The ability to upload your brain is dependent on the fact of what 'conscience' is made of. If it's just the sum of the parts (some matter, some energy) it should be doable. If it's more than the sum of its parts it might prove difficult.
This completely bypasses the point. One of the points is that, children that are abused by their parents, will be able to get better help because police, government, school, all will be able to communicate to improve a child's situation.
Now I don't think an abusing parent would allow the kid to carry its pod anywhere.
being the author, I'm naturally biased, but you should try Achievo ATK.
It's essentially a 'business framework', targeted at developing web applications. Where other frameworks mainly provide a large set of utility classes, ATK lets you write an application in as few as 10 lines of code.
We're all about inventing every wheel only once. Everything that can be generalized, will be, but anything that the framework automatically offers, can be fully customized.
In one of the replies to this story, I18N and custom security were mentioned. ATK features internationalisation of both data and interface, has several authentication and authorization methods, and lets you add new methods very easily.
A system where we could moderate postings would be nice. If more than x people (with moderator privileges) find a story to be a dupe, it could automatically be hidden.
And I agree that auto dupe checking might also work.
it amazes mee to see *that* many replies with stuff like "it's so bad, this can't be a real dvd", or "why does an english film have english subtitles".
It's a *bootleg*. Probably a chinese spoken copy, subtitled by *the bootleggers* (not the moviemakers!) probably to sell more of it. This is probably also why the subtitles are bigger than they normally would be.
I think most 'mistakes' come from listening to the original, hearing the words but not understanding them correctly.
I still regret ever selling my atari 2600. Even though the graphics sucked in comparison with modern consoles, it was still good for hours and hours of fun.
I think the fun vs graphics ratio was much higher back then. Todays games look awesome, but gameplay usually bores after a few hours. I still much rather play 4d sports driving than any recent f1 simulator, and I was way more fascinated by and addicted to the original Mario than to todays 3d versions..
And not only for computers, but for tv's, microwaves, even electrical shavers. Basically any electrical household equipment.
It's called a 'verwijderingsbijdrage', which literally means something like 'removal fee'. You don't ever get the money back. The fee is used to dismantle and recycle old stuff.
It was a clever decision, commercially. People usually buy more than they throw away. I hardly ever throw something away.
it's in no way as complete as Baan or SAP, but the project has just started 2 months ago and we are already having quite some useful features. (Currently only projecttracking, but other, more ERP-like features will be implemented soon.) It's open source, webbased (php) and it has a cool name.;-)
some time ago, we developed a time tracking tool for our organisation. The company I work for is very pro-open source, and so we decided to open source the program (it's on www.achievo.com). One of the main reasons being: this program could be really cool, but it could be even cooler if people can contribute to it.
And it works.. 4 hours after we had released it for the first time on freshmeat, we already got a german translation from someone. Now, some 7 weeks later, we have our program available in 7 languages, had lots of bugfixes and contributions and we even redesigned the backend after some discussions with other users.
The great thing is that it's also a source of income. We give support to the program and develop on demand (someone can pay us to develop extensions that are not yet in the program).
Now to answer your questions:
Where/how should we host the project? Something internal? Something like SourceForge?
I think sourceforge is great, and it's especially conveniant for all those open source developers out there who don't have the ability to host their own project. Since we can host our project ourselves, we don't need to use sourceforge.
What management structures/tools are helpful? At minimum we'll need a source-code repository and a mailinglist/newsgroup, right?
Definitely a mailing list. For us it's our main communications channel with our users.
What are some effective control stuctures? Who should determine what makes it into an official release?
I think you should just use common sense to make decisions about that. Is feature X or Y beneficial to all my users, or is it specific so that noone can use it. You can always find out by communicating with your users.
Who should be able to add code to the tree?
We don't have cvs yet, and the way contributions are made is mostly by sending me patches through email. Also, I made the software as modular as possible, so people can contribute and/or workon separate modules.
What kinds of resources do we need to commit to this project to make it effective?
Keep it going, please your users, and be a good 'benevolent dictator':-) (that term is from 'the cathedral and the bazaar', a great article from ESR)
I work at a company where we use StarOffice for all internal documents. We even use it to open MS Office files that come from our customers. However, when we have to deliver documents to our customers, I *always* do the final work in MS Office, because I just cannot trust the export filters for 100%. If only a little bit goes wrong, it'll look stupid to our customers. So no, we cannot do without MS Office yet. (And believe me, we tried very hard):-(
Importing is ok when we only use the document internally. However if we need to review a document with a customer, I always print it with MS Office to ensure that page breaks are the same etc.
So that's on the office part. When it comes to development, we also cannot do completely without MS Windows. We still lack a good IDE for linux. Yes there are a few, but no, none of them is flawless yet.
a movie about real geeks who 'find a community on the internet'. While that could be an interesting story, I wonder how they will be able to visualise it. Are we going to have to look at two geeks surfing and chatting for 90 minutes?:-)
I can play Quake2 in linux by using my windows quake2 cd and a few megabytes of extra downloaded executables. Why can't they just put some linux binary on the same cd so everybody's happy with the same box?
I think the situation you depict is quite ok. (Note however there's a big difference whether you studied university or 'hogeschool' (the official english term for that nowadays is 'university of professional education', but the salary is still lower than someone who did a 'real' university.)
I think in general the cost of living in the Netherlands is lower than in the US. (Some exceptions ofcourse, we pay more then twice as much for gas for your car.)
I think that VB's popularity is mostly due to the fact that it's very VERY easy to create simple applications with it. In the article, they talk about "Business Software". For PHB's, all that counts is the GUI, so VB is a lot easier there.:-)
To use any of the other languages, you need to be a Real Programmer. I think C or C++ is more used when what's under the GUI is more important (technical software?).
The Internet is not about borders. It doesn't matter where you come from. What you achieve matters. That you live in a certain country seems totally irrelevant to me.
All this 'this country is underrepresented' or 'that country is overrepresented' are totally useless in a borderless environment like the internet. There should be good people in that board. If those people happen to live in another county than yours, doesn't mean that's bad for a board like this.
I'd rather choose someone for a board based on his experience and quality, than on his nationality. I thought this 'thinking in borders' was getting oldfashioned, but the idea is still everywhere.
I think it's quite ok to use a version name instead of a version number to indicate a release of a bundle of software. It sounds much cooler and is easier to remember than 1.0.53.
However, this month thing may get confusing. How can you know if e.g. JuneGnome is newer then OctoberGnome if you don't have the year in it..
Sure, it's a nice idea to have the same relative base that's matured and been expanded, but I kinda like to think we'll have something more, well, exciting by then.
Do you have to start from scratch to get something more exciting? I mean, in 2060, we all use flying cars that automatically drive, but we'll probably still call it car.:)
A) You can't run KOffice while running Gnome, UNLESS you installed KDE's libraries. That's a) cumbersome and b) novice users won't know this, let alone how to do it. B) I sometimes run KDE apps under gnome: a) it looks ugly, b) I can't dnd between them. c) I can't... etc.
The basic point is that I think that an application like an office suit has little reason to depend on a desktop environment. All reasons it has should in my opinion be solved by little shared libraries and not by an entire set of desktop environment libs.
A while ago, we read from you that being the Open Source advocate you are was wearing you down and influencing your life very badly. Did you cut down on advocating and did it help? In other words, did you get your life back?
I don't think this 'installing two desktop environment library kits' is a nice option.
First of all, the target group (novice users?) won't be able to do that. Besides that, I think it's just Fundamentally Wrong. I can run koffice while using gnome, but than the applications don't operate with eachother.
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed your additions; thanks.
The ability to upload your brain is dependent on the fact of what 'conscience' is made of. If it's just the sum of the parts (some matter, some energy) it should be doable. If it's more than the sum of its parts it might prove difficult.
A while ago I've made a site about the universe as a simulation: http://www.simulism.org/
Earlier today I noticed some other irregularities in google's search results. They seem to be a bit manipulative in the results they present. I've noted them in my blog: http://www.achievo.org/blog/archives/34-Google-sta rting-to-think-for-me.html
This completely bypasses the point. One of the points is that, children that are abused by their parents, will be able to get better help because police, government, school, all will be able to communicate to improve a child's situation.
Now I don't think an abusing parent would allow the kid to carry its pod anywhere.
being the author, I'm naturally biased, but you should try Achievo ATK.
It's essentially a 'business framework', targeted at developing web applications. Where other frameworks mainly provide a large set of utility classes, ATK lets you write an application in as few as 10 lines of code.
We're all about inventing every wheel only once. Everything that can be generalized, will be, but anything that the framework automatically offers, can be fully customized.
In one of the replies to this story, I18N and custom security were mentioned. ATK features internationalisation of both data and interface, has several authentication and authorization methods, and lets you add new methods very easily.
A system where we could moderate postings would be nice. If more than x people (with moderator privileges) find a story to be a dupe, it could automatically be hidden.
And I agree that auto dupe checking might also work.
Hmm,
it amazes mee to see *that* many replies with stuff like "it's so bad, this can't be a real dvd", or "why does an english film have english subtitles".
It's a *bootleg*. Probably a chinese spoken copy, subtitled by *the bootleggers* (not the moviemakers!) probably to sell more of it. This is probably also why the subtitles are bigger than they normally would be.
I think most 'mistakes' come from listening to the original, hearing the words but not understanding them correctly.
Hmm, I might even buy one of those sometime.
I still regret ever selling my atari 2600. Even though the graphics sucked in comparison with modern consoles, it was still good for hours and hours of fun.
I think the fun vs graphics ratio was much higher back then. Todays games look awesome, but gameplay usually bores after a few hours. I still much rather play 4d sports driving than any recent f1 simulator, and I was way more fascinated by and addicted to the original Mario than to todays 3d versions..
And not only for computers, but for tv's, microwaves, even electrical shavers. Basically any electrical household equipment.
It's called a 'verwijderingsbijdrage', which literally means something like 'removal fee'. You don't ever get the money back. The fee is used to dismantle and recycle old stuff.
It was a clever decision, commercially. People usually buy more than they throw away. I hardly ever throw something away.
Ok,
;-)
it's in no way as complete as Baan or SAP, but the project has just started 2 months ago and we are already having quite some useful features.
(Currently only projecttracking, but other, more ERP-like features will be implemented soon.)
It's open source, webbased (php) and it has a cool name.
Check it out at www.achievo.com
Greetings,
Ivo
Anybody know any other mirrors? sun.com is slooooooooooooooooow...
Greetings,
Ivo
Hi,
:-) (that term is from 'the cathedral and the bazaar', a great article from ESR)
some time ago, we developed a time tracking tool for our organisation. The company I work for is very pro-open source, and so we decided to open source the program (it's on www.achievo.com). One of the main reasons being: this program could be really cool, but it could be even cooler if people can contribute to it.
And it works.. 4 hours after we had released it for the first time on freshmeat, we already got a german translation from someone. Now, some 7 weeks later, we have our program available in 7 languages, had lots of bugfixes and contributions and we even redesigned the backend after some discussions with other users.
The great thing is that it's also a source of income. We give support to the program and develop on demand (someone can pay us to develop extensions that are not yet in the program).
Now to answer your questions:
Where/how should we host the project? Something internal? Something like SourceForge?
I think sourceforge is great, and it's especially conveniant for all those open source developers out there who don't have the ability to host their own project. Since we can host our project ourselves, we don't need to use sourceforge.
What management structures/tools are helpful? At minimum we'll need a source-code repository and a mailinglist/newsgroup, right?
Definitely a mailing list. For us it's our main communications channel with our users.
What are some effective control stuctures? Who should determine what makes it into an official release?
I think you should just use common sense to make decisions about that. Is feature X or Y beneficial to all my users, or is it specific so that noone can use it. You can always find out by communicating with your users.
Who should be able to add code to the tree?
We don't have cvs yet, and the way contributions are made is mostly by sending me patches through email. Also, I made the software as modular as possible, so people can contribute and/or workon separate modules.
What kinds of resources do we need to commit to this project to make it effective?
Keep it going, please your users, and be a good 'benevolent dictator'
Greetings,
Ivo
I work at a company where we use StarOffice for all internal documents. We even use it to open MS Office files that come from our customers. However, when we have to deliver documents to our customers, I *always* do the final work in MS Office, because I just cannot trust the export filters for 100%. If only a little bit goes wrong, it'll look stupid to our customers. So no, we cannot do without MS Office yet. (And believe me, we tried very hard) :-(
Importing is ok when we only use the document internally. However if we need to review a document with a customer, I always print it with MS Office to ensure that page breaks are the same etc.
So that's on the office part. When it comes to development, we also cannot do completely without MS Windows. We still lack a good IDE for linux. Yes there are a few, but no, none of them is flawless yet.
Greetings,
Ivo
Hmm..
:-)
a movie about real geeks who 'find a community on the internet'.
While that could be an interesting story, I wonder how they will be able to visualise it. Are we going to have to look at two geeks surfing and chatting for 90 minutes?
Greetings,
Ivo
I can play Quake2 in linux by using my windows quake2 cd and a few megabytes of extra downloaded executables. Why can't they just put some linux binary on the same cd so everybody's happy with the same box?
Greetings,
Ivo
I think the situation you depict is quite ok. (Note however there's a big difference whether you studied university or 'hogeschool' (the official english term for that nowadays is 'university of professional education', but the salary is still lower than someone who did a 'real' university.)
I think in general the cost of living in the Netherlands is lower than in the US. (Some exceptions ofcourse, we pay more then twice as much for gas for your car.)
Greetings,
Ivo
I think that VB's popularity is mostly due to the fact that it's very VERY easy to create simple applications with it. In the article, they talk about "Business Software". For PHB's, all that counts is the GUI, so VB is a lot easier there.
To use any of the other languages, you need to be a Real Programmer. I think C or C++ is more used when what's under the GUI is more important (technical software?).
Greetings,
Ivo
The Internet is not about borders. It doesn't matter where you come from. What you achieve matters. That you live in a certain country seems totally irrelevant to me.
All this 'this country is underrepresented' or 'that country is overrepresented' are totally useless in a borderless environment like the internet. There should be good people in that board. If those people happen to live in another county than yours, doesn't mean that's bad for a board like this.
I'd rather choose someone for a board based on his experience and quality, than on his nationality. I thought this 'thinking in borders' was getting oldfashioned, but the idea is still everywhere.
Greetings,
Ivo
I think it's quite ok to use a version name instead of a version number to indicate a release of a bundle of software. It sounds much cooler and is easier to remember than 1.0.53.
However, this month thing may get confusing. How can you know if e.g. JuneGnome is newer then OctoberGnome if you don't have the year in it..
Greetings,
Ivo
Let's send a probe to that planet. Maybe they already have all this stuff there. :-)
:)
I'd really like to know what a Perfectly Normal Beast sandwich tastes like.
Hi,
this must be the planet Rupert! (Ever read the 5th part of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy?)
Greetings,
Ivo
Sure, it's a nice idea to have the same relative base that's matured and been expanded, but I kinda like to think we'll have something more, well, exciting by then.
:)
Do you have to start from scratch to get something more exciting? I mean, in 2060, we all use flying cars that automatically drive, but we'll probably still call it car.
Greetings,
Ivo
A) You can't run KOffice while running Gnome, UNLESS you installed KDE's libraries. That's a) cumbersome and b) novice users won't know this, let alone how to do it. ... etc.
B) I sometimes run KDE apps under gnome: a) it looks ugly, b) I can't dnd between them. c) I can't
The basic point is that I think that an application like an office suit has little reason to depend on a desktop environment. All reasons it has should in my opinion be solved by little shared libraries and not by an entire set of desktop environment libs.
Greetings,
Ivo
A while ago, we read from you that being the Open Source advocate you are was wearing you down and influencing your life very badly. Did you cut down on advocating and did it help? In other words, did you get your life back?
Greetings,
Ivo
I don't think this 'installing two desktop environment library kits' is a nice option.
First of all, the target group (novice users?) won't be able to do that. Besides that, I think it's just Fundamentally Wrong. I can run koffice while using gnome, but than the applications don't operate with eachother.
Greetings,
Ivo