plenty of examples of the FSF kind of "crossing the line" in the name of preaching
Since when is (non hate-mongering) speech considered "crossing the line"?
Is open discussion and debate no longer valid? Is holding a contrary opinion that offensive?
What really gets me laughing is belly-aching that people do over how RMS and the FSF have "lost touch" with their (audience|reality). The fact is, if they had "crossed the line", no one would bother with them anymore...
why isn't there a portal page which links to every known source of legitimately purchasable non-DRM digital content?
Because the MPAA/RIAA/BSA would still come after you and shut you down; it would be in there better interest (business-wise).
If your gonna have to deal with the legal crap, might as be for content you are stealing:-)
I'm not arguing that problems do not exist today. I am arguing that the world is not getting worse; on the contrary the world is a much safer place today than it has ever been. But that kind of news doesn't make the news.
Individual risks/threats/wars/crimes, yes these exist. But highlighting individual issues does not detract from the fact that we are healthier, living longer, richer, and quite possibly happier as a collective.
From a macro-point-of-view, viruses, crimes, terrorists don't scare me; paranoia, misinformation, egomania, over indulgence do.
I completely agree with the point you have made, though I may have phrased it in a less shocking way. All those CNN/FoxNews fans (fanatics), who aren't terribly good critical thinkers to start with, completely shut down the synapses when their emotions get tweaked.
Starvation is still a major cause of death worldwide. There are new diseases, new strains, new cancers, new wars, new weapons, new ways to die.
Quit listening to Lou Dobbs. The guy is an idiot. No, really.
Yes, you are hearing about a bunch of things that 30 years ago you wouldn't have. The press has determined that sensationalism sells, and that is what your diatribe is highlighting.
The fact is that these "new diseases" (e.g. bird flu) have killed an INSIGNIFICANT NUMBER of people in comparison to those "old diseases" (polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough, yada-yada-yada).
The fact is that people are living MUCH LONGER than they did only 50 years ago. So how are these new cancers, etc... destroying human kind?
New wars?? You gotta be kidding right? There are far less people caught up in war right now than at any previous time in recent human history. Wars have been going on in the various regions CNN blathers about for a Very Long Time...and they have stopped in many other regions (well, those regions have settled down a bit...).
New weapons? Really? Which WMDs are those? The Vast Majority of the new weapons are created by the "good guys". The "bad guys" who are being threatened by the "good guys" to stop building their new weapons are doing so with vigor mostly because... well, they are being threatened by the "good guys". (Note: "good vs bad" could easily be seen as "bully vs wimp"...and in many parts of the non-Western world it is seen that way).
Alcohol being "banned" is also questionable in Islam.
Islam preaches about moderation. Anything in abundance is bad, including prayer if it interfers with the general principles of being a good Muslim (e.g. prayer to the exclusion of being an active member of society or devotion to the point of obsession).
Though I have seen passages from the Qu'ran stating that alcohol (or "intoxicants" or "fermented fruits") are banned, I strongly question that stance. Many of these passages, as with other religion documents around the world, are taken out of context and/or questionably translated.
Islam does not contain many absolutes in its philosophy (don't confuse philosophy with practice and culture)...it is a religion of reason and its primary messages are of love, peace, family, society and living a life of moderation.
Yes, you can find many (MANY) webpages stating that there are fundamental truths in Islam and its practice including the "Haram" of alcohol...and I can find a number of sites that state that women have no voice, that "infidels" are anyone who disagrees with some sect's interpretations, yada-yada-yada.
At its root, Islam asks that each individual Muslim question for themselves the essence of their faith and the meaning of its philosophy. Blindly accepting rules and "facts" set out by others does not make one a "good Muslim".
cynical about Microsoft in general. Your post is just one example.
Cynical? yes. Incorrect? not necessarily.
Having worked for the "MS-beast", and having been in meetings where exactly these kinds of conversation went on, I don't think I'm being unrealistic.
When a couple of us young developers recognized that auto-run macros in the soon-to-be-released MS-Word 6 was a potential for some serious misuse, marketing assured us that this is what corporate customers wanted...and that home users likely would never even know that the feature existed. The "fear mongering" of a warning message to the user was of far more concern than of the potential harm of a few rogues writing macros...how would they ever get people to even open the infected docs?
The good work of a few computer scientists in a lab does not negate the fact that such research can and often is used in ways that the scientists themselves would not condone.
If they can classify the stuff, shouldn't they be able to stop it?
Or is classification going to allow them to have a flashier anti-malware tool to sell?
Can't you see it now...animation of the viruses being caught, sent down a chute that sorts them into different buckets. Different cute cuddlies for each type of virus, each with unique characteristics. They could then create an entire industry around stuffed animals and stickers the kids could trade! People would go around giving each other viruses on USB keys and via email just to watch the tool sort the cute things time and again!
/usr/bin/vi ->/usr/bin/vim-enhanced ...which is common on many modern Linux distros.
Yes, but an unconfigured, unenhanced VIM (which is what the RH Linuxen ship with) is VIM-M (which is simply VI). Why in the world they don't ship a simple vimrc file or a simple config util to make VIM-M into VIM is beyond me.
Don't get me wrong...I'm a GNU/Emacs guy. But I work with VIM users and see that it is catching up, and what ships with "many modern Linux distros" is still not VIM, even if it "is" VIM.
Too much of anything is a bad idea. Too much "sugar" is bad, but the real concern today is that you aren't drinking sugar at all...you are drinking High Fructose Corn Syrup.
HFCS is almost a direct replacement to sugar in many (most?) of today's processed foods, and that is just about everything (breads, snacks, condiments, pop, "juice", etc...). The problem is that HFCS does not cause the body to produce the same levels of insulin, so your body doesn't "register" the same calories that it does with pure sugar.
Having a six-pack of soda/pop/coke/whatever-ya-call-it 30 years ago was virtually unheard of. No one in their right mind would buy a 2L bottle because it would go flat before the kids could get through it. But with the substitution of HFCS, getting through a 2L bottle in a day is no problem (ain't progress great!).
I've become a radical. I've abandonned the soft drink world entirely. I tried diet drinks at first, but then I started drinking water, tea, coffee, milk and more water. I've not missed Coke-a-Pepsi-Co-And-Friends (at least, not their soft drink divisions).
The only problem I run into is when I occasionally find myself grabbing something at a fast food restaurant. I've had to re-train myself that a "value meal" isn't getting as much as possible...it is getting what I want and what I want is a healthy choice. I'll pay the extra $0.25 or whatever for the bottled water or even give up the "package deal" to avoid getting crap I don't need.
Water folks. 8 glasses a day. It is the #1 thing I do to take the weight off and keep it off. It is hard to be snacking when you are struggling to get those waters down...and the exercise of walking down the hall every hour or so to "stretch your legs" doesn't hurt either.
Yet those "conservative" folks remain on the air (I looked up "conservative" in the dictionary...I don't see how that label applies to those I mentioned).
But as others have pointed out, the media is not judge, jury nor prosecutor (though arguably they can be the executioner). Rather's mistake was simply that: a mistake. He did not do it knowingly; he honestly believed that he was bringing a serious issue to light. He is like the scientist who is looking to prove a theorem, finds an experiment that affirms it, but fails to test some of the negative cases. Error, yes. Criminal, no.
I bet far more time has gone into the philosophy, concept and wording of the GPL than just about any other software license on the planet.
As for reselling recording of his talks, ask yourself: why do people go to a music concert once they own the recording that is on tour?
Aloso, once the ideas are out why bother selling his speeches. Simply regurgitate them of your own free will (voice) and sell those. Would these do as well as his speaking tours do you think?
We don't want guesses, we want facts. We can't afford to have every media blowhard make slanderous statements and ruin people's careers and reputations.
Your completely kidding us, right? That was pure sarcasm, right?
If not, you haven't been watching any of the mainstream news at all. Lou Dobbs? Bill O'Reilly? Ann Coulter? These people are offering facts???
Granted, they aren't offering guesses. They completely sell the bullshit they make up.
Which means: giving it all away to the competition.
The overwhelming majority of software developed in the world is not widely for sale. It is custom-written and/or one-off builds.
Your view of software sales essentially is that the software developer must sell to everyone and anyone. This is just not true. Sell the software for what it cost you to make to just a few customers. What insentive is there for those customers to turn around and give their purchase away to others? There's no legal blockage from having them do that, but why would they?
To "get" a good portion of what the GPL is saying, you must get away from the "off the shelf" mentality of economics. You must think much more "B2B" and not "B2C".
B2C is a great economic model for yielding high return on high volume sales due to keeping prices low (thus more people will buy). But B2B is more about selling a product for its true worth, and a business is not going to turn around and give away something that it values.
Also note that the GPL's stipulation of "free" source code is about the customer's choice. Yes, they could give it away, and they have full legal right to do so, but in reality the customer wants the option to enhance, derive and/or integrate their purchase. When I provide something under the GPL, it is because I am giving (or selling) my customer those rights.
He's asking for a contribution to the FSF to compensate for the time he's spending signing autographs instead of doing other work (for the FSF, on code, on answering snot-nose kids's questions about their inability to comprehend the GPL, getting a suntan, whatever).
Your copying the autograph and selling it does not (a) detract from his "selling RMS autographs" because copies are not typically what collectors and GNU/fanpersons are after, and (b) does not cut into his personal time so there is no need for compensation for it.
"charge $150,000 for the binary because the first person that buys it will just redistribute the source code completely legally under the terms of the GPL"
Yep, that is one very short-sighted view of the GPL. Now, think it through to the next level:
who is the person (company) paying $150k for the program?
who are they going to be giving those free copies out to?
Not sure about the "nothing to see", but I do agree that the conclusion of "paid lobbyists" is unjustifed based on the "evidence".
I've worked at WM HQ as a software contractor. One thing that struck me hard is that the WM employees are VERY dedicated to their company, and they TRULY believe in what they are doing.
Each day at 4:30pm after the stock market closes, they have an HQ-wide announcement stating the closing stock price. I've been there and heard people actually upset that the stock price dropped by $0.25 on a given day. I've heard IT people complain that they "wasted a day" fixing some random system problem instead of "being productive"...they take ownership and feel responsible for the success of their group/division and company. It is really sort of cool (and a bit scary).
The point I am attempting to make is that there is a chance that these "lobbyists" aren't being paid by WM to target Wikipedia. It is possible that this is being done by a group of dedicated WM employees...and quite possibly on their own time.
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They don't get worked up about Jerry nor his guests. The same most certainly cannot be said about the FSF nor RMS.
People do listen to the FSF.
What really gets me laughing is belly-aching that people do over how RMS and the FSF have "lost touch" with their (audience|reality). The fact is, if they had "crossed the line", no one would bother with them anymore...
If your gonna have to deal with the legal crap, might as be for content you are stealing :-)
Individual risks/threats/wars/crimes, yes these exist. But highlighting individual issues does not detract from the fact that we are healthier, living longer, richer, and quite possibly happier as a collective.
From a macro-point-of-view, viruses, crimes, terrorists don't scare me; paranoia, misinformation, egomania, over indulgence do.
I completely agree with the point you have made, though I may have phrased it in a less shocking way. All those CNN/FoxNews fans (fanatics), who aren't terribly good critical thinkers to start with, completely shut down the synapses when their emotions get tweaked.
Yes, you are hearing about a bunch of things that 30 years ago you wouldn't have. The press has determined that sensationalism sells, and that is what your diatribe is highlighting.
The fact is that these "new diseases" (e.g. bird flu) have killed an INSIGNIFICANT NUMBER of people in comparison to those "old diseases" (polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough, yada-yada-yada).
The fact is that people are living MUCH LONGER than they did only 50 years ago. So how are these new cancers, etc... destroying human kind?
New wars?? You gotta be kidding right? There are far less people caught up in war right now than at any previous time in recent human history. Wars have been going on in the various regions CNN blathers about for a Very Long Time...and they have stopped in many other regions (well, those regions have settled down a bit...).
New weapons? Really? Which WMDs are those? The Vast Majority of the new weapons are created by the "good guys". The "bad guys" who are being threatened by the "good guys" to stop building their new weapons are doing so with vigor mostly because ... well, they are being threatened by the "good guys". (Note: "good vs bad" could easily be seen as "bully vs wimp"...and in many parts of the non-Western world it is seen that way).
Islam preaches about moderation. Anything in abundance is bad, including prayer if it interfers with the general principles of being a good Muslim (e.g. prayer to the exclusion of being an active member of society or devotion to the point of obsession).
Though I have seen passages from the Qu'ran stating that alcohol (or "intoxicants" or "fermented fruits") are banned, I strongly question that stance. Many of these passages, as with other religion documents around the world, are taken out of context and/or questionably translated.
Islam does not contain many absolutes in its philosophy (don't confuse philosophy with practice and culture)...it is a religion of reason and its primary messages are of love, peace, family, society and living a life of moderation.
Yes, you can find many (MANY) webpages stating that there are fundamental truths in Islam and its practice including the "Haram" of alcohol...and I can find a number of sites that state that women have no voice, that "infidels" are anyone who disagrees with some sect's interpretations, yada-yada-yada.
At its root, Islam asks that each individual Muslim question for themselves the essence of their faith and the meaning of its philosophy. Blindly accepting rules and "facts" set out by others does not make one a "good Muslim".
Having worked for the "MS-beast", and having been in meetings where exactly these kinds of conversation went on, I don't think I'm being unrealistic.
When a couple of us young developers recognized that auto-run macros in the soon-to-be-released MS-Word 6 was a potential for some serious misuse, marketing assured us that this is what corporate customers wanted...and that home users likely would never even know that the feature existed. The "fear mongering" of a warning message to the user was of far more concern than of the potential harm of a few rogues writing macros...how would they ever get people to even open the infected docs?
The good work of a few computer scientists in a lab does not negate the fact that such research can and often is used in ways that the scientists themselves would not condone.
Or is classification going to allow them to have a flashier anti-malware tool to sell?
Can't you see it now...animation of the viruses being caught, sent down a chute that sorts them into different buckets. Different cute cuddlies for each type of virus, each with unique characteristics. They could then create an entire industry around stuffed animals and stickers the kids could trade! People would go around giving each other viruses on USB keys and via email just to watch the tool sort the cute things time and again!
This is marketing genius at work!!
- Why disheartened?
- Why does having a good appliation make you appreciate its underlying OS?
That's like saying you are a Linux fan because of the great browser.Don't get me wrong...I'm a GNU/Emacs guy. But I work with VIM users and see that it is catching up, and what ships with "many modern Linux distros" is still not VIM, even if it "is" VIM.
HFCS is almost a direct replacement to sugar in many (most?) of today's processed foods, and that is just about everything (breads, snacks, condiments, pop, "juice", etc...). The problem is that HFCS does not cause the body to produce the same levels of insulin, so your body doesn't "register" the same calories that it does with pure sugar.
Having a six-pack of soda/pop/coke/whatever-ya-call-it 30 years ago was virtually unheard of. No one in their right mind would buy a 2L bottle because it would go flat before the kids could get through it. But with the substitution of HFCS, getting through a 2L bottle in a day is no problem (ain't progress great!).
I've become a radical. I've abandonned the soft drink world entirely. I tried diet drinks at first, but then I started drinking water, tea, coffee, milk and more water. I've not missed Coke-a-Pepsi-Co-And-Friends (at least, not their soft drink divisions).
The only problem I run into is when I occasionally find myself grabbing something at a fast food restaurant. I've had to re-train myself that a "value meal" isn't getting as much as possible...it is getting what I want and what I want is a healthy choice. I'll pay the extra $0.25 or whatever for the bottled water or even give up the "package deal" to avoid getting crap I don't need.
If Bawls is "pure sugar", then what is Coke? Pure HFCS I guess?
Water folks. 8 glasses a day. It is the #1 thing I do to take the weight off and keep it off. It is hard to be snacking when you are struggling to get those waters down...and the exercise of walking down the hall every hour or so to "stretch your legs" doesn't hurt either.
VIM is much, much more than VI (thus the "M").
But as others have pointed out, the media is not judge, jury nor prosecutor (though arguably they can be the executioner). Rather's mistake was simply that: a mistake. He did not do it knowingly; he honestly believed that he was bringing a serious issue to light. He is like the scientist who is looking to prove a theorem, finds an experiment that affirms it, but fails to test some of the negative cases. Error, yes. Criminal, no.
I bet far more time has gone into the philosophy, concept and wording of the GPL than just about any other software license on the planet.
As for reselling recording of his talks, ask yourself: why do people go to a music concert once they own the recording that is on tour?
Aloso, once the ideas are out why bother selling his speeches. Simply regurgitate them of your own free will (voice) and sell those. Would these do as well as his speaking tours do you think?
If not, you haven't been watching any of the mainstream news at all. Lou Dobbs? Bill O'Reilly? Ann Coulter? These people are offering facts???
Granted, they aren't offering guesses. They completely sell the bullshit they make up.
Your view of software sales essentially is that the software developer must sell to everyone and anyone. This is just not true. Sell the software for what it cost you to make to just a few customers. What insentive is there for those customers to turn around and give their purchase away to others? There's no legal blockage from having them do that, but why would they?
To "get" a good portion of what the GPL is saying, you must get away from the "off the shelf" mentality of economics. You must think much more "B2B" and not "B2C".
B2C is a great economic model for yielding high return on high volume sales due to keeping prices low (thus more people will buy). But B2B is more about selling a product for its true worth, and a business is not going to turn around and give away something that it values.
Also note that the GPL's stipulation of "free" source code is about the customer's choice. Yes, they could give it away, and they have full legal right to do so, but in reality the customer wants the option to enhance, derive and/or integrate their purchase. When I provide something under the GPL, it is because I am giving (or selling) my customer those rights.
He's asking for a contribution to the FSF to compensate for the time he's spending signing autographs instead of doing other work (for the FSF, on code, on answering snot-nose kids's questions about their inability to comprehend the GPL, getting a suntan, whatever).
Your copying the autograph and selling it does not (a) detract from his "selling RMS autographs" because copies are not typically what collectors and GNU/fanpersons are after, and (b) does not cut into his personal time so there is no need for compensation for it.
Yep, that is one very short-sighted view of the GPL. Now, think it through to the next level:
I've worked at WM HQ as a software contractor. One thing that struck me hard is that the WM employees are VERY dedicated to their company, and they TRULY believe in what they are doing.
Each day at 4:30pm after the stock market closes, they have an HQ-wide announcement stating the closing stock price. I've been there and heard people actually upset that the stock price dropped by $0.25 on a given day. I've heard IT people complain that they "wasted a day" fixing some random system problem instead of "being productive"...they take ownership and feel responsible for the success of their group/division and company. It is really sort of cool (and a bit scary).
The point I am attempting to make is that there is a chance that these "lobbyists" aren't being paid by WM to target Wikipedia. It is possible that this is being done by a group of dedicated WM employees...and quite possibly on their own time.