> 'Open Source' is sucessful because the coders can get good jobs?
That's a nice strawman, but Roblimo didn't say that The closest he comes is that some open source coders can get good jobs because of their Open Source work. It's not the reason Open Source is successful, but a result of it being successful.
Similarly, Open Source projects are not successful because they have wide-spread usage. Some Open Source projects are have wide-spread usage because of Open Source being successful. Again, you're confusing cause and effect. I will say that the usage of a project is a better measure of its success than the jobs held by (or offered to) its developers.
So, why is Open Source successful? I'm not going to regurgitate ESR's writings, but Roblimo adds a new factor which I don't think ESR touches upon. Traditionally Open Source writers have written what they needed, and released it to the world. If many other people needed the same thing, its usage became widespread, and it was successful. The change that Roblimo notes, before he burys it in a discussion of fame and fortune, is that Open source writers are now deliberately looking at what users want and providing it, while still working on things that interest them and releasing it to the world. While this is something that people like Linus have been calling for for several years, it's really just starting to show results.
> But, in many ways, isn't it true that his hands are tied due to the consent decree and findings of fact
IANAL, but my gut feeling is no, at least not directly. Since the parties to the consent decree were the DoJ and Microsoft, they can consent to modify it. As for the FoF, a settlement would neither have to address the entirety of the FoF, nor be limited to issues addressed in the FoF. The impact of the FoF would be indirect - giving Microsoft the incentive to settle, while providing the DoJ the backbone to not concede too much.
Both BIND and sendmail were brought to version 8 to synchronize with the 4.4BSD source revision numbers. BIND underwent a full source rewrite, and is appropriately incrementing the major release number. Hopefully Sendmail will do the same thing one of these days.
> Grrr! I -hate- closed-door development. It's not much better than closed-source.
Read the Cathedral and the Bazaar. ESR notes "It's fairly clear that one cannot code from the ground up in bazaar style.". The developers certainly want as many eyes as possible looking at the code, and finding and repairing bugs, as possible, but they have to provide something that works at some level first.
I have a Belkin OmniCube at home and a Belkin OnmiView PRO at the office (both 4 port models), and, while I like them, they do _not_ work wll with Logitech wheel (scroll) mice. Both Windows and XWindows lose the scroll when switching. With Windows, the Logitech control center can be forced to re-detect the mouse. I haven't found a workaround for X short of restarting X. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
OTOH, I haven't noticed any video fuzziness, but that may be because I need a checkup anyways.;)
For about 2 months, right? Frankly, I would have preferred to see the Linux 1.2 patch (which was promised for BEFORE LokiHack took place) rather than these patchettes.
> I think the best part of internet-based voting is the reduction in > voter apathy.
Why do you say that? How does making something easier make it more valuable?
> Personally, I think [apathy] is one of the biggest problems we have > nowadays.
No, apathy is the symptom of the problem: an electoral system that makes an individual vote almost worthless, especially if that vote is for a position outside of the Democratic-Republican Party.
> If everyone came out to vote, we could ensure that the likelihood of > a stupid candidate being elected would drop.
First, it would ensure nothing but that everyone came out to vote. Just because everyone votes doesn't mean that they will be primarily influenced by substantive arguments of an intelligent candidate. If anything, it would be more likely that a "stupid candidate" who panders to the lowest common denominator would get the votes. Just look at network television.
Second, making it easier to vote in the past hasn't decreased apathy or voter turnout, at least not in the medium-to-long term. Making cosmetic changes to voting systems will do little to decrease apathy.
What I think would help to reduce voter apathy would be to radically redefine Congressional districts (to start at the top). Combine each states Congressional districts as follows:
In each district, proportional voting would be used - each voter would get as many votes as the district had Representatives. The voter could use all of the votes on one candidate, or spread them among as many candidates as the district had Representatives. This gives a segment of voters as small as 20% of the voting population a voice, a voice they do not currently have.
I think that a system like this is used in most European countries. I think that it's worth a shot here.
> As well, we could vote on many more small issues. The government > could always "put an issue to the people" and not inconvenience us.
Is this a good thing? Would votes like this mean that the best positions would win, or the best marketed positions? One goal of a representative form of government is to have representatives who can devote the time necessary to an issue to make an informed decision in the long-term best interests of their constituents. While our current electoral system causes most representatives to look no more long-term than the next election, and be heavily swayed by the best interests of their campaign contributors rather than that of their constituents, putting issues "to the people", especially in a manner designed to "not inconvenience us", is a formula for disaster.
Yes, they only go after people selling products, and they successfully shut down Roadkills-R-Us. Just try and get to Toys-R-Us Giraffe Threatens to Sue Web Page. You can't buy any roadkill from them any more!
Because people who write code generally don't like writing documentation. Software companies usually can deal with this by hiring tech writers to write documentation, although they often can't get sufficient information from the developers to write accurate documentation either. However, since we're talking Open Source here, if you find a man5 page which isn't accurate, you can make the necessary changes and contribute it back to the core project.
> Why does Linus still hate the GGI project?
I haven't seen him say that he hates it, even on the GGI progect web site. I have seen him say that he isn't convinced that it is the right answer. That doesn't mean that he thinks that it is the wrong answer, but he only wants to put interfaces for the right answers in the kernel. That doesn't stop you from using it, and if enough people are using it that it becomes apparent that it is the right (or, at lease, adequate) answer, it will be accepted into the core. Look at the history of the serial console in Linux. I recall a time when Linus was vehemently opposed to putting it in the kernel. It's there now.
> Will DOSEMU ever run Windows98?
Why? If you're wanting to run Windows 98 applications, a better means would be WINE or TWIN. If you actually want to run Windows 98, you can use VMware.
> Why isn't BERLIN integrated in the kernel?
Is it the right answer, or just an answer?
> If I disassemble a proprietary driver module, is it Open Source(tm)?
Hardly. It's quite possible that the act of disassembling it would violate the licence it was provided to you under. Even if it isn't a license violation, it would be a derived work, and be covered under the same proprietary license. The only way to make an Open Source driver from it would be if you could describe the behavior of the driver in enough detail without source, that someone who hasn't seen the source could write a duplicate driver.
> When is/usr/doc/usr/share/info, man, going to be integrated into a single help system?
Never? While much of the information in/usr/doc tree might be able to be rewritten into TeX, and be able to be formatted into info/html/text/... files, it's prolly more work than the doc maintainers are interested in doing. As for info and man, I see them as serving two related but distinct purposes. man pages should be as concise as possible, telling me what the command/system call/file does, the syntax, and what the meaning of the available options are. info files, on the other hand, should go into more detail, providing examples of suggested uses, tutorials, etc. While both functions can be served in both man and info formats, applications which go exclusively info tend to spread the syntax across too many files (see many GNU applicatons), whilch applications which use only man pages have far too many man pages (see Perl). I don't think that I want one help system to bind them all.
I know you said that you quit Netscape, but are you _sure_ that Netscape knows this? With Netscape 4.6.1 on Linux, I've seen netscape processes running days after I "quit" Netscape. If that's what's happening to you, and the page Netscape thinks you're looking at has a DoubleClick banner, that would explain the behavior you're seeing. Of course, if you've allready checked your process table, this isn't an issue.;)
Ah, let's not forget that the Golden Age Sandman far pre-dates Gaiman's Sandman. While Gaiman's re-use of the Sandman name, and the connections he established between his Sandman and both the original and second DC Sandman characters, may have reinvigorated the Golden Age Sandman, saying that he was "hinted at very briefly" by Gaiman gives the wrong impression as to who created the character.
At any rate, I agree that DC has been respectful of who created the Dreaming for them (or re-created - I think that the second Sandman used to the Dreaming). Gaiman is still listed as a consultant on The Dreaming, although only he can say how much input he is permitted, or how much he actually offers. I don't recall if he was listed in the credits of the JLA issues with Dream, although I actually hope not. As for Books of Magic/Books of Faire, those aren't as tied to the Dreaming, and perhaps for that reason, tend to be better books. The Dreaming and the Endless seem to be more of a personal vision of Gaiman's, and even the best portrayal of them in the hands of others pales in comparison.
ajs> The problem with your angle, here, is that ajs> you assume that the goal of a patent is to ajs> inspire someone to innovate, but otherwise ajs> would not.
That is indeed the assumption. From the Constitution of the United States:
USC> Article I. USC> [...] USC> Section 8. The Congress shall have power USC> [...] To promote the progress of science and USC> useful arts, by securing for limited times to USC> authors and inventors the exclusive right to USC> their respective writings and discoveries;
> We're doing that for CUPS for the same reason that Linus trademarked Linux...
Um, Linus _didn't_ trademark Linux, some jerk in New England did, and it ended up being cheaper to pay him to transfer the trademark to Linus than to get the PTO to void it. Now, that in and of itself may be a good reason to trademark CUPS (although I doubt it - after all, it's not like I see a flock of people distorting the LPRng name), but at least get your facts straight.
_This_ whole scare was a fraud, just like the April 9 (99th day of the year) one was. My COBOL is quite rusty, but the data definition for a date field would be something like:
05 DATE. 10 DAY PIC 99. 10 MON PIC 99. 10 YEAR PIC 99.
You could then treat DATE like it had been defined as PIC 999999. Whether numbers were being stored as BCD, or as full characters (like on punched cards, which is where the problem originated in the 1880's), on 9 Sep 1999, DATE would be 090999, not 9999.
Well, Evolution generally is not taught as a theory, but as a proven fact. A second problem is that there are, as I see it, two parts to the modern theory of evolution. One is speciation, or the origin of species, which is what Charles Darwin wrote on. This can be observed, tested, and accepted. The other is the origin of life, which Charles Darwin specifically wrote that he was _not_ speculating upon, but which modern evolutionists do. As far as I know, the best that has been accomplished in simulations is the production of some admittedly complex proteins, but nothing rising to the level of life. The logical fallacy many evolutionists fall into is that, since the evolutionary theory of speciation fits the observable facts, then the evoluitonary theory of the origins of life has been equally tested. To my view, the belief that single celled organisms spontaneously appeared is only a somewhat refined version of the medieval belief that maggots were spontaneously formed on rotting meat, but that's just me.
Slashdot Mirror
> 'Open Source' is sucessful because the coders can get good jobs?
That's a nice strawman, but Roblimo didn't say that The closest he comes is that some open source coders can get good jobs because of their Open Source work. It's not the reason Open Source is successful, but a result of it being successful.
Similarly, Open Source projects are not successful because they have wide-spread usage. Some Open Source projects are have wide-spread usage because of Open Source being successful. Again, you're confusing cause and effect. I will say that the usage of a project is a better measure of its success than the jobs held by (or offered to) its developers.
So, why is Open Source successful? I'm not going to regurgitate ESR's writings, but Roblimo adds a new factor which I don't think ESR touches upon. Traditionally Open Source writers have written what they needed, and released it to the world. If many other people needed the same thing, its usage became widespread, and it was successful. The change that Roblimo notes, before he burys it in a discussion of fame and fortune, is that Open source writers are now deliberately looking at what users want and providing it, while still working on things that interest them and releasing it to the world. While this is something that people like Linus have been calling for for several years, it's really just starting to show results.
> But, in many ways, isn't it true that his hands are tied due to the consent decree and findings of fact
IANAL, but my gut feeling is no, at least not directly. Since the parties to the consent decree were the DoJ and Microsoft, they can consent to modify it. As for the FoF, a settlement would neither have to address the entirety of the FoF, nor be limited to issues addressed in the FoF. The impact of the FoF would be indirect - giving Microsoft the incentive to settle, while providing the DoJ the backbone to not concede too much.
Both BIND and sendmail were brought to version 8 to synchronize with the 4.4BSD source revision numbers. BIND underwent a full source rewrite, and is appropriately incrementing the major release number. Hopefully Sendmail will do the same thing one of these days.
> Grrr! I -hate- closed-door development. It's not much better than closed-source.
Read the Cathedral and the Bazaar. ESR notes "It's fairly clear that one cannot code from the ground up in bazaar style.". The developers certainly want as many eyes as possible looking at the code, and finding and repairing bugs, as possible, but they have to provide something that works at some level first.
I have a Belkin OmniCube at home and a Belkin OnmiView PRO at the office (both 4 port models), and, while I like them, they do _not_ work wll with Logitech wheel (scroll) mice. Both Windows and XWindows lose the scroll when switching. With Windows, the Logitech control center can be forced to re-detect the mouse. I haven't found a workaround for X short of restarting X. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
;)
OTOH, I haven't noticed any video fuzziness, but that may be because I need a checkup anyways.
> The 1.2 version (out for Windows already)
For about 2 months, right? Frankly, I would have preferred to see the Linux 1.2 patch (which was promised for BEFORE LokiHack took place) rather than these patchettes.
> I think the best part of internet-based voting is the reduction in
> voter apathy.
Why do you say that? How does making something easier make it more
valuable?
> Personally, I think [apathy] is one of the biggest problems we have
> nowadays.
No, apathy is the symptom of the problem: an electoral system that
makes an individual vote almost worthless, especially if that vote is
for a position outside of the Democratic-Republican Party.
> If everyone came out to vote, we could ensure that the likelihood of
> a stupid candidate being elected would drop.
First, it would ensure nothing but that everyone came out to vote.
Just because everyone votes doesn't mean that they will be primarily
influenced by substantive arguments of an intelligent candidate. If
anything, it would be more likely that a "stupid candidate" who
panders to the lowest common denominator would get the votes. Just
look at network television.
Second, making it easier to vote in the past hasn't decreased apathy
or voter turnout, at least not in the medium-to-long term. Making
cosmetic changes to voting systems will do little to decrease apathy.
What I think would help to reduce voter apathy would be to radically
redefine Congressional districts (to start at the top). Combine each
states Congressional districts as follows:
1-5 Representatives - 1 district
6 Representatives - 2 3 Representative districts
7 Representatives - 1 3 Representative district, 1 4 Representative district.
8 Representatives - 2 4 Representative districts
9 Representatives - 1 4 Representative district, 1 5 Representative district.
10 Representatives - 2 5 Representative districts
11 Representatives - 1 3 Representative district, 2 4 Representative districts.
12+ Representatives - 1-4 4 Representative districts, remainder 5 Representative districts.
In each district, proportional voting would be used - each voter would
get as many votes as the district had Representatives. The voter
could use all of the votes on one candidate, or spread them among as
many candidates as the district had Representatives. This gives a
segment of voters as small as 20% of the voting population a voice, a
voice they do not currently have.
I think that a system like this is used in most European countries. I
think that it's worth a shot here.
> As well, we could vote on many more small issues. The government
> could always "put an issue to the people" and not inconvenience us.
Is this a good thing? Would votes like this mean that the best
positions would win, or the best marketed positions? One goal of a
representative form of government is to have representatives who can
devote the time necessary to an issue to make an informed decision in
the long-term best interests of their constituents. While our current
electoral system causes most representatives to look no more long-term
than the next election, and be heavily swayed by the best interests of
their campaign contributors rather than that of their constituents,
putting issues "to the people", especially in a manner designed to
"not inconvenience us", is a formula for disaster.
My concern is, do they know the long term effects? Until they've been doing the procedure longer than my life expectancy, I'll stick with glasses.
Yes, they only go after people selling products, and they successfully shut down Roadkills-R-Us. Just try and get to Toys-R-Us Giraffe Threatens to Sue Web Page. You can't buy any roadkill from them any more!
> Why is man5 always out of date WRT /etc?
/usr/doc /usr/share/info, man, going to be integrated into a single help system?
/usr/doc tree might be able to be rewritten into TeX, and be able to be formatted into info/html/text/... files, it's prolly more work than the doc maintainers are interested in doing. As for info and man, I see them as serving two related but distinct purposes. man pages should be as concise as possible, telling me what the command/system call/file does, the syntax, and what the meaning of the available options are. info files, on the other hand, should go into more detail, providing examples of suggested uses, tutorials, etc. While both functions can be served in both man and info formats, applications which go exclusively info tend to spread the syntax across too many files (see many GNU applicatons), whilch applications which use only man pages have far too many man pages (see Perl). I don't think that I want one help system to bind them all.
Because people who write code generally don't like writing documentation. Software companies usually can deal with this by hiring tech writers to write documentation, although they often can't get sufficient information from the developers to write accurate documentation either. However, since we're talking Open Source here, if you find a man5 page which isn't accurate, you can make the necessary changes and contribute it back to the core project.
> Why does Linus still hate the GGI project?
I haven't seen him say that he hates it, even on the GGI progect web site. I have seen him say that he isn't convinced that it is the right answer. That doesn't mean that he thinks that it is the wrong answer, but he only wants to put interfaces for the right answers in the kernel. That doesn't stop you from using it, and if enough people are using it that it becomes apparent that it is the right (or, at lease, adequate) answer, it will be accepted into the core. Look at the history of the serial console in Linux. I recall a time when Linus was vehemently opposed to putting it in the kernel. It's there now.
> Will DOSEMU ever run Windows98?
Why? If you're wanting to run Windows 98 applications, a better means would be WINE or TWIN. If you actually want to run Windows 98, you can use VMware.
> Why isn't BERLIN integrated in the kernel?
Is it the right answer, or just an answer?
> If I disassemble a proprietary driver module, is it Open Source(tm)?
Hardly. It's quite possible that the act of disassembling it would violate the licence it was provided to you under. Even if it isn't a license violation, it would be a derived work, and be covered under the same proprietary license. The only way to make an Open Source driver from it would be if you could describe the behavior of the driver in enough detail without source, that someone who hasn't seen the source could write a duplicate driver.
> When is
Never? While much of the information in
> If I piss off Linus, will Tove kick my ass?
Is that a concern, or a request?
I know you said that you quit Netscape, but are you _sure_ that Netscape knows this? With Netscape 4.6.1 on Linux, I've seen netscape processes running days after I "quit" Netscape. If that's what's happening to you, and the page Netscape thinks you're looking at has a DoubleClick banner, that would explain the behavior you're seeing. Of course, if you've allready checked your process table, this isn't an issue. ;)
Ah, let's not forget that the Golden Age Sandman far pre-dates Gaiman's Sandman. While Gaiman's re-use of the Sandman name, and the connections he established between his Sandman and both the original and second DC Sandman characters, may have reinvigorated the Golden Age Sandman, saying that he was "hinted at very briefly" by Gaiman gives the wrong impression as to who created the character.
At any rate, I agree that DC has been respectful of who created the Dreaming for them (or re-created - I think that the second Sandman used to the Dreaming). Gaiman is still listed as a consultant on The Dreaming, although only he can say how much input he is permitted, or how much he actually offers. I don't recall if he was listed in the credits of the JLA issues with Dream, although I actually hope not. As for Books of Magic/Books of Faire, those aren't as tied to the Dreaming, and perhaps for that reason, tend to be better books. The Dreaming and the Endless seem to be more of a personal vision of Gaiman's, and even the best portrayal of them in the hands of others pales in comparison.
Since these were discussed in security tutorials at LISA last year, how can they be passed off as 'new'?
ajs> The problem with your angle, here, is that
ajs> you assume that the goal of a patent is to
ajs> inspire someone to innovate, but otherwise
ajs> would not.
That is indeed the assumption. From the Constitution of the United States:
USC> Article I.
USC> [...]
USC> Section 8. The Congress shall have power
USC> [...] To promote the progress of science and
USC> useful arts, by securing for limited times to
USC> authors and inventors the exclusive right to
USC> their respective writings and discoveries;
> We're doing that for CUPS for the same reason that Linus trademarked Linux...
Um, Linus _didn't_ trademark Linux, some jerk in New England did, and it ended up being cheaper to pay him to transfer the trademark to Linus than to get the PTO to void it. Now, that in and of itself may be a good reason to trademark CUPS (although I doubt it - after all, it's not like I see a flock of people distorting the LPRng name), but at least get your facts straight.
_This_ whole scare was a fraud, just like the April 9 (99th day of the year) one was. My COBOL is quite rusty, but the data definition for a date field would be something like:
05 DATE.
10 DAY PIC 99.
10 MON PIC 99.
10 YEAR PIC 99.
You could then treat DATE like it had been defined as PIC 999999. Whether numbers were being stored as BCD, or as full characters (like on punched cards, which is where the problem originated in the 1880's), on 9 Sep 1999, DATE would be 090999, not 9999.
Well, Evolution generally is not taught as a theory, but as a proven fact. A second problem is that there are, as I see it, two parts to the modern theory of evolution. One is speciation, or the origin of species, which is what Charles Darwin wrote on. This can be observed, tested, and accepted.
The other is the origin of life, which Charles Darwin specifically wrote that he was _not_ speculating upon, but which modern evolutionists do. As far as I know, the best that has been accomplished in simulations is the production of some admittedly complex proteins, but nothing rising to the level of life.
The logical fallacy many evolutionists fall into is that, since the evolutionary theory of speciation fits the observable facts, then the evoluitonary theory of the origins of life has been equally tested. To my view, the belief that single celled organisms spontaneously appeared is only a somewhat refined version of the medieval belief that maggots were spontaneously formed on rotting meat, but that's just me.