If I hear one more brainless little twerp whine about how his CS degree isn't teaching him how to code in (trendy_language_001), I'm going to scream.
That's because CS has been the place to go for the hot jobs. You don't get many people taking physics because they're expecting to get yesterday's hot jobs tomorrow.
Yes, I agree that people taking CS just for the jobs should be going to the local technical college, but these same people have also been taught that University graduates are going to get the higher paying, faster moving jobs. They just haven't figured out why that is, yet.
On the bright side, that group also tend to be the first ones to drop out.
I do think you are correct in one aspect however, if a Linux user was on a Windows box and wanted to twik it or perform administrative tasks they would have a steeper learning curve, especially with XP. Over all though, for user stupidness/friendlyness I would say Windows has the upper hand.
People learned, a long time ago, to never, never ever mess with window setings unless you're willing to risk an unstable system ("Do exactly as I say and nobody will get hurt"). Linux users, on the other hand, tweak pretty much to their heart's content.Both KDE and Gnome have those little popups that actually encourage experimentation. There's very little to lose. Since a non-root user is structurally incapable of messing up the base system, the worst that could happen is that (s)he'd completely mess up one login and have to migrate to another -- far easier than re-installing the entire OS. You can even set up a new user with the same UID (if you know what you're doing) which would make permission problems moot. (I will note, however, that I've never had a user mess up his system that badly (knock on wood!)).
I actually disagree with you, I think a Linux user going to a Windows environment has a much easier time. In part because many things in Windows are specifically dumbed down to make them single click applications.
Dumbed down is fine for the first week or two. After that the dumbing down may get in the way (that's my experience, but I'm a geek so I discount that anecdotal evidence). On the other hand, I've recently experienced some non-geek rommates, so their experience is more relevant to this discussion.
When, my old roommate got to go from WIndows to Linux. His first week was like: "Hey, what's this sucky OS? Why doesn't anything work like Windows? why can't I do this?".
After the first couple of weeks he seemed to be getting used to Linux, and after a month or two he was more of a linux missionary than even I was. I was actually surprised by his enthusiastic embrace of Linux.
I got him using Linux because it was easier on me (he was using my box). With Linux he had his own account with it's own settings and I even had xdm set up so that ctrl-alt-F7 was him while ctrl-alt-f8 was me. No need to even logout. that was RH5.2 ~ 6.1.
My new roommate has a friend who's WIndows box self destructed. After recovering the data on his old disk, I installed RedHat 8.0, downloaded the MP3 extensions for XMMS, set up mplayer and let him take it home. I only got 1 or 2 support calls in the first couple of days -- After that, silence. It was so quiet, I was actually wondering if he'd given up and gone back to WIndows so I called him. He was quietly happy. Linux was doing everything he needed. It just wasn't doing anything wrong.
Now my roommate, who originally pretty much swore that he'd never move from Windows ("Everything I know how to do is on WIndows. Why would I learn another OS?"). Is starting to use the 7.3 installation that I dropped onto his system (a disk from an old computer of mine that died). I didn't even know that he was making any real use of it until he mentioned that now was a good time to install the upgrades that I'd wanted.
You know you've got a kickin' OS when the support people are worried by the silence.
The bible definitely refers to Jews being used as slave labour in Egypt, but the work that they were doing (e.g. brick making) didn't seem like it was directly focused on pyramid building.
Many cultures would see using slaves in a religious monument as
sacrilege. Modern Western culture aside, working for one's god is often seen as a high
purpose for the dedication of one's life. If anything, use of slaves to build the pyramids might have risked a revolt among the other workers -- belittling the effort that they were putting in.
Oh, the bible definitely describes the Jews being used for slave labour, but the work that I remember them being used for doesn't sound like pyramid building. Besides: Just because a society uses slaves, doesn't mean that they necessarily use slaves for everything. Religious buildings are especially unlikely to be built by slavery -- Many cultures would see the slaves as belittling the religious significance of the building.
Western society aside, working for your god is generally seen as a high purpose to dedicate your life to. The Pharohs were thought of as living gods. I can see people getting pissed off at the thought of slaves displacing them in the building of such monuments.
er, um, Just how long do you think a century is? -- or did you p$ units 370century years
* 37000
ass math by hacking into your teacher's comptuter? (math: 420%)
$ units 370century years * 37000 / 2.7027027e-05
I suggest that the next time you try to complain about someone else's math skills, you learn how to use a calculator first.
(i was rather upset to find that RedHat doesn't include the units rpm in the default install I guess they won't do that until someone has a graphical front end for it -- that takes up more space than the units database.)
what exactly is "making chips for linux?" i've never heard of any special linux processor...
I think that this is something of a misstated way of saying that Intel no longer owes absolute fealthy to MS. Previous to Linux. WIndows made up probably 99% of Intel's X86 market -- to the point where MS was able to strongarm Intel into pulling improvements that were inconsistent with MS's business interests. (as documented in the DOJ trial).
Now Intel is pushing their I64 on Linux -- partly as a way of getting out from under Microsoft's stillto heeled boots. It's not quite making chips for Linux, but they're definitely paying attention to Linux in a serious way -- and possibly even modifying their chipsets to take Linux into account.
we'll end p having too deal with them deciding that belts can be used as garrottes and outlawing them too... then realizing that the same applies to shirt sleeves and pants and...
OH, shit. Soon we'll have officially mandated nudity in public spaces (my nudist friend would be in hogg heaven).
I'm still of the opinion that the best thing to happen to the anti-terrorism effort in the air isn't goverment prohibitions on anything more dangerous than a hat -- It's the fact that passengers are now willing to take responsibility for their safety and security. If passengers had reacted on Sept 11 like they seem to now, the hijackers would probably have never made it into the cockpit, much less to their respective target buildings.
Near one extreme of the attitude about this, you have MS's approach which I summarize as "Do exactly as we say and nobody will get hurt". Under Microsoft's EULA, it's probably the case that trying to customize the desktop too much could turn you into a criminal (or at least a potential civil litigant).
On the ad-absurdium extreme of the customizable camp would be those who firmly believe that real users write their user interface from scratch. (the most fundamental stalwarts of this already extreme group would still like to get rid of those silly "high level languages" -- in the belief that only assembler gives access to the full power of the machine).
I haven't really delved enough into KDE and GNOME to decide which has produced a better compromise, but I am reasonably happy with what KDE allows me to stomp on.
And, of course, since it's open source, I still do have the choice of rewriting (or replacing) any part that doesn't modify to my satisfaction. (as long as I'm willing to read the dreaded highg-level-language source-code).
Another part of the issue (whether or not you have to boot off of the CD) is that admins have been led to believe that you always need a password to get admin access. The XP rescue disks still need an admin password to get full access to the system, so admins might be lulled into believieng that people booting off of their CDs aren't as big of a threat as they really are.
Consider this as an example of Insecurity through obscurity.
Anyone with a Windows 2000 CD can boot up a Windows XP box and start the Windows 2000 Recovery Console, a troubleshooting program.
Windows XP then allows the visitor to operate as Administrator without a password, even if the Administrator account has a strong password.
It looks like you may hot have to boot off of the CD to get access to the system.
If this reading is accurate, then even machines with a CMOS password which have been set to boot only from the HD would be vulnerable.
More importantly, it would indicate that there is a back door to the XP security system. If somebody figures out the basis of such a backdoor, it could make for a very nasty virus/worm.
Hopefully, I'm just misreading the whole thing (quite possible).
As soon as RMS writes a license that allows for true "freedom" (ie, I can do whatever the hell I want with the licensed software, including releasing it under a non-GPL license), I will take his views on "freedom" seriously.
This is is the paradox of freedom: maintenance of freedom requires the limitation of freedom. For example maintaining your right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness necessarily requires a limitation of my right to kill, imprison and otherwise abuse you -- even if your death would make me ever so happy.
Similarly, maintainence of your right to the freedom to use GPL software requires a limitation of my right to 'imprison' that same software.
You choose your poison, you pay your price.
Unabridged libertarianism is little more than the thinly disguised right of the strong to enslave the weak.
Someoone should point out to the New York State Attorney General that if the UCITA gets passed in New York, it could make this rulling moot. The ruling is based on the fact that the gag clause is unenforcable while the UCITA would (among other things) add teeth to the click-through agreement, and might make the gag clause enforcable. At that point, the ruling would disappear in a puff of logic.
I'm glad to see this kind of EULA thrown out by the courts, but could someone explain why it was a deceptive trade practice?
What's deceptive about it is that it makes people think that it's illegal to violate the gag clause (e.g. by telling people how bad the software is).
What's interesting about it is that the rulling either implicitly or explicitly rules that at least that clause of the EULA is unenforcable. If we're lucky, it also implies that the entire click-through license is unenforcable.
[If for no other reason, it would make the rest of middle america feel so much safer knowing that ten years from now, even though it's not the same guy, there will still be some 25 year old flunky sitting in his parents basement who would just love to send you patches to the firmware running on your fuel injection microprocessor.
That's more likely to be a description of closed source support, except that he'd be siting in his parent company's basement. The difference with Open source is that it might be (substantially) the same flunky, but with the addition of anybody with enough interest to download a copy of the source code
-- most likely people with a good deal of training in the area.
Would you rather get that patch from some 25 year old who couldn't get asigned anyththing better than supporting some obsolete dead-end code, or a PhD in real-time systems who just haappens to have the same fuel injector?
Open source doesn't automatically mean good support, but it does mean that nobody can absolutely deny you support. You always have the resources and option to do the support yourself. With closed source, the EULA often seems to make it illegal for you to create your own patches for a program -- if you can even figure out where to patch without source.
When Iceland (I think it was Iceland) offered to pay Microsoft to translate Windows for them, and Microsoft refused the request, all that the country could do was fume about the snub -- until someone suggested moving to Linux for their standard OS.
Windows for Workgroups (WFW) 3.1 is barely 10 years old now. How much would it take to get MS to do a s simple bugfix for that software? I think you'd have an easier time running end-to-end through Baghdad wearing nothing but a US flag and a 'Bomb Iraq" button.
It's said that more energy is used in making a car than in using it. Smelting isn't cheap, enegy-wise. Replacing a fridge every 5 years would eat way more power than what you'd save in usage enery.
However, it's not going to suffice for a huge automaker, they'd have to train their own team of programs to take over the support if that fails, at high expense.
.....
Microsoft is almost certain to be around in 10 years.
There's a big difference between a company being around, and that same company being willing and able to provide support in 10 years.
Perhaps, but how many 10 year old products does MS still support? Win95 was unsupported after less than 7 years, and Win98 isn't far behind.. Those are products tha MS sold millions and millions of. What do you think that they're going to do about support for a version of CE that only sold a fraction of that? How much do you think they're going to charge you for support of the 10,000 copies that you put out with our product? Given how long it takes them to fix a serious security problem in IE, how long do you figure it'll take them to produce a fix for your OEM version -- if they will do it at all.
It really might be better for a large company tcriticalo use OS and make sure that one or two of their employees remembers how to do 'make config' on their product.
I'd actually suggest that the math favors a large company for this over a small one, since they can spread out the support costs over more products.
You just cover exposed diamond surfaces with a layer of something that blocks the oxygen. Gold will do quite nicely.
Oh, yeah, real nice... It'd prevent oxidation, but a gold layer on the chip would pretty much destroy it's electrical properties... Gold would also melt long before the chip did. Probably just enclosing the chip in a nitrogen filled cap would do the job well enough.
Your
righteous indignation that these people are not providing their software in an entirely free manner is a bit offsetting.
This situation is very different than people who have used someone else's GPL code in their product and then refused/forgotten to release the sources. This is (I presume) WebGUI's code. As such they have the full right to decide if and how they're going to release it.
Fact of the matter is that we live in a world where money is king. If your company doesn't provide a profit, then it's going to eventually evaporate (unless it's run by someone like Bill Gates). Fact of the matter is that it's very difficult to make money with Open Source software. Even Mandrakesoft is having a hard time with a relatively popular distribution of Linux.
These people are attempting to develop a model that provides most of the benefits of open software and (as far as they see) some hope for them to make enough money to be able to support their baby full-time.
Perhaps this model will fail. Perhaps you would complain if the world were handed to you on a silver spoon and you were asked to pay for the spoon.
If you don't like their business model, then you have pretty much two choices:
Pay for access to their (closed) documentation
Develop your own documentation
Write your own code.
learn how to count
Would you be bitching at these people this venemously if they were providing their program for $50, but not providing the source code? If so, then go ahead and keep bitching, otherwise I would suggest you consider the possibility that your attitude is a little bit hypocritical.
This reminds me of a few years ago, the AMS (Student's union) had a barbecue day to make money. When they didn't have veggie-burgers or dogs, I asked them why. It turns out that some radical vegetarians had raised a big stink the previous year about the veggie versions being cooked on the same grill as meat products. Given that the market for veggie foods just wasn't large enough to justify a separate grill, the AMS had decided it would be easier to just not sell veggie burgers at all.
I look at this as providing the software, but freeing the source. This setup provides most of the advantages of open source:
You can modify the source to your heart's content
You can see how it works
If the company refuses to modify it to your specs, you can do it yourself
If the company goes bankrupt, you're not SOL
If you really wanted to, you could fork the project (and provide your own docs).
It's an interesting approach, because if somebody really wanted to they could provide their own documentation, but nobody who's interested enough in the project is likely to do so, because that would pretty much require that you not have already bought access to the company's docs.
This may be tricky and interesting, but I don't see it as being any less moral than charging $50 for a piece of closed software, except that in this case, the software itself is both free and open source.
What they don't realize is that ABS actually increases your stopping distance.
ABS only increases the best-case theoretical stopping distance. The purpose of ABS is to give users the equivalent stopping capability of a driver half-decently trained in threshold braking (emergency braking without locking the wheels).
For someone who is very well-trained on how to brake properly, ABS brakes will decrease your braking capability. For the other 95-98% of us they do provide a net benefit. (Unfortunately, they also make it impossible to learn threshold braking). They're like any other technological assist facility that provides beginners with the capabilities of a very proficient user but make things harder on the seasoned professional.
In the same domain, we have the example of automatic transmission vs manual. Automatic transmissions make life much easier on most people, but at the cost of absolute control and fuel effeciency. Pick your poison.
You can't really sue someone for pursuing a patent infringement case, unless you can show that the case is/was frivolous and a waste of the court's time. If they can reasonably argue that they really were hoping for the judge to rule on their side when they started, then it's hard to nail them on this.
It's slightly different for the 'youmaybenext.com' application. That's clearly a commentary site describing the lawsuits and what they see as the fallout from them. No real malice or illegality there (just lots of indignation and anger). Many states have anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws. Running against those can get you bitch-SLAPPed.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because CS has been the place to go for the hot jobs. You don't get many people taking physics because they're expecting to get yesterday's hot jobs tomorrow.
Yes, I agree that people taking CS just for the jobs should be going to the local technical college, but these same people have also been taught that University graduates are going to get the higher paying, faster moving jobs. They just haven't figured out why that is, yet.
On the bright side, that group also tend to be the first ones to drop out.
People learned, a long time ago, to never, never ever mess with window setings unless you're willing to risk an unstable system ("Do exactly as I say and nobody will get hurt"). Linux users, on the other hand, tweak pretty much to their heart's content.Both KDE and Gnome have those little popups that actually encourage experimentation. There's very little to lose. Since a non-root user is structurally incapable of messing up the base system, the worst that could happen is that (s)he'd completely mess up one login and have to migrate to another -- far easier than re-installing the entire OS. You can even set up a new user with the same UID (if you know what you're doing) which would make permission problems moot. (I will note, however, that I've never had a user mess up his system that badly (knock on wood!)).
Dumbed down is fine for the first week or two. After that the dumbing down may get in the way (that's my experience, but I'm a geek so I discount that anecdotal evidence). On the other hand, I've recently experienced some non-geek rommates, so their experience is more relevant to this discussion.
When, my old roommate got to go from WIndows to Linux. His first week was like: "Hey, what's this sucky OS? Why doesn't anything work like Windows? why can't I do this?".
After the first couple of weeks he seemed to be getting used to Linux, and after a month or two he was more of a linux missionary than even I was. I was actually surprised by his enthusiastic embrace of Linux.
I got him using Linux because it was easier on me (he was using my box). With Linux he had his own account with it's own settings and I even had xdm set up so that ctrl-alt-F7 was him while ctrl-alt-f8 was me. No need to even logout. that was RH5.2 ~ 6.1.
My new roommate has a friend who's WIndows box self destructed. After recovering the data on his old disk, I installed RedHat 8.0, downloaded the MP3 extensions for XMMS, set up mplayer and let him take it home. I only got 1 or 2 support calls in the first couple of days -- After that, silence. It was so quiet, I was actually wondering if he'd given up and gone back to WIndows so I called him. He was quietly happy. Linux was doing everything he needed. It just wasn't doing anything wrong.
Now my roommate, who originally pretty much swore that he'd never move from Windows ("Everything I know how to do is on WIndows. Why would I learn another OS?"). Is starting to use the 7.3 installation that I dropped onto his system (a disk from an old computer of mine that died). I didn't even know that he was making any real use of it until he mentioned that now was a good time to install the upgrades that I'd wanted.
You know you've got a kickin' OS when the support people are worried by the silence.
Many cultures would see using slaves in a religious monument as sacrilege. Modern Western culture aside, working for one's god is often seen as a high purpose for the dedication of one's life. If anything, use of slaves to build the pyramids might have risked a revolt among the other workers -- belittling the effort that they were putting in.
Western society aside, working for your god is generally seen as a high purpose to dedicate your life to. The Pharohs were thought of as living gods. I can see people getting pissed off at the thought of slaves displacing them in the building of such monuments.
I suggest that the next time you try to complain about someone else's math skills, you learn how to use a calculator first.
(i was rather upset to find that RedHat doesn't include the units rpm in the default install I guess they won't do that until someone has a graphical front end for it -- that takes up more space than the units database.)
I think that this is something of a misstated way of saying that Intel no longer owes absolute fealthy to MS. Previous to Linux. WIndows made up probably 99% of Intel's X86 market -- to the point where MS was able to strongarm Intel into pulling improvements that were inconsistent with MS's business interests. (as documented in the DOJ trial).
Now Intel is pushing their I64 on Linux -- partly as a way of getting out from under Microsoft's stillto heeled boots. It's not quite making chips for Linux, but they're definitely paying attention to Linux in a serious way -- and possibly even modifying their chipsets to take Linux into account.
The penguin-bear picnic (to the tune "teddy bear's picnic")
OH, shit. Soon we'll have officially mandated nudity in public spaces (my nudist friend would be in hogg heaven).
I'm still of the opinion that the best thing to happen to the anti-terrorism effort in the air isn't goverment prohibitions on anything more dangerous than a hat -- It's the fact that passengers are now willing to take responsibility for their safety and security. If passengers had reacted on Sept 11 like they seem to now, the hijackers would probably have never made it into the cockpit, much less to their respective target buildings.
On the ad-absurdium extreme of the customizable camp would be those who firmly believe that real users write their user interface from scratch. (the most fundamental stalwarts of this already extreme group would still like to get rid of those silly "high level languages" -- in the belief that only assembler gives access to the full power of the machine).
I haven't really delved enough into KDE and GNOME to decide which has produced a better compromise, but I am reasonably happy with what KDE allows me to stomp on.
And, of course, since it's open source, I still do have the choice of rewriting (or replacing) any part that doesn't modify to my satisfaction. (as long as I'm willing to read the dreaded highg-level-language source-code).
Consider this as an example of Insecurity through obscurity.
- Anyone with a Windows 2000 CD can boot up a Windows XP box and start the Windows 2000 Recovery Console, a troubleshooting program.
- Windows XP then allows the visitor to operate as Administrator without a password, even if the Administrator account has a strong password.
It looks like you may hot have to boot off of the CD to get access to the system.If this reading is accurate, then even machines with a CMOS password which have been set to boot only from the HD would be vulnerable.
More importantly, it would indicate that there is a back door to the XP security system. If somebody figures out the basis of such a backdoor, it could make for a very nasty virus/worm.
Hopefully, I'm just misreading the whole thing (quite possible).
For example, it takes about 50 seconds to assemble and install a new UNIX system.
I think we can finally do that again now, but what kind of hardware would it take??
This is is the paradox of freedom: maintenance of freedom requires the limitation of freedom. For example maintaining your right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness necessarily requires a limitation of my right to kill, imprison and otherwise abuse you -- even if your death would make me ever so happy.
Similarly, maintainence of your right to the freedom to use GPL software requires a limitation of my right to 'imprison' that same software.
You choose your poison, you pay your price.
Unabridged libertarianism is little more than the thinly disguised right of the strong to enslave the weak.
Someoone should point out to the New York State Attorney General that if the UCITA gets passed in New York, it could make this rulling moot. The ruling is based on the fact that the gag clause is unenforcable while the UCITA would (among other things) add teeth to the click-through agreement, and might make the gag clause enforcable. At that point, the ruling would disappear in a puff of logic.
What's deceptive about it is that it makes people think that it's illegal to violate the gag clause (e.g. by telling people how bad the software is).
What's interesting about it is that the rulling either implicitly or explicitly rules that at least that clause of the EULA is unenforcable. If we're lucky, it also implies that the entire click-through license is unenforcable.
That's more likely to be a description of closed source support, except that he'd be siting in his parent company's basement. The difference with Open source is that it might be (substantially) the same flunky, but with the addition of anybody with enough interest to download a copy of the source code -- most likely people with a good deal of training in the area.
Would you rather get that patch from some 25 year old who couldn't get asigned anyththing better than supporting some obsolete dead-end code, or a PhD in real-time systems who just haappens to have the same fuel injector?
Open source doesn't automatically mean good support, but it does mean that nobody can absolutely deny you support. You always have the resources and option to do the support yourself. With closed source, the EULA often seems to make it illegal for you to create your own patches for a program -- if you can even figure out where to patch without source.
When Iceland (I think it was Iceland) offered to pay Microsoft to translate Windows for them, and Microsoft refused the request, all that the country could do was fume about the snub -- until someone suggested moving to Linux for their standard OS.
Windows for Workgroups (WFW) 3.1 is barely 10 years old now. How much would it take to get MS to do a s simple bugfix for that software? I think you'd have an easier time running end-to-end through Baghdad wearing nothing but a US flag and a 'Bomb Iraq" button.
It's said that more energy is used in making a car than in using it. Smelting isn't cheap, enegy-wise. Replacing a fridge every 5 years would eat way more power than what you'd save in usage enery.
..... Microsoft is almost certain to be around in 10 years.
There's a big difference between a company being around, and that same company being willing and able to provide support in 10 years.
Perhaps, but how many 10 year old products does MS still support? Win95 was unsupported after less than 7 years, and Win98 isn't far behind.. Those are products tha MS sold millions and millions of. What do you think that they're going to do about support for a version of CE that only sold a fraction of that? How much do you think they're going to charge you for support of the 10,000 copies that you put out with our product? Given how long it takes them to fix a serious security problem in IE, how long do you figure it'll take them to produce a fix for your OEM version -- if they will do it at all.
It really might be better for a large company tcriticalo use OS and make sure that one or two of their employees remembers how to do 'make config' on their product. I'd actually suggest that the math favors a large company for this over a small one, since they can spread out the support costs over more products.
Let's just say that it's an autoexecute functionm....
Oh, yeah, real nice... It'd prevent oxidation, but a gold layer on the chip would pretty much destroy it's electrical properties... Gold would also melt long before the chip did. Probably just enclosing the chip in a nitrogen filled cap would do the job well enough.
Fact of the matter is that we live in a world where money is king. If your company doesn't provide a profit, then it's going to eventually evaporate (unless it's run by someone like Bill Gates). Fact of the matter is that it's very difficult to make money with Open Source software. Even Mandrakesoft is having a hard time with a relatively popular distribution of Linux.
These people are attempting to develop a model that provides most of the benefits of open software and (as far as they see) some hope for them to make enough money to be able to support their baby full-time.
Perhaps this model will fail. Perhaps you would complain if the world were handed to you on a silver spoon and you were asked to pay for the spoon.
If you don't like their business model, then you have pretty much two choices:
-
Pay for access to their (closed) documentation
-
Develop your own documentation
-
Write your own code.
- learn how to count
Would you be bitching at these people this venemously if they were providing their program for $50, but not providing the source code? If so, then go ahead and keep bitching, otherwise I would suggest you consider the possibility that your attitude is a little bit hypocritical.This reminds me of a few years ago, the AMS (Student's union) had a barbecue day to make money. When they didn't have veggie-burgers or dogs, I asked them why. It turns out that some radical vegetarians had raised a big stink the previous year about the veggie versions being cooked on the same grill as meat products. Given that the market for veggie foods just wasn't large enough to justify a separate grill, the AMS had decided it would be easier to just not sell veggie burgers at all.
Really left me happy.
- You can modify the source to your heart's content
- You can see how it works
- If the company refuses to modify it to your specs, you can do it yourself
- If the company goes bankrupt, you're not SOL
- If you really wanted to, you could fork the project (and provide your own docs).
It's an interesting approach, because if somebody really wanted to they could provide their own documentation, but nobody who's interested enough in the project is likely to do so, because that would pretty much require that you not have already bought access to the company's docs.This may be tricky and interesting, but I don't see it as being any less moral than charging $50 for a piece of closed software, except that in this case, the software itself is both free and open source.
ABS only increases the best-case theoretical stopping distance. The purpose of ABS is to give users the equivalent stopping capability of a driver half-decently trained in threshold braking (emergency braking without locking the wheels).
For someone who is very well-trained on how to brake properly, ABS brakes will decrease your braking capability. For the other 95-98% of us they do provide a net benefit. (Unfortunately, they also make it impossible to learn threshold braking). They're like any other technological assist facility that provides beginners with the capabilities of a very proficient user but make things harder on the seasoned professional.
In the same domain, we have the example of automatic transmission vs manual. Automatic transmissions make life much easier on most people, but at the cost of absolute control and fuel effeciency. Pick your poison.
It's slightly different for the 'youmaybenext.com' application. That's clearly a commentary site describing the lawsuits and what they see as the fallout from them. No real malice or illegality there (just lots of indignation and anger). Many states have anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws. Running against those can get you bitch-SLAPPed.