His point isn't about the piece of work; it is about value. The truth is that there are people who value stuff (yes, "stuff") simply due to its association with a person/place/other-stuff. And he is questioning why the value of that stuff is what it is when it is identical to another such stuff.
Correct, he is not the market. He is questioning what it is the "market" gets by having an original over a "fake" that is so hard to tell the difference of that it takes advanced chemical and/or atomic testing to determine the authenticity.
What is the driver for the value that this market places on the original over the almost-identical-but-newer copy? What is the essence of the value?
I think his analogy is spot on as well: why values a pair of underwear worn by Artist-Of-The-Month so much greater than that exact same brand/model/size purchased (brand new!) at the store just up the street?
I can't come up with a valid case for multiple inheritance because I can't come up with a real world entity that has more than one parent class. That would be the main reason that I view MI as "dangerous".
I used to fight with a former coworker over this time and again. He kept arguing how cool it was to have a class that was a character, a vehicle and a weapon, and the great things he could do in the UI using polymorphic properties. I pointed out how he couldn't even talk about the functional design without blathering about the technical implementation...there simply was no benefit that MI offered his design, and in fact it hindered it a whole lot.
Nothing in the definition of "open standard" says that "someone else" has to implement it.
Other people can create an alternative Java. The language, byte code and API specs are all published; there is an initial implementation that others can build and/or test and/or reverse engineer. That someone else hasn't gone and implemented the ENTIRE JAVA SYSTEM on their own does not detract from the availability and openness of the spec.
Or maybe its that the default implementation is really quite good.
Which it is.
Could it be improved? Sure it could...name a single software product that couldn't be. But there are many billions of dollars of IT projects that depend on Java, so trying to pass it off as immature, incomplete, incorrect or insufficient is nonsense.
Actually, I don't really give a rats *ss about any foreign governments toes I just happen step on. You will care if your business model includes selling advertising and other services in that foreign land, to foreign companies, via a foreign office or some other presence.
So MS is asking what features people would like in a platform on which to build office solutions. I'd say that the primary thing they need to implement is stability in the platform.
You're a complete sucker if you decide to build something on top of Office For Mac. Fool-me-once and all that. Any IT decision maker that places their bets (and invests) in this technology simply doesn't understand business.
MS has done exactly what they intended: disable people's confidence in the Mac (or at least, in Office For Mac). What they didn't expect is that there'd be viable replacements for the Mac.
Or charge the customer the cost to make the product. Just because it is GPL'ed doesn't mean that you have to make it free of charge and it doesn't mean that the customer(s) asking to have it built doesn't have to pay the true cost of building it. If they won't pay, why build it in the first place?
Either the product is worth the cost of building it, or others see value in building it free of charge, or a combination of the two.
Because I can pay for my copy and turn around and give it away for free to anyone who wants it
This can be said for any intangible good, especially anything digital. Anything can be copied and given away for free without "stealing" anything. There are artificial barriers that may be imposed by governments based on arbitrary criteria, but that does not in any way change the economic reality that copying a digital good has a marginal cost of zero so the ultimate price of that good tends to zero.
However, this does not mean that a business selling GPL software is not feasible AT ALL. There are perfectly good models showing exactly how money is made selling GPL software. None of the economic statements above detract from those models.
Now, selling multiple copies of that GPL'ed software may not be feasible in the long run (as above economic arguments indicate), but I can easily be paid the true cost for the development of a GPL'ed software. My customer can do what they like with what they purchase from me (assuming they also abide by the GPL).
The problem most people have with the idea of money and the GPL is that they only envision companies that pump out a multitude of copies, selling each at a massive loss but hoping that sheer volume will dwarf the initial investment in R&D. The majority of software does not follow that type of model. The majority of software is developed at cost, including appropriate profit margins. Follow-on business is gravy for whoever negotiates the resale rights.
I'm not always at the mercy of death when I get into a car, sit in the sun, etc... They are possibilities, but the use of the protective measures you mention drastically lower the potentials of their occurrence.
Just as I said. You either are always at the mercy (as you said) OR you have the opportunity to avoid it (as I said).
I wasn't speaking in absolutes (something I always avoid...for the most part).
Catching an error at form level is better and faster than waiting for the DB to flag it and return an error. Only if all interaction is going through that form. If you wan to have multiple applications deal with the database, then putting check constraints such as this in the user interface is not proper application design...wrong layer.
Maybe he was blinded by the absolutely illogical statement?
you will always be at the mercy of something or someone as a business. The key is to avoid it when possible,
Either you are always at the mercy... or you have an opportunity to avoid it. It seems like an absolute waste to avoid something you are always exposed to.
I have friends who go to The U of Waterloo, and not one has EVER called that school "the MIT of the North"
You are absolutely right. And having "friends that XXX" means you'd have keen insight to a well established cultural reference like this...that is to say that NOONE has EVER called it MIT of the North.
Slashdot Mirror
His point isn't about the piece of work; it is about value. The truth is that there are people who value stuff (yes, "stuff") simply due to its association with a person/place/other-stuff. And he is questioning why the value of that stuff is what it is when it is identical to another such stuff.
Since when is a 19 year old, of age to vote, considered a "boy"?
Shouldn't philosophy be him?
What is the driver for the value that this market places on the original over the almost-identical-but-newer copy? What is the essence of the value?
I think his analogy is spot on as well: why values a pair of underwear worn by Artist-Of-The-Month so much greater than that exact same brand/model/size purchased (brand new!) at the store just up the street?
Er...I mean ==
I used to fight with a former coworker over this time and again. He kept arguing how cool it was to have a class that was a character, a vehicle and a weapon, and the great things he could do in the UI using polymorphic properties. I pointed out how he couldn't even talk about the functional design without blathering about the technical implementation...there simply was no benefit that MI offered his design, and in fact it hindered it a whole lot.
Other people can create an alternative Java. The language, byte code and API specs are all published; there is an initial implementation that others can build and/or test and/or reverse engineer. That someone else hasn't gone and implemented the ENTIRE JAVA SYSTEM on their own does not detract from the availability and openness of the spec.
Which it is.
Could it be improved? Sure it could...name a single software product that couldn't be. But there are many billions of dollars of IT projects that depend on Java, so trying to pass it off as immature, incomplete, incorrect or insufficient is nonsense.
So is it really a matter of immaturity or wrongness? Or is someone going to claim that the issue is that Java just isn't in use enough?
Man! Was that joke ever funning circa 1997...
What is it that is "wrong" in the platform? The fact that the base implementation is solid enough that few others found need to rewrite that wheel?
Yes, it is IvanAnywhere.
Thus the "...yet".
At one point eBay, Amazon and Yahoo! didn't care either.
Your definition of need and mine differ dramatically.
You're a complete sucker if you decide to build something on top of Office For Mac. Fool-me-once and all that. Any IT decision maker that places their bets (and invests) in this technology simply doesn't understand business.
MS has done exactly what they intended: disable people's confidence in the Mac (or at least, in Office For Mac). What they didn't expect is that there'd be viable replacements for the Mac.
As long as I can still play Wolfenstein 3D...
Either the product is worth the cost of building it, or others see value in building it free of charge, or a combination of the two.
This can be said for any intangible good, especially anything digital. Anything can be copied and given away for free without "stealing" anything. There are artificial barriers that may be imposed by governments based on arbitrary criteria, but that does not in any way change the economic reality that copying a digital good has a marginal cost of zero so the ultimate price of that good tends to zero.
However, this does not mean that a business selling GPL software is not feasible AT ALL. There are perfectly good models showing exactly how money is made selling GPL software. None of the economic statements above detract from those models.
Now, selling multiple copies of that GPL'ed software may not be feasible in the long run (as above economic arguments indicate), but I can easily be paid the true cost for the development of a GPL'ed software. My customer can do what they like with what they purchase from me (assuming they also abide by the GPL).
The problem most people have with the idea of money and the GPL is that they only envision companies that pump out a multitude of copies, selling each at a massive loss but hoping that sheer volume will dwarf the initial investment in R&D. The majority of software does not follow that type of model. The majority of software is developed at cost, including appropriate profit margins. Follow-on business is gravy for whoever negotiates the resale rights.
Just as I said. You either are always at the mercy (as you said) OR you have the opportunity to avoid it (as I said).
I wasn't speaking in absolutes (something I always avoid...for the most part).
You are absolutely right. And having "friends that XXX" means you'd have keen insight to a well established cultural reference like this...that is to say that NOONE has EVER called it MIT of the North.
Jack-ass.