The laws mentioned in the articles would only require government software to be libre, unless proprietary software was the only alternative. There was no mention of any laws requiring individuals or corporations to use libre software.
I don't see how governments saving money by paying less licensing fees will restrict anyone's freedoms.
First, everone's favourite fearless leader, JLG, will be in an "advisory position" to their OS group, hopefully having some input/control as to the future of the PalmOS platform.
We all know what happened when another charismatic, former Apple executive had his company bought out, then assumed an "advisory position" in the new company, right? (Think Gil Amelio, hint, hint!) Palm's CEO better keep a close eye on JLG.
-jimbo
Re:I wouldn't call this a well thought out article
on
Dan Gillmor on WinXP
·
· Score: 1
If you haven't guessed, I think MS should be allowed to add new software to their OS including IE. I don't think they should be able to enter exclusive marketing agreements which tie Windows licening to other products like MSN and Office. Obviously there's a thin line there.
They should be able to include everything they want on the Windows CDs that are distributed with OEM PCs. But the PC makers should have the right to determine what icons are on the desktop and in the start menu, and what third party software to preinstall and make the default as opposed to/in addition to what MS preinstalls. OEMs should have the right to make any changes an end user can make. And if MS wants to garuntee that the IE icon, MSN, etc. are on the desktop, they should pay the OEMs like AOL is doing. Most importantly, they should be forced to offer the same price to all OEMs, allowing only for volume.
This would eliminate most of the anti-competitive complaints, without breaking up the company or making them take stuff out of windows. The other thing would be to force them to publish all of their file formats, but that's another topic:).
They have a competing platform, in.NET. Their attempts to do something with Java, rightly or wrongly, resulted in them getting their wrists slapped. No-one at MS that I've talked to really cares that much about Java. So why should they include it?
Uhhh, because their customers might want to use it?
This article reads more like a statement of faith than one of science. Surely someone can do better.
There's a lot of that going on in the evolution community. Articles written for the "unwashed masses" by evolutionists often come across as assertions of dogma, with very little in the way of facts or an actual argument.
How does the process of evolution create new information? All known examples of observed "evolution" has involved a net decrease in genetic information.
Also, the few billion years that the earth has been around is nowhere near long enough for evolutionary processes to 1) create life and 2) develop creatures as complex as people, statistically speaking.
And what about irreducible complexity? Certain complex cellular structures are only useful if all of the parts are present, but none of the parts by themselves provide a survival advantage. How could such structures evolve.
Oh, but that's right. I forgot. Fundamentalist Evolutionists don't have to answer questions from heretics who challenge the conventional dogma.
I think it was the 1903 sears catalog that offered a car capable of all speeds from 0 to 25, noting in the ad that they didn't think the average man had any use for going 45 or 50 as more expensive cars did . . .
But with today's cars, for the most part, capable of doing over 100mph, most people still don't go that fast. And spend a lot of time moving very slowly or not at all in traffic, to boot.
Also, maybe the state of roads in 1903 really did make it impractical or unsafe to drive faster than 25mph.
However, I don't want to pass any judgment as to whether this usability problem cost Al Gore the Presidency because there were so many other usability problems in other states that might have influenced the count there.
So we should redesign every ballot in every state, and redo the entire national election again?
When did human life become so precious in the first place?
Would you continue to hold that opinion if someone had the legal right to end your life?
I support your deduction and will suggest a fine point for separation. An embryo becomes a human being once it is born and is merely an embryo that relies on the host for survival up to that point.
So anyone who relies on others for survival can have their life terminated at any time by those on whom they rely? Does that include those who receive food and housing from the government who would starve otherwise? Does that mean that infants already born can have their lives terminated by their parents? These are cases of human beings relying on others for survival.
I wonder why most pro-choice politicians don't spell out their position as clearly as you do? I find your opinion utterly reprehensible, but at least you're logically consistent.
No, it is not. It is based on your conception of what a 'human' is, and wether an embryon should be considered as human. And this, my friend, is *not* biological at all. It is ethic or religious, but definitely not biological.
That's right, and you and most "pro-choicers" take the cowardly route of refusing to make an ethical or religious decision on this issue. Whenever that embryo becomes a human being, logically ending that life after that point becomes murder.
What doesn't make any sense at all is each woman determining the personhood of her unborn child on a case by case basis. How can an unborn person at a certain stage of development be a baby in one womb and an unborn person in the same state of development be a "fetus" in another womb? It's like allowing slave owners to decide on a case by case basis which slaves count as human beings and which don't ("If you don't like slavery, don't own slaves").
I thought this kind of archaic thinking was disapearing. Looks it gets a +3 Insightfull on slashdot. Sad.
As with most liberals, your definition of "insightful" is "someone who agrees with me".
Q: On Internet Privacy: Should the federal government step in to safeguard people's online privacy or can that be done through self-regulation and users' education?
A: "I believe privacy is a fundamental right, and that every American should have absolute control over his or her personal information. Now, with the advent of the Internet, personal privacy is increasingly at risk. I am committed to protecting personal privacy for every American and I believe the marketplace
Q: There are 15 million atheists in this country, 5 million Jews, 5 million Muslims.. Should they feel excluded because of your allegiance to Jesus?A: No. I was asked what [philosopher most] influenced my life and I gave an honest, unvarnished answer. It doesn't make me better than you or better than anybody else, but it's a foundation for how I live my life. Some may accept the answer and some may not. But, I really don't care. It's me. It's what I'm all about. It's how I live my life.
Out of all possible universes, the ones incapable of supporting carbon-based life will have no carbon-based people to ask such questions, so why should we be so surprised that we are here?
Again, the point is not just that a universe with different fundamental constants would be very different, it would be totally uninteresting. So the question is, why is the universe interesting, when it is far more likely that it would be totally uninteresting? Specifically, why is the universe interesting enough to permit creatures that can ask "Why is the universe interesting?" to exist.
> You insult and degrade the beliefs of a large
> portion of the population,
Nothing wrong with that. If that was wrong, we'd have to disavow the efforts of most Christian missionaries.
This is a stereotype of missionaries, but is it true? Keep in mind, "insulting and degrading" someone's beliefs is not the same as trying to change that person's mind about something. From my experience, missionaries are often the most clued in about what people in cultures other than their own believe, and have a lot more respect for the people they witness to than most people, who are often ignorant of or just don't care about cultural differences.
Do you have personal experience that suggests otherwise?
If there is a deity that created/maintains our known reality, do you think he would assume that we were so ignorant that he would send us a book, and leave us be?
Of course, we Christians believe he also stopped by for a visit:).
In a religious faith, it is seen as a bad thing to question the faith and try and find out whether it's the truth. In science, this exact same behaviour is seen as a good thing.
I deeply regret that that has been your experience with religion. I know many people with religous beliefs who very strongly believe that religious beliefs should be questioned, and that those questions deserve an answer. At the church I attend, there is a ministry called the Alpha Course whose purpose is to answer any questions people have about Christianity.
It's because 'creationism' tends to carry a lot more baggage than just the concept of a creator existing. Typically, creationism encompasses the 6,000-year-old-earth nonsense, and that's what educated, reasonably intelligent people find absurd.
Agreed. Maybe we need a new word, other than Creationism, now that that word has been so saddled with the viewpoints you mention, to refer to the more general idea that there is an intelligent, purposeful entity that made the universe.
The religionists say, "He always existed," and find that acceptable, while simultaneously finding unacceptable the idea of universe (or metaverse) always existing.
But the Big Bang theory itself says the universe has a beginning.
If you want to posit the idea of a creator who started the whole process rolling, that's certainly a possibility. One without evidence, of course, which is where faith comes in, but certainly possible.
No scientific evidence, which is not the same as no evidence. Men and women have posited evidence and arguments for their faiths throughout history. Some advocate the kind of blind faith you describe, but others have presented evidence and argued eloquently in defense of their faith.
For all we know, there is some underlying interconnectedness to the 6 numbers that make it inevitable that they take the values they take.
But you still haven't explained what that connection is. Until and unless we can, there is something very much in need of explaining. As I see it, there are three possibilities.
The 6 numbers are connected.
They are not connected, but there are enough universes that it's not surprising one of them is like this one.
The universe we live in was intentionally, intelligently designed with the properties it has.
A universe with different constants might not produce us, but it might very well produce other things that fit a more expansive definition of life.
But the claim is not just that the universe would be different in some arbitrary way, it would be different in a way that leads to a largely undifferentiated universe with no chance for anything complex to develop. Unless you can fit that into your definition of life, his point stands.
Oh yeah, and it also delves into the possibility of 'traveling' to other universes within the multiverse and finding out that the other universes that support life of any kind are not nearly as messed up as our own.
This idea was examined by C. S. Lewis in Out Of The Silent Planet. It's set on Mars and not a separate universe (we knew a lot less about Mars when it was written), but it has the idea of world untouched by sin.
But the Big Bang theory says there WAS a beginning to the Universe. Why does logical positivist or Zen Buddhist thought supercede the most commonly accepted theory of how the Universe came to be? What is your evidence, or argument, that the Universe has no beginning, beyond your saying so?
For a very interesting look at the intersection of war and computer simulations/video games, read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (if you haven't already).
For Example - The Predident of the United States - and Father of current Presidential Candidate George W. Bush said:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."
George Bush's comments have no legal standing. Just because he says it, doesn't it mean it is being enforced as law in any way.
Some older surveys published in the 1980's, showed that almost 70% of Americans agreed that freedom of religion applies "to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme their ideas are." But only 26% agreed that Atheists should be given freedom of speech to ridicule religion and God, no matter who might be offended." 71% believed that Atheists "who preach against God and religion" should not be permitted to use civic auditoriums.'
Again, such beliefs have no legal standing. That is why we have a Bill of Rights that supercedes the will of the majority.
Hell - the constitution of Texas (the state of George W. Bush's governership) explicitly states that Atheists are not citizens of the state of texas, and my be discriminated against - luckily the US Constitution superceeds this.
This is unconscionable, and totally un-American, on the part of Texas.
Finally - may states are trying to take away my ability to keep my money from being spent DIRECTLY on the church - by sneaking in bills that allow for the use of 'school vouchers' - which are nothing more then a way to circumvent the inability for the state to give money directly to religious institutions.
Many things taught in public schools are offensive to people of theistic faiths. Why should people who don't want to support our current public school systems be forced to do so, while you, as an atheist, are exempted from having your tax money go to institutions you disagree with?
Slashdot Mirror
The laws mentioned in the articles would only require government software to be libre, unless proprietary software was the only alternative. There was no mention of any laws requiring individuals or corporations to use libre software.
I don't see how governments saving money by paying less licensing fees will restrict anyone's freedoms.
-jimbo
First, everone's favourite fearless leader, JLG, will be in an "advisory position" to their OS group, hopefully having some input/control as to the future of the PalmOS platform.
We all know what happened when another charismatic, former Apple executive had his company bought out, then assumed an "advisory position" in the new company, right? (Think Gil Amelio, hint, hint!) Palm's CEO better keep a close eye on JLG.
-jimbo
If you haven't guessed, I think MS should be allowed to add new software to their OS including IE. I don't think they should be able to enter exclusive marketing agreements which tie Windows licening to other products like MSN and Office. Obviously there's a thin line there.
They should be able to include everything they want on the Windows CDs that are distributed with OEM PCs. But the PC makers should have the right to determine what icons are on the desktop and in the start menu, and what third party software to preinstall and make the default as opposed to/in addition to what MS preinstalls. OEMs should have the right to make any changes an end user can make. And if MS wants to garuntee that the IE icon, MSN, etc. are on the desktop, they should pay the OEMs like AOL is doing. Most importantly, they should be forced to offer the same price to all OEMs, allowing only for volume.
This would eliminate most of the anti-competitive complaints, without breaking up the company or making them take stuff out of windows. The other thing would be to force them to publish all of their file formats, but that's another topic :).
-jimbo
They have a competing platform, in .NET. Their attempts to do something with Java, rightly or wrongly, resulted in them getting their wrists slapped. No-one at MS that I've talked to really cares that much about Java. So why should they include it?
Uhhh, because their customers might want to use it?
-jimbo
This article reads more like a statement of faith than one of science. Surely someone can do better.
There's a lot of that going on in the evolution community. Articles written for the "unwashed masses" by evolutionists often come across as assertions of dogma, with very little in the way of facts or an actual argument.
-jimbo
How does the process of evolution create new information? All known examples of observed "evolution" has involved a net decrease in genetic information.
Also, the few billion years that the earth has been around is nowhere near long enough for evolutionary processes to 1) create life and 2) develop creatures as complex as people, statistically speaking.
And what about irreducible complexity? Certain complex cellular structures are only useful if all of the parts are present, but none of the parts by themselves provide a survival advantage. How could such structures evolve.
Oh, but that's right. I forgot. Fundamentalist Evolutionists don't have to answer questions from heretics who challenge the conventional dogma.
-jimbo
How would Rankin's ideas be implemented if *not* for an OS? How would a system be consistent and user-friendly without an OS+interface?
Thanks for the mention. But how did you know about my OS interface ideas?
I'm patenting them, by the way, so don't even think about stealing them!
James M. Rankin, Jr.
I think it was the 1903 sears catalog that offered a car capable of all speeds from 0 to 25, noting in the ad that they didn't think the average man had any use for going 45 or 50 as more expensive cars did . . .
But with today's cars, for the most part, capable of doing over 100mph, most people still don't go that fast. And spend a lot of time moving very slowly or not at all in traffic, to boot.
Also, maybe the state of roads in 1903 really did make it impractical or unsafe to drive faster than 25mph.
-jimbo
The person who designed this ballot was a DEMOCRAT. The person overseeing the election in Palm County is a DEMOCRAT.
Nobody voiced a problem with this ballot until AFTER the election.
-jimbo
From the same article:
However, I don't want to pass any judgment as to whether this usability problem cost Al Gore the Presidency because there were so many other usability problems in other states that might have influenced the count there.
So we should redesign every ballot in every state, and redo the entire national election again?
-jimbo
When did human life become so precious in the first place?
Would you continue to hold that opinion if someone had the legal right to end your life?
I support your deduction and will suggest a fine point for separation. An embryo becomes a human being once it is born and is merely an embryo that relies on the host for survival up to that point.
So anyone who relies on others for survival can have their life terminated at any time by those on whom they rely? Does that include those who receive food and housing from the government who would starve otherwise? Does that mean that infants already born can have their lives terminated by their parents? These are cases of human beings relying on others for survival.
I wonder why most pro-choice politicians don't spell out their position as clearly as you do? I find your opinion utterly reprehensible, but at least you're logically consistent.
-jimbo
No, it is not. It is based on your conception of what a 'human' is, and wether an embryon should be considered as human. And this, my friend, is *not* biological at all. It is ethic or religious, but definitely not biological.
That's right, and you and most "pro-choicers" take the cowardly route of refusing to make an ethical or religious decision on this issue. Whenever that embryo becomes a human being, logically ending that life after that point becomes murder.
What doesn't make any sense at all is each woman determining the personhood of her unborn child on a case by case basis. How can an unborn person at a certain stage of development be a baby in one womb and an unborn person in the same state of development be a "fetus" in another womb? It's like allowing slave owners to decide on a case by case basis which slaves count as human beings and which don't ("If you don't like slavery, don't own slaves").
I thought this kind of archaic thinking was disapearing. Looks it gets a +3 Insightfull on slashdot. Sad.
As with most liberals, your definition of "insightful" is "someone who agrees with me".
-jimbo
Admit it, "-S", you're really Dogbert, aren't you?
-jimbo
From www.issues2000.org:
Q: On Internet Privacy: Should the federal government step in to safeguard people's online privacy or can that be done through self-regulation and users' education? A: "I believe privacy is a fundamental right, and that every American should have absolute control over his or her personal information. Now, with the advent of the Internet, personal privacy is increasingly at risk. I am committed to protecting personal privacy for every American and I believe the marketplace
(The quote seems to have been cut off.)
-jimbo
From www.issues2000.org:
Q: There are 15 million atheists in this country, 5 million Jews, 5 million Muslims.. Should they feel excluded because of your allegiance to Jesus?A: No. I was asked what [philosopher most] influenced my life and I gave an honest, unvarnished answer. It doesn't make me better than you or better than anybody else, but it's a foundation for how I live my life. Some may accept the answer and some may not. But, I really don't care. It's me. It's what I'm all about. It's how I live my life.
-jimbo
Out of all possible universes, the ones incapable of supporting carbon-based life will have no carbon-based people to ask such questions, so why should we be so surprised that we are here?
Again, the point is not just that a universe with different fundamental constants would be very different, it would be totally uninteresting. So the question is, why is the universe interesting, when it is far more likely that it would be totally uninteresting? Specifically, why is the universe interesting enough to permit creatures that can ask "Why is the universe interesting?" to exist.
-jimbo
> You insult and degrade the beliefs of a large > portion of the population,
Nothing wrong with that. If that was wrong, we'd have to disavow the efforts of most Christian missionaries.
This is a stereotype of missionaries, but is it true? Keep in mind, "insulting and degrading" someone's beliefs is not the same as trying to change that person's mind about something. From my experience, missionaries are often the most clued in about what people in cultures other than their own believe, and have a lot more respect for the people they witness to than most people, who are often ignorant of or just don't care about cultural differences.
Do you have personal experience that suggests otherwise?
-jimbo
If there is a deity that created/maintains our known reality, do you think he would assume that we were so ignorant that he would send us a book, and leave us be?
Of course, we Christians believe he also stopped by for a visit :).
-jimbo
In a religious faith, it is seen as a bad thing to question the faith and try and find out whether it's the truth. In science, this exact same behaviour is seen as a good thing.
I deeply regret that that has been your experience with religion. I know many people with religous beliefs who very strongly believe that religious beliefs should be questioned, and that those questions deserve an answer. At the church I attend, there is a ministry called the Alpha Course whose purpose is to answer any questions people have about Christianity.
-jimbo
It's because 'creationism' tends to carry a lot more baggage than just the concept of a creator existing. Typically, creationism encompasses the 6,000-year-old-earth nonsense, and that's what educated, reasonably intelligent people find absurd.
Agreed. Maybe we need a new word, other than Creationism, now that that word has been so saddled with the viewpoints you mention, to refer to the more general idea that there is an intelligent, purposeful entity that made the universe.
The religionists say, "He always existed," and find that acceptable, while simultaneously finding unacceptable the idea of universe (or metaverse) always existing.
But the Big Bang theory itself says the universe has a beginning.
If you want to posit the idea of a creator who started the whole process rolling, that's certainly a possibility. One without evidence, of course, which is where faith comes in, but certainly possible.
No scientific evidence, which is not the same as no evidence. Men and women have posited evidence and arguments for their faiths throughout history. Some advocate the kind of blind faith you describe, but others have presented evidence and argued eloquently in defense of their faith.
-jimbo
For all we know, there is some underlying interconnectedness to the 6 numbers that make it inevitable that they take the values they take.
But you still haven't explained what that connection is. Until and unless we can, there is something very much in need of explaining. As I see it, there are three possibilities.
A universe with different constants might not produce us, but it might very well produce other things that fit a more expansive definition of life.
But the claim is not just that the universe would be different in some arbitrary way, it would be different in a way that leads to a largely undifferentiated universe with no chance for anything complex to develop. Unless you can fit that into your definition of life, his point stands.
-jimbo
Oh yeah, and it also delves into the possibility of 'traveling' to other universes within the multiverse and finding out that the other universes that support life of any kind are not nearly as messed up as our own.
This idea was examined by C. S. Lewis in Out Of The Silent Planet. It's set on Mars and not a separate universe (we knew a lot less about Mars when it was written), but it has the idea of world untouched by sin.
-jimbo
But the Big Bang theory says there WAS a beginning to the Universe. Why does logical positivist or Zen Buddhist thought supercede the most commonly accepted theory of how the Universe came to be? What is your evidence, or argument, that the Universe has no beginning, beyond your saying so?
-jimbo
For a very interesting look at the intersection of war and computer simulations/video games, read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (if you haven't already).
-jimbo
For Example - The Predident of the United States - and Father of current Presidential Candidate George W. Bush said:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."
George Bush's comments have no legal standing. Just because he says it, doesn't it mean it is being enforced as law in any way.
Some older surveys published in the 1980's, showed that almost 70% of Americans agreed that freedom of religion applies "to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme their ideas are." But only 26% agreed that Atheists should be given freedom of speech to ridicule religion and God, no matter who might be offended." 71% believed that Atheists "who preach against God and religion" should not be permitted to use civic auditoriums.'
Again, such beliefs have no legal standing. That is why we have a Bill of Rights that supercedes the will of the majority.
Hell - the constitution of Texas (the state of George W. Bush's governership) explicitly states that Atheists are not citizens of the state of texas, and my be discriminated against - luckily the US Constitution superceeds this.
This is unconscionable, and totally un-American, on the part of Texas.
Finally - may states are trying to take away my ability to keep my money from being spent DIRECTLY on the church - by sneaking in bills that allow for the use of 'school vouchers' - which are nothing more then a way to circumvent the inability for the state to give money directly to religious institutions.
Many things taught in public schools are offensive to people of theistic faiths. Why should people who don't want to support our current public school systems be forced to do so, while you, as an atheist, are exempted from having your tax money go to institutions you disagree with?
-jimbo