RMS would like this one in particular: Q: Does this Law allow the use of Free Software? A: Yes, all Free Software is compatible with this Law by nature since Free Software source code is public and since all communication standards can be derived from the knowledge of the source code.
Note the use of the words "Free Software" instead of "Open Source Software". They clearly are using "Free" to mean libre, rather than gratis.
Q: Isn't is sufficient to require access to the source code?
A: No, because on the one hand, access to the source granted only to public organisations is not sufficient to guarantee that communication standards used to exchange information with citizens are open communication standards. Moreover, on the other hand, it would be incompatible with private property and competityion [sic] Law to force all software publishers to give public access to the source code.
That's the real kicker. Revealing source code to a third party (as opposed to "Open Source") is not good enough--you need to make your standards open. Also, they don't force anyone to try to totally open their source. RMS is probably cringing here, but this point will go a long way toward making this more acceptable to developers.
I'm not suggesting that anyone do this, but it seems to me that a plan like this would be a good target for civil disobedience via a flood attack.
Gather a large number of conspirators together, who each night will make one phone call to the system. Either use names at random from the class, or use (non-obviously) fictitious names.
The signal for which they are looking would become lost in the noise of the "jamming."
In general, taking an operating system and strapping a new paradigm to it is a Bad Idea.
When Microsoft took DOS, a single-user operating system, and added Windows to it, they ended up with a really terrible hack that didn't run either, up until about version 3.1.
When Microsoft later took Windows and added pen support (not CE, but Pen Windows--read your history!), it flopped. Windows wasn't suitable.
When they attempted to port a subset of NT to pen-based devices, they got CE, which has underperformed.
On the other hand...
When Apple abandoned the Apple II and designed the Mac as a graphically-operated machine from the ground up, they got a great platform.
When Palm threw out common notions of a shrunken PC and designed their device from scratch, they won.
My point is that a good voice-controlled system needs to be designed as a good voice-controlled system. Strapping it on after the fact won't cut it.
Depends on what you mean by "coding properly". Is explicitly allocating and deallocating memory "coding properly"? Why--just because you're forced to look at how the memory management works, I'm guessing you'll say.
How about making sure you're using the correct registers? Isn't improper saving and restoring of registers a performance problem? How about simply not using registers when you should? We have compilers now, though, that take care of that for you--and you don't even have to think about it it all.
GC could work the same way--if it were fast enough. Now, putting it into hardware is something I have more of a problem with, simply for cross-platform issues, but simply hiding memory allocation isn't necessarily a Bad Thing.
Not because I need 256 shades of chartreuse, but because I think that a true, black-on-white screen will be much easier to read than my Palm III's black-on-olive-drab.
Compare the screen of even an older passive-matrix notebook with the screen of a Palm in bright sunlight. The Palm is almost impossible to read under these conditions, but the notebook is easy to see.
Chances are, I'll get one, just for increased readability.
Battery life? Well, the expected battery life they're quoting is fourteen days of normal usage, and it uses a rechargeable battery. I don't have any problem dropping my cell phone into a rechargeable cradle every couple of days while I sleep. If I have to drop my Palm into the cradle every Sunday night to pay for a screen I can read in the sun, I'll do it.
I quote: "In addition, the source code, that provides outsiders with the ability to insert this code and attack Solaris and Linux systems, has been posted on the Internet for some time, making it easy accessible by anyone."
Having the source to the EXPLOITS, not the OPERATING SYSTEM, is what allowed people to quickly deploy this.
The writer may be guilty of ambiguity, but not bias.
"Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution...
Doesn't sound like the GPL to me--translators and commentators aren't required to distribute the original with their changes. More like a BSD-style or LGPL license.
>>Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List were hardly feel good movies.
Actually those are feel good movies. SPR feels good to american patroism idiots, and SL feels good to uneducated sophomores.
An interesting definition. So, you would define (and therefore denigrate) a "feel good" movie as one which makes some miniscule slice of humanity feel good?
Is there any movie, then, that would not be a "feel good" movie?
That scene in RC1 where the prototype ED209 spatters some suit was classic. Revenge of the techies.
Not really. It wasn't "revenge of the techies"--it was "revenge of the bugs in a badly-run project". It was simply fortunate that it wasn't one of the techies that got snuffed due to bad code.
Of course, they don't tell you how many devs and QA guys got turned into red mist during the dev cycle...:-)
Here's a question. How is it any different from downloading a third-party Email application (say, Eudora, or Pine, or...), which requires your email account name and password?
But as far as your comments on Microsoft and closed systems, they are correct. However, if you look at the software development community as a whole, most companies still share the same view. Hence the importance of evangelism...
Oh, you mean, like the Grateful Dead? This was their modus operandi for a long time. Sure, they sold albums, but they also encouraged fans to record and trade recordings of their live shows.
dillon_rinker writes: Sun wants Java to be the programming language. AOL wants everyone to download applications from them for an hourly rate. Netscape wanted their browser to make the underlying OS irrelevant.
Also known as collusion, if they were to be exclusionary, and just as illegal. For example, if Sun optimizes their JDK for Netscape and AOL, if Netscape makes their browser work better on AOL than other ISPs, if AOL allows only Netscape to be used on their site...
1. Requestor posts project and bounty 2. Acceptor contacts requestor and accepts the challenge. 3. Acceptor develops and releases the software.
You're ignoring step two. If I accept the requestor's offer, the contract we sign would state that they won't pay someone else for the work if I complete it in the allotted time.
It's more than marketing speak--even Hook has used the term. If you've ever worked on an everyday multiplayer (C&C, Quake, Unreal) game, and then on a massively multiplayer game (UO, Furcadia, etc.), it's a whole different technical situation. What would be a more appropriate, technical term?
Slashdot Mirror
RMS would like this one in particular:
Q: Does this Law allow the use of Free Software?
A: Yes, all Free Software is compatible with this Law by nature since Free Software source code is public and since all communication standards can be derived from the knowledge of the source code.
Note the use of the words "Free Software" instead of "Open Source Software". They clearly are using "Free" to mean libre, rather than gratis.
Q: Isn't is sufficient to require access to the source code?
A: No, because on the one hand, access to the source granted only to public organisations is not sufficient to guarantee that communication standards used to exchange information with citizens are open communication standards. Moreover, on the other hand, it would be incompatible with private property and competityion [sic] Law to force all software publishers to give public access to the source code.
That's the real kicker. Revealing source code to a third party (as opposed to "Open Source") is not good enough--you need to make your standards open. Also, they don't force anyone to try to totally open their source. RMS is probably cringing here, but this point will go a long way toward making this more acceptable to developers.
I'm not suggesting that anyone do this, but it seems to me that a plan like this would be a good target for civil disobedience via a flood attack.
Gather a large number of conspirators together, who each night will make one phone call to the system. Either use names at random from the class, or use (non-obviously) fictitious names.
The signal for which they are looking would become lost in the noise of the "jamming."
In general, taking an operating system and strapping a new paradigm to it is a Bad Idea.
When Microsoft took DOS, a single-user operating system, and added Windows to it, they ended up with a really terrible hack that didn't run either, up until about version 3.1.
When Microsoft later took Windows and added pen support (not CE, but Pen Windows--read your history!), it flopped. Windows wasn't suitable.
When they attempted to port a subset of NT to pen-based devices, they got CE, which has underperformed.
On the other hand...
When Apple abandoned the Apple II and designed the Mac as a graphically-operated machine from the ground up, they got a great platform.
When Palm threw out common notions of a shrunken PC and designed their device from scratch, they won.
My point is that a good voice-controlled system needs to be designed as a good voice-controlled system. Strapping it on after the fact won't cut it.
Don't read slashdot at the end of a long day.
I could have sworn that the headline said "FTC Rules in Favor of Piracy."
Now that would be a story.
Depends on what you mean by "coding properly". Is explicitly allocating and deallocating memory "coding properly"? Why--just because you're forced to look at how the memory management works, I'm guessing you'll say.
How about making sure you're using the correct registers? Isn't improper saving and restoring of registers a performance problem? How about simply not using registers when you should? We have compilers now, though, that take care of that for you--and you don't even have to think about it it all.
GC could work the same way--if it were fast enough. Now, putting it into hardware is something I have more of a problem with, simply for cross-platform issues, but simply hiding memory allocation isn't necessarily a Bad Thing.
I like the color palms.
Not because I need 256 shades of chartreuse, but because I think that a true, black-on-white screen will be much easier to read than my Palm III's black-on-olive-drab.
Compare the screen of even an older passive-matrix notebook with the screen of a Palm in bright sunlight. The Palm is almost impossible to read under these conditions, but the notebook is easy to see.
Chances are, I'll get one, just for increased readability.
Battery life? Well, the expected battery life they're quoting is fourteen days of normal usage, and it uses a rechargeable battery. I don't have any problem dropping my cell phone into a rechargeable cradle every couple of days while I sleep. If I have to drop my Palm into the cradle every Sunday night to pay for a screen I can read in the sun, I'll do it.
I quote:
"In addition, the source code, that provides outsiders with the ability to insert this code and attack Solaris and Linux systems, has been posted on the Internet for some time, making it easy accessible by anyone."
Having the source to the EXPLOITS, not the OPERATING SYSTEM, is what allowed people to quickly deploy this.
The writer may be guilty of ambiguity, but not bias.
It's worse than that--it computes an MD5 checksum on the first so-many (I believe 300k) bytes of the file. No wonder it takes so long!
I've also found Napster Client B5 to be buggier than a streetlamp in July on my NT box....
That was pretty much about time someone took the wavelets into image compression.
Ummm... Intel did that years ago with Indeo 4. Motion-video compression, but it also works very well for still images if you poke it the right way.
And yes, I know, it's closed-source and for Wintel only. But it's been done.
This technology appears to be picking up planes by looking at the turbulence that they leave behind.
Why can't a series of unmanned rockets leaving turbulence all around jam this?
Because one of the major roles of the F117 is to fly missions in which you don't want the threat to know you're there in the first place.
"Gee, sir, the airspace is thick with decoy rockets! You think there's an American stealth aircraft overhead shooting recon?"
"Hmm... must be a drill."
"Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution...
Doesn't sound like the GPL to me--translators and commentators aren't required to distribute the original with their changes. More like a BSD-style or LGPL license.
--Tim
>>Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List were hardly feel good movies.
Actually those are feel good movies. SPR feels good to american patroism idiots, and SL feels good to uneducated sophomores.
An interesting definition. So, you would define (and therefore denigrate) a "feel good" movie as one which makes some miniscule slice of humanity feel good?
Is there any movie, then, that would not be a "feel good" movie?
That scene in RC1 where the prototype ED209 spatters some suit was classic. Revenge of the techies.
:-)
Not really. It wasn't "revenge of the techies"--it was "revenge of the bugs in a badly-run project". It was simply fortunate that it wasn't one of the techies that got snuffed due to bad code.
Of course, they don't tell you how many devs and QA guys got turned into red mist during the dev cycle...
Argh! You beat me to it!
"It presents both sides (mostly through links) but is otherwise a good article. "
Was this unintended, or is the poster suggesting that presenting both sides of the issue is a bad thing?
Very true. This is the only really substantive argument against what Microsoft is going, and it is a valid one.
However, as you can see by the topic of this thread, it's not the one AOL is using.
Thanks for the clarification!
Here's a question. How is it any different from downloading a third-party Email application (say, Eudora, or Pine, or...), which requires your email account name and password?
No one is complaining about that.
AOL's argument is a straw man, plain and simple.
Umm... yes, they are.
http://www.research.microsoft.com/msripv 6/
But as far as your comments on Microsoft and closed systems, they are correct. However, if you look at the software development community as a whole, most companies still share the same view. Hence the importance of evangelism...
Oh, you mean, like the Grateful Dead? This was their modus operandi for a long time. Sure, they sold albums, but they also encouraged fans to record and trade recordings of their live shows.
dillon_rinker writes:
Sun wants Java to be the programming language. AOL wants everyone to download applications from them for an hourly rate. Netscape wanted their browser to make the underlying OS irrelevant.
Also known as collusion, if they were to be exclusionary, and just as illegal. For example, if Sun optimizes their JDK for Netscape and AOL, if Netscape makes their browser work better on AOL than other ISPs, if AOL allows only Netscape to be used on their site...
But I don't think that's the situation.
Certainly, it does.
The process should work like this:
1. Requestor posts project and bounty
2. Acceptor contacts requestor and accepts the challenge.
3. Acceptor develops and releases the software.
You're ignoring step two. If I accept the requestor's offer, the contract we sign would state that they won't pay someone else for the work if I complete it in the allotted time.
It's more than marketing speak--even Hook has used the term. If you've ever worked on an everyday multiplayer (C&C, Quake, Unreal) game, and then on a massively multiplayer game (UO, Furcadia, etc.), it's a whole different technical situation. What would be a more appropriate, technical term?