunch of lawyers at you.
Free Software does *not* exist to provide a base of "acceptable" software for apple, ms, aol, etc to absorb into it's proprietary, binary black box for them to embrace and extend, without contributing the code back to the developer community.
Without the GPL, apple, ms, aol etc can happily say: What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine. That's what they want to say.
I, for one, am glad RMS does what he does.
He is stringent enough in his standards that he is the endpoint of the long and slippery slope of free vs proprietary software. Most other people fall somewhere in the middle, which for good or bad is a fact of life.
But without him anchoring the argument, I think we would all be in deep shit, because the other end of the slope -- apple, ms, aol -- aren't going away anytime soon, either.
I thank him for it.
Don't forget, AOL is directing the development of the Cybiko. The Cybiko will be AOL's Palm Pilot.
Look away from the light.
The surface changes would end up being very geometric in the sense that it would likely be in shapes based in straight lines and regular curvatures. From an Earth's eye perspective, the moon would end up looking more like the "Death Star."
Or Asimov's Trantor. Yes, I know how that ended up, but that would still be cool. How soon can we get started?
sub assume ()
{
nature = good;
trees = good;
spotted owl = good;
technology = bad;
business = bad;
man = bad;
}
Execution aborted due to compilation error: Bad assume function.
Go hug a tree, you nut.
The whole universe was not put here so that we could carefully destroy planets one at a time.
Let's clarify: The universe does not exist for a reason. It simply exists.
We also have no intrinsic relationship with the universe, other than the fact that we are in it: it was here long before us and will mostly likely be here long after we're gone.
(I say "mostly likely" because I'm confident but not positive that we -- humanity -- are never going away either, but people call me arrogant about this)
The universe was not "put here" by anyone or for anyone. And even if it were, there is no way to know who did it or to what end. So stop being a dumass with your extra-terrestrial environmental alarmism.
Now, let's get one defintion straight. In a non-judgmental (non-"workers-of-the-world-unite") definition, exploit means, simply: To employ to the greatest possible advantage
I think that's exactly what we should do with the universe, go up there exploit the resources to our greatest advantage, bring stuff back here to improve the human lot, and repeat. That's what we do: we manipulate our enviroment to make our live's better That's why we have a gamecube and don't live in caves. We do everything we can to make our lives better.
We often disagree on what "better" is -- and that's why we have Amish people who like things the way they were 200 years ago. That's fine. Go build a barn. But stay the fuck out of the way of the rest of us.
We're not perfect. We screw things up. But, all in all, each generation is better off than the one before it. We live longer, we're healthier, we work less, etc. That's what we do.
The universe is an infinitely big place. Remember, the Milky Way Galaxy could blink out of existence and the universe wouldn't bat an eye. We are not cosmic park rangers.
So please pull your head out of your ass and get with the program: We have a lot of work to do.
It'll probably be a centuries before we get out of this rinky-dink solar system. We've got to get busy putting people on the moon, on mars, on io, on europa, on venus. We've got asteroids to turn into space stations.
And don't be a pussy about limited resources. Eventually, our sun will go red giant and fry all the inner planets to a crisp. That means all these precious resources have a built-in shelf-life already, no matter what we do.
By then, we had better be somewhere else. If we have to suck all the gas out of Jupiter to give us the juice to do that, then so be it.
Once we get off this puny planet, that's the scale of things. Hell, that's the beginning of the scales of things. The universe is infinite!
Note: I could go on. I can be anti-corporate also. I didn't say *how* we should do this, only that we *should* -- now. And that business interests in and of themselves are not evil.
... I think you know the rest.
It would be much cooler to take other peoples' brain activity when dreaming, amplify it, and reproduce it in other people by affixing electrodes to their skulls.
See Brainstorm and Strange Days.
Presumably if this thing can sense your movements, it's got a camera of some kind. Do you really want a net-connected camera pointing at your bed?
That depends. What's my percentage?
The U.S. has spent years trying NOT to make it easy for China to trade with the world (and join the WTO) because of it's human right's violations.
What are you talking about? For all our talk, China always got Most Favored Nation trading status, and eventually got it permanently to where we didn't have to vote on it annually.
China is about as marxist as my left nipple. Its politico-economic situation is a weird, bastard stepchild between military-owned capitalism, nationalism,
communism and nepotism. Marxism it is not.
Pinko nipple! Pinko nipple!
There is exactly one person out of these jobs and people that I consider a friend.
IIRC, During WWII in England, the govt had taken down all the street signs and stopped the sale of maps. This was to stop (or at least slow down) german spies who made it to the shore.
Street signs are back up and we can all buy maps of london.
How is this any different?
Not that I support this action. I'm ambivalent at best. I do think Bush is abusing his power to some degree. But OTOH, I don't want the "Detailed Security Plans for Nuclear Reactor X" manual easily available to Osama and his cronies, either.
Hmm. All other things being equal, this is a great reason to vote for him.
I'd like funny to count as -1. But then, with the way posts are moderated around here, no posts would get above 4.
If you ever have a full moon on Halloween, it has to be a blue moon. Do the math
I would rather my taxes be spent by cutting a check in my name in the exact dollar amount they took from me -- minus the 34 cents for a stamp to mail that check to me in first class envelope.
MS pr hack says: "Overall, the displays are working great and we are on track to achieve our goal of having 100% of the Xbox interactive displays working correctly and demonstrating the Xbox difference."
Uh-huh. "On track?" You mean the original was to send out some broken units and fix them after they've been shipped and set up in stores? You're staying "on track" with that plan?
The "track" wasn't to have 100% of units *shipping* in a functional state?
They had a demo xbox at a Target near my house. It wasn't there a few days earlier, the last time I went.
I saw the glossy sign above the monitor, was surprised to see it there, and was more surprised to *not* see a horde of 14-year-olds fondling the controls.
I walked over to try my hand at whatever demo game they had running, only to find out it was abandoned: the damn thing was frozen.
Oh well, the glossy sign above the monitor looked nice.
Damn. I'm trying to read the article just ten minutes after it's posted on /., and the target site is already not responding. #$@#!
/. readers signed up, but you get the idea.
Idea for Slashdot Premium Service: Sell access to an "advance-edition" of the home page. Stories posted to slashdot go to the advance edition first, then surface on the home page an hour later. People who subscribe to the advance edition get email alerts. These subsribers could read the article while site is still responding, and have a better chance at getting the first post (and modded down).
Of course, this wouldn't work if all 250k
Eventually, when CD burners, Minidiscs and car MP3 players become cheap and popular enough, how do you propose artists make a living in this new world order?
Concerts and merchandising. Yes, they can still make millions.
From the arcticle:
Some cable & DSL ISPs have responded to attacks from Nimda and Code Red controlled machines by blocking those machines causing the problem. However some, including AT&T, responded by blocking port 80 on their entire userbase, eliminating cable-based Apache sites as well as infected Microsoft-IIS machines.
Bummer. At least Road Runner has blocked port 80 yet. But I suppose it's only a matter of time.
I'd like to, but it's too cold, and you don't allow pr0n.
Same here. But, then, the legos didn't have to compete with Nintendo64 or PlayStation 2.
I had legos, lincoln logs, *and* tinker toys. And I had the original Nintendo. About the time SuperNintendo came out, I realized that women were pretty interesting creatures.
Speaking of favorite toys -- the old die-cast metal Transformer simply can't be beat. I wish my little brother hadn't broken my SkyFire toy - a full foot tall Macross Valkrie. Awesome. Have you seen what those are going for on ebay now? WOW!
I can juggle for 30 milliseconds.
I can ride a unicyle for 30 milliseconds.
I'm as big a technophile as the next guy, but this smells like an $800k proof-of-concept, engineered to be a PR success?
Too bad there aren't any accompanying pictures, but with a flight time of less than a second, I guess they'd be hard to get.
It'd be interesting, to say the least, if the maker of red carpet, evolution, *and* distro of a gnome desktop would get it's own linux distro.
"Stock trades are one of the most sensitive, secure and important kinds of transactions that exist,? said John Patrick, vice president of Internet technology at IBM. ?This deal has removed any doubt that Linux is ready for the mainstream and that it can play a major role in electronic businesses of all kinds and sizes."
This is not something I was expecting. Wonderful news! Linux can no longer be dismissed as a 'hacker' or 'hobby' operating system. It's industrial-strength!
LUSER: "You use Linux? I read in Micosoft Press Release Daily that it's not a real operating system, it's not reliable
ME: "Yeah, well, IBM and the NYSE doesn't think so. You're fund manager trades your stocks over a linux-based network."
Where does MS go from there?