I am someone who lives there (Eastern WA) and thats part of the problem: often "Eastern WA" is said to mean "East of the Cascades" but thats not how it's zoned geographically and not how it's really recognized technically. It's dumb, and it's how it was used in this story.
Uh, as a resident I think it's a bit fuzzy whether or not Grant County should even be considered "Eastern" WA. More like "Middle WA" or "Barely Eastern WA". If you are looking for broadband inet access in Eastern WA, Spokane has it.
Anyway, Spokane is the only major city in Eastern WA anyway. The whole area and everything east of here to Montana and Southeast of here down to Utah is considered the most socially disconnected place in the U.S.
What really boggles me is what it is about this sparse, boring, uneventful story that qualifies it as "news worthy" for/.
Re:Good riddance to yet another bad business model
on
Eazel Come, Eazel Go?
·
· Score: 2
I think this is another nail in GNOME's coffin. When Qt was proprietary I was gung ho for GNOME to succeed. Now that Qt is Free Software and GNOME is technically inferior to KDE, the GNOME developers should start to move over to KDE.
I think a big reason why that probably won't happen anytime soon is a kind of cultural/technical difference: GNOME in C, KDE in C++. For those not real well versed, comfortable with, or who don't prefer the latter, they aren't really "convertable" to KDE developers.
This makes GPL die-hards pretty upset. If I'm reading this correctly, some folks petitioned RedHat to include both qmail and djbdns in their distribution, and RedHat balked because of license issues. The thing is, they already were distributing Netscape, so the license argument sounded kind of lame.
Hm, yeah. I bet it's because Netscape didn't really have a viable alternative, whereas with qmail you could use another MTA.
The important thing is that this extra intermediate layer (bytecode) provides some degree of independance. This allows the possibility that the instructions represented by bytecode need not be carried out by an interpreter of any particular language like C or C++.
Also implied is that Java could perhaps even be run natively in hardware (I don't know how real that possibility is though).
However as far as the ability to use Java right now though, it would be true that since that current implementations depend on a Java VM written in C you'd need that -- however, the design of the language doesn't require it necessarily be done that way.
Like Allchin did, you seem to have confused the meanings of "Open Source" and "Free Software". Open Source is more about the source being "open" because doing so allows for a superior model of software development and not so much a political or ethical mantra like "Free" (as in freedom) software.
If Microsoft is afraid of the GPL disadvantaging them, they should start to ask themselves why people would choose to use a license which restricts them.
The answer is pretty simple: self-interested businesses like Microsoft have demonstrated themselves to be so often prone to abusing the good-will of people that they are now opting to choose to limit that capability by choosing a license like the GPL.
I agree with idea that the SAT is good for normalizing the selection of students. But the real problem is the huge differences in school curriculums across different geographical regions. There needs to be more standardization. Even if the standard isn't "perfect" it would add quite a lot to know that a student from school X adheres to Y State standard, or whatever.
Until such time that happens I don't think doing away with the SAT requirement is a better alternative.
I always thought of SSH as a protocol, having both commercial (ssh.com) and non-commercial (openssh) implementations. I think it would confuse people to change the name of openssh at this stage in the game. If it were going to, maybe "Secure Remote Login" (SRL) sounds like a good name to use.
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade
on
Embracing Insanity
·
· Score: 1
Being paid to do something is a strong incentive to do it. But people who *like* programming for the sake of it aren't doing it necessarsily because they're being paid, but because they think it's *the* thing to do.
If a person is only programming because they're getting paid, they probably ought to have a career change. Money isn't the end-all motivational factor.
In that sense, the people who work on and contribute to open source projects represents the "Artists" of programmers. These are the people who really do care about technical details, the cool "hack", the enjoyment of having a mastery over your environment, making stuff "better" than something else, discovering new ideas etc.
Thats what "freedom" in "free software" means to me. You don't have to like it, you can do something else. For the people who do, they now have a means of expressing this "art". Closed source "black box" paid-for software might be fine for many users, but it restricts others (the artists of programming).
Be ashamed of myself for voting for him? No. Perhaps you should take a hard look at yourself to figure out why it is you have such a stanch, unwavering view. Which also happens to correlate with zealous media coverage.
If you had really investigated Clinton's record of politics and his past, you should know that he's one of the more scholarly presidents we have ever had. And in my opinion, one of the brightest. I also think he did just fine with our country in the last 8 years.
He did have personal failings, but I would not count those against his performance record as President nor with his ability to lead my country.
If morality is part of your criteria of merit for consideration of a president, then I suggest you set out to discover that morality is arbitrary.
I'd also like to point out that you've decided to take the low road to personal attacks instead of discussing the issue of whether the law was good or bad, etc.
As far as this law goes, I agree with what other people have been saying here: it's a bad thing. Stuff like this should not have ever gotten this far in the first place. The fact that Clinton had to be our saving grace for individual freedom reflects badly to me.
Politicians who are eager to please those who are enthusiastic about anti-crime initiatives should not overlook individual rights in favor of broad sweeping policing powers. Except in this case, my guess is that it wasn't the people who influenced it's creation, it was more likely some paranoid government agencies.
I would also speculate that part of the problem lies with the level of education of our representatives. With your average politician being computer illiterate and hearing of stuff like "Cyber Crime", "Cyber Terrorism", "Microsoft is Hacked" it doesn't surprise me that many are quick to approve laws that affect people and circumstances they know nothing about.
This kind of backhand implicit ownership of students work is very bad, and just outright wrong. I'm not sure how it works at all universities, but I agree with what a previous poster alluded to: if the rights to your work is to be assigned over to the university, you should be aware of that and having to sign a contract is a step towards ensuring that.
I also dislike the comparison of a University's legal status as an "employer" with regards to graduate students. Universities ought to be in the business of promoting learning, education, exploration of new ideas etc. Not cohorting students into producing research that can be applied to making a shrink-wrapped royalty friendly revenue generating product. Certainly it's a nice option, but for it to be a/requirement/ is going too far.
I don't think the current state of intellectual property laws that many Universities have going for them are consistant with what a Universities mission ought to be. They need to find other ways of generating revenue that do not deprive individuals of their freedoms, rights, and privacies.
Hopefully stuff like this will force Universities into making a choice: They must choose to either be a place for learning, or they choose to be a place for business.
Slashdot Mirror
I am someone who lives there (Eastern WA) and thats part of the problem: often "Eastern WA" is said to mean "East of the Cascades" but thats not how it's zoned geographically and not how it's really recognized technically. It's dumb, and it's how it was used in this story.
Uh, as a resident I think it's a bit fuzzy whether or not Grant County should even be considered "Eastern" WA. More like "Middle WA" or "Barely Eastern WA". If you are looking for broadband inet access in Eastern WA, Spokane has it. Anyway, Spokane is the only major city in Eastern WA anyway. The whole area and everything east of here to Montana and Southeast of here down to Utah is considered the most socially disconnected place in the U.S. What really boggles me is what it is about this sparse, boring, uneventful story that qualifies it as "news worthy" for /.
I think this is another nail in GNOME's coffin. When Qt was proprietary I was gung ho for GNOME to succeed. Now that Qt is Free Software and GNOME is technically inferior to KDE, the GNOME developers should start to move over to KDE.
I think a big reason why that probably won't happen anytime soon is a kind of cultural/technical difference: GNOME in C, KDE in C++. For those not real well versed, comfortable with, or who don't prefer the latter, they aren't really "convertable" to KDE developers.
This makes GPL die-hards pretty upset. If I'm reading this correctly, some folks petitioned RedHat to include both qmail and djbdns in their distribution, and RedHat balked because of license issues. The thing is, they already were distributing Netscape, so the license argument sounded kind of lame.
Hm, yeah. I bet it's because Netscape didn't really have a viable alternative, whereas with qmail you could use another MTA.
The important thing is that this extra intermediate layer (bytecode) provides some degree of independance. This allows the possibility that the instructions represented by bytecode need not be carried out by an interpreter of any particular language like C or C++.
Also implied is that Java could perhaps even be run natively in hardware (I don't know how real that possibility is though).
However as far as the ability to use Java right now though, it would be true that since that current implementations depend on a Java VM written in C you'd need that -- however, the design of the language doesn't require it necessarily be done that way.
Perhaps you are unaware of the existance of SuSE? Last I checked, they're the most LSB compliant distro out there.
Like Allchin did, you seem to have confused the meanings of "Open Source" and "Free Software". Open Source is more about the source being "open" because doing so allows for a superior model of software development and not so much a political or ethical mantra like "Free" (as in freedom) software.
If Microsoft is afraid of the GPL disadvantaging them, they should start to ask themselves why people would choose to use a license which restricts them.
The answer is pretty simple: self-interested businesses like Microsoft have demonstrated themselves to be so often prone to abusing the good-will of people that they are now opting to choose to limit that capability by choosing a license like the GPL.
I agree with idea that the SAT is good for normalizing the selection of students. But the real problem is the huge differences in school curriculums across different geographical regions. There needs to be more standardization. Even if the standard isn't "perfect" it would add quite a lot to know that a student from school X adheres to Y State standard, or whatever. Until such time that happens I don't think doing away with the SAT requirement is a better alternative.
I always thought of SSH as a protocol, having both commercial (ssh.com) and non-commercial (openssh) implementations. I think it would confuse people to change the name of openssh at this stage in the game. If it were going to, maybe "Secure Remote Login" (SRL) sounds like a good name to use.
Being paid to do something is a strong incentive to do it. But people who *like* programming for the sake of it aren't doing it necessarsily because they're being paid, but because they think it's *the* thing to do.
If a person is only programming because they're getting paid, they probably ought to have a career change. Money isn't the end-all motivational factor.
In that sense, the people who work on and contribute to open source projects represents the "Artists" of programmers. These are the people who really do care about technical details, the cool "hack", the enjoyment of having a mastery over your environment, making stuff "better" than something else, discovering new ideas etc.
Thats what "freedom" in "free software" means to me. You don't have to like it, you can do something else. For the people who do, they now have a means of expressing this "art". Closed source "black box" paid-for software might be fine for many users, but it restricts others (the artists of programming).
That freedom is important.
Be ashamed of myself for voting for him? No. Perhaps you should take a hard look at yourself to figure out why it is you have such a stanch, unwavering view. Which also happens to correlate with zealous media coverage.
If you had really investigated Clinton's record of politics and his past, you should know that he's one of the more scholarly presidents we have ever had. And in my opinion, one of the brightest. I also think he did just fine with our country in the last 8 years.
He did have personal failings, but I would not count those against his performance record as President nor with his ability to lead my country.
If morality is part of your criteria of merit for consideration of a president, then I suggest you set out to discover that morality is arbitrary.
I'd also like to point out that you've decided to take the low road to personal attacks instead of discussing the issue of whether the law was good or bad, etc.
As far as this law goes, I agree with what other people have been saying here: it's a bad thing. Stuff like this should not have ever gotten this far in the first place. The fact that Clinton had to be our saving grace for individual freedom reflects badly to me.
Politicians who are eager to please those who are enthusiastic about anti-crime initiatives should not overlook individual rights in favor of broad sweeping policing powers. Except in this case, my guess is that it wasn't the people who influenced it's creation, it was more likely some paranoid government agencies.
I would also speculate that part of the problem lies with the level of education of our representatives. With your average politician being computer illiterate and hearing of stuff like "Cyber Crime", "Cyber Terrorism", "Microsoft is Hacked" it doesn't surprise me that many are quick to approve laws that affect people and circumstances they know nothing about.
This kind of backhand implicit ownership of students work is very bad, and just outright wrong. I'm not sure how it works at all universities, but I agree with what a previous poster alluded to: if the rights to your work is to be assigned over to the university, you should be aware of that and having to sign a contract is a step towards ensuring that. I also dislike the comparison of a University's legal status as an "employer" with regards to graduate students. Universities ought to be in the business of promoting learning, education, exploration of new ideas etc. Not cohorting students into producing research that can be applied to making a shrink-wrapped royalty friendly revenue generating product. Certainly it's a nice option, but for it to be a /requirement/ is going too far.
I don't think the current state of intellectual property laws that many Universities have going for them are consistant with what a Universities mission ought to be. They need to find other ways of generating revenue that do not deprive individuals of their freedoms, rights, and privacies.
Hopefully stuff like this will force Universities into making a choice: They must choose to either be a place for learning, or they choose to be a place for business.