Re:Faster Prototype Time
on
Space Blimps
·
· Score: 1
Well, I thought it would be more humorous if I started the joke as a serious response to an un-serious post. I guess the 'joke' part of my post didn't seem that humorous.:(
I proved that the FSF was urging--this is different than forcing--Guido to make changes in the license to be GPL-compatible.
You can split hairs all you want. Guido was not "forced" as a different poster explicitly stated. That was the focus of the post you responded incorrectly to. Perhaps you should read the thread more carefully? Its tiresome that you are taking my comments out of context, and responding over and over to the wrong thread. If you like, you can respond to my original thread to the original bigot.
Thanks, please try again.
Re:Faster Prototype Time
on
Space Blimps
·
· Score: 1
Why spend all this money of development, just put Rosanne Arnold in a Space suit and viola, Space Blimp.
Aside from your post being entirely off-topic, it is as well not at all realistic. A human could not endure such conditions, and the amount of fuel required to get such a large payload into space is not all cost-effective.
A blimp is the last thing I would imagine that could be used for space exploration. Interesting to me is that the press release mentions that landing is handled via "inflatable wheel". Im sure the technology is there, but I can't help thinking of a large, pink baloon with soft wheels floating around Saturn's moons...
Nobody "forced" him. My point has been made... again.
Actually, nope. From the original poster:
Sorry, you don't respond to a deep thread and tell me how I am wrong when the argument was whether or not RMS was forced. He wasn't. You people are wrong. Please try again.
He, like many of us, wonder why others are so strongly urged to switch to a GPL-compatible license
As I said before and likely will be ignored, the original thread is an anti-RMS/anti-GPL troll. All of your and his questions are explained quite nicely by Guido himself here.
Too bad I didn't say a word about whether people should be free to choose the GPL or not. I said people should be able to write other open licenses without being bothered about making it "compatible" with the GPL.
And such a remark attached to an article about a choice already made isn't trolling? I see, this article was about Guido being bothered. Yea, right. The only thing that is "bothering" is anonymous bigots unable to cope with a language going GPL.
Why does it really matter if programs are GPL compatible?
In this case it matters because Guido wants it to be. Read that here. It seems that your anti-GPL/anti-RMS rant is a little off-topic, and somewhat sad when you do this in response to what an author chooses to release his work as.
What about commercial UNIX's and the BSD's?
The newest versions of UNIXs like AIX and Solaris go as far as to include GPL'ed add-ons like GNU development tools and the GNOME desktop environment. As for the BSD varients, GNU GCC and grep manage to flourish, as well as reams of the respective ports collections.
Actually, the GPL is not "THE Open source license", it is the Free Software license. This issue before was that Python didn't qualify as GPL, hence the confusion. This is explained quite nicely here.
Despite your position on the GPL, having all ambiguity regarding the license will solve very much. Slashdot raised quite a discussion about this already. Now that this is behind us all, we can get back to coding.
...good. You use the example of manadatory arbitration as an example of a "good thing" when in actuality such a decision limits the rights of an individual. You may assume that discrimination and sexual harassment either do not exist or are not important. Congratulations, your likely not a victim of either.
The problem with these types of corporate-favoring lawsuits is that to enact them, you must belive the current judicial system is flawed and that any time a corporation is found guilty justice has not been served. I need not remind that those who feel this way are not in the courtrooms that make these decisions. Also, how often does Joe Taxpayer wake up and think "Gee, its terrible that I can sue a corporation that causes me harm."
You make it sound like ABA support for mandatory arbitration was an act of 'preserving "basic rights of consumers"' but clearly this is an example of the opposite. Civil lawyers may lose the opportunity to generate revenue but I can assure you corporate lawyers gain a _huge_ opportunity in return. The latter, self-serving reason is where the ABA's loyalty rests. Which is, of course, self interest.
If you think about it, everything we do is in self interest, and the ABA (of which I have a family member affilation) is not unlike any entity representing the needs/wants of its constituents. It is, however, rare when self-serving organizations like the ABA and the ABA do things that could have the side-effect of helping the common man, not simply their own stakeholders.
Very true that many readers fail to hold all market dominators in the same light. In this situation, however, IBM hasn't dominated the game market. Another note is that Microsoft abuses monopoly power and quite often sticks their head out of the window to tell the world who they just crushed or who they want to crush. (AOL situation? Netscape situation? GPL situation?)
IBM was also investigated for monopoly power, and ironically, David Boise defended them successfully. Remember Mr. Boise as the prosecuting attorney that successfully prosecuted Microsoft on behalf of the Department of Justice. This ultimately falls under the age-old saying "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". Cisco, IBM, and AOL simply don't squeak like Microsoft.
Its funny that I keep reading these "ASP Nighmare" stories when I just completed a class whose senior project was examining an ASP and it's industry. The overwhelming conclusion of the class was despite the 1999 Gartner projections of grandeur and wealth for this 'new and exciting' ASP market, you don't control the applications and you don't control the data.
The ASP market is limited by a number of factors. You need smaller-ish companies that don't have the inclination/capitol to support their own applications. You need also companies that don't value their own privacy or that trust their ASP like a family member.
The ASP market is overblown and its somewhat shocking that people are writing articles to the effect of "X Company held all of my apps and data. Now X is gone, and I didn't take these matters into consideration." Think of this as more.com consolidation.
I can definitely see the danger with influential companies taking an "interest" in Linux, however people like myself that use Linux for our own purposes outweigh companies.
Suppose for a minute that one notable contributor decides that Linux should only run on a cerain platform. They shmooze kernel developers to drop other platforms and Linux 2.4.5 is the last Linux as we know it. Are we doomed? Nope. We have the kernel source so we can do with it as we please.
Another thing to consider is that here we are talking about an effort to produce an API, something which could benefit users and developers. X Windows has many of them, and nobody is forced into anything. I would much rather companies add APIs than fork Linux into things like: LinuxTV or LinuxIBM.
"what good does.doc format do for _anyone_? " I agree, however over 90% of the market uses this format. Though not the best, it is the leader and we must recognize or fight that. We can't pretend it does not exist.
Aside from all of the usual "Microsoft is evil" banter, it is very true that such corporations are not at all concerned with interoperability and compatible formats. Seriously,what standard has Microsoft pushed? And by that I don't mean a de facto standard like "Win9X is installed by many OEMs so it the standard as far as 'X' is concerned". What contributions to specifications and standards organizations has Microsoft applied?
My guess is that like all dominanat entities, they will change when outward circumstances force them to do so (RE: economically feasable). They control > 90% of the desktop and office software so don't count on standards or cooperation. Notice, however, some time back that they were pushing Internet chat standards merely because they had not the marketshare AOL enjoys.
Im really happy to see this type of collaboration. It is only good for projects. I feel that Kword could benefit the most, as Abiword seems to do the.doc "thang" better for me. Glad to hear this is happening, and I hope to see more of this example.
"I haven't heard much from SCO lately. Sure they had competition from Novell and Microsoft, but the similarity to *BSD and Linux give you pretty much no reason to buy new SCO
software when you expand your already-SCO system. "
SCO was purchased for a nice sum by Caldera, a company that has done pretty well using GPL'ed software. And... whats your point? Why _should_ you buy SCO if there are better and cheaper alternatives? You just made a great argument for why Linux, BSD, and Free Software are good for consumers.
"Free Software has victims too. It's intent is to undermine the commercial software world, and put thousands of programmers out of work. What makes one kind of victimization OK
and the other not? "
Please, name some _victims_ of Free Software. The intent of Free Software is not to eliminate competition and programmer jobs, but rather insure that users of Free Software have an alternative to right-restricting, expensive software. I fail to see how companies like Redhat, Sun, IBM, HP, SuSE, Mandrake, and Linuxcare manage to _not_ employ people for Linux and GPL-related work. Also, NDAs and software licenses are very different.
Its a strange victim that _uses_ software and all of a sudden destroys himself and 'thousands of programmer jobs.'
Linux has the edge on Microsoft on a few things, like platform support, memory support, and price. However, those factors alone aren't enough to turn the tide of computing. Joe OEM cares little about that and more about how much money he can receive. Keep in mind that Microsoft gets vendors then customers.
This article is more about influence than technical superiority. Linux has little influence on Microsoft (With the exception of the Allchin and Mundie remarks) while Microsoft has much influence on Linux. Notice how nicely Linux competes in web benchmarks after the Mindcraft benchmarks were released.
Is it a double standard for Linux advocates to proclaim Linux superior then inferior for the sake of the context of the argument? Yes. Still, look at _what_ is being argued. Argue server merits and Linux has the edge, but you are scare to find anyone saying Linux has the edge in political power, OEM markets, and userbase.
Here is a question I extend to myself, Mr. Katz, and the Slashdot reader. How is this competition bad for us?
I was one of the first people to cry foul when Internet Explorer hit the scene. I found JScript and the bugginess of it unbearable. I also found it terrible that Microsoft, in releasing IE for free, destroyed the premium browser market.
Wait... how am I harmed? Netscape started the Mozilla project which helps differing platforms much more. Konquerer has now sprung up. Where the consumer had a single choice of browser on non-Win32 platform, there are now more.
Do I think there was foul play involved with IE's rise to the top? Most certainly, and the Department of Justice agrees. Still, I no longer think of Netscape as a benevolent savior. When the going got tough, they sold out to of all people, AOL.
Mr. Katz uses McDonalds as a 'Mom and Pop' crusher that eliminates our freedom. I agree to a certain extent, however we can't ignore that consumer demand placed McDonalds to where it is now. We can't ignore that consumers now have decent (compare McDonalds to rotting, unfit food certain nations must ingest) food available cheaply and quickly. We can't ignore the jobs that were created.
If we believe huge corporations like AOL and Time/Microsoft/Blockbuster are harmful, we can't just complain. We must _do_ something about it. I dislike the RIAA so I give my recordings away freely. I dislike Microsoft so I don't use their operating systems. I disliked the McDonalds on my college campus so I successfully helped boycott it. My point isn't that we shouldn't raise the issue. My point is that we can draw awareness then _do_ somthing about it. Otherwise, we just sound silly.
I can definitely see the argument that Linux is as hard as Windows to install correctly. I agree if and only if you are coming from one perspective, and not the other. I am a UNIX sysadmin and have much more difficulty in Win32 environments.
Comparing Windows to Linux is misleading. The general OS of Microsoft to comare to Linux is Windows 2000, while "Linux" can mean any distro. The distros I use most are Red Hat and Debian. I can admit that applying an all-encompasing 'Service Pack' can be easier to some, however I find it offers the admin much less control and has a seemingly higher application break risk.
The Slashdot crew seems to really like apt-get as a update mechanism and I have to agree. It is Debian policy to repair and disclose all vulnerabilities and it has been my experience that they are wonderful at doing so. 'apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade' is extremely easy. Redhat's 'rpm -Fvh *rpm' can be less intuitive than an installer but again, it depends what you are used to and I have found it to be effective and have yet to be craked. (Knock on wood)
It may be true that good Linux admins are in short supply, but many efforts are underway to make it easier. Still, I would rather it be somewhat difficult and _correct_ than easier and less controlled.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I thought it would be more humorous if I started the joke as a serious response to an un-serious post. I guess the 'joke' part of my post didn't seem that humorous. :(
Thanks, please try again.
A blimp is the last thing I would imagine that could be used for space exploration. Interesting to me is that the press release mentions that landing is handled via "inflatable wheel". Im sure the technology is there, but I can't help thinking of a large, pink baloon with soft wheels floating around Saturn's moons...
Again, nice try.
Actually, I explained that here. Thanks aways.
Oh, I see. This news story _wasn't_ about Python conforming to the GPL. I see, Guido _didn't_ GPL Python, and it _wasn't_ ultimately his decision.
Yea, right. Nice try, however.
Actually, the GPL is not "THE Open source license", it is the Free Software license. This issue before was that Python didn't qualify as GPL, hence the confusion. This is explained quite nicely here.
Despite your position on the GPL, having all ambiguity regarding the license will solve very much. Slashdot raised quite a discussion about this already. Now that this is behind us all, we can get back to coding.
...good. You use the example of manadatory arbitration as an example of a "good thing" when in actuality such a decision limits the rights of an individual. You may assume that discrimination and sexual harassment either do not exist or are not important. Congratulations, your likely not a victim of either.
The problem with these types of corporate-favoring lawsuits is that to enact them, you must belive the current judicial system is flawed and that any time a corporation is found guilty justice has not been served. I need not remind that those who feel this way are not in the courtrooms that make these decisions. Also, how often does Joe Taxpayer wake up and think "Gee, its terrible that I can sue a corporation that causes me harm."
You make it sound like ABA support for mandatory arbitration was an act of 'preserving "basic rights of consumers"' but clearly this is an example of the opposite. Civil lawyers may lose the opportunity to generate revenue but I can assure you corporate lawyers gain a _huge_ opportunity in return. The latter, self-serving reason is where the ABA's loyalty rests. Which is, of course, self interest.
If you think about it, everything we do is in self interest, and the ABA (of which I have a family member affilation) is not unlike any entity representing the needs/wants of its constituents. It is, however, rare when self-serving organizations like the ABA and the ABA do things that could have the side-effect of helping the common man, not simply their own stakeholders.
Very true that many readers fail to hold all market dominators in the same light. In this situation, however, IBM hasn't dominated the game market. Another note is that Microsoft abuses monopoly power and quite often sticks their head out of the window to tell the world who they just crushed or who they want to crush. (AOL situation? Netscape situation? GPL situation?)
IBM was also investigated for monopoly power, and ironically, David Boise defended them successfully. Remember Mr. Boise as the prosecuting attorney that successfully prosecuted Microsoft on behalf of the Department of Justice. This ultimately falls under the age-old saying "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". Cisco, IBM, and AOL simply don't squeak like Microsoft.
Its funny that I keep reading these "ASP Nighmare" stories when I just completed a class whose senior project was examining an ASP and it's industry. The overwhelming conclusion of the class was despite the 1999 Gartner projections of grandeur and wealth for this 'new and exciting' ASP market, you don't control the applications and you don't control the data.
.com consolidation.
The ASP market is limited by a number of factors. You need smaller-ish companies that don't have the inclination/capitol to support their own applications. You need also companies that don't value their own privacy or that trust their ASP like a family member.
The ASP market is overblown and its somewhat shocking that people are writing articles to the effect of "X Company held all of my apps and data. Now X is gone, and I didn't take these matters into consideration." Think of this as more
I can definitely see the danger with influential companies taking an "interest" in Linux, however people like myself that use Linux for our own purposes outweigh companies.
Suppose for a minute that one notable contributor decides that Linux should only run on a cerain platform. They shmooze kernel developers to drop other platforms and Linux 2.4.5 is the last Linux as we know it. Are we doomed? Nope. We have the kernel source so we can do with it as we please.
Another thing to consider is that here we are talking about an effort to produce an API, something which could benefit users and developers. X Windows has many of them, and nobody is forced into anything. I would much rather companies add APIs than fork Linux into things like: LinuxTV or LinuxIBM.
"what good does .doc format do for _anyone_? "
I agree, however over 90% of the market uses this format. Though not the best, it is the leader and we must recognize or fight that. We can't pretend it does not exist.
Aside from all of the usual "Microsoft is evil" banter, it is very true that such corporations are not at all concerned with interoperability and compatible formats. Seriously,what standard has Microsoft pushed? And by that I don't mean a de facto standard like "Win9X is installed by many OEMs so it the standard as far as 'X' is concerned". What contributions to specifications and standards organizations has Microsoft applied?
My guess is that like all dominanat entities, they will change when outward circumstances force them to do so (RE: economically feasable). They control > 90% of the desktop and office software so don't count on standards or cooperation. Notice, however, some time back that they were pushing Internet chat standards merely because they had not the marketshare AOL enjoys.
Im really happy to see this type of collaboration. It is only good for projects. I feel that Kword could benefit the most, as Abiword seems to do the .doc "thang" better for me. Glad to hear this is happening, and I hope to see more of this example.
"I haven't heard much from SCO lately. Sure they had competition from Novell and Microsoft, but the similarity to *BSD and Linux give you pretty much no reason to buy new SCO software when you expand your already-SCO system. "
SCO was purchased for a nice sum by Caldera, a company that has done pretty well using GPL'ed software. And... whats your point? Why _should_ you buy SCO if there are better and cheaper alternatives? You just made a great argument for why Linux, BSD, and Free Software are good for consumers.
"Free Software has victims too. It's intent is to undermine the commercial software world, and put thousands of programmers out of work. What makes one kind of victimization OK and the other not? "
Please, name some _victims_ of Free Software. The intent of Free Software is not to eliminate competition and programmer jobs, but rather insure that users of Free Software have an alternative to right-restricting, expensive software. I fail to see how companies like Redhat, Sun, IBM, HP, SuSE, Mandrake, and Linuxcare manage to _not_ employ people for Linux and GPL-related work. Also, NDAs and software licenses are very different.
Its a strange victim that _uses_ software and all of a sudden destroys himself and 'thousands of programmer jobs.'
Linux has the edge on Microsoft on a few things, like platform support, memory support, and price. However, those factors alone aren't enough to turn the tide of computing. Joe OEM cares little about that and more about how much money he can receive. Keep in mind that Microsoft gets vendors then customers.
This article is more about influence than technical superiority. Linux has little influence on Microsoft (With the exception of the Allchin and Mundie remarks) while Microsoft has much influence on Linux. Notice how nicely Linux competes in web benchmarks after the Mindcraft benchmarks were released.
Is it a double standard for Linux advocates to proclaim Linux superior then inferior for the sake of the context of the argument? Yes. Still, look at _what_ is being argued. Argue server merits and Linux has the edge, but you are scare to find anyone saying Linux has the edge in political power, OEM markets, and userbase.
Here is a question I extend to myself, Mr. Katz, and the Slashdot reader. How is this competition bad for us?
I was one of the first people to cry foul when Internet Explorer hit the scene. I found JScript and the bugginess of it unbearable. I also found it terrible that Microsoft, in releasing IE for free, destroyed the premium browser market.
Wait... how am I harmed? Netscape started the Mozilla project which helps differing platforms much more. Konquerer has now sprung up. Where the consumer had a single choice of browser on non-Win32 platform, there are now more. Do I think there was foul play involved with IE's rise to the top? Most certainly, and the Department of Justice agrees. Still, I no longer think of Netscape as a benevolent savior. When the going got tough, they sold out to of all people, AOL.
Mr. Katz uses McDonalds as a 'Mom and Pop' crusher that eliminates our freedom. I agree to a certain extent, however we can't ignore that consumer demand placed McDonalds to where it is now. We can't ignore that consumers now have decent (compare McDonalds to rotting, unfit food certain nations must ingest) food available cheaply and quickly. We can't ignore the jobs that were created.
If we believe huge corporations like AOL and Time/Microsoft/Blockbuster are harmful, we can't just complain. We must _do_ something about it. I dislike the RIAA so I give my recordings away freely. I dislike Microsoft so I don't use their operating systems. I disliked the McDonalds on my college campus so I successfully helped boycott it. My point isn't that we shouldn't raise the issue. My point is that we can draw awareness then _do_ somthing about it. Otherwise, we just sound silly.
I can definitely see the argument that Linux is as hard as Windows to install correctly. I agree if and only if you are coming from one perspective, and not the other. I am a UNIX sysadmin and have much more difficulty in Win32 environments.
Comparing Windows to Linux is misleading. The general OS of Microsoft to comare to Linux is Windows 2000, while "Linux" can mean any distro. The distros I use most are Red Hat and Debian. I can admit that applying an all-encompasing 'Service Pack' can be easier to some, however I find it offers the admin much less control and has a seemingly higher application break risk.
The Slashdot crew seems to really like apt-get as a update mechanism and I have to agree. It is Debian policy to repair and disclose all vulnerabilities and it has been my experience that they are wonderful at doing so. 'apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade' is extremely easy. Redhat's 'rpm -Fvh *rpm' can be less intuitive than an installer but again, it depends what you are used to and I have found it to be effective and have yet to be craked. (Knock on wood)
It may be true that good Linux admins are in short supply, but many efforts are underway to make it easier. Still, I would rather it be somewhat difficult and _correct_ than easier and less controlled.