That's certainly an issue. I spoke to the state licensing board about that and they basically said "tough". I used to work at Texas Engineering Extension Service and plenty of employees had an engineering education, but few to none were PEs. So even in a cross-disciplinary environment, moet of the engineers aren't PEs.
My current boss has an engineering degree, electrical engineering, and he didn't even recognize the term "PE" when I asked him.
Yes. One can now get the degree, pass the test, have four years of experience supervised by an existing PE, then use the Professional Engineer branding for software engineers.
The organization which controls the title Professional Engineer and which sets the standards some states use for licensure does in fact certify Professional Engineers in software just as they do for electrical engineering and other branches of engineering. So they recognize it IS engineering.
They also recognize that just as most construction workers aren't engineers, neither are most code monkeys. It's a common mistake to think that everyone working on information systems or software is a coder. That's no more true than thinking that everyone involved with building a skycraper is a welder. The structure of a skyscraper requires engineering, which should be performed by a qualified person, the elevator and hvac systems inside require engineering to design properly, and the enterprise information systems housed in the building also require engineering, which again shoul be done by a qualified person. You wouldn't have any random hvac employee witha pressure gauge design the entire hvac system for a skyscraper, and you shouldn't have any random coder design the enterprise information architecture either.
NSPE also recognizes that there is a difference between an engineer (someone skilled in the art and science of engineering) and a Professional Engineer (trademark). Their faq page includes the question "What makes a PE different from an engineer?" Just as not all good real-estate agents use the Realtor brand, not all good engineers use the Professional Engineer brand.
Two groups of asshats causing problems, no doubt about that.
> Government is the problem regardless of which of these two asshat parties happens to be in charge
"Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem. " - Ronald Reagan
The republicans did pull a pretty good trick on the democrats a couple of years ago. The two parties couldn't agree on which government offices should get a budget "cut" (which means slow the growth of) and which ones to grow faster. So to ensure they'd eventually come to agreement, they said if they didn't come to agreement, EVERYBODY'S favorite program would get a budget "cut". Nobody wants that, right? So surely with that "sequestration" ultimatum in place, both sides would be ready to wheel and deal to get it done, the Democrats thought.
What they didn't fully realise is that as much as the Republicans like to grow their favorite programs, they're also happy to cut back on government in general. So sequestration remained, and the growth of government was cut.
Yes, the Republicans are asshats who do stupid things, but the repubs KNOW both parties are asshats. And sequestration shows they're willing to reduce their own asshattery if that's what it takes to reduce Democrat asshattery.
That, to me, is definitely the better of two bad choices.
Windows is Android now? When did that happen? Let me quote the friggin HEADLINE for you: Trojan That Can Target Android, Linux, Mac and Windows
All it exploits (on Windows, Mac, and Linux) is something you don't like about Android? I didn't know know Windows, Mac, and Linux are all Android distributions now.
For the first 12 years, OpenOffice/Staroffice ran only on Microsoft operating systems. It's a DOS/Windows program designed with a Microsoft style mindset, ported to Linux more than a decade after it was released. It's not The Unix Way. It's good and useful, and it's 100% a Windows program ported to Linux.
> Systemd is a wrapper > All your little tools collected in one place
So it's a bunch of little tools wrapped together in a package, you say? That's nothing at all like a Swiss Army knife, then. A Swiss Army knife is completely different. A Swiss Army knife is a bunch of little tools wrapped together. As you said, systemd isn't that, systemd is a bunch of little tools wrapped together.
> But inherently it's a feature that Linux needs
It's quite a few features that Linux needs (98% of those being features Linux already had).
Try this some time. Delete everything on / except systemd. (Keep your kernel on/boot). You'll find you can still boot and get a shell (a systemd shell), on a system with nothing but systemd and a kernel installed. You know what you call a package of software that you can boot up and use, without depending on any other software to already be running? An _operating_system_. Look up any rigorous definition of an operating system and see if systemd+kernel isn't an operating system.
I didn't say having thousands or tens of thousands of features was a bad thing. In fact, I said it's NOT a bad thing. It's simply one of two ways to accomplish the same goal.
In the Microsoft approach, each program has thousands of features. There are maybe 6,000 features that Word, Excel, and Outlook all have, separately - they can all search, sort, etc. That's cool, it works for a lot people.
The other way is that you have a program which sorts (called sort), which searches (grep), etc. If you want to both search AND sort at the same time, you simply run both programs: grep pattern source | sort
The cool thing about that is that you can search and sort with EVERY cli tool the same way, by simply piping it into grep or sort. Wget doesn't need to have search and sort built-in, you can just: wget http://datafeed.com/ -O - | grep stuff
Separate, small tools is the Unix way. Both work fine ( for some definition of "fine"). Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. On Linux, I can type up a command to rename files with random numbers almost as fast as I decide I want them randomized. Creating the same program on Windows took a couple of days. On the other hand, the Windows program is -visual- you can -see- how to use it once someone programs it for you and you find and install it. The Linux command you have to figure out.
Microsoft software DOES tend to be Swiss Army Knife. MS Word has THOUSANDS of menu and option items. I just right-clicked a random place on my screen and saw that Excel sorts on FONT COLOR.
Unix/Linux on the other hand, uses the "sort" program. It sorts. That's all. It doesn't do calculations, it doesn't know about fonts. It sorts, period.
Because "sort" only sorts, and "cut" only cuts, they are each good at what they do. Excel and other Microsoft software, on the other hand, has thousands of functions, they don't specialize in one thing. Much like a Swiss Army knife, which includes a dozen tools - tiny scissors, a two-inch saw, etc.
Neither is necessarily right or wrong, but of course a saw is better at sawing than a Swiss Army knife is, and a standard pair of scissors is better at scissoring than the tiny scissors included in a Swiss Army Knife. On the other hand, a Swiss Army knife is also very useful.
Systemd is a Swiss Army knife - it tries to pack everything and the kitchen sink into one multi-purpose thing. That's not inherently good or bad, it -is- Microsoft-like, not Unix-like.
At this point Lennart points out that systemd contains multiple binaries. Yeah, and a Swiss Army knife contains multiple blades.
I certainly see where you're coming from. On the other hand, most of the time that I see an email come in on my phone I'm not THAT interested in building a special bond with the person, and it might be handy to immediately respond with a couple of taps at the next stop light. So I'm not sure myself. I'll try it and see.
> Can you imagine using an autogenerated response in a conversation with your boss? Just saves some typing, right? No?
All the time, and I -wished- people who worked for me would have done so, to make the "same" response more consistent and save time for both of us. Customers also particularly appreciate one of my "mental autoresponses" (explained below).
Microsoft Lync has macros I used to use all the time, so I'd type "omw" and it would auto-expand to "on my way". Simpler for both sender and reader than "As requested, I am now leaving and will be there shortly."
For the most common messages, we'd actually do the automatic template expansion mentally. Rather than actually selecting the template response, we'd just reference it. I'd reply to many emails with just "Done." Which is effectively a template for "The below-referenced task has been completed as requested." We would frequently meet at a particular location on the first floor (our offices were on the second). The first few times we'd say "Shall we meet downstairs?" Which was soon abbreviated to "down?", which then became "d?". Saving typing is good.
I found customers really like the "implied template" response of "Done." when a requested task has been completed quickly. They email "Can you pelase... blah blah blah....", two minutes later they get the reply "Done." SO much different and better than the endless stream of excuses and questions they get from other companies. You asked, it's done, period. Next?
Fyi regarding "capitalism without socialism is Syria", Syria is a socialist country, after being communist before. They legalized private business a few years ago, but over 30% of business is owned and run by the government, and a third of the population is on the government payroll.
Yemen's economy was crap when it was a communist satellite of the USSR, surviving only on Soviet aid. Unification of North and South Yemen caused more problems because their economic systems were quite different. After many decades of great poverty, they have recently bought been moving more toward the economic principles of far richer countries like the US.
> Sorry, but the fallacies I have mentioned are observed facts.
Facts can't be fallacies. Again, you might want to look up the word "fallacy". It doesn't mean what you think it does. Or maybe what you wish it does - it seems you conflate what you wish vs actual reality.
Fallacies are (generally named) patterns of invalid logic, such as circular reasoning. Wikipedia does a good job of listing most of the major fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You'll recognize a few from your post, which includes (in order) cherry-picking, straw man, and Nirvana fallacy.
I haven't seen any mention that they have to STORE all web traffic or other data, only that it can be decrypted (potentially in real time), so I don't know that they have to retroactively decrypt it.
If they wanted to be able to decrypt it, that's easy enough. the browser contain a list of trusted root certificates which are allowed to sign https certificates. They could add their own cert, or the government's cert, as a trusted root. That would allow the government to impersonate the bank or other https site. The browser (or ISP) would also be set to us the government's system as a proxy, so that the government would receive the connection, claim to be Bank.com (proved by their cert), and then forward traffic to the real bank.com. Easy enough.
A more courageous and simpler option would be to simply remove support for https in the UK model. When you try to use https, the browser instead displays the message "secure connections are banned in the UK. Contact your Minister of Parliament _here_ for more information."
People won't contribute unless they're using it, and they are also encouraged to contribute. So to move forward you'd want people to start using it. They'd need to be able to get it (github), they'd need to know how to use it (thorough documentation), and they'd need to kniw about it and how it can help them. In order for people to know about it, it might be helpful to post on forums which include people who would find it useful. You could also individually contact some of your counterparts in other organizations if you think it would be useful to them.
I have two suggestions for you. First, you might want to look up the word "fallacy". Since you enjoy debate, it will be useful to you know what a fallacy is. (It doesn't mean "wish").
Second, in the world we actually live in, you will get old. It will come in very handy to have some money set aside, so I strongly encourage you to consider contributing to your 401k. Your company will probably match part of your contribution, which is free money. Investment: it's not just for rich guys; it's for anyone who recognizes "later" will actually happen.
Speaking of rich guys, over 90% of millionaires made less than $100,00 and became millionaires slowly, by sensible investment such as broad-based mutual funds. That's how average guys become millionaires - slow and steady.
I too wonder if there is any use case where it's a good fit? On the desktop Linux obviously has better hardware and software compatibility, but there's a use case for BSD, a use case (or two) for QNX, etc - is their one for Mach or Hurd? Is it super ultra reliable, or extremely fast because it's so small or...?
If you're building a firewall machine, you don't care if it can run Gnome or not, and you don't care about video card support . Is there any type of build in which this kernel makes sense?
You wonder why I said that someone has to work in order to provide all day the things you need and want? True, machines have been doing more and more of the work since roughly 1685, so 430 years. Perhaps you can form a society in which nobody works, while machines grow food, inspect it, package it, cook it, and deliver it.
Why don't you give it a try. You can buy a hundred acres in Montana, Wyoming, or parts of Texas or Arkansas for almost nothing and set up your own little society. Then see of machines bring you tennis shoes. Try it and see. I suspect you'll get pretty hungry about 18 hours into your experiment, but give it a shot.
If a certain piece of real-estate is a factory, it's not also a park at the same time. If you put resources such as steel and labor into building a ship, you can't at the same time put those same resources into building a power plant.
For making such economic decisions, it is helpful to be able to measure the relative costs of different types of resources. Is it better to use up 1,000 hours of labor, or 5,000 pounds of steel? To decide, we must know how much labor is costs compared to steel. We measure this in a unit called dollars. The important point here is that when we say "it cost $10 million dollars to build the ship", what that means is "building the ship used up $10 million worth of resources- labor, steel, etc." It's a measurement of the actual cost, of actual resources which were used up. Those labor hours are used and gone. That's one use of the word "money" - as a MEASUREMENT of resources used or generated.
Much as a measuring cup can be reused, dollar numbers in bank databases can also be reused, or created. That doesn't create or recreate the resources which money can measure. If you eat a pound of bread, you still have the scale, but the bread is gone. It's turned to shit. If you eat $1 of bread, the bread is gone, turned to shit, while the dollar previously used to measure it is now used to measure some other thing.
It would be silly to walk back from the field to the scale every time your bucket is HALF full. You'd spend half your time walking backing and forth instead of picking berries. The reasonable thing to do is to fill your bucket (with berries) before walking back.
The belief is that people do in fact generally tend to try to take care of themselves and their families, to "be selfish". Since that isn't going to change, when making decisions about economic systems it's wise to recognize that fact and use it to your advantage. A simple example:
A successful system requires that people work. People want to have money. Therefore, a system in which people get money by working is more likely to be successful.
That's technically not a -capitalist- view, it's a liberty view. Strictly speaking, capitalism is something very specific and not actually that closely related. Capitalism recognizes that: A successful economy requires investment (ships, factories, etc). This is called CAPITAL. Capital invested may be lost, and in any event it's unavailable for other use so long as it is invested. Therefore, whomever puts aside their own money and rather thean spending it, invests it into capital (401k) fairly should share in the rewards generated by their investment.
That's capitalism, very simple. The opposite view is that the elite class should forcefully take your money to invest in capital, take the rewards of investment themselves, then spread those out as they see fit. That's communism. Then you have the option to mix the two, whuch is called socialism.
To me, a huge value of FOSS is that the vendor doesn't have you by the balls. If you need something fixed or changed, you can hire any of millions of programmers to take care of that for you. It doesn't matter if the vendor has gone out of business, isn't interested, etc. - you're in control of your own systems.
This can be worth millions of dollars to a large business or government agency, because migrating to a different, competing system can cost that much if your current software doesn't fill your need. If you need some piece to handle Euros as well as dollars, a programmer with the open source can probably do that for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, instead of tens of thousands or even millions to replace the system throughout your organization and re-do all of the integration work, employee training, etc.
That and of course for smaller organizations and families the dollar cost difference can be huge, allowing homes and small offices to have enterprise grade functionality. A router with "advanced" features like QOS can easily cost a thousand dollars or more. OpenWRT is $0.
Have a read of the relevant sections of the oldest, most original CATB you can find. I think you'll see it says the same thing. You see, he was talking about the (then new) troubleshooting process that Linus had implemented.
The solution to the metafile bug didn't require deep meditation for ten years. If you don't know there is a bug, that doesn't mean it's buried deep, it just means you don't know there's a bug.
Of course to prevent bugs you need educated developers, good testing, etc. That's all true. And has little or nothing to do with what ESR discussed in that passage. Again, he didn't say "no bugs exist", he said "the solution will be obvious to someone" - it's about the process of solving bugs - preventing them is another topic altogether. If you read the four or five sentences BEFORE thehalf of the sentence that became famous, he's talking about a the difference between user who can only see the problematic output of a binary versus someone who can read the source and see which part is going wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
That's certainly an issue. I spoke to the state licensing board about that and they basically said "tough". I used to work at Texas Engineering Extension Service and plenty of employees had an engineering education, but few to none were PEs. So even in a cross-disciplinary environment, moet of the engineers aren't PEs.
My current boss has an engineering degree, electrical engineering, and he didn't even recognize the term "PE" when I asked him.
Yes. One can now get the degree, pass the test, have four years of experience supervised by an existing PE, then use the Professional Engineer branding for software engineers.
The organization which controls the title Professional Engineer and which sets the standards some states use for licensure does in fact certify Professional Engineers in software just as they do for electrical engineering and other branches of engineering. So they recognize it IS engineering.
They also recognize that just as most construction workers aren't engineers, neither are most code monkeys. It's a common mistake to think that everyone working on information systems or software is a coder. That's no more true than thinking that everyone involved with building a skycraper is a welder. The structure of a skyscraper requires engineering, which should be performed by a qualified person, the elevator and hvac systems inside require engineering to design properly, and the enterprise information systems housed in the building also require engineering, which again shoul be done by a qualified person. You wouldn't have any random hvac employee witha pressure gauge design the entire hvac system for a skyscraper, and you shouldn't have any random coder design the enterprise information architecture either.
NSPE also recognizes that there is a difference between an engineer (someone skilled in the art and science of engineering) and a Professional Engineer (trademark). Their faq page includes the question "What makes a PE different from an engineer?" Just as not all good real-estate agents use the Realtor brand, not all good engineers use the Professional Engineer brand.
Two groups of asshats causing problems, no doubt about that.
> Government is the problem regardless of which of these two asshat parties happens to be in charge
"Government isn't the solution to our problems. Government IS the problem. " - Ronald Reagan
The republicans did pull a pretty good trick on the democrats a couple of years ago. The two parties couldn't agree on which government offices should get a budget "cut" (which means slow the growth of) and which ones to grow faster. So to ensure they'd eventually come to agreement, they said if they didn't come to agreement, EVERYBODY'S favorite program would get a budget "cut". Nobody wants that, right? So surely with that "sequestration" ultimatum in place, both sides would be ready to wheel and deal to get it done, the Democrats thought.
What they didn't fully realise is that as much as the Republicans like to grow their favorite programs, they're also happy to cut back on government in general. So sequestration remained, and the growth of government was cut.
Yes, the Republicans are asshats who do stupid things, but the repubs KNOW both parties are asshats. And sequestration shows they're willing to reduce their own asshattery if that's what it takes to reduce Democrat asshattery.
That, to me, is definitely the better of two bad choices.
The video says you can control Windows From Windows, Windows from Android, etc.
>Nope, it exploits only one thing: Android's ...
Windows is Android now? When did that happen? Let me quote the friggin HEADLINE for you:
Trojan That Can Target Android, Linux, Mac and Windows
All it exploits (on Windows, Mac, and Linux) is something you don't like about Android? I didn't know know Windows, Mac, and Linux are all Android distributions now.
For the first 12 years, OpenOffice/Staroffice ran only on Microsoft operating systems. It's a DOS/Windows program designed with a Microsoft style mindset, ported to Linux more than a decade after it was released. It's not The Unix Way. It's good and useful, and it's 100% a Windows program ported to Linux.
> Systemd is a wrapper
> All your little tools collected in one place
So it's a bunch of little tools wrapped together in a package, you say? That's nothing at all like a Swiss Army knife, then. A Swiss Army knife is completely different. A Swiss Army knife is a bunch of little tools wrapped together. As you said, systemd isn't that, systemd is a bunch of little tools wrapped together.
> But inherently it's a feature that Linux needs
It's quite a few features that Linux needs (98% of those being features Linux already had).
Try this some time. Delete everything on / except systemd. (Keep your kernel on /boot). You'll find you can still boot and get a shell (a systemd shell), on a system with nothing but systemd and a kernel installed. You know what you call a package of software that you can boot up and use, without depending on any other software to already be running? An _operating_system_. Look up any rigorous definition of an operating system and see if systemd+kernel isn't an operating system.
I didn't say having thousands or tens of thousands of features was a bad thing. In fact, I said it's NOT a bad thing. It's simply one of two ways to accomplish the same goal.
In the Microsoft approach, each program has thousands of features. There are maybe 6,000 features that Word, Excel, and Outlook all have, separately - they can all search, sort, etc. That's cool, it works for a lot people.
The other way is that you have a program which sorts (called sort), which searches (grep), etc. If you want to both search AND sort at the same time, you simply run both programs:
grep pattern source | sort
The cool thing about that is that you can search and sort with EVERY cli tool the same way, by simply piping it into grep or sort. Wget doesn't need to have search and sort built-in, you can just:
wget http://datafeed.com/ -O - | grep stuff
Separate, small tools is the Unix way. Both work fine ( for some definition of "fine"). Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. On Linux, I can type up a command to rename files with random numbers almost as fast as I decide I want them randomized. Creating the same program on Windows took a couple of days. On the other hand, the Windows program is -visual- you can -see- how to use it once someone programs it for you and you find and install it. The Linux command you have to figure out.
Microsoft software DOES tend to be Swiss Army Knife. MS Word has THOUSANDS of menu and option items. I just right-clicked a random place on my screen and saw that Excel sorts on FONT COLOR.
Unix/Linux on the other hand, uses the "sort" program. It sorts. That's all. It doesn't do calculations, it doesn't know about fonts. It sorts, period.
Because "sort" only sorts, and "cut" only cuts, they are each good at what they do. Excel and other Microsoft software, on the other hand, has thousands of functions, they don't specialize in one thing. Much like a Swiss Army knife, which includes a dozen tools - tiny scissors, a two-inch saw, etc.
Neither is necessarily right or wrong, but of course a saw is better at sawing than a Swiss Army knife is, and a standard pair of scissors is better at scissoring than the tiny scissors included in a Swiss Army Knife. On the other hand, a Swiss Army knife is also very useful.
Systemd is a Swiss Army knife - it tries to pack everything and the kitchen sink into one multi-purpose thing. That's not inherently good or bad, it -is- Microsoft-like, not Unix-like.
At this point Lennart points out that systemd contains multiple binaries. Yeah, and a Swiss Army knife contains multiple blades.
I certainly see where you're coming from. On the other hand, most of the time that I see an email come in on my phone I'm not THAT interested in building a special bond with the person, and it might be handy to immediately respond with a couple of taps at the next stop light. So I'm not sure myself. I'll try it and see.
> Can you imagine using an autogenerated response in a conversation with your boss? Just saves some typing, right? No?
All the time, and I -wished- people who worked for me would have done so, to make the "same" response more consistent and save time for both of us. Customers also particularly appreciate one of my "mental autoresponses" (explained below).
Microsoft Lync has macros I used to use all the time, so I'd type "omw" and it would auto-expand to "on my way". Simpler for both sender and reader than "As requested, I am now leaving and will be there shortly."
For the most common messages, we'd actually do the automatic template expansion mentally. Rather than actually selecting the template response, we'd just reference it. I'd reply to many emails with just "Done." Which is effectively a template for "The below-referenced task has been completed as requested." We would frequently meet at a particular location on the first floor (our offices were on the second). The first few times we'd say "Shall we meet downstairs?" Which was soon abbreviated to "down?", which then became "d?". Saving typing is good.
I found customers really like the "implied template" response of "Done." when a requested task has been completed quickly. They email "Can you pelase... blah blah blah ....", two minutes later they get the reply "Done." SO much different and better than the endless stream of excuses and questions they get from other companies. You asked, it's done, period. Next?
Fyi regarding "capitalism without socialism is Syria", Syria is a socialist country, after being communist before. They legalized private business a few years ago, but over 30% of business is owned and run by the government, and a third of the population is on the government payroll.
Yemen's economy was crap when it was a communist satellite of the USSR, surviving only on Soviet aid. Unification of North and South Yemen caused more problems because their economic systems were quite different. After many decades of great poverty, they have recently bought been moving more toward the economic principles of far richer countries like the US.
> Sorry, but the fallacies I have mentioned are observed facts.
Facts can't be fallacies. Again, you might want to look up the word "fallacy". It doesn't mean what you think it does. Or maybe what you wish it does - it seems you conflate what you wish vs actual reality.
Fallacies are (generally named) patterns of invalid logic, such as circular reasoning. Wikipedia does a good job of listing most of the major fallacies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You'll recognize a few from your post, which includes (in order) cherry-picking, straw man, and Nirvana fallacy.
I haven't seen any mention that they have to STORE all web traffic or other data, only that it can be decrypted (potentially in real time), so I don't know that they have to retroactively decrypt it.
If they wanted to be able to decrypt it, that's easy enough. the browser contain a list of trusted root certificates which are allowed to sign https certificates. They could add their own cert, or the government's cert, as a trusted root. That would allow the government to impersonate the bank or other https site. The browser (or ISP) would also be set to us the government's system as a proxy, so that the government would receive the connection, claim to be Bank.com (proved by their cert), and then forward traffic to the real bank.com. Easy enough.
A more courageous and simpler option would be to simply remove support for https in the UK model. When you try to use https, the browser instead displays the message "secure connections are banned in the UK. Contact your Minister of Parliament _here_ for more information."
People won't contribute unless they're using it, and they are also encouraged to contribute. So to move forward you'd want people to start using it. They'd need to be able to get it (github), they'd need to know how to use it (thorough documentation), and they'd need to kniw about it and how it can help them. In order for people to know about it, it might be helpful to post on forums which include people who would find it useful. You could also individually contact some of your counterparts in other organizations if you think it would be useful to them.
I have two suggestions for you. First, you might want to look up the word "fallacy". Since you enjoy debate, it will be useful to you know what a fallacy is. (It doesn't mean "wish").
Second, in the world we actually live in, you will get old. It will come in very handy to have some money set aside, so I strongly encourage you to consider contributing to your 401k. Your company will probably match part of your contribution, which is free money. Investment: it's not just for rich guys; it's for anyone who recognizes "later" will actually happen.
Speaking of rich guys, over 90% of millionaires made less than $100,00 and became millionaires slowly, by sensible investment such as broad-based mutual funds. That's how average guys become millionaires - slow and steady.
I too wonder if there is any use case where it's a good fit? On the desktop Linux obviously has better hardware and software compatibility, but there's a use case for BSD, a use case (or two) for QNX, etc - is their one for Mach or Hurd? Is it super ultra reliable, or extremely fast because it's so small or ...?
If you're building a firewall machine, you don't care if it can run Gnome or not, and you don't care about video card support . Is there any type of build in which this kernel makes sense?
You wonder why I said that someone has to work in order to provide all day the things you need and want? True, machines have been doing more and more of the work since roughly 1685, so 430 years. Perhaps you can form a society in which nobody works, while machines grow food, inspect it, package it, cook it, and deliver it.
Why don't you give it a try. You can buy a hundred acres in Montana, Wyoming, or parts of Texas or Arkansas for almost nothing and set up your own little society. Then see of machines bring you tennis shoes. Try it and see. I suspect you'll get pretty hungry about 18 hours into your experiment, but give it a shot.
If a certain piece of real-estate is a factory, it's not also a park at the same time. If you put resources such as steel and labor into building a ship, you can't at the same time put those same resources into building a power plant.
For making such economic decisions, it is helpful to be able to measure the relative costs of different types of resources. Is it better to use up 1,000 hours of labor, or 5,000 pounds of steel? To decide, we must know how much labor is costs compared to steel. We measure this in a unit called dollars. The important point here is that when we say "it cost $10 million dollars to build the ship", what that means is "building the ship used up $10 million worth of resources- labor, steel, etc." It's a measurement of the actual cost, of actual resources which were used up. Those labor hours are used and gone. That's one use of the word "money" - as a MEASUREMENT of resources used or generated.
Much as a measuring cup can be reused, dollar numbers in bank databases can also be reused, or created. That doesn't create or recreate the resources which money can measure. If you eat a pound of bread, you still have the scale, but the bread is gone. It's turned to shit. If you eat $1 of bread, the bread is gone, turned to shit, while the dollar previously used to measure it is now used to measure some other thing.
It would be silly to walk back from the field to the scale every time your bucket is HALF full. You'd spend half your time walking backing and forth instead of picking berries. The reasonable thing to do is to fill your bucket (with berries) before walking back.
The belief is that people do in fact generally tend to try to take care of themselves and their families, to "be selfish". Since that isn't going to change, when making decisions about economic systems it's wise to recognize that fact and use it to your advantage. A simple example:
A successful system requires that people work.
People want to have money.
Therefore, a system in which people get money by working is more likely to be successful.
That's technically not a -capitalist- view, it's a liberty view. Strictly speaking, capitalism is something very specific and not actually that closely related. Capitalism recognizes that:
A successful economy requires investment (ships, factories, etc). This is called CAPITAL.
Capital invested may be lost, and in any event it's unavailable for other use so long as it is invested.
Therefore, whomever puts aside their own money and rather thean spending it, invests it into capital (401k) fairly should share in the rewards generated by their investment.
That's capitalism, very simple. The opposite view is that the elite class should forcefully take your money to invest in capital, take the rewards of investment themselves, then spread those out as they see fit. That's communism. Then you have the option to mix the two, whuch is called socialism.
Fill a bucket with leaves and twigs.
Fill a bucket with berries.
Weigh them.
It's magic.
To me, a huge value of FOSS is that the vendor doesn't have you by the balls. If you need something fixed or changed, you can hire any of millions of programmers to take care of that for you. It doesn't matter if the vendor has gone out of business, isn't interested, etc. - you're in control of your own systems.
This can be worth millions of dollars to a large business or government agency, because migrating to a different, competing system can cost that much if your current software doesn't fill your need. If you need some piece to handle Euros as well as dollars, a programmer with the open source can probably do that for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, instead of tens of thousands or even millions to replace the system throughout your organization and re-do all of the integration work, employee training, etc.
That and of course for smaller organizations and families the dollar cost difference can be huge, allowing homes and small offices to have enterprise grade functionality. A router with "advanced" features like QOS can easily cost a thousand dollars or more. OpenWRT is $0.
Have a read of the relevant sections of the oldest, most original CATB you can find. I think you'll see it says the same thing. You see, he was talking about the (then new) troubleshooting process that Linus had implemented.
The solution to the metafile bug didn't require deep meditation for ten years. If you don't know there is a bug, that doesn't mean it's buried deep, it just means you don't know there's a bug.
Of course to prevent bugs you need educated developers, good testing, etc. That's all true. And has little or nothing to do with what ESR discussed in that passage. Again, he didn't say "no bugs exist", he said "the solution will be obvious to someone" - it's about the process of solving bugs - preventing them is another topic altogether. If you read the four or five sentences BEFORE thehalf of the sentence that became famous, he's talking about a the difference between user who can only see the problematic output of a binary versus someone who can read the source and see which part is going wrong.