applicability of Nobel Prizes in the modern world
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Nobel Prizes Awarded
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· Score: 0, Troll
Although all of the Nobel Prize laureates have accomplished tremendous technical achievements, I have to question the relevance and importance to the world today.
Both the medecine and the chemistry prizes were awarded for proprietary research done in the interests of multinational pharmaceutical corporations. Although some of it is already being used in treatments, they are not affordable to the vast majority of the people in the world, and even to many of the people whose national research labs have put so much into the corporate pockets.
As for the economics award, the world has no use for a science dedicated to depriving people of freedom and controlling them.
The only awards that I can inequivocably agree with are the literature and peace awards. The United Nations has done a lot of good work, and it is a shame that the American government is blind to the advantages of supporting it completely.
What the world really needs are awards that recognize the value of freedom. The contribution that a person makes is much less valuable when the information is locked up so that people can not excercise their fundamental freedoms to use it.
This is all a very bad thing, but it is not the only protected data interface. Other interfaces like Firewire and AC-3 audio data interfaces are also protected. We have ignored these for too long because they are hardware, but we cannot ignore them any longer.
This is a new threat to free software, on the same order as anti-circumvention measures built into law. They both have the same goal: to lock you into a proprietary system to access data. This is a bigger threat than proprietary software. Replacements can be written for any software, but if you are not allowed to access data, you can not make a free equivalent.
Open Source is not the same thing as free. You are very right that they have confused open source with free, but their code is released under the GNU license. Since it is using the GPL instead of the LGPL, they can not insert proprietary parts into the core at all. If they were to try putting functionality into external and proprietary processes, the project could be forked to benefit only the community, and not the prorietary corporation.
There is no risk of the system becoming proprietary, because it is truly free. There is also nothing morally wrong with making money using free software. It is only bad when money becomes such a priority that the information is made proprietary. The only risk is that they may license the data in a different and non-free way. So long as they use the GPL and collect their data under a Free license, there is no risk.
This is an excellent project. I don't know of any other free software projects to index content on the Internet. Far too many companies develop client/ server applications and make the mistake of keeping them proprietary, and even if free replacements get written they often only replace the proprietary clients. This is bad because it actually increases the use of the proprietary server!
This project is entirely free. Thus it is much better. People should go to the project homepage on sourceforge and help out. The current goal is only to index content, and a later stage will implement intelligent search functionality. See the project overview here . I am sure that they would love to have more people who are able to do that helping out.
Hackers, get involved with this project that can replace one of the most used pieces of proprietary software, the Internet search engine!
The problem with the amiga is that it is not free software. Many years ago it was an excellent system (technically), but once it's corporate overlords were unable to maintain it, it quickly became obsolete.
The only way to save it now is to release it under a GNU license to permit it to be moved to more modern machines. If this had been done originally, the loyal user base would have moved it to more modern systems and it would be thriving today. But by locking themselves into a proprietary system, they ensured their own downfall.
The best thing that amiga fans can hope for now is to fall in love with a truly free system like GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd which they can become involved with. With a free system, they can take the future in their own hands and make sure that this does not happen to them again.
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Although all of the Nobel Prize laureates have accomplished tremendous technical achievements, I have to question the relevance and importance to the world today.
Both the medecine and the chemistry prizes were awarded for proprietary research done in the interests of multinational pharmaceutical corporations. Although some of it is already being used in treatments, they are not affordable to the vast majority of the people in the world, and even to many of the people whose national research labs have put so much into the corporate pockets.
As for the economics award, the world has no use for a science dedicated to depriving people of freedom and controlling them.
The only awards that I can inequivocably agree with are the literature and peace awards. The United Nations has done a lot of good work, and it is a shame that the American government is blind to the advantages of supporting it completely.
What the world really needs are awards that recognize the value of freedom. The contribution that a person makes is much less valuable when the information is locked up so that people can not excercise their fundamental freedoms to use it.
This is a new threat to free software, on the same order as anti-circumvention measures built into law. They both have the same goal: to lock you into a proprietary system to access data. This is a bigger threat than proprietary software. Replacements can be written for any software, but if you are not allowed to access data, you can not make a free equivalent.
There is no risk of the system becoming proprietary, because it is truly free. There is also nothing morally wrong with making money using free software. It is only bad when money becomes such a priority that the information is made proprietary. The only risk is that they may license the data in a different and non-free way. So long as they use the GPL and collect their data under a Free license, there is no risk.
This project is entirely free. Thus it is much better. People should go to the project homepage on sourceforge and help out. The current goal is only to index content, and a later stage will implement intelligent search functionality. See the project overview here . I am sure that they would love to have more people who are able to do that helping out.
Hackers, get involved with this project that can replace one of the most used pieces of proprietary software, the Internet search engine!
The only way to save it now is to release it under a GNU license to permit it to be moved to more modern machines. If this had been done originally, the loyal user base would have moved it to more modern systems and it would be thriving today. But by locking themselves into a proprietary system, they ensured their own downfall.
The best thing that amiga fans can hope for now is to fall in love with a truly free system like GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd which they can become involved with. With a free system, they can take the future in their own hands and make sure that this does not happen to them again.