I Am Not A Lawyer... You need a lawyer. Hire one and ask him, not Slashdot.
That's true, but he still needs to know what to ask the lawyer. It's very helpful to have some idea of the basic solution (and have the lawyer work out the ugly details).
I have five points of advice:
Make sure that there is a clear division between the open source code and the custom glue. You might want to state in your standard contract that closed code must always be in seperate files* (not intermixed with open source) and that your framework can function 'properly' without those files (you need a lawyer to write that down in legalese). This will prevent contamination of your open source framework and will help avert/settle disputes ("I won't pay for that plug-in architecture", "It's much cheaper if we just [awful hack], do that.").
*It's even better to place all custom code in a single package/library per client. That way, you can very easily argue what is theirs and what is yours.
Choose a standard license for the open source part (if possible). Reading custom licenses sucks and a potential user will have to ask a lawyer for advice. Because of this, a non-standard license will decrease the appeal of your open source solution significantly. The LGPL is a good option if you fear that someone else will close your framework and push you out of the market. It will also enforce the seperation between closed and open source code. The BSD license will increase the appeal of your code. The GPL doesn't seem suitable in your case (because it doesn't allow closed source libraries).
Only accept contributions when the copyright is turned over to you. This will simplify IP issues immensly (changing open source licenses, for instance). Of course, the same goes for your client. You probably should give them the copyright for their custom code though.
Make sure that the client understands not just the legal implications of the contract, but also the reasons for having an open source framework. If they don't understand open source, they may ask you to close all the code developed under the contract or to do other silly things. Invest in some preliminary client education.
Don't skimp on a lawyer. You will regret it later if you don't seek proper legal advice from a smart IP lawyer.
When you choose a license, you are deciding what other people may choose to do with the software. If you really want everyone to be able to choose for themselves, you can't let anyone forbid them from doing so. This is the moral position that gives rise to the GPL.
Your argument is based on the wrong premise that the original BSD code will cease to exist, which is simply untrue. Any non-open usages will increase the options available, not decrease them. Nobody can be forbidden from choosing the open version. I believe in open source coorporation, so I think that the open solutions are able to compete very well in many situations. There are plenty of projects with BSD-like licenses that are doing quite well (ie. Apache and XFree86). Despite horror stories from people like you, projects like these have not been crushed by the forces of evil. There are projects where the GPL (or LGPL) is the better choice, but please dont make up some fake argument that the BSD-license is immoral because people have a choice. Your argument is as silly as advocating a police state because people may abuse their freedom.
There is no neutral position. If you don't choose for people, you grant them permission to choose for other people.
I don't understand why you say that. If I don't choose for other people unless absolutely necessary, they can choose for themselves. Why would you consider that some kind of permission to choose for other people? Protecting essential freedoms is absolutely necessary IMHO, so I certainly don't advocate anarchy.
"We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly--that is the first law of nature. It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. [...] Shall a reed laid low in the mud by the wind say to a fellow reed fallen in the opposite direction: 'Crawl as I crawl, wretch, or I shall petition that you be torn up by the roots and burned?' " - Voltaire
In other words, we should be tolerant of one another because we cannot always be right. This also applies to laws (of which a license is an extension). We should prefer not to choose for other people what is right or wrong, unless absolutely necessary. By permitting people to fork his code under different licenses, even though that may be foolish, William Tanksley is allowing for both stupidity and geniality. Prohibiting the one means risking the other.
Where he lived, there was no recognized right to speech. And I don't remember him fighting or dying for anyone's right to anything.
There are different answers to that question. One is that Voltaire didn't really say those words since they are attributed to them in a late biography. A second answer is that he was willing to die, but thought that educating people would be more effective. Justly so, because he was one of the pillars of the Enlightenment.
The only one you should be pissed on is yourself. If you chose to release your project as open source and someone forks it and you don't like it, then it's entirely your fault.
There is a difference between allowing something and liking it. A good example is free speech. Voltaire said: "I disagree with what you are saying but I will fight until death to defend your right to say it." He was willing to die for someone else's right to piss him off. If you comprehend why he said that, you may understand why some people don't like to have rules against everything that may bother them.
I just wish we could use some of those fools standing in the government dole lines instead of blowing up perfectly good intelligent people.
Don't worry. Those people are sacrificed in the war on drugs & the war against blacks without good lawyers (see the demographics of the people on death row). We blow up a really small percentage of our well-educated in space, so it's not something to worry about from that point of view.
"Astronauts, after all, are easily replaceable. The number of overqualified applicants vastly exceeds the demand. But the OSP vehicles will be expensive, hand-built national treasures that simply can't be thrown away."
Before I stopped reading.
You may not like it, but it's true. Even with the knowledge that they may die with a fairly high probability, it's not hard to find enough astronauts. They are practically standing in line. That certainly doesn't mean that their lives are worthless, but we should accept that some lives are lost, just like we 'accept' driving accidents because transportation by car is considered very important in our society. Those accidents or 'thrown away' lives are simply the price we pay for our desired lifestyle and we can bear them.
On the other hand, it's very difficult to find the budget to replace a multi-billion dollar space craft. The gain is too small to replace one regularly. We don't consider space exploration to be that important, compared to military spending, healthcare, etc. We could divert money from healthcare to NASA, but that would also cost lives. In fact, all the money that we don't spend on saving lives makes us guilty of 'throwing away' lives that could be saved. So in the end, the budget problem is also about human lives. We (usually unconsciously and erratically) value life in dollars by refusing to save lives if the expenses become to high. Unless you believe that we should spend all the money we have on saving lives, you place a dollar value on life as well. And if you accept that human life can be valued in dollars, you should understand that a multi-billion space craft represents many saved lives and that it is more important than a few astronauts. We don't want to throw billions worth of lives away regularly, but we can accept a few casualties now and then.
NASA didn't just decide they wanted to invent UV sunglasses... They needed a way to protect the astronaut's eyes while in space. They invented a UV coating for their helmets... Then someone tried it on sunglasses, and you've got a new technology for a huge world-wide industry based off a NASA invention.
True, but remember that we are not making great advances anymore. The ISS is 'just' another space station and you don't need to invent (a lot of) new techology to keep people alive in space anymore. The basics of that are worked out pretty well by now. Do you expect a lot of new technology to be developed for NASA's current manned space program? I don't.
Same thing goes with countless other technologies.
"Countless." That's convincing (not!). I'd like to see a real list of (really) useful stuff that was developed for manned space exploration. I'm also interested whether someone else would probably have invented it otherwise (debatable of course, but make a decent argument). For instance, UV coatings probably would have been invented when we were still upset about the hole in the ozone layer and/or while we worry about skin cancer.
Just suppose that we put $6 billion per year (NASA's Space Flight budget) into research grants, cheap unmanned flights and for developing revolutionary new technology for lifting cargo (space elevators?) and people (orbital X-prize?) into space cheaply. I'm pretty sure that we'd see some pretty nifty technology and scientific advances come out of that. Furthermore, once we develop cheap lifting technology, we can push the envelope again. The ISS can be manned with more than a skeleton crew and can be used as an assembly plant for deep space missions. Once we can move large quantities of materials into space, we can also start to think about mining operations and bases & colonies on Mars. At that point, I would agree that manned space flights are worth the money (again). Currently, manned space flight is very costly for very little gain.
A stream in NTFS is what Mac users call a fork, but Macs are limited to 2, data and resource.
It's a bit more complicated than that. HFS+ supports 256 forks internally, but the API to use them isn't there. This has probably got to do with the NeXT guys who dislike forks and (non-Unix) metadata.
You can happily make every file on NTFS an OLE server too and do away with file extensions altogether, if you want to.
I'm sorry, but I'm not an Windows expert. What would that change?
Oh, and NTFS has reparse points too - think like a trigger on a database table, but attached to a file. And NTFS has journalled from day 1, whereas Linux filesystems are only just discovering this.
Yes, I know. NTFS is one of the few truly good products of MS. Too bad that 90% of its features aren't used to their full potential. Your reparse points are a good example, even with them Windows doesn't support triggered scripts (without extra programming). In contrast, MacOS supports Folder Actions for quite some time already. It allows you to use the GUI to select a script that will be run at a particular event. Very useful to create an automated workflow.
So why are file extensions still in common use? Largely because people who don't know NTFS come out with statements like "windows support for metadata has always sucked" without bothering to read the documentation, so few apps take advantage of this NTFS feature.
I disagree. An improved system should be built into Windows, supported by the interface and very easy for programmers and users to use. One shouldn't have to program a better solution for every app separately. What's the improvement if we end up with 100 different replacements for file extensions?
I agree with your sentiments, but your question is very weak without examples. Can you recite any instances where violent criminals and/or rapists got off easy compared to IP violators?
Has anyone here actually read the patent that the Register article links to? It covers "Multiple personas for mobile devices". That patent sounds like it would more accurately describe a handheld device that could serve multiple roles (like a mp3 player, a movie player, a camera, a phone, etc)
A laptop is a mobile device too. In fact, the patent explicitly makes a distinction between a hand-held computer and a portable computing device (see claims 34/35, 43/44 and 50/51 from the patent). In the desciption it states that: "Computers are becoming increasingly [...] portable. [...] Laptop, notebook, and sub-notebook computers are virtually as powerful as their desktop counterparts." In other words, the class of portable computing devices referenced in the patent includes laptops.
It covers "Multiple personas for mobile devices". It's a hell of a stretch to go from that patent to fast user switching. The Register even admits it's a inaccurate description of user switching, although they underplay it.
The term 'user' as used in Unix is really just a persona. It's certainly not equal to a person since the root and guest accounts are not directly related to a person. They are more like roles, aka personas. Multiple personas seems to be an valid description of (fast) user switching.
I'd say this is just the Register blaring sensationalist bullshit to get attention (and succeeding wildly since they have a front page/. story now), with only their wild guess as to what Apple is actually patenting.
Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to examine the entire patent (it's very long), but your criticisms don't seem to hold water. So for the time, I'll have to give The Register the benefit of the doubt.
In practice, it's not such a big deal if you can disable the RFID tags after purchsing the product.
What I would like is a cheap device that can identify and reprogram every RFID tag there is. It might be a USB device that I connect to my computer or a portable device with LCD screen (or both). I just wave it over my new sneakers and boom, I get a nice list of whatever is stored in that chip. Then I can just review the contents to see that it's all harmless. Companies might even want to store useful info for me in them. What size of pants do I need to buy? Just wave the magic wand over the pants I'm wearing and bingo. No need to take them off and search for the washed-out label. Lost my keys? The keychain contains an identifying RFID.
In my dream, I can also change the info to something that is useful to me. I might want to label my socks so I can easily match them. The collar on a cat or dog might contain the owners address so that I can return the animal when it is lost or run over. The possibilities are endless.
There's no guarantee the store will do this (it may be in their best interests *not* to do this)...
Well, they might want to avoid the backlash if RFIDs are abused and it gets in the news. A horror story may sink the technology if people start boycotting a store that uses RFIDs. Being able to disable, erase and read the tags will go a long way in convincing people that they are not being screwed.
and telling people how to do this themselves will probably violate DMCA, not to mention state and local laws.
Only if they are encrypted, which will make people even more suspicious. "Why can't we see what's on the chip? What does Wal Mart have to hide"
The thing I thought was funny was that the RIAA didn't dispute the statement that their business model is obsolete, and that they will be replaced like the horse and buggy. Funny that.
That's one way of looking at it. Clark didn't really seem to answer the question that was asked, while Oppenheim did. So I don't really blame the latter for ignoring Clark's comments and simply answering the reporter. On the other hand, I applaud Clark for coercing "RIAA is doomed" in the interview, simply because that is a much bigger issue than "Freenet vs Kazaa". Artists and consumers should come to understand that the reign of the RIAA should come to an end.
Understanding other worlds is nice, but not strictly necessary.
I disagree. Every probe teaches us a great deal about planet evolution. It will help us to better understand planets like Mars (the most likely target for colonization). There is a limit to the number of probes we can send to Mars at once (we need the data from previous probes to build better ones), so we should certainly send probes to other planets, moons and asteroids.
I also don't believe that we should forget about everything but colonization, although it should be the nr. 1 goal.
Unmanned probes. Build lots of probes whose only goal is to get from point A to point B in the fastest and cheapest manner possible.
I already pointed that out. Besides, NASA & co are doing fairly well on this point already. There are other things I worry about more.
#2 is colonization 101. We don't offer that course in college yet. We should probably figure out how to teach it before sending people all over the solar system.
Textbook courses aren't the answer, IMO. We need projects like Biosphere 2 to inspire. Build more of them, have students visit them and work on real-life problems. It's unbelievable that NASA is hardly involved in Biosphere 2.
If you can build a colony under a lake then you can build it on mars.
I don't think that is very worthwhile. We should build biospheres in conditions that are similar to the place we want to colonize. Colonies should be self-sufficient as much as possible by using available resources (detected by the probes). Water is probably most important. Not only to drink, but it can also be split into hydrogen and oxygen with the use of electricity from solar power. If you can find a way to use the soil to grow plants, you can already feed people.
Notice that neither of these steps require sending people into space. Once you've worked them out, however, the stage is now set and you can send people anywhere you want.
I think you are ignoring the problem of cheaply sending cargo into space. We will need to send large amounts of cargo into space for our colony and for a Mars Space Station (which we will probably need). Of course, that problem is not going to be solved by sending $$$ shuttle missions to the ISS. That's my biggest beef with NASA. We need new and better technology, not more of the same.
We should be sending crews up for one simple reason: to figure out how to live in space.
I agree that we should aim to colonize another world someday, but I don't see us getting closer to that goal just by sending people into space. At the moment, the ISS seems to be a big waste of money to me. The scientific value of the experiments is minimal (especially with the skeleton crew aboard the ISS, who spend most of their time working on the ISS). We know quite a bit about living in space for many months (and I doubt that we'll see multi-year experiments on the ISS). What exactly are we learning that is of any significance?
If we do want to work towards the goal of an offworld settlement, there are other things that should have priority. First of all, we need to learn more about the planets in our solar system. It's amazing how little we still know about Mars. We haven't got rock samples and we don't even know whether there is water below the surface (and how much). We need many more unmanned probes to get an accurate picture of the requirements for a self-supporting base. Secondly, we need to find a way to reduce the costs of getting stuff into space. NASA has taken a step backwards with the space shuttle (more costly than rockets). It really needs to be replaced by something cheaper and better. A good alternative might be a small, reliable and reusable spacecraft solely designed to carry people into space, coupled with big rockets or space elevators for cargo. Only at that point does the ISS become useful as a launch point into space. Why do we waste so much money today on something that tommorow: - will be cheaper to build/expand - can be build with newer technology - will actually be useful
Once we've got these things worked out, we can start to think about building a Mars space station that can be used as a launching point for a Mars settlement. I wonder why NASA can't/won't come up with a plan like this. What's wrong with a solid long term goal to inspire us?
Exploring space doesnt destroy our living environment, so this is not a good example. If we try this, we will be unable to do quite a few more interesting things.
We can kill people who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses.
Its called euthenasia. It happens in every country, although its usually under the guise of pain reduction (just increase the dose of morphine).
We can create a society where every human movement is tracked by the government.
When you go shopping, there is a good chance that you are caught on tape. In some cities (ie. London), there are cameras in the streets that record your every move.
We can release terraforming gasses into our atmosphere to raise the temperature.
We are doing so, but not on purpose. Methane is produced by our cattle. CO2 is released when we burn fossil fuel. They are both greenhouse gasses.
Less harmfully, we can grow enough food to feed everyone in the world (at least for now).
There is a surplus of food being produced. The problem is that many people cant get it or cant afford it. The distribution problem is quite complex. I dare you to solve it if you can.
We can move quantities of earth to fight erosion.
Thats exactly what happens in the dutch coastal regions.
We can produce flying cars.
I dont understand the fundamental difference between an airplane and a flying car. An airplane can move over the ground on wheels and can fly in the air. What more do you want?
We can build cities under the sea.
There is a deep sea facility in which divers can spend the night. It allows them to work for long periods of time without having to decompress after every dive. Building a city is just scaling up the same idea. Its not very useful or interesting though, so we dont.
We can cheaply produce enough drugs to bring the HIV epidemic under control in China and Africa.
True, but this is hardly a technological challenge. Producing enough drugs wont solve the problems of distribution, grey imports and providing proper healthcare. Solve these problems and youll be famous.
But do we go about trying to do these things? No.
We do actually. When we dont do something, its usually because its not very interesting or because we are unable to. "We do it because we can" doesnt mean that we will do everything that is possible. It means that humans are often interested in solving interesting problems that dont have a clear benefit. There is a limited amount of effort that a finite amount of humans can expend, but there are infinitely many things to do. So we do have to choose. You cant simply point out something that we dont do and refute this motto.
I'd rather have a hedgemony of a capitalistic democracy than one of a dictatorship.
I think that the point was more that he didn't want a hegemony at all. Americans tend to consider only two options: you dominate others or others dominate you. Most don't seem to understand that it is very hard to dominate someone with enough nuclear bombs to destroy the entire earth. The probable outcome of a strong China is not a communist dictatorship, but a balance of power. Whether that will result in a better world is debatable, but the US certainly seems to need to be kept in check.
Guantanamo hit the news because it is an exception in the US.
I wouldn't be very happy if I was that exception. Besides, when does something stop being an exception? When hundreds of people are held without trial? When legal residents are deported for misdemeanors committed a decade ago? When a law is passed by congress that allows you to be held indefinately without trial? Does it need to get worse before you get worried?
I don't understand your complacency. Do you think you can still stop your government from turning into a dictatorship when things like Guantanamo stop appearing in the news?
- Americans are the fattest people in the world (on average). - People who are fat tend to have a smaller penis. - A small penis usually results in low self-esteem. - Low self-esteem can be repaired by buying big SUVs, guns or fast computers OR by winning contests. An example of a contest is a sports event, a space race or even a war. Winning a war is probably the strongest boost by virtue of smacking down millions of people at once.
It turns out that one of the greatest warmongers of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte, had a very small penis. Measuring only 4.1 cm (1.6"), it's hardly surprising that the penis caused great malcontent among Napoleon's wives who sooner or later decided to break their vow. This certainly explains why Napoleon decided to spend most of his time away from home, far away from his unfaithful wives, in the presence of men begging for his mercy.
Another example is Hitler who is suspected of having a deformed penis. There are also reports that he had only one testicle. The low self-esteem that resulted from these defects might have resulted in Hitler's plan to conquer half the world. Fortunately, Hitler's testy plans faced his soldiers with insurmountable odds. Coupled with the fact that Hitler didn't have the balls to invade England early in the war, we can conclude that Hitler was an absolute nutcase.
Of course, these facts do lead to some inescapable questions: - Will Viagra reduce the number of wars fought? - Should we exempt 'Penis enlargement'-spam from anti-spam laws? - What is wrong with the genitalia of the man who fought two wars during his first term in office (and seems to be hard at work preparing for another war)? - Do we need a new poll?:
What is the size of your penis? o Fighting a war already. o Just planning. o Gun nut. o SUV owner. o My PC rulez. o I'm not an American, you insensitive clod.
I call it Linux myself but I'd just as happily call it GNU if that was the name in common usage, or Freeax for that matter
I agree. The problem I have with RMS is that he only started to talk about GNU/Linux when Linux had become a succes. RMS never intended his software to be used with the Linux kernel, he wanted a 100% GNU OS. GNU couldn't build a proper kernel and suddenly RMS pretends that it was his plan all along to have GNU OSs with different kernels. Then, he ignores all the software in popular Linux distros that was not written by GNU and tries to get an unfair amount of credit.
IMHO it would be far more appropiate if RMS just asked for GNUs contribution to be prominently displayed to the user in marketing materials and during installs. If he wants, he can always ship his own GNU distro with a Linux kernel and call it GNU/Linux or GNU.
It would be more convincing if your example wasn't about an OS that prides itself on being the most Free and is officially called Debian GNU/Linux. As far as I can tell, the Debian guys go out of their way to include GNU software whenever they can. That's fine with me, but please don't pretend that Debian somehow represents every other Linux distro in the amount of GNU software included in the core OS.
BTW, most users would consider a windowing system to be a core part of an OS (ie. the OS is not functional without one in their eyes). XFree86 is certainly not part of the GNU project (nor is KDE or Gnome).
The evaluation versions of Intel® Software Development Products are free and valid for product based time period from the day you receive your license and will cease to function at the end of that period. The evaluation license will be non-renewable.
I think that most people who still use Win9x are risk-averse and technically challenged. Generally, they run a few Windows and DOS applications in which they have invested a lot of effort. When you put them on a Linux box, you would find them to be very concerned about running their favorite apps and not very interested in the advantages of Linux. That's not the kind of demographic that would switch to Linux in droves.
I know. They bought their TCP/IP stack from a third party who used some BSD code for related utilities. Note that the TCP/IP stack in Windows is not derived from the BSD version, even when that was the best one around and MS needed one badly. So my point still stands, they seem to go out of their way not to use open source solutions.
"With the BSD license, everyone just "steals" it and never contributes anything back." "Microsoft et al just want a "free lunch"."
The first is patently false since companies do contribute back. The second is arguably false since MS rarely (if ever) uses BSD software and because there are good business reasons for companies to dislike the GPL, even if they want to contribute.
If you can't understand the difference between "it is possible that" and "everyone will", you have a big problem communicating. You can keep wondering why you get flamed, but it might be more productive if you learn to distinguish between having the freedom to do something and actually doing it.
I can't help but read "MS will steal your work if you use the BSD license" in your post. IMHO that is FUD. MS might have stated that they prefer the BSD license, but I'm quite sure that it is an attempt to split the open source community. DotNET for BSD can be seen in the same light. It's just a weak attempt to lure people away from their main competitor, Linux. It's pretty clear that they aren't interested in leeching from the BSD community, simply because they don't. They much prefer to either write everything themselves or to buy a company that already has a half-decent product.
In short, your statement is not supported by the facts and puts the BSD license is a bad daylight. In my book, that is FUD. You might not have intended it, but that doesn't change the fact that your post will be interpreted this way by some people. If I'm misunderstood, I usually reread my post and see if I can express myself clearer in the future. There is always something to improve and the best way to find it is to answer the question why I'm misunderstood.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true, but he still needs to know what to ask the lawyer. It's very helpful to have some idea of the basic solution (and have the lawyer work out the ugly details).
I have five points of advice:
*It's even better to place all custom code in a single package/library per client. That way, you can very easily argue what is theirs and what is yours.
When you choose a license, you are deciding what other people may choose to do with the software. If you really want everyone to be able to choose for themselves, you can't let anyone forbid them from doing so. This is the moral position that gives rise to the GPL.
Your argument is based on the wrong premise that the original BSD code will cease to exist, which is simply untrue. Any non-open usages will increase the options available, not decrease them. Nobody can be forbidden from choosing the open version. I believe in open source coorporation, so I think that the open solutions are able to compete very well in many situations. There are plenty of projects with BSD-like licenses that are doing quite well (ie. Apache and XFree86). Despite horror stories from people like you, projects like these have not been crushed by the forces of evil. There are projects where the GPL (or LGPL) is the better choice, but please dont make up some fake argument that the BSD-license is immoral because people have a choice. Your argument is as silly as advocating a police state because people may abuse their freedom.
There is no neutral position. If you don't choose for people, you grant them permission to choose for other people.
I don't understand why you say that. If I don't choose for other people unless absolutely necessary, they can choose for themselves. Why would you consider that some kind of permission to choose for other people? Protecting essential freedoms is absolutely necessary IMHO, so I certainly don't advocate anarchy.
What was Voltaire's point?
"We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly--that is the first law of nature. It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. [...] Shall a reed laid low in the mud by the wind say to a fellow reed fallen in the opposite direction: 'Crawl as I crawl, wretch, or I shall petition that you be torn up by the roots and burned?' " - Voltaire
In other words, we should be tolerant of one another because we cannot always be right. This also applies to laws (of which a license is an extension). We should prefer not to choose for other people what is right or wrong, unless absolutely necessary. By permitting people to fork his code under different licenses, even though that may be foolish, William Tanksley is allowing for both stupidity and geniality. Prohibiting the one means risking the other.
Where he lived, there was no recognized right to speech. And I don't remember him fighting or dying for anyone's right to anything.
There are different answers to that question. One is that Voltaire didn't really say those words since they are attributed to them in a late biography. A second answer is that he was willing to die, but thought that educating people would be more effective. Justly so, because he was one of the pillars of the Enlightenment.
Frankly, I'd be pissed if you forked my project,
The only one you should be pissed on is yourself. If you chose to release your project as open source and someone forks it and you don't like it, then it's entirely your fault.
There is a difference between allowing something and liking it. A good example is free speech. Voltaire said: "I disagree with what you are saying but I will fight until death to defend your right to say it." He was willing to die for someone else's right to piss him off. If you comprehend why he said that, you may understand why some people don't like to have rules against everything that may bother them.
I just wish we could use some of those fools standing in the government dole lines instead of blowing up perfectly good intelligent people.
Don't worry. Those people are sacrificed in the war on drugs & the war against blacks without good lawyers (see the demographics of the people on death row). We blow up a really small percentage of our well-educated in space, so it's not something to worry about from that point of view.
I got all the way down to...
"Astronauts, after all, are easily replaceable. The number of overqualified applicants vastly exceeds the demand. But the OSP vehicles will be expensive, hand-built national treasures that simply can't be thrown away."
Before I stopped reading.
You may not like it, but it's true. Even with the knowledge that they may die with a fairly high probability, it's not hard to find enough astronauts. They are practically standing in line. That certainly doesn't mean that their lives are worthless, but we should accept that some lives are lost, just like we 'accept' driving accidents because transportation by car is considered very important in our society. Those accidents or 'thrown away' lives are simply the price we pay for our desired lifestyle and we can bear them.
On the other hand, it's very difficult to find the budget to replace a multi-billion dollar space craft. The gain is too small to replace one regularly. We don't consider space exploration to be that important, compared to military spending, healthcare, etc. We could divert money from healthcare to NASA, but that would also cost lives. In fact, all the money that we don't spend on saving lives makes us guilty of 'throwing away' lives that could be saved. So in the end, the budget problem is also about human lives. We (usually unconsciously and erratically) value life in dollars by refusing to save lives if the expenses become to high. Unless you believe that we should spend all the money we have on saving lives, you place a dollar value on life as well. And if you accept that human life can be valued in dollars, you should understand that a multi-billion space craft represents many saved lives and that it is more important than a few astronauts. We don't want to throw billions worth of lives away regularly, but we can accept a few casualties now and then.
NASA didn't just decide they wanted to invent UV sunglasses... They needed a way to protect the astronaut's eyes while in space. They invented a UV coating for their helmets... Then someone tried it on sunglasses, and you've got a new technology for a huge world-wide industry based off a NASA invention.
True, but remember that we are not making great advances anymore. The ISS is 'just' another space station and you don't need to invent (a lot of) new techology to keep people alive in space anymore. The basics of that are worked out pretty well by now. Do you expect a lot of new technology to be developed for NASA's current manned space program? I don't.
Same thing goes with countless other technologies.
"Countless." That's convincing (not!). I'd like to see a real list of (really) useful stuff that was developed for manned space exploration. I'm also interested whether someone else would probably have invented it otherwise (debatable of course, but make a decent argument). For instance, UV coatings probably would have been invented when we were still upset about the hole in the ozone layer and/or while we worry about skin cancer.
Just suppose that we put $6 billion per year (NASA's Space Flight budget) into research grants, cheap unmanned flights and for developing revolutionary new technology for lifting cargo (space elevators?) and people (orbital X-prize?) into space cheaply. I'm pretty sure that we'd see some pretty nifty technology and scientific advances come out of that. Furthermore, once we develop cheap lifting technology, we can push the envelope again. The ISS can be manned with more than a skeleton crew and can be used as an assembly plant for deep space missions. Once we can move large quantities of materials into space, we can also start to think about mining operations and bases & colonies on Mars. At that point, I would agree that manned space flights are worth the money (again). Currently, manned space flight is very costly for very little gain.
A stream in NTFS is what Mac users call a fork, but Macs are limited to 2, data and resource.
It's a bit more complicated than that. HFS+ supports 256 forks internally, but the API to use them isn't there. This has probably got to do with the NeXT guys who dislike forks and (non-Unix) metadata.
You can happily make every file on NTFS an OLE server too and do away with file extensions altogether, if you want to.
I'm sorry, but I'm not an Windows expert. What would that change?
Oh, and NTFS has reparse points too - think like a trigger on a database table, but attached to a file. And NTFS has journalled from day 1, whereas Linux filesystems are only just discovering this.
Yes, I know. NTFS is one of the few truly good products of MS. Too bad that 90% of its features aren't used to their full potential. Your reparse points are a good example, even with them Windows doesn't support triggered scripts (without extra programming). In contrast, MacOS supports Folder Actions for quite some time already. It allows you to use the GUI to select a script that will be run at a particular event. Very useful to create an automated workflow.
So why are file extensions still in common use? Largely because people who don't know NTFS come out with statements like "windows support for metadata has always sucked" without bothering to read the documentation, so few apps take advantage of this NTFS feature.
I disagree. An improved system should be built into Windows, supported by the interface and very easy for programmers and users to use. One shouldn't have to program a better solution for every app separately. What's the improvement if we end up with 100 different replacements for file extensions?
I agree with your sentiments, but your question is very weak without examples. Can you recite any instances where violent criminals and/or rapists got off easy compared to IP violators?
Has anyone here actually read the patent that the Register article links to?
/. story now), with only their wild guess as to what Apple is actually patenting.
It covers "Multiple personas for mobile devices". That patent sounds like it would more accurately describe a handheld device that could serve multiple roles (like a mp3 player, a movie player, a camera, a phone, etc)
A laptop is a mobile device too. In fact, the patent explicitly makes a distinction between a hand-held computer and a portable computing device (see claims 34/35, 43/44 and 50/51 from the patent). In the desciption it states that: "Computers are becoming increasingly [...] portable. [...] Laptop, notebook, and sub-notebook computers are virtually as powerful as their desktop counterparts." In other words, the class of portable computing devices referenced in the patent includes laptops.
It covers "Multiple personas for mobile devices". It's a hell of a stretch to go from that patent to fast user switching. The Register even admits it's a inaccurate description of user switching, although they underplay it.
The term 'user' as used in Unix is really just a persona. It's certainly not equal to a person since the root and guest accounts are not directly related to a person. They are more like roles, aka personas. Multiple personas seems to be an valid description of (fast) user switching.
I'd say this is just the Register blaring sensationalist bullshit to get attention (and succeeding wildly since they have a front page
Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to examine the entire patent (it's very long), but your criticisms don't seem to hold water. So for the time, I'll have to give The Register the benefit of the doubt.
PS. Quotes were edited for readability.
In practice, it's not such a big deal if you can disable the RFID tags after purchsing the product.
What I would like is a cheap device that can identify and reprogram every RFID tag there is. It might be a USB device that I connect to my computer or a portable device with LCD screen (or both). I just wave it over my new sneakers and boom, I get a nice list of whatever is stored in that chip. Then I can just review the contents to see that it's all harmless. Companies might even want to store useful info for me in them. What size of pants do I need to buy? Just wave the magic wand over the pants I'm wearing and bingo. No need to take them off and search for the washed-out label. Lost my keys? The keychain contains an identifying RFID.
In my dream, I can also change the info to something that is useful to me. I might want to label my socks so I can easily match them. The collar on a cat or dog might contain the owners address so that I can return the animal when it is lost or run over. The possibilities are endless.
There's no guarantee the store will do this (it may be in their best interests *not* to do this)...
Well, they might want to avoid the backlash if RFIDs are abused and it gets in the news. A horror story may sink the technology if people start boycotting a store that uses RFIDs. Being able to disable, erase and read the tags will go a long way in convincing people that they are not being screwed.
and telling people how to do this themselves will probably violate DMCA, not to mention state and local laws.
Only if they are encrypted, which will make people even more suspicious. "Why can't we see what's on the chip? What does Wal Mart have to hide"
The thing I thought was funny was that the RIAA didn't dispute the statement that their business model is obsolete, and that they will be replaced like the horse and buggy. Funny that.
That's one way of looking at it. Clark didn't really seem to answer the question that was asked, while Oppenheim did. So I don't really blame the latter for ignoring Clark's comments and simply answering the reporter. On the other hand, I applaud Clark for coercing "RIAA is doomed" in the interview, simply because that is a much bigger issue than "Freenet vs Kazaa". Artists and consumers should come to understand that the reign of the RIAA should come to an end.
Understanding other worlds is nice, but not strictly necessary.
I disagree. Every probe teaches us a great deal about planet evolution. It will help us to better understand planets like Mars (the most likely target for colonization). There is a limit to the number of probes we can send to Mars at once (we need the data from previous probes to build better ones), so we should certainly send probes to other planets, moons and asteroids.
I also don't believe that we should forget about everything but colonization, although it should be the nr. 1 goal.
Unmanned probes. Build lots of probes whose only goal is to get from point A to point B in the fastest and cheapest manner possible.
I already pointed that out. Besides, NASA & co are doing fairly well on this point already. There are other things I worry about more.
#2 is colonization 101. We don't offer that course in college yet. We should probably figure out how to teach it before sending people all over the solar system.
Textbook courses aren't the answer, IMO. We need projects like Biosphere 2 to inspire. Build more of them, have students visit them and work on real-life problems. It's unbelievable that NASA is hardly involved in Biosphere 2.
If you can build a colony under a lake then you can build it on mars.
I don't think that is very worthwhile. We should build biospheres in conditions that are similar to the place we want to colonize. Colonies should be self-sufficient as much as possible by using available resources (detected by the probes). Water is probably most important. Not only to drink, but it can also be split into hydrogen and oxygen with the use of electricity from solar power. If you can find a way to use the soil to grow plants, you can already feed people.
Notice that neither of these steps require sending people into space. Once you've worked them out, however, the stage is now set and you can send people anywhere you want.
I think you are ignoring the problem of cheaply sending cargo into space. We will need to send large amounts of cargo into space for our colony and for a Mars Space Station (which we will probably need). Of course, that problem is not going to be solved by sending $$$ shuttle missions to the ISS. That's my biggest beef with NASA. We need new and better technology, not more of the same.
We should be sending crews up for one simple reason: to figure out how to live in space.
I agree that we should aim to colonize another world someday, but I don't see us getting closer to that goal just by sending people into space. At the moment, the ISS seems to be a big waste of money to me. The scientific value of the experiments is minimal (especially with the skeleton crew aboard the ISS, who spend most of their time working on the ISS). We know quite a bit about living in space for many months (and I doubt that we'll see multi-year experiments on the ISS). What exactly are we learning that is of any significance?
If we do want to work towards the goal of an offworld settlement, there are other things that should have priority. First of all, we need to learn more about the planets in our solar system. It's amazing how little we still know about Mars. We haven't got rock samples and we don't even know whether there is water below the surface (and how much). We need many more unmanned probes to get an accurate picture of the requirements for a self-supporting base.
Secondly, we need to find a way to reduce the costs of getting stuff into space. NASA has taken a step backwards with the space shuttle (more costly than rockets). It really needs to be replaced by something cheaper and better. A good alternative might be a small, reliable and reusable spacecraft solely designed to carry people into space, coupled with big rockets or space elevators for cargo. Only at that point does the ISS become useful as a launch point into space. Why do we waste so much money today on something that tommorow:
- will be cheaper to build/expand
- can be build with newer technology
- will actually be useful
Once we've got these things worked out, we can start to think about building a Mars space station that can be used as a launching point for a Mars settlement. I wonder why NASA can't/won't come up with a plan like this. What's wrong with a solid long term goal to inspire us?
We can dig canals with nuclear bombs.
Exploring space doesnt destroy our living environment, so this is not a good example. If we try this, we will be unable to do quite a few more interesting things.
We can kill people who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses.
Its called euthenasia. It happens in every country, although its usually under the guise of pain reduction (just increase the dose of morphine).
We can create a society where every human movement is tracked by the government.
When you go shopping, there is a good chance that you are caught on tape. In some cities (ie. London), there are cameras in the streets that record your every move.
We can release terraforming gasses into our atmosphere to raise the temperature.
We are doing so, but not on purpose. Methane is produced by our cattle. CO2 is released when we burn fossil fuel. They are both greenhouse gasses.
We can breed deadly diseases.
Polio has been synthesized. The same technology can be used to create new viruses.
Less harmfully, we can grow enough food to feed everyone in the world (at least for now).
There is a surplus of food being produced. The problem is that many people cant get it or cant afford it. The distribution problem is quite complex. I dare you to solve it if you can.
We can move quantities of earth to fight erosion.
Thats exactly what happens in the dutch coastal regions.
We can produce flying cars.
I dont understand the fundamental difference between an airplane and a flying car. An airplane can move over the ground on wheels and can fly in the air. What more do you want?
We can build cities under the sea.
There is a deep sea facility in which divers can spend the night. It allows them to work for long periods of time without having to decompress after every dive. Building a city is just scaling up the same idea. Its not very useful or interesting though, so we dont.
We can cheaply produce enough drugs to bring the HIV epidemic under control in China and Africa.
True, but this is hardly a technological challenge. Producing enough drugs wont solve the problems of distribution, grey imports and providing proper healthcare. Solve these problems and youll be famous.
But do we go about trying to do these things? No.
We do actually. When we dont do something, its usually because its not very interesting or because we are unable to. "We do it because we can" doesnt mean that we will do everything that is possible. It means that humans are often interested in solving interesting problems that dont have a clear benefit. There is a limited amount of effort that a finite amount of humans can expend, but there are infinitely many things to do. So we do have to choose. You cant simply point out something that we dont do and refute this motto.
I'd rather have a hedgemony of a capitalistic democracy than one of a dictatorship.
I think that the point was more that he didn't want a hegemony at all. Americans tend to consider only two options: you dominate others or others dominate you. Most don't seem to understand that it is very hard to dominate someone with enough nuclear bombs to destroy the entire earth. The probable outcome of a strong China is not a communist dictatorship, but a balance of power. Whether that will result in a better world is debatable, but the US certainly seems to need to be kept in check.
Guantanamo hit the news because it is an exception in the US.
I wouldn't be very happy if I was that exception. Besides, when does something stop being an exception? When hundreds of people are held without trial? When legal residents are deported for misdemeanors committed a decade ago? When a law is passed by congress that allows you to be held indefinately without trial? Does it need to get worse before you get worried?
I don't understand your complacency. Do you think you can still stop your government from turning into a dictatorship when things like Guantanamo stop appearing in the news?
- Americans are the fattest people in the world (on average).
- People who are fat tend to have a smaller penis.
- A small penis usually results in low self-esteem.
- Low self-esteem can be repaired by buying big SUVs, guns or fast computers OR by winning contests. An example of a contest is a sports event, a space race or even a war. Winning a war is probably the strongest boost by virtue of smacking down millions of people at once.
It turns out that one of the greatest warmongers of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte, had a very small penis. Measuring only 4.1 cm (1.6"), it's hardly surprising that the penis caused great malcontent among Napoleon's wives who sooner or later decided to break their vow. This certainly explains why Napoleon decided to spend most of his time away from home, far away from his unfaithful wives, in the presence of men begging for his mercy.
Another example is Hitler who is suspected of having a deformed penis. There are also reports that he had only one testicle. The low self-esteem that resulted from these defects might have resulted in Hitler's plan to conquer half the world. Fortunately, Hitler's testy plans faced his soldiers with insurmountable odds. Coupled with the fact that Hitler didn't have the balls to invade England early in the war, we can conclude that Hitler was an absolute nutcase.
Of course, these facts do lead to some inescapable questions:
- Will Viagra reduce the number of wars fought?
- Should we exempt 'Penis enlargement'-spam from anti-spam laws?
- What is wrong with the genitalia of the man who fought two wars during his first term in office (and seems to be hard at work preparing for another war)?
- Do we need a new poll?:
What is the size of your penis?
o Fighting a war already.
o Just planning.
o Gun nut.
o SUV owner.
o My PC rulez.
o I'm not an American, you insensitive clod.
Gnome most certainly is part of the GNU project.
My mistake, sorry.
I call it Linux myself but I'd just as happily call it GNU if that was the name in common usage, or Freeax for that matter
I agree. The problem I have with RMS is that he only started to talk about GNU/Linux when Linux had become a succes. RMS never intended his software to be used with the Linux kernel, he wanted a 100% GNU OS. GNU couldn't build a proper kernel and suddenly RMS pretends that it was his plan all along to have GNU OSs with different kernels. Then, he ignores all the software in popular Linux distros that was not written by GNU and tries to get an unfair amount of credit.
IMHO it would be far more appropiate if RMS just asked for GNUs contribution to be prominently displayed to the user in marketing materials and during installs. If he wants, he can always ship his own GNU distro with a Linux kernel and call it GNU/Linux or GNU.
It would be more convincing if your example wasn't about an OS that prides itself on being the most Free and is officially called Debian GNU/Linux. As far as I can tell, the Debian guys go out of their way to include GNU software whenever they can. That's fine with me, but please don't pretend that Debian somehow represents every other Linux distro in the amount of GNU software included in the core OS.
BTW, most users would consider a windowing system to be a core part of an OS (ie. the OS is not functional without one in their eyes). XFree86 is certainly not part of the GNU project (nor is KDE or Gnome).
The evaluation versions of Intel® Software Development Products are free and valid for product based time period from the day you receive your license and will cease to function at the end of that period. The evaluation license will be non-renewable.
Doanload page
I think that most people who still use Win9x are risk-averse and technically challenged. Generally, they run a few Windows and DOS applications in which they have invested a lot of effort. When you put them on a Linux box, you would find them to be very concerned about running their favorite apps and not very interested in the advantages of Linux. That's not the kind of demographic that would switch to Linux in droves.
I know. They bought their TCP/IP stack from a third party who used some BSD code for related utilities. Note that the TCP/IP stack in Windows is not derived from the BSD version, even when that was the best one around and MS needed one badly. So my point still stands, they seem to go out of their way not to use open source solutions.
What have I said that is not fact?
"With the BSD license, everyone just "steals" it and never contributes anything back."
"Microsoft et al just want a "free lunch"."
The first is patently false since companies do contribute back. The second is arguably false since MS rarely (if ever) uses BSD software and because there are good business reasons for companies to dislike the GPL, even if they want to contribute.
If you can't understand the difference between "it is possible that" and "everyone will", you have a big problem communicating. You can keep wondering why you get flamed, but it might be more productive if you learn to distinguish between having the freedom to do something and actually doing it.
I can't help but read "MS will steal your work if you use the BSD license" in your post. IMHO that is FUD. MS might have stated that they prefer the BSD license, but I'm quite sure that it is an attempt to split the open source community. DotNET for BSD can be seen in the same light. It's just a weak attempt to lure people away from their main competitor, Linux. It's pretty clear that they aren't interested in leeching from the BSD community, simply because they don't. They much prefer to either write everything themselves or to buy a company that already has a half-decent product.
In short, your statement is not supported by the facts and puts the BSD license is a bad daylight. In my book, that is FUD. You might not have intended it, but that doesn't change the fact that your post will be interpreted this way by some people. If I'm misunderstood, I usually reread my post and see if I can express myself clearer in the future. There is always something to improve and the best way to find it is to answer the question why I'm misunderstood.