Yes, because I've seen many problems cause by people who run around using the "c" word, and never a single one fixed. I'm biased, and I think that its use is now absurd and as excuses for things other than the stated purpose.
Any idea can be twisted or misapplied. It doesn't make the idea "absurd".
Why is it? For us, getting bills to the customer is a part of the "core business" but we outsource bill printing.
Someone has decided it's not your core business. Perhaps the issue is simply that you've got many many bills to print and it is therefore worthwhile persuing a 3rd party that specializes in such things. Perhaps someone made a bad decision. There is a difference between an idea being "absurd" and it's application being done poorly.
Doing something that doesn't help the bottom line because "it's not core, so we shouldn't do it" is irrational.
No it's not irrational and whether or not it helps the bottom line is not the only component to deciding if it's "core business". In fact there are some "businesses" for which bottom line is a very secondary issue - eg. a government department.
For one cable a week, it's cheaper to make it yourself than to drive to the store (or wait days for shipping) to buy it.
Or here's a wacky idea for you. Why not make one trip to buy a bunch of cables and store them till needed instead of going to the store once a week?
Who cares if it's "core"? That's a buzzword thrown around by consultants trying to justify their existance.
In some places it is, in other places the ideas are applied sanely. Your narrow tainted view doesn't generalize to everyone else's worldview. Even dreaded concepts and words like "synergy" which have been misused so badly that some people switch off if they so much as hear them, have their place.
I agree in part. The original use was as a warning. Touch "core" and die. Justify everything else religiously, but don't ever touch "core" when contracting/outsourcing. To do so puts the viability of your company in the hands of someone else. Now, it's reversed. If it isn't "core" it should be gone, and even "core" can go if you can justify it. That's backwards, but it's what's happening.
It's not backwards at all. It's just that it's taken to the extreme and applied poorly without any regard for other ideas. If it's not a core function but it's a vital support function and you can't outsource it effectively (eg. you can't judge quality until it's way too late) then you shouldn't outsource. You simply can't say that about commodities like network cables. You're still trying to justify your hobby on company time.
And for most places, a cable a week is cheaper to do in house, and this guy is asking about one of those occassions.
No for most places it really isn't cheaper to do it in house, and your repeated attempts to justify it on a ridiculous basis like having to go to the store once a week when there is an obvious solution (ie. go and buy a bunch and put them in a cupboard) is exactly the kind of backward thinking nonsense that leads to waste and opens up opportunities for weasly contracting firms to come in and whisper in your boss' ear "hey your staff's wasting your money, let us help you cut costs big time including some of their wages".
Oh, and when I talk "cheaper" I mean business cost, not retail cost. Risks must be quantified with a dollar amount (or ignored explicitly). Cost of capital and other things should be included as well. And the "cost" in labor to an otherwise idle employee shouldn't be counted against it. Getting the actual cost to the business, rather than picking whatever numbers justify the decision the manager would prefer. But then, most managers have a personal opinion on outsourcing and will pick what they want to look at to justify their existing
1. You're comparing Geocities to the Colosseum. Sanity check required.
2. I bet if someone bought and wanted to pull down the Colosseum right after it lost popularity there would have been no uproar. It's only because something has survived for so long in the first place that it becomes so important, because it's rare.
3. If most of it is archived, that's not such a bad solution. People/historians want to preserve it so they can. Now if Yahoo or the owners got in the way of that by claiming copyright etc. or if the archivers wanted to charge for access I'd see a potential problem.
The difference here is the Police took the pictures, not the public
Do you really expect me to believe your only problem with this is the police taking the pictures? I think you'd be crying foul regardless.
They have an obligation not to release those pictures unless they follow the proper procedures, this is the breach of privacy that occurred.
I agree that protocol was breached and that officers should be disciplined but I do not agree that there was any breach of privacy. Police have been known to release photographs of criminals to the community at large. Granted they are for identification purposes and it would be a sick joke to suggest that is the case here. However by releasing these it MAY make other people think about getting into a car stoned.
Also not wanting pictures of your near decapitated daughter floating around the internet most likely has less to do with a "cover up" then you think.
There are lots of things I don't want to happen in life but as an adult I find I have to deal with them. This was his daughter's very public mistake. That the keys were available was probably his. He'll have to live with it.
I would assume they just don't want to see it; I could be wrong on this though since I don't know them.
That is too bad, but it's too late to prevent the accident from occurring and the matter is clearly of public interest.
I'm not sure what you're objecting to. The fact that it's distasteful to display such a mutilated body? The fact that some people are getting their thrills looking at these extreme pictures? The fact that the parents are going to feel bad about it every time they see the pictures? The fact that some moron has decided to use it to taunt the parents?
Regardless I do not want incidents like this being buried or sanitised. Misuse of information does not warrant its censorship. People need to know what the consequence of their actions actually are, and there's no better way to learn without further carnage than to publicly expose such horrendous mistakes complete with all the gore.
What I'm saying is true. Those that use the word "core" in an argument are trying to elicit an emotional response to a financial issue
Really sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder there.
Look it all depends on how you define "Core Business". If I have to get an invoice out to a customer, you bet printing the invoice can be deemed part of the core business. Sure connecting the computers together could also be deemed necessary to the core business, but making the cables is a stretch. Where do you draw the line? Do you want to manufacture the raw cable? Mine the copper too? What business case could you possibly make for doing these things?
I'm not saying you have to make your own paper rather than buying it from Staples. I'm saying that if your *only* reason for buying paper rather than making it is that making paper isn't your "core" business, then you should not do anything else not "core" either.
In other words you're taking an argument to it's extreme (misunderstanding and misrepresenting it on purpose) and being even more irrational than the people who've made you harp on about using the word "core" to elicit an "emotional response". The idea is to focus on the things you NEED to do for your business to succeed and where there is a more convenient and cheaper option, let someone else do the complicated work for you so you can focus on those parts of your business that are most important. Given that network cables are a commodity, I fail to see how you could ever argue that making cables is necessary to your core business. You have to draw the line somewhere. Connecting the computers? Keeping the data safe etc. are NOT things you can pay someone else to do cheaply, efficiently and in a way that's easily assessed.
It's not their core business to do billing, or accept payments, or do HR, or any number of things. But few companies outsource their financial departments. So why should IT functionality be outsourced when accounting isn't? Printing isn't in their core business, so every check should be printed out by Kinkos. All copy machines should be removed, and you can just drive to Kinkos for that too. Oh wait, it's silly to outsource everything that isn't "core" (unless it's IT related). For some reason, every time I hear "core" mentioned in relation to contracting/outsourcing, I always think "penny wise, pound foolish" and haven't been wrong yet...
If you can save the company a metric ton of cash doing something in house (eg. printing) it's one thing. If the store bought version is cheaper, it's another. Patch cables are easy to check for quality and a company producing rubbish will earn a suitable reputation. By contrast by the time you've worked out that your outsourced HR is more expensive and not acting in the company's interests it's too late. In other words there's a difference between procuring a commodity and outsourcing vital business support functions. You either don't understand that difference or are ignoring it for the purpose of making a dishonest argument. Either way what you're saying does not ring true.
I agree with you and If I had points I would gladly mod you up. There is a difference between censorship and privacy, apparently some of you are not aware of that. These pictures were never supposed to be public, to protect the privacy of the family. The fact that they were leaked by persons within the Police department is a bit concerning.
I agree. They shouldn't have been leaked. They should have been used as a part of a public campaign denouncing the stupidity of driving while on drugs. Instead of faking advertising to shock people use the real pictures. As for the family's "right to privacy" fuck that! Their daughter got high and crashed her car in a very public place. If there's anything to be glad about it's that she didn't kill anyone else with her stupidity.
It's clearly not your company's core business to make their own patch cables. It may be fun for you to wittle down your own toothpics from lincoln logs but if it's not in your job description it ain't going to fly. Seriously, just buy the damn stuff and do what your boss has asked.
Er, no, chessd on sourceforge is entirely C. And even a brief perusal would show that it is based on the original [F]ICS C code. Did you even look at the source?
Are you lying, trolling, or just plain stupid?
Lets ignore hte filenames for a moment. Since when does C have constructors? From Player.cc//- Constructor
Player::Player(int n, float wt) : name(n), floatValue(wt) { }
Or from the install file
--- Chessd ---
This is a implementation of a chess server, it was designed to replace the old chessd. Hopefully the new one is more robust and more effcient. Note that is is still in development and it is unstable, use it at your own risk.
Hell it even uses a Postgres SQL databae not a flat file system like the original FICS
I think you'll find even a brief perusal will show you it's NOT based on FICS code. Some of the same ideas may be in play, but that's it
That codebase is pretty much dead; the project leader(s) have been working on a completely different solution that has been mentioned on the mailing list, is apparently in use in Brazilian schools (where chess is very popular) but unfortunately has not been published.
So my point was the FICS code base has been killed so to refute you point me to a different codebase losely based on the same ideas, which is also dead??? Are you obtuse??
The funny thing is, once you step outside the bubble that is slashdot, people are generally happy with Vista. I run Vista at home and work
I won't tell you where I work, but there are over 600 staff and it's a major organisation anyone in this country (Australia) would have heard of. There are rumours the IT staff there have decided to delay releasing Vista in the office indefinitely due to issues experienced during a pilot.
Your view is somewhat skewed and your generalisations don't hold everywhere.
Isn't this the whole point of a real open source license, rather than just publishing stuff and saying 'go play'? Either you're spouting misinformation, or the GPL et al are completely worthless...
Thanks for calling me a liar but the fact is I have the FICS code, which includes notices that it was distributed under the GPL and it is no longer publicly available on the web. So no I'm not spreading misinformation. No the licenses aren't worthless but the idea that you're secure once something is published as GPL has been proven wrong in some instances.
Actually, there is a project on Sourceforge that appears to build on the old GPLed ICS code
It might be based on the same idea but it is not even written in the same LANGUAGE as the old FICS code. (This is C++, FICS was C).
I'm going to fucking tear my hair out. It seems what I've said is so unpopular that it's led to at least 4 people spouting the same uninformed and unresearched CRAP.
In the case of XFree86, it took dissatisfaction among developers and a license change that was seen as unacceptable by many Linux distributors. But once those happened, X.org was founded. By now it has mostly supplanted XFree.
That happened because X is fundamental to the operation of the entire Linux operating system. Hence there was a lot of incentive to do this and there was too much at stake. FICS was killed off quietly. You'll be lucky if you can find it on some dodgy Russian chess site that you won't feel safe downloading from.
FICS was stable and usable. 10 years later chessd is in alpha. So it hasn't replaced a thing. Also, it doesn't look like it's based on the same code. So my original comment about seeing GPL code (and it was under the GPL that FICS was distributed) killed stands.
But what license was the FICS code under? Was it really "open source"?
Directly from the source code: "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License"
It really PISSES ME OFF that uninformed crap comments like yours get rated insightful while my original gets overrated.
It's not the first time. I've seen supposedly open source die a cruel death at the hands of its creators. Anyone remember the Free Internet Chess Servers? The FICS code is still on dark corners of the net, but you'll have a fight on your hands if you want to try to use it, and I believe the guy who claims to own it because he contributed to it used it as the base of the current incarnation of FICS which is actually a paid service. You can't get the source to the server from there anymore.
So if Oracle are able to somehow prevent the use of this code, either due to terms of employment of the pricinple devs or by claiming ownership of the code and rescinding the free license, it'll make all these licenses worthless. Oracle has deep pockets. Individual developers don't.
Hell even if they can't impose their will legally but still manage to get their way due to fragmentation of the group, it's a black day for FOSS.
I really REALLY hope the devs are able to fork and move on.
1) Considering how many planets we have looked at and that we can't find life on any of them this makes Earth very extraordinary
How many have we looked at. 7 or 8 other than Earth (depending on whether you agree with the latest IAU definition of Planet) here and we've seen nothing more than the WOBBLE from a few hundred more that aren't in the habitable zone? Do you have ANY concept of how many stars there are out there.
2) Not ever be able to communicate with distant places? You don't know what we will invent in the future. It may come out tomorrow, or it may come out in 300 years - but to say "never".
You do never know what'll will be discovered, but nothing we know of now even in theory can communicate faster than light. Would I stake my life on never? No, but I don't think it'll happen in my life time or that of anyone I know.
I don't believe that this necessary will lead to censorship of other "offensive" or politically incorrect material. Here in Norway, we've had a similar filter[1] in place for a few years now, and it hasn't been extended in any degree to include anything other than what has been deemed as child porn.
How do you know? You can't get to it, so how could you possibly know if it's child porn or if anything that isn't child porn has been censored??? How hard would it be to twist that rule without your knowledge that it's been twisted?
Re:Lol.. fight piracy with hardware upgrades...
on
Piracy and the PSP
·
· Score: 1
Perhaps his employer censors and he'd like to keep his job.
By the way if you don't think slashdot censors try writing a medium length post full of obscenity. The tolerance is pretty high but the filter is there (or at least was last time I checked which admittedly was some time ago). If you're not an angry foul mouthed fool, and you're not quoting one and adding your own obscenities you'll probably never encounter the filter.
Thought this story was about RMS
on
Robotic Penguins
·
· Score: 4, Funny
I'm so disappointed! We haven't had a story about Stallman for ages now!
I'm not sure who are more dangerous, those that don't update because they don't know what updates are, or those that don't update because they're too paranoid about corporations whose software they already use to allow that software to be patched against demonstrated security issues.
How about those that don't update because they've been bitten too often by the latest and greatest patch breaking an existing system? That's not paranoia, especially since lately it seems companies are more than willing to release an "update" that cripples previously working functionality.
Unless you're building some kind of specialized business or research system, the only reasons to shell out thousands of dollars on hardware is if you're doing virtualization or are a hardcore gamer with no social life.:P...or if you're doing video processing (or audio encoding)...or 3D modelling...or CAD...or heavy photo editing...or detailed digital art...or you have a special interest and need decent 3D graphics (like Astronomy and want to run a sky simulator in high detail)....or you want to play a game of Chess against a computer that plays really well (The better the processor, the better most software does)
Also depends on what you mean by "hardcore gamer". MS Flight Simulator 2004 will tax most systems. FSX will bring it to its knees! All you're doing is trying to simulate a realistic flying envrionment.
So basically unless you have a need for a high end processor, you don't need a high end processor. Boring people who do nothing but a bit of web surfing, use an office suite, and maybe access email (on or off the web) can get away with a netbook. That's not news at all. If you want to do most interesting things, having a faster machine with more memory and a decent graphics card is a huge advantage. In some cases your computer is a limiting factor. All that has changed is that basic web surfing and word processing is no longer taxing on a modern machine.
Slashdot Mirror
...that it isn't viable but you're posting in the hope someone will aid you in continued wishful thinking.
It sounds to me like your best solution would be 2 broadband accounts. 1 wired and 1 wireless.
Yes, because I've seen many problems cause by people who run around using the "c" word, and never a single one fixed. I'm biased, and I think that its use is now absurd and as excuses for things other than the stated purpose.
Any idea can be twisted or misapplied. It doesn't make the idea "absurd".
Why is it? For us, getting bills to the customer is a part of the "core business" but we outsource bill printing.
Someone has decided it's not your core business. Perhaps the issue is simply that you've got many many bills to print and it is therefore worthwhile persuing a 3rd party that specializes in such things. Perhaps someone made a bad decision. There is a difference between an idea being "absurd" and it's application being done poorly.
Doing something that doesn't help the bottom line because "it's not core, so we shouldn't do it" is irrational.
No it's not irrational and whether or not it helps the bottom line is not the only component to deciding if it's "core business". In fact there are some "businesses" for which bottom line is a very secondary issue - eg. a government department.
For one cable a week, it's cheaper to make it yourself than to drive to the store (or wait days for shipping) to buy it.
Or here's a wacky idea for you. Why not make one trip to buy a bunch of cables and store them till needed instead of going to the store once a week?
Who cares if it's "core"? That's a buzzword thrown around by consultants trying to justify their existance.
In some places it is, in other places the ideas are applied sanely. Your narrow tainted view doesn't generalize to everyone else's worldview. Even dreaded concepts and words like "synergy" which have been misused so badly that some people switch off if they so much as hear them, have their place.
I agree in part. The original use was as a warning. Touch "core" and die. Justify everything else religiously, but don't ever touch "core" when contracting/outsourcing. To do so puts the viability of your company in the hands of someone else. Now, it's reversed. If it isn't "core" it should be gone, and even "core" can go if you can justify it. That's backwards, but it's what's happening.
It's not backwards at all. It's just that it's taken to the extreme and applied poorly without any regard for other ideas. If it's not a core function but it's a vital support function and you can't outsource it effectively (eg. you can't judge quality until it's way too late) then you shouldn't outsource. You simply can't say that about commodities like network cables. You're still trying to justify your hobby on company time.
And for most places, a cable a week is cheaper to do in house, and this guy is asking about one of those occassions.
No for most places it really isn't cheaper to do it in house, and your repeated attempts to justify it on a ridiculous basis like having to go to the store once a week when there is an obvious solution (ie. go and buy a bunch and put them in a cupboard) is exactly the kind of backward thinking nonsense that leads to waste and opens up opportunities for weasly contracting firms to come in and whisper in your boss' ear "hey your staff's wasting your money, let us help you cut costs big time including some of their wages".
Oh, and when I talk "cheaper" I mean business cost, not retail cost. Risks must be quantified with a dollar amount (or ignored explicitly). Cost of capital and other things should be included as well. And the "cost" in labor to an otherwise idle employee shouldn't be counted against it. Getting the actual cost to the business, rather than picking whatever numbers justify the decision the manager would prefer. But then, most managers have a personal opinion on outsourcing and will pick what they want to look at to justify their existing
1. You're comparing Geocities to the Colosseum. Sanity check required.
2. I bet if someone bought and wanted to pull down the Colosseum right after it lost popularity there would have been no uproar. It's only because something has survived for so long in the first place that it becomes so important, because it's rare.
3. If most of it is archived, that's not such a bad solution. People/historians want to preserve it so they can. Now if Yahoo or the owners got in the way of that by claiming copyright etc. or if the archivers wanted to charge for access I'd see a potential problem.
Quick! Before it's too late! Remove them from the language spec, along with GOTO!
Maybe we shouldn't rely on phone service or power service either then
Why not? RMS obviously goes without running water so he's practicing what he preaches.
The difference here is the Police took the pictures, not the public
Do you really expect me to believe your only problem with this is the police taking the pictures? I think you'd be crying foul regardless.
They have an obligation not to release those pictures unless they follow the proper procedures, this is the breach of privacy that occurred.
I agree that protocol was breached and that officers should be disciplined but I do not agree that there was any breach of privacy. Police have been known to release photographs of criminals to the community at large. Granted they are for identification purposes and it would be a sick joke to suggest that is the case here. However by releasing these it MAY make other people think about getting into a car stoned.
Also not wanting pictures of your near decapitated daughter floating around the internet most likely has less to do with a "cover up" then you think.
There are lots of things I don't want to happen in life but as an adult I find I have to deal with them. This was his daughter's very public mistake. That the keys were available was probably his. He'll have to live with it.
I would assume they just don't want to see it; I could be wrong on this though since I don't know them.
That is too bad, but it's too late to prevent the accident from occurring and the matter is clearly of public interest.
I'm not sure what you're objecting to. The fact that it's distasteful to display such a mutilated body? The fact that some people are getting their thrills looking at these extreme pictures? The fact that the parents are going to feel bad about it every time they see the pictures? The fact that some moron has decided to use it to taunt the parents?
Regardless I do not want incidents like this being buried or sanitised. Misuse of information does not warrant its censorship. People need to know what the consequence of their actions actually are, and there's no better way to learn without further carnage than to publicly expose such horrendous mistakes complete with all the gore.
What I'm saying is true. Those that use the word "core" in an argument are trying to elicit an emotional response to a financial issue
Really sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder there.
Look it all depends on how you define "Core Business". If I have to get an invoice out to a customer, you bet printing the invoice can be deemed part of the core business. Sure connecting the computers together could also be deemed necessary to the core business, but making the cables is a stretch. Where do you draw the line? Do you want to manufacture the raw cable? Mine the copper too? What business case could you possibly make for doing these things?
I'm not saying you have to make your own paper rather than buying it from Staples. I'm saying that if your *only* reason for buying paper rather than making it is that making paper isn't your "core" business, then you should not do anything else not "core" either.
In other words you're taking an argument to it's extreme (misunderstanding and misrepresenting it on purpose) and being even more irrational than the people who've made you harp on about using the word "core" to elicit an "emotional response". The idea is to focus on the things you NEED to do for your business to succeed and where there is a more convenient and cheaper option, let someone else do the complicated work for you so you can focus on those parts of your business that are most important. Given that network cables are a commodity, I fail to see how you could ever argue that making cables is necessary to your core business. You have to draw the line somewhere. Connecting the computers? Keeping the data safe etc. are NOT things you can pay someone else to do cheaply, efficiently and in a way that's easily assessed.
It's not their core business to do billing, or accept payments, or do HR, or any number of things. But few companies outsource their financial departments. So why should IT functionality be outsourced when accounting isn't? Printing isn't in their core business, so every check should be printed out by Kinkos. All copy machines should be removed, and you can just drive to Kinkos for that too. Oh wait, it's silly to outsource everything that isn't "core" (unless it's IT related). For some reason, every time I hear "core" mentioned in relation to contracting/outsourcing, I always think "penny wise, pound foolish" and haven't been wrong yet...
If you can save the company a metric ton of cash doing something in house (eg. printing) it's one thing. If the store bought version is cheaper, it's another. Patch cables are easy to check for quality and a company producing rubbish will earn a suitable reputation. By contrast by the time you've worked out that your outsourced HR is more expensive and not acting in the company's interests it's too late. In other words there's a difference between procuring a commodity and outsourcing vital business support functions. You either don't understand that difference or are ignoring it for the purpose of making a dishonest argument. Either way what you're saying does not ring true.
I find it disturbing that you seem so eager to relieve someone of their right to privacy based on the fact they did something stupid.
Arrrggghhhh! What fucking right to privacy? She didn't O.D. in her bedroom. She did this in a public place and was busy endangering the public!
Those rights are in place for a reason, if you strip them away for one person (or in this case family) you erode those rights for all of us.
Privacy as in private. Not privacy as in right to cover up what happened in a public place.
I agree with you and If I had points I would gladly mod you up. There is a difference between censorship and privacy, apparently some of you are not aware of that. These pictures were never supposed to be public, to protect the privacy of the family. The fact that they were leaked by persons within the Police department is a bit concerning.
I agree. They shouldn't have been leaked. They should have been used as a part of a public campaign denouncing the stupidity of driving while on drugs. Instead of faking advertising to shock people use the real pictures. As for the family's "right to privacy" fuck that! Their daughter got high and crashed her car in a very public place. If there's anything to be glad about it's that she didn't kill anyone else with her stupidity.
It's clearly not your company's core business to make their own patch cables. It may be fun for you to wittle down your own toothpics from lincoln logs but if it's not in your job description it ain't going to fly. Seriously, just buy the damn stuff and do what your boss has asked.
Er, no, chessd on sourceforge is entirely C. And even a brief perusal would show that it is based on the original [F]ICS C code. Did you even look at the source?
Are you lying, trolling, or just plain stupid?
Lets ignore hte filenames for a moment. Since when does C have constructors? From Player.cc //- Constructor
Player::Player(int n, float wt) : name(n), floatValue(wt) { }
Or from the install file
--- Chessd ---
This is a implementation of a chess server, it was designed to replace the old
chessd. Hopefully the new one is more robust and more effcient. Note that is is
still in development and it is unstable, use it at your own risk.
Hell it even uses a Postgres SQL databae not a flat file system like the original FICS
I think you'll find even a brief perusal will show you it's NOT based on FICS code. Some of the same ideas may be in play, but that's it
That codebase is pretty much dead; the project leader(s) have been working on a completely different solution that has been mentioned on the mailing list, is apparently in use in Brazilian schools (where chess is very popular) but unfortunately has not been published.
So my point was the FICS code base has been killed so to refute you point me to a different codebase losely based on the same ideas, which is also dead??? Are you obtuse??
The funny thing is, once you step outside the bubble that is slashdot, people are generally happy with Vista. I run Vista at home and work
I won't tell you where I work, but there are over 600 staff and it's a major organisation anyone in this country (Australia) would have heard of. There are rumours the IT staff there have decided to delay releasing Vista in the office indefinitely due to issues experienced during a pilot.
Your view is somewhat skewed and your generalisations don't hold everywhere.
Isn't this the whole point of a real open source license, rather than just publishing stuff and saying 'go play'? Either you're spouting misinformation, or the GPL et al are completely worthless...
Thanks for calling me a liar but the fact is I have the FICS code, which includes notices that it was distributed under the GPL and it is no longer publicly available on the web. So no I'm not spreading misinformation. No the licenses aren't worthless but the idea that you're secure once something is published as GPL has been proven wrong in some instances.
Actually, there is a project on Sourceforge that appears to build on the old GPLed ICS code
It might be based on the same idea but it is not even written in the same LANGUAGE as the old FICS code. (This is C++, FICS was C).
I'm going to fucking tear my hair out. It seems what I've said is so unpopular that it's led to at least 4 people spouting the same uninformed and unresearched CRAP.
In the case of XFree86, it took dissatisfaction among developers and a license change that was seen as unacceptable by many Linux distributors. But once those happened, X.org was founded. By now it has mostly supplanted XFree.
That happened because X is fundamental to the operation of the entire Linux operating system. Hence there was a lot of incentive to do this and there was too much at stake. FICS was killed off quietly. You'll be lucky if you can find it on some dodgy Russian chess site that you won't feel safe downloading from.
It's not the same code base, and it's in alpha, you ignorant troll.
FICS has been replaced by chessd
FICS was stable and usable. 10 years later chessd is in alpha. So it hasn't replaced a thing. Also, it doesn't look like it's based on the same code. So my original comment about seeing GPL code (and it was under the GPL that FICS was distributed) killed stands.
But what license was the FICS code under? Was it really "open source"?
Directly from the source code:
"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License"
It really PISSES ME OFF that uninformed crap comments like yours get rated insightful while my original gets overrated.
It's not the first time. I've seen supposedly open source die a cruel death at the hands of its creators. Anyone remember the Free Internet Chess Servers? The FICS code is still on dark corners of the net, but you'll have a fight on your hands if you want to try to use it, and I believe the guy who claims to own it because he contributed to it used it as the base of the current incarnation of FICS which is actually a paid service. You can't get the source to the server from there anymore.
So if Oracle are able to somehow prevent the use of this code, either due to terms of employment of the pricinple devs or by claiming ownership of the code and rescinding the free license, it'll make all these licenses worthless. Oracle has deep pockets. Individual developers don't.
Hell even if they can't impose their will legally but still manage to get their way due to fragmentation of the group, it's a black day for FOSS.
I really REALLY hope the devs are able to fork and move on.
1) Considering how many planets we have looked at and that we can't find life on any of them this makes Earth very extraordinary
How many have we looked at. 7 or 8 other than Earth (depending on whether you agree with the latest IAU definition of Planet) here and we've seen nothing more than the WOBBLE from a few hundred more that aren't in the habitable zone? Do you have ANY concept of how many stars there are out there.
2) Not ever be able to communicate with distant places? You don't know what we will invent in the future. It may come out tomorrow, or it may come out in 300 years - but to say "never".
You do never know what'll will be discovered, but nothing we know of now even in theory can communicate faster than light. Would I stake my life on never? No, but I don't think it'll happen in my life time or that of anyone I know.
I don't believe that this necessary will lead to censorship of other "offensive" or politically incorrect material. Here in Norway, we've had a similar filter[1] in place for a few years now, and it hasn't been extended in any degree to include anything other than what has been deemed as child porn.
How do you know? You can't get to it, so how could you possibly know if it's child porn or if anything that isn't child porn has been censored??? How hard would it be to twist that rule without your knowledge that it's been twisted?
Perhaps his employer censors and he'd like to keep his job.
By the way if you don't think slashdot censors try writing a medium length post full of obscenity. The tolerance is pretty high but the filter is there (or at least was last time I checked which admittedly was some time ago). If you're not an angry foul mouthed fool, and you're not quoting one and adding your own obscenities you'll probably never encounter the filter.
I'm so disappointed! We haven't had a story about Stallman for ages now!
I'm not sure who are more dangerous, those that don't update because they don't know what updates are, or those that don't update because they're too paranoid about corporations whose software they already use to allow that software to be patched against demonstrated security issues.
How about those that don't update because they've been bitten too often by the latest and greatest patch breaking an existing system? That's not paranoia, especially since lately it seems companies are more than willing to release an "update" that cripples previously working functionality.
Unless you're building some kind of specialized business or research system, the only reasons to shell out thousands of dollars on hardware is if you're doing virtualization or are a hardcore gamer with no social life. :P ...or if you're doing video processing (or audio encoding) ...or 3D modelling ...or CAD ...or heavy photo editing ...or detailed digital art ...or you have a special interest and need decent 3D graphics (like Astronomy and want to run a sky simulator in high detail). ...or you want to play a game of Chess against a computer that plays really well (The better the processor, the better most software does)
Also depends on what you mean by "hardcore gamer". MS Flight Simulator 2004 will tax most systems. FSX will bring it to its knees! All you're doing is trying to simulate a realistic flying envrionment.
So basically unless you have a need for a high end processor, you don't need a high end processor. Boring people who do nothing but a bit of web surfing, use an office suite, and maybe access email (on or off the web) can get away with a netbook. That's not news at all. If you want to do most interesting things, having a faster machine with more memory and a decent graphics card is a huge advantage. In some cases your computer is a limiting factor. All that has changed is that basic web surfing and word processing is no longer taxing on a modern machine.