It's a shame, I like firewire and think it should be on everything, but no, we have to worry about usb2 driver support instead.
I don't think that Firewire has lost yet, although it will probably face stiff competition from Serial ATA and USB 2. But I don't see DV camera's using one of these standards.
Doesnt mean I dont recognise attempts to put pcs at a disadvantage w.r.t Macintosh boxes.
That is basically the thing that Apple has to do to keep selling their computers (although they usually do this by improving their offering). But it just doesn't make sense to see the Firewire royalties in this light. Firewire on PC's increases the number of Firewire devices which is better for Apple. Certainly when they have the best video-editing software around (Final Cut Pro & iMovie).
when apple suddenly demanded $1 per port they pretty much kick started USB2.0 and serial ATA and pretty much killed the notion of using 1394 as the HDD interconnect inside a PC. [...] Well, he hurt us users.
Nobody forced you to use FireWire. Apple developed it, so they could ask what they wanted. If you disagree, you should use an alternative. Clearly the costs were too high and people did choose alternatives. Apple had to lower their price as the result.
This is one of the rare cases where free market economics actually works. It's an example of patents working properly for a change, because the invention was succesfully 'tranformed' into a product with a price and certain characteristics. You were never forced to use it, but can compare it with competing standards and decide whether the price is worth it.
Of course, it would be different if Apple would first allow you to use FireWire for free and then suddenly ask a lot of money. But they didn't extort you like that, Forgent Networks did.
I also remember the belief that this was a Steve jobs deal to hurt PCs compared to macs.
You are quite paranoid. Did the MPEG group ask too high a royalty on MPEG-4 to hurt someone? No, they represent the people who created the standard and want money for their hard work. Don't use their standard if you don't agree or try to change the rate (like Apple did for MPEG-4, helping users), but stop this nonsense about being hurt.
First of all I want to point out that Apple tries to bring powerful technology to the masses by reducing unnecessary complexity. Something I don't look down on. In fact, I get annoyed when something is more complex than it has to be. That focus means, however, that they will hype things like iTunes, not the included Perl 5.6. On the other hand, they seem to be very hard at work at creating the best possible environment for developers, something which indeed was lacking in the past. But I digress and offer my assistance:
To get to the page you seek, you go to Apple.com and click on 'developer' (top right). The page that comes up contains links to documentation and sample code for when you decide to try out Cocoa, a login button for the developer programs (there is a free one that allows you to download the developer tools and other stuff) and an intro-page for programmers. You'll be very interested in that page since it contains links to various documents (the 'essential reading') on the technical underpinnings of OS X. You'll want to read up on that to understand the way things work. Next stop might be the page specific to Unix. You'll see that a few major Unix-apps are being named, but alas, no mention of python or tcl/tk. Fortunately, the page does contain a link to the Fink package manager (based on apt-get). You can find many more packages there, including a (optionally) rootless version of XFree. It allows you to use your familiar X apps next to OS X apps (be sure to use Orobor to have your X apps use Aqua widgets).
I don't have a list of all the Unix software that is standard on OS X or that you can download, but I don't think that you'll find any of the more popular tools missing. Given the number of Unix developers and users switching to OS X, I expect OS X to become a first class citizen in the Unix world quite soon. As of yet, you might still have to change paths in makefiles to get the less common software to configure, make, make install. I don't think an experienced Unix-guy like you will have a lot of problems with that however. In return for these minor issues, you will (hopefully) have a great experience using OS X.
What part of "or follow the procedures for amending it" is too complicated for you to understand? Or do you prefer a non-constitution that lacks any meaning?
What is your point then? There is a piece of paper that can be explained in a thousands different number of ways. Who should ascertain it's exact meaning if not for the courts?
It seems I don't understand what you mean with elasticity. Perhaps you can explain it better?
Are you trying to compare risking your life to save the life of another human being to demanding that ENTERTAINMENT be provided to you on your terms regardless of the wishes of the people who created the entertainment?
Music, newspapers and books are extremely important to our culture and have a strong influence on people's viewpoints. Do you seriously want to argue that monopolies on these important goods are a minor issue? Are you willing to argue that the fact that these goods are overpriced, censored, promoted through payola and/or become unavailable at one point is acceptable?
I used the example to point out that breaking the law is not wrong per se (I had to use an extreme example to make that point of course). I'd like to hear whether you believe that breaking the law can be acceptable, since you seem to be categorically against it. Once you accept it as a possibility, it becomes a question of limits instead of a yes/no proposition.
And you are going to be the vigilante that decides the RIAA are criminals, and that your kangaroo court entitles you to violate the law?
I'll also be so bold to claim that Hitler was a criminal, even though he was never convicted. Is this wrong as well?
You aren't going to die from music hunger if you do a legal protest like boycotting CDs sold by RIAA members.
That's hardly the point. You also won't die when you are held in slavery. It's just that we feel that slavery has no place in a free society. Hindering the spread of goods that are important to our culture in unreasonable ways is also not acceptable to me. It cannot be countered by abjuring these goods. We must show that this is unacceptable. Disobedience is a good way to do this.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Are you a pacifist then? You must disagree with every form of war if you are serious about that statement. This includes WWII and Afghanistan.
I Want a restored 427 Cobra but can't afford it. Does that make it OK for me to take one? Hell No. So I make do with a Chevy.
There is no point in argueing if you start comparing stealing physical goods with copying things.
Ever hear of free software? Can't afford Windows XP? Get Linux. Can't afford MS Office? Then Get Open Office. Can't afford Photo Shop? Then learn to use the Gimp.
Sometimes there is a decent alternative. Sometimes there isn't. What then? Should a poor student be unable to learn the software that future employers expect him to know? Or is it morally acceptable (and better for everyone involved) if he uses the software without paying for a while. Let me see: - The student is better off since he'll get a job. - The future employer will have a well-educated employee. - The software company will sell more software since people know how to use it.
I Read that before most people on this forum were born, read it when I was speaking out against segration in the southeastern USA at a time when you could get your ass kicked or lynched for doing so. So forget the vain attempt to prove yourself "morally superior" to me. I wasn't afraid to speak out for the people who were having their rights violated back then, and I'm not afraid to speak out for the people who's rights you want to violate with your cockamamie "IP can be taken from those I don't approve of" campaign. I don't limit myself to only speaking out for the rights of groups that are considered "correct" by the left or the right.
Since you want to prove yourself morally superior by just speaking out and not being a 'criminal', it seems hardly appropiate for you to blame me. We both feel our way is morally superior and want to prove this (and it follows by extension that we are thus morally superior, FWIW).
Don't buy the damn CDs if you disapprove of them.
I buy CD-R's. They are taxed, with the money going to RIAA. There is no way not to pay when I don't use the CD's for music. There is no way to decide who the money goes to. They just take it from me to fund this government-sponsored monopoly.
Just don't bitch when they write you off as a deadbeat that's too cheap to pay for entertainment because you lacked the conviction to NOT use the product instead of trying to grab it without paying for it. Boycott the Music and you send a message of Moral outrage. Steal the music and you lose the moral standing you claim you want.
Since they are taking my money without asking, I'll take their stuff without asking as well. Why not? Am I more evil because I didn't bribe politicians to make my thievery legal? Am I evil because I feel that the current copyright is so fundamentally wrong that it should be ignored?
I Have never been an advocate of the "elastic" Constitution. I feel that we should follow the intents of the framers of the Constitution or follow the procedures for amending it. An "elastic" constitution in effect means it can be "amended" at will by changing the interpation.
"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." -- Jefferson
But perhaps you feel that the founding fathers were authoritarian sons of bitches who didn't want you to think for yourself. Or do you?
I Don't consider life plus 95 years to be remotly reasonable, and would be delighted to see the copyright extensions struck down as unconstitutional.
I consider it awful as well, but I don't expect the supreme court to be able to change this. It's a limited period of time and 'advancing the arts and sciences' is so fuzzy that the interpretation will be left to the politicians.
A Reasonable law, IMHO, would be 14 years of automatic protection, with the possibility of a one time 14 year extension apon registering the copyright. These are the times that were discussed by the framers of the Constitution, and the original copyright law. After a max of 28 years it enters the public domain.
I think that's even too long for software, it's obsolete so soon that there is no real benefit to society anymore after 28 years. The abandonware sites clearly show the problem of a lenghty copyright. You cannot get the arts once created except by breaking the law. Considering the better distribution methods since 1780, those 28 years may be considered to be far too long as well. It took many years to get books recognized and distributed properly at that time. Current books have to make their money in a rather short period of time and often get out of print after a decade. Perhaps we should even have different copyright periods for different products, music is far more lasting for instance and easier to obtain than 'obsoleted' books.
But again, the choice for a certain duration of copyright is so fuzzy that the supreme court cannot set one. Where is the optimum? 0 years? 10? 100? Given the fact that the supreme court doesn't believe the constitution to be infallible, they cannot accept 28 years as being the optimum, but have to let the politicians decide.
Disagrement with a law does NOT give you the right to engage in wholesale violation of that law.
I disagree. A (really) wrong law should not be followed. I'm glad that some jews were kept in hiding and thus escaped the gas chambers during WWII. Do you consider the people who disobeyed the law to help these people to be criminals? Or are they heroes?
However that is NOT the reason the majority of the filesharers are violating the law. They don't agree with the law and simply refuse to obey it.
Many people I know would gladly pay for fair-priced, full-featured MP3-downloading service or for fair-priced CD's. I don't feel bad at all about keeping the money away from these government-sponsored criminals (RIAA). And many decent people feel the same. They would gladly give money to those who deserve it (the artists), but don't accept being ripped off.
Copying software illegally is different however, although I believe it's OK for foreigners, students and others who simply cannot afford the price that companies ask (and thus cannot learn or advance their society). Of course it is different when these groups get cheap deals.
This blatant disrepect for the law is far more likely to result in more severe laws than to result in an improvement in the law, as many recent examples of "Anti-piracy" laws show.
It is the same with drugs. First the government fights it causing the mafia to grow and the prisons to be filled with decent kids. Kids that get influenced by the nasty criminals they share a cell with. And one day the politicians/citizens wisen up and legalize drugs that are not that damaging. At least, that the way it is going/did go in The Netherlands, Switzerland, England and France.
Of course, the US is not exactly a fast learner with the war on drugs either. But copyright infringement can only be stopped with fascist laws. I don't expect the american public to accept these. Although you'll probably accept every law, which begs this quote:
"In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
It makes it hard to establish the moral highground when the RIAA can paint you as a scoffatlaw at best and a thief at worse.
Perhaps I should impress them by buying all their crappy, overpriced CD's. I'll bet the bastards will be thinking about changing their ways when they sniff the line of coke that my money paid for in their favorite brothel. Having all the money in the world will worry them!
I guess that not giving them any money won't impress them at all. I guess that nobody ever will get the point and will give customers what they want for a fair price. Oh wait, someone is already getting the point. I suppose that Napster had nothing to do with this at all, though. Never in history has a positive change been brought forth because people chose to disobey their laws. The DDR also still exists and Milosevic is currently the ruler of Serbia. The french aristocracy rules France. South-Africa has Apartheid. America is a british colony.
Would the world not look far different if everybody was like you? Do you think it would be better?
Mass distribution of a song that was written last year would be illegal if the original copyright laws were still in effect. That would hardly make a good test case against the many extensions of the term of copyright. A test case would involve a song that was published over 28 years ago, something that would now be in the public domain under the original law.
Using a book is much better. Many books are under copyright, but cannot be ordered any more. That clearly shows the problems with the copyright laws of today. Besides, books are usually considered far more important to society than songs. Especially if you use some unobtainable political or philosophical works, you might get the politicians and courts to think about the consumers for a change. After all, who wants go into the history books as the one that prevented the dissemation of knowledge? You might even get free speech activists to support you on this.
First of all, Spain scored after the assistent referee had lifted his flag and the Koreans stopped playing. So we'll never know whether it was a goal or the keeper would have caught or stopped the ball. Secondly, Totti fell by himself. If you look carefully, you'll see that he's already falling when touched. Not that long before contact, he timed well, but a swalbe none the less. The second yellow card was justified. I've read that the Italian coach looked at the slow motion, ready for the ultimate rant, but wisely decided not to.
Now, I agree that the referees could/should have been better, but it really wasn't much better 4 years ago. The same political nonsense was going on then and mistakes weren't fewer.
PS. Statistics show that long distance call aren't much worse than short distance ones. In fact, referees make more mistakes when they are very close to an incident.
I think the most important matter is how you advertise the link. If the link says: "get the instructions at this site after clicking link x" that would be disallowed, no matter how indirect you would get. On the other hand, if you linked to the top of the site and the link would say: "the site of Radikal that advocates forcibly stopping trains with nuclear waste" that would be ok, since you are not telling anyone about the offensive material.
Only the newest most up to date library should need to be on the system. If the libraries aren't backwards compatible or software isn't forwards compatible that is another design flaw
Nonsense. Do you know what a depreciated API call is? Versioning allows for old applications to keep working, while apps that are compiled with the new library have to use the new calls (or you can't use the new library with all of it's cool features)*. This is the only way to avoid the curse of ever expanding API's aka code bloat. The result is cleaner applications and libraries that can be improved much easier (and are smaller).
And please don't argue that depreciated API calls are bad engineering. Some developers aren't clairvoyant and/or perfect and don't know what features will be needed tomorrow or the absolute best approach for a particular problem. Even the best of them will create imperfect API's.
* The best system would probably have a depreciated-warning for the first few major releases after something is depreciated. That allows you to incrementally remove warnings. But ultimately they have to be removed. The longer you wait, the greater the diversity will be between different apps calling your library. This will turn into a maintainance nightmare.
Of course it can be done, see BeFS or the type/creator-codes on the Mac. But it won't be done since most Unix-users are allergic to (new) metadata. It has to do with the myth that metadata will make it impossible to pipe files and that using/greping files on the command line will be harder if they don't end in.doc.
Personally I believe that we need an easy and extensible mechanism to provide metadata. Someone needs to dare and break the status quo. I mean, wouldn't it be great if you could tag files on your HD, keep serials with applications, easily sort files by their metadata and in general use the FS as a database to keep everything together (in one view) and easily usable in another view.
An important problem is getting both ends of the nerve cells to connect to each other again. They can't automagically find each other. A cut nerve will usually grow a bit and give up when it doesn't reconnect very quickly.
There is some early work on producing scaffolds that lead the nerve cells to each other and keep them multiplying until they reconnect.
I happen to mock RMS for creating the word "Free software". Nobody understands it without a lengthy explanation. And you commend RMS for creating a big ugly legalese document to explain it? Are you a guy that expects people to read EULA's as well?
In the Netherlands, there is a lot of talk about renewal tests. But politicians don't seem to care much, I guess it's not a good way to garner votes. We do have medical check-ups for the elderly. Check their eye sight and stuff like that. A point system is covertly being introduced, for young drivers only (two heavy accidents and you lose the license). Not very effective IMO. We need a good point system, many drivers see tickets as a kind of tax. Taking away their license is the only thing that's really going to stop them.
My parallel port laplink cable had NO TROUBLE keeping up with it.
I guess that would be very useful to connect 10 computers. Don't you think you are confusing interfacing with networking? Anyways, Appletalk was a very nice protocol for the time. It has features still unmatched by IP (automatic discovery and negotiation). Hopefully Zero Configuration Networking will provide this one day.
Will you stop picking on programmers. If a programmer gives his (expensive) spare time for free to an oss project. It is his god damn right to decide what he writes.
Did the parent of your post demand something from the programmer? He just commented that a succesful OSS-project needs to care about it's end-users. You could actually regard that as positive criticism. Perhaps some programmers like happy end-users? Perhaps they can learn from the criticisms their users have?
Why do you even publish your code if you don't want anyone to use it?
If you don't like it, learn to code, join the project (or fork) and do it the right way.
Linux dude: Use open source, get great software for Free. Stop being abused by M$. User: OK. [installs Linux] User: Excuse me, your software is lacking a feature I really need. Linux dude: WTF. You cry baby. Quit your whining. Code it yourself if you want it. User: But, but...I can't code. Linux dude: Ok. Now I've had it. You could make a difference if you wanted to. You could learn to program and make a difference, but you obviously don't. You know what, I don't care about your whining. Go away while I'm working hard to topple evil M$. User: [installs Windows]
The local library lends out software and sells the outdated stuff for cheap. I got some of it just for the manual:
- A reproduction of a WWI flight manual, including ads! - An excellent flight manual with Falcon 3. The CD wasn't included, but who cares?;) - Full-sized copy of the Magic The Gathering Manual. Sure beats that fontsize 6 thingy you get with a pack o' cards. - Maps of Korea, France, etc.
And I'll be there when they dump Falcon 4 and Railroad Tycoon II.
But she did suck in the Star Wars movies, but that's probably Lucas's fault. I think he has a Actor Distortion Field* or something like that.
*Like Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field.
Re:One argument for the GPL and against "look alik
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I already pointed out that Free is based on a subjective interpretation of the word free. It only works for a certain moral code which is clearly not shared by everyone. This creates confusion. That's why I'm not afraid to say that RMS choice of Free sucks. Language is about making things clear, not about overloading common words with new specific meanings.
No one can be confused that the BSD license is freer by definitions 2, 4 and 5 from my previous post. I happen to feel that BSD-licensed code is also more free in the sense that it lacks something unpleasant or burdensome. I can actually choose the license for my own code, even when it's linked to a BSD'd component. Others may disagree, but that disagreement is a good reason not to use the word free when we talk about this distinction between the two licenses. A term like Forever Free Software would be much clearer.
I don't like your examples. They are entirely artificial and don't map very well to the issue at hand. Let me try and give a better example.
Suppose we can alter a man so that cannot commit violence? See A Clockwork Orange. He will never be jailed and is thus more free than someone that can commit violence, or is he? Could it be that violence has it's uses? Could it be that someone who makes his own decisions in this regard is better off? A potentially violent man may even act morally superior (he can slay someone with an intent to kill many innocents). He is free to decide himself what is moral and immoral!
Now let's compare this to the GPL. IMHO there is nothing inherently wrong about distributing closed source. The GPL allows it, but sets a very arbitrary limit (a company). Why is Sun allowed to distribute a 'proprietary program' in their own big organisation without opening the code, but a network of small companies isn't? What is inherently wrong with keeping your game's source closed so that less hacks will be developed (securing it through other means than obfuscation is sometimes impossible)? So why would you want to decide for someone else that these things should not be possible with the code you give away? Of course you can, but is it the right thing to do?
PS. GPL'ed code will lose it's freedom if modified code isn't distributed. So even the GPL is not perfect if you want Freedom. PS2. Gratis comes from latin.
Re:One argument for the GPL and against "look alik
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No. I think you are confused with the wording. If you want your code to be "free" in the sense that your code's distribution and development can never be restricted, then use the (L)GPL. If you want to give away your code for free (no strings attached), then use the BSDL.
BSD advocate's base their usage of free on these definitions (Webster):
2 a : not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being : choosing or capable of choosing for itself b : determined by the choice of the actor or performer c : made, done, or given voluntarily or spontaneously 4 a : having no trade restrictions b : not subject to government regulation c of foreign exchange : not subject to restriction or official control 5 a : having no obligations (as to work) or commitments b : not taken up with commitments or obligations
RMS bases his Free on:
3 a : relieved from or lacking something unpleasant or burdensome
Given the subjective usage of unpleasant/burdensome, I like the BSD advocate's usage better and believe that RMS should find a description that makes his intentions more clear. Perhaps something like Forever Free Software.
I suppose you'd rather have government employees able to choose whether to use racially non-describinatory hiring practices, as doing so would help create true supporters of integration?
I'm against racial and genderbased discrimination, also to 'help' certain groups. True integration only works if you give everyone equal chances in society. If people can't compete, you change the rules (part-time work) or remove obstacles (better education, avoid 'ghetto's'). Allowing certain groups to bend the rules is wrong.
Damn, but this seems like traditional "fear, uncertainty and doubt" you're trying to spread.
China's new and improved nuclear missile obliterates LA. We find out that they used our technology to create it. Will people get angry? I'm sure we can come up with thousands of examples where public outrage can be caused by a open source related thing.
If it would be FUD, this would be totally unrealistic, but I don't think it is.
If it saves money, what merits exactly is it not succeeding on?
If OSS is a policy, it most likely won't be evaluated. Politicians and civil servants will see it as a political move and not a rational choice.
Whether it's politically practical has no effect on whether it's The Right Thing.
Ok. But being a Don Quichotte is not very pleasant. Once you decide that OSS is good in certain cases, a dogmatic far-reaching standpoint is certainly not the only way to strive for 'The Right Thing'.
What I pay NASA to do is science. I expect NASA to make their discoveries public. I expect NASA to make their technological advances public.
Source != science. Source is application of knowledge. There are other ways to make this knowledge known to others. A white paper will probably be more effective. Source will often be better at making the knowledge available in products, but that is a seperate matter from the pursuit of knowledge.
Further, there are a significant number of government projects which are software development projects; see the research project which this story is about. In this case, I the taxpayer am paying for an educational institution to create tools and policies relating to the creation of highly relaiable software -- but I the taxpayer am not getting access to those tools and policies, and neither is my (midsize-to-smaller, fiscally conservative) employer. I don't pay the government to make commercial software created by larger or deeper-pocketed developers more reliable, but by sharing the source with large commercial entities that's what they're doing with my money -- without letting me benefit either personally or professionally from these advances they make with my cash.
Nasa does exactly what we pay them for. Shoot rockets into space, provide data to scientists, allow them to perform experiments in space, etc. Reliable software means that they can do this better. Spreading the expenses of this very costly move among multiple contributors seems like a sensible thing to do.
BTW, the press release doesn't say that the scientific discoveries will be unavailable to the public. As Carnegie Mellon is heavily involved, I expect them to publish the scientific discoveries.
In real world development (out in the private sector), in fact, writing OSS software is actually cheaper than closed software -- and being that my employer sells OSS to companies doing embedded systems work, I know that of which I speak. Putting up arguments to the contrary is fine and dandy -- but when those arguments conflict with actual experience, one has to question their validity. Personally, I think this argument alone overrides the entire debate below and makes it unnecessary and redundant; fighting experience with theoretical arguments is useless and futile.
Nasa is not a vendor that sells software to clients. I do not dispute that open source is the best in solution in your case, but your experience doesn't tell us that much about a very dissimilar situation.
Some of it will be. Some of it won't be. That determination is best made by the potential users -- NASA has no idea what other agencies will be doing at some time in the future.
I'm not convinced that is true. A low-level controller for a Nasa-built component will probably not be of interest to anyone. Why waste one's time by open sourcing it? On the other hand, I do believe that many government developers are quite proud of their work and would gladly open source it (and perhaps even maintain a community) if it's of use to anyone and if their superiors agree. You get the superiors to agree by showing real-life (financial) results.
What it does require elimination of is closed-source components directly included inside the codebase. Well-designed software will avoid these in favor of linked-in components anyhow.
So you don't disagree with software that is only partially open sourced? Interesting. Nasa can decide what to open source after all (perhaps by starting a commercial joint-venture company for the code they don't want to share).
and further, in the long run it will be far more profitable for the government to have the missile (let's say prediction) code owned by the government and distributed under an open license than to have each agency license and pay a commercial vendor for every single use.
Economy 101: a buyer will only buy a component if it's economical to do so. If it's less costly to develop something himself, he would have done so and not licensed the component. In short, cost (and/or risk) will go up if you disallow this option.
Reducing the cost-of-entry for our opponents is of course a Bad Thing, but all this software requires hardware as well -- and that's the larger cost center anyhow.
Their biggest problem is technology. Saddam can spend enough money on weapons and factories (but not on food strangely enough).
Certainly others will benefit from a switch to OSS as well -- but if the benefit to the US is sufficient, that doesn't [forgot something]
Sure, the Missile Defense System will protect you against all those missiles that have been built to defeat it. Except, your opponents have the advantage since the source to the defense system is open.
Besides -- it also means we'll be sharing code with our friends like Britain to a greater extent; while we theoretically can do this now, there's once again red tape involved and a requirement of having knowledge of the existance of the tools in question. Using OSS will result in a greater level of shared code and shared development costs between governments.
Why not set up a more intelligent open source policy? Some code is open to all, some to all friendly countries, some to close allies, etc.
You know, there are open source projects for such things as passive sonar and aircraft autopilots -- you'd be suprised how much stuff in the OSS community is useful to the government, and how much stuff the government does is useful to some element of the community.
I don't dispute that and I'm certainly not anti-open source. However, I doubt that forcing everything open is wise. I think it's better to educate and let government organisations decide for themselves when to choose the open source option. I'm sure that they will figure it out (when budgets are shrinking).
No, I realize that the policy I propose would result in some software being opened needlessly -- but doing otherwise (and having a policy which is not uniformly applied, or which may be circumvented) can result in a policy which is ineffective at achieving its goals.
I don't see how that would be the case if the advantages are as great as you make them out to be. Do you really want to force government employees instead of allowing them to think for themselves (the latter creating true OSS supporters)? What will happen the first time that open source can be blamed for something? An overreaching policy can hurt OSS greatly. Even if the policy saves money, OSS didn't succeed based on it's merits and those savings will probably be ignored and the policy changed when politicians with a different opinion come to power. Changes that a made on merits are far more lasting and much more difficult to change (requiring actual proof). Besides, congress et al have shown that they cannot be trusted with decisions about technology. Do you think they will agree on a/. standpoint?
Anyhow, this whole thing ignores the moral arguments (that public-funded software should be available to the public; that government oversight should be permitted wherever possible; etc).
I disagree on the premise that government-funded software should be available _because_ the public funded it's creation (instead of making the decision that will benefit the tax-payer the most). Please refer to these (short) posts that I wrote on the subject: one, two.
Need it be said that these extra costs only exist if the software wasn't designed with the knowledge that it would be released under an open license?
It's an extra requirement that _will_ increase the costs.
if the software is less dependant on the environment of the developing organization, it can be used elsewhere in the government
What makes you so sure that Nasa-specific software written for a specific task will be of use to other branches of the government?
if the software has less proprietary stuff, the government can't be jerked around by vendors deciding to hike their rates to squeeze more cash from Uncle Sam
I'm not talking about Apache vs IIS. I'm talking about using existing components from other companies to save costs (and increase reliability). Commercial vendors of military missiles might share code with Nasa for instance. Open sourcing the code would mean a rewrite of the code. This will increase the costs (even if the software is known to be open sourced).
if the software has no references to Roswell, then low-level functionaries who get access to the software (or the general who defies orders and installs it on his home machine, which gets cracked) don't spill the beans.
I agree that this is just good programming, but it will increase costs.
releasing the code means it's easy to access by other branches of government and contractors doing work for the government
And by China, Russia, Iraq, etc.
which might otherwise not know it existed
You could create a repository of existing software without open sourcing. Or open source and be quiet about it. This comment doesn't have much to do with open sourcing.
or which would have to deal with huge amounts of red tape to get access.
True, but the red tape still exists. You still have to check whether code can be released, fix it up, set up repositories, etc. The red tape is moved to the stage before someone asks for access to a certain product. This will increase costs, even for the software that no one outside the government organisation cares about.
If government-written software were useless to everyone else, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now -- see the article we're commenting on. Even without considering any benefits to businesses and the public in general, however, opening government software is the right thing to do.
Some software is indeed useful to others. But not all. Your conclusion is thus flawed: There are examples of gov software that should be open sourced = some gov software should be open sourced -> all gov software should be open sourced.
You provide no proof for the latter conclusion. It can be easily disproven by providing merely one (reasonable) example of software that shouldn't be open sourced. Unfortunately I don't know much about internal US government software, but I have given enough reasons why open source may not be the best decision.
Re:Development Processes be damned..
on
Bitter Java
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· Score: 3, Funny
For example, if you divide employees into managerial and non-managerial, then processes that don't care about that division may require more coding to undo that division.
No need to undo anything. Processes that don't care about the division code to Employee's.
Plus, the managerial status may be temporary, fleating, or vague.
Associations may be better for temporary, fleeting or vague manager relationships (perhaps using a Project-class?). I really don't see why those relationships can't be properly managed in OO code.
I agree that government research should be free for all if possible and sensible (making money on patents might be a good choice in a cases where the knowledge is only advantageous to a select few). It seems that I misread your post as being about software (being an implementation of the knowledge that should be open). Please accept my apologies.
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It's a shame, I like firewire and think it should be on everything, but no, we have to worry about usb2 driver support instead.
I don't think that Firewire has lost yet, although it will probably face stiff competition from Serial ATA and USB 2. But I don't see DV camera's using one of these standards.
Doesnt mean I dont recognise attempts to put pcs at a disadvantage w.r.t Macintosh boxes.
That is basically the thing that Apple has to do to keep selling their computers (although they usually do this by improving their offering). But it just doesn't make sense to see the Firewire royalties in this light. Firewire on PC's increases the number of Firewire devices which is better for Apple. Certainly when they have the best video-editing software around (Final Cut Pro & iMovie).
when apple suddenly demanded $1 per port they pretty much kick started USB2.0 and serial ATA and pretty much killed the notion of using 1394 as the HDD interconnect inside a PC. [...] Well, he hurt us users.
Nobody forced you to use FireWire. Apple developed it, so they could ask what they wanted. If you disagree, you should use an alternative. Clearly the costs were too high and people did choose alternatives. Apple had to lower their price as the result.
This is one of the rare cases where free market economics actually works. It's an example of patents working properly for a change, because the invention was succesfully 'tranformed' into a product with a price and certain characteristics. You were never forced to use it, but can compare it with competing standards and decide whether the price is worth it.
Of course, it would be different if Apple would first allow you to use FireWire for free and then suddenly ask a lot of money. But they didn't extort you like that, Forgent Networks did.
I also remember the belief that this was a Steve jobs deal to hurt PCs compared to macs.
You are quite paranoid. Did the MPEG group ask too high a royalty on MPEG-4 to hurt someone? No, they represent the people who created the standard and want money for their hard work. Don't use their standard if you don't agree or try to change the rate (like Apple did for MPEG-4, helping users), but stop this nonsense about being hurt.
First of all I want to point out that Apple tries to bring powerful technology to the masses by reducing unnecessary complexity. Something I don't look down on. In fact, I get annoyed when something is more complex than it has to be. That focus means, however, that they will hype things like iTunes, not the included Perl 5.6. On the other hand, they seem to be very hard at work at creating the best possible environment for developers, something which indeed was lacking in the past. But I digress and offer my assistance:
To get to the page you seek, you go to Apple.com and click on 'developer' (top right). The page that comes up contains links to documentation and sample code for when you decide to try out Cocoa, a login button for the developer programs (there is a free one that allows you to download the developer tools and other stuff) and an intro-page for programmers. You'll be very interested in that page since it contains links to various documents (the 'essential reading') on the technical underpinnings of OS X. You'll want to read up on that to understand the way things work. Next stop might be the page specific to Unix. You'll see that a few major Unix-apps are being named, but alas, no mention of python or tcl/tk. Fortunately, the page does contain a link to the Fink package manager (based on apt-get). You can find many more packages there, including a (optionally) rootless version of XFree. It allows you to use your familiar X apps next to OS X apps (be sure to use Orobor to have your X apps use Aqua widgets).
I don't have a list of all the Unix software that is standard on OS X or that you can download, but I don't think that you'll find any of the more popular tools missing. Given the number of Unix developers and users switching to OS X, I expect OS X to become a first class citizen in the Unix world quite soon. As of yet, you might still have to change paths in makefiles to get the less common software to configure, make, make install. I don't think an experienced Unix-guy like you will have a lot of problems with that however. In return for these minor issues, you will (hopefully) have a great experience using OS X.
What part of "or follow the procedures for amending it" is too complicated for you to understand? Or do you prefer a non-constitution that lacks any meaning?
What is your point then? There is a piece of paper that can be explained in a thousands different number of ways. Who should ascertain it's exact meaning if not for the courts?
It seems I don't understand what you mean with elasticity. Perhaps you can explain it better?
Are you trying to compare risking your life to save the life of another human being to demanding that ENTERTAINMENT be provided to you on your terms regardless of the wishes of the people who created the entertainment?
Music, newspapers and books are extremely important to our culture and have a strong influence on people's viewpoints. Do you seriously want to argue that monopolies on these important goods are a minor issue? Are you willing to argue that the fact that these goods are overpriced, censored, promoted through payola and/or become unavailable at one point is acceptable?
I used the example to point out that breaking the law is not wrong per se (I had to use an extreme example to make that point of course). I'd like to hear whether you believe that breaking the law can be acceptable, since you seem to be categorically against it. Once you accept it as a possibility, it becomes a question of limits instead of a yes/no proposition.
And you are going to be the vigilante that decides the RIAA are criminals, and that your kangaroo court entitles you to violate the law?
I'll also be so bold to claim that Hitler was a criminal, even though he was never convicted. Is this wrong as well?
You aren't going to die from music hunger if you do a legal protest like boycotting CDs sold by RIAA members.
That's hardly the point. You also won't die when you are held in slavery. It's just that we feel that slavery has no place in a free society. Hindering the spread of goods that are important to our culture in unreasonable ways is also not acceptable to me. It cannot be countered by abjuring these goods. We must show that this is unacceptable. Disobedience is a good way to do this.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Are you a pacifist then? You must disagree with every form of war if you are serious about that statement. This includes WWII and Afghanistan.
I Want a restored 427 Cobra but can't afford it. Does that make it OK for me to take one? Hell No. So I make do with a Chevy.
There is no point in argueing if you start comparing stealing physical goods with copying things.
Ever hear of free software? Can't afford Windows XP? Get Linux. Can't afford MS Office? Then Get Open Office. Can't afford Photo Shop? Then learn to use the Gimp.
Sometimes there is a decent alternative. Sometimes there isn't. What then? Should a poor student be unable to learn the software that future employers expect him to know? Or is it morally acceptable (and better for everyone involved) if he uses the software without paying for a while. Let me see:
- The student is better off since he'll get a job.
- The future employer will have a well-educated employee.
- The software company will sell more software since people know how to use it.
I Read that before most people on this forum were born, read it when I was speaking out against segration in the southeastern USA at a time when you could get your ass kicked or lynched for doing so. So forget the vain attempt to prove yourself "morally superior" to me. I wasn't afraid to speak out for the people who were having their rights violated back then, and I'm not afraid to speak out for the people who's rights you want to violate with your cockamamie "IP can be taken from those I don't approve of" campaign. I don't limit myself to only speaking out for the rights of groups that are considered "correct" by the left or the right.
Since you want to prove yourself morally superior by just speaking out and not being a 'criminal', it seems hardly appropiate for you to blame me. We both feel our way is morally superior and want to prove this (and it follows by extension that we are thus morally superior, FWIW).
Don't buy the damn CDs if you disapprove of them.
I buy CD-R's. They are taxed, with the money going to RIAA. There is no way not to pay when I don't use the CD's for music. There is no way to decide who the money goes to. They just take it from me to fund this government-sponsored monopoly.
Just don't bitch when they write you off as a deadbeat that's too cheap to pay for entertainment because you lacked the conviction to NOT use the product instead of trying to grab it without paying for it. Boycott the Music and you send a message of Moral outrage. Steal the music and you lose the moral standing you claim you want.
Since they are taking my money without asking, I'll take their stuff without asking as well. Why not? Am I more evil because I didn't bribe politicians to make my thievery legal? Am I evil because I feel that the current copyright is so fundamentally wrong that it should be ignored?
I Have never been an advocate of the "elastic" Constitution. I feel that we should follow the intents of the framers of the Constitution or follow the procedures for amending it. An "elastic" constitution in effect means it can be "amended" at will by changing the interpation.
"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
-- Jefferson
But perhaps you feel that the founding fathers were authoritarian sons of bitches who didn't want you to think for yourself. Or do you?
I Don't consider life plus 95 years to be remotly reasonable, and would be delighted to see the copyright extensions struck down as unconstitutional.
I consider it awful as well, but I don't expect the supreme court to be able to change this. It's a limited period of time and 'advancing the arts and sciences' is so fuzzy that the interpretation will be left to the politicians.
A Reasonable law, IMHO, would be 14 years of automatic protection, with the possibility of a one time 14 year extension apon registering the copyright. These are the times that were discussed by the framers of the Constitution, and the original copyright law. After a max of 28 years it enters the public domain.
I think that's even too long for software, it's obsolete so soon that there is no real benefit to society anymore after 28 years. The abandonware sites clearly show the problem of a lenghty copyright. You cannot get the arts once created except by breaking the law. Considering the better distribution methods since 1780, those 28 years may be considered to be far too long as well. It took many years to get books recognized and distributed properly at that time. Current books have to make their money in a rather short period of time and often get out of print after a decade. Perhaps we should even have different copyright periods for different products, music is far more lasting for instance and easier to obtain than 'obsoleted' books.
But again, the choice for a certain duration of copyright is so fuzzy that the supreme court cannot set one. Where is the optimum? 0 years? 10? 100? Given the fact that the supreme court doesn't believe the constitution to be infallible, they cannot accept 28 years as being the optimum, but have to let the politicians decide.
Disagrement with a law does NOT give you the right to engage in wholesale violation of that law.
I disagree. A (really) wrong law should not be followed. I'm glad that some jews were kept in hiding and thus escaped the gas chambers during WWII. Do you consider the people who disobeyed the law to help these people to be criminals? Or are they heroes?
However that is NOT the reason the majority of the filesharers are violating the law. They don't agree with the law and simply refuse to obey it.
Many people I know would gladly pay for fair-priced, full-featured MP3-downloading service or for fair-priced CD's. I don't feel bad at all about keeping the money away from these government-sponsored criminals (RIAA). And many decent people feel the same. They would gladly give money to those who deserve it (the artists), but don't accept being ripped off.
Copying software illegally is different however, although I believe it's OK for foreigners, students and others who simply cannot afford the price that companies ask (and thus cannot learn or advance their society). Of course it is different when these groups get cheap deals.
This blatant disrepect for the law is far more likely to result in more severe laws than to result in an improvement in the law, as many recent examples of "Anti-piracy" laws show.
It is the same with drugs. First the government fights it causing the mafia to grow and the prisons to be filled with decent kids. Kids that get influenced by the nasty criminals they share a cell with. And one day the politicians/citizens wisen up and legalize drugs that are not that damaging. At least, that the way it is going/did go in The Netherlands, Switzerland, England and France.
Of course, the US is not exactly a fast learner with the war on drugs either. But copyright infringement can only be stopped with fascist laws. I don't expect the american public to accept these. Although you'll probably accept every law, which begs this quote:
"In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me -
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-- Pastor Martin Niemöller paraphrased
It makes it hard to establish the moral highground when the RIAA can paint you as a scoffatlaw at best and a thief at worse.
Perhaps I should impress them by buying all their crappy, overpriced CD's. I'll bet the bastards will be thinking about changing their ways when they sniff the line of coke that my money paid for in their favorite brothel. Having all the money in the world will worry them!
I guess that not giving them any money won't impress them at all. I guess that nobody ever will get the point and will give customers what they want for a fair price. Oh wait, someone is already getting the point. I suppose that Napster had nothing to do with this at all, though. Never in history has a positive change been brought forth because people chose to disobey their laws. The DDR also still exists and Milosevic is currently the ruler of Serbia. The french aristocracy rules France. South-Africa has Apartheid. America is a british colony.
Would the world not look far different if everybody was like you? Do you think it would be better?
Mass distribution of a song that was written last year would be illegal if the original copyright laws were still in effect. That would hardly make a good test case against the many extensions of the term of copyright. A test case would involve a song that was published over 28 years ago, something that would now be in the public domain under the original law.
Using a book is much better. Many books are under copyright, but cannot be ordered any more. That clearly shows the problems with the copyright laws of today. Besides, books are usually considered far more important to society than songs. Especially if you use some unobtainable political or philosophical works, you might get the politicians and courts to think about the consumers for a change. After all, who wants go into the history books as the one that prevented the dissemation of knowledge? You might even get free speech activists to support you on this.
Jesus suffered from obesity. He ate far too much radioactive fish. The evidence: the lake was so polluted that you could walk on it.
First of all, Spain scored after the assistent referee had lifted his flag and the Koreans stopped playing. So we'll never know whether it was a goal or the keeper would have caught or stopped the ball. Secondly, Totti fell by himself. If you look carefully, you'll see that he's already falling when touched. Not that long before contact, he timed well, but a swalbe none the less. The second yellow card was justified. I've read that the Italian coach looked at the slow motion, ready for the ultimate rant, but wisely decided not to.
Now, I agree that the referees could/should have been better, but it really wasn't much better 4 years ago. The same political nonsense was going on then and mistakes weren't fewer.
PS. Statistics show that long distance call aren't much worse than short distance ones. In fact, referees make more mistakes when they are very close to an incident.
I think the most important matter is how you advertise the link. If the link says: "get the instructions at this site after clicking link x" that would be disallowed, no matter how indirect you would get. On the other hand, if you linked to the top of the site and the link would say: "the site of Radikal that advocates forcibly stopping trains with nuclear waste" that would be ok, since you are not telling anyone about the offensive material.
IANAL, but this makes most sense to me.
Only the newest most up to date library should need to be on the system. If the libraries aren't backwards compatible or software isn't forwards compatible that is another design flaw
Nonsense. Do you know what a depreciated API call is? Versioning allows for old applications to keep working, while apps that are compiled with the new library have to use the new calls (or you can't use the new library with all of it's cool features)*. This is the only way to avoid the curse of ever expanding API's aka code bloat. The result is cleaner applications and libraries that can be improved much easier (and are smaller).
And please don't argue that depreciated API calls are bad engineering. Some developers aren't clairvoyant and/or perfect and don't know what features will be needed tomorrow or the absolute best approach for a particular problem. Even the best of them will create imperfect API's.
* The best system would probably have a depreciated-warning for the first few major releases after something is depreciated. That allows you to incrementally remove warnings. But ultimately they have to be removed. The longer you wait, the greater the diversity will be between different apps calling your library. This will turn into a maintainance nightmare.
Of course it can be done, see BeFS or the type/creator-codes on the Mac. But it won't be done since most Unix-users are allergic to (new) metadata. It has to do with the myth that metadata will make it impossible to pipe files and that using/greping files on the command line will be harder if they don't end in .doc.
Personally I believe that we need an easy and extensible mechanism to provide metadata. Someone needs to dare and break the status quo. I mean, wouldn't it be great if you could tag files on your HD, keep serials with applications, easily sort files by their metadata and in general use the FS as a database to keep everything together (in one view) and easily usable in another view.
An important problem is getting both ends of the nerve cells to connect to each other again. They can't automagically find each other. A cut nerve will usually grow a bit and give up when it doesn't reconnect very quickly.
There is some early work on producing scaffolds that lead the nerve cells to each other and keep them multiplying until they reconnect.
I happen to mock RMS for creating the word "Free software". Nobody understands it without a lengthy explanation. And you commend RMS for creating a big ugly legalese document to explain it? Are you a guy that expects people to read EULA's as well?
Why Free software should be called Forever Free Software or at least something better
In the Netherlands, there is a lot of talk about renewal tests. But politicians don't seem to care much, I guess it's not a good way to garner votes. We do have medical check-ups for the elderly. Check their eye sight and stuff like that. A point system is covertly being introduced, for young drivers only (two heavy accidents and you lose the license). Not very effective IMO. We need a good point system, many drivers see tickets as a kind of tax. Taking away their license is the only thing that's really going to stop them.
My parallel port laplink cable had NO TROUBLE keeping up with it.
I guess that would be very useful to connect 10 computers. Don't you think you are confusing interfacing with networking? Anyways, Appletalk was a very nice protocol for the time. It has features still unmatched by IP (automatic discovery and negotiation). Hopefully Zero Configuration Networking will provide this one day.
Will you stop picking on programmers. If a programmer gives his (expensive) spare time for free to an oss project. It is his god damn right to decide what he writes.
Did the parent of your post demand something from the programmer? He just commented that a succesful OSS-project needs to care about it's end-users. You could actually regard that as positive criticism. Perhaps some programmers like happy end-users? Perhaps they can learn from the criticisms their users have?
Why do you even publish your code if you don't want anyone to use it?
If you don't like it, learn to code, join the project (or fork) and do it the right way.
Linux dude: Use open source, get great software for Free. Stop being abused by M$.
User: OK. [installs Linux]
User: Excuse me, your software is lacking a feature I really need.
Linux dude: WTF. You cry baby. Quit your whining. Code it yourself if you want it.
User: But, but...I can't code.
Linux dude: Ok. Now I've had it. You could make a difference if you wanted to. You could learn to program and make a difference, but you obviously don't. You know what, I don't care about your whining. Go away while I'm working hard to topple evil M$.
User: [installs Windows]
The local library lends out software and sells the outdated stuff for cheap. I got some of it just for the manual:
;)
- A reproduction of a WWI flight manual, including ads!
- An excellent flight manual with Falcon 3. The CD wasn't included, but who cares?
- Full-sized copy of the Magic The Gathering Manual. Sure beats that fontsize 6 thingy you get with a pack o' cards.
- Maps of Korea, France, etc.
And I'll be there when they dump Falcon 4 and Railroad Tycoon II.
But she did suck in the Star Wars movies, but that's probably Lucas's fault. I think he has a Actor Distortion Field* or something like that.
*Like Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field.
I already pointed out that Free is based on a subjective interpretation of the word free. It only works for a certain moral code which is clearly not shared by everyone. This creates confusion. That's why I'm not afraid to say that RMS choice of Free sucks. Language is about making things clear, not about overloading common words with new specific meanings.
No one can be confused that the BSD license is freer by definitions 2, 4 and 5 from my previous post. I happen to feel that BSD-licensed code is also more free in the sense that it lacks something unpleasant or burdensome. I can actually choose the license for my own code, even when it's linked to a BSD'd component. Others may disagree, but that disagreement is a good reason not to use the word free when we talk about this distinction between the two licenses. A term like Forever Free Software would be much clearer.
I don't like your examples. They are entirely artificial and don't map very well to the issue at hand. Let me try and give a better example.
Suppose we can alter a man so that cannot commit violence? See A Clockwork Orange. He will never be jailed and is thus more free than someone that can commit violence, or is he? Could it be that violence has it's uses? Could it be that someone who makes his own decisions in this regard is better off? A potentially violent man may even act morally superior (he can slay someone with an intent to kill many innocents). He is free to decide himself what is moral and immoral!
Now let's compare this to the GPL. IMHO there is nothing inherently wrong about distributing closed source. The GPL allows it, but sets a very arbitrary limit (a company). Why is Sun allowed to distribute a 'proprietary program' in their own big organisation without opening the code, but a network of small companies isn't? What is inherently wrong with keeping your game's source closed so that less hacks will be developed (securing it through other means than obfuscation is sometimes impossible)? So why would you want to decide for someone else that these things should not be possible with the code you give away? Of course you can, but is it the right thing to do?
PS. GPL'ed code will lose it's freedom if modified code isn't distributed. So even the GPL is not perfect if you want Freedom.
PS2. Gratis comes from latin.
No. I think you are confused with the wording. If you want your code to be "free" in the sense that your code's distribution and development can never be restricted, then use the (L)GPL. If you want to give away your code for free (no strings attached), then use the BSDL.
BSD advocate's base their usage of free on these definitions (Webster):
2 a : not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being : choosing or capable of choosing for itself b : determined by the choice of the actor or performer c : made, done, or given voluntarily or spontaneously
4 a : having no trade restrictions b : not subject to government regulation c of foreign exchange : not subject to restriction or official control
5 a : having no obligations (as to work) or commitments b : not taken up with commitments or obligations
RMS bases his Free on:
3 a : relieved from or lacking something unpleasant or burdensome
Given the subjective usage of unpleasant/burdensome, I like the BSD advocate's usage better and believe that RMS should find a description that makes his intentions more clear. Perhaps something like Forever Free Software.
I suppose you'd rather have government employees able to choose whether to use racially non-describinatory hiring practices, as doing so would help create true supporters of integration?
I'm against racial and genderbased discrimination, also to 'help' certain groups. True integration only works if you give everyone equal chances in society. If people can't compete, you change the rules (part-time work) or remove obstacles (better education, avoid 'ghetto's'). Allowing certain groups to bend the rules is wrong.
Damn, but this seems like traditional "fear, uncertainty and doubt" you're trying to spread.
China's new and improved nuclear missile obliterates LA. We find out that they used our technology to create it. Will people get angry? I'm sure we can come up with thousands of examples where public outrage can be caused by a open source related thing.
If it would be FUD, this would be totally unrealistic, but I don't think it is.
If it saves money, what merits exactly is it not succeeding on?
If OSS is a policy, it most likely won't be evaluated. Politicians and civil servants will see it as a political move and not a rational choice.
Whether it's politically practical has no effect on whether it's The Right Thing.
Ok. But being a Don Quichotte is not very pleasant. Once you decide that OSS is good in certain cases, a dogmatic far-reaching standpoint is certainly not the only way to strive for 'The Right Thing'.
What I pay NASA to do is science. I expect NASA to make their discoveries public. I expect NASA to make their technological advances public.
Source != science. Source is application of knowledge. There are other ways to make this knowledge known to others. A white paper will probably be more effective. Source will often be better at making the knowledge available in products, but that is a seperate matter from the pursuit of knowledge.
Further, there are a significant number of government projects which are software development projects; see the research project which this story is about. In this case, I the taxpayer am paying for an educational institution to create tools and policies relating to the creation of highly relaiable software -- but I the taxpayer am not getting access to those tools and policies, and neither is my (midsize-to-smaller, fiscally conservative) employer. I don't pay the government to make commercial software created by larger or deeper-pocketed developers more reliable, but by sharing the source with large commercial entities that's what they're doing with my money -- without letting me benefit either personally or professionally from these advances they make with my cash.
Nasa does exactly what we pay them for. Shoot rockets into space, provide data to scientists, allow them to perform experiments in space, etc. Reliable software means that they can do this better. Spreading the expenses of this very costly move among multiple contributors seems like a sensible thing to do.
BTW, the press release doesn't say that the scientific discoveries will be unavailable to the public. As Carnegie Mellon is heavily involved, I expect them to publish the scientific discoveries.
In real world development (out in the private sector), in fact, writing OSS software is actually cheaper than closed software -- and being that my employer sells OSS to companies doing embedded systems work, I know that of which I speak. Putting up arguments to the contrary is fine and dandy -- but when those arguments conflict with actual experience, one has to question their validity. Personally, I think this argument alone overrides the entire debate below and makes it unnecessary and redundant; fighting experience with theoretical arguments is useless and futile.
/. standpoint?
Nasa is not a vendor that sells software to clients. I do not dispute that open source is the best in solution in your case, but your experience doesn't tell us that much about a very dissimilar situation.
Some of it will be. Some of it won't be. That determination is best made by the potential users -- NASA has no idea what other agencies will be doing at some time in the future.
I'm not convinced that is true. A low-level controller for a Nasa-built component will probably not be of interest to anyone. Why waste one's time by open sourcing it? On the other hand, I do believe that many government developers are quite proud of their work and would gladly open source it (and perhaps even maintain a community) if it's of use to anyone and if their superiors agree. You get the superiors to agree by showing real-life (financial) results.
What it does require elimination of is closed-source components directly included inside the codebase. Well-designed software will avoid these in favor of linked-in components anyhow.
So you don't disagree with software that is only partially open sourced? Interesting. Nasa can decide what to open source after all (perhaps by starting a commercial joint-venture company for the code they don't want to share).
and further, in the long run it will be far more profitable for the government to have the missile (let's say prediction) code owned by the government and distributed under an open license than to have each agency license and pay a commercial vendor for every single use.
Economy 101: a buyer will only buy a component if it's economical to do so. If it's less costly to develop something himself, he would have done so and not licensed the component. In short, cost (and/or risk) will go up if you disallow this option.
Reducing the cost-of-entry for our opponents is of course a Bad Thing, but all this software requires hardware as well -- and that's the larger cost center anyhow.
Their biggest problem is technology. Saddam can spend enough money on weapons and factories (but not on food strangely enough).
Certainly others will benefit from a switch to OSS as well -- but if the benefit to the US is sufficient, that doesn't [forgot something]
Sure, the Missile Defense System will protect you against all those missiles that have been built to defeat it. Except, your opponents have the advantage since the source to the defense system is open.
Besides -- it also means we'll be sharing code with our friends like Britain to a greater extent; while we theoretically can do this now, there's once again red tape involved and a requirement of having knowledge of the existance of the tools in question. Using OSS will result in a greater level of shared code and shared development costs between governments.
Why not set up a more intelligent open source policy? Some code is open to all, some to all friendly countries, some to close allies, etc.
You know, there are open source projects for such things as passive sonar and aircraft autopilots -- you'd be suprised how much stuff in the OSS community is useful to the government, and how much stuff the government does is useful to some element of the community.
I don't dispute that and I'm certainly not anti-open source. However, I doubt that forcing everything open is wise. I think it's better to educate and let government organisations decide for themselves when to choose the open source option. I'm sure that they will figure it out (when budgets are shrinking).
No, I realize that the policy I propose would result in some software being opened needlessly -- but doing otherwise (and having a policy which is not uniformly applied, or which may be circumvented) can result in a policy which is ineffective at achieving its goals.
I don't see how that would be the case if the advantages are as great as you make them out to be. Do you really want to force government employees instead of allowing them to think for themselves (the latter creating true OSS supporters)? What will happen the first time that open source can be blamed for something? An overreaching policy can hurt OSS greatly. Even if the policy saves money, OSS didn't succeed based on it's merits and those savings will probably be ignored and the policy changed when politicians with a different opinion come to power. Changes that a made on merits are far more lasting and much more difficult to change (requiring actual proof). Besides, congress et al have shown that they cannot be trusted with decisions about technology. Do you think they will agree on a
Anyhow, this whole thing ignores the moral arguments (that public-funded software should be available to the public; that government oversight should be permitted wherever possible; etc).
I disagree on the premise that government-funded software should be available _because_ the public funded it's creation (instead of making the decision that will benefit the tax-payer the most). Please refer to these (short) posts that I wrote on the subject: one, two.
Need it be said that these extra costs only exist if the software wasn't designed with the knowledge that it would be released under an open license?
It's an extra requirement that _will_ increase the costs.
if the software is less dependant on the environment of the developing organization, it can be used elsewhere in the government
What makes you so sure that Nasa-specific software written for a specific task will be of use to other branches of the government?
if the software has less proprietary stuff, the government can't be jerked around by vendors deciding to hike their rates to squeeze more cash from Uncle Sam
I'm not talking about Apache vs IIS. I'm talking about using existing components from other companies to save costs (and increase reliability). Commercial vendors of military missiles might share code with Nasa for instance. Open sourcing the code would mean a rewrite of the code. This will increase the costs (even if the software is known to be open sourced).
if the software has no references to Roswell, then low-level functionaries who get access to the software (or the general who defies orders and installs it on his home machine, which gets cracked) don't spill the beans.
I agree that this is just good programming, but it will increase costs.
releasing the code means it's easy to access by other branches of government and contractors doing work for the government
And by China, Russia, Iraq, etc.
which might otherwise not know it existed
You could create a repository of existing software without open sourcing. Or open source and be quiet about it. This comment doesn't have much to do with open sourcing.
or which would have to deal with huge amounts of red tape to get access.
True, but the red tape still exists. You still have to check whether code can be released, fix it up, set up repositories, etc. The red tape is moved to the stage before someone asks for access to a certain product. This will increase costs, even for the software that no one outside the government organisation cares about.
If government-written software were useless to everyone else, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now -- see the article we're commenting on. Even without considering any benefits to businesses and the public in general, however, opening government software is the right thing to do.
Some software is indeed useful to others. But not all. Your conclusion is thus flawed:
There are examples of gov software that should be open sourced = some gov software should be open sourced -> all gov software should be open sourced.
You provide no proof for the latter conclusion. It can be easily disproven by providing merely one (reasonable) example of software that shouldn't be open sourced. Unfortunately I don't know much about internal US government software, but I have given enough reasons why open source may not be the best decision.
For example, if you divide employees into managerial and non-managerial, then processes that don't care about that division may require more coding to undo that division.
Undoing that divison??? What about:
Employee
|
--------------
| . . . . _ . . . . |
Manager . . . . Slave
No need to undo anything. Processes that don't care about the division code to Employee's.
Plus, the managerial status may be temporary, fleating, or vague.
Associations may be better for temporary, fleeting or vague manager relationships (perhaps using a Project-class?). I really don't see why those relationships can't be properly managed in OO code.
I agree that government research should be free for all if possible and sensible (making money on patents might be a good choice in a cases where the knowledge is only advantageous to a select few). It seems that I misread your post as being about software (being an implementation of the knowledge that should be open). Please accept my apologies.