Taking that a step further, IIRC, the ability to run a Java applet directly from within a browser was one of the original primary selling points of Java. In fact, I think it was originally promoted as an applet language that you can write full-fledged programs in, rather than as a full-fledged programming language that you can (could) write applets in.
Of course, times change. If the flying car ever becomes a big success, I predict that its primary selling point will eventually become that it can drive on roads, and its flying capability will be deprecated.
I'm assuming that any rocket which lands vertically must carry twice the fuel to achieve a given altitude: one dose to accelerate to the altitude and a second dose to decelerate back to zero. This is in contrast to a space plane design like the Space Shuttle which dissipated the deceleration energy as heat and radiation. So, a vertically landing rocket would have to be much larger than its space-plane equivalent to carry the same payload to the same altitude.
Presumably, this would counteract some of the economics of rocket reuse - though perhaps it might still be cheaper overall due to the reuse of the (twice as large?) engine. Therefore, it isn't the panacea that it would at first appear. In fact, I suspect that the reason it wasn't done in the past was primarily that the economics wasn't actually all that compelling compared to one-time-use rockets, though it is also undoubtedly technically difficult.
Have I got all that right, or am I missing something?
Doesn't MacOS ultimately derive from the BSD kernel? Meanwhile, the folks who buy Macs running a proprietary OS are perfectly happy, and the folks that run (and still develop) open source BSD are perfectly happy. So, what's wrong with that? And why can't that sort of thing work just as well in cases like Chakra and Microsoft's other recent forays into open source?
I've thought for many years that copyleft was unnecessary because if the benefits of open source are as compelling as purported, there isn't much benefit to closing the source, except for cases like MacOS/BSD in which a dual proprietary/open model is actually the most efficient in the aggregate because both communities can get what they want.
Coincidentally, I was thinking the other day about writing a GPL-licensed cookbook: if you give someone food that is derived from one of the recipes, you are also obligated to give them a copy of the new recipe. That way, I can ensure that no one else gets to eat improved food without also being able to make that same food myself. Otherwise, someone might improve the recipe, start a restaurant selling the new dish, and make a fortune. Now, that's fine as far as it goes - as you say, we all have to eat, even restauranteurs. But I would then loose the freedom to start my own restaurant using that same improved recipe. And losing the freedom to eat improved food...well, now there's the fundamental problem.
Maybe this doesn't bother you, because you're satisfied to be a wealthy corporate drone. Me, I don't like it.
Quite satisfied, thank you. In fact, I own a number of corporate stocks (some more wealthy than others...) Heck, I even owned stock for awhile in the evil Corporation-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. I also work for a wealthy corporation. Oh, and I also run a not-so-wealthy one-man corporation from my home in my spare time.
But further, I think it's crystal clear that Microsoft is playing nice with open source licenses, the HTML standard, the Javascript/ECMAScript standard, HTTP 2.0, etc... etc... because it doesn't have a sufficient monopoly to force the world into its proprietary technologies.
Not only has the business climate changed since the "bad old days" of the Microsoft monopoly, there's also that little thing about it being run by different people now.
I continue to be fascinated by the fact that so many folks still read E-V-I-L into everything Microsoft does. Are we to conclude that a corporation (or some other entity) can so evil-to-the-core that it can never reform, even if reform is in their best business interest?
BTW, as a member of the FSF, I'm sure you noticed that they used the MIT license rather than the GPL for Chakra. We can only conclude that the ostensible "freedom" they give us via the MIT license to use their software in any way we chose is actually part of their evil plan to enslave us all...
I, for one, welcome our new MIT-licensing open source Microsoft overlords. It's better than eating toe-jam.;-)
It seems to me that a truly enlightened software company would find the right combination of open source and proprietary to optimize business in the long term. If we take the premise that Microsoft is enlightened (to at least some extent, if not truly), then they're trying to find the best combination for them. I'm not sure if that makes them "a complete friend" - probably not. But it also doesn't make them any sort of real enemy.
In simplest form, the business calculus for open source amounts to, "Do we gain more or lose more by making this open source?" Evidently, they think they gain more in this case and in their other forays into open source - which seems to be something they're doing more and more of. In more concrete terms, the business calculus often becomes, "Would the money we lose by giving this away be greater than the value we gain by getting wider adoption and/or free help from the open source community?" Since they're giving away their Edge browser in Windows 10, there's a pretty good business case to be made for also giving away its Javascript engine.
In short, enlightened self-interest doesn't mean you can't make friends.:-)
Why would you think that government employees would be immune to it? What makes them different, other than the fact that they work for an employer that uses an open system? Do you think only people who are okay with openess work for the government? On what basis?
Maybe government employees also are somehow immune from irony*.
Looking back on that time now that I am a "responsible adult" (tee-hee), I still don't think what went on back then was fair, and I don't think that knowing the discrepancies did me any good.
As has been pointed out here, there are many cases of open pay that seem to work. I just don't think it's the generally preferable thing. Specifically, I don't know what the big advantage is. One thing I can think of is that it might somehow lead to some sort of "fairness" by treating pay in some sort of systematic way, e.g., in the case of the federal government - I assume they have a "system" for pay the same way they have a "system" for income tax.
But I think most private employers want to have more flexibility, e.g. in providing performance grants of some kind. One could argue that such flexibility leads to favoritism or whatever, but if I don't really see that it's a bad thing overall - except if everybody knows about this "unfairness" and it leads to a lot of bad feelings.
From the employee's point of view, I can see an advantage if everybody's pay were open. Then, instead of having to look at salary surveys, you would know exactly where you stand relative to your peers both within your organization and outside. But as long as you stayed put in a job you were otherwise happy with, you'd probably be unhappy about some sort of perceived unfairness in your own pay. Maybe government employees are somehow immune from that sort of thing, but most of the rest of us aren't.
As a person with 30 years of experience, it seems likely that I make more than my boss, who only has 6 years of experience. In fact, by boss's boss once hinted something to the effect to me. So, is that unfair to the boss? We could debate whether he or I contribute more to the organization, or whether I'm worth X times what he makes. But that's irrelevant. Presumably, when my boss has 30 years of experience he likely also will make more than someone who has only six years of experience.
This is a bit like the union "seniority" system. Fairness comes not in terms of value-added per pay-received but in terms of the fact that ostensibly underpaid younger people will eventually become ostensibly overpaid older people.
You may disagree with the above, but what if everybody in this story knew each others' salary? I think that would just lead to a lot of bad feelings by those who feel they are underpaid (which was me in a past life), and wouldn't accomplish much of anything. It seems like a very bad idea to me, and not just because I'm now a highly paid senior person, but primarily because I saw the problems it caused among me an my coworkers when I worked at a Boy Scout camp at age 15: being young, we didn't know not to discuss these things, and when we discovered apparent discrepancies in our pay, it led to a lot of bad feelings.
BTW, hasn't Java already had some sort of little fling with Window Phone? Even so, I predict that Android will continue to steadfastly stand by her man...
FWIW, I just noticed on my "Comment Moderation" page that my "Caitlyn" comment above got marked twice as a Troll and twice as "Funny." So, my current theory is that I offended one transgender person, one Bruce Perens fan, and amused two folks who are neither - or both.
Yeah, it's crazy. "Let's make some invisible character with a variable width significant."
I see that this one got marked as "Insightful." It's remarkable that a point which gets made here like clockwork each-and-every-time the subject of Python comes up here could be viewed as any sort of "insight." BTW, here's another insight: I've noticed that the sun rises like clockwork each-and-every morning.
OK, here's another little insight: wouldn't it be nice if the moderation system here had an "I agree" option so that lots of people who are all thinking the same thing wouldn't feel the need to label each other (and, by proxy, themselves) as "Insightful?"
Thanks for sticking up for me but sadly, I've gotten used to that sort of thing around here. Sometimes I put in a disclaimer in the vein of "Note to humor-impaired moderators." However, in this case, I thought the (tasteless) humor of the thing was so obvious that no disclaimer was needed. Regardless, my apologies go to any members of the LGBT-moderator community whom I may have offended.
BTW, I always dislike the rating of "Troll." I never use that myself because it implies that you know that the intent of the poster was to rile people. As my "funny" (YMMV) comment above illustrates, it's generally a losing proposition to try to discern the intent of the poster. So, anytime I suspect a Troll when I'm in the moderator seat, I just mark it as "Overrated."
(Note to humor-impaired moderators: the first paragraph was irony - a device of mild humor - but the second paragraph was serious. Sorry if I'm "Trolling" again...)
Slashdot Mirror
The Florida Republican and 2016 presidential hopeful penned an op-ed on Tuesday condemning President Obama's counterterrorism policies...
I have it from a very good source that one of his aides actually penned that. Now, don't ask me how I know that, please don't ask...
Before or after my 115th birthday?
I'm not sure when they'll succeed in getting USB going in GNU HURD, but I predict it will eventually become a killer feature of Windows 95.
I see that this one got mark as "Off Topic." Yet another example of humor-impaired moderation...
With a lack of hardware, lack of sales, and less than 2 percent market share, it's time to call it: Windows Phone is dead.
If less than two percent market share really matters, here's a modest prediction: Martin O'Malley's Presidential campaign will be next.
Taking that a step further, IIRC, the ability to run a Java applet directly from within a browser was one of the original primary selling points of Java. In fact, I think it was originally promoted as an applet language that you can write full-fledged programs in, rather than as a full-fledged programming language that you can (could) write applets in.
Of course, times change. If the flying car ever becomes a big success, I predict that its primary selling point will eventually become that it can drive on roads, and its flying capability will be deprecated.
I'm assuming that any rocket which lands vertically must carry twice the fuel to achieve a given altitude: one dose to accelerate to the altitude and a second dose to decelerate back to zero. This is in contrast to a space plane design like the Space Shuttle which dissipated the deceleration energy as heat and radiation. So, a vertically landing rocket would have to be much larger than its space-plane equivalent to carry the same payload to the same altitude.
Presumably, this would counteract some of the economics of rocket reuse - though perhaps it might still be cheaper overall due to the reuse of the (twice as large?) engine. Therefore, it isn't the panacea that it would at first appear. In fact, I suspect that the reason it wasn't done in the past was primarily that the economics wasn't actually all that compelling compared to one-time-use rockets, though it is also undoubtedly technically difficult.
Have I got all that right, or am I missing something?
Or even: "Blue Origin had therefore accomplished a space first by flying a vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket into space twice in a row."
Doesn't MacOS ultimately derive from the BSD kernel? Meanwhile, the folks who buy Macs running a proprietary OS are perfectly happy, and the folks that run (and still develop) open source BSD are perfectly happy. So, what's wrong with that? And why can't that sort of thing work just as well in cases like Chakra and Microsoft's other recent forays into open source?
I've thought for many years that copyleft was unnecessary because if the benefits of open source are as compelling as purported, there isn't much benefit to closing the source, except for cases like MacOS/BSD in which a dual proprietary/open model is actually the most efficient in the aggregate because both communities can get what they want.
Coincidentally, I was thinking the other day about writing a GPL-licensed cookbook: if you give someone food that is derived from one of the recipes, you are also obligated to give them a copy of the new recipe. That way, I can ensure that no one else gets to eat improved food without also being able to make that same food myself. Otherwise, someone might improve the recipe, start a restaurant selling the new dish, and make a fortune. Now, that's fine as far as it goes - as you say, we all have to eat, even restauranteurs. But I would then loose the freedom to start my own restaurant using that same improved recipe. And losing the freedom to eat improved food...well, now there's the fundamental problem.
Maybe this doesn't bother you, because you're satisfied to be a wealthy corporate drone. Me, I don't like it.
Quite satisfied, thank you. In fact, I own a number of corporate stocks (some more wealthy than others...) Heck, I even owned stock for awhile in the evil Corporation-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. I also work for a wealthy corporation. Oh, and I also run a not-so-wealthy one-man corporation from my home in my spare time.
Man cannot live on toe jam alone.
But further, I think it's crystal clear that Microsoft is playing nice with open source licenses, the HTML standard, the Javascript/ECMAScript standard, HTTP 2.0, etc... etc... because it doesn't have a sufficient monopoly to force the world into its proprietary technologies.
Not only has the business climate changed since the "bad old days" of the Microsoft monopoly, there's also that little thing about it being run by different people now.
I continue to be fascinated by the fact that so many folks still read E-V-I-L into everything Microsoft does. Are we to conclude that a corporation (or some other entity) can so evil-to-the-core that it can never reform, even if reform is in their best business interest?
BTW, as a member of the FSF, I'm sure you noticed that they used the MIT license rather than the GPL for Chakra. We can only conclude that the ostensible "freedom" they give us via the MIT license to use their software in any way we chose is actually part of their evil plan to enslave us all...
I, for one, welcome our new MIT-licensing open source Microsoft overlords. It's better than eating toe-jam. ;-)
Now, let's not forget Kevin Costner's mullet: what would 90's robinhood been without that...?
Thanks for clearing that up, Mister...Potter...
It seems to me that a truly enlightened software company would find the right combination of open source and proprietary to optimize business in the long term. If we take the premise that Microsoft is enlightened (to at least some extent, if not truly), then they're trying to find the best combination for them. I'm not sure if that makes them "a complete friend" - probably not. But it also doesn't make them any sort of real enemy.
In simplest form, the business calculus for open source amounts to, "Do we gain more or lose more by making this open source?" Evidently, they think they gain more in this case and in their other forays into open source - which seems to be something they're doing more and more of. In more concrete terms, the business calculus often becomes, "Would the money we lose by giving this away be greater than the value we gain by getting wider adoption and/or free help from the open source community?" Since they're giving away their Edge browser in Windows 10, there's a pretty good business case to be made for also giving away its Javascript engine.
In short, enlightened self-interest doesn't mean you can't make friends. :-)
"Reports of the phone number's death have been greatly exaggerated."
(If nothing else, there will always be "867-5309.")
Why would you think that government employees would be immune to it? What makes them different, other than the fact that they work for an employer that uses an open system? Do you think only people who are okay with openess work for the government? On what basis?
Maybe government employees also are somehow immune from irony*.
*more irony...sorry :-)
Looking back on that time now that I am a "responsible adult" (tee-hee), I still don't think what went on back then was fair, and I don't think that knowing the discrepancies did me any good.
As has been pointed out here, there are many cases of open pay that seem to work. I just don't think it's the generally preferable thing. Specifically, I don't know what the big advantage is. One thing I can think of is that it might somehow lead to some sort of "fairness" by treating pay in some sort of systematic way, e.g., in the case of the federal government - I assume they have a "system" for pay the same way they have a "system" for income tax.
But I think most private employers want to have more flexibility, e.g. in providing performance grants of some kind. One could argue that such flexibility leads to favoritism or whatever, but if I don't really see that it's a bad thing overall - except if everybody knows about this "unfairness" and it leads to a lot of bad feelings.
From the employee's point of view, I can see an advantage if everybody's pay were open. Then, instead of having to look at salary surveys, you would know exactly where you stand relative to your peers both within your organization and outside. But as long as you stayed put in a job you were otherwise happy with, you'd probably be unhappy about some sort of perceived unfairness in your own pay. Maybe government employees are somehow immune from that sort of thing, but most of the rest of us aren't.
As a person with 30 years of experience, it seems likely that I make more than my boss, who only has 6 years of experience. In fact, by boss's boss once hinted something to the effect to me. So, is that unfair to the boss? We could debate whether he or I contribute more to the organization, or whether I'm worth X times what he makes. But that's irrelevant. Presumably, when my boss has 30 years of experience he likely also will make more than someone who has only six years of experience.
This is a bit like the union "seniority" system. Fairness comes not in terms of value-added per pay-received but in terms of the fact that ostensibly underpaid younger people will eventually become ostensibly overpaid older people.
You may disagree with the above, but what if everybody in this story knew each others' salary? I think that would just lead to a lot of bad feelings by those who feel they are underpaid (which was me in a past life), and wouldn't accomplish much of anything. It seems like a very bad idea to me, and not just because I'm now a highly paid senior person, but primarily because I saw the problems it caused among me an my coworkers when I worked at a Boy Scout camp at age 15: being young, we didn't know not to discuss these things, and when we discovered apparent discrepancies in our pay, it led to a lot of bad feelings.
This is good news for those guys at sideshows who eat light bulbs: I can't see how the new LED bulbs could possibly be as tasty or nutritious.
BTW, hasn't Java already had some sort of little fling with Window Phone? Even so, I predict that Android will continue to steadfastly stand by her man...
I think that was already implemented long before this new technology: it's called "taxes."
FWIW, I just noticed on my "Comment Moderation" page that my "Caitlyn" comment above got marked twice as a Troll and twice as "Funny." So, my current theory is that I offended one transgender person, one Bruce Perens fan, and amused two folks who are neither - or both.
Yeah, it's crazy. "Let's make some invisible character with a variable width significant."
I see that this one got marked as "Insightful." It's remarkable that a point which gets made here like clockwork each-and-every-time the subject of Python comes up here could be viewed as any sort of "insight." BTW, here's another insight: I've noticed that the sun rises like clockwork each-and-every morning.
OK, here's another little insight: wouldn't it be nice if the moderation system here had an "I agree" option so that lots of people who are all thinking the same thing wouldn't feel the need to label each other (and, by proxy, themselves) as "Insightful?"
Thanks for sticking up for me but sadly, I've gotten used to that sort of thing around here. Sometimes I put in a disclaimer in the vein of "Note to humor-impaired moderators." However, in this case, I thought the (tasteless) humor of the thing was so obvious that no disclaimer was needed. Regardless, my apologies go to any members of the LGBT-moderator community whom I may have offended.
BTW, I always dislike the rating of "Troll." I never use that myself because it implies that you know that the intent of the poster was to rile people. As my "funny" (YMMV) comment above illustrates, it's generally a losing proposition to try to discern the intent of the poster. So, anytime I suspect a Troll when I'm in the moderator seat, I just mark it as "Overrated."
(Note to humor-impaired moderators: the first paragraph was irony - a device of mild humor - but the second paragraph was serious. Sorry if I'm "Trolling" again...)
Who is Bruce Perens? Why should I care what he says? And why should we trust a man to discuss women's issues?
Haven't you heard? - "Bruce" recently began her transition to become "Caitlyn."
"Ricker-racker, firecracker, sis boom bah!
Anonymous collection of metadata, anonymous collection of metadata!
Rah, rah, RAH!"
(note to humor-impaired-NSA-hating moderators: it's just a joke :-)