He's going to be working with Richard Clarke, which probably means he's going to make a lot of dramatic speeches about how "cyberattacks" could cause economic damage that is the "functional equivalent of 767's crashing into buildings".
See here
for the kind of stuff this guy's going to be working on.
I guess they don't want disabled programmers working on free software for them.
I have ulnar neropathy. My arms are pretty toasted from computer use.
Does it affect your brain as well?
If not, how is it that you were unable to read the part two paragraphs below the section you quoted?
We don't insist that users of GNU, or contributors to GNU[emphasis mine], have to live by this rule. It is a rule we made for ourselves. But we hope you will decide to follow it too.
It is not RMS's goal to prohibit running GNU software with or on top of proprietary software. He simply doesn't want to provide proprietary software with free advertising. See the GNU Coding Standards. I believe that explains his position fairly well.
I'm not sure why people have a problem understanding this. Forget about RMS and GNU for a minute, and consider the point of view of any other software developer, say, Apple. Obviously, Apple wants to serve its customers as well as possible, so it wants to make software that can run on and interoperate with Microsoft systems. At the same time, Apple certainly does not want to suggest to users that they ought to rush out and buy the latest version of Windows XP. Like any other software developer, RMS wants to try to promote his own systems as much as possible, while providing compatibility as a convenience to its users. (Of course, that is probably where the similarities between RMS and proprietary software developers end...)
1: Does recording a new Britney Spears (or another artist you may actually like) album cost money? You betcha.
Baking mud pies costs money. That does not mean they are worth anything.
2: Is a new Britney Spears album in demand? Maybe not for you, but several million teenagers think you're wrong, and who are you to say you've got better taste than them?
Well, they themselves probably will say that, as soon as they get a few years older.
3: The way you talk, you'd think that all commercial music was Britney and Spice Girls.
You haven't watched MTV in the last few years, have you?
Increasing security concerns and even national security concerns at this
delicate time. Peer-to-peer will get attention because of the soldier risk in denial
of service attacks....
There they go jumping on the terrorism bandwagon again.
Can any one even make sense of what she's talking about here? Bin Laden is going to order Afghanis to clog up all the world's bandwidth by downloading the new Britney Spears album on Gnutella all at the same time?
Actually, looking back at the guy's original post,
I believe that we HBT.
Since I was the one who was trolled first, I must take full responsibility for all this. Sorry to have started yet another pointless Slashdot thread.:)
First, please don't use the word "ironic " until you learn its meaning. That goes for all of you out there. This has been a major pet peeve of me since the early 90s when all those black and flannel-clad, angsty gen-Xers were big on the word "ironic" without actually knowing the definition of the word.
Funny, I would think that misusing the word "sociopath" would be far more serious than misusing the word "ironic".
but why are we so upset about companies wanting to keep their own image?
Personally, I am not upset about anybody "wanting" anything. (It's a free country, you can want whatever you feel like wanting.) I am upset about archaic intellectual property laws and the level of corporate control over our society.
There are a few pieces of evidence implicating the US government, or individuals within the US government.
On September 11, someone allegedly threatened the president with codes indicating inside knowledge of
the president's whereabouts. If this story true, it means there is a traitor somewhere at a high level in the administration. If it's false,
it means that the government is deliberately leaking false information, in an attempt not
to make the president look bad.
Granted, there is not a lot of evidence here. But in the last few days the government and the media have been threatening and accusing a lot of people, such as the
Lebanese and Palestinians,
Iraq,
Pakistan,
or all of these at the same time. Although there is no credible evidence against any of these people, nevertheless they are targets of speculation.
So why is it unreasonable to speculate about the US government?
Finally, this attack has completely ruined all of Bush's plans. Missile defense is looking like a really pointless idea now.
You are very much mistaken,
according to the New York Times.
How dare you even propose this concept. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Why do these theories anger you so? Right now CNN and the rest of the mainstream media are generally promoting the immolation of various muslim peoples around the world based on evidence which is no more
credible than the various conspiracy theories going around. Should CNN be ashamed of itself?
First things first: the user should be able to install the SDK easily.
If the SDK is just a single self-contained directory, it is okay to simply provide
everything in a single.tar.gz or.zip file. Please
MAKE SURE TARBALLS UNPACK INTO A
SINGLE NEW DIRECTORY.
If the installation is more complicated (the SDK uses the Windows registry, or needs to
be installed as root under Unix) you'd better provide an.rpm, a windows installer file or the like.
Make sure you can uninstall and reinstall the SDK cleanly as well.
In the top-level directory of the SDK, there should be a simple text file named README or README.txt. If it isn't there the user has to go hunting around in a bunch of incomprehensible directories searching for documentation and gets annoyed. This
README file should point to the location of the main documentation.
The main documentation should consist of, at minimum, a tutorial and a reference.
One of the first things that should show up in the tutorial is a description of the
directory hierarchy of the SDK (this could be in the README instead). It seems many SDK creators
are so familiar with the structure of their own SDK that they forget to tell their users
about it, leaving them to wander about in a sea of incomprehensibly named files and directories. You should describe the purpose of each directory (and possibly even the
files inside). If you're developing for Unix or Java, it helps to use a conventional
naming scheme for your directories -- bin/, lib/, src/, and so on. (For Windows or Macintosh
you might want to use longer, descriptive names if you fear your users will be unfamiliar
with terse Unix-style names.)
Some SDK writers just toss a bunch of code
examples in a directory somewhere, with no explanation of the who, what, when, where, why
and how of using them. (Sometimes they don't even have comments.) The tutorial should
have a prose description of the code examples. You want to aim for a
literate programming
style. Make sure the tutorial is clear to newbies. Have someone read it over before you
release it. I don't mean having one of your fellow SDK developers read it for typos
(although you can do that as well); have someone unfamiliar with the product read it and
make sure it is understandable.
The reference documentation should have complete, detailed explanations of every class/function call/XML element/whatever.
If possible, use a standard format appropriate for your platform (e.g., man pages, Javadoc).
In all cases you should try to use a format which is as non-proprietary
as possible (e.g., HTML is good,
PDF is okay, MS Word is pretty dubious).
Other documents may not be mandatory but can be nice to have: a FAQ, a rigorous specification, a style guide, a tool guide.
The user should not have to modify files in the SDK directory itself.
I always like to keep a software package as pristine as possible, so I don't have to keep
wondering whether I screwed up some configuration file or not. If you must have files
modified in the SDK directory structure, keep it confined to as small a location as
possible (a single configuration file, or at least a single conf/ or etc/ directory).
Make sure it is easy for the user to compile/execute their own files/programs outside of
the SDK directory.
If you plan on making releases (especially beta releases) often, it is nice if users can have multiple versions of the SDK installed at the same time. Also, try not to completely
reorganize the SDK with every new release. Pick an organization and stick to it.
Oh my god. I couldn't believe you were lucky enough to get this story approved on Slashdot in the first place. (It's complete rubbish, nothing new, just some of your old anti-GPL attacks recycled and retouched to apply to the OAL.) And now you have the gall to whine just because some editor added comments of his own to the story?
It just goes to show that you can't appease the trolls.
"And above all society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary cooperation in its citizens." 'Voluntary' is not about telling people what to do. But the GPL is very explicit in telling people how they may distribute the software. The GPL is basically saying 'here are the rules for volunteering.' Strange.
When people are attacked with violence, they will often use violence in self-defence. They are basically saying "here is some violence to stop the violent attack".
Slashdot Mirror
See here for the kind of stuff this guy's going to be working on.
Oh, you mean like here and here and here and here and here and here and ...
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2001/10/05/s nd_partone.html s nd_parttwo.html
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2001/10/18/
http://www.counterpunch.org/presspatriot.html
I have ulnar neropathy. My arms are pretty toasted from computer use.
Does it affect your brain as well?
If not, how is it that you were unable to read the part two paragraphs below the section you quoted?
I'm not sure why people have a problem understanding this. Forget about RMS and GNU for a minute, and consider the point of view of any other software developer, say, Apple. Obviously, Apple wants to serve its customers as well as possible, so it wants to make software that can run on and interoperate with Microsoft systems. At the same time, Apple certainly does not want to suggest to users that they ought to rush out and buy the latest version of Windows XP. Like any other software developer, RMS wants to try to promote his own systems as much as possible, while providing compatibility as a convenience to its users. (Of course, that is probably where the similarities between RMS and proprietary software developers end ...)
Baking mud pies costs money. That does not mean they are worth anything.
2: Is a new Britney Spears album in demand? Maybe not for you, but several million teenagers think you're wrong, and who are you to say you've got better taste than them?
Well, they themselves probably will say that, as soon as they get a few years older.
3: The way you talk, you'd think that all commercial music was Britney and Spice Girls.
You haven't watched MTV in the last few years, have you?
There they go jumping on the terrorism bandwagon again. Can any one even make sense of what she's talking about here? Bin Laden is going to order Afghanis to clog up all the world's bandwidth by downloading the new Britney Spears album on Gnutella all at the same time?
The FSF's definition of Free Software requires that "A free program must be available for commercial use".
You do realize that RMS has been doing that for almost 20 years now ...
Huh?
ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/releases/gcc-2.95.3
Oh, I'm sure they have (or perhaps had) good salaries. That's where that $10 trillion of capital went.
you just can't get away with being crap any more
Merely teaching everyone to clean up their HTML isn't going to bring that $10 trillion bubble back.
They should train for more promising careers, like defense contractors or pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Since I was the one who was trolled first, I must take full responsibility for all this. Sorry to have started yet another pointless Slashdot thread. :)
Funny, I would think that misusing the word "sociopath" would be far more serious than misusing the word "ironic".
Personally, I am not upset about anybody "wanting" anything. (It's a free country, you can want whatever you feel like wanting.) I am upset about archaic intellectual property laws and the level of corporate control over our society.
- On September 11, someone allegedly threatened the president with codes indicating inside knowledge of
the president's whereabouts. If this story true, it means there is a traitor somewhere at a high level in the administration. If it's false,
it means that the government is deliberately leaking false information, in an attempt not
to make the president look bad.
-
There is some evidence that there were warnings of the attack:
-
Circumstantial evidence of the US training terrorists.
Granted, there is not a lot of evidence here. But in the last few days the government and the media have been threatening and accusing a lot of people, such as the Lebanese and Palestinians, Iraq, Pakistan, or all of these at the same time. Although there is no credible evidence against any of these people, nevertheless they are targets of speculation.Security heightened at WTC, Bin Laden warnings, State Dept. advisory
Echelon warnings
Israeli intelligence
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
A crazed Iranian in Germany
A US army base in New Jersey
So why is it unreasonable to speculate about the US government?
You are very much mistaken, according to the New York Times.
How dare you even propose this concept. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Why do these theories anger you so? Right now CNN and the rest of the mainstream media are generally promoting the immolation of various muslim peoples around the world based on evidence which is no more credible than the various conspiracy theories going around. Should CNN be ashamed of itself?
In the top-level directory of the SDK, there should be a simple text file named README or README.txt. If it isn't there the user has to go hunting around in a bunch of incomprehensible directories searching for documentation and gets annoyed. This README file should point to the location of the main documentation.
The main documentation should consist of, at minimum, a tutorial and a reference. One of the first things that should show up in the tutorial is a description of the directory hierarchy of the SDK (this could be in the README instead). It seems many SDK creators are so familiar with the structure of their own SDK that they forget to tell their users about it, leaving them to wander about in a sea of incomprehensibly named files and directories. You should describe the purpose of each directory (and possibly even the files inside). If you're developing for Unix or Java, it helps to use a conventional naming scheme for your directories -- bin/, lib/, src/, and so on. (For Windows or Macintosh you might want to use longer, descriptive names if you fear your users will be unfamiliar with terse Unix-style names.)
Some SDK writers just toss a bunch of code examples in a directory somewhere, with no explanation of the who, what, when, where, why and how of using them. (Sometimes they don't even have comments.) The tutorial should have a prose description of the code examples. You want to aim for a literate programming style. Make sure the tutorial is clear to newbies. Have someone read it over before you release it. I don't mean having one of your fellow SDK developers read it for typos (although you can do that as well); have someone unfamiliar with the product read it and make sure it is understandable.
The reference documentation should have complete, detailed explanations of every class/function call/XML element/whatever. If possible, use a standard format appropriate for your platform (e.g., man pages, Javadoc). In all cases you should try to use a format which is as non-proprietary as possible (e.g., HTML is good, PDF is okay, MS Word is pretty dubious).
Other documents may not be mandatory but can be nice to have: a FAQ, a rigorous specification, a style guide, a tool guide.
The user should not have to modify files in the SDK directory itself. I always like to keep a software package as pristine as possible, so I don't have to keep wondering whether I screwed up some configuration file or not. If you must have files modified in the SDK directory structure, keep it confined to as small a location as possible (a single configuration file, or at least a single conf/ or etc/ directory). Make sure it is easy for the user to compile/execute their own files/programs outside of the SDK directory.
If you plan on making releases (especially beta releases) often, it is nice if users can have multiple versions of the SDK installed at the same time. Also, try not to completely reorganize the SDK with every new release. Pick an organization and stick to it.
And what's more, the person who submitted the Slashdot article had the gall to steal the name "Eugenia" from the person who wrote the linked article! It's not just copyright infringement, it's identity theft as well!
Every analogy breaks down at some point; if it didn't, it would merely duplicate the world and thus add nothing to our understanding of it.
Simply criticizing the analogy is far easier than actually refuting the points raised by it. I invite you to try the latter some time.
It just goes to show that you can't appease the trolls.
When people are attacked with violence, they will often use violence in self-defence. They are basically saying "here is some violence to stop the violent attack".
Is this "strange"?
Then get another job, buddy. The government doesn't owe you a living.
I think for a professional musician it's downright stupid.
I think it's downright stupid for the taxpayers to pay for the police force that will be used against them for your private profit.