Did anyone here even bothered to define what they mean by "Community"? How can anyone tell if their favorite site or MUD is a community without defining what a community is?
The researcher states that "Materiality" is part of his definition of community, which means that no matter how interesting and supporting slashdot is - it can't be a community by his standards.
If you claim that slashdot is a community - please explain what is your definition.
BTW. no one, including the researcher (as told by Katz) bothered to *justify* his definition.
Why is "Materiality" necessary to a community? why isn't it? what is necessary? why?
The guy got one point right: Open source is more critiqe than code, more talk than development. For every 1 person actually writing open source code, there are 20 (and I'm being optimistic here) that rant, criticize, talk about the good and bad points of the license, talk about geeks, talk about community, talk about which language should be used and what can be done and what shouldn't be done. Just try to raise an idea for a project in your local lug mailing list - its very likely to be shot down from 15 diffrent directions, less than 5 people will actually offer help, less than 2 will actually help. This is not a good enviroment for creativity and productivity. Get a Clue: real coding hackers are hiding from the hoards of "open source community" - they are hiding in basments and coding the future.
Alot has been talked about the Free Software patent pool. Software algorithms/methods will be patented and will be allowed to use only in free software. The idea is to give free software a competitive advantage over propietery software.
You seem to miss an important point. No one, not even RMS says we should abolish all patent laws. We say that they should be re-examined to fit our modern industry, thats all. For example - the patent life-time of 20 years is way too long for a fast changing industry. It may be perfect for the automobile industry where the time from design to production is about 10 years. But in the software industry its less than 3 month! Software patents are diffrent in another plane - the patent laws are specificly written to patent working products - not ideas. only in the software industry the lines between a product (code) and an idea (algorithm) is very blurred.
The human genome project is a *huge* project. Parts of the research were done by: a) scientific institutions using goverment money b) scientific institutions using companies money c) scientific institutions using their own money d) goverment institutions e) companies
Most research done in scientific institues will be published eventually since scientists work for publications.
Goverment research will also be published, considering the view expressed in the article.
Private research is more problematic, and unless knowledge is forced out of the companies by legistlation or extreme public pressure - they'd probably try to keep it secret because its the default business point of view. keep it secret unless there's a really good reason not to.
I wouldn't flaunt my ignorance if I were you! John gilamore has been active in:
Cygnus EFF (electronic frontier foundation) forming the "alt" newsgroups in usenet (!) Sun FSF Cryptography
He's the most deserving one of them! (well, Knuth is one of the best scientist we have, but he hasn't been a vocal free software advocate like Gilmore)
I've know idea what is used to define disorder, but I think a good idea would be to define it as a mental condition which distrupts everyday life, making life more difficult for the ill person.
Then ofcourse some one will decide that being a geek is a distrupted life, even if i like it:)
The whole issue is a problem because in every other ilness it is the patient who complains, and here we want to find a way to define someone as sick even when he claims he is perfectly well.
The same way crackers read security advisories in order to crack unprotected system, sysadmins can learn from phrack and the likes.
I mean if I read an article about a CGI/perl bug that allows cracking of websites, next thing I do is go over my scripts to make sure I'm not cracked by the 50,000 kids that will read it next.
Yeah, right. Everyone else is doing it is a great reason to do something. Don't question, don't think for yourself. Just go on doing what everyone else is doing. No way python/tcl are just as good for that purpose as perl, after all if there were any good everyone would be using them, right? No way there are some instances where speed of program is more important than speed of development.
I'd follow that argument I'd conclude that windows is better than linux - after all, everyone uses windows. Can't be that everyone is stupid, can it?
It would give and emberassing twist to the python vs. perl religious wars:)
after all, python people wrote a mailing list manager just so they wouldn't have to use majordomo written in perl.
Well, we could use python to write perl, perl to write python and have tons of fun.
There's that story about when steve jobs bought a cray machine. the sales manager called up the guy who designed cray (I forgot the name) and told him that apple bought a cray to be used for designing apple computers. The cray designer thought abit and said that it was logical - he is using an apple to design the cray.
Slashdot Mirror
WRONG! Socialism can and does work. In quite a few European countries.
Sweden for example is highly socialist. Highest taxes in the world, 100% free education and health, of extremely high quality.
And guess what? You don't see Swedes dying from hunger or arrested in Gulags.
Did anyone here even bothered to define what they mean by "Community"? How can anyone tell if their favorite site or MUD is a community without defining what a community is?
The researcher states that "Materiality" is part of his definition of community, which means that no matter how interesting and supporting slashdot is - it can't be a community by his standards.
If you claim that slashdot is a community - please explain what is your definition.
BTW. no one, including the researcher (as told by Katz) bothered to *justify* his definition.
Why is "Materiality" necessary to a community? why isn't it? what is necessary? why?
--------------------------
The guy got one point right:
Open source is more critiqe than code, more talk than development.
For every 1 person actually writing open source code, there are 20 (and I'm being optimistic here) that rant, criticize, talk about the good and bad points of the license, talk about geeks, talk about community, talk about which language should be used and what can be done and what shouldn't be done.
Just try to raise an idea for a project in your local lug mailing list - its very likely to be shot down from 15 diffrent directions, less than 5 people will actually offer help, less than 2 will actually help.
This is not a good enviroment for creativity and productivity.
Get a Clue: real coding hackers are hiding from the hoards of "open source community" - they are hiding in basments and coding the future.
Alot has been talked about the Free Software patent pool.
Software algorithms/methods will be patented and will be allowed to use only in free software.
The idea is to give free software a competitive advantage over propietery software.
What do you think?
Well, I don't really need the "feminine" online community - *my* online community is Slashdot, Technocrat and IGLU.
I define myself first as a geek, and only secondary as female.
Tough
You seem to miss an important point.
No one, not even RMS says we should abolish all patent laws.
We say that they should be re-examined to fit our modern industry, thats all.
For example - the patent life-time of 20 years is way too long for a fast changing industry.
It may be perfect for the automobile industry where the time from design to production is about 10 years. But in the software industry its less than 3 month!
Software patents are diffrent in another plane - the patent laws are specificly written to patent working products - not ideas. only in the software industry the lines between a product (code) and an idea (algorithm) is very blurred.
The human genome project is a *huge* project.
Parts of the research were done by:
a) scientific institutions using goverment money
b) scientific institutions using companies money
c) scientific institutions using their own money
d) goverment institutions
e) companies
Most research done in scientific institues will be published eventually since scientists work for publications.
Goverment research will also be published, considering the view expressed in the article.
Private research is more problematic, and unless knowledge is forced out of the companies by legistlation or extreme public pressure - they'd probably try to keep it secret because its the default business point of view. keep it secret unless there's a really good reason not to.
Chen.
I'd put something like:
Looking for a warm, sensitive, caring man. Knowledge in Unix/Perl a plus.
from the introduction to a DCOM book I read lately:
"microsoft believes it can allways improve on a standard"
Nuff said.
such a long orbit around earth is bound to be unstable.
are they sure it will return to earth again? how many times did it pass here before?
Or open source exploitations?
:)
:)
Ah! the GNU space project!
Hackers all over the world are cooperating to build a spaceship
Ofcourse we might want to build it based on old reliable technology... like... V2?
We can call it FAV - FAV Ain't V2
Doesn't it feel like NASA (and the entire world for that matter) is giving up on space?
:)
I mean, once I thought it plausable to have some space colonies by year 2000 and time travel 2010.
It was my favorite debate subject
These days I doubt if I'll live to see another lunar landing...
Try reading ESR's excelent video-tuning how-to.
People were able to run every monitor-card configuration using this document.
I wouldn't flaunt my ignorance if I were you!
John gilamore has been active in:
Cygnus
EFF (electronic frontier foundation)
forming the "alt" newsgroups in usenet (!)
Sun
FSF
Cryptography
He's the most deserving one of them! (well, Knuth is one of the best scientist we have, but he hasn't been a vocal free software advocate like Gilmore)
I've know idea what is used to define disorder, but I think a good idea would be to define it as a mental condition which distrupts everyday life, making life more difficult for the ill person.
:)
Then ofcourse some one will decide that being a geek is a distrupted life, even if i like it
The whole issue is a problem because in every other ilness it is the patient who complains, and here we want to find a way to define someone as sick even when he claims he is perfectly well.
Because until they become abusive we don't care that much.
R of RSA is Michael. O. Rabin of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
He is a CS Prof, researching cryptography and winner of the Turing award for CS.
The same way crackers read security advisories in order to crack unprotected system, sysadmins can learn from phrack and the likes.
I mean if I read an article about a CGI/perl bug that allows cracking of websites, next thing I do is go over my scripts to make sure I'm not cracked by the 50,000 kids that will read it next.
I'd nominate TEX - well designed, elegant, usefull, and 100% bugless! Perhaps the only bugless program in existance.
also GNU emacs is quite a hack.
I believe ESR will get a sizeable share :)
:)
Now he can stop talking about his wife supporting him while he's working for the good of our community
Yeah, right.
Everyone else is doing it is a great reason to do something.
Don't question, don't think for yourself.
Just go on doing what everyone else is doing.
No way python/tcl are just as good for that purpose as perl, after all if there were any good everyone would be using them, right?
No way there are some instances where speed of program is more important than speed of development.
I'd follow that argument I'd conclude that windows is better than linux - after all, everyone uses windows. Can't be that everyone is stupid, can it?
Chen.
Perhaps those were visiting nerds laughting at him (not with him)
Chen.
In Copycat they had an SGI I still dream about.
Chen.
There's a nice anecdote on why there's no Nobel award for mathematicians -
The legend says that Nobel wife/SO betrayed him with a matematician...
The reason why there's no Nobel award for CS is more obviouse... when the Nobel fund opened there was no CS.
It would give and emberassing twist to the python vs. perl religious wars :)
after all, python people wrote a mailing list manager just so they wouldn't have to use majordomo written in perl.
Well, we could use python to write perl, perl to write python and have tons of fun.
There's that story about when steve jobs bought a cray machine. the sales manager called up the guy who designed cray (I forgot the name) and told him that apple bought a cray to be used for designing apple computers. The cray designer thought abit and said that it was logical - he is using an apple to design the cray.