The earliest example of selling free software is probably RMS selling tapes of GNU Emacs for $150 a tape. He says he sold 8-10 tapes a month which generated enough cash for him to live off.
By contrast, I don't see people calling open source movement advocates names.
On the contrary I have heard people calling ESR names many times, granted he doesn't get it as bad as RMS but he still gets his share.
Personally I feel both have made valuable contributions to our community and it's regrettable for people to be name calling although I'm sure it's water off a ducks back.
ah yes, determining one's skills based on where they graduated from. how quaint.
heaven forbid that a smart person makes something of himself from skills that are self-taught, or even worse
Stallman is a self taught programmer, he studied mathematics and physics at Harvard as he himself said:
I could learn programming by doing it, and so I decided I would use my classes to learn something else. I wanted to learn as much as possible.
If you really want to be pedantic why not settle for "citizen of the United Kingdom" or just "UK citizen" it is longer I know but much easier on the ears. "UKonian" on Google only returns 4 results, and "UKonian" on google.co.uk only returns 1! Really these terms: "USian" and now "UKonian" are just plain silly.
I've heard of the book but never read it. Before I start my third year at university though I have a list of books the department recommends I read over the summer and this book is on it. Can somebody tell me if it's really worth reading, I mean is there anything in this book except the (seemingly obvious*) observation that adding more people to a project doesn't make it finish faster and actually may in fact cause problems making it take longer?
* Although perhaps it only seems obvious now and wasn't before this book was written.
Cousin to Gentoo I guess you would call it. Glad to see it's still chuggin along. I may just have to install it again one day.
No offence, I have used Gentoo myself for some time, but what makes you think Slackware is a cousin to Gentoo? The only thing that I can think of that they have in common is they're both Linux distributions.
It's actually not a watch - it's a wrist-mounted TV unit. Which makes it a bit of a misnomer; as the article states, nobody would wear it on his wrist like he would a watch.
I only skimmed the article and presumed perhaps it doubled as a digital watch; well if it isn't even a watch it's worse than I thought! Maybe it could be worn in tandem with a big calculator watch though;-).
But I do know what you're talking about. I mostly run into this issue when entering text into the address bar of Mozilla. Fortunately, Mozilla uses emacs-style keybindings, so if I want to replace what's in the address bar with what's on the clipboard, I just:
Wow, stop there! That sounds way too complicated. You do know that in Mozilla (as with Mozilla Firefox) you can just middle click anywhere on the current page and the browser will go to what's in the clipboard (or search Google with "I'm feeling lucky" if it's not a URL). Simplicity:).
If you say 2.999... is not the same as 3 you are getting into some pretty weird mathematics or as Cantor would say: you are "infect[ing] mathematics with the Cholera-Bacillus of infinitesimals."
PS. please reply so I can take that scan down once you have read it, thanks:).
I think all you have proved is that the limit of 2.9999... is 3, which is obvious.
2.999... denotes the limit. The proof I reproduced in my previous comment is just an informal one intended for the general audience on slashdot, if you want a more rigorous proof I'm sure Google would oblige. This may satisfy you. I am only an undergraduate maths student and not an expert, but my professor would certainly mark me wrong if I said 0.999... != 1 in an exam.
Well I almost forgot to mention that when I say there is no number between 3 and 2.999... I mean there is no real number between 3 and 2.999.... From Rudy Rucker's book Infinity and the Mind:
Formally speaking, it is as consistent to say that there is a number between all of.9,.99,.999,... and 1 as it is to say that there is a number greater than all of 1,2,3,.... And just as we go on to find more and more ordinals piled atop one another, we can go on to find more and more infinitesimals squeezed beneath each other.
No, if that were true what is the number between 3 and 2.999...?
Remember that in between any two different reals there are an infinite number of numbers.
Anyway the proof is simple:
2.999... = x
call that equation (1), then multiply both sides by 10
29.99... = 10x
and we'll call that (2), now substract (1) from (2) and we have
29.999... - 2.99... = 10x - x
ie 27 = 9x
now simply divide both sides by 9 and we get x = 3
IIRC there is also a relatively simple proof involving Cauchy sequences.
You're correct, programming is not the same as mathematics, on my computer 16 9s will suffice whereas in reality you would need an infinite number of 9s:
Slashdot Mirror
The earliest example of selling free software is probably RMS selling tapes of GNU Emacs for $150 a tape. He says he sold 8-10 tapes a month which generated enough cash for him to live off.
Yes, the statements can be found here.
Why is this modded troll? he links to LinuxDevices.com.
Personally I feel both have made valuable contributions to our community and it's regrettable for people to be name calling although I'm sure it's water off a ducks back.
Why this is in the "Linux" section?
The article contains some C code by Bruce Perens and further suggestions on how to get this device working on Linux.
Hey, my teacher told me it's wrong to copy music!
I'm telling on you!
Katie Jones seems to think so anyway, the latest entry to her blog on katie.com reads: "I am sure that this sudden change of heart by the publisher is largely to do with the support this issue has received from the online community and once again I'd like to thank everyone very much indeed."
heaven forbid that a smart person makes something of himself from skills that are self-taught, or even worse
Stallman is a self taught programmer, he studied mathematics and physics at Harvard as he himself said:
If you really want to be pedantic why not settle for "citizen of the United Kingdom" or just "UK citizen" it is longer I know but much easier on the ears. "UKonian" on Google only returns 4 results, and "UKonian" on google.co.uk only returns 1! Really these terms: "USian" and now "UKonian" are just plain silly.
I've heard of the book but never read it. Before I start my third year at university though I have a list of books the department recommends I read over the summer and this book is on it. Can somebody tell me if it's really worth reading, I mean is there anything in this book except the (seemingly obvious*) observation that adding more people to a project doesn't make it finish faster and actually may in fact cause problems making it take longer?
* Although perhaps it only seems obvious now and wasn't before this book was written.
Cousin to Gentoo I guess you would call it. Glad to see it's still chuggin along. I may just have to install it again one day.
No offence, I have used Gentoo myself for some time, but what makes you think Slackware is a cousin to Gentoo? The only thing that I can think of that they have in common is they're both Linux distributions.
/etc is really the only hard one.
Pronounce it the same as you would if you saw it in a normal sentence, "et cetera".
It's actually not a watch - it's a wrist-mounted TV unit. Which makes it a bit of a misnomer; as the article states, nobody would wear it on his wrist like he would a watch.
;-).
I only skimmed the article and presumed perhaps it doubled as a digital watch; well if it isn't even a watch it's worse than I thought! Maybe it could be worn in tandem with a big calculator watch though
I really don't understand what it is with geeks and these big ugly plastic watches! Personally I just like a very simple analog wristwatch.
But I do know what you're talking about. I mostly run into this issue when entering text into the address bar of Mozilla. Fortunately, Mozilla uses emacs-style keybindings, so if I want to replace what's in the address bar with what's on the clipboard, I just:
:).
Wow, stop there! That sounds way too complicated. You do know that in Mozilla (as with Mozilla Firefox) you can just middle click anywhere on the current page and the browser will go to what's in the clipboard (or search Google with "I'm feeling lucky" if it's not a URL). Simplicity
If you say 2.999... is not the same as 3 you are getting into some pretty weird mathematics or as Cantor would say: you are "infect[ing] mathematics with the Cholera-Bacillus of infinitesimals."
:).
PS. please reply so I can take that scan down once you have read it, thanks
I think all you have proved is that the limit of 2.9999... is 3, which is obvious.
2.999... denotes the limit. The proof I reproduced in my previous comment is just an informal one intended for the general audience on slashdot, if you want a more rigorous proof I'm sure Google would oblige. This may satisfy you. I am only an undergraduate maths student and not an expert, but my professor would certainly mark me wrong if I said 0.999... != 1 in an exam.
oops forgot the
but you get the picture.
No, if that were true what is the number between 3 and 2.999...?
Remember that in between any two different reals there are an infinite number of numbers.
Anyway the proof is simple:
2.999... = x
call that equation (1), then multiply both sides by 10
29.99... = 10x
and we'll call that (2), now substract (1) from (2) and we have
29.999... - 2.99... = 10x - x
ie 27 = 9x
now simply divide both sides by 9 and we get x = 3
IIRC there is also a relatively simple proof involving Cauchy sequences.
I've been found out, I'm an imposter. *blush*
Larry, please forgive me!
Looks like BlueSmoke is about to go up in smoke, anybody got a mirror?
You obviously never studied mathematics, 3 and 2.999... are exactly the same.