That's a braindead argument. Especially when you consider that most Australians still submit their tax returns via pen and paper. The software is also useless to you if you happen to have anything remotely complicated to claim as you can't attach receipts to it. As it stands, the government was already wasting enough (of my) money making this windows app. Admittedly a javascript enhanced web form would have been just as effective. But isn't that the point of my post? Instead of petitioning the government to "serve" us better, shouldn't we be asking the government for open access to submit tax returns so the market can find the best way to serve us? Of course, when you consider that it costs a grand total of $60 to go to a tax consultant and get your return done by a professional (they won't even take the money off you upfront, they'll wait for your return!), I think it is obvious that this software serves no purpose but to encourage people not to leave their house to mail a letter.
I strongly doubt it would be hard at all. I think you'll find it just sends an email (I even remember email being an option for lodgement, but that was a few years ago). At worst it would do a HTTP post to a cgi.
Why is it people these days go straight for petitioning their government instead of trying to help themselves? Here's a couple of suggestions:
Study the program and the resulting data and write a workalike program for your favourite platform.
Put in a Freedom Of Information Act request for the source code to this program so you can port it to your favourite platform.
Work on WINE so it can run this program as it has been written.
Study the tax system and develop a program that works better than the original so people on alternative platforms don't feel the need to boot into Windows to use the "official" software.
Of course, every one of these involves some kind of work and doesn't have the quick fix appeal of sending an email to a public servant who is just trying to do his job.
The fact that I've been advised by a lawyer on this matter, as have thousands of other people, and they've all said what I've said really does make it so.
You're an idiot. Stop smoking the crack. It's amazing to me that someone who has no idea what we're talking about feels the need to voice their ignorance. Here's an idea, go talk to your lawyer about what you're allowed to do with GPL software inside your company. Oh, you don't have a lawyer? Oh, you don't have a company? Then SHUT THE HELL UP.
I then go on to state how my framework will revolutionise taking out the trash and how I was in a "unique" position to develop such a framework, being that I both have trash and am responsible for disposing of the trash in our household.
The book goes on to suggest that this new kind of science, which is not much more than Yet Another Computational Model, would revolutionize a wide variety of scientific fields.
No, what Wolfram claims in the book is that he developed a framework by which other scientific fields will be reshaped. The key part of a framework is that the actual work part has been left to somebody else. I love this bullshit, you can tell can't ya? I like saying to my prewife that although I havn't taken the trash out today, by stacking the empty milk bottle near the overflowing trash can I've developed a framework for taking out the trash.
Sun released the software we developed for them when we took their research grants under a BSD license. We used it to make a decompiler and it's still BSD licensed. Of course, they did this because we asked them and they saw no business value in keeping it proprietary. If it had value they would have never released it under such admirable terms.
Yep, pretty fundamental in my way of thinking about open software development is the concept that users of proprietary software are getting a raw deal. If you don't share that idea then I'm sure you'd have no problem actively helping people to make proprietary software. Of course, there are times when doing so has advantages. A project I started and is still actively developed is licensed under a two clause BSD license with the outright intention that it help proprietary software makers enter a hard to define market. The idea being that if they can base services on this software they won't have to invest so much to get started. They can keep their changes to themselves and hopefully when there is some competition we'll see some innovative things. But when you're talking about free software in already established markets, you really are just throwing away your work.
What I wanna know, is if this is so dubious why doesn't someone go to court and request a clarification from a judge? Surely someone somewhere must care enough about this issue to spend some discovery money on it.
Cause proprietary software makers who use BSD software do not contribute back their changes. I guess you gotta share the belief that proprietary software is inheriently bad for consumers to truely appreciate that argument though.
Even when people like Ray Kurzweil actually take Wolfram's work seriously they conclude that he's written the biggest book about nothing to ever lay claim to the title of Science. Nothing "new" or worthy of the title of "science" came out of Wolfram's 10 year hiatus into cellular autonoma. Certainly nothing useful or enlightening either. However we did get to tolerate his smug superior "I invented the universe" style for 1488 pages.
Sorry, no. If you leave some random object in the street you have abandoned it and it is therefore justified for someone else to take it. Cars are different to random objects because they have locks and they are marked as property. If you take a random object, put it in a safe, put the safe on the street and stamp Property of YOUR NAME on it, you've made it clear that you are not abandoning it.
That all said, we're not talking about physical objects here. We're talking about accessing a computer system. You can't even compare the two.
Dude, no-one makes logical arguments. It's the final recourse of the educated to baffle the ignorant masses. Of course, Slashdot is supposedly populated by nothing but educated people, so there's no excuse for us to act like the simpletons that make up the majority of society. You choose your axioms based on common ground between yourself and those you are trying to convince. Pretty much every division in politics boils down to disagreement in two axioms:
The good of the many outweighs the good of the few.
The ends justify the means.
As such there's always 4 camps. Those who accept both of these axioms, those who accept the first but not the second, those who accept the second but not the first and those that accept neither. People can be swayed to tolerate an axiom they don't accept but hardly ever do they change their acceptance of these axioms.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a braindead argument. Especially when you consider that most Australians still submit their tax returns via pen and paper. The software is also useless to you if you happen to have anything remotely complicated to claim as you can't attach receipts to it. As it stands, the government was already wasting enough (of my) money making this windows app. Admittedly a javascript enhanced web form would have been just as effective. But isn't that the point of my post? Instead of petitioning the government to "serve" us better, shouldn't we be asking the government for open access to submit tax returns so the market can find the best way to serve us? Of course, when you consider that it costs a grand total of $60 to go to a tax consultant and get your return done by a professional (they won't even take the money off you upfront, they'll wait for your return!), I think it is obvious that this software serves no purpose but to encourage people not to leave their house to mail a letter.
This website provides assistance and general information to help you access government documents by using the Victorian Freedom of Information Act 1982.
In NSW, the Freedom of Information Act 1989 gives you the legal right to...
What the hell else were they gunna call it?
I strongly doubt it would be hard at all. I think you'll find it just sends an email (I even remember email being an option for lodgement, but that was a few years ago). At worst it would do a HTTP post to a cgi.
- Study the program and the resulting data and write a workalike program for your favourite platform.
- Put in a Freedom Of Information Act request for the source code to this program so you can port it to your favourite platform.
- Work on WINE so it can run this program as it has been written.
- Study the tax system and develop a program that works better than the original so people on alternative platforms don't feel the need to boot into Windows to use the "official" software.
Of course, every one of these involves some kind of work and doesn't have the quick fix appeal of sending an email to a public servant who is just trying to do his job.Trolltech will release Qt under a BSD license, when they go out of business.
The fact that I've been advised by a lawyer on this matter, as have thousands of other people, and they've all said what I've said really does make it so.
And when you invent the reset switch or savegames for it we'll play it.
You're an idiot. Stop smoking the crack. It's amazing to me that someone who has no idea what we're talking about feels the need to voice their ignorance. Here's an idea, go talk to your lawyer about what you're allowed to do with GPL software inside your company. Oh, you don't have a lawyer? Oh, you don't have a company? Then SHUT THE HELL UP.
Napster did.
I then go on to state how my framework will revolutionise taking out the trash and how I was in a "unique" position to develop such a framework, being that I both have trash and am responsible for disposing of the trash in our household.
No, what Wolfram claims in the book is that he developed a framework by which other scientific fields will be reshaped. The key part of a framework is that the actual work part has been left to somebody else. I love this bullshit, you can tell can't ya? I like saying to my prewife that although I havn't taken the trash out today, by stacking the empty milk bottle near the overflowing trash can I've developed a framework for taking out the trash.
This is piss funny. Whoever wrote the answer to that FAQ must have gone on to a long career in politics.
Sun released the software we developed for them when we took their research grants under a BSD license. We used it to make a decompiler and it's still BSD licensed. Of course, they did this because we asked them and they saw no business value in keeping it proprietary. If it had value they would have never released it under such admirable terms.
Yep, pretty fundamental in my way of thinking about open software development is the concept that users of proprietary software are getting a raw deal. If you don't share that idea then I'm sure you'd have no problem actively helping people to make proprietary software. Of course, there are times when doing so has advantages. A project I started and is still actively developed is licensed under a two clause BSD license with the outright intention that it help proprietary software makers enter a hard to define market. The idea being that if they can base services on this software they won't have to invest so much to get started. They can keep their changes to themselves and hopefully when there is some competition we'll see some innovative things. But when you're talking about free software in already established markets, you really are just throwing away your work.
What I wanna know, is if this is so dubious why doesn't someone go to court and request a clarification from a judge? Surely someone somewhere must care enough about this issue to spend some discovery money on it.
Cause proprietary software makers who use BSD software do not contribute back their changes. I guess you gotta share the belief that proprietary software is inheriently bad for consumers to truely appreciate that argument though.
Except the consumers.
What he means is that Conway's Game Of Life was so amazing that you could actually implement a turing machine in it.
Of course, got up to L.
Even when people like Ray Kurzweil actually take Wolfram's work seriously they conclude that he's written the biggest book about nothing to ever lay claim to the title of Science. Nothing "new" or worthy of the title of "science" came out of Wolfram's 10 year hiatus into cellular autonoma. Certainly nothing useful or enlightening either. However we did get to tolerate his smug superior "I invented the universe" style for 1488 pages.
Wow, and you seem to have forgot that the work of Aristotle was lost and humanity went through a dark age.
Sorry, no. If you leave some random object in the street you have abandoned it and it is therefore justified for someone else to take it. Cars are different to random objects because they have locks and they are marked as property. If you take a random object, put it in a safe, put the safe on the street and stamp Property of YOUR NAME on it, you've made it clear that you are not abandoning it.
That all said, we're not talking about physical objects here. We're talking about accessing a computer system. You can't even compare the two.
Please, STFU.
Hey yeah, maybe we can weasle a class action lawsuit against Microsoft out of this train wreck!
As such there's always 4 camps. Those who accept both of these axioms, those who accept the first but not the second, those who accept the second but not the first and those that accept neither. People can be swayed to tolerate an axiom they don't accept but hardly ever do they change their acceptance of these axioms.