"outweigh" the safety concerns? Imagine this: Some yuppie is riding his Segway, hears his phone ring, and looks down. Your daughter walks out in front of him, is struck, and thrown to the road, directly in front of a truck. Her spinal cord is crushed. You then smile to your wife and say, "Hey, it's OK! Smog is down 8%!"
Yes, I recognize that the same situation could happen with rollerblades. Or with a bike. Or a guy in a wheelchair. The difference is that those are all manually controlled devices - you aren't betting that an engine or a computer are working correctly. Until the Seg can give more than a PDF and some Flash as proof of its safety and durability, I don't think any city should feel compelled to allow the device.
This is why the issue of open source vs. proprietary doesn't matter. Any app of substance is going to be a custom app - it takes more to run a government than a windowing environment and Office/OpenOffice. The last time I checked, I couldn't find anything on SourceForge for tracking military pension payments, maintaining a 50-year history of agricultural surveys in the southeast region of the country, etc. These are apps that will be built in house, on top of whatever platform you're using (Windows, Linux, Mac, web, etc.) As long as they don't get stupid and take "Open Source zone" to mean "non-OSS banned zone", what they're doing is great. If in the process they end up throwing away software that works that must be rewritten, that's a disservice to the taxpayers. A government should base their decision on what's best for their constituents, not what's best for special interests (OSS is as much a special interest as the BSA and RIAA - perhaps more righteous, but a special interest nonetheless)
Keep in mind that they aren't forced to redistribute their own changes - they only have to distribute source code if they distribute binaries. But your point is valid - I think governments are in it for the beer, not the speech. The power of open source is in the PROCESS, not the PRODUCT.
Even a business knows not to use email for mission critical tasks - email is always a front-line to phone, face-to-face, or snail-mail. And I seriously doubt that the PM wastes his time with non- "mission critical" stuff. If he has an email at all, it would nothing more than a pretty interface to the public, kinda like those a tour guide at the White House (of course, you can't get tours now, but you get my drift) - nice for the public, but have nothing to do with the "real" government.
Despite whether I agree/disagree, this post seems like bait for arguing the merits of a war with Iraq. No place for that in this story - I encourage mods to do the Right Thing and for posters to refrain from replying.
If it's on a web page, it could easily just write the values of the form to a database. (or for shits and grins,/dev/null) This could be considered email in a broad sense, even though there's no "email address" as we know it.
MSFT wants to make the XBox the home hub, but this company is trying to beat them to it, via a hack. I can't see that lasting very long. And I won't begrudge Microsoft either - hobbyist, free projects are one thing, but when you try to profit off of it, that's completely different.
Amen. I'm sure they think that as long as you compile it for Linux, it will automagically run forever, stable and secure, no matter how well the source code is written.
You missed my point - I don't care about who's agenda I'm pushing. In earning my livelihood, all I care about is fair pay for fair work. I don't disregard that I'm advancing someone's agenda - more power to them, as long as they treat me fairly. My point is that I base my career decisions on what's best for me; I will never forgo an opportunity because of the underlying agenda (except in rare cases - like human rights violations)
I've answered this quite a few times; I should probably put it up on my/. journal. Basically, I address the market - I adopt the technologies that are the most popular, even if I don't like them. And anyone who thinks that I'm somehow "immoral" b/c I use Sun, Microsoft, or whoever in earning my livelihood, they can fuck off. I'll show a company professional loyalty when they start paying my rent - I won't be anyone's (commercial or open source) marketing bitch. (note the difference between what professional and personal interests)
I agree with you, but what sets Mandrake apart are the programs that they *did* write (install, *drake, etc) - they are the reason you use Mandrake, over say, RedHat or Slack. Nothing wrong with this - everyone uses some distro - I'd say that less than 0.1% of the hardest of the hardcore Linux advocates on Slashdot have built their Linux install from scratch (of course, if you look at sites like LinuxFromScratch.org, even they use the "bootstrap" approach, requiring a distro)
Mandrake's mistake is that they let you download it. Their only chance is to go with Lindows' model - no free download. There's nothing in the GPL that mandates free downloads - only distribution of the source code with the bits.
I think the cries of "free information" are typically hypocritical. Most of the Slashdot crowd who cry about free information are the first to cry about companies that want their "private information" and would have a tantrum if someone started reading files on their computer at leisure.
What do you define as "plenty of people who are using it for legitimate, legal purposes"? I'd bet that less than 1% of Kazaa traffic is "legitimate".
Your argument is the same one that everyone makes, and then they turn around and download something from the Top 40 or LOTR. If we could look at internal documents, I doubt that Kazaa is totally oblivious to what goes across their network. They know that if it wasn't for pirated files, they wouldn't have a business model.
I think situations like this should be evaluated more like "property" than "guns". If you sell a gun, you are no longer in possession of it, so you can't control how someone uses it. But when we use a P2P network, we have use of it, but the "owners" are still in control of it. If I have property, and allow someone to access it, my level of liability depends on whether or not I know what they're doing. If they sell drugs on the property that I have given them access to, but I am ignorant to their activities, I'm probably OK. But if I know and turn a blind eye, or I actually encourage the illegal activities, that's not so clear cut.
There's no way that anyone can argue that Kazaa doesn't know what happens on their network. Their entire business model depends on data mining of their users.
My biggest opposition to Kazaa is that they make money off of violating privacy (as has been pointed out on/. many times), and from piracy. Of course, the best way to fight this is to use their network to distribute KazaaLite, allowing users to leech off of their network and bandwidth while depriving them of their income-earning activities.
Quite frankly, I don't _want_ people using Linux for ideological reasons. I think ideology sucks. This world would be a much better place if people had less ideology, and a whole lot more I do this because it's FUN and because others might find it useful, not because I got religion.
My sig addresses the state of the job market, and the unwillingness for geeks to come to grips with it. I've talked to many programmers, admins, etc., who refuse to pick up a technology because of some misguided sense of allegiance, based on silly political reasons. If PHP is the most sought-after language, I'll focus on it. If ASP.NET is, then I'm all over it, no matter what I or anyone else (RMS? Retarded Monkey Shit?) think about the company's business practices or the idea that all software should be free (speech or beer). In other words, I know where to draw the line between my career and being a geek - my adoration for a language or platform will never drive the important decisions I make in my career.
Because they renamed the product? I wish everyone who pretended to know anything about.NET would read the excellent article over at Ars Technica. At the same time, maybe the Microsoft marketing machine should read it as well. I'm sick of hearing people say that.NET is "software as a service", "Hailstorm", or the server technology. Other than having the classes loaded, the server is as much.NET as Solaris is Java. If Microsoft can get off of the buzzwords,.NET developers will have be able to establish their identity - currently, ".NET programmer" is about as specific as "GNU programmer".
Hey! He's a.NET/GNU programmer, he can do _____________ (insert one of the many technologies associated with.NET/GNU here)
Slashdot Mirror
"outweigh" the safety concerns? Imagine this: Some yuppie is riding his Segway, hears his phone ring, and looks down. Your daughter walks out in front of him, is struck, and thrown to the road, directly in front of a truck. Her spinal cord is crushed. You then smile to your wife and say, "Hey, it's OK! Smog is down 8%!"
Yes, I recognize that the same situation could happen with rollerblades. Or with a bike. Or a guy in a wheelchair. The difference is that those are all manually controlled devices - you aren't betting that an engine or a computer are working correctly. Until the Seg can give more than a PDF and some Flash as proof of its safety and durability, I don't think any city should feel compelled to allow the device.
This is why the issue of open source vs. proprietary doesn't matter. Any app of substance is going to be a custom app - it takes more to run a government than a windowing environment and Office/OpenOffice. The last time I checked, I couldn't find anything on SourceForge for tracking military pension payments, maintaining a 50-year history of agricultural surveys in the southeast region of the country, etc. These are apps that will be built in house, on top of whatever platform you're using (Windows, Linux, Mac, web, etc.) As long as they don't get stupid and take "Open Source zone" to mean "non-OSS banned zone", what they're doing is great. If in the process they end up throwing away software that works that must be rewritten, that's a disservice to the taxpayers. A government should base their decision on what's best for their constituents, not what's best for special interests (OSS is as much a special interest as the BSA and RIAA - perhaps more righteous, but a special interest nonetheless)
Keep in mind that they aren't forced to redistribute their own changes - they only have to distribute source code if they distribute binaries. But your point is valid - I think governments are in it for the beer, not the speech. The power of open source is in the PROCESS, not the PRODUCT.
Even a business knows not to use email for mission critical tasks - email is always a front-line to phone, face-to-face, or snail-mail. And I seriously doubt that the PM wastes his time with non- "mission critical" stuff. If he has an email at all, it would nothing more than a pretty interface to the public, kinda like those a tour guide at the White House (of course, you can't get tours now, but you get my drift) - nice for the public, but have nothing to do with the "real" government.
Despite whether I agree/disagree, this post seems like bait for arguing the merits of a war with Iraq. No place for that in this story - I encourage mods to do the Right Thing and for posters to refrain from replying.
If it's on a web page, it could easily just write the values of the form to a database. (or for shits and grins, /dev/null) This could be considered email in a broad sense, even though there's no "email address" as we know it.
And there's a good chance that overall the NES or the SNES outsold the PS 1.
Ok, I'm a dumbass - it is open source, wasn't paying attention.
MSFT wants to make the XBox the home hub, but this company is trying to beat them to it, via a hack. I can't see that lasting very long. And I won't begrudge Microsoft either - hobbyist, free projects are one thing, but when you try to profit off of it, that's completely different.
Amen. I'm sure they think that as long as you compile it for Linux, it will automagically run forever, stable and secure, no matter how well the source code is written.
Why use CE when you can use a reliable system from a reliable company. For example, there's this company called Lineo .. um, wait ....
fp!!!
Big difference - choosing a technology is a personal choice, enslaving a person is a direct action on another person
You missed my point - I don't care about who's agenda I'm pushing. In earning my livelihood, all I care about is fair pay for fair work. I don't disregard that I'm advancing someone's agenda - more power to them, as long as they treat me fairly. My point is that I base my career decisions on what's best for me; I will never forgo an opportunity because of the underlying agenda (except in rare cases - like human rights violations)
maybe....
I've answered this quite a few times; I should probably put it up on my /. journal. Basically, I address the market - I adopt the technologies that are the most popular, even if I don't like them. And anyone who thinks that I'm somehow "immoral" b/c I use Sun, Microsoft, or whoever in earning my livelihood, they can fuck off. I'll show a company professional loyalty when they start paying my rent - I won't be anyone's (commercial or open source) marketing bitch. (note the difference between what professional and personal interests)
I agree with you, but what sets Mandrake apart are the programs that they *did* write (install, *drake, etc) - they are the reason you use Mandrake, over say, RedHat or Slack. Nothing wrong with this - everyone uses some distro - I'd say that less than 0.1% of the hardest of the hardcore Linux advocates on Slashdot have built their Linux install from scratch (of course, if you look at sites like LinuxFromScratch.org, even they use the "bootstrap" approach, requiring a distro)
Mandrake's mistake is that they let you download it. Their only chance is to go with Lindows' model - no free download. There's nothing in the GPL that mandates free downloads - only distribution of the source code with the bits.
I think the cries of "free information" are typically hypocritical. Most of the Slashdot crowd who cry about free information are the first to cry about companies that want their "private information" and would have a tantrum if someone started reading files on their computer at leisure.
What do you define as "plenty of people who are using it for legitimate, legal purposes"? I'd bet that less than 1% of Kazaa traffic is "legitimate".
/. many times), and from piracy. Of course, the best way to fight this is to use their network to distribute KazaaLite, allowing users to leech off of their network and bandwidth while depriving them of their income-earning activities.
Your argument is the same one that everyone makes, and then they turn around and download something from the Top 40 or LOTR. If we could look at internal documents, I doubt that Kazaa is totally oblivious to what goes across their network. They know that if it wasn't for pirated files, they wouldn't have a business model.
I think situations like this should be evaluated more like "property" than "guns". If you sell a gun, you are no longer in possession of it, so you can't control how someone uses it. But when we use a P2P network, we have use of it, but the "owners" are still in control of it. If I have property, and allow someone to access it, my level of liability depends on whether or not I know what they're doing. If they sell drugs on the property that I have given them access to, but I am ignorant to their activities, I'm probably OK. But if I know and turn a blind eye, or I actually encourage the illegal activities, that's not so clear cut.
There's no way that anyone can argue that Kazaa doesn't know what happens on their network. Their entire business model depends on data mining of their users.
My biggest opposition to Kazaa is that they make money off of violating privacy (as has been pointed out on
Actually, that reminds me of a quote from Linus Torvalds:
Quite frankly, I don't _want_ people using Linux for ideological reasons. I think ideology sucks. This world would be a much better place if people had less ideology, and a whole lot more I do this because it's FUN and because others might find it useful, not because I got religion.
My sig addresses the state of the job market, and the unwillingness for geeks to come to grips with it. I've talked to many programmers, admins, etc., who refuse to pick up a technology because of some misguided sense of allegiance, based on silly political reasons. If PHP is the most sought-after language, I'll focus on it. If ASP.NET is, then I'm all over it, no matter what I or anyone else (RMS? Retarded Monkey Shit?) think about the company's business practices or the idea that all software should be free (speech or beer). In other words, I know where to draw the line between my career and being a geek - my adoration for a language or platform will never drive the important decisions I make in my career.
When all else fails, attack grammar ...
Funny how many people like to scream about jail-time, when you can't get jail time in a civil suit ...
Because they renamed the product? I wish everyone who pretended to know anything about .NET would read the excellent article over at Ars Technica. At the same time, maybe the Microsoft marketing machine should read it as well. I'm sick of hearing people say that .NET is "software as a service", "Hailstorm", or the server technology. Other than having the classes loaded, the server is as much .NET as Solaris is Java. If Microsoft can get off of the buzzwords, .NET developers will have be able to establish their identity - currently, ".NET programmer" is about as specific as "GNU programmer".
.NET/GNU programmer, he can do _____________ (insert one of the many technologies associated with .NET/GNU here)
Hey! He's a