This is not even a remotely valid comparison unless you were installing a BSD that was also from 1995.
Imagine the firestorm if I made the comparison between Windows 2000 and a 7-year-old *nix.
Windows has enough deficiencies without engineering new ones into your comparison.
I'd love to see a quantum leap in desktop PC capability . . . I'm at the point where I'd be willing to chuck the historic trappings of desktop PCs--x86 . ..for something simpler and cooler running, whose blatant wrongness doesn't eat away at your soul
Except for the "Unix-like" digression, this could have been a Switch commercial. =)
...what I really need is a program that allows my boss and I to collaborate on user support documentation. For this to happen, I need to be able to set it to display whatever "improvements" he makes on his screen, but somehow fail to apply those changes to the actual document. I'd pay a lot for such a bug. =)
Overview of changes to legal rights:
By The Associated Press
September 5, 2002, 11:44 AM EDT
Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.
RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.
It's depressing when I show this list and someone says, "Wow, I had no idea it was so bad."
Does "freedom of speech" just cover literal verbal speech then? Or is writing covered, too?
Assuming that you have not drawn the line exactly at literal speech (if so, we have nothing else to say, as that clearly was not the authors' intent in the 1st amendment), where do you draw the line? Are protests considered protected "speech"? (What if they are silent?)
I view the concept of expression as a kind of catch-all. Defined poorly? Certainly. Defined by those limited human interpreters of the law in our legal system. It is the worst system on Earth--except for every other system.
It's a very dangerous line you leap across with such abandon.
If you can't understand how the threat of monitoring (let alone being "picked up and hassled") could affect how free your speech is, I'm not sure that there is much point to further discussion.
You don't have to be imprisoned to be silenced.
...you never know until you try. It's just possible that people really will pony up cash for their music if there is a credible and reliable micropayment system, and there's enough selection to be worthwhile.
I don't think that they buy their own arguments, else they would have done this already. What have they got to lose? To hear them tell it, they are already bleeding in the streets from Internet swapping. By their logic, the stuff is already out there, so they might as well provide a method for people to pay for it.
What would happen if Redmond were the target of a nuclear attack (to use one spurious example)? Even if airplanes came knocking on Red Hat's door, you still have the source available to work from. Too, a community distributed around the world cannot be easily destroyed.
The government can pay a company to support its stuff, but that is predicated on the company being around and capable of providing support.
In an OSS environment, the worst case scenario is that the government would have to hire the skills to support their own OSS needs. Even if the community dried up, the government agencies involved could hire the muscle to keep things going. If they depend solely on Microsoft, the worst case scenario is that they suddenly have systems with no support--and no easy way of getting any.
Re: programming, perhaps it's just the desire to be able to contribute in a meaningful way. I don't actually enjoy programming, honestly, and that reflects in my lackluster skill, but I do enjoy laboring for worthy projects. Perhaps I should find such a project in need of documentation--something I do tolerably well.
I've always felt that the only difference between political science (my own field of study) and other "real" sciences is that we don't bother justifying our lies with statistics. =)
Get over yourselves, there's more important things going on in the world than your worthless LUNIX.
You're right--there are a lot more important things going on in the world than Linux. Some of the other things you mentioned (in jest?) qualify. I don't particularly want to live in a surveillance state, for example.
That's not the point, though. The viability of OSS--particularly in the public service sector--has significance beyond Microsoft's dominance of the software market. Secure software isn't just about keeping the h4x0rs out of your e-mail. For all of the overblown hysteria, there are legitimate real-world security issues at stake in the open source debate. If there is a chance that open source software could make the difference in critical infrastructure systems, don't you think it would be worth the time to make an honest critical assessment? The ADTI study is nothing of the sort, and should be criticized for its faults.
It really seems (to my amateurish, ill-informed eye) that if the "study" really is sponsored by Microsquish, they have shot themselves in the foot thoroughly. Just this morning I have seen rebuttal links in half a dozen places, much more prominently than even the original study release. The backlash seems rather impressive.
Makes me wish I were a programmer, to release things in an OSS license of my choice, but after a year of classes, I never did master Hangman. So off to the social sciences I went...
...for me has always been the change from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. It seems odd on the surface, but the most interesting element of the first trilogy was a transition that occurred years before.
It's just kind of fascinating. How does someone become what they've sworn to oppose? From Obi-Wan's comments in the original trilogy, you see a picture of Anakin as a good friend, a decent guy who falls from grace and becomes a great force for evil (no pun intended). Sure, the "redemption" at the end of RotJ is good, but we want to see the fall. =)
Even before seeing Episode I, my money was on Episode III to be what I was really waiting for. I and II are important to set these things up--I'll know more when I catch the 10:40 showing tonight--but the real story is going to be in Ep3.
How to bring about such a dark (Darth?) result while ending in such a way that the audiences won't hang him in effigy (or in fact) is something that I hope Lucas can pull off.
...Everything begins to look like a nail. I don't imagine that every legislator views legislation as the ultimate solution to every problem, but it certainly seems to be a prevailing attitude.
So, indeed, one shouldn't take oneself too seriously. Play frisbee all you want; just buy a war bond before you go to the park and remember the importance of those who are fighting the war. And whether or not one agree with his tactics or his methods, one has to admit that Stallman has made a significant contribution to the fight for our freedoms.
I'll resist the temptation to suggest sending Stallman a frisbee. =)
Very well put. And persuasive. It has been more than a year since I donated to the EFF, but I'll go fix that now.
Take a look at the original post that I was replying to once again:
No matter how controversial, the community needs RMS. Where Linus has openly admitted Linux is not the most important part of his life, RMS remains the prophet while Linus settles down with family life.
My perception of this statement was that the poster was somehow denigrating Mr. Torvalds' preference for family vs. software jihad. The implication--that I was reading--is that Linus somehow dropped the ball or failed the community by choosing to go home instead of on crusade.
That implication is what I took exception to, and perhaps I should have stated it more clearly. Too, it's quite possible that that wasn't at all what the original poster meant to imply.
Are you seriously suggesting that one can either spend time raising one's children or work on influential software and that the two are entirely mutually exclusive? Are you seriously suggesting that anyone who has tried to make a difference in the world has his/her priorities "crooked"? Are you trying to claim that the greatest achievement in life is to breed and that anything that would stand in the way of sucessfully spawning offspring should be found deficient when measured against this standard? If you don't mean any of this, why have you even mentioned the subject?
I did not set up the "software vs. family" dichotomy; I responded to it as I found it in the original post.
As far as the importance of making a difference vs. raising a family, I submit that there is probably significant overlap in those areas. =)
For what it's worth--and we are definitely (as you pointed out) veering into non sequitur--I am of the opinion that if there is a choice required between work and raising your children (note: not just spawning, but raising what you have produced), work should (in most cases) take the back seat. But that's just my opinion; there is overwhelming anecdotal envidence that other people don't feel the same way.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not even a remotely valid comparison unless you were installing a BSD that was also from 1995. Imagine the firestorm if I made the comparison between Windows 2000 and a 7-year-old *nix. Windows has enough deficiencies without engineering new ones into your comparison.
Wow. Please tell me you did a copy-and-paste job on that, and didn't compose it just for me. =)
...what I really need is a program that allows my boss and I to collaborate on user support documentation. For this to happen, I need to be able to set it to display whatever "improvements" he makes on his screen, but somehow fail to apply those changes to the actual document. I'd pay a lot for such a bug. =)
So buying .Net server is going to cost me what, a quarter? =)
If that's not enough, I have a degree in political science. As such, this has a profound effect on my primary field of study.
Is that good enough for you?
It's even worse when they say "So?"
Assuming that you have not drawn the line exactly at literal speech (if so, we have nothing else to say, as that clearly was not the authors' intent in the 1st amendment), where do you draw the line? Are protests considered protected "speech"? (What if they are silent?)
I view the concept of expression as a kind of catch-all. Defined poorly? Certainly. Defined by those limited human interpreters of the law in our legal system. It is the worst system on Earth--except for every other system.
It's a very dangerous line you leap across with such abandon. If you can't understand how the threat of monitoring (let alone being "picked up and hassled") could affect how free your speech is, I'm not sure that there is much point to further discussion. You don't have to be imprisoned to be silenced.
They aren't even good about Win32 drivers--don't hold your breath. =)
I don't think that they buy their own arguments, else they would have done this already. What have they got to lose? To hear them tell it, they are already bleeding in the streets from Internet swapping. By their logic, the stuff is already out there, so they might as well provide a method for people to pay for it.
I could have missed it, of course, but it sure doesn't look like there's an official version number determined; witness the "OSXI" jokes posted above.
It's a small thing, but it undermines the article's credibility just a wee bit.
The government can pay a company to support its stuff, but that is predicated on the company being around and capable of providing support.
In an OSS environment, the worst case scenario is that the government would have to hire the skills to support their own OSS needs. Even if the community dried up, the government agencies involved could hire the muscle to keep things going. If they depend solely on Microsoft, the worst case scenario is that they suddenly have systems with no support--and no easy way of getting any.
Re: programming, perhaps it's just the desire to be able to contribute in a meaningful way. I don't actually enjoy programming, honestly, and that reflects in my lackluster skill, but I do enjoy laboring for worthy projects. Perhaps I should find such a project in need of documentation--something I do tolerably well. I've always felt that the only difference between political science (my own field of study) and other "real" sciences is that we don't bother justifying our lies with statistics. =)
That's not the point, though. The viability of OSS--particularly in the public service sector--has significance beyond Microsoft's dominance of the software market. Secure software isn't just about keeping the h4x0rs out of your e-mail. For all of the overblown hysteria, there are legitimate real-world security issues at stake in the open source debate. If there is a chance that open source software could make the difference in critical infrastructure systems, don't you think it would be worth the time to make an honest critical assessment? The ADTI study is nothing of the sort, and should be criticized for its faults.
Makes me wish I were a programmer, to release things in an OSS license of my choice, but after a year of classes, I never did master Hangman. So off to the social sciences I went...
We had the same problem with Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton) from Reading Rainbow. =)
...for me has always been the change from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. It seems odd on the surface, but the most interesting element of the first trilogy was a transition that occurred years before.
It's just kind of fascinating. How does someone become what they've sworn to oppose? From Obi-Wan's comments in the original trilogy, you see a picture of Anakin as a good friend, a decent guy who falls from grace and becomes a great force for evil (no pun intended). Sure, the "redemption" at the end of RotJ is good, but we want to see the fall. =)
Even before seeing Episode I, my money was on Episode III to be what I was really waiting for. I and II are important to set these things up--I'll know more when I catch the 10:40 showing tonight--but the real story is going to be in Ep3.
How to bring about such a dark (Darth?) result while ending in such a way that the audiences won't hang him in effigy (or in fact) is something that I hope Lucas can pull off.
Bah, that's what I get for not refreshing before replying.
...Everything begins to look like a nail. I don't imagine that every legislator views legislation as the ultimate solution to every problem, but it certainly seems to be a prevailing attitude.
I sprung for the $65 membership to get a t-shirt. =) I have a weakness for t-shirts...
Very well put. And persuasive. It has been more than a year since I donated to the EFF, but I'll go fix that now.
That implication is what I took exception to, and perhaps I should have stated it more clearly. Too, it's quite possible that that wasn't at all what the original poster meant to imply.
I did not set up the "software vs. family" dichotomy; I responded to it as I found it in the original post.As far as the importance of making a difference vs. raising a family, I submit that there is probably significant overlap in those areas. =)
For what it's worth--and we are definitely (as you pointed out) veering into non sequitur--I am of the opinion that if there is a choice required between work and raising your children (note: not just spawning, but raising what you have produced), work should (in most cases) take the back seat. But that's just my opinion; there is overwhelming anecdotal envidence that other people don't feel the same way.