Proving the Open Source model from an economic standpoint doesn't take profitability. Companies could operate it as a cost-center, never making a profit, and it would be successful as long as a group of companies could collectively reduce their costs by using it.
And of course there are non-economic proofs of the model's importance, too.
It's nice that people can make a living working on Open Source, but the existence of VA, Red Hat, and their ilk is not key to the existence of Open Source. I was making Open Source before they existed, I can go on making it after they are gone.
Bruce
Re:What this means to me
on
Men of Zeal
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· Score: 2
Find another example. The licenses don't really allow that to happen. KDE has some license conflicts they should fix, but it's been free software by the Debian guidelines or the Open Source Definition since the Qt license changed. The reason Debian doesn't distribute it is a license conflict between the Qt license and the GPL, not the fact that the separate licenses aren't free.
Thanks
Bruce
Software Freedom is more important than you think
on
Men of Zeal
·
· Score: 5
Consider PGP, the encryption software. It is used by just about every human-rights organization. It's used to prevent human-rights activists and their associates from being killed because their names and correspondence fall into the hands of a repressive government.
Consider that communications are essential to organizing a human rights movement. Computers and software are key to communications about human rights today in the way that free speech in a public square was during the American revolution.
If someone else controls our software, we have the potential for someone else to control our communications. We are getting close to scenarios of ubiquitous law enforcement with things like trusted client technology that has legitimate uses, but can also be used to stop your computer from carrying certain messages, like the radio-jammer "iron curtain" of the 50's and 60's.
Consider the people who are empowered in their everyday lives by the availability of low-cost software that they can customize to their needs and pass around to their peers with impunity. Think of the program that is placing Linux systems in the hands of Mexican students as one example.
Do not underestimate the importance of what we are doing here, folks.
Welcome aboard, new Open Source evangelists. I prefer that term to "Men of Zeal". What they do is evangelize, zeal is a side-effect. We need every one of them.
We are doing really well. So well that sometimes I wonder if I've died and gone to heaven. But we need new blood to keep the momentum going.
You've got a right to your opinion - I don't consider that flame-bait.
What I'd like to see then, in cases like this, is a science reporter who can actually interpret the story to the less-informed masses reading Slashdot. Some readers will think this will lead in short time to invisible people lurking in the corner of the powder room, etc.:-) That's pretty clearly not the case. We've also not heard from someone authorative explaining what would happen if you had an invisible retina:-)
From the report, this appears to be high school science fair quality work. They inject a hygroscopic chemical to pull the water out of tissues so that it won't bend light as much. They haven't investigated the toxicity! But it follows that pulling the water out of tissues would damage them. People don't run on anti-freeze.
This is translucency, not invisibility. It might win the high school science fair, but it's not worthy of an announcement on Slashdot, IMO. I wonder if this is just spoofing the press.
If non-profits need an ASP, why not a non-profit ASP that has as its mission serving the needs of the non-profit organization? That would be worth building, and free software can do it all.
The main advantage of an ASP for the non-profit is that it can facilitate distributed collaboration. Second to that, it offloads the load of administration and the operating and hardware expense. But ASPs don't make software cheaper if there is free software that does the same thing already.
I read the article and it seemed sort of dumb. The scientists injected a hygroscopic chemical into rat tissue to remove the water so that it would not bend light as much. They "haven't investigated the toxicity of the technique". But it's obviously going to damage tissue to pull out the water.
This isn't invisibility. It's translucency. It might win the science fair in some high school, but it's not earth-shaking. I probably would not have accepted it on my weblog either.
Nobody has explained one thing, so far. Why bother to go to such great length just to overclock? People lap the top of their CPUs for better contact with the heatsinks. OK, that will run continuously. They drop their motherboards in cooling fluids. What do they do with the computers afterward? Develop a habit and become regular customers of Airco? Some say that these are video gamers, but I doubt that gamers really need the speed quite this badly. The systems aren't going to stay cool for that long.
All that I can think is that this is the computer equivalent of drag-racing, and can't really serve any practical purpose.
Are you sure that there isn't a chemical reaction involved with halon and fires? I thought it was a misconception that there would be no breathable air left in the room after a halon dump.
Only if you use the methyl alcohol. And why is anyone using the methyl alcohol? To avoid having it taxed as liquor. So, blame your government for this sort of poisoning.
That would be drowning, not poisoning. You would need to exclude all breathable oxygen from the air in the room. It's hard to do.
It's true that sometimes people faint before they can get out of this sort of situation. It happens a lot with workers in steel tanks, where rust has removed all oxygen from the atmosphere.
To give a serious answer to a not-so-serious question, yes. They do get a good lot in donations every year, and as far as I can tell they are spending it wisely. If I were them, I'd keep this award in an interest-bearing account for some future emergency. For example, we have some legal challenges for free software in the future that could effect Debian and the rest of the free software movement.
Having been there, I can tell you that if people on Debian argue, it's because they care deeply about it.
What stable release? I've run "unstable" for over a year now, and it's been more stable than other released distributions I could name, and just as up-to-date. Debian is addressing the release frequency, however.
I pushed the "don't add 1 point" button and someone bumped it up anyway:-) Sorry about the spelling. The article was pretty close to content-free too, I was just pointing that out.
Perhaps I shouldn't even respond to trolls like this. You've posted this same rant a few times now. You don't quote me correctly, and you haven't listened to what I've said in the last year (Tim's not perfect but he's actually been learning something).
Open Source is all about providing a large group of people with different interests a way to collaborate on something that all of the world can share. A vow of poverty and a lack of direct financial benefit from an Open Source project is neither required nor necessary. Because of the licensing, it's still fair to everyone even if that sort of stuff exists.
OK, I'm back from a day with family, offline. I withdrew my article about 1PM after it became clear that there was a lot I'd not understood when writing it that the kernel list folks, etc., could tell me. I think I'd like to write this one again when I understand it better.
Meanwhile, does anyone remember the IAPX 432? It was a flop for several reasons: ADA flopped, its performance was bad, it was a real departure from the architectures of the day. But it had some real innovations - every function ran in its own protected space, using message passing for communication, and your program could protect itself from itself. Is it time to revisit that sort of architecture?
It sure sounds like a hoax to me. The processor isn't one that would run any of the standard SETI binaries and Linux. The company just decided to mass-produce a student project that doesn't fulfill any useful function other than one closed application that produces no data that's really useful to the owner of the card? The CPU chips are removed from missles and haven't otherwise been demilitarized?
Slashdot Mirror
But it's a moot point, anyway. Everybody is welcome to make money while making free software.
Bruce
And of course there are non-economic proofs of the model's importance, too.
It's nice that people can make a living working on Open Source, but the existence of VA, Red Hat, and their ilk is not key to the existence of Open Source. I was making Open Source before they existed, I can go on making it after they are gone.
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Consider that communications are essential to organizing a human rights movement. Computers and software are key to communications about human rights today in the way that free speech in a public square was during the American revolution.
If someone else controls our software, we have the potential for someone else to control our communications. We are getting close to scenarios of ubiquitous law enforcement with things like trusted client technology that has legitimate uses, but can also be used to stop your computer from carrying certain messages, like the radio-jammer "iron curtain" of the 50's and 60's.
Consider the people who are empowered in their everyday lives by the availability of low-cost software that they can customize to their needs and pass around to their peers with impunity. Think of the program that is placing Linux systems in the hands of Mexican students as one example.
Do not underestimate the importance of what we are doing here, folks.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
We are doing really well. So well that sometimes I wonder if I've died and gone to heaven. But we need new blood to keep the momentum going.
Thanks
Bruce
What I'd like to see then, in cases like this, is a science reporter who can actually interpret the story to the less-informed masses reading Slashdot. Some readers will think this will lead in short time to invisible people lurking in the corner of the powder room, etc. :-) That's pretty clearly not the case. We've also not heard from someone authorative explaining what would happen if you had an invisible retina :-)
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
This is translucency, not invisibility. It might win the high school science fair, but it's not worthy of an announcement on Slashdot, IMO. I wonder if this is just spoofing the press.
Thanks
Bruce
The main advantage of an ASP for the non-profit is that it can facilitate distributed collaboration. Second to that, it offloads the load of administration and the operating and hardware expense. But ASPs don't make software cheaper if there is free software that does the same thing already.
Bruce
This isn't invisibility. It's translucency. It might win the science fair in some high school, but it's not earth-shaking. I probably would not have accepted it on my weblog either.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
All that I can think is that this is the computer equivalent of drag-racing, and can't really serve any practical purpose.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
It's true that sometimes people faint before they can get out of this sort of situation. It happens a lot with workers in steel tanks, where rust has removed all oxygen from the atmosphere.
Bruce
To give a serious answer to a not-so-serious question, yes. They do get a good lot in donations every year, and as far as I can tell they are spending it wisely. If I were them, I'd keep this award in an interest-bearing account for some future emergency. For example, we have some legal challenges for free software in the future that could effect Debian and the rest of the free software movement.
Having been there, I can tell you that if people on Debian argue, it's because they care deeply about it.
What stable release? I've run "unstable" for over a year now, and it's been more stable than other released distributions I could name, and just as up-to-date. Debian is addressing the release frequency, however.
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Open Source is all about providing a large group of people with different interests a way to collaborate on something that all of the world can share. A vow of poverty and a lack of direct financial benefit from an Open Source project is neither required nor necessary. Because of the licensing, it's still fair to everyone even if that sort of stuff exists.
Bruce
Meanwhile, does anyone remember the IAPX 432? It was a flop for several reasons: ADA flopped, its performance was bad, it was a real departure from the architectures of the day. But it had some real innovations - every function ran in its own protected space, using message passing for communication, and your program could protect itself from itself. Is it time to revisit that sort of architecture?
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Yes, he linked to the "Brucedot" user info. Big joke.