I remember when the IPO went off and I was a millionaire for about 3 hours.
Then the stock price made a nice slow decent to 50 cents.
It's a little better now, but I still have to be careful how many lattes I drink.
Government involvement is a double edged sword
on
eGovOS 3 Announced
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I have no doubt that the proliferation of Free Software as a result of government promotion of it will result in a virtual awakening of people's minds to the problems that face everyone. The essential human trait is desire for liberty. Second to this is desire for security. Unfortunately these two desires are often mutually exclusive.
They complement each other when one realizes the in Freedom lies the ability to protect ones self. To build a wall of security, if you will. However, this is difficult and treacherous as one person's wall of security is hardly a match for the evils wanting to penetrate it.
So the person turns to government, an amalgamation of people dedicated to the mutual protection of each other. Security becomes an easier thing to maintain, but at the cost of individual Freedom. Enjoining any social contract means losing some Freedom.
So we have now governments interested in promoting Free Software. It is interesting because Free Software doesn't require promotion. All it requires is that it exist Freely and it will be shared with others who wish to use it.
So what sorts of benefits do the governments see in Free Software? No doubt they see the benefits that any user sees, Freedom to interact as an individual with a piece of Free Software. But from the point of view of Free Software, there are hazards.
The government is answerable to no one, especially inanimate objects like Free Software. There exists no method of redressing any violation of the Freedom of the Free Software. In essence, we are throwing the Software to the lions and hoping for the best.
I'm all for the proliferation of Free Software, but I think it is important to realize that government is the antithesis of Freedom. It exists only to usurp Freedom. Care must be taken to see that Free Software is not abused by governments.
The way he explains it, you would think that the Freedom that he speaks about is the Freedom of developers to do stuff with GPL'd software. This is not true.
The Freedom that he so ineloquently describes is Freedom of the SOFTWARE. The Software itself is Free, Liberated, Unchained, whathaveyou. Because it is Free and cannot be made UnFree (this is why the BSD and similar licenses are not Free Software Licenses; even the FSF is falling for the BSD linguistic trickery) you gain the benefit as a developer of all those wonderful things that RMS talks about.
But the key point is the the Software is Free. I wish RMS would stop confusing the issue by trying to make people think the GPL grants users extra rights because it doesn't. The GPL simply sets up a way for Free Software to never be made UnFree.
Someone else mentioned that the selling of Free Software is somehow an affront to the people writing Free Software. They are probably modded down to -1 Flamebait by now.
They are wrong. When someone writes software and releases it under the GPL, they have set free another piece of software. It is really the most beautiful thing you could do for a piece of software, in fact. Without getting into the whole debate about whether it makes sense to anthropomorphize ideas and code by saying the overused phrase "Software wants to be Free", I will just sidestep the issue and say that as a moral developer I believe that software should be Free.
I didn't always feel this way. I used to think that software that I wrote belonged to me as a result of my thinking about it and transcribing my thoughts into Emacs. But this is wrongheaded thinking, and I was shown so by the FSF. It boils down to the fact that once I release my code from my brain it ceases to be mine. Whose is it, you ask. Well, if it doesn't belong to me, then it certainly can't belong to you either. It exists on its own as a Free entity.
Software makers use the artificial method of copyright to recapture this software and to claim ownership of it. This is not unlike the slave traders of old. I would go on here with the slave trader analogy because it is so completely apt, but experience in this forum shows me that most people here who claim to believe in the ideals of the Free Software Foundation simply do not understand the goals of the organization nor the fundamental reasons behind the movement.
So why is selling Free Software okay? Free Software cannot sell itself. It is an inanimate object and thus needs a broker to handle transactions for it. The broker can be as simple as a roommate copying a CD ISO or as involved as a complete corporation dedicated to distributing and supporting the software. Because the software is Free, it can go anywhere and do anything, but of course it needs someone to help it along.
Selling Free Software is good for Free Software. It is nothing more than a person or company taking a small fee for introducing the Free Software package to a new friend.
To play, just take a sheet of paper and make two columns. The left column is called SAFE FOR KIDS. The right column is called FUTURE DEFENDANT.
Now look at the list of new game titles and guess from their descriptions whether they will be FUTURE DEFENDANTs or whether they are just SAFE FOR KIDS.
You can finish the game at any time, just follow the scoring instructions below.
Scoring: Add 10 points to your score for every FUTURE DEFENDANT that gets sued Subtract 20 points for every SAFE FOR KIDS that gets sued Add 10 points for each SAFE FOR KIDS not sued Subtract 10 points for each FUTURE DEFENDANT not sued.
I think this is the main reason Americans really take to the Monty Python troupe. Rather than the normal subdued humor that is the hallmark of European humor (except for that weird shouting humor of Germany), Monty Python takes absurd scenes and works them over the top. In American culture the bigger, louder, more powerful, and more blatant something is, the better.
It's like squeezing juice from an orange vs. squeezing blood from a stone.
Sure you'll run out of juice from the orange eventually and then you'll have a nice glass of orange juice as well. But to squeeze even a drop of blood from a stone, that's magic.
The Gameboy has certainly come a long way from Tetris!
Things like this impress me way more than "Increase your Linux boot speed by 2 inches guaranteed!". It's no big deal to squeeze some spare cycles out of a sloppy system like x86 Linux. It's very cool, OTOH, to squeeze all the juice out of a limited platform like the GB.
That's why I moved my factories to the NP: unionbusting is easy, just toss the little nits into the snow and wait for them to come begging for their job back.
Any thoughts to port it to C and releasing it as a closed source driver? Might make a couple bucks...
If you were unhappy with the driver, it's more than likely some Japanese embedded engineer is sitting in his cube wishing that he could get his hands on a working USB pen storage driver that he didn't have to worry about releasing the source to.
Unless they seriously start doing some racial profiling, airport security is a joke. It isn't 80 year old grandmas and 12 year old boy scouts causing trouble, but that's exactly who I see getting searched every time I go to the airport.
Meanwhile Hamid and Abdullah are going through the gates untouched because the TSA is more afraid of suffering a racial discrimination charge than planes flying into buildings.
Slashdot Mirror
Forget it mister high mighty Master Control... You aren't making me talk...
Suit yourself. End of Line.
I'm not sure where they come up with the idea that mainstream gamers like going around sniffing other dog's asses.
Surely they aren't basing their conclusions on the little amount of research they did at Slashdot HQ.
I remember when the IPO went off and I was a millionaire for about 3 hours.
Then the stock price made a nice slow decent to 50 cents.
It's a little better now, but I still have to be careful how many lattes I drink.
I have no doubt that the proliferation of Free Software as a result of government promotion of it will result in a virtual awakening of people's minds to the problems that face everyone. The essential human trait is desire for liberty. Second to this is desire for security. Unfortunately these two desires are often mutually exclusive.
They complement each other when one realizes the in Freedom lies the ability to protect ones self. To build a wall of security, if you will. However, this is difficult and treacherous as one person's wall of security is hardly a match for the evils wanting to penetrate it.
So the person turns to government, an amalgamation of people dedicated to the mutual protection of each other. Security becomes an easier thing to maintain, but at the cost of individual Freedom. Enjoining any social contract means losing some Freedom.
So we have now governments interested in promoting Free Software. It is interesting because Free Software doesn't require promotion. All it requires is that it exist Freely and it will be shared with others who wish to use it.
So what sorts of benefits do the governments see in Free Software? No doubt they see the benefits that any user sees, Freedom to interact as an individual with a piece of Free Software. But from the point of view of Free Software, there are hazards.
The government is answerable to no one, especially inanimate objects like Free Software. There exists no method of redressing any violation of the Freedom of the Free Software. In essence, we are throwing the Software to the lions and hoping for the best.
I'm all for the proliferation of Free Software, but I think it is important to realize that government is the antithesis of Freedom. It exists only to usurp Freedom. Care must be taken to see that Free Software is not abused by governments.
All right D, unnecessary roughness on the left guard. I want to see some blood this time. I want his grandmother in the nursing home to feel his pain.
The way he explains it, you would think that the Freedom that he speaks about is the Freedom of developers to do stuff with GPL'd software. This is not true.
The Freedom that he so ineloquently describes is Freedom of the SOFTWARE. The Software itself is Free, Liberated, Unchained, whathaveyou. Because it is Free and cannot be made UnFree (this is why the BSD and similar licenses are not Free Software Licenses; even the FSF is falling for the BSD linguistic trickery) you gain the benefit as a developer of all those wonderful things that RMS talks about.
But the key point is the the Software is Free. I wish RMS would stop confusing the issue by trying to make people think the GPL grants users extra rights because it doesn't. The GPL simply sets up a way for Free Software to never be made UnFree.
You suck. So does moderator(s) who think(s) every post that contains ??? is funny.
He included the secret '???' moderation password.
Someone else mentioned that the selling of Free Software is somehow an affront to the people writing Free Software. They are probably modded down to -1 Flamebait by now.
They are wrong. When someone writes software and releases it under the GPL, they have set free another piece of software. It is really the most beautiful thing you could do for a piece of software, in fact. Without getting into the whole debate about whether it makes sense to anthropomorphize ideas and code by saying the overused phrase "Software wants to be Free", I will just sidestep the issue and say that as a moral developer I believe that software should be Free.
I didn't always feel this way. I used to think that software that I wrote belonged to me as a result of my thinking about it and transcribing my thoughts into Emacs. But this is wrongheaded thinking, and I was shown so by the FSF. It boils down to the fact that once I release my code from my brain it ceases to be mine. Whose is it, you ask. Well, if it doesn't belong to me, then it certainly can't belong to you either. It exists on its own as a Free entity.
Software makers use the artificial method of copyright to recapture this software and to claim ownership of it. This is not unlike the slave traders of old. I would go on here with the slave trader analogy because it is so completely apt, but experience in this forum shows me that most people here who claim to believe in the ideals of the Free Software Foundation simply do not understand the goals of the organization nor the fundamental reasons behind the movement.
So why is selling Free Software okay? Free Software cannot sell itself. It is an inanimate object and thus needs a broker to handle transactions for it. The broker can be as simple as a roommate copying a CD ISO or as involved as a complete corporation dedicated to distributing and supporting the software. Because the software is Free, it can go anywhere and do anything, but of course it needs someone to help it along.
Selling Free Software is good for Free Software. It is nothing more than a person or company taking a small fee for introducing the Free Software package to a new friend.
I think it's
3. Pray to god that you can ride out the dot com crash on the enormous amount of VC cash you got early on
1. Get people to write your software for you for free
2. Sell the software rebranded as your own
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
There are no victims.
What's wrong with cybersquatting? How is it different from the pioneers getting 40 acres and a mule?
Let's play Future Defendants!
To play, just take a sheet of paper and make two columns. The left column is called SAFE FOR KIDS. The right column is called FUTURE DEFENDANT.
Now look at the list of new game titles and guess from their descriptions whether they will be FUTURE DEFENDANTs or whether they are just SAFE FOR KIDS.
You can finish the game at any time, just follow the scoring instructions below.
Scoring:
Add 10 points to your score for every FUTURE DEFENDANT that gets sued
Subtract 20 points for every SAFE FOR KIDS that gets sued
Add 10 points for each SAFE FOR KIDS not sued
Subtract 10 points for each FUTURE DEFENDANT not sued.
Fun for the whole family (ages 18+)
I think this is the main reason Americans really take to the Monty Python troupe. Rather than the normal subdued humor that is the hallmark of European humor (except for that weird shouting humor of Germany), Monty Python takes absurd scenes and works them over the top. In American culture the bigger, louder, more powerful, and more blatant something is, the better.
How popular is MP in Europe?
It's like squeezing juice from an orange vs. squeezing blood from a stone.
Sure you'll run out of juice from the orange eventually and then you'll have a nice glass of orange juice as well. But to squeeze even a drop of blood from a stone, that's magic.
Aren't you supposed to return the antenna at the end of the contract?
The Gameboy has certainly come a long way from Tetris!
Things like this impress me way more than "Increase your Linux boot speed by 2 inches guaranteed!". It's no big deal to squeeze some spare cycles out of a sloppy system like x86 Linux. It's very cool, OTOH, to squeeze all the juice out of a limited platform like the GB.
I'd totally be on board with these people except that instead of 1000Mb == 1 Gb, 1024Mb == 1Gb.
They are getting MORE than they think!
American elves are fat, lazy, and overpaid.
That's why I moved my factories to the NP: unionbusting is easy, just toss the little nits into the snow and wait for them to come begging for their job back.
I make toys for good boys and girls the world over. I think I'm doing my part.
It doesn't absolve the boys of guilt, but it is clear that the game influenced them by giving them ideas.
Should the game maker be responsible? I don't know.
Don't mean to be a party pooper, but your state is still able to charge you a sales tax on all catalog and web transactions.
No one will come knock on your door if you don't pay, but it's nice to have that weigh on your mind, you tax-evading thief.
Any thoughts to port it to C and releasing it as a closed source driver? Might make a couple bucks...
If you were unhappy with the driver, it's more than likely some Japanese embedded engineer is sitting in his cube wishing that he could get his hands on a working USB pen storage driver that he didn't have to worry about releasing the source to.
It's a trick. It reduces 'potential emissions'.
It's like when I break into your house and leave gifts. I could have robbed you blind. Aren't you glad I'm such a nice guy?
Unless they seriously start doing some racial profiling, airport security is a joke. It isn't 80 year old grandmas and 12 year old boy scouts causing trouble, but that's exactly who I see getting searched every time I go to the airport.
Meanwhile Hamid and Abdullah are going through the gates untouched because the TSA is more afraid of suffering a racial discrimination charge than planes flying into buildings.