Are you asking which countries have muslims that generally like American pepople? Or are you asking about which countries the U.S. government has helped form that represses its people?
Okay, if the first let me know. You can Google yourself for recent poll information. Polls about "liking American people" have been performed over the last few years in these countries that I know of: Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Aghganistan, Pakistan, and Palestinians (I know they are not a country) in Isreal. There may be more.
Second one? Someone already mentioned Iran. Lets see, too many countries and I don't want to write all day. I'll pick another easy one: Afghanistan. Since you need references to what I will tell you you can either use Wikipedia or an Encyclopedia at your local library.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan came to power in Afghanistan in 1978 in what is known as the Great Saur Revolution. This government, and later Soviet forces, were regularly attacked by U.S. trained majahideen. The majahideen were Islamic fundemtalists who opposed the aethist Maxist system. The Soviets later retreated after taking heavy losses through the years:
The Soviet withdrawal was seen as an ideological victory in the US, which ostensibly had backed the Mujahideen in order to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Following the removal of the Soviet forces in 1989, the US and its allies lost interest in Afghanistan and did little to help rebuild the war-ravaged country. The USSR continued to support the regime of Dr. Najubullah (formerly the head of the secret service, Khad) until its downfall in 1992. However, the absence of the Soviet forces resulted in the downfall of the government as it steadily lost ground to the guerrilla forces.
In the void, that the United States helped created, formed the Taliban and Al Queda.
Now, a case could be argued that the United States later corrected itself and went back to fix Afghanistan. It took two jetliners crashing into the World Trade Center for us to care apparently. George W Bush himself admitted that the United States had made mistakes in the past with Afghanistan.
Uh, actually women had near equality under the secular pre-Saddam constitution
Wow, thats completely contradictory to what Nasreen Barwari, an Iraqi cabinet member, has been saying. She states figures such as 4000 women killed in "honor" killings under Saddams rule and women living in most of Iraq under strict Islam ways.
(notoriously the lady bio-scientists).
You are talking about Huda Saleh Mehdi Ammash. Out of curiosity, was Huda payed the same as her male counterparts? Being able to work doesn't mean you have equality, it just means you can work. People in the United States sometimes get the wrong impression the Islam forbids women working. That has alot to do with our "christian" mentality.
The new constitution imposed by the US includes Islamic law and greatly reduces women's rights.
Your right. That's mostly because the U.S. government had to make comprimises to get an agreement through. Things were looking bad when the interim Iraqi government refused to agree on some, to them atleast, radical western ideals (I can give you links to about this) in the formation process of the new Iraqi government. Two in particular caused the most problem: freedom of religion and women rights. Both were minor issues compared to the disagreement on the design of the future government (including a requirement for a certain representation of women in high government positions) but that's outside what we are talking about. But polls of Iraq people showed that, although they were concerned about the amount of representation their segment had in the new government, they were very concerned about the other two issues.
Similar story in Afghanistan - women had equality in the commie regime
True, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a secular government that believed in womens rights (and freedom of religion). But its capability of actually getting this enforced outside the larger cities was highly limited and it truthfully never really tried all that hard. The people revolted against this perceived "threat" to their culture which started the creation of the Taliban. The U.S. government, instead of assisting the PDRA, chose instead to support the Taliban and helped create Al Queda in the process. This goes with one of my other posts about the U.S. governments role in helping put in place repressive governments through series of "blunders".
Interesting enough, the Afghan people preferred the Islam society. Why are we trying, like the Soviets before us, trying to force them to change?
Our country, and its government, was created through the blood, sweat, and tears of our forefathers. No one gave us a democracy. No one helped us create our government. And who the hell are we to tell people that democracy is whats best for them?
Now I'm gonna say something that will really piss people off: why are we forcing them to change their culture against their beliefs by giving women equality? I believe they should have equality, but thats just MY belief on what is right. Women here in the United States still haven't attained this status yet but they have fought for years to get it. Did you get that: they fought for it. The culture changed on its own for the better because it wanted to.
You have to fight for what you believe in. But don't think going to a foreign country and forcing them into you beliefs is right thing because its not. THEY have to want it so bad that THEY will fight for it. Only then is it real.
The extreme lefties seem to think the muslims are gonna be ok with them after the evil republicorps are booted.
The vast majority of "muslims" are just fine with American citizens. Many "muslims" live in countries with repressive governments that, ironically, our past and/or present government put in place or helped create through horrible blunders. Their hatred is usually targetted squarely at our government for this reason.
India is a nice place for such companies because they can be coding while you are sleeping.
Wow! What a huge advantage! I mean, since ALL Americans HAVE to go to sleep between 6 PM to 6 AM this rules! Seriously, theres this thing called "shifts" that can do the same thing. And if you ever had to deal with India in software outsourcing you would know the horrors of working 12 hour days so you can reach one of the sleeping bastards by phone for a phone conference.
Result: Projects get finished in about half the time.
Not true. Anyone who has done software projects knows that they are usually given unrealistic schedules and changing requirements (scope creep). I once, to great humor, watched a local project with serious issues go overseas. The outsourcing company supposedly threw swarms of software engineers at it and were still unable to complete the project. No matter how many people you have its impossible to reach a goal if the goal is undefined.
Besides, there is also the financial benefits of cheap labour that outsourcing brings.
Trye. Cheap labor means company makes more profit and the stock goes up. Executives, who usually recieve stock in the company as "rewards", make more money. This means executive can buy fancier boats, cars, and houses. A win-win situation for them.
Some might say that outsourcing isn't nice to those working at home base
Everyone around is effected by outsourcing, not just software engineers. You see home based software engineers pay taxes, eat at restuarants, buy items from stores or the internet, etc. etc. That money goes in to the community which in turn pays for other peoples living and general area welfare (like fixing roads with tax money). Now to be honest, software engineers are not that numerious to make a serious dent. But India, and China for that matter, are moving to outsourcing other types of jobs. Indians generally target the higher paying jobs. Go to a hospital in a larger city and figure out how many doctors on call don't hail from the U.S. Theres not a shortage of doctors, its just that hospitals are businesses too and cheap labor makes the executives happy. The complaint that there is this "shortage of talented labor" by companies can be correctly translated as "shortage of cheap labor with sufficient degrees".
I agree with you there. I wrote a Java wrapper around SDL and OpenGL a few years back. After doing that, almost all the rest of the code for a game (actually interactive applications in my case) could be written in Java using the wrappers. After presenting some examples to some hardcore C/C++ programmers, they stopped complaining about the "Java is slow" stuff. Ofcourse, they had to continue that C/C++ could make it go slightly quicker and take less memory. I couldn't argue with them there. But what they couldn't do with C/C++ was develop similiar apps/games as quickly. Now, someone who did not know these C/C++ programmers would argue that they just didn't know the languages that well. But for those who wonder I have this: how many times have you written a large C/C++ application and found yourself looking for some oddball memory leak?
Its a natual progress with languages. Languages like C and C++ are giving way to languages like Java and C#. But interestingly enough Java and C# will be replaced too: by scripting languages like Perl. As programmers, we just have to accept this and move with the tide or drown in ignorance.
I suspect that nothing they could do about OO.org license would make you feel safe that they won't doublecross you.
No, they can do like the article states and donate the intellectual property to an independent not-for-profit foundation. Or, if thats too much, revoke the JCA and not make it a future requirement of contributions. That way we don't have to trust that they will always have good intentions. Your right, maybe I have too little faith in the good will of publicly traded corporations.
I won't go down the NetBeans versus Eclipse, IBM versus Sun, or SWT versus Swing battle. Those are all non-issues to the bigger picture.
Competition makes better systems right? Sun must agree with you since they pay for their NetBeans developers to blog online. Most of its just simple bashing Eclipse to keep the battle roaring. Sure, most of it is very objectionable and often times questionable in accuracy. I have been compiling some great links to some very interesting blog entries by lead Sun developers/managers aimed at the Eclipse foundation (not the Eclipse IDE, but the foundation itself). I've even watched Eclipse members ask Sun to participate in Eclipse, or even become a strategic partner to Eclipse:
See, Sun can't just revoke the LGPL because they feel like it.
Why not? To change the license of a project it would require all contributors to agree to the change. That's pretty tough work. I've seen it done in stages where a project has multiple licenses. A good example of a license migration would be Mozillas move to rid itself of outdated Netscape licences. But Sun doesn't have to worry about that since, like I said early, according to the JCA the original contributor gives Sun full rights to make any and all decisions about the code. Fork the code after they change the license and they can hunt you down like the idiots who were peddling Microsoft's Window source code.
The difference is that Linus Trovolds, and most OSS organizations and contributing companies, don't require OSS developers to sign special copyright agreements:
I don't think anyone has a problem with Sun contributing code. Its just the controlling part that irks people. You ever hear the term "Free As In Beer"? Well, imagine someone (Sun) gives you a beer at a local bar. You go to drink it and notice that Sun still has a hand on the glass. Seems kinda odd having someone hanging on the glass that your trying to drink from right? I mean, you can drink it yourself. You ask Sun why he refuses to remove his hand from the glass. Sun explains that its for your best interest and his. Little creepy huh?
You know, even for slashdot your understanding of copyright is extremely low.
Not really. LGPL license is pretty clear. What's not clear is Sun's motivation for the JCA (Joint Copyright Agreement) which is required of all contributors of code to the OpenOffice project. This is a curious document since the LGPL already covers copyright and ownership. From the JCA:
2. Contributor hereby assigns to Sun joint ownership in all worldwide common law and statutory rights associated with the copyrights, copyright application, copyright registration and moral rights in the Contribution to the extent allowable under applicable local laws and copyright conventions. Contributor agrees that this assignment may be submitted by Sun to register a copyright in the Contribution. Contributor retains the right to use the Contribution for Contributor's own purposes. This Joint Copyright Assignment supersedes and replaces all prior copyright assignments made by Contributor to Sun under the OpenOffice.org project.
Now, Mr. Copyright Lawyer, please explain how Sun is unable to close the OpenOffice project off tommorow, claim complete copyright ownership, and allow only Star Office to exist? What will stop them? You think they are just a bunch of "great guys" who can do no wrong? Money doesn't matter to THAT corporation right?
Sun automatically holds the copyrights on any code written by their employees
If they submitted it to a LGPL licensed project, they automatically forfeit the copyright. Thats the magic of LGPL. But if I remember right Sun uses its own "special" license.
All because someone, presumably in the remaining 20% pool, thinks that they should.
No, it has nothing to do with any of those points you just mentioned. I don't work on OpenOffice or use it. But I do use Eclipse. Recently I got in to an argument with some Sun developers about their continued work on NetBeans, another open source IDE like Eclipse. I asked why they continued to spend time and money working on NetBeans rather than combining resources and efforts with other companies and OSS programmers in to improving Eclipse. They gave all sorts of silly reasons. They continued the FUD about how IBM runs Eclipse just like they run NetBeans. That's silly since Eclipse was put in an outside foundation some time back and includes companies like Nokia and Oracle to name just a few. The most humorous one is that Eclispe uses a "inferior" widget set. Thats like crying about some program using Gtk over Qt or vice versa.
Sun has a DIH (Don't-Invent-Here) frame of mind. They HAVE to control every aspect of their "open source" initiatives. Eclipse was run by a foundation which they could not control. So they built NetBeans with the mentality that they could destroy Eclipse. This, in turn, splits OSS programmers in to two seperate camps rather than combine them to create a single, better tool.
Sun doesn't like Open Source. What they like is programmers working on THEIR projects for free. They then wrap these in to products with better features and sell them. The uber version of NetBeans is Sun Studio. Open Office is repackaged and sold and Star Office.
To summarize: Sun equates Open Source as a way to get programmers to work on their products for free.
These folks will NEVER use Linux no matter what. I'm a 24/7 Linux user myself and I know that for a fact.
I didn't get the survey either. This complaint about Photoshop, to me, has always been a bit absurd since MOST computer users do not use Photoshop. MOST computer users get confused with Microsoft Paint so Photoshop is way out of their league. Dreamweaver is another complex tool where MOST users opt to use the more simplistic Microsoft FrontPage. Again, MOST users do not create web pages.
MOST users use Windows because it came with their computer. MOST users don't even know what Linux is or that they can install it on their computer. MOST users, who know about Linux and that they can install it, won't even bother going through the effort since Windows works for what they are doing.
Not everyone is a computer geek. MOST people with computers have simple needs. Linux will only make headway on the desktop by being preinstalled there. Thats just the way it is.
It's called language. In a language we have these things called words. Each word has a specific meaning,
....or several. But thats besides the point. Go on...
and that meaning when used in conjunction with other words form ideas and thoughts.
Actually, they usually form sentences. Ideas and thoughts are abstracts that can be put to words. But, again, small stuff so please go on...
According to our handy dandy dictionary we find (emphisis added):
Sorry, I missed what your adding emphisis to. Okay. You want me to get my dictionary right? Check! Lets start:
Now do I really need to go into the meaning of the words which form Wikipedia's slogan?
Yes. Lets start with slogans:
sloganA phrase expressing the aims or nature of an enterprise, organization, or candidate; a motto.
A motto eh? Or, what is sometimes called a maxim. Sure.
maximA succinct formulation of a fundamental principle, general truth, or rule of conduct.
A general truth. So, that means it's generally true. But not always. Mostly. Not 100% of the time. So this means that slogans are sayings that, for the most part, are true. Sorta like the WalMart example as you just showed.
That's the funny thing about slogans. They are just a way for companies to communicate to consumers what they are about outside just their name. This is freshman college level marketting stuff. Add music and it can become a "jingle".
Okay, now on to the Wikipedia slogan. So it says anyone can edit it right? Well, guess what: they can. You can, I can, the staffers could. But that's the funny thing, the slogan doesn't explain the whole story. They missed adding all their policies about editing in the slogan. But, thats slogans for you: short and sweet and generally (emphisis added) to a point. Again, this is all basic marketting stuff. If you want, categorize the Wikipedia slogan as what marketting types like to call "puffing" and call it a day.
"George W Bush started a costly war in Iraq during his term as president" or "George W Bush actively and wisely used the military to protect american interests both foreign and domestic during his term as president"?
Those are both point-of-views (POV). Neither belongs in Wikipedia. Here's Wikipedias entry on Bush and Iraq if you want to see how to do it correctly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush#Iraq. What you are stating is called POV Pushing. Again, like blanking content, Wikipedia has a policy against that. POV Pushing is one of the other reasons the staffers were banned.
then why is it an option at all?
There is no "Delete" option in Wikipedia, only "Edit". But by editing a section it is possible to delete the content within it. This is a feature of a system known as a Wiki. Wikipedia is a wiki based Encyclopedia, thus its name.
Before you post another uneducated POV about Wikipedia, please go learn WHAT it is. Also take time to learn its policies.
No matter how you argue it the staffers broke Wikipedias stated policies. For that they were banned. It doesnt matter what your personal views are, they don't belong on Wikipedia. Just the facts.
While I do not question wkipedia's right to restrict access to their private project, such a restriction means that only some can edit, not anyone.
WalMart says they are "Always Low Prices. Always". But I've found items there that are cheaper elsewhere. So, is WalMart a bunch of liars? Is that false advertisement? Can I sue them for misleading me?
most people don't want to do many things with a browser except view web pages
Wow. We were just talking about Wikipedia and you bring up world conflict. Why not starvation in Africa? I usually try to keeps things a little more to scale and a little more on the subject. Anyhow, truth: Conformity to fact or actuality. Reality; actuality. Now, the reverse is known as a lie. But the wikipedia issue has little to do with truth or lies (or world conflict for that matter). The "truth" is that the staffers knowingly (since they did over 1000+ edits I doubt it was a accident) removed content that was known, to everyones knowledge, to be facts. An example would be the removal of references by the staffers of ties between Republican politicians and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The ties are not in dispute by either Jack Abramoff or the politicians in question. If the content was incorrect and the staffers had information to prove otherwise, why did they not dispute the content? Wikipedia provides a means for working out these types of conflicts. The staffers ignored the policy and instead just deleted the content. They never explained their reasoning and refused to respond to queries by Wikipedia. By breaking Wikipedias policy they were banned.
Now, you can argue that the banning is unwarranted. But policies are policies. When you break policies in the real world there are very real punishments. Or are you arguing that people can ignore policies if they don't agree with them?
most people don't want to do many things with a browser except view web pages
I don't know about that. I've been watching lots of people, who are not generally regarded as the computer savvy type, installing Firefox extensions. And the extensions they load are rarely the same as what the next guy/girl loads. This may be because the "web browser" has become the principle application that people utilize when they use a computer. Simply being able to view web pages doesn't seem to cut it for them anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you asking which countries have muslims that generally like American pepople? Or are you asking about which countries the U.S. government has helped form that represses its people?
Okay, if the first let me know. You can Google yourself for recent poll information. Polls about "liking American people" have been performed over the last few years in these countries that I know of: Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Aghganistan, Pakistan, and Palestinians (I know they are not a country) in Isreal. There may be more.
Second one? Someone already mentioned Iran. Lets see, too many countries and I don't want to write all day. I'll pick another easy one: Afghanistan. Since you need references to what I will tell you you can either use Wikipedia or an Encyclopedia at your local library.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan came to power in Afghanistan in 1978 in what is known as the Great Saur Revolution. This government, and later Soviet forces, were regularly attacked by U.S. trained majahideen. The majahideen were Islamic fundemtalists who opposed the aethist Maxist system. The Soviets later retreated after taking heavy losses through the years:
The Soviet withdrawal was seen as an ideological victory in the US, which ostensibly had backed the Mujahideen in order to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Following the removal of the Soviet forces in 1989, the US and its allies lost interest in Afghanistan and did little to help rebuild the war-ravaged country. The USSR continued to support the regime of Dr. Najubullah (formerly the head of the secret service, Khad) until its downfall in 1992. However, the absence of the Soviet forces resulted in the downfall of the government as it steadily lost ground to the guerrilla forces.
In the void, that the United States helped created, formed the Taliban and Al Queda.
Now, a case could be argued that the United States later corrected itself and went back to fix Afghanistan. It took two jetliners crashing into the World Trade Center for us to care apparently. George W Bush himself admitted that the United States had made mistakes in the past with Afghanistan.
Uh, actually women had near equality under the secular pre-Saddam constitution
Wow, thats completely contradictory to what Nasreen Barwari, an Iraqi cabinet member, has been saying. She states figures such as 4000 women killed in "honor" killings under Saddams rule and women living in most of Iraq under strict Islam ways.
(notoriously the lady bio-scientists).
You are talking about Huda Saleh Mehdi Ammash. Out of curiosity, was Huda payed the same as her male counterparts? Being able to work doesn't mean you have equality, it just means you can work. People in the United States sometimes get the wrong impression the Islam forbids women working. That has alot to do with our "christian" mentality.
The new constitution imposed by the US includes Islamic law and greatly reduces women's rights.
Your right. That's mostly because the U.S. government had to make comprimises to get an agreement through. Things were looking bad when the interim Iraqi government refused to agree on some, to them atleast, radical western ideals (I can give you links to about this) in the formation process of the new Iraqi government. Two in particular caused the most problem: freedom of religion and women rights. Both were minor issues compared to the disagreement on the design of the future government (including a requirement for a certain representation of women in high government positions) but that's outside what we are talking about. But polls of Iraq people showed that, although they were concerned about the amount of representation their segment had in the new government, they were very concerned about the other two issues.
Similar story in Afghanistan - women had equality in the commie regime
True, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a secular government that believed in womens rights (and freedom of religion). But its capability of actually getting this enforced outside the larger cities was highly limited and it truthfully never really tried all that hard. The people revolted against this perceived "threat" to their culture which started the creation of the Taliban. The U.S. government, instead of assisting the PDRA, chose instead to support the Taliban and helped create Al Queda in the process. This goes with one of my other posts about the U.S. governments role in helping put in place repressive governments through series of "blunders".
Interesting enough, the Afghan people preferred the Islam society. Why are we trying, like the Soviets before us, trying to force them to change?
Hell yeah.
Our country, and its government, was created through the blood, sweat, and tears of our forefathers. No one gave us a democracy. No one helped us create our government. And who the hell are we to tell people that democracy is whats best for them?
Now I'm gonna say something that will really piss people off: why are we forcing them to change their culture against their beliefs by giving women equality? I believe they should have equality, but thats just MY belief on what is right. Women here in the United States still haven't attained this status yet but they have fought for years to get it. Did you get that: they fought for it. The culture changed on its own for the better because it wanted to.
You have to fight for what you believe in. But don't think going to a foreign country and forcing them into you beliefs is right thing because its not. THEY have to want it so bad that THEY will fight for it. Only then is it real.
The extreme lefties seem to think the muslims are gonna be ok with them .
after the evil republicorps are booted
The vast majority of "muslims" are just fine with American citizens. Many "muslims" live in countries with repressive governments that, ironically, our past and/or present government put in place or helped create through horrible blunders. Their hatred is usually targetted squarely at our government for this reason.
India is a nice place for such companies because they can be coding while you are sleeping.
Wow! What a huge advantage! I mean, since ALL Americans HAVE to go to sleep between 6 PM to 6 AM this rules! Seriously, theres this thing called "shifts" that can do the same thing. And if you ever had to deal with India in software outsourcing you would know the horrors of working 12 hour days so you can reach one of the sleeping bastards by phone for a phone conference.
Result: Projects get finished in about half the time.
Not true. Anyone who has done software projects knows that they are usually given unrealistic schedules and changing requirements (scope creep). I once, to great humor, watched a local project with serious issues go overseas. The outsourcing company supposedly threw swarms of software engineers at it and were still unable to complete the project. No matter how many people you have its impossible to reach a goal if the goal is undefined.
Besides, there is also the financial benefits of cheap labour that outsourcing brings.
Trye. Cheap labor means company makes more profit and the stock goes up. Executives, who usually recieve stock in the company as "rewards", make more money. This means executive can buy fancier boats, cars, and houses. A win-win situation for them.
Some might say that outsourcing isn't nice to those working at home base
Everyone around is effected by outsourcing, not just software engineers. You see home based software engineers pay taxes, eat at restuarants, buy items from stores or the internet, etc. etc. That money goes in to the community which in turn pays for other peoples living and general area welfare (like fixing roads with tax money). Now to be honest, software engineers are not that numerious to make a serious dent. But India, and China for that matter, are moving to outsourcing other types of jobs. Indians generally target the higher paying jobs. Go to a hospital in a larger city and figure out how many doctors on call don't hail from the U.S. Theres not a shortage of doctors, its just that hospitals are businesses too and cheap labor makes the executives happy. The complaint that there is this "shortage of talented labor" by companies can be correctly translated as "shortage of cheap labor with sufficient degrees".
I agree with you there. I wrote a Java wrapper around SDL and OpenGL a few years back. After doing that, almost all the rest of the code for a game (actually interactive applications in my case) could be written in Java using the wrappers. After presenting some examples to some hardcore C/C++ programmers, they stopped complaining about the "Java is slow" stuff. Ofcourse, they had to continue that C/C++ could make it go slightly quicker and take less memory. I couldn't argue with them there. But what they couldn't do with C/C++ was develop similiar apps/games as quickly. Now, someone who did not know these C/C++ programmers would argue that they just didn't know the languages that well. But for those who wonder I have this: how many times have you written a large C/C++ application and found yourself looking for some oddball memory leak?
Its a natual progress with languages. Languages like C and C++ are giving way to languages like Java and C#. But interestingly enough Java and C# will be replaced too: by scripting languages like Perl. As programmers, we just have to accept this and move with the tide or drown in ignorance.
I suspect that nothing they could do about OO.org license would make you feel safe that they won't doublecross you.
No, they can do like the article states and donate the intellectual property to an independent not-for-profit foundation. Or, if thats too much, revoke the JCA and not make it a future requirement of contributions. That way we don't have to trust that they will always have good intentions. Your right, maybe I have too little faith in the good will of publicly traded corporations.
Everybody keeps refuting all your FUD
Everybody huh? Like what, five or six people constitutes everyone. Yes, we live in a small, small world.
so you'll instead just opt to go down the 'Sun bad. Hate Sun.' route, eh?
I don't hate Sun.
I won't go down the NetBeans versus Eclipse, IBM versus Sun, or SWT versus Swing battle. Those are all non-issues to the bigger picture.
i c.php
Competition makes better systems right? Sun must agree with you since they pay for their NetBeans developers to blog online. Most of its just simple bashing Eclipse to keep the battle roaring. Sure, most of it is very objectionable and often times questionable in accuracy. I have been compiling some great links to some very interesting blog entries by lead Sun developers/managers aimed at the Eclipse foundation (not the Eclipse IDE, but the foundation itself). I've even watched Eclipse members ask Sun to participate in Eclipse, or even become a strategic partner to Eclipse:
http://www.eclipse.org/membership/members/strateg
Stupid Eclipse foundation keeps wanting to work as a team. I mean, you can do much more as an individual than you can ever do as a team.
See, Sun can't just revoke the LGPL because they feel like it.
Why not? To change the license of a project it would require all contributors to agree to the change. That's pretty tough work. I've seen it done in stages where a project has multiple licenses. A good example of a license migration would be Mozillas move to rid itself of outdated Netscape licences. But Sun doesn't have to worry about that since, like I said early, according to the JCA the original contributor gives Sun full rights to make any and all decisions about the code. Fork the code after they change the license and they can hunt you down like the idiots who were peddling Microsoft's Window source code.
The difference is that Linus Trovolds, and most OSS organizations and contributing companies, don't require OSS developers to sign special copyright agreements:
6 70175
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=176677&cid=14
The eclipse foundation didn't get set up until November 2001
A preview of the Eclipse was sent out in June of 2000. News spread. Sun opened the code for NetBeans in August of 2000.
I don't think anyone has a problem with Sun contributing code. Its just the controlling part that irks people. You ever hear the term "Free As In Beer"? Well, imagine someone (Sun) gives you a beer at a local bar. You go to drink it and notice that Sun still has a hand on the glass. Seems kinda odd having someone hanging on the glass that your trying to drink from right? I mean, you can drink it yourself. You ask Sun why he refuses to remove his hand from the glass. Sun explains that its for your best interest and his. Little creepy huh?
I cover most of your post here (I hate duplication):
o ld=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=14669661#146701 75
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=176677&thresh
As to the rest, I might agree with your summary but I find the "how dare they compete with us" attitude of the middle bit a little silly.
Who is the "us" that is competing? And what is being competed for?
You know, even for slashdot your understanding of copyright is extremely low.
Not really. LGPL license is pretty clear. What's not clear is Sun's motivation for the JCA (Joint Copyright Agreement) which is required of all contributors of code to the OpenOffice project. This is a curious document since the LGPL already covers copyright and ownership. From the JCA:
2. Contributor hereby assigns to Sun joint ownership in all worldwide common law and statutory rights associated with the copyrights, copyright application, copyright registration and moral rights in the Contribution to the extent allowable under applicable local laws and copyright conventions. Contributor agrees that this assignment may be submitted by Sun to register a copyright in the Contribution. Contributor retains the right to use the Contribution for Contributor's own purposes. This Joint Copyright Assignment supersedes and replaces all prior copyright assignments made by Contributor to Sun under the OpenOffice.org project.
Now, Mr. Copyright Lawyer, please explain how Sun is unable to close the OpenOffice project off tommorow, claim complete copyright ownership, and allow only Star Office to exist? What will stop them? You think they are just a bunch of "great guys" who can do no wrong? Money doesn't matter to THAT corporation right?
Sun automatically holds the copyrights on any code written by their employees
If they submitted it to a LGPL licensed project, they automatically forfeit the copyright. Thats the magic of LGPL. But if I remember right Sun uses its own "special" license.
All because someone, presumably in the remaining 20% pool, thinks that they should.
No, it has nothing to do with any of those points you just mentioned. I don't work on OpenOffice or use it. But I do use Eclipse. Recently I got in to an argument with some Sun developers about their continued work on NetBeans, another open source IDE like Eclipse. I asked why they continued to spend time and money working on NetBeans rather than combining resources and efforts with other companies and OSS programmers in to improving Eclipse. They gave all sorts of silly reasons. They continued the FUD about how IBM runs Eclipse just like they run NetBeans. That's silly since Eclipse was put in an outside foundation some time back and includes companies like Nokia and Oracle to name just a few. The most humorous one is that Eclispe uses a "inferior" widget set. Thats like crying about some program using Gtk over Qt or vice versa.
Sun has a DIH (Don't-Invent-Here) frame of mind. They HAVE to control every aspect of their "open source" initiatives. Eclipse was run by a foundation which they could not control. So they built NetBeans with the mentality that they could destroy Eclipse. This, in turn, splits OSS programmers in to two seperate camps rather than combine them to create a single, better tool.
Sun doesn't like Open Source. What they like is programmers working on THEIR projects for free. They then wrap these in to products with better features and sell them. The uber version of NetBeans is Sun Studio. Open Office is repackaged and sold and Star Office.
To summarize: Sun equates Open Source as a way to get programmers to work on their products for free.
These folks will NEVER use Linux no matter what. I'm a 24/7 Linux user myself and I know that for a fact.
I didn't get the survey either. This complaint about Photoshop, to me, has always been a bit absurd since MOST computer users do not use Photoshop. MOST computer users get confused with Microsoft Paint so Photoshop is way out of their league. Dreamweaver is another complex tool where MOST users opt to use the more simplistic Microsoft FrontPage. Again, MOST users do not create web pages.
MOST users use Windows because it came with their computer. MOST users don't even know what Linux is or that they can install it on their computer. MOST users, who know about Linux and that they can install it, won't even bother going through the effort since Windows works for what they are doing.
Not everyone is a computer geek. MOST people with computers have simple needs. Linux will only make headway on the desktop by being preinstalled there. Thats just the way it is.
If coding for OSS projects floats your boat
.NET can be used in OSS.
Hey now!
ol u only have $1000 in rainy day money?
He must not be an American since most American's don't have savings.
It's called language. In a language we have these things called words. Each word has a specific meaning,
....or several. But thats besides the point. Go on...
and that meaning when used in conjunction with other words form ideas and thoughts.
Actually, they usually form sentences. Ideas and thoughts are abstracts that can be put to words. But, again, small stuff so please go on...
According to our handy dandy dictionary we find (emphisis added):
Sorry, I missed what your adding emphisis to. Okay. You want me to get my dictionary right? Check! Lets start:
Now do I really need to go into the meaning of the words which form Wikipedia's slogan?
Yes. Lets start with slogans:
slogan A phrase expressing the aims or nature of an enterprise, organization, or candidate; a motto.
A motto eh? Or, what is sometimes called a maxim. Sure.
maxim A succinct formulation of a fundamental principle, general truth, or rule of conduct.
A general truth. So, that means it's generally true. But not always. Mostly. Not 100% of the time. So this means that slogans are sayings that, for the most part, are true. Sorta like the WalMart example as you just showed.
That's the funny thing about slogans. They are just a way for companies to communicate to consumers what they are about outside just their name. This is freshman college level marketting stuff. Add music and it can become a "jingle".
Okay, now on to the Wikipedia slogan. So it says anyone can edit it right? Well, guess what: they can. You can, I can, the staffers could. But that's the funny thing, the slogan doesn't explain the whole story. They missed adding all their policies about editing in the slogan. But, thats slogans for you: short and sweet and generally (emphisis added) to a point. Again, this is all basic marketting stuff. If you want, categorize the Wikipedia slogan as what marketting types like to call "puffing" and call it a day.
"George W Bush started a costly war in Iraq during his term as president" or "George W Bush actively and wisely used the military to protect american interests both foreign and domestic during his term as president"?
Those are both point-of-views (POV). Neither belongs in Wikipedia. Here's Wikipedias entry on Bush and Iraq if you want to see how to do it correctly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush#Iraq. What you are stating is called POV Pushing. Again, like blanking content, Wikipedia has a policy against that. POV Pushing is one of the other reasons the staffers were banned.
then why is it an option at all?
There is no "Delete" option in Wikipedia, only "Edit". But by editing a section it is possible to delete the content within it. This is a feature of a system known as a Wiki. Wikipedia is a wiki based Encyclopedia, thus its name.
Before you post another uneducated POV about Wikipedia, please go learn WHAT it is. Also take time to learn its policies.
No matter how you argue it the staffers broke Wikipedias stated policies. For that they were banned. It doesnt matter what your personal views are, they don't belong on Wikipedia. Just the facts.
While I do not question wkipedia's right to restrict access to their private project, such a restriction means that only some can edit, not anyone.
WalMart says they are "Always Low Prices. Always". But I've found items there that are cheaper elsewhere. So, is WalMart a bunch of liars? Is that false advertisement? Can I sue them for misleading me?
most people don't want to do many things with a browser except view web pages
Wow. We were just talking about Wikipedia and you bring up world conflict. Why not starvation in Africa? I usually try to keeps things a little more to scale and a little more on the subject. Anyhow, truth: Conformity to fact or actuality. Reality; actuality. Now, the reverse is known as a lie. But the wikipedia issue has little to do with truth or lies (or world conflict for that matter). The "truth" is that the staffers knowingly (since they did over 1000+ edits I doubt it was a accident) removed content that was known, to everyones knowledge, to be facts. An example would be the removal of references by the staffers of ties between Republican politicians and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The ties are not in dispute by either Jack Abramoff or the politicians in question. If the content was incorrect and the staffers had information to prove otherwise, why did they not dispute the content? Wikipedia provides a means for working out these types of conflicts. The staffers ignored the policy and instead just deleted the content. They never explained their reasoning and refused to respond to queries by Wikipedia. By breaking Wikipedias policy they were banned.
Now, you can argue that the banning is unwarranted. But policies are policies. When you break policies in the real world there are very real punishments. Or are you arguing that people can ignore policies if they don't agree with them?
most people don't want to do many things with a browser except view web pages
I don't know about that. I've been watching lots of people, who are not generally regarded as the computer savvy type, installing Firefox extensions. And the extensions they load are rarely the same as what the next guy/girl loads. This may be because the "web browser" has become the principle application that people utilize when they use a computer. Simply being able to view web pages doesn't seem to cut it for them anymore.
Wikipedia is a wiki editable by those who follow its stated policy. Otherwise, you can be banned.