If the government of Quebec wants to upgrade their AutoCad 2000 license to AutoCad 2010 licenses, do they have to accept bids from people who want to sell them the free software program "Bricscad" running under Wine?
Close, but no cookie. It means the government has to describe the need they need to fill, instead of dictating a specific product, in their RFP. Any bidder that can meet these needs can submit a proposal. It's common sense, really.
Correction to the article text: Savoir-Faire Linux is a commercial Linux service provider (an integrator), not an "activist". Look them up on the web. They sued the government because buying Windows specifically without considering Free software options was witholding them business.
FACIL, which also sued the government for the same reason in a different case, *is* an advocacy non-profit organization, somewhat akin to APRIL or the FSF.
The RFP specified "Windows Vista license", which by definition excluded anybody who wanted to submit a proposal desktop OS replacement plan based on Linux. What Savoir-Faire Linux won is, basically (paraphrased, read the judgement) the right to submit a proposal to upgrade Windows desktop to Linux.
I do have one in my spare part bin. MFM technology (that's before IDE, young lad!), full-height (that is, two 5.25 bay high), and I still have the ISA 8bit MFM controller to go with it. But no computer with an ISA slot, go figure!
I swear, when the damn thing turn off, you can hear the selenoid engage and the platter break when it stop spinning. Freakish.
That's a bit of a problem. Which is why I prefer to use a neoprene sleeve on my subnotebooks, and toss it in plain standard backpack. But you need a sturdy laptop to do that, which is where the Thinkpads shine.
There was a funny one in Québec a few years ago in an election. There was a guy who was well on his way to become the prime minister. One day in a speech to some fundy group he said that he had been nominated leader of the liberal party by the hand of god. This sank his election and the PQ won in a landslide. For those who don't know, the conservative party in Québec is what is called the liberal party. From that day on he would be known as "La main de dieu" (The hand of god) in talk shows and stand up comedy. He started as one of the most popular politicians to a joke.
Funny indeed. That is where I am from, and never heard of that incident. Who was that ?
I stand corrected about Stockwell Day. However, the guy never did get much airtime in my part of the federation (Québec), hence why I may have missed it. Back then, the Alliance was not very popular around here...
Which is precisely why I explicitly mentioned "the West" in my post above. I am not holding young democracies in developing countries to the same standard as the old one in industrialized countries.
And, yes, I do find the religious fervor in Middle-Eastern politic, and the existence of theocracies in this part of the world, deeply unsettling. I hope they'll grow of it, but I doubt they will in the foreseeable future.
In America people believe that if a person is driven by a good moral foundation, that they will be strong, fair and withstand the political corruption.
Interestingly, while the originating province of a candidate is indeed very significant in Canadian federal politic, I never heard any critics based on their religion. I think the fact that Kim Campbell would have discussed this in the US but never in Canada (that I can recall) is pretty significant. And remember she was never elected either.
Is Paul Martin Roman Catholic ? I don't even know.
I am not an American (I live north of the border) and I do not know much about the candidates in this race. However, I find it utterly bizarre and disturbing that religion take such a huge place in American politics. I don't think the faith of a candidate (or lack thereof) had ever been an issue in Canadian politic since I started voting 15 years ago. And I doubt it is different anywhere else in the West except the US.
In this light, how is Huckabee received in geek circle ? I like to think people in tech are, on average, smart and rational. Does he received any support from this crowd ?
For the record, I completely agree with this. I was just giving a perspective on motivation for being in IT, which was a topic raised by the GP.
What is most fair for the student appear pretty clear to me: employers should stop demanding a University degree for code-monkey position. A huge portion of IT job could be fulfilled by someone with a technical college degree, and there is nothing wrong about that. As for University, it should remain focused on teaching the fundamentals to those that care/need these things.
As a disclaimer, although I claimed to be self-taught above, I do have a technical college degree and just finished a University certificate in CS. A certificate is a one-year program which is roughly the first year core class and a couple elective from first and second year. It's very popular for those in the workforce studying part-time around here (Québec, Canada). While I liked the experience and think that most of my class where intellectually stimulating, I doubt it was worth the time and money I sunk in the project. And it did not bring any skills directly applicable to my job (although I am not a programmer). Maybe I should just have spent more time hacking Free software in my free time, after all.
I am one of those passionate about IT (incidentally, I am also self-taught). While I recognize that those for whom IT (not just programming) is a passion are, in general, much more competent than those for whom IT is just a source of income, the reality is just that there are simply not enough of us. As such, I recognize that I cannot expect most of my colleagues to get excited about their job as I do, and it is all good anyway. It's really just too bad for them, I hope they have fulfilling hobbies.
After all, the situation is not really surprising. I know very few people (if any!) that are *passionate* about accounting. Yet, millions of accountants worldwide reliably make the numbers add up. These unpassionate accountants do good services on average and make our economic system run smoothly; without them, it would collapse. I am grateful someone else is willing to do it, because I could not stand having to do it myself. Why would IT be any different?
I am sure someone will try to invalidate my point saying the IT-as-income people have negative productivity, and hence we would be better off without them. Well, considering how few of us there are, I doubt we could make up for the horde. And I am already overworked as it is...
You MAY NOT use the Licensed Software to operate in or as a time-sharing, outsourcing, service bureau, application service provider or managed service provider environment.
Right there, your software is not open-source. At least, not Open-Source according to the Open-source Institute, as it violate criteria 6 (no discrimation against field of endeavor) of the The Open Source Definition. Also, the Debian Free Software Guideline have similar provision, which would make your license "non-free" according to Debian.
Whether or not you believe the OSI have a monopoly on the term "Open-Source" is an whole other debate. However, as an Open-Source user and advocate, I frown upon "creative" restrictions in self-proclaimed open-source license, so yours would be a hard sell with me. I wish people would stop cooking their own version of the MPL for every other web applications, and stick with well-known licenses. Sheesh.
(I'm also quite surprised that your labs were optional. They were a core part of my course.)
Some labs where compulsory (even had graded exercise!), some where optional. Going to those that where optional was sometime pretty valuable even you mastered the topic, as the TA (who was often hired to grade assignement too) would spoonfeed you the solution for the assignements.
But I did skip the "Linux command line introduction" lab though, where they teach you about such exciting concept as moving around the file system using cd, and listin the content of your home directory using ls.:)
Most University assignment being rather simple in term of scope (I was in CS, not engineering!), I doubt that they really to dive deeply into complex tool such as Ant; the 20 minutes introduction tutorial would generally suffice. Of course, it is different for graduate studies.
But should they teach simple stuff such as using javac and Ant in University ? Sorry to sound like an elitist asshole, but it is pretty reasonable to expect a CS undergraduate student to be able to figure these details by himself. I mean, surely the lecture time could be used for something more fundamental.
At my alma mater, we had optional "labs" where a third-year TA would explain and help practice tools that had to be used for assignement. That should be plenty enough.
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My big hunk of manflesh is leaving Canonical for greener pasture? I'm shattered.
Not really, no.
Agreed on all count, except on anglos voting for the PQ. I cannot believe I will ever see that in my lifetime!
Yes, please.
And it's spelled "tabarnak" and "câlisse". Osti de twit.
If the government of Quebec wants to upgrade their AutoCad 2000 license to AutoCad 2010 licenses, do they have to accept bids from people who want to sell them the free software program "Bricscad" running under Wine?
Close, but no cookie. It means the government has to describe the need they need to fill, instead of dictating a specific product, in their RFP. Any bidder that can meet these needs can submit a proposal. It's common sense, really.
No, wrong. This judgement is about the procument process.
Libre == Free (as in speech). That couldn't be more fitting!
Correction to the article text: Savoir-Faire Linux is a commercial Linux service provider (an integrator), not an "activist". Look them up on the web. They sued the government because buying Windows specifically without considering Free software options was witholding them business.
FACIL, which also sued the government for the same reason in a different case, *is* an advocacy non-profit organization, somewhat akin to APRIL or the FSF.
The RFP specified "Windows Vista license", which by definition excluded anybody who wanted to submit a proposal desktop OS replacement plan based on Linux. What Savoir-Faire Linux won is, basically (paraphrased, read the judgement) the right to submit a proposal to upgrade Windows desktop to Linux.
It was called "The Nine Hells" before it was called Baator, ya' know.
I do have one in my spare part bin. MFM technology (that's before IDE, young lad!), full-height (that is, two 5.25 bay high), and I still have the ISA 8bit MFM controller to go with it. But no computer with an ISA slot, go figure!
I swear, when the damn thing turn off, you can hear the selenoid engage and the platter break when it stop spinning. Freakish.
Personally, I would rather be led by a CIO with a Liberal Arts degree than one with a MBA, but that's just me.
A Thinkpad won't break in 4 years. It is the entire point of Thinkpads.
That's a bit of a problem. Which is why I prefer to use a neoprene sleeve on my subnotebooks, and toss it in plain standard backpack. But you need a sturdy laptop to do that, which is where the Thinkpads shine.
Funny indeed. That is where I am from, and never heard of that incident. Who was that ?
I stand corrected about Stockwell Day. However, the guy never did get much airtime in my part of the federation (Québec), hence why I may have missed it. Back then, the Alliance was not very popular around here ...
Which is precisely why I explicitly mentioned "the West" in my post above. I am not holding young democracies in developing countries to the same standard as the old one in industrialized countries.
And, yes, I do find the religious fervor in Middle-Eastern politic, and the existence of theocracies in this part of the world, deeply unsettling. I hope they'll grow of it, but I doubt they will in the foreseeable future.
But we are talking American politic here, right ?
This worked really well with George W. Bush.
Interestingly, while the originating province of a candidate is indeed very significant in Canadian federal politic, I never heard any critics based on their religion. I think the fact that Kim Campbell would have discussed this in the US but never in Canada (that I can recall) is pretty significant. And remember she was never elected either.
Is Paul Martin Roman Catholic ? I don't even know.
Of course not, and I never said such a thing.
But I do think that choosing a candidate based on his religious belief *is* stupid and irrational.
I am not an American (I live north of the border) and I do not know much about the candidates in this race. However, I find it utterly bizarre and disturbing that religion take such a huge place in American politics. I don't think the faith of a candidate (or lack thereof) had ever been an issue in Canadian politic since I started voting 15 years ago. And I doubt it is different anywhere else in the West except the US.
In this light, how is Huckabee received in geek circle ? I like to think people in tech are, on average, smart and rational. Does he received any support from this crowd ?
For the record, I completely agree with this. I was just giving a perspective on motivation for being in IT, which was a topic raised by the GP.
What is most fair for the student appear pretty clear to me: employers should stop demanding a University degree for code-monkey position. A huge portion of IT job could be fulfilled by someone with a technical college degree, and there is nothing wrong about that. As for University, it should remain focused on teaching the fundamentals to those that care/need these things.
As a disclaimer, although I claimed to be self-taught above, I do have a technical college degree and just finished a University certificate in CS. A certificate is a one-year program which is roughly the first year core class and a couple elective from first and second year. It's very popular for those in the workforce studying part-time around here (Québec, Canada). While I liked the experience and think that most of my class where intellectually stimulating, I doubt it was worth the time and money I sunk in the project. And it did not bring any skills directly applicable to my job (although I am not a programmer). Maybe I should just have spent more time hacking Free software in my free time, after all.
I am one of those passionate about IT (incidentally, I am also self-taught). While I recognize that those for whom IT (not just programming) is a passion are, in general, much more competent than those for whom IT is just a source of income, the reality is just that there are simply not enough of us. As such, I recognize that I cannot expect most of my colleagues to get excited about their job as I do, and it is all good anyway. It's really just too bad for them, I hope they have fulfilling hobbies.
...
After all, the situation is not really surprising. I know very few people (if any!) that are *passionate* about accounting. Yet, millions of accountants worldwide reliably make the numbers add up. These unpassionate accountants do good services on average and make our economic system run smoothly; without them, it would collapse. I am grateful someone else is willing to do it, because I could not stand having to do it myself. Why would IT be any different?
I am sure someone will try to invalidate my point saying the IT-as-income people have negative productivity, and hence we would be better off without them. Well, considering how few of us there are, I doubt we could make up for the horde. And I am already overworked as it is
Right there, your software is not open-source. At least, not Open-Source according to the Open-source Institute, as it violate criteria 6 (no discrimation against field of endeavor) of the The Open Source Definition. Also, the Debian Free Software Guideline have similar provision, which would make your license "non-free" according to Debian.
Whether or not you believe the OSI have a monopoly on the term "Open-Source" is an whole other debate. However, as an Open-Source user and advocate, I frown upon "creative" restrictions in self-proclaimed open-source license, so yours would be a hard sell with me. I wish people would stop cooking their own version of the MPL for every other web applications, and stick with well-known licenses. Sheesh.
Some labs where compulsory (even had graded exercise!), some where optional. Going to those that where optional was sometime pretty valuable even you mastered the topic, as the TA (who was often hired to grade assignement too) would spoonfeed you the solution for the assignements.
But I did skip the "Linux command line introduction" lab though, where they teach you about such exciting concept as moving around the file system using cd, and listin the content of your home directory using ls. :)
Most University assignment being rather simple in term of scope (I was in CS, not engineering!), I doubt that they really to dive deeply into complex tool such as Ant; the 20 minutes introduction tutorial would generally suffice. Of course, it is different for graduate studies.
But should they teach simple stuff such as using javac and Ant in University ? Sorry to sound like an elitist asshole, but it is pretty reasonable to expect a CS undergraduate student to be able to figure these details by himself. I mean, surely the lecture time could be used for something more fundamental.
At my alma mater, we had optional "labs" where a third-year TA would explain and help practice tools that had to be used for assignement. That should be plenty enough.