I am aware that the majority of scholars think Jesus existed. However, this strikes me as evidence of what this thread is about rather than a matter of solid evidence. I think this is for a couple of reasons:
1) Christians of course want to think that Jesus existed. 2) Atheistic approaches tend to assume that it is simpler to assume that Jesus was a great teacher than that everything written about him was pseudopigraphic or mythological in origins.
My reason for saying there is no real reliable evidence however comes from concluding (by studying Hellenistic religions) that basic outline of the story of Christ is probably mythological instead of factual, and that it combines pre-existing threads from a number of other Hellenistic religions. Secondly, there seems to have been a very lively tradition of writing what were essentially novels about religious subjects as a means of religious teaching (Apuleius's Metamorphosis/Asinus Aureus is a good example of that). This sort of thing has been called "pseudopigrapha" when the authorship is falsely attributed.
Furthermore, when you actually look at Paul's epistles, they are all over the place in which Hellenistic religions they incorporate pieces of. His general approach seems to be to incorporate the basic religious terminology and cosmology of whoever he is writing to.
So when we strip all of these things which seem to come from other sources away (the Trinity from Plato, the Archons of the Ages from various Hellenistic Gnostic cults, the Last Supper as possibly having Dionysian origins, the death and resurrection on Easter as the pagan sacrifice of world renewal), we are really left with nothing new under the sun.
I am not dismissing the possibility of Jesus's existence entirely. However, I am saying that it is more fruitful to look at Christianity as an outgrowth of the Hellenistic world in general than the outgrowth of one man's teachings, and that I have no immediate understanding of the exact circumstance of the formation of Christianity in the first place (our records until really near the end of the Hellenistic era are remarkably sparse).
BTW, I would also go further. I think that some of this Roman literature about other Hellenistic religions was formative on Christianity as well. The development of the Blood Libel really seems to have its origins in Roman literature such as that of Lucan, Apuleis, Horace, etc. If Christianity is seen as having its origins in a syncretic, Hellenistic branch of Judaism, then I think more problems are solved than created. The only problem created is a doubt as to whether Christ actually existed.
One of the best books I have ever read on scientific epistemology was by him ("Physics and Philosophy" Great book.)
Over and over in that book he writes about how people tend to think that data implies theory, as if there is only one true interpretation of the information before a scientist, but how that is a false assumption. As he puts it (several times), "Data does not imply theory." Instead he suggests that theories can only emerge when scientists put the pieces together based on pre-existing philosophical assumptions.
"Physics and Philosophy" is really one of those books that anyone interested in the sciences really should read. It would help avoid the reactions to studies like this.
That passage is of dubious authenticity and may be mistransliterated. It also includes other historical mistakes.
Personally, I think the arguments over transliterations (Chrestianos vs Christianos) are misguided since some of the PGM use "Chrestos" in clear place of "Christos" ("Christos" is Hebrew "Messiah" translated into Greek while "Chrestos" is Greek for "The Useful One" though Hans Dieter Betz translates as "The Most Excellent" in context).
However, the historical errors by Tacitus suggest he was not working from actual records, but perhaps simply entering a sidebar as to what the Christians said about the founding of their sect. Consequently I am not prepared to use it as evidence of Jesus's existance.
My own view is that Christianity began as a synthetic religion between somewhat Hellenized Jewish sects and Hellenistic mystery cults. I think the Gospels bear the same relationship to Christianity as the Asinus Aureus (as Augustine called it) bore to the Cult of Isis. That doesn't devalue the work as a mythological basis for religion and in fact may strengthen its pedigree. Such an interpretation however flies in the face of literalism.
Look, when I taught myself accounting, I was well out of college. I had the sense to teach myself how to do it manually first. When I have a difficult problem, I still reach for pen and paper and work it out first on paper, only transferring it to software code after I have a good idea of what it should look like on paper. Same if I have a difficult algebraic problem and want to prove an answer for it. Unfortunately my calculus is too rusty to do much on that side.
There are some real advantages to doing things this way. When I was in college I took a course on computer modelling of environmental problems. During the mathematical modelling portion I ALWAYS worked through the dynamics on paper before constructing a mathematical model on the computer. My reasoning was that rounding errors would be cumulative so simplification (and reduction in steps) would create more accurate results. There were times I would have three pages of hand-written algebraic and calculus work for every 20 lines of code.
I am not saying memory necessarily suffers due to always being able to look things up. I am saying that on average it does. It may be true that many of my editions of Plato's works are not the most finely bound, and that I am still collecting commentaries on them, but I suspect that I have more books on this topic than you think. (Actually Eric Havelock's "Preface to Plato" is on my list of books to by soon, and Walter Ong's "Orality and Literacy" is worth reading on this topic as well since the sections he discusses regarding Plato are drawn heavily from Havelock's work.) Furthermore oral memory provides a complimentary set of reasoning skills to literate skills. We are better off if both sides are developed.
When I was in high school, I was programming algebraic software on my C-64 when I came across problems I found to be of interest. However, I only did this after understanding the specific type of problem and how to solve it on paper. This resulted in better understanding of the topics than I could have obtained if I was just starting off with a graphing calculator (I used those in college too, but tended to see them as SECONDARY to paper-and-pencil).
You might not think any of this is important, but this is one real reason why I am insisting my kids learn musical instruments by ear and continue to learn by ear (exclusively for several years).
Speaking of Plato, since you seem to be a fan of his, do you think the Republic was in part a manifesto arguing that Sparta was morally superior to Athens?
I read the report. The bit about them being at the top of piracy lists came first. The bit about endorsing open source software came as part of the market issues, which the IIPA said were "worse" than the piracy issues (in the executive summary). These are lumped together with laws threatening theaters and requiring that films shown in Indonesia be manufactured there.
Other issues cited are the availability of circumvention tools against access control, and the lack of third-party liability, etc. However, one cannot read the report and conclude that the piracy is considered the worst issue. Instead the market issues, INCLUDING the recommendation of FOSS within government are portrayed as worse than the issues of copyright infringemnet.
What I believe the IIPA is saying that mandates to use open source without considering other alternatives is something they see as a barrier to market access and what they consider to be a non-illegal but misguided solution to the problem of piracy. They're not saying that using OSS users are pirates.
That's what I thought, so I read their report on Indonesia. (Search google for site:iipa.com open source)
They actually say that this is WORSE than piracy. Hopefully they get laughed out of the office.
OSS is free market enterprise and has nothing to do with socialism.
It has everything to do with socialism as long as you separate the concept of people from the concept of government.
In FOSS, the means of production is socialized and available for everyone to use. The production itself is not necessarily socialized, however. In other words it is what Marxism promised but failed to deliver. FOSS however has nothing to do with socialistic governance. You might consider it to be a socialist form of libertarianism or a libertarian version of socialism. If that doesn't make your head explode, perhaps an understanding will dawn. FOSS promotes global free trade, libertarian government, and socialistic individual choices. It promises that we can be stronger together than apart, but only if we choose to stand together of our own free will.
Communism was an attempt at something similar but from a fundamentally feudal approach, i.e. assuming the state would own and run the economy.
Having said this, it is more about free markets than about central control. But this is because the free market is a socialized common good in the first place (why we have anti-trust law for example).
It's not an either or (socialism vs free market capitalism) but rather a question of what elements to the free market infrastructure are essentially socialized. The free market works best when natural monopolies are socialized and used to offer opportunities for market competition that would otherwise not be available.
In all seriousness, though, times like this are perfect example of the difference between free marketeers and scumsucking rent-seeking corporatists who don't deserve to live.
I was going to say it is the difference between the free marketeers and he free privateers.... The privateers being the folks at the IIPA. Now THAT's piracy;-)
They start off by condemning the amount of piracy that happens in Indonesia. That part is probably accurate and fair.
However, then things go from sane to really, really screwy. They start the puzzling paragraph with
Worse yet, instead of focusing attention on piracy and solutions to the problem, the government retained onerous market access barriers, including the requirement to locally manufacture film prints and home videos in Indonesia (which had been suspended throughout 2009) and added new restrictions. For example, in March 2009, the Ministry of Administrative Reform (MenPAN) issued Circular Letter No. 1 of 2009 to all central and provincial government offices including State-owned enterprises, endorsing the use and adoption of open source software within government organizations.
What can one take away from this letter? That the BSA would rather have you pirate Microsoft products than use Linux? That we should use trade embargoes (and given history, probably even military force) to enforce sales of Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle products?
This is just crazy. It would be one thing but for the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BSA to sign off on that is pretty darned scary.
High school is not grade school. Grade school is where you learn to do things manually.
Right. Because nobody needs to know how to do algebra on paper when you can have MathLab do the symbolic processing for you!
Also, the role of memory has changed. Don't be yet another luddite trying to cling to old conceptions of memory, just like some ancients decried writing as the death of oral memory (it was, but does that outweigh the value of writing? Scant few think so).
I notice you cite no sources for this proposition regarding ancient critiques of writing. Would you like me to cite them for you ("Phaedrus" by Plato, and Plato's seventh letter are the two which come to mind without looking anything up). I personally think that early childhood education should center around memory training. This isn't something that has to atrophy when you learn how to read. Develop solid memory first, then learn to read. That's the way we should do things. So it isn't really an either/or.
I personally think my memory retention is strong because I spent so many hours as a child learning to play the violin by ear. There's oral memory for you.
The issue isn't embracing technology or not embracing it. It is the simple question of who is to be master: human or machine.
Actually, I agree with ethanol-fueled to a point (not quite absolutely but close). Also I would argue that it is sound pedagogy to teach people how to do things by hand FIRST before introducing computerized solutions.
For example, when I was teaching myself accounting, I started out learning how to do it with pen and paper. This is the best way to learn. Similarly, taking notes with a pencil and paper is better for the memory than using a laptop.
Where I disagree slightly though is that I think there is a role for computers in school but it should be kept limited. When some students have access to computers at home to do reports with and others do not, it puts those who do not at a disadvantage. Hence there are some sound reasons for allowing it.
"But it seems like an open source parallel database would do a lot to silence many nosql critics" - you're not going to silence people that think of data as simple key-value pairs, or highly specialized full-text-searching (which is related to but independent of RDBMS activity).
Simple key/value pairs work for some things. Most data cannot be managed reasonable as key/value pairs. And full text searches are entirely orthogonal. That involves searching through text rather than questions of semantic information management. While some things are better stored in flat files or simple non-SQL db's, or even text files, richer information is better handled in an RDBMS IMNSHO.
As for parallelism, I think you misunderstand the problem. On DB2, Oracle, Teradata, etc. the queries themselves are broken down into subsets, and each node runs a piece of the query. the data is handed back and processed. On PostgreSQL, each query runs in a single-threaded process. You just can't scale the processing high enough this way because eventually. You can scale up the disk access to a point, but between that and the processing power limitations, this only goes so far.
The real solution is to have the capacity for real parallel execution on shared-everything clusters. This currently cannot be done on any of the major FOSS RDBMS's. It requires DLM-based coordination, avoiding inter-thread and inter-process communication and using distributed methods instead, etc. This will cost performance on the lower end.
I think Linus's view is correct for the most part. I would add that there seems to be a "tightly bound" requirement as well. For example, if I write shell scripts that parse some Linux-specific stuff in the proc filesystem, I don't think either he or I would suggest that shell script is derivative of the Linux kernel.
I would argue one would still have to look at an abstraction-filtration-comparison (aka AFC or Gates Rubber) type analysis to see whether a work is derivative, but some general indications might be how much functional dependency exists, whether the work was originally developed for a different application, etc.
But this leads to some odd issues. It might mean, for example, that the XFS and JFS drivers might not be strictly derivative of the Linux kernel but the Objective C plugin to the GCC might. Yet that doesn't seem very satisfying if that is where the line is drawn.
Regarding the FSF's position on shared data structures, I don't know. It would seem to imply some sorts of control via copyright law that, if were correct, would allow Microsoft total control over all software running on their platform. Does this suddenly change just because the developer writes the code to work on WINE or ndiswrapper too?
In the end I think certain types of sharing of data structures would imply derivation, while certain types of sharing wouldn't. If we are working in C++ and my program inherits your data structures, I think that would be clear derivation. If the data structures are used extensively and deeply, and the program is deeply coded around the shared data structures, I would think it would be derivative. On the other hand, if the program was coded separately and then a glue layer handled the differences in data structures, I would be hard pressed to call that derivative. In short I think it requires more than just sharing data structures or including a.h file.
(AFC analysis means that you abstract the works out, filter out elements that are not protected by copyright law, and compare what is left. Purely functional elements would not be protected and many shared data structures may fit there.)
(The parallel issues which occurred in SCO was whether header files were subject to copyright and whether derivation was contagious.)
Orin Kerr had an interesting response to the question of wiretapping laws over at Volokh Conspiracy. His response was that there seems to be a civil claim but that the main statutes which were mentioned which had criminal application might not be applicable to this case.
For example the application of the CFAA is dubious at best and although he cites damage limitations there I think the issue is that the school maintained control of the laptops and therefore were not capable of excess of authorized access (individuals might be).
In this environment, it seems that a civil remedy may be the best we can hope for. Let's hope it is quite substantial. The school in question is not too poorly off as it is, and they serve a wealthy area, so the property taxes are no obstacle. Let's hope the civil damages are substantial but not extreme.
(The GPL v3 is closer to what you are saying RMS could do. However I think that license needs to be read fairly narrowly because reading it expansively makes it incompatible with any BSD-style license. The issue here has to do with what "additional permissions" are and who can revoke them.)
I think the FSF is fairly clear in their actions that they believe "based on" to mean "derivative of."
If linking doesn't make a work derivative, then the components to be linked later on can be distributed separately (as Apple tried to do with the Objective C plugins for the GCC). The FSF threatened to sue Apple over this and Apple capitulated, meaning that the FSF believed that Apple's modules which were compiled in order to be linked with the GCC were derivative works, or at least said so. Otherwise Apple would not have been arguably violating the FSF's copyrights by that separate distribution. In essence what MySQL is accused of doing here, they just copied from the FSF.
The FSF seems to draw the line at what RMS and Eben Moglen seem to think is a "derivative work." I happen to think it is about as correct as SCO's definition in SCO v. IBM (indeed it is not far different). (I am actually somewhat thankful that SCO made their lawsuit because it helps clear up a lot of issues regarding copyright and open source software.) This view of derivation however is pretty much unique to RMS, Moglen, and their followers.
(Collective copyright is a different issue entirely and largely makes joint owners unable to sue eachother for license violations. This leads to interesting questions which I think cause folks to be far more concerned than they should be. For example, if the Linux kernel has many joint authors, I don't think that any one of them could just break from the GPL and start selling a proprietary version. I say this because there are likely to be identifiable works within the Linux kernel which might not be jointly owned, such as different files or functional units like filesystem drivers. Otherwise contributing to XFS would give you a right to misappropriate JFS and I just don't see a court allowing that.)
But most open sources databases seem to not be able to compete with the likes of the commercial parallel databases. But it seems like an open source parallel database would do a lot to silence many nosql critics. There is still the complaint about needing to define a schema, however if you are not exploring the data and are processing the same data over and over again, it seems like a good idea to define a schema anyway, that way you can better detect files that don't conform.
I have actually thought it would be really cool to come up with a REALLY NICE parallel-processing-capable shared-everything-clustered db. I suspect this could be done by modifying PostgreSQL in a number of ways changing shared memory operations to file operations, and changing semaphores to a DLM system. Unfortunately a lot of this ends up causing performance loss on the low-end. While Green Plum offers a nice lower-cost Pg spinoff that handles these things in an OLAP environment, I there is no OLTP equivalent.
The real issues with FOSS databases in this area have to do with parallel query execution across servers. One reason that DB2 and Oracle can scale so well is that the query can be shared across nodes on a server, and this allows you to run BI stuff on a server with better performance. When combined with clustered filesystems, DLM-based locking, etc. you can get something that scales up very well for high traffic databases. Add high-end battery-backed caches for RAID 1/0 arrays and your throughput keeps going up both on read and write.
You can get remarkably good performance with PostgreSQL, but the performance is limited by the lack of parallel execution of queries. Consequently a query takes how long it takes and beyond a certain point, throwing hardware at the problem won't fix it. On the other hand, for very many applications it is quite good, and for OLTP environments I haven't yet run into a problem I couldn't solve with it.
Well, in that context, I want to think differently. I suppose I could be having my cake and eating it too with this interpretation: The derivative work isn't the "derivative work" in the strictly legal meaning, it's a "These are the terms by which I'll extend to you the right to copy my stuff and redistribute it". In that case, I think that RMS is "correct". So if Microsoft put such a term in their EULA or their copyright license, I believe it would be legally binding assuming I agreed to it.
Ok, let's step back a moment here and look at what the issues with both approaches are. I don't think RMS's view here is tenable, and I'll explain why.
In a derivative work, the work is derivative regardless of how it is distributed. I.e. if you write a novel and I write (and publish) an unauthorized sequel to your novel, I am violating your copyrights by producing an unauthorized derivative work. Furthermore, if my novel is translated into, say, Nootka, it doesn't become any less derivative. In essence my book is "based on" your book. If you release your book under the GPL, I have to release my book under the GPL as well. Indeed a derivative work doesn't lose it's status just because of how it is distributed.
On the other hand, suppose you write a whitepaper. I write another whitepaper on a similar topic and distribute the two of them together as a single compiled work (say a single printed work). If I don't have permission from you to do this, I am violating your copyrights by distributing copies of your work without your consent. On the other hand, it is not true that the file as a whole is based on your work. Rather your work forms part of an aggregate which includes your work among others. If your work is under the GPL, I can do this and I dont have to license the joint file or printed volume under the GPL as a whole. Does this make sense?
Now, on to the linking argument. Suppose I take the GCC C extensions, create a new language that is fairly C-like which includes them, and create a module which can only be used via the GCC, which plugs into it, provides a common user experience, etc. there might be an argument that this is a derivative work of the GCC (I personally question this but let's see where this goes). If this is the case, it doesn't matter how it is distributed, it still violates the FSF's copyrights. See their position over the originally proprietary GCC extension for Objective C released by Apple back in the day. Note that Apple was not distributing the GCC.
In essence a derivative work is a derivative work, regardless of how it is distributed. A compiled or collected work is a collection or aggregate of specific other distinct works.
If linking always creates a derivative work then merely compiling against the headers of an open source library is enough to render the work a derivative work and under the ambit of the original author's copyrights. This would mean that any software that could run on Microsoft Windows, by virtue of being compiled against the header files, would be strictly subject to Microsoft's permission and would be illegal to distribute in the absence of such permission. The court in SCO v. IBM did not hold this sort of thing though (looking at questions of header copyrights).
So the question is what the GPL allows and what it doesn't allow. The only line that makes sense is to see derivative works as being under its ambit and compiled/collected works as being unrestricted. Note that a derivative work doesn't suddenly become derivative just because of how it is distributed. Derivative works are derivative in their essential nature.
So the question is:
If I compile a program using MinGW, I am linking against GPL'd components which are compiled against Windows system libraries. The GPL allows this. But to do this I haven't obtained a license from Microsoft. Does this mean anything I compile in this way is an unauthorized derivative work of Windows?
I am going to add a few other things here. The first is that "not possible to scale" is not really accurate. I believe there are ways to design structures so that write capacity on an RDBMS can scale upward with the nodes on the network. Of course this only works for some types of applications (the approach I have in mind would work with Twitter, for example). And even with Amazon, you would CERTAINLY want RI on purchases even if you don't care about reviews.
However, the larger point is that an RDBMS is a tool which is useful for certain types of applications and not others. For example, managing the financial data on product purchases at Amazon is going to be integrity critical but it still has to work and perform well all the time. Reviews, OTOH, won't but integrity problems add to the load of work for the tech support guys.
So there are solutions to this problem which involve middleware, but even in Amazon's case unless you want to cobble together something with bailing twine and duct tape, the RDBMS is going to likely be the go-to solution there. With twitter? Not so much.
You know, something like a third of web-site porn consumers these days are women, and women are the fastest growing demographic of porn consumers. This is why the market should decide.
(True not all porn is created equal. There is some really interesting porn films out there which have received raving reviews in magazines like "Women's Health" and "Oprah Magazine.")
Slashdot Mirror
I am aware that the majority of scholars think Jesus existed. However, this strikes me as evidence of what this thread is about rather than a matter of solid evidence. I think this is for a couple of reasons:
1) Christians of course want to think that Jesus existed.
2) Atheistic approaches tend to assume that it is simpler to assume that Jesus was a great teacher than that everything written about him was pseudopigraphic or mythological in origins.
My reason for saying there is no real reliable evidence however comes from concluding (by studying Hellenistic religions) that basic outline of the story of Christ is probably mythological instead of factual, and that it combines pre-existing threads from a number of other Hellenistic religions. Secondly, there seems to have been a very lively tradition of writing what were essentially novels about religious subjects as a means of religious teaching (Apuleius's Metamorphosis/Asinus Aureus is a good example of that). This sort of thing has been called "pseudopigrapha" when the authorship is falsely attributed.
Furthermore, when you actually look at Paul's epistles, they are all over the place in which Hellenistic religions they incorporate pieces of. His general approach seems to be to incorporate the basic religious terminology and cosmology of whoever he is writing to.
So when we strip all of these things which seem to come from other sources away (the Trinity from Plato, the Archons of the Ages from various Hellenistic Gnostic cults, the Last Supper as possibly having Dionysian origins, the death and resurrection on Easter as the pagan sacrifice of world renewal), we are really left with nothing new under the sun.
I am not dismissing the possibility of Jesus's existence entirely. However, I am saying that it is more fruitful to look at Christianity as an outgrowth of the Hellenistic world in general than the outgrowth of one man's teachings, and that I have no immediate understanding of the exact circumstance of the formation of Christianity in the first place (our records until really near the end of the Hellenistic era are remarkably sparse).
BTW, I would also go further. I think that some of this Roman literature about other Hellenistic religions was formative on Christianity as well. The development of the Blood Libel really seems to have its origins in Roman literature such as that of Lucan, Apuleis, Horace, etc. If Christianity is seen as having its origins in a syncretic, Hellenistic branch of Judaism, then I think more problems are solved than created. The only problem created is a doubt as to whether Christ actually existed.
Nobody reads Heisenberg anymore, I see....
One of the best books I have ever read on scientific epistemology was by him ("Physics and Philosophy" Great book.)
Over and over in that book he writes about how people tend to think that data implies theory, as if there is only one true interpretation of the information before a scientist, but how that is a false assumption. As he puts it (several times), "Data does not imply theory." Instead he suggests that theories can only emerge when scientists put the pieces together based on pre-existing philosophical assumptions.
"Physics and Philosophy" is really one of those books that anyone interested in the sciences really should read. It would help avoid the reactions to studies like this.
That passage is of dubious authenticity and may be mistransliterated. It also includes other historical mistakes.
Personally, I think the arguments over transliterations (Chrestianos vs Christianos) are misguided since some of the PGM use "Chrestos" in clear place of "Christos" ("Christos" is Hebrew "Messiah" translated into Greek while "Chrestos" is Greek for "The Useful One" though Hans Dieter Betz translates as "The Most Excellent" in context).
However, the historical errors by Tacitus suggest he was not working from actual records, but perhaps simply entering a sidebar as to what the Christians said about the founding of their sect. Consequently I am not prepared to use it as evidence of Jesus's existance.
My own view is that Christianity began as a synthetic religion between somewhat Hellenized Jewish sects and Hellenistic mystery cults. I think the Gospels bear the same relationship to Christianity as the Asinus Aureus (as Augustine called it) bore to the Cult of Isis. That doesn't devalue the work as a mythological basis for religion and in fact may strengthen its pedigree. Such an interpretation however flies in the face of literalism.
However, it is a different thing when you lobby the government to take action because you don't want them to move to competing products.
Look, when I taught myself accounting, I was well out of college. I had the sense to teach myself how to do it manually first. When I have a difficult problem, I still reach for pen and paper and work it out first on paper, only transferring it to software code after I have a good idea of what it should look like on paper. Same if I have a difficult algebraic problem and want to prove an answer for it. Unfortunately my calculus is too rusty to do much on that side.
There are some real advantages to doing things this way. When I was in college I took a course on computer modelling of environmental problems. During the mathematical modelling portion I ALWAYS worked through the dynamics on paper before constructing a mathematical model on the computer. My reasoning was that rounding errors would be cumulative so simplification (and reduction in steps) would create more accurate results. There were times I would have three pages of hand-written algebraic and calculus work for every 20 lines of code.
I am not saying memory necessarily suffers due to always being able to look things up. I am saying that on average it does. It may be true that many of my editions of Plato's works are not the most finely bound, and that I am still collecting commentaries on them, but I suspect that I have more books on this topic than you think. (Actually Eric Havelock's "Preface to Plato" is on my list of books to by soon, and Walter Ong's "Orality and Literacy" is worth reading on this topic as well since the sections he discusses regarding Plato are drawn heavily from Havelock's work.) Furthermore oral memory provides a complimentary set of reasoning skills to literate skills. We are better off if both sides are developed.
When I was in high school, I was programming algebraic software on my C-64 when I came across problems I found to be of interest. However, I only did this after understanding the specific type of problem and how to solve it on paper. This resulted in better understanding of the topics than I could have obtained if I was just starting off with a graphing calculator (I used those in college too, but tended to see them as SECONDARY to paper-and-pencil).
You might not think any of this is important, but this is one real reason why I am insisting my kids learn musical instruments by ear and continue to learn by ear (exclusively for several years).
Speaking of Plato, since you seem to be a fan of his, do you think the Republic was in part a manifesto arguing that Sparta was morally superior to Athens?
I read the report. The bit about them being at the top of piracy lists came first. The bit about endorsing open source software came as part of the market issues, which the IIPA said were "worse" than the piracy issues (in the executive summary). These are lumped together with laws threatening theaters and requiring that films shown in Indonesia be manufactured there.
Other issues cited are the availability of circumvention tools against access control, and the lack of third-party liability, etc. However, one cannot read the report and conclude that the piracy is considered the worst issue. Instead the market issues, INCLUDING the recommendation of FOSS within government are portrayed as worse than the issues of copyright infringemnet.
That's what I thought, so I read their report on Indonesia. (Search google for site:iipa.com open source)
They actually say that this is WORSE than piracy. Hopefully they get laughed out of the office.
It has everything to do with socialism as long as you separate the concept of people from the concept of government.
In FOSS, the means of production is socialized and available for everyone to use. The production itself is not necessarily socialized, however. In other words it is what Marxism promised but failed to deliver. FOSS however has nothing to do with socialistic governance. You might consider it to be a socialist form of libertarianism or a libertarian version of socialism. If that doesn't make your head explode, perhaps an understanding will dawn. FOSS promotes global free trade, libertarian government, and socialistic individual choices. It promises that we can be stronger together than apart, but only if we choose to stand together of our own free will.
Communism was an attempt at something similar but from a fundamentally feudal approach, i.e. assuming the state would own and run the economy.
Having said this, it is more about free markets than about central control. But this is because the free market is a socialized common good in the first place (why we have anti-trust law for example).
It's not an either or (socialism vs free market capitalism) but rather a question of what elements to the free market infrastructure are essentially socialized. The free market works best when natural monopolies are socialized and used to offer opportunities for market competition that would otherwise not be available.
I was going to say it is the difference between the free marketeers and he free privateers.... The privateers being the folks at the IIPA. Now THAT's piracy ;-)
Read their report on Indonesia for example.
They start off by condemning the amount of piracy that happens in Indonesia. That part is probably accurate and fair.
However, then things go from sane to really, really screwy. They start the puzzling paragraph with
What can one take away from this letter? That the BSA would rather have you pirate Microsoft products than use Linux? That we should use trade embargoes (and given history, probably even military force) to enforce sales of Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle products?
This is just crazy. It would be one thing but for the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BSA to sign off on that is pretty darned scary.
Right. Because nobody needs to know how to do algebra on paper when you can have MathLab do the symbolic processing for you!
I notice you cite no sources for this proposition regarding ancient critiques of writing. Would you like me to cite them for you ("Phaedrus" by Plato, and Plato's seventh letter are the two which come to mind without looking anything up). I personally think that early childhood education should center around memory training. This isn't something that has to atrophy when you learn how to read. Develop solid memory first, then learn to read. That's the way we should do things. So it isn't really an either/or.
I personally think my memory retention is strong because I spent so many hours as a child learning to play the violin by ear. There's oral memory for you.
The issue isn't embracing technology or not embracing it. It is the simple question of who is to be master: human or machine.
Actually, I agree with ethanol-fueled to a point (not quite absolutely but close). Also I would argue that it is sound pedagogy to teach people how to do things by hand FIRST before introducing computerized solutions.
For example, when I was teaching myself accounting, I started out learning how to do it with pen and paper. This is the best way to learn. Similarly, taking notes with a pencil and paper is better for the memory than using a laptop.
Where I disagree slightly though is that I think there is a role for computers in school but it should be kept limited. When some students have access to computers at home to do reports with and others do not, it puts those who do not at a disadvantage. Hence there are some sound reasons for allowing it.
Simple key/value pairs work for some things. Most data cannot be managed reasonable as key/value pairs. And full text searches are entirely orthogonal. That involves searching through text rather than questions of semantic information management. While some things are better stored in flat files or simple non-SQL db's, or even text files, richer information is better handled in an RDBMS IMNSHO.
As for parallelism, I think you misunderstand the problem. On DB2, Oracle, Teradata, etc. the queries themselves are broken down into subsets, and each node runs a piece of the query. the data is handed back and processed. On PostgreSQL, each query runs in a single-threaded process. You just can't scale the processing high enough this way because eventually. You can scale up the disk access to a point, but between that and the processing power limitations, this only goes so far.
The real solution is to have the capacity for real parallel execution on shared-everything clusters. This currently cannot be done on any of the major FOSS RDBMS's. It requires DLM-based coordination, avoiding inter-thread and inter-process communication and using distributed methods instead, etc. This will cost performance on the lower end.
I think Linus's view is correct for the most part. I would add that there seems to be a "tightly bound" requirement as well. For example, if I write shell scripts that parse some Linux-specific stuff in the proc filesystem, I don't think either he or I would suggest that shell script is derivative of the Linux kernel.
I would argue one would still have to look at an abstraction-filtration-comparison (aka AFC or Gates Rubber) type analysis to see whether a work is derivative, but some general indications might be how much functional dependency exists, whether the work was originally developed for a different application, etc.
But this leads to some odd issues. It might mean, for example, that the XFS and JFS drivers might not be strictly derivative of the Linux kernel but the Objective C plugin to the GCC might. Yet that doesn't seem very satisfying if that is where the line is drawn.
Regarding the FSF's position on shared data structures, I don't know. It would seem to imply some sorts of control via copyright law that, if were correct, would allow Microsoft total control over all software running on their platform. Does this suddenly change just because the developer writes the code to work on WINE or ndiswrapper too?
In the end I think certain types of sharing of data structures would imply derivation, while certain types of sharing wouldn't. If we are working in C++ and my program inherits your data structures, I think that would be clear derivation. If the data structures are used extensively and deeply, and the program is deeply coded around the shared data structures, I would think it would be derivative. On the other hand, if the program was coded separately and then a glue layer handled the differences in data structures, I would be hard pressed to call that derivative. In short I think it requires more than just sharing data structures or including a .h file.
(AFC analysis means that you abstract the works out, filter out elements that are not protected by copyright law, and compare what is left. Purely functional elements would not be protected and many shared data structures may fit there.)
(The parallel issues which occurred in SCO was whether header files were subject to copyright and whether derivation was contagious.)
Orin Kerr had an interesting response to the question of wiretapping laws over at Volokh Conspiracy. His response was that there seems to be a civil claim but that the main statutes which were mentioned which had criminal application might not be applicable to this case.
For example the application of the CFAA is dubious at best and although he cites damage limitations there I think the issue is that the school maintained control of the laptops and therefore were not capable of excess of authorized access (individuals might be).
In this environment, it seems that a civil remedy may be the best we can hope for. Let's hope it is quite substantial. The school in question is not too poorly off as it is, and they serve a wealthy area, so the property taxes are no obstacle. Let's hope the civil damages are substantial but not extreme.
(The GPL v3 is closer to what you are saying RMS could do. However I think that license needs to be read fairly narrowly because reading it expansively makes it incompatible with any BSD-style license. The issue here has to do with what "additional permissions" are and who can revoke them.)
I think the FSF is fairly clear in their actions that they believe "based on" to mean "derivative of."
If linking doesn't make a work derivative, then the components to be linked later on can be distributed separately (as Apple tried to do with the Objective C plugins for the GCC). The FSF threatened to sue Apple over this and Apple capitulated, meaning that the FSF believed that Apple's modules which were compiled in order to be linked with the GCC were derivative works, or at least said so. Otherwise Apple would not have been arguably violating the FSF's copyrights by that separate distribution. In essence what MySQL is accused of doing here, they just copied from the FSF.
The FSF seems to draw the line at what RMS and Eben Moglen seem to think is a "derivative work." I happen to think it is about as correct as SCO's definition in SCO v. IBM (indeed it is not far different). (I am actually somewhat thankful that SCO made their lawsuit because it helps clear up a lot of issues regarding copyright and open source software.) This view of derivation however is pretty much unique to RMS, Moglen, and their followers.
(Collective copyright is a different issue entirely and largely makes joint owners unable to sue eachother for license violations. This leads to interesting questions which I think cause folks to be far more concerned than they should be. For example, if the Linux kernel has many joint authors, I don't think that any one of them could just break from the GPL and start selling a proprietary version. I say this because there are likely to be identifiable works within the Linux kernel which might not be jointly owned, such as different files or functional units like filesystem drivers. Otherwise contributing to XFS would give you a right to misappropriate JFS and I just don't see a court allowing that.)
I have actually thought it would be really cool to come up with a REALLY NICE parallel-processing-capable shared-everything-clustered db. I suspect this could be done by modifying PostgreSQL in a number of ways changing shared memory operations to file operations, and changing semaphores to a DLM system. Unfortunately a lot of this ends up causing performance loss on the low-end. While Green Plum offers a nice lower-cost Pg spinoff that handles these things in an OLAP environment, I there is no OLTP equivalent.
The real issues with FOSS databases in this area have to do with parallel query execution across servers. One reason that DB2 and Oracle can scale so well is that the query can be shared across nodes on a server, and this allows you to run BI stuff on a server with better performance. When combined with clustered filesystems, DLM-based locking, etc. you can get something that scales up very well for high traffic databases. Add high-end battery-backed caches for RAID 1/0 arrays and your throughput keeps going up both on read and write.
You can get remarkably good performance with PostgreSQL, but the performance is limited by the lack of parallel execution of queries. Consequently a query takes how long it takes and beyond a certain point, throwing hardware at the problem won't fix it. On the other hand, for very many applications it is quite good, and for OLTP environments I haven't yet run into a problem I couldn't solve with it.
Teradata seems to win typical OLTP and OLAP benchmarks. I would think for airline reservations and such that would be my choice of platform.
Ok, let's step back a moment here and look at what the issues with both approaches are. I don't think RMS's view here is tenable, and I'll explain why.
In a derivative work, the work is derivative regardless of how it is distributed. I.e. if you write a novel and I write (and publish) an unauthorized sequel to your novel, I am violating your copyrights by producing an unauthorized derivative work. Furthermore, if my novel is translated into, say, Nootka, it doesn't become any less derivative. In essence my book is "based on" your book. If you release your book under the GPL, I have to release my book under the GPL as well. Indeed a derivative work doesn't lose it's status just because of how it is distributed.
On the other hand, suppose you write a whitepaper. I write another whitepaper on a similar topic and distribute the two of them together as a single compiled work (say a single printed work). If I don't have permission from you to do this, I am violating your copyrights by distributing copies of your work without your consent. On the other hand, it is not true that the file as a whole is based on your work. Rather your work forms part of an aggregate which includes your work among others. If your work is under the GPL, I can do this and I dont have to license the joint file or printed volume under the GPL as a whole. Does this make sense?
Now, on to the linking argument. Suppose I take the GCC C extensions, create a new language that is fairly C-like which includes them, and create a module which can only be used via the GCC, which plugs into it, provides a common user experience, etc. there might be an argument that this is a derivative work of the GCC (I personally question this but let's see where this goes). If this is the case, it doesn't matter how it is distributed, it still violates the FSF's copyrights. See their position over the originally proprietary GCC extension for Objective C released by Apple back in the day. Note that Apple was not distributing the GCC.
In essence a derivative work is a derivative work, regardless of how it is distributed. A compiled or collected work is a collection or aggregate of specific other distinct works.
If linking always creates a derivative work then merely compiling against the headers of an open source library is enough to render the work a derivative work and under the ambit of the original author's copyrights. This would mean that any software that could run on Microsoft Windows, by virtue of being compiled against the header files, would be strictly subject to Microsoft's permission and would be illegal to distribute in the absence of such permission. The court in SCO v. IBM did not hold this sort of thing though (looking at questions of header copyrights).
So the question is what the GPL allows and what it doesn't allow. The only line that makes sense is to see derivative works as being under its ambit and compiled/collected works as being unrestricted. Note that a derivative work doesn't suddenly become derivative just because of how it is distributed. Derivative works are derivative in their essential nature.
So the question is:
If I compile a program using MinGW, I am linking against GPL'd components which are compiled against Windows system libraries. The GPL allows this. But to do this I haven't obtained a license from Microsoft. Does this mean anything I compile in this way is an unauthorized derivative work of Windows?
Flamebait?
Do I have to spell out the joke to people?
Or is it just that nobody reads Homer anymore.
I am going to add a few other things here. The first is that "not possible to scale" is not really accurate. I believe there are ways to design structures so that write capacity on an RDBMS can scale upward with the nodes on the network. Of course this only works for some types of applications (the approach I have in mind would work with Twitter, for example). And even with Amazon, you would CERTAINLY want RI on purchases even if you don't care about reviews.
However, the larger point is that an RDBMS is a tool which is useful for certain types of applications and not others. For example, managing the financial data on product purchases at Amazon is going to be integrity critical but it still has to work and perform well all the time. Reviews, OTOH, won't but integrity problems add to the load of work for the tech support guys.
So there are solutions to this problem which involve middleware, but even in Amazon's case unless you want to cobble together something with bailing twine and duct tape, the RDBMS is going to likely be the go-to solution there. With twitter? Not so much.
Drink a few beers. Read the Iliad. You'll feel better.
(AJAX: When second-best is good enough. Or maybe AJAX is almost as good as ACHILLES.)
You know, something like a third of web-site porn consumers these days are women, and women are the fastest growing demographic of porn consumers. This is why the market should decide.
If you haven't read this book yet you should.
(True not all porn is created equal. There is some really interesting porn films out there which have received raving reviews in magazines like "Women's Health" and "Oprah Magazine.")
Of course!
Because Cassandra is a Trojan....