You should probably calm down a little, telling people who don't like the idea to go away, even though it might be a reasonable sentiment, isn't a good way to get contributors. The best thing to do is probably to ignore flamers, they'll tire soon enough and go away by themselves, unless they actually have good points.
Here I was, all set to agree with ESR for once. Even though he was rehashing things that have been said on Slashdot for a long while, at least it was somewhat informed and reasonable.
But then he had to go and mix other politics into it. He included a standard signature with his usual gun rights stuff in it at the bottom, line upon line of it. Regardless if you agree with him on this or not, isn't it at best inappropriate to mix these controversial (even in the US, and in particular globally) view into speech from someone who claims to be a spokesman for the community? I think so.
>but, saying things like "Cool, MP3's and DECSS'd >DVD movies at the speed of the light." doesn't >really help our credibility. I mean, the greatest >fear of the MPAA is that bandwidth will get to >the point where entire DVDs can easily be >pirated from computer to computer...
What credibility? Also, the MPAA, the RIAA, BSA and FAST need eye openers like this. They're fighting against an overpowering force now, someone should point out to them that it's just a matter of time before it rolls straight over them.
What will it mean? Will people stop making movies, music and software? Nope. Will the paradigm for how distribution works, and who takes the profit, change in profound ways? Yes, most definitely.
The more you "pirate" (share), the faster this will happen. It's inevitable, let's bring the dinosaurs down as fast as possible, and see what else emerges in their place.
>>Seems PG is a conservative outfit that resists >>change in technology,
>Unfortunately, I fail to comprehend how >translating texts printed on paper to >an easily-reproducable format that can be >easily obtained via the internet qualifies as >resisting change in technology.
It doesn't. However, PG in general, and Hart in particular (as if you can really separate the two) are stuck in a reasonably old-fashioned mindset when it comes to textual information. Because the project started way back in the Seventies (I believe), the choice to use only plain ASCII might have made sense then. It certainly doesn't do so now.
PG would benefit greatly from a structured information format, preferably one that could be transformed down to plain ASCII when needed (most formats that would be appropriate already do this). Using something like SGML or XML would give them the benefit of structure in the information, like footnotes, italicized sections, page breaks, etc., in a machine-readable format. Also, they would have the option of using Unicode, which would benefit them greatly, since 7-bit really doesn't cut it for anything but English text.
I, and I'm sure many others, would be happy to provide an XML system for them free of charge, but as I've understood from interviews, Hart has his mind set on continuing to use ASCII, because he feels it makes it available to everyone. Personally, I think it reduces everyone to the lowest common denominator, and could be solved in a better way. My two centavos.
I have problems understanding why this was placed in the funny category. It wasn't very funny, nor did it feel like it was written in jest.
On the other hand, if it was meant to be taken seriously, I think there are some problems with Robin's conceptions. In particular, I react to his "Don't waste your time on geek girls" stance. Now, it might be that he's, well, um, a bit older (and thus more old-fashioned), but I don't think (or hope) that the "I need a woman that fulfills my needs, not one that competes with me" attitude is common amongst hackers and techies.
There is a beauty in having a life partner who's your intellectual and emotional equal. Now, that doesn't have to mean computer geek, but someone smart, who has an area of he or she loves working in, a thirst for more knowledge, etc. 20 years ago, a partner who would massage your shoulders and cook you dinner might be the ideal. But now? Give me someone who's smarter than me any day.
>Several Linux distributions already include an >XML parser that could (should?) become the >standard: libxml, written by Daniel Viellard >(he also runs the rpmfind system) from the W3C. >It is already in use by the GNOME project.
While libxml is nice for simple parsing, it's not really satisfactory for larger applications making heavy use of XML, simply because it doesn't validate. Of course, there's always RXP, which does validate, is GPL, written in C, and quite fast. We chose to use that for a rather large document system we're finishing these days (soon to be released under the GPL, tell me if you're interested).
Whether you like it or not, ESR's personality and personal behaviour does figure into this. I never said "Fetchmail is shit". From what I see, it's a reasonable piece of code. Not that I've had the need to use it all that much. Nor did I say he's not a true hacker, at least by the definition he sets down in the Jargon File, he is, and by my own somewhat stricter definition (which excludes myself), then he still is.
I did, however, say that he has an overblown ego. And I stand by that. To me, it's apparent from a lot of his essays and writings (the one about how he learnt that he had supernatural powers and stuff is particularly interesting), and his behaviour.
"Lack of moral integrity" stems from both the blunders with the Apple licensing stuff, and from what I perceive as attempts to steal a lot of glory and respect from RMS.
"Being a media whore" is one thing he does, and does well. The overexposure he talked about is a result of that. Note that it isn't neccessarily a bad thing, it's something that most people with some degree of fame in the public eye have been doing for quite some time.
But. My point isn't that ESR is doing something that's all that bad in "the Real World", it's just his insistence that we mix all this "Real World" stuff in our community. The attempts to establish free software culture as a "gift economy" in the Cathedral paper is an example of this. He's trying to apply economical thinking to something that's not driven by economy, because altruism and the desire to do good things doesn't seem like believable motives to him.
The same thing with "Open Source". He doesn't see that Free Software can exist nicely without trying to work in the "Market", and he tries to decouple if from the philosophy that made it, so he can mix it into the marketplace.
His vision, thus, is rather narrow. And these are the points he's missing.
"As a culture, you have a nasty habit of disagreeing with me -- of demanding moral integrity, of understanding that I have a huge ego, of coming up with good and valid critizisms. This has to stop. We've got to grow up into media whores."
He still doesn't get it. And I'm starting to believe he never will. In all his wining and dining the suits, he's taken on their motives. Not that he had all that much understanding in the first place about what the movement was about, since he tried to unhook it from the philosophy. But he's gotten worse. He wants marketshare. Yet free software doesn't need it. He wants to beat Bill Gates (for personal reasons, no less). Yet that's not neccessary.
All we need to do is keep on doing what we've been doing for the last 15 years, all the way back since Stallman started it (and, yes, Stallman started it, no matter how much ESR wants to take it from him). Marketshare doesn't matter. "Growing up" doesn't matter. Morals matter. Freedom matters. Integrity matters.
I've heard people claim that kind of thing before. Mostly, the people who do are wannabees who want to have a pretense to call themselves hackers without doing the work.
But the real hackers have just a few things in common: Experience, understanding, common sense, intelligence, and the ability for logical reasoning. And, not a single one of them sat down and instinctively knew LISP the first day they saw a computer. It takes work. It takes dedication. It takes practice.
The term is a badge of respect. I don't call myself hacker (I'm not ready for that), but I know quite a few, and I know them when I see them.
True, true. Eric's love for technology revolves more around getting quoted as much as possible in all kinds of media, and taking over the movement after everybody else did the hard work.
If 99.99999999% of the population doesn't give a rat's ass about moral, does that make moral wrong? Since when do we have a responsibility, or even an *interest* in *marketing*? It's so totally uninteresting.
As for where you come from and what they call people with ponytails, where I come from, people like the ones where you come from are called "Rednecks", and are considered laughable. If you're seriously suggesting that anyone's hairdo is what's important, and that for instance RMS gave us a hell of a lot more code than Linus ever did, then I urge you to think again.
The world, the opinions of the people in your town, and whatever software the "mainstream" uses is of little interest. Make your own choices. Use Free Software because it's good for you. Don't be a marketer, evangelist, or media whore. ESR's already tried that. It takes the soul away.
It's always been one of the huge advantages of the net that we can communicate at 10 times the speed. This isn't just because we have huge light pipes to transmit stuff, but also because we've had the priviledge to be able to put aside some social graces and just say what we mean.
I remember being flamed by JWZ once over some idea I randomly sprouted, and I sat there thinking that yeah, this guy who's smarter than me told me his opinion, and I could change my ideas accordingly. It works.
However, is this wrong? When looking at it rationally, is Intellectual Property a logical, natural concept, on par with physical property rights?
However, I think we're coming to a point very soon where IP law is no longer relevant for software. As free software turns out to be better, cheaper, and more attractive to everyone, and increased Internet bandwidth and storage capacity allows piracy to wipe out the ruins of the proprietary software industry, perhaps the battlefield for whether or not IP is a good thing will be in the fields of media and entertainment. Ironic, since these might be some of the only industries even more corrupt and full of artificially inflated profits than software.
It'll be there, and it'll be fierce. Hopefully, we can emerge with a world where the producer of information is dethroned, and where everybody becomes less of a passive consumer in the process.
As for software, I hate to be premature, but I think it's already won. We're into the glorious drudgery of finishing up now.
RMS doesn't want to force people to write free software either. Neither does he believe it all must be free. This is one of the major misconceptions about RMS.
Rather, he says that "The software that isn't free, is none of my business, I want nothing to do with it, I'm not going to use it". And, often, he sees that some proprietary software fulfills a need, so he sets out to create (or encourage the creation of) a free alternative.
He's not forcing anyone. However, when you write proprietary software, know that RMS or some other moral soul will come along and make a free alternative to your package. That's fairness.
Aside from that, you make the basic mistake of thinking "free" means "zero cost" in your last paragraph (as well as, it seems, equating physical and intellectual property rights).
Creating free software or not is your choice. Ignoring proprietary software is the user's business. Making a free alternative is the moral programmer's business (some feel it's an obligation, but mostly they feel it's their own obligation).
...or is the winds turning back in RMS' and GNU/FSF's favour? It seemed just a few days ago that people were falling over themselves to get distance from RMS (even though the refrain has usually been "I'll agree with him this once", over and over again), and everyone was shouting "ESR and Open Source is so much better".
Yet now, it seems so many more have taken to their senses, and see things with a lot less bias. I'm insanely happy about it. Maybe we can get back to where we were, writing free software, and furthering knowledge and sharing.
I have to hand it to you, Bruce, you shoved some character there. Of course, I kind of thought the problem was evident pretty early on, but still, better late than never.
Good to see you're back to writing code. I bet ESR hasn't been doing all that much of that lately.
Well, be careful, Bruce, Godwin's law is just around the corner.
But, ethics are illogical, or rather, down the path of pure logic and scientific reasoning lies the mindset of the sociopath. That's why science has such strong ethical principles, it's not because they easily derive from science and logic, but because scientists see that their work would be on a slippery slope if they didn't intertwine ethics and science. It might be good for science, but they would lose sight of the higher goal, to further mankind.
And that might be what Tim O'Reilly has lost, in all his capitalist, market liberalist fury. The sight of higher goals.
Too bad his position is proven to be what we feared it was. "I fail to see the moral dimension" means that he has no morals in these issues. "A matter of science" is simply misleading. Science has very strong ethical guidelines, first of al, and secondly, it's mostly done for the furtherment of mankind in general, not to (for instance) sell a lot of books about UN*X administration.
Also, I resent the reference to RMS' position as religious. It's not religious, it's moral and ethical, and it's also consistent and well thought-through. Of course Tim doesn't want RMS to be right, Tim gets all his profits from Intellectual "property" monging, and RMS is staunchly anti-IP, and very good at pointing out why IP is an artificial restriction of people's rights, and has little to do with physical property laws.
So, Tim has an agenda, and it's all about money. RMS has an agenda too, and it's all about the freedom of the users. You choose which side you're on.
There are accepted solutions to the problems with these sites. The main solution is called CSS1. Now, there is lacking CSS support in most browsers so far, but it's a matter of time before that's remedied. Also, one can, with ingenious use of server-side scripts and templates, maintain two versions effortlessly, one with abuse of tables for layout, and another with CSS, and let people choose (set defaults based on browser version).
That domain name purchase should help maintain the view of Linux as an OS primarily for Intel processors, when there are so many other and better platforms to run it on. Hmpf.
I'm assuming it's GCC they're talking about, after all, that's what Cygnus' business has been based on for so long, but between the "Cygnus makes a compiler" comment and Cygnus' recent release of Non-Free Software, I'm not 100% sure.
Does anyone have the info to soothe and comfort me?
Slashdot Mirror
Whoa there, Nick.
You should probably calm down a little, telling people who don't like the idea to go away, even though it might be a reasonable sentiment, isn't a good way to get contributors. The best thing to do is probably to ignore flamers, they'll tire soon enough and go away by themselves, unless they actually have good points.
Linux on Alpha?
Did you suddenly start using the term "Open Source" again, Bruce?
a) There were girls present.
b) People took their shirts off and danced about.
I'll be damned if I'm going to consider this guy's opinion in technical matters!
But then he had to go and mix other politics into it. He included a standard signature with his usual gun rights stuff in it at the bottom, line upon line of it. Regardless if you agree with him on this or not, isn't it at best inappropriate to mix these controversial (even in the US, and in particular globally) view into speech from someone who claims to be a spokesman for the community? I think so.
>but, saying things like "Cool, MP3's and DECSS'd
>DVD movies at the speed of the light." doesn't
>really help our credibility. I mean, the greatest
>fear of the MPAA is that bandwidth will get to
>the point where entire DVDs can easily be
>pirated from computer to computer...
What credibility? Also, the MPAA, the RIAA, BSA and FAST need eye openers like this. They're fighting against an overpowering force now, someone should point out to them that it's just a matter of time before it rolls straight over them.
What will it mean? Will people stop making movies, music and software? Nope. Will the paradigm for how distribution works, and who takes the profit, change in profound ways? Yes, most definitely.
The more you "pirate" (share), the faster this will happen. It's inevitable, let's bring the dinosaurs down as fast as possible, and see what else emerges in their place.
>>Seems PG is a conservative outfit that resists
>>change in technology,
>Unfortunately, I fail to comprehend how
>translating texts printed on paper to
>an easily-reproducable format that can be
>easily obtained via the internet qualifies as
>resisting change in technology.
It doesn't. However, PG in general, and Hart in particular (as if you can really separate the two) are stuck in a reasonably old-fashioned mindset when it comes to textual information. Because the project started way back in the Seventies (I believe), the choice to use only plain ASCII might have made sense then. It certainly doesn't do so now.
PG would benefit greatly from a structured information format, preferably one that could be transformed down to plain ASCII when needed (most formats that would be appropriate already do this). Using something like SGML or XML would give them the benefit of structure in the information, like footnotes, italicized sections, page breaks, etc., in a machine-readable format. Also, they would have the option of using Unicode, which would benefit them greatly, since 7-bit really doesn't cut it for anything but English text.
I, and I'm sure many others, would be happy to provide an XML system for them free of charge, but as I've understood from interviews, Hart has his mind set on continuing to use ASCII, because he feels it makes it available to everyone. Personally, I think it reduces everyone to the lowest common denominator, and could be solved in a better way. My two centavos.
I have problems understanding why this was placed in the funny category. It wasn't very funny, nor did it feel like it was written in jest.
On the other hand, if it was meant to be taken seriously, I think there are some problems with Robin's conceptions. In particular, I react to his "Don't waste your time on geek girls" stance. Now, it might be that he's, well, um, a bit older (and thus more old-fashioned), but I don't think (or hope) that the "I need a woman that fulfills my needs, not one that competes with me" attitude is common amongst hackers and techies.
There is a beauty in having a life partner who's your intellectual and emotional equal. Now, that doesn't have to mean computer geek, but someone smart, who has an area of he or she loves working in, a thirst for more knowledge, etc. 20 years ago, a partner who would massage your shoulders and cook you dinner might be the ideal. But now? Give me someone who's smarter than me any day.
>Several Linux distributions already include an
>XML parser that could (should?) become the
>standard: libxml, written by Daniel Viellard
>(he also runs the rpmfind system) from the W3C.
>It is already in use by the GNOME project.
While libxml is nice for simple parsing, it's not really satisfactory for larger applications making heavy use of XML, simply because it doesn't validate. Of course, there's always RXP, which does validate, is GPL, written in C, and quite fast. We chose to use that for a rather large document system we're finishing these days (soon to be released under the GPL, tell me if you're interested).
Um.
Whether you like it or not, ESR's personality and personal behaviour does figure into this. I never said "Fetchmail is shit". From what I see, it's a reasonable piece of code. Not that I've had the need to use it all that much. Nor did I say he's not a true hacker, at least by the definition he sets down in the Jargon File, he is, and by my own somewhat stricter definition (which excludes myself), then he still is.
I did, however, say that he has an overblown ego. And I stand by that. To me, it's apparent from a lot of his essays and writings (the one about how he learnt that he had supernatural powers and stuff is particularly interesting), and his behaviour.
"Lack of moral integrity" stems from both the blunders with the Apple licensing stuff, and from what I perceive as attempts to steal a lot of glory and respect from RMS.
"Being a media whore" is one thing he does, and does well. The overexposure he talked about is a result of that. Note that it isn't neccessarily a bad thing, it's something that most people with some degree of fame in the public eye have been doing for quite some time.
But. My point isn't that ESR is doing something that's all that bad in "the Real World", it's just his insistence that we mix all this "Real World" stuff in our community. The attempts to establish free software culture as a "gift economy" in the Cathedral paper is an example of this. He's trying to apply economical thinking to something that's not driven by economy, because altruism and the desire to do good things doesn't seem like believable motives to him.
The same thing with "Open Source". He doesn't see that Free Software can exist nicely without trying to work in the "Market", and he tries to decouple if from the philosophy that made it, so he can mix it into the marketplace.
His vision, thus, is rather narrow. And these are the points he's missing.
"As a culture, you have a nasty habit of disagreeing with me -- of demanding moral integrity, of understanding that I have a huge ego, of coming up with good and valid critizisms. This has to stop. We've got to grow up into media whores."
He still doesn't get it. And I'm starting to believe he never will. In all his wining and dining the suits, he's taken on their motives. Not that he had all that much understanding in the first place about what the movement was about, since he tried to unhook it from the philosophy. But he's gotten worse. He wants marketshare. Yet free software doesn't need it. He wants to beat Bill Gates (for personal reasons, no less). Yet that's not neccessary.
All we need to do is keep on doing what we've been doing for the last 15 years, all the way back since Stallman started it (and, yes, Stallman started it, no matter how much ESR wants to take it from him). Marketshare doesn't matter. "Growing up" doesn't matter. Morals matter. Freedom matters. Integrity matters.
Nah.
I've heard people claim that kind of thing before. Mostly, the people who do are wannabees who want to have a pretense to call themselves hackers without doing the work.
But the real hackers have just a few things in common: Experience, understanding, common sense, intelligence, and the ability for logical reasoning. And, not a single one of them sat down and instinctively knew LISP the first day they saw a computer. It takes work. It takes dedication. It takes practice.
The term is a badge of respect. I don't call myself hacker (I'm not ready for that), but I know quite a few, and I know them when I see them.
True, true. Eric's love for technology revolves more around getting quoted as much as possible in all kinds of media, and taking over the movement after everybody else did the hard work.
This, indeed, is a noble cause.
If 99.99999999% of the population doesn't give a rat's ass about moral, does that make moral wrong? Since when do we have a responsibility, or even an *interest* in *marketing*? It's so totally uninteresting.
As for where you come from and what they call people with ponytails, where I come from, people like the ones where you come from are called "Rednecks", and are considered laughable. If you're seriously suggesting that anyone's hairdo is what's important, and that for instance RMS gave us a hell of a lot more code than Linus ever did, then I urge you to think again.
The world, the opinions of the people in your town, and whatever software the "mainstream" uses is of little interest. Make your own choices. Use Free Software because it's good for you. Don't be a marketer, evangelist, or media whore. ESR's already tried that. It takes the soul away.
It's always been one of the huge advantages of the net that we can communicate at 10 times the speed. This isn't just because we have huge light pipes to transmit stuff, but also because we've had the priviledge to be able to put aside some social graces and just say what we mean.
I remember being flamed by JWZ once over some idea I randomly sprouted, and I sat there thinking that yeah, this guy who's smarter than me told me his opinion, and I could change my ideas accordingly. It works.
Very true.
However, is this wrong? When looking at it rationally, is Intellectual Property a logical, natural concept, on par with physical property rights?
However, I think we're coming to a point very soon where IP law is no longer relevant for software. As free software turns out to be better, cheaper, and more attractive to everyone, and increased Internet bandwidth and storage capacity allows piracy to wipe out the ruins of the proprietary software industry, perhaps the battlefield for whether or not IP is a good thing will be in the fields of media and entertainment. Ironic, since these might be some of the only industries even more corrupt and full of artificially inflated profits than software.
It'll be there, and it'll be fierce. Hopefully, we can emerge with a world where the producer of information is dethroned, and where everybody becomes less of a passive consumer in the process.
As for software, I hate to be premature, but I think it's already won. We're into the glorious drudgery of finishing up now.
RMS doesn't want to force people to write free software either. Neither does he believe it all must be free. This is one of the major misconceptions about RMS.
Rather, he says that "The software that isn't free, is none of my business, I want nothing to do with it, I'm not going to use it". And, often, he sees that some proprietary software fulfills a need, so he sets out to create (or encourage the creation of) a free alternative.
He's not forcing anyone. However, when you write proprietary software, know that RMS or some other moral soul will come along and make a free alternative to your package. That's fairness.
Aside from that, you make the basic mistake of thinking "free" means "zero cost" in your last paragraph (as well as, it seems, equating physical and intellectual property rights).
Creating free software or not is your choice. Ignoring proprietary software is the user's business. Making a free alternative is the moral programmer's business (some feel it's an obligation, but mostly they feel it's their own obligation).
...or is the winds turning back in RMS' and GNU/FSF's favour? It seemed just a few days ago that people were falling over themselves to get distance from RMS (even though the refrain has usually been "I'll agree with him this once", over and over again), and everyone was shouting "ESR and Open Source is so much better".
Yet now, it seems so many more have taken to their senses, and see things with a lot less bias. I'm insanely happy about it. Maybe we can get back to where we were, writing free software, and furthering knowledge and sharing.
I have to hand it to you, Bruce, you shoved some character there. Of course, I kind of thought the problem was evident pretty early on, but still, better late than never.
Good to see you're back to writing code. I bet ESR hasn't been doing all that much of that lately.
Well, be careful, Bruce, Godwin's law is just around the corner.
But, ethics are illogical, or rather, down the path of pure logic and scientific reasoning lies the mindset of the sociopath. That's why science has such strong ethical principles, it's not because they easily derive from science and logic, but because scientists see that their work would be on a slippery slope if they didn't intertwine ethics and science. It might be good for science, but they would lose sight of the higher goal, to further mankind.
And that might be what Tim O'Reilly has lost, in all his capitalist, market liberalist fury. The sight of higher goals.
Too bad his position is proven to be what we feared it was. "I fail to see the moral dimension" means that he has no morals in these issues. "A matter of science" is simply misleading. Science has very strong ethical guidelines, first of al, and secondly, it's mostly done for the furtherment of mankind in general, not to (for instance) sell a lot of books about UN*X administration.
Also, I resent the reference to RMS' position as religious. It's not religious, it's moral and ethical, and it's also consistent and well thought-through. Of course Tim doesn't want RMS to be right, Tim gets all his profits from Intellectual "property" monging, and RMS is staunchly anti-IP, and very good at pointing out why IP is an artificial restriction of people's rights, and has little to do with physical property laws.
So, Tim has an agenda, and it's all about money. RMS has an agenda too, and it's all about the freedom of the users. You choose which side you're on.
Then quit. A little spine can only do you good.
Well.
There are accepted solutions to the problems with these sites. The main solution is called CSS1. Now, there is lacking CSS support in most browsers so far, but it's a matter of time before that's remedied. Also, one can, with ingenious use of server-side scripts and templates, maintain two versions effortlessly, one with abuse of tables for layout, and another with CSS, and let people choose (set defaults based on browser version).
That domain name purchase should help maintain the view of Linux as an OS primarily for Intel processors, when there are so many other and better platforms to run it on. Hmpf.
I'm assuming it's GCC they're talking about, after all, that's what Cygnus' business has been based on for so long, but between the "Cygnus makes a compiler" comment and Cygnus' recent release of Non-Free Software, I'm not 100% sure.
Does anyone have the info to soothe and comfort me?