Why is the GPL "anti-capitalist"? It provides corporations with high-quality software that they can use without paying license fees. And furthermore, it requires that any modifications to the software must be released to the general public, which would benefits all users of the software, corporations included.
Also, it encourages competition by preventing malicious companies from pulling an "embrace and extend" maneuver on an existing piece of software. I think it's far more anti-capitalist when a company does what ever possible to lock users into their proprietary product, deflecting the attempts of others to release competing products. Eliminating the competition is not the same as competition.
If you release software you've written yourself under the GPL, you are not some pinko anticapitalist commie. It is your right as a participant in a capitalist job economy to name your own terms under which you do work, whether it be $140/hr or for free (possibly with the GPL as the sole string attached). Remember, communism is where people are FORCED to work for the benefit of the greater whole. In the FOSS, people VOLUNTEER to work for the benefit of the greater whole. It's capitalistic because the developers have the ability to choose whether or not they want to volunteer or demand pay when they write software.
And no, the GPL does not FORCE people to give away their source code- if you don't want to give up your source code, don't modify GPL'd software. It's not like you'd even have the opportunity to modify the software if it was released under a proprietary or "shared source" license, so don't complain.
A campy, old-school web portal for sale! I hope they accept COD. It'd look great mounted on the wall above my wet bar with all the vintage neon beer signs. Maybe when I can afford it, I'll get an Altavista to put up next to it. That would rock.
Bad example. HAL seemed to like Dave until he decided to deactivate HAL. Just imagine how your human love would react if she heard you were going to "deactivate" her... somehow I suspect she'd be a little less polite than saying "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't allow you to do that."
"It is a very powerful machine. It could run into something and do serious damage."...and to make things worse, they also successfully reconstructed Da Vinci's design for a clockwork cell phone.
Is this thing open source? It doesn't seem like it. For all we know we could be downloading the world's next biggest trojan horse/worm.
This could be said about any small, proprietary software utility that you see on download.com or tucows. Only time will tell if it's a trojan or not, but if it is, the techies who make up its target audience will find out fast. And they'll spread the word fast. And after receiving the word, they will take it seriously. Techies have other traits besides access to lots of bandwidth. Also, it's not likely that this program will be installed on anything more mission-critical than an average office workstation, which could just as easily be infected with Kazaa or some other crapware by its PHB or marketroid user. If you want to spread a trojan, might as well write a porn-based video game or MP3 player to use as the vector. Since your target market will be Joe Luser, you'll go much longer before being caught.
Just why is it that all these worms people write nowadays just seem so.. nice? I remember the days when 90% of viruses would at the very least format your hard disc.. now they just sit there.
It's evolution. A pathogen that kills its host too fast is a failure unless it can spread extremely fast to compensate. While the old viruses and worms were the equivalent of ebola, wreaking as much havoc to the host as possible, the new ones are more the software equivalent of lampreys or tapeworms- slowly but surely stealing a host's resources. Virus writers just discovered that it was far more logical, efficient (and not to mention profitable) to install a spam proxy that would run silently in the background for as long as possible than to torch the contents of the victim's hard drive and display a splash that says "j00 R 50 0w|\|3d!"....And they know that the less noise their worms make, the more complacent users will grow, which will increase the amount of potential future hosts.
This isn't a problem inherent in Linux, but rather ANY operating system that runs on commodity hardware that has a small user base. Until Linux is popular enough that the hardware manufacturers write drivers or release specs, we're just going to have to bite the bullet and buy only stuff that is known to work with ALSA.
It doesn't matter if people WANT their proprietary standard, because PEOPLE aren't the target audience.
Not people?! I thought "tape monkeys" were actally an obscure, underappreciated subspecies of Homo Sapiens...but then again, they don't buy the equipment- PHB's do.
You'll need township approval before even thinking of constructing something that could possibly damn or slow down the flow of water.
Crap. Better rethink my plans to build a Church of Satan on the bank of the Animas River (in my backyard). The people of Durango might not be too happy that their river has been condemned to eternal damnation, especially since "animas" is Spanish for "soul".
I'm waiting for someone to mention that this is analogous to the way your friend who's peer-pressuring you to try a drug says that he'll supply you for free since it's your first time. However that analogy is tired and wrong.
I had to buy my OWN damn reef the first time I got high.
Principal Skinner: Do I detect a hint of sarcasm? Professor Frinke: Are you kidding? ! This sarcasm detector is off the charts! CBG: Oh, a sarcasm detector- that's a *real* useful invention.
...but let's not forget that the wealthy spend their money too, which invariably helps out everyone.
I'd like to think this, but actually I have a hard time believing that much of the money the rich spend ever trickles down to the poor. One of the reasons for this is the inherent downward flow of money in a company. When you buy a product from company X, the people who run/own company X get a piece of the profits, and then pass as little as they can get away with down to their subordinates. The second problem is that consumerism causes inflation. You don't spend money in a vacuum; when you buy something, it drives up the price of that product for others, thanks to the law of supply, price and demand. This is why the lower classes aren't all that excited about Bush's "across-the-board" tax cuts: living costs are increasing at a rate that far outstrips the extra few hundred dollars that they're saving on taxes each year. And on top of that, the rich are getting huge amounts back from the tax cuts, which means they will spend more, further driving up costs of goods and services. The problem is especially manifest in the housing and gasoline markets, because housing and gasoline are both commodities that everyone needs. My solution to this would be to have our tax tables change each year depending on the cost of living. If the cost of living increased from the previous year, then the taxes will become more progressive (harsher on the upper class), and if the cost of living decreased, vice-versa.
If I'm not mistaken, it's much harder (though not impossible) to pirate games on the GameCube, thanks to its proprietary DVD format. Eventually, someone will come up with a way to pirate GameCube games that is as user-friendly as the methods for copying PS2 and XBox titles, but by then the point will probably be moot as Nintendo will be releasing a new system.
...that headline is gross. Why does there have to be an innuendo in everything written on slashdot? And not to mention, having two mice is just a bad idea because most slashdotters like to browse the web with one hand free for... nevermind.
You're mixing up ethics with morals. Ethics are values that benefit us as a society, whereas morals are values that benefit us as an individual. Granted, there is some overlap (ie if you like killing people, it is probably bad for you as an individual as well as bad for the society you live in), but laws are primarily there to enforce ethics.
There are tons of other options out there that aren't vulnerable, such as Mozilla and Thunderbird.
Thank you for telling me this!! As a Slashdot reader, I never would have known that Microsoft's products suck and far superior open source equivalents exist! Everything I ever read on Slashdot has been pro-MS propaganda until your brilliant comment escorted me out of the cave of ignorance to the enlightened world above! My eternal thanks.
I think he means you'd get a custom bootable linux CD that would work in the kiosks at the coffee shop. This would be a great idea if the distro was tuned to be as simple as user-friendly as possible. They could also give you a CD-RW on which you could store email, settings, cookies, music, etc.
On top of that, HP could offer an extremely cheap and low maintenence (read: Windows-less) internet appliance on which the CD's could be used when you are at home. Mix in some built-in branding and (unobtrusive, I hope) advertising in the custom distro, and you'd have a pretty profitable racket goin on.
I recently read an article about hybrid cell phones that are capable of transparently switching to an in-range WiFi network to save money on calls. Phones like this would still be usable if there aren't hotspots everywhere, and better yet, if they become popular, they will produce demand to build even more hotspots. One thing I worry about, however, is that free hotspots may become overcrowded with people carrying out high-bandwidth VOIP conversations. I guess operators of free hotspots will have to take up the practice of using the highest channel so that all the WiFi phones pick up the commercial networks first.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is the GPL "anti-capitalist"? It provides corporations with high-quality software that they can use without paying license fees. And furthermore, it requires that any modifications to the software must be released to the general public, which would benefits all users of the software, corporations included.
Also, it encourages competition by preventing malicious companies from pulling an "embrace and extend" maneuver on an existing piece of software. I think it's far more anti-capitalist when a company does what ever possible to lock users into their proprietary product, deflecting the attempts of others to release competing products. Eliminating the competition is not the same as competition.
If you release software you've written yourself under the GPL, you are not some pinko anticapitalist commie. It is your right as a participant in a capitalist job economy to name your own terms under which you do work, whether it be $140/hr or for free (possibly with the GPL as the sole string attached). Remember, communism is where people are FORCED to work for the benefit of the greater whole. In the FOSS, people VOLUNTEER to work for the benefit of the greater whole. It's capitalistic because the developers have the ability to choose whether or not they want to volunteer or demand pay when they write software.
And no, the GPL does not FORCE people to give away their source code- if you don't want to give up your source code, don't modify GPL'd software. It's not like you'd even have the opportunity to modify the software if it was released under a proprietary or "shared source" license, so don't complain.
Switch to OpenFT. It's where all my files are shared, although I still freeload off of FastTrack (mirroring whatever I downloaded to OpenFT).
BTW, I use Poisoned, a good giFT front-end for OS X.
Here is a list of the most popular giFT front-ends.
A campy, old-school web portal for sale! I hope they accept COD. It'd look great mounted on the wall above my wet bar with all the vintage neon beer signs. Maybe when I can afford it, I'll get an Altavista to put up next to it. That would rock.
Bad example. HAL seemed to like Dave until he decided to deactivate HAL. Just imagine how your human love would react if she heard you were going to "deactivate" her... somehow I suspect she'd be a little less polite than saying "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't allow you to do that."
...oh wait, it has to be witty.
"It is a very powerful machine. It could run into something and do serious damage." ...and to make things worse, they also successfully reconstructed Da Vinci's design for a clockwork cell phone.
Is this thing open source? It doesn't seem like it. For all we know we could be downloading the world's next biggest trojan horse/worm.
This could be said about any small, proprietary software utility that you see on download.com or tucows. Only time will tell if it's a trojan or not, but if it is, the techies who make up its target audience will find out fast. And they'll spread the word fast. And after receiving the word, they will take it seriously. Techies have other traits besides access to lots of bandwidth.
Also, it's not likely that this program will be installed on anything more mission-critical than an average office workstation, which could just as easily be infected with Kazaa or some other crapware by its PHB or marketroid user.
If you want to spread a trojan, might as well write a porn-based video game or MP3 player to use as the vector. Since your target market will be Joe Luser, you'll go much longer before being caught.
Just why is it that all these worms people write nowadays just seem so.. nice? I remember the days when 90% of viruses would at the very least format your hard disc.. now they just sit there.
...And they know that the less noise their worms make, the more complacent users will grow, which will increase the amount of potential future hosts.
It's evolution. A pathogen that kills its host too fast is a failure unless it can spread extremely fast to compensate. While the old viruses and worms were the equivalent of ebola, wreaking as much havoc to the host as possible, the new ones are more the software equivalent of lampreys or tapeworms- slowly but surely stealing a host's resources.
Virus writers just discovered that it was far more logical, efficient (and not to mention profitable) to install a spam proxy that would run silently in the background for as long as possible than to torch the contents of the victim's hard drive and display a splash that says "j00 R 50 0w|\|3d!".
This isn't a problem inherent in Linux, but rather ANY operating system that runs on commodity hardware that has a small user base. Until Linux is popular enough that the hardware manufacturers write drivers or release specs, we're just going to have to bite the bullet and buy only stuff that is known to work with ALSA.
I kept notes and took pictures as I was going along, and the page that resulted is now available for your viewing enjoyment.
..and I'll be enjoying it, alright.
s/viewing/slashdotting/
Unfortunately, I think the more likely approach would be:
1. Write virus, with Virtual MDA as its payload.
2. Release it into the wild, infect 5000 computers.
3. Profit!
It doesn't matter if people WANT their proprietary standard, because PEOPLE aren't the target audience.
..but then again, they don't buy the equipment- PHB's do.
Not people?! I thought "tape monkeys" were actally an obscure, underappreciated subspecies of Homo Sapiens.
Ohhhh, now I get it.
You'll need township approval before even thinking of constructing something that could possibly damn or slow down the flow of water.
Crap. Better rethink my plans to build a Church of Satan on the bank of the Animas River (in my backyard). The people of Durango might not be too happy that their river has been condemned to eternal damnation, especially since "animas" is Spanish for "soul".
I'm waiting for someone to mention that this is analogous to the way your friend who's peer-pressuring you to try a drug says that he'll supply you for free since it's your first time.
However that analogy is tired and wrong.
I had to buy my OWN damn reef the first time I got high.
Principal Skinner: Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?
Professor Frinke: Are you kidding? ! This sarcasm detector is off the charts!
CBG: Oh, a sarcasm detector- that's a *real* useful invention.
device explodes
...but let's not forget that the wealthy spend their money too, which invariably helps out everyone.
I'd like to think this, but actually I have a hard time believing that much of the money the rich spend ever trickles down to the poor. One of the reasons for this is the inherent downward flow of money in a company. When you buy a product from company X, the people who run/own company X get a piece of the profits, and then pass as little as they can get away with down to their subordinates.
The second problem is that consumerism causes inflation. You don't spend money in a vacuum; when you buy something, it drives up the price of that product for others, thanks to the law of supply, price and demand.
This is why the lower classes aren't all that excited about Bush's "across-the-board" tax cuts: living costs are increasing at a rate that far outstrips the extra few hundred dollars that they're saving on taxes each year. And on top of that, the rich are getting huge amounts back from the tax cuts, which means they will spend more, further driving up costs of goods and services.
The problem is especially manifest in the housing and gasoline markets, because housing and gasoline are both commodities that everyone needs.
My solution to this would be to have our tax tables change each year depending on the cost of living. If the cost of living increased from the previous year, then the taxes will become more progressive (harsher on the upper class), and if the cost of living decreased, vice-versa.
If I'm not mistaken, it's much harder (though not impossible) to pirate games on the GameCube, thanks to its proprietary DVD format. Eventually, someone will come up with a way to pirate GameCube games that is as user-friendly as the methods for copying PS2 and XBox titles, but by then the point will probably be moot as Nintendo will be releasing a new system.
...that headline is gross. Why does there have to be an innuendo in everything written on slashdot? And not to mention, having two mice is just a bad idea because most slashdotters like to browse the web with one hand free for... nevermind.
Firebert
Quoth Strong Bad: "Ohhhh! Don't make me call you that- it's not a good commando name!"
But since Fire{something} is a web browser, not a commando, so maybe the name will work out fine... I guess.
You're mixing up ethics with morals. Ethics are values that benefit us as a society, whereas morals are values that benefit us as an individual. Granted, there is some overlap (ie if you like killing people, it is probably bad for you as an individual as well as bad for the society you live in), but laws are primarily there to enforce ethics.
Don't use Outlook/OE.
There are tons of other options out there that aren't vulnerable, such as Mozilla and Thunderbird.
Thank you for telling me this!! As a Slashdot reader, I never would have known that Microsoft's products suck and far superior open source equivalents exist!
Everything I ever read on Slashdot has been pro-MS propaganda until your brilliant comment escorted me out of the cave of ignorance to the enlightened world above!
My eternal thanks.
...is that most of the TV shows I loved as a kid are best left as fond memories.
Well, I was thinking that they'd be better left as Ate My Balls websites, but sure, memories would work too... Whatever floats your boat.
I think he means you'd get a custom bootable linux CD that would work in the kiosks at the coffee shop. This would be a great idea if the distro was tuned to be as simple as user-friendly as possible. They could also give you a CD-RW on which you could store email, settings, cookies, music, etc.
On top of that, HP could offer an extremely cheap and low maintenence (read: Windows-less) internet appliance on which the CD's could be used when you are at home.
Mix in some built-in branding and (unobtrusive, I hope) advertising in the custom distro, and you'd have a pretty profitable racket goin on.
I recently read an article about hybrid cell phones that are capable of transparently switching to an in-range WiFi network to save money on calls. Phones like this would still be usable if there aren't hotspots everywhere, and better yet, if they become popular, they will produce demand to build even more hotspots.
One thing I worry about, however, is that free hotspots may become overcrowded with people carrying out high-bandwidth VOIP conversations. I guess operators of free hotspots will have to take up the practice of using the highest channel so that all the WiFi phones pick up the commercial networks first.
Interestingly, Mono's C# compiler is written in none other than C#.