What in the Universe is actually random anyway?
The fact that you yourself do not know the next digit or outcome does not mean that it is also unknown to some other.
As they neatly pointed out, this argument is akin to the notion that I should have the freedom to do whatever I want with my baseball bat.
I believe in freedom, it is their OS, and you do have good and viable alternatives (and some are indeed better). You don't have to choose theirs. You agreed to buy theirs when others were offered freely. You agreed to their oppressive licenses when you had Free alternatives. You had others who were actually on your side, but chose to go with Microsoft. When they become so huge (many thanks to you) and start screwing you, you then whine and run to the government.
I don't know about all the legal niceties involved, but this smells to me like the type of prior restraint that is endangering programmers who crack encryption, DVD copy-protection, etc etc. Microsoft's side is the free-speech side in this case, methinks.
I use GNU/Linux. I prefer Linux. But I see little wrong in Micro$oft packaging *their* Web Browser with *their* Operating System.
Going against that is like saying that Apple or Sun cannot put an Operating System on their hardware, or that General Motors cannot put both an engine and a seat in their cars. WHAT NONSENSE.
Microsoft is only a monopoly because people have foolishly chosen to agree to marginal software and oppressive licensing schemes, even in the presense of more stable, robust, and (Read:) FREE (as in speech and beer) alternatives.
I prefer Linux, and I use Linux whenever I can, but I still believe that Microsoft should have the freedom to do whatever they want with their OS. If they want to hard-wire it to run only their software, then so be it. (How does it differ so greatly from Apple or Sun writing their OS just for their hardware.) If they want to leave it open, then so be it. We have the freedom to decide whether we want to go with the bondage that comes with a proprietary system such as Windows, or with a liberating system such as Linux. It is our choice to make. (How would we feel if Linux were similarly restricted, even in the presense of alternatives.) Microsoft, though oppressive, to some extent, should be given the freedom to do whatever they want with their product. If we don't like it, we can always choose with our dollars and allegiance.
Of course, there are always those that want to eat their cake and have it - those that will ignore Linux, but will try to be as evil as Micro$oft in limiting their freedom. In that sense, we may as well be Communists. That is only hypocritical. You are no better when you deny them of their freedom to "innovate" as they desire. If you don't like them, you have a choice, and you have the freedom to go somewhere else.
As for me, I'm just so glad that we have Linux, we have an alternative, we have someone to keep Micro$oft a bit more honest, and we have somewhere else to go. I agree that Micro$oft does not care about the interests of the common person, but instead of wasting precious time chasing them around, I believe it is much more important that we put our efforts into ensuring that there is a viable, competitive, publicly-specified, and Free alternative.
Whatever useful help we can get in Africa, be it food, shelter, clothing, medicine, the Internet, or justice, whatever act of love that can be exercised in the interest of the less fortunate or the marginalized all over the world, will always be considered worthy and appreciated.
I love google's performance, but I don't think they spent $300 million on developing entirely new and unique search methods. (Hell, I don't think they even HAVE $300 mill.)
The decision to use Free Software whenever possible instead of proprietary or closed ones (especially from Micro$oft) should be a no-brainer. No matter what the opposition would like you to think, Free Software is a Good Thing, and one that is in the best interest of society.
However, I think it is time to do less whinning about Micro$oft, and instead place more time, talent, and focus on the support, development and advancement of Free alternatives.
That's Micro$oft's technique. Deceive. Twist the truth and what is good to make them sound unreasonable. Make the lie sound appealing. As is obvious to anyone with a neuron, they are only in it for the money - that's all they love. They do not care the least for society. As a matter of fact, they hate society. They seek to make society dependent on them so that they can make as much profit as possible off of society. Something like the GPL, which makes the source code, the essence of any program, available and usable to the public - and keeps it public if it is to be sold, not only provides alternatives and choice for society, but even more importantly liberates society. Hence, the GPL is a direct threat to Micro$oft's sworn ambition to control and dominate you, and hence, they engage in an unscrupulous propaganda attack to discredit it.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Gandhi.
I guess the best solution would be to state VERY CLEARLY the terms of using your software. If it is going to contact your web site for any reason or by any means, give the reasons why, make this understood, and make ALL your intentions known. And of course, always give the users the freedom and the choice to accept or reject your terms.
This way, it would be much less likely that you will be misunderstood or accused of anything unethical.
Hotmail kind of snuck up on us. We got so comfortable with someone controlling such personal and sensitive information simply because it was free and accessible everywhere. And then Microsoft bought Hotmail.
Once that happened, I deleted all my personal mail, and gave my family and friends a different e-mail address to use for me. I only use the hotmail account now as a general spammable untrusted and impersonal account. Things and people I care for go to a different account.
No one was implying that Intellectual Property should not be protected, just that the rights of scientists to do their research must be protected, and so must their right to share their discoveries (freedom of speech).
This is a simple, basic and fundamental human right that, in my opinion, must be protected. Such rights must never be disposed of simply because doing so would be in the financial interest of a few companies, but at the greater harm to the society as a whole. The scientists should have the right to speak what they have found, and it is only in the best interest of society that they do. To curtail scientific inquiry, or censor publication of subsequent findings would only do great harm to the United States as a nation.
Do not be deceived. These corporations are fighting hard to rid us of our basic freedoms. It is to our benefit that we lend our support.
The reason why they can all only speak of re-use by others that have no other choice is because it is an extremely difficult task for all these machines that we eagerly produce to be recycled without further pollution to the environment. So much of what we produce is not bio-degradeable. So much of what we do and produce without even a second thought has consequences to our world that will last for millenia. Eventually, there will be a lot of trash; Eventually, the only environment that we have will be irreversibly polluted.
We need to realize that the only people that will pay for our lack of restraint are us and our future generations. It is high time we reconsidered our habits and took serious measures to protect the environment.
As a Native American proverb I once heard went, "It is only after the last tree has been cut, only after the last river has been polluted, that you will realize that you cannot eat money."
If a product's license denies you of basic liberties, then simply boycott the product until its seller gets the point. I understand that it takes courage and persistence, but trying to work around or circumvent something you agree to is only worse in the long run, and makes you look bad.
I think it is very difficult, if not near impossible, for someone to come up with something with absolutely no outside influence. We all learn from those around us. (That "no man is an island" sort of thing.)
This is not to say that everything has been invented/discovered, or that no one can add to the overall knowledge-base. That would be false. I am just saying that we all learn from each other, and when we proceed to expand the knowledge-base, we very frequently partially utilize what we learned from others.
However, I agree with you that credit should always be given where it is due.
The fact that something is more widely adopted frequently has little to do with its performance. Intel's Pentium is, of course, the most prevalent PC microprocessor around, but Sun's UltraSPARC (SPARC for Scalable Processor Architecture - it is scalable up to over 1000! Compare this to perhaps 32 for the Pentium) is (except perhaps for clock speed) a significantly more advanced, ingenious and open (the entire SPARC specification is open and licensable) microprocessor. (See here and here). Yes, the Pentium has more clock cycles each second, but the UltraSPARC frequenly does more computation per clock cycle. I actually had to do a comparative study for my graduate work on the Pentium, UltraSPARC, and Alpha microprocessors, so I have a bit of knowledge pertaining to all three.
The point I am trying to make here is that even though the SPARC is not as common, it is a very viable, valuable, and powerful processor, and I feel it would be extremely unfortunate if we overlooked it and dropped support for Linux on it. The fact that it is openly specified (many thanks to Sun Microsystems) is also a humongous benefit to the community.
With respect to who should support the development of Linux on the SPARC however, in my humble opinion, Sun is the best one for the job. They have shown their dedication to Free Software (They support Star/Open Office, they released the source code to their highly advanced Solaris operating system, and, as stated already, they released the specifications to the UltraSPARC), they know their microprocessor better than anyone else, they have the most to gain from Linux on the UltraSPARC (hey, it sells more hardware for them!), and, similarly, they have the most to lose from Linux not being on the UltraSPARC. We, however, must also be willing to understand Sun's hesitance to support Linux on the SPARC when, in Solaris, they *already* have an advanced operating system perfectly tuned to the SPARC. (A similar argument applies for IBM and their AIX OS.) Furthermore, though not under the GPL, Solaris is open.
In summary, I guess my real point is that it is very beneficial to the community at large for Linux to be supported on the SPARC. With the advanced and perfectly-tuned Solaris being open, its technology can also be more easily implemented in Linux. What could be better for the community than to have advanced and openly-specified software AND hardware?
The fact that something is more widely adopted frequently has little to do with its performance. Intel's Pentium is, of course, the most prevalent PC microprocessor around, but Sun's UltraSPARC (SPARC for Scalable Processor Architecture - it is scalable up to over 1000! Compare this to perhaps 32 for the Pentium) is (except perhaps for clock speed) a significantly more advanced, ingenious and open (the entire SPARC specification is open and licensable) microprocessor. (See here and here). Yes, the Pentium has more clock cycles each second, but the UltraSPARC frequenly does more computation per clock cycle. I actually had to do a comparative study for my graduate work on the Pentium, UltraSPARC, and Alpha microprocessors, so I have a bit of knowledge pertaining to all three.
The point I am trying to make here is that even though the SPARC is not as common, it is a very viable, valuable, and powerful processor, and I feel it would be extremely unfortunate if we overlooked it and dropped support for Linux on it. The fact that it is openly specified (many thanks to Sun Microsystems) is also a humongous benefit to the community.
With respect to who should support the development of Linux on the SPARC however, in my humble opinion, Sun is the best one for the job. They have shown their dedication to Free Software (They support Star/Open Office, they released the source code to their highly advanced Solaris operating system, and, as stated already, they released the specifications to the UltraSPARC), they know their microprocessor better than anyone else, they have the most to gain from Linux on the UltraSPARC (hey, it sells more hardware for them!), and, similarly, they have the most to lose from Linux not being on the UltraSPARC. We, however, must also be willing to understand Sun's hesitance to support Linux on the SPARC when, in Solaris, they *already* have an advanced operating system perfectly tuned to the SPARC. (A similar argument applies for IBM and their AIX OS.) Furthermore, though not under the GPL, Solaris is open.
In summary, I guess my real point is that it is very beneficial to the community at large for Linux to be supported on the SPARC. With the advanced and perfectly-tuned Solaris being open, its technology can also be more easily implemented in Linux. What could be better for the community than to have advanced and openly-specified software AND hardware? What a dream come true that would be!!!
And in the end, there were two and two alone: The Proprietary, and the Free; The enslaving and the liberating. They made war against each other, but only one - that which was Free - liberated and empowered the individual.
Slashdot Mirror
infinitely large numerator and denominator? :)
That probably would, almost by definition, make it an irrational number.
Here we go again, Fermat!
(Pardon me for thinking you already had your last theorem!)
You can say that again.
The fact that the Creator made it impossible for you to know everything, does not mean that He also blinded Himself to the intricacies of His work.
What in the Universe is actually random anyway?
The fact that you yourself do not know the next digit or outcome does not mean that it is also unknown to some other.
As they neatly pointed out, this argument is akin to the notion that I should have the freedom to do whatever I want with my baseball bat.
I believe in freedom, it is their OS, and you do have good and viable alternatives (and some are indeed better). You don't have to choose theirs. You agreed to buy theirs when others were offered freely. You agreed to their oppressive licenses when you had Free alternatives. You had others who were actually on your side, but chose to go with Microsoft. When they become so huge (many thanks to you) and start screwing you, you then whine and run to the government.
I don't know about all the legal niceties involved, but this smells to me like the type of prior restraint that is endangering programmers who crack encryption, DVD copy-protection, etc etc. Microsoft's side is the free-speech side in this case, methinks.
Me seconds. Many times over.
I use GNU/Linux. I prefer Linux. But I see little wrong in Micro$oft packaging *their* Web Browser with *their* Operating System.
Going against that is like saying that Apple or Sun cannot put an Operating System on their hardware, or that General Motors cannot put both an engine and a seat in their cars. WHAT NONSENSE.
Microsoft is only a monopoly because people have foolishly chosen to agree to marginal software and oppressive licensing schemes, even in the presense of more stable, robust, and (Read:) FREE (as in speech and beer) alternatives.
I prefer Linux, and I use Linux whenever I can, but I still believe that Microsoft should have the freedom to do whatever they want with their OS. If they want to hard-wire it to run only their software, then so be it. (How does it differ so greatly from Apple or Sun writing their OS just for their hardware.) If they want to leave it open, then so be it. We have the freedom to decide whether we want to go with the bondage that comes with a proprietary system such as Windows, or with a liberating system such as Linux. It is our choice to make. (How would we feel if Linux were similarly restricted, even in the presense of alternatives.) Microsoft, though oppressive, to some extent, should be given the freedom to do whatever they want with their product. If we don't like it, we can always choose with our dollars and allegiance.
Of course, there are always those that want to eat their cake and have it - those that will ignore Linux, but will try to be as evil as Micro$oft in limiting their freedom. In that sense, we may as well be Communists. That is only hypocritical. You are no better when you deny them of their freedom to "innovate" as they desire. If you don't like them, you have a choice, and you have the freedom to go somewhere else.
As for me, I'm just so glad that we have Linux, we have an alternative, we have someone to keep Micro$oft a bit more honest, and we have somewhere else to go. I agree that Micro$oft does not care about the interests of the common person, but instead of wasting precious time chasing them around, I believe it is much more important that we put our efforts into ensuring that there is a viable, competitive, publicly-specified, and Free alternative.
Whatever useful help we can get in Africa, be it food, shelter, clothing, medicine, the Internet, or justice, whatever act of love that can be exercised in the interest of the less fortunate or the marginalized all over the world, will always be considered worthy and appreciated.
http://www.geekcorps.org.
I love google's performance, but I don't think they spent $300 million on developing entirely new and unique search methods. (Hell, I don't think they even HAVE $300 mill.)
The decision to use Free Software whenever possible instead of proprietary or closed ones (especially from Micro$oft) should be a no-brainer. No matter what the opposition would like you to think, Free Software is a Good Thing, and one that is in the best interest of society.
However, I think it is time to do less whinning about Micro$oft, and instead place more time, talent, and focus on the support, development and advancement of Free alternatives.
That's Micro$oft's technique. Deceive. Twist the truth and what is good to make them sound unreasonable. Make the lie sound appealing. As is obvious to anyone with a neuron, they are only in it for the money - that's all they love. They do not care the least for society. As a matter of fact, they hate society. They seek to make society dependent on them so that they can make as much profit as possible off of society. Something like the GPL, which makes the source code, the essence of any program, available and usable to the public - and keeps it public if it is to be sold, not only provides alternatives and choice for society, but even more importantly liberates society. Hence, the GPL is a direct threat to Micro$oft's sworn ambition to control and dominate you, and hence, they engage in an unscrupulous propaganda attack to discredit it.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Gandhi.
I guess the best solution would be to state VERY CLEARLY the terms of using your software. If it is going to contact your web site for any reason or by any means, give the reasons why, make this understood, and make ALL your intentions known. And of course, always give the users the freedom and the choice to accept or reject your terms.
This way, it would be much less likely that you will be misunderstood or accused of anything unethical.
My $0.02.
Hotmail kind of snuck up on us. We got so comfortable with someone controlling such personal and sensitive information simply because it was free and accessible everywhere. And then Microsoft bought Hotmail.
Once that happened, I deleted all my personal mail, and gave my family and friends a different e-mail address to use for me. I only use the hotmail account now as a general spammable untrusted and impersonal account. Things and people I care for go to a different account.
No one was implying that Intellectual Property should not be protected, just that the rights of scientists to do their research must be protected, and so must their right to share their discoveries (freedom of speech).
This is a simple, basic and fundamental human right that, in my opinion, must be protected. Such rights must never be disposed of simply because doing so would be in the financial interest of a few companies, but at the greater harm to the society as a whole. The scientists should have the right to speak what they have found, and it is only in the best interest of society that they do. To curtail scientific inquiry, or censor publication of subsequent findings would only do great harm to the United States as a nation.
Do not be deceived. These corporations are fighting hard to rid us of our basic freedoms. It is to our benefit that we lend our support.
The reason why they can all only speak of re-use by others that have no other choice is because it is an extremely difficult task for all these machines that we eagerly produce to be recycled without further pollution to the environment. So much of what we produce is not bio-degradeable. So much of what we do and produce without even a second thought has consequences to our world that will last for millenia. Eventually, there will be a lot of trash; Eventually, the only environment that we have will be irreversibly polluted.
We need to realize that the only people that will pay for our lack of restraint are us and our future generations. It is high time we reconsidered our habits and took serious measures to protect the environment.
As a Native American proverb I once heard went, "It is only after the last tree has been cut, only after the last river has been polluted, that you will realize that you cannot eat money."
If a product's license denies you of basic liberties, then simply boycott the product until its seller gets the point. I understand that it takes courage and persistence, but trying to work around or circumvent something you agree to is only worse in the long run, and makes you look bad.
I think it is very difficult, if not near impossible, for someone to come up with something with absolutely no outside influence. We all learn from those around us. (That "no man is an island" sort of thing.)
This is not to say that everything has been invented/discovered, or that no one can add to the overall knowledge-base. That would be false. I am just saying that we all learn from each other, and when we proceed to expand the knowledge-base, we very frequently partially utilize what we learned from others.
However, I agree with you that credit should always be given where it is due.
The fact that something is more widely adopted frequently has little to do with its performance. Intel's Pentium is, of course, the most prevalent PC microprocessor around, but Sun's UltraSPARC (SPARC for Scalable Processor Architecture - it is scalable up to over 1000! Compare this to perhaps 32 for the Pentium) is (except perhaps for clock speed) a significantly more advanced, ingenious and open (the entire SPARC specification is open and licensable) microprocessor. (See here and here). Yes, the Pentium has more clock cycles each second, but the UltraSPARC frequenly does more computation per clock cycle. I actually had to do a comparative study for my graduate work on the Pentium, UltraSPARC, and Alpha microprocessors, so I have a bit of knowledge pertaining to all three.
The point I am trying to make here is that even though the SPARC is not as common, it is a very viable, valuable, and powerful processor, and I feel it would be extremely unfortunate if we overlooked it and dropped support for Linux on it. The fact that it is openly specified (many thanks to Sun Microsystems) is also a humongous benefit to the community.
With respect to who should support the development of Linux on the SPARC however, in my humble opinion, Sun is the best one for the job. They have shown their dedication to Free Software (They support Star/Open Office, they released the source code to their highly advanced Solaris operating system, and, as stated already, they released the specifications to the UltraSPARC), they know their microprocessor better than anyone else, they have the most to gain from Linux on the UltraSPARC (hey, it sells more hardware for them!), and, similarly, they have the most to lose from Linux not being on the UltraSPARC. We, however, must also be willing to understand Sun's hesitance to support Linux on the SPARC when, in Solaris, they *already* have an advanced operating system perfectly tuned to the SPARC. (A similar argument applies for IBM and their AIX OS.) Furthermore, though not under the GPL, Solaris is open.
In summary, I guess my real point is that it is very beneficial to the community at large for Linux to be supported on the SPARC. With the advanced and perfectly-tuned Solaris being open, its technology can also be more easily implemented in Linux. What could be better for the community than to have advanced and openly-specified software AND hardware?
What a dream come true that would be!!!
The fact that something is more widely adopted frequently has little to do with its performance. Intel's Pentium is, of course, the most prevalent PC microprocessor around, but Sun's UltraSPARC (SPARC for Scalable Processor Architecture - it is scalable up to over 1000! Compare this to perhaps 32 for the Pentium) is (except perhaps for clock speed) a significantly more advanced, ingenious and open (the entire SPARC specification is open and licensable) microprocessor. (See here and here). Yes, the Pentium has more clock cycles each second, but the UltraSPARC frequenly does more computation per clock cycle. I actually had to do a comparative study for my graduate work on the Pentium, UltraSPARC, and Alpha microprocessors, so I have a bit of knowledge pertaining to all three.
The point I am trying to make here is that even though the SPARC is not as common, it is a very viable, valuable, and powerful processor, and I feel it would be extremely unfortunate if we overlooked it and dropped support for Linux on it. The fact that it is openly specified (many thanks to Sun Microsystems) is also a humongous benefit to the community.
With respect to who should support the development of Linux on the SPARC however, in my humble opinion, Sun is the best one for the job. They have shown their dedication to Free Software (They support Star/Open Office, they released the source code to their highly advanced Solaris operating system, and, as stated already, they released the specifications to the UltraSPARC), they know their microprocessor better than anyone else, they have the most to gain from Linux on the UltraSPARC (hey, it sells more hardware for them!), and, similarly, they have the most to lose from Linux not being on the UltraSPARC. We, however, must also be willing to understand Sun's hesitance to support Linux on the SPARC when, in Solaris, they *already* have an advanced operating system perfectly tuned to the SPARC. (A similar argument applies for IBM and their AIX OS.) Furthermore, though not under the GPL, Solaris is open.
In summary, I guess my real point is that it is very beneficial to the community at large for Linux to be supported on the SPARC. With the advanced and perfectly-tuned Solaris being open, its technology can also be more easily implemented in Linux. What could be better for the community than to have advanced and openly-specified software AND hardware? What a dream come true that would be!!!
Free Software.
http://www.fsf.org/
And in the end, there were two and two alone: The Proprietary, and the Free; The enslaving and the liberating. They made war against each other, but only one - that which was Free - liberated and empowered the individual.
Don't buy it if it doesn't meet your needs then, otherwise, you would only encourage them to make and sell you things that deny you of your freedom.