Many people here were educated in the government school systems throughout the US. They're doing the best they can do.
I'll take a school controlled by the local government over a church-controlled school any day.
That's true both politically and academically. I received a better education in Baltimore County's public schools than others my age who went to the local Catholic schools. This was from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, the situation may (or may not) be different now.
I have seen numerous articles claiming that code written and checked by as few as 2 coders (and maybe not even marked as finalized) reaches production.
I've been in many environments - in large, well known companies - where code written and checked by as few as one person reaches production. Having someone else check over code - not to mention actual formal code reviews - seems to still be a minority practice.:-(
I've never heard of solar cells being net positive in terms of energy -- the materials and manufacturing processes always involve far more energy than the cells can produce in their lifetimes.
That hasn't been true for a long time now. Photovoltaics repay the engery invested in them in the first few years of their life, and everything after that is gravy.
I find it really sad that one of the cornerstones events in the Star Wars world is going to be portrayed, not in the films, but in short, five minute cartoons.
The cartoons will probably be better than Eps. I and II.
In fact, if they go well, I wonder if maybe Tartakovsky could end up doing the much rumored on-again off-again on-again Eps. VII - IX in animated form...
What is the most important event in the last 1000 years that did not involve bloodshed? I can't think of one.
Problem is that, when you look at the wider results, everything can inspire violence. Luther's theses lead to religious wars. Gandi's non-violent resistance lead to his assassination. Newton's laws made possible accurate artillery. Hell, Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species probably lead to a few fistfights.
Yes, that's exactly the point. But why should I disclose the code if I were prevented from using the community's work? Isn't the main reason for the original submitter to let others participate in enhancing code [so that they can use it?]
"Let others participate in enhancing code"?
You make it sound like there are hordes of hackers saying, "Gee, I just love debugging for its own sake. I'd love to spend time helping you debug your latest releases. If you'll let me play, I'll gladly let you use my work!"
Uh, no. This is an exchange. We both agree to share. Why should I work on your code? I'm scratching my itches, not yours. If you play nice and share, I might start to feel some of your itches. (Insert social disease joke here.) Releasing part of a work, with the intention to pull my changes back into your proprietary code later, is not sharing very nicely, and I'm probably not going to get a sympathy itch.
BSD-style licensing helps tremendously here! You may release a library under BSD, and use it in your own closed-source programs which are bound by the NDAs...Of course, LGPL-ing the library would be acceptable in this case. But not everything is a library.
And of course, the LGPL can be applied to things other than libraries (thus the name change from "Library" to "Lesser"). And it's very common to use the GPL with some specific exemption allowing linking the GPLed work with some other non-GPLed piece of code. So BSD-style doesn't buy you anything.
All this is very tricky, and for most companies who plan to open source their code, quite dangerous.
It's neither tricky nor dangerous. (At least no more so than any other copyright issues, including those that come up in completely proprietary works.) The GPL is easy to understand and follow. But the amount of FUD that has been kicked up about it over the past few years is amazing.
Every contribution from the community would belong to whomever wrote it (including diffs), and here you're bound by the same terms as everyone else.
Correct. But if you release your code under BSD, I could still create my derivative under the GPL. Or I could create my derivative as proprietary. So releasing under BSD doesn't guarantee you access to changes. At least under GPL, others can't make proprietary derivatives - so the GPL does more to guarantee access to derivative works.
In this case, even the original submitter has waived all rights to the code (that's what a transfer of [copy]rights is all about), and, in the case of GPL, will be prevented from using it in a closed-source environment.
If you transferred the copyright, yes. But that's a whole different action than than GPLing or BSDing your work. Heck, if you transfer the copyright to me, *I* could put it in proprietary code and say that nobody else - including *you* - could. So you'd better be careful about working out the terms of such a transfer.
If you want to maintain a proprietary interest in your work, you shouldn't completely transfer copyright. You can grant copyright to another, making them a co-holder without affecting your own rights.
...it's offen not possible for commercial or even public institutions to release their entire source base. NDA's have been mentioned as one reason
Yes, the GPL acts as a deterrent to the use of NDAs to keep secrets about code - if you NDA, you can't use GPLed code. That's a feature, not a bug. NDAs about how code works are evil.
...another is the simple fact that you may want to use some source - with appropriate credit - but don't want to be forced into a relatively limited licensing scheme.
In other words, you (rhetorical you, not you specifically) want to leech off of the free software community, getting access to their works without opening up your own derivative works.
In my opinion it's an outright offense to force your views onto other people, which is what the GPL is doing.
This is apparently some strange new usage of the word "force" with which I was not previously familiar.
I write some code. I agree to let you create a derivative work subject to the condition that you extend the same freedom to others. How in the nine hells do you construe that as force?????????
No one is forced to use the GPL. And no one is forced to create derivative works from GPLed code. Your assertations of "force" and of assults on "freedom of thought" are best inaccurate, at worst outright attempts at FUD.
The GPL is a carrot - play nice and share, and others will share with you. It's not a stick.
In a highly vertical industry, it is very unlikely that the GPL would allow any other company to use the source.
Of course they are allowed to use the source. They have to GPL their derivative work in return, and you don't think that's practical. I disagree.
You're still thinking of software in terms of pay-per-copy rather than as a service. I don't pay my plumber for pipe, I pay to have the toilets work. And more and more, businesses aren't paying for code, they're paying to have their systems work.
Now suppose that you licensed the basic technology under GPL (or LGPL), you won't be able to fork off a closed-source branch from it.
Of course you will. You are the copyright holder, you can do whatever you want to your own code.
You don't surrender any rights to the work by releasing it to others under the GPL. You can't use patches that others have contributed, of course, but you can fork off of your original version plus your own enhancements.
Another important reason to stay clear of the GPL are NDAs. Some products are intimately tied to some proprietary interface which falls under a non-disclosure agreement (Yuck!). Now, if the company released, say, a library under GPL, they will have a conflict w.r.t. their products which use this library: the GPL force them to disclose the product's source code, but the NDA prevents them from showing the interface.
True, but BSD-style licencing doesn't help here. Openness and freedom is opposed to secrecy.
Let's say I produce and GPL a software package that manages a doctor's office. My code is up on the internet and some schmuck downloads my code and integrates it in his closed source doctor's office application, which he sells to doctors in another part of the country.
And how does this differ from someone selling CD-ROMs of a proprietary application you wrote - but with their own logo and a few graphics changed?
Whether or not I make my money on software licensing or support, how is it in my interest to give my work away?
If you're making money on support and integration, no one can steal your work. It's only if you're trying to make money off a pay-per-copy scheme that you're vulnerable to such an attack.
If it prevents others from doing so, why wouldn't it prevent me from doing so?
Because you are the copyright holder. You hold all the rights. ("Rights" in this sense meaning authorizations under copyright law, not basic legal or ethical rights.)
When you release a work under the GPL, you are granting other people certain rights. The right to use your work in closed-source derivative works is not among them. Releasing a work under the GPL does not affect your own rights to the work at all.
It actually prevents both me and others from reusing my own code in a proprietary fashion.
You're not bound by your own terms! Do you think Microsoft has to pay itself for every copy of Windows it installs on its own machines?
Geez, the GPL FUD-spreaders have done an excellent job.
I'm sorry but this is just completely at odds with the original intent of the founding fathers.
The original intent of the Founding Fathers was that only white male landowners could vote.
I agree that poll tests are a horrible idea, but let's make sure that we understand that what the Founder's original intent was, is not a good guide for determining who should be able to vote.
Heh...I used to work for Trusted Information Systems (since swallowd by Network Associates), which hosted the first whitehouse.gov box. This lead to the creation by some very smart people (not me - there were Great Hackers whose merest editor macros I am not worthy to contemplate) of the Firewall Toolkit (FWTK).
And this lead to TIS's Gauntlet firewall product, which lead to their IPO and buyout. And to me making a few bucks from stock options and finally paying off my credit cards...so hurray for whitehouse.gov.
They have (or used to, it's been many years since I worked there) a plaque in the lobby commemorating the first location of whitehouse.gov.
You should avoid the GPL if you want to reuse components (libraries for instance) in further commercial products. BSD license is better suited for this.
You're confusing "commercial" (selling it) with "proprietary" (keeping the source secret).
Putting that aside for the moment, why do you believe this to be true?
If I create a library that I wish to use in both open source and in proprietary products, GPLing it does not prevent me from putting it in my proprietary product - as copyright holder, I can do what I want. GPLing would prevent someone else from an "embrace and extend" attack, which BSD style licenses don't protect against.
If I want others to be able to link my library into their own proprietary apps, I can LGPL it.
GPL or LGPL doesn't prevent me from reusing my own code in a proprietary fashion - it prevents others from doing so. It would seem to be entirely to my benefit to use (L)GPL over BSD in such a case.
Since the customer is so focused on spending money, an OSS solution wouldn't even be noticed, even if it's just as capable as the commercial solution....Given the complexity of vertical market software, customer support is gold. Support contracts are king.
You are confusing Open Source with free-as-in-beer.
There are many companies that will be happy to take lots of money and produce for you a complete software solution that happens to be based on open source or free-as-in-speech components. What they're charging for is exactly support (plus customization and integration), not for bits.
It's only as reliable as the programmer who writes the code. In most cases, that means not reliable at all.
Worse - it's only as reliable as the least reliable programmer to ever have write access to the codebase (or at least, since the last thourough review).
Almost any American is going to feel like Japan is another PLANET, and a strange distant foreign (in every sense of the word) one.
Actually, I spent a week there over the New Year holiday and it didn't feel strange to me. Though this may be partly because I've been a student of Japanese martial arts and (informally) Zen for many years while and had read a lot about it before I went; and partly because I don't fit in anywhere anyway, so the streets of Kobe didn't feel much more alien to me than the streets of Baltimore.
I loved it and didn't want to leave. I actually felt more alientated when I returned to the U.S. and saw armed Customs agents all over the airport and realized I was being perceived as a potential threat.
I got the occasional "baka gaijin" look, and had a strange experience where the Japanese Customs fellow thought I might be a cannabis smuggler, but all in all I felt quite comfortable there.
Do you also believe your local library should stock Playboy on the shelves with Popular Science?
When I was a lad, my local library not only stocked Playboy, they let it be checked out with a clearly marked children's card. (I lost my card. A few weeks later we got overdue notices for issues of Playboy that had been checked out by someone else on my card. I was about nine at the time.)
They also had a copy of "The Satanic Bible" on the sheleves, right out where anyone could find it. I think I stumbled on it when I was twelve or so. Picked it up, read a few pages, wasn't struck by lighting.
Back in those long ago days of the 1970s, it was assumed that is was my parent's job to keep an eye on what I was reading, and if I was old enough to come to the library by myself I was old enough not to be mentally scarred forever by anything I might find to read.
To call yourself a "neo-pagan" requires much too self-aware an assertation for your religion.
How more so than any other label?
It sounds like not something you believe in so much as something you settled on accepting in order to have a label.
Neo-paganism is much more a matter of experience than of belief.
But for many of us, yes, there is a "ah, so that's what you call this" quality to it. We need a label for this thing, and "neo-pagan" does as well as any other.
(I was part of an informal and eclectic Circle for several months when someone asked me what drew me to paganism. It was the first time I'd heard the word in that context. "Ah, so that's what this is.")
Anyway, happy new Year to fellow Pagani out there.
Or it was; in the last century the West has spent less of its resources on developing technology and more on supporting those who aren't able to support themselves.
Nonsense. First, the "dole" is an ancient invention; second, while public welfare programs have somewhat increased, private ones have shrunk enormously, so overall there has not been a redirection of resources towards supporting the poor; third, the amount of public funds spent on aid to the poor is very small - spending on education, training, employment, and social services makes up less than 4% of federal spending. (Every time you hear someone arguing about how expensive welfare programs are because of the huge amount of spending on "entitlements", that's because they lump Social Security (federally funded pension) in there - hardly honest accounting.)
Of course, most of that money then goes to government contracts, creating profits for wealthy shareholders. Pity the Boeing or Haliburton stockholder who has to pay taxes (less taxes than you or I pay on our salaries, of course) on the profits their corporations make from taxpayer-funded contracts...
The obscene amount of wealth controlled by the richest Americans (we're talking about people whose yearly income is in the millions - the L-curve) is a flaw in the system, a run-away feedback loop in our economic structure. Progressive taxation is an (inadequate attempt at) a governing mechanism.
How much more can we hike them before they take their business elsewhere?
Take it where? American tax policy is so favorable to the rich that wealthy foreigners come here to take advantage of it. It's only corporations that are moving their shell overseas; most rich people don't want to live in a third-world country.
If there are pills to make you feel good, then people are going to become reliant on them regardless of their not being phsyically addictive.
"Psychological addiction" is a meaningless term.
Once upon a time, addiction was a well-defined phenomenon. Repeated use of certain drugs - opiates, alcohol, barbituates, and many others - could cause alterations in the nervous system, such that nervous functioning was impaired if drug-taking stopped. It was a clear physiological condition.
Then along came the Drug Warriors and the Twelve Steppers.
As the War on Drugs heated up, it became apparant that drugs like cannabis and LSD were not addictive. And as the Twelve Step cult grew, it realized it could find adherents amoung people with non-drug problems like gambling, sex, or even credit card overuse.
Thus was born the notion of "psychological addiction". Now anyone with any sort of problem - i.e., any human being - can be an "addict". The Drug Warriors can demonize cannabis as "psychologically addictive" because some people really like smoking pot (just like some people really like anime, mastrubation, or hacking). And the Twelve Steppers can claim that we all need "recovery" (from everything except Twelve Step programs, of course).
(Oh, and LSD flashbacks have nothing to do with the drug itself. Any intense experience - pleasant or unpleasant - can lead to flashbacks.)
Candy cigarettes. God, I remember those. My grandmother would give us candy "Pall Malls". I doubt they're actually banned, but I'd bet that any store in the US that tried to sell them (at least to kids) would end up burned to the ground...
Slashdot Mirror
I'll take a school controlled by the local government over a church-controlled school any day.
That's true both politically and academically. I received a better education in Baltimore County's public schools than others my age who went to the local Catholic schools. This was from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, the situation may (or may not) be different now.
I've been in many environments - in large, well known companies - where code written and checked by as few as one person reaches production. Having someone else check over code - not to mention actual formal code reviews - seems to still be a minority practice. :-(
That hasn't been true for a long time now. Photovoltaics repay the engery invested in them in the first few years of their life, and everything after that is gravy.
The cartoons will probably be better than Eps. I and II.
In fact, if they go well, I wonder if maybe Tartakovsky could end up doing the much rumored on-again off-again on-again Eps. VII - IX in animated form...
Problem is that, when you look at the wider results, everything can inspire violence. Luther's theses lead to religious wars. Gandi's non-violent resistance lead to his assassination. Newton's laws made possible accurate artillery. Hell, Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species probably lead to a few fistfights.
"Let others participate in enhancing code"?
You make it sound like there are hordes of hackers saying, "Gee, I just love debugging for its own sake. I'd love to spend time helping you debug your latest releases. If you'll let me play, I'll gladly let you use my work!"
Uh, no. This is an exchange. We both agree to share. Why should I work on your code? I'm scratching my itches, not yours. If you play nice and share, I might start to feel some of your itches. (Insert social disease joke here.) Releasing part of a work, with the intention to pull my changes back into your proprietary code later, is not sharing very nicely, and I'm probably not going to get a sympathy itch.
And of course, the LGPL can be applied to things other than libraries (thus the name change from "Library" to "Lesser"). And it's very common to use the GPL with some specific exemption allowing linking the GPLed work with some other non-GPLed piece of code. So BSD-style doesn't buy you anything.
It's neither tricky nor dangerous. (At least no more so than any other copyright issues, including those that come up in completely proprietary works.) The GPL is easy to understand and follow. But the amount of FUD that has been kicked up about it over the past few years is amazing.
Correct. But if you release your code under BSD, I could still create my derivative under the GPL. Or I could create my derivative as proprietary. So releasing under BSD doesn't guarantee you access to changes. At least under GPL, others can't make proprietary derivatives - so the GPL does more to guarantee access to derivative works.
If you transferred the copyright, yes. But that's a whole different action than than GPLing or BSDing your work. Heck, if you transfer the copyright to me, *I* could put it in proprietary code and say that nobody else - including *you* - could. So you'd better be careful about working out the terms of such a transfer.
If you want to maintain a proprietary interest in your work, you shouldn't completely transfer copyright. You can grant copyright to another, making them a co-holder without affecting your own rights.
Yes, the GPL acts as a deterrent to the use of NDAs to keep secrets about code - if you NDA, you can't use GPLed code. That's a feature, not a bug. NDAs about how code works are evil.
In other words, you (rhetorical you, not you specifically) want to leech off of the free software community, getting access to their works without opening up your own derivative works.
This is apparently some strange new usage of the word "force" with which I was not previously familiar.
I write some code. I agree to let you create a derivative work subject to the condition that you extend the same freedom to others. How in the nine hells do you construe that as force?????????
No one is forced to use the GPL. And no one is forced to create derivative works from GPLed code. Your assertations of "force" and of assults on "freedom of thought" are best inaccurate, at worst outright attempts at FUD.
The GPL is a carrot - play nice and share, and others will share with you. It's not a stick.
Of course they are allowed to use the source. They have to GPL their derivative work in return, and you don't think that's practical. I disagree.
You're still thinking of software in terms of pay-per-copy rather than as a service. I don't pay my plumber for pipe, I pay to have the toilets work. And more and more, businesses aren't paying for code, they're paying to have their systems work.
Of course you will. You are the copyright holder, you can do whatever you want to your own code.
You don't surrender any rights to the work by releasing it to others under the GPL. You can't use patches that others have contributed, of course, but you can fork off of your original version plus your own enhancements.
True, but BSD-style licencing doesn't help here. Openness and freedom is opposed to secrecy.
If you're making money on support and integration, no one can steal your work. It's only if you're trying to make money off a pay-per-copy scheme that you're vulnerable to such an attack.
Because you are the copyright holder. You hold all the rights. ("Rights" in this sense meaning authorizations under copyright law, not basic legal or ethical rights.)
When you release a work under the GPL, you are granting other people certain rights. The right to use your work in closed-source derivative works is not among them. Releasing a work under the GPL does not affect your own rights to the work at all.
You're not bound by your own terms! Do you think Microsoft has to pay itself for every copy of Windows it installs on its own machines?
Geez, the GPL FUD-spreaders have done an excellent job.
The original intent of the Founding Fathers was that only white male landowners could vote.
I agree that poll tests are a horrible idea, but let's make sure that we understand that what the Founder's original intent was, is not a good guide for determining who should be able to vote.
Heh...I used to work for Trusted Information Systems (since swallowd by Network Associates), which hosted the first whitehouse.gov box. This lead to the creation by some very smart people (not me - there were Great Hackers whose merest editor macros I am not worthy to contemplate) of the Firewall Toolkit (FWTK).
And this lead to TIS's Gauntlet firewall product, which lead to their IPO and buyout. And to me making a few bucks from stock options and finally paying off my credit cards...so hurray for whitehouse.gov.
They have (or used to, it's been many years since I worked there) a plaque in the lobby commemorating the first location of whitehouse.gov.
You're confusing "commercial" (selling it) with "proprietary" (keeping the source secret).
Putting that aside for the moment, why do you believe this to be true?
If I create a library that I wish to use in both open source and in proprietary products, GPLing it does not prevent me from putting it in my proprietary product - as copyright holder, I can do what I want. GPLing would prevent someone else from an "embrace and extend" attack, which BSD style licenses don't protect against.
If I want others to be able to link my library into their own proprietary apps, I can LGPL it.
GPL or LGPL doesn't prevent me from reusing my own code in a proprietary fashion - it prevents others from doing so. It would seem to be entirely to my benefit to use (L)GPL over BSD in such a case.
You are confusing Open Source with free-as-in-beer.
There are many companies that will be happy to take lots of money and produce for you a complete software solution that happens to be based on open source or free-as-in-speech components. What they're charging for is exactly support (plus customization and integration), not for bits.
And why would that be?
Or are you just FUDing the GPL?
Worse - it's only as reliable as the least reliable programmer to ever have write access to the codebase (or at least, since the last thourough review).
Actually, I spent a week there over the New Year holiday and it didn't feel strange to me. Though this may be partly because I've been a student of Japanese martial arts and (informally) Zen for many years while and had read a lot about it before I went; and partly because I don't fit in anywhere anyway, so the streets of Kobe didn't feel much more alien to me than the streets of Baltimore.
I loved it and didn't want to leave. I actually felt more alientated when I returned to the U.S. and saw armed Customs agents all over the airport and realized I was being perceived as a potential threat.
I got the occasional "baka gaijin" look, and had a strange experience where the Japanese Customs fellow thought I might be a cannabis smuggler, but all in all I felt quite comfortable there.
They also had a copy of "The Satanic Bible" on the sheleves, right out where anyone could find it. I think I stumbled on it when I was twelve or so. Picked it up, read a few pages, wasn't struck by lighting.
Back in those long ago days of the 1970s, it was assumed that is was my parent's job to keep an eye on what I was reading, and if I was old enough to come to the library by myself I was old enough not to be mentally scarred forever by anything I might find to read.
How more so than any other label?
Neo-paganism is much more a matter of experience than of belief.
But for many of us, yes, there is a "ah, so that's what you call this" quality to it. We need a label for this thing, and "neo-pagan" does as well as any other.
(I was part of an informal and eclectic Circle for several months when someone asked me what drew me to paganism. It was the first time I'd heard the word in that context. "Ah, so that's what this is.")
Anyway, happy new Year to fellow Pagani out there.
Nonsense. First, the "dole" is an ancient invention; second, while public welfare programs have somewhat increased, private ones have shrunk enormously, so overall there has not been a redirection of resources towards supporting the poor; third, the amount of public funds spent on aid to the poor is very small - spending on education, training, employment, and social services makes up less than 4% of federal spending. (Every time you hear someone arguing about how expensive welfare programs are because of the huge amount of spending on "entitlements", that's because they lump Social Security (federally funded pension) in there - hardly honest accounting.)
Them what has the wealth, pays the taxes.
Of course, most of that money then goes to government contracts, creating profits for wealthy shareholders. Pity the Boeing or Haliburton stockholder who has to pay taxes (less taxes than you or I pay on our salaries, of course) on the profits their corporations make from taxpayer-funded contracts...
The obscene amount of wealth controlled by the richest Americans (we're talking about people whose yearly income is in the millions - the L-curve) is a flaw in the system, a run-away feedback loop in our economic structure. Progressive taxation is an (inadequate attempt at) a governing mechanism.
Take it where? American tax policy is so favorable to the rich that wealthy foreigners come here to take advantage of it. It's only corporations that are moving their shell overseas; most rich people don't want to live in a third-world country.
"Psychological addiction" is a meaningless term.
Once upon a time, addiction was a well-defined phenomenon. Repeated use of certain drugs - opiates, alcohol, barbituates, and many others - could cause alterations in the nervous system, such that nervous functioning was impaired if drug-taking stopped. It was a clear physiological condition.
Then along came the Drug Warriors and the Twelve Steppers.
As the War on Drugs heated up, it became apparant that drugs like cannabis and LSD were not addictive. And as the Twelve Step cult grew, it realized it could find adherents amoung people with non-drug problems like gambling, sex, or even credit card overuse.
Thus was born the notion of "psychological addiction". Now anyone with any sort of problem - i.e., any human being - can be an "addict". The Drug Warriors can demonize cannabis as "psychologically addictive" because some people really like smoking pot (just like some people really like anime, mastrubation, or hacking). And the Twelve Steppers can claim that we all need "recovery" (from everything except Twelve Step programs, of course).
(Oh, and LSD flashbacks have nothing to do with the drug itself. Any intense experience - pleasant or unpleasant - can lead to flashbacks.)
Milk - especially cow's milk - should be taken in moderation or not at all. Many adults have some degree of lactose intolerance; the concentrated protien of milk (and other animal products) is detrimental to proper calcium balance; milk is commonly contaminated with pus and with drug residues; it's high in fat and low in iron. The high milk consumption in the U.S. is a marketing triumph, not a healthy habit.
Candy cigarettes. God, I remember those. My grandmother would give us candy "Pall Malls". I doubt they're actually banned, but I'd bet that any store in the US that tried to sell them (at least to kids) would end up burned to the ground...