I think corporate america has already trivialized it enough by turning it into little more than an excuse for a sale and the corresponding orgy of capitalism. I'm no communist, but all things in moderation. On the other hand, I'm not a flag waver either, and I think that in this (dare I say it?) post September 11th world, we could all do with a little less prima facie patriotism and a little more of standing up for what that term used to mean.
I want to see 10-20 arguments like this made. they are clear, concise, NON-INFLAMMATORY, and make a point.
Then I suggest you get writing. It's not like Santa Claus can be expected to bring you this stuff for christmas.
I don't mean to be a complete asshole. I'm just trying to say, if you know what the arguments are, why not write them down yourself? I don't see why you have to wait for someone else to do it, unless you want the official RMS guide to why FUD sucks or something. Part and parcel of the whole OSS mentality is this: if you have an itch, scratch it yourself.
I do use it at home sometimes...but only because the wife hates it, and therefore she never checks my pr0n history (heh).
Come on, now. How many times have we all heard about the flaws with Security through Obscurity? Anyone want to take bets on how long this little charade of his will last?
Mozilla doesn't always render Web pages the same way IE does. Why does that matter? Many Web designers have built sites primarily for IE, and those pages look odd in Mozilla.
I know this is/., so everyone is going to get all pissed off about this statement (perhaps rightly so), but don't blame the guy who wrote the webpage. Have you ever tried writing DHTML/JavaScript/CSS that worked in multiple browsers? It truly sucks. Yes, it's partly Microsoft's fault. But let's face it, if you're stuck writing a webpage, would you rather:
A. Write it to work with IE perfectly, which 90% of your visitors use anyway, hope it doesn't fuck up too much in NS4.x/Mozilla, and be done in ten minutes.
Or,
B. Write it to work with IE, NS4.x, Mozilla, Opera, blah blah blah. Be done sometime before armageddon, with any luck.
The SEC, like all alphabetical soup organizations (IRS, FBI and the forth) were set up to serve NOT the gummint, but rather, to serve IN THE INTERST OF THE PEOPLE.
But isn't the government set up to serve the people? So by serving the government, they're serving the people, right? Right?
Oh, my bad. I must've been thinking of a different government.
People are posting about how 400Mbit/s is not that great considering that there are 10Gbit/s lines (or whatever) traversing the Atlantic. What you have to realize is:
1) Lines are never as fast as advertised.
2) Latency has a big effect on many congestion control algos. I assume that they were using some form of TCP for this transfer; if so, I'd like to know which variant (Reno/New Reno/Vegas/etc.) and whether they modified it.
First, read your EULAs for Quake 3, Half-Life, StarCraft, etc. (other games that allow you to create content). All of them say the same thing that we are saying. Our EULA is nothing new. They must be written this way to protect both the companies involved and the end users. I am serious. Read the EULAs of those other games.
<MOTHERLY TONE>So if everyone else were to go jump off a bridge, you would too?</MOTHERLY TONE> Seriously, just because other companies have done it before does not make it okay. Please, someone explain how this helps protect the end user.
Every time a new game comes out, someone actually reads the EULA and the spectres of corporate exploitation rears its head. Its just not happening. id, Blizzard, Valve, none of these companies have ripped off their fans. Why? Because its suicide. And we aren't doing it either.
This is like when the government says "sure, we have the ability to wiretap anything we feel like, but we would never do that because it would piss the citizenry off". A slippery slope, indeed... It begs the question: If you have absolutely no intention of ever using the power this clause gives you, why even bother to put it in there? Particularly when it garners this kind of reaction.
Having just graduated from college (or university, if you want to be nit-picky), I think I have a thing or two worth saying on that particular subject. In no particular order...
1. (Pro) Getting certifications versus getting a degree is very much like the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish. What certifications say is that you are able to deal satisfactorily with system X. What it (often) implies is that you are not experienced with very much outside of system X (excepting, of course, other certs that you hold), and that when system X gets replaced with system Y and you don't have the cert for that, you're expendable. It also implies that you are an interchangeable cog with respect to the other billion people with the same cert. What having a degree implies is that you probably aren't super-in-touch with any of systems X, Y, or Z. On the other hand, you probably have the wherewithal to do just as well with them as the guy with the cert, given a little bit of time to scramble up the learning curve. It also implies that you know something outside of systems X, Y, and Z -- something more abstract but also more generally applicable. Essentially, you can display some adaptability.
2. (Pro) College is fun.
3. (Pro) If you take the right classes and work hard (enough) at them, college teaches you to think in a way that getting a certification never will. I should admit here that I'm a mathematician (in addition to a computer scientist), so I tend to get a big hard-on about things like strong analytical and abstract thinking skills. YMMV.
4. (Con) College is a business -- not for you, for them. What I mean is that you have to pay them a lot of money and in return they require things of you. It's like some kind of bizarro job where you work crazy hours and pay *them*. That's not to say that it's not rewarding (reference points 1 through 3), just that you should expect to have to jump through some silly hoops and sometimes have to take classes that totally suck, and/or spend 16 straight hours in a lab somewhere. I wouldn't blame you for coming out of it a little jaded about academia.
5. (Misc.) This point is my last, and it isn't so much about college as it is just general advice. System administration is kind of cool, but allow for the possibility that you will become bored with it and want to do something else. Being an MCSE or something like that more-or-less makes you cut out for a limited number of positions. Having a college degree widens the field of possibilities significantly, even to the point of making it possible for you to end up doing something that has *nothing* to do with the degree you hold. Now, you may argue that you can always go to college later, but in reality, the truth is that you won't.
A cardinal rule of software development: "Adding more developers partway through makes what would otherwise be a late project even later." See The Mythical Man Month for a full, well-thought-out explanation as to why.
RTFA. First of all, the OSS movement isn't making the law, the Peruvian congress is. Secondly, they're not making laws preventing the use of proprietary software, which would be clear if you had read even the first quarter of the article. They're making a law saying that any software used by the government has to meet certain standards -- one of which is that it has to include source code (for various reasons; to prevent "spyware", to allow them to verify the security of the software, etc.). If these standards aren't met by some piece of proprietary software, it's the software maker's fault and not the government's. It's like if you want to buy a 1Ghz processor and some company only makes processors that are slower than that; it's not your fault that you will end up buying some other company's processor.
I would argue, however, that just because we can does mean that we will. This same issue has come up with the whole "should we genetically modify our children" thing, and someone made the (IMHO) very good point that whether we should is sort of moot considering that we inevitably will. It's like inventing the atomic bomb. Maybe we should not have done it, but we did anyway. Given the ability, man will always (eventually) exercise it.
I would politely point out here that the Constitution is not the only body of law in the US. Consequently, new issues that need to be addressed can be handled by making new laws without amending the Constitution. I'm not saying American govt is perfect (in fact, I think it's quite the opposite). I'm just saying that this whole "well, the Constitution is old so none of the new issues must have been addressed" stuff is rather silly.
Slashdot Mirror
They'll open source my toaster [...]
Hello! MacOS X, anyone?
That's $170, not seventeen thousand -- 100% of one dollar is one dollar, not one hundred dollars. Nevertheless, it's still nuts.
I think corporate america has already trivialized it enough by turning it into little more than an excuse for a sale and the corresponding orgy of capitalism. I'm no communist, but all things in moderation. On the other hand, I'm not a flag waver either, and I think that in this (dare I say it?) post September 11th world, we could all do with a little less prima facie patriotism and a little more of standing up for what that term used to mean.
What animal should be on the cover?
A bat? No, that's just "fear". Perhaps an uncertain, doubtful bat? I'm not sure how those kind look different from the regular ones, though...
I want to see 10-20 arguments like this made. they are clear, concise, NON-INFLAMMATORY, and make a point.
Then I suggest you get writing. It's not like Santa Claus can be expected to bring you this stuff for christmas.
I don't mean to be a complete asshole. I'm just trying to say, if you know what the arguments are, why not write them down yourself? I don't see why you have to wait for someone else to do it, unless you want the official RMS guide to why FUD sucks or something. Part and parcel of the whole OSS mentality is this: if you have an itch, scratch it yourself.
If you play with any of my balls I get to play with yours. If you don't let me play with your balls I will take you to court.
BR LMAO. Mod parent up!
I do use it at home sometimes...but only because the wife hates it, and therefore she never checks my pr0n history (heh).
Come on, now. How many times have we all heard about the flaws with Security through Obscurity? Anyone want to take bets on how long this little charade of his will last?
Mozilla doesn't always render Web pages the same way IE does. Why does that matter? Many Web designers have built sites primarily for IE, and those pages look odd in Mozilla.
/., so everyone is going to get all pissed off about this statement (perhaps rightly so), but don't blame the guy who wrote the webpage. Have you ever tried writing DHTML/JavaScript/CSS that worked in multiple browsers? It truly sucks. Yes, it's partly Microsoft's fault. But let's face it, if you're stuck writing a webpage, would you rather:
I know this is
A. Write it to work with IE perfectly, which 90% of your visitors use anyway, hope it doesn't fuck up too much in NS4.x/Mozilla, and be done in ten minutes.
Or,
B. Write it to work with IE, NS4.x, Mozilla, Opera, blah blah blah. Be done sometime before armageddon, with any luck.
Yeah, I thought so.
The SEC, like all alphabetical soup organizations (IRS, FBI and the forth) were set up to serve NOT the gummint, but rather, to serve IN THE INTERST OF THE PEOPLE.
But isn't the government set up to serve the people? So by serving the government, they're serving the people, right? Right?
Oh, my bad. I must've been thinking of a different government.
Besides how many more deaths might this cause then cell-phones, driving down the road typing up a document in one eye and driving with the other.
F*ck typing a document. Imagine playing GTA3 in the other eye!
People are posting about how 400Mbit/s is not that great considering that there are 10Gbit/s lines (or whatever) traversing the Atlantic. What you have to realize is:
1) Lines are never as fast as advertised.
2) Latency has a big effect on many congestion control algos. I assume that they were using some form of TCP for this transfer; if so, I'd like to know which variant (Reno/New Reno/Vegas/etc.) and whether they modified it.
Keith and his coworkers were very happy to tie their horse to Microsoft while Microsoft was willing to pull them.
Perhaps their first mistake was tying their horse to something in the hopes that it would get pulled...
First, read your EULAs for Quake 3, Half-Life, StarCraft, etc. (other games that allow you to create content). All of them say the same thing that we are saying. Our EULA is nothing new. They must be written this way to protect both the companies involved and the end users. I am serious. Read the EULAs of those other games.
<MOTHERLY TONE>So if everyone else were to go jump off a bridge, you would too?</MOTHERLY TONE> Seriously, just because other companies have done it before does not make it okay. Please, someone explain how this helps protect the end user.
Every time a new game comes out, someone actually reads the EULA and the spectres of corporate exploitation rears its head. Its just not happening. id, Blizzard, Valve, none of these companies have ripped off their fans. Why? Because its suicide. And we aren't doing it either.
This is like when the government says "sure, we have the ability to wiretap anything we feel like, but we would never do that because it would piss the citizenry off". A slippery slope, indeed... It begs the question: If you have absolutely no intention of ever using the power this clause gives you, why even bother to put it in there? Particularly when it garners this kind of reaction.
Having just graduated from college (or university, if you want to be nit-picky), I think I have a thing or two worth saying on that particular subject. In no particular order...
1. (Pro) Getting certifications versus getting a degree is very much like the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish. What certifications say is that you are able to deal satisfactorily with system X. What it (often) implies is that you are not experienced with very much outside of system X (excepting, of course, other certs that you hold), and that when system X gets replaced with system Y and you don't have the cert for that, you're expendable. It also implies that you are an interchangeable cog with respect to the other billion people with the same cert. What having a degree implies is that you probably aren't super-in-touch with any of systems X, Y, or Z. On the other hand, you probably have the wherewithal to do just as well with them as the guy with the cert, given a little bit of time to scramble up the learning curve. It also implies that you know something outside of systems X, Y, and Z -- something more abstract but also more generally applicable. Essentially, you can display some adaptability.
2. (Pro) College is fun.
3. (Pro) If you take the right classes and work hard (enough) at them, college teaches you to think in a way that getting a certification never will. I should admit here that I'm a mathematician (in addition to a computer scientist), so I tend to get a big hard-on about things like strong analytical and abstract thinking skills. YMMV.
4. (Con) College is a business -- not for you, for them. What I mean is that you have to pay them a lot of money and in return they require things of you. It's like some kind of bizarro job where you work crazy hours and pay *them*. That's not to say that it's not rewarding (reference points 1 through 3), just that you should expect to have to jump through some silly hoops and sometimes have to take classes that totally suck, and/or spend 16 straight hours in a lab somewhere. I wouldn't blame you for coming out of it a little jaded about academia.
5. (Misc.) This point is my last, and it isn't so much about college as it is just general advice. System administration is kind of cool, but allow for the possibility that you will become bored with it and want to do something else. Being an MCSE or something like that more-or-less makes you cut out for a limited number of positions. Having a college degree widens the field of possibilities significantly, even to the point of making it possible for you to end up doing something that has *nothing* to do with the degree you hold. Now, you may argue that you can always go to college later, but in reality, the truth is that you won't.
A cardinal rule of software development: "Adding more developers partway through makes what would otherwise be a late project even later." See The Mythical Man Month for a full, well-thought-out explanation as to why.
Yeah. MS is a flawed concept that *succeeded*, to the tune of billions of dollars.
CKK: Come now, if you're so sure it's impossible to have a modular version of Windows, why not let him demo it?
Microsoft's Lawyer: <stewie voice>Damn the modules, and damn you!</stewie voice>
Too many "whacking it" jokes. My brain hurts.
RTFA. First of all, the OSS movement isn't making the law, the Peruvian congress is. Secondly, they're not making laws preventing the use of proprietary software, which would be clear if you had read even the first quarter of the article. They're making a law saying that any software used by the government has to meet certain standards -- one of which is that it has to include source code (for various reasons; to prevent "spyware", to allow them to verify the security of the software, etc.). If these standards aren't met by some piece of proprietary software, it's the software maker's fault and not the government's. It's like if you want to buy a 1Ghz processor and some company only makes processors that are slower than that; it's not your fault that you will end up buying some other company's processor.
since WHEN do corporations have the right to free speech, especially deceptive speech?
Since corporations became the same as people under the law.
1. Real mathematicians think of statisticians bastard stepchildren... I'm kidding, relax.
2. What, like mathematicians aren't allowed to be good at writing?
Just because we can doesn't mean we should!
I would argue, however, that just because we can does mean that we will. This same issue has come up with the whole "should we genetically modify our children" thing, and someone made the (IMHO) very good point that whether we should is sort of moot considering that we inevitably will. It's like inventing the atomic bomb. Maybe we should not have done it, but we did anyway. Given the ability, man will always (eventually) exercise it.
Sounds like motherhood advice. "Wear clean underwear". "Be careful". Sounds good, but doesn't give you any insight that's worth a damn.
I would politely point out here that the Constitution is not the only body of law in the US. Consequently, new issues that need to be addressed can be handled by making new laws without amending the Constitution. I'm not saying American govt is perfect (in fact, I think it's quite the opposite). I'm just saying that this whole "well, the Constitution is old so none of the new issues must have been addressed" stuff is rather silly.
That's why I say, wear a mask. It's cheaper than plastic surgery.