I don't think you understood my point. I'm not arguing that this was the wrong forum to answer non-free software questions. I merely question whether from a practical standpoint he would want to go into non-free software matter in front of a mostly free software crowd in a way that might turn some people against him for no good reason. If I were the principal crusader for a particular viewpoint on a given issue, I'd try to minimize any partisan statements on other, unrelated issues in order to avoid stirring up controversy.
I suspect this was done to try to head off anyone building a competitive GPS network. I believe the EU (which feels it needs to have a home grown alternative to every single thing developed in the US) has been planning a military precision GPS competitor system for a while now. Maybe the US gov't doesn't want that or other systems to actually happen.
It's unfortunate to see Stallman mentioning issues about which he does not appear to be terribly informed in a message about free software. I'm referring specifically to his points about overpopulation, environmentalism, and the ACLU.
First, by associating himself with left wing causes such as these, he immediately alienates those who might not share his views on them. Interestingly, he once criticized a free software paper of mine because it used a gun control analogy. The disagreement was not with the issue per se, but rather that a controversial topic simply creates un-necessarily creates division where none should exist. (It's also worthy of note that many people consider Stallman himself a type of religious fundamentalist!)
The second problem is substantive. Overpopulation is not nearly the problem that the doomsayers claim it is. In fact, the biggest problem facing us by the mid-21st century will likely be underpopulation. We already see in the US the affect of a large aged population with fewer working people to support them. This problem will only get worse if population flattens or declines. This is likely to be a particular problem in China, where the long run affects of the one child policy have yet to be seen.
A posting such as this simply cannot do justice to the matter of population. I highly recommend that everyone concerned about this issue read the Overpopulation FAQ and also read Julian L. Simon's tour de force "The Ultimate Resource 2". By all means also read the other side of the issue from Paul Ehrlich or the Club of Rome. But please do read Simon with an open mind, consider the arguments, and reach your own conclusion.
I won't even go into the complicated matters of the environment or the ACLU!
Also note that your source only lists people who speak a language as their first language. I suggest that this is not a good measure of how widely languages are spoken as both English and French are widely spoken by non-native speakers. That web site of yours does look very intersting though.
Those figures are clearly wrong. The United States alone has about 270 million people, almost all of them English speakers. Here's my figures:
United States 272,500,000 United Kingdom 59,400,000 South Africa 42,600,000 Canada 30,600,000 Australia 19,000,000 New Zealand 3,800,000 Ireland 3,700,000 Total 431,600,000
Additionally, several other African and Carribean nations speak English. You can try to separate out tribal languages in Africa, but simply counting those nations out is ridiculous.
Also note that there are so many dialects of even Mandarin that it's ridiculous to lump all Mandarin speakers together.
Absolutely! You hit the nail on the head wrt Asia and India. There are so many different national and tribal languages, with ethnic animosity going back over a thousand years. I find it inconceivable the Japanse would ever voluntarily start using a Mandarin dialect as a principal second language, for example. English fits in very well here because it is relatively neutral politically (local politics) and is the gateway to international commerce. A lot of Asian countries are heavily pushing English on the younger generation.
It's a lot like political systems. Try reading Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty" for some background on why the "rationalistic" belief that we can use human reason to design ideal institutions (and by analogy, languages) is so often wrong, and that evolved institutions, for all their well known warts, actually do a much better job than they are given credit for.
Bectour, you had something else besides English in mind? Add up the population of the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and the various African and Carribean countries that speak English as their principal language. I think it would add up to more than 5% of the world's population. Close to 10% I'd expect. Then of course a lot more people than that speak English as a second language.
Did you have some other language you'd like to propose as an alternate? Why do you believe that is superior?
Actually, that's one of the great reasons English has done so well as an international language. It is a living language that is constantly growing, changing, and is not afraid to adopt foreign words if it likes them. Think of it as the capitalist language. Much like America, which is a melting pot of other cultures, constantly adopting new ways of doing things from newcomers of all stripes, so it is with the English language.
Other language seem much more bound up with a national culture. The best example here being French, where the notorious Academy attempts to impose its vision of language purity. Stagnation is more like it.
French, Spanish, and Portugues are widely spoken international languages, though I'd say French is the most important of those. Various Chiense dialetcs have lots of native speakers, but there is so much history of mutual animosity among the principal Asian cultures that it's very unlikely they'd agree to speak each other's language. Thus English does well there as a neutral tongue.
So I expect English dominance of world commerce and the Internet for quite some time, with the best of other languages imported in. No IP in languages so they work like the GPL and English can adopt other people's code whenever it wants.
Yeah, the European net plays have gotten a bit insane recently. The FT says part of the reason is that people want to move their money into the European tech sectors, but the number of companies is still relatively small. Hence supply > demand = insane market caps.
When is gzip going to provide (transparent) support for bzip2 files and the Burrows-Wheeler algorithm?
Will BW be an algorithm option within the gzip file format itself ever?
Re:Why does Tor assume We're Idiots?
on
The Star Fraction
·
· Score: 1
I'm not sure why Tor started with The Cassini Division instead of The Stone Canal, but IIRC there is some problem with the US rights to the Star Fraction that is delaying its official US release. Tor would dearly love to put that out, but first they're going with The Stone Canal and The Sky Road.
Ok, maybe not quite that, but Ken MacLeod is the best thing to happen to science fiction in a long time. All four of his books are unbelievably great and those not available in the US are well worth special ordering from the UK.
I've written reviews of all of them, available on my web site:
Note that the Star Fraction is available in bookstores in Canada. A $10 paperback edition is also available in the US via mail order from Laissez-Faire Books
Writing your MP is not like writing your US Congressman. In the US, Congressmen are indepdenent entities who can vote their conscience. In the UK, MP's are facless minions of their party, who would probably get themselves expelled from it and ostracized if they voted against their party leader. In a parliamentary country like the UK, control of the government is totally dependent on maintaining a majority in parliament, thus party discipline tends to be very strong.
Actually, virtually all modern translations of the Bible are in fact copyrighted. Only the King James Version is public domain, to the best of my knowledge. I presume the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic manuscripts are as well.
Gregory Benford has a new book out called "The Martian Race" in which man reaches Mars when the nations of the world pledge a $30 billion bounty to the first expedition to do it. While I'm not sure this is the way to go with a Mars mission, I think it could work for a number of space exploration type things.
In your S-1, you mention that you have applied for a patent. Here is the relevant paragraph:
Our systems consist primarily of commodity hardware components in combination with the Linux operating system. While we have developed some proprietary techniques and expertise, most of our activities and systems are not protectable as proprietary intellectual property and may be used by competitors, harming our market share and product revenues. To protect our intellectual property, we generally enter into confidentiality or license agreements with our employees, consultants and corporate partners. We have also recently commenced a patent program and to date have filed one patent application. In general, however, we have taken only limited steps to protect our intellectual property. Accordingly, we may be unable to use intellectual property to prevent other companies from competing with us. In addition, we may be unable to prevent third parties from developing techniques that are similar or superior to our technology, or from designing around our copyrights, patents and trade secrets.
I realize you will not want to disclose the details of your pending patent application, but I am interested in knowing whether or not it is a software patent. And, what VA's policy towards software patents is, in general. Will VA apply for software patents? If so, how will they be licensed? Will they be made available on free software terms to free software developers?
I would just like to make a couple comments on Berner-Lee. Yes, inventing the web was cool, but he's also the driver a major change in the net that is not good. Namely away from the open process for setting standards based on the IETF working group model, and towards standards set by the corporate membership model of the W3C. Interestingly, I've read that Berners-Lee has basically dictatorial powers at W3C and that as part of becoming a member you have to agree that his word is the law there.
In the new world of Net administration, users don't count for much, only corporations with enough dough to join organizations like W3C.
This looks like a classic "sorry I got caught" situation. Sun designed their "Community Source License" specifically to allow them to do this sort of thing. The only strange thing would be if they didn't actual do what their license said they planned to do all along. Had there not been a firestorm of protest about this, but only a few polite email, I highly doubt Sun would apologize. And if you read the article, they didn't sound too apologetic.
On the other hand, insisting that all software developers be credited in announcements of commerical releases is really just an attempt to institutionalize the "obnoxious advertising clause" from the BSD license. In fact, that original BSD license with the advertising clause is the only free software license I know of that insists on giving credit to the original authors. The FreeBSD license, the GPL, and others do not. As a general rule, perhaps giving some credit to the original developers is appropriate in certain instances, but making this an iron-clad rule would make marketing free software very difficult indeed.
Just a reminder, the Sun Community Source License is not a free software license. Please do not use it.
By the way, I thought I would mention that UPS Ground is probably the absolute worst method of shipping anything on the entire planet. One time I ordered some coffee from Peet's, had them mark the package perishable and prominently put "No Signature Required" all over it since I knew UPS would deliver during the day when I was at work. Sure enough, UPS gave me the dreaded yellow slip, resulting in a two day delay. After numerous experiences like this I've told people that if they UPS me anything and I get yellow slipped, I'll simply refuse delivery.
Another recent problem is with amazon.com. Their standard shipping uses Priority Mail for smaller orders, UPS Ground for bigger ones. Packages sent Priority Mail always arrive two days after shipping. My UPS Ground packages never take less than a week, and usually ten days or more. I've written to bitch and moan about this, and to suggest that amazon have a "No UPS" option on their standard shipping. Heh, no such luck yet, but there is a number you can call to request that your order be shipped Priority Mail. It is (800) 201-7575.
I can't be sure what these people's claims are, but I doubt they will win. The Tax Court case, IIRC, was that UPS set up an insurance subsidiary in a tax haven, then had that subsidary charge UPS very high rates for insurance, which were then written off against earnings as a business expense. The IRS basically said this was a sham designed to avoid taxes because the rates charged to UPS America were so much higher than those reasonably needed to provide insurance. I think this is a relative common thing where companies in low tax countries charge affliates in high tax countries above market rates for supplies in some sort of tax avoidance scheme. I don't see where the customers of UPS have a claim for this.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think you understood my point. I'm not arguing that this was the wrong forum to answer non-free software questions. I merely question whether from a practical standpoint he would want to go into non-free software matter in front of a mostly free software crowd in a way that might turn some people against him for no good reason. If I were the principal crusader for a particular viewpoint on a given issue, I'd try to minimize any partisan statements on other, unrelated issues in order to avoid stirring up controversy.
I suspect this was done to try to head off anyone building a competitive GPS network. I believe the EU (which feels it needs to have a home grown alternative to every single thing developed in the US) has been planning a military precision GPS competitor system for a while now. Maybe the US gov't doesn't want that or other systems to actually happen.
It's unfortunate to see Stallman mentioning issues about which he does not appear to be terribly informed in a message about free software. I'm referring specifically to his points about overpopulation, environmentalism, and the ACLU.
First, by associating himself with left wing causes such as these, he immediately alienates those who might not share his views on them. Interestingly, he once criticized a free software paper of mine because it used a gun control analogy. The disagreement was not with the issue per se, but rather that a controversial topic simply creates un-necessarily creates division where none should exist. (It's also worthy of note that many people consider Stallman himself a type of religious fundamentalist!)
The second problem is substantive. Overpopulation is not nearly the problem that the doomsayers claim it is. In fact, the biggest problem facing us by the mid-21st century will likely be underpopulation. We already see in the US the affect of a large aged population with fewer working people to support them. This problem will only get worse if population flattens or declines. This is likely to be a particular problem in China, where the long run affects of the one child policy have yet to be seen.
A posting such as this simply cannot do justice to the matter of population. I highly recommend that everyone concerned about this issue read the Overpopulation FAQ and also read Julian L. Simon's tour de force "The Ultimate Resource 2". By all means also read the other side of the issue from Paul Ehrlich or the Club of Rome. But please do read Simon with an open mind, consider the arguments, and reach your own conclusion.
I won't even go into the complicated matters of the environment or the ACLU!
Also note that your source only lists people who speak a language as their first language. I suggest that this is not a good measure of how widely languages are spoken as both English and French are widely spoken by non-native speakers. That web site of yours does look very intersting though.
United States 272,500,000
United Kingdom 59,400,000
South Africa 42,600,000
Canada 30,600,000
Australia 19,000,000
New Zealand 3,800,000
Ireland 3,700,000
Total 431,600,000
Additionally, several other African and Carribean nations speak English. You can try to separate out tribal languages in Africa, but simply counting those nations out is ridiculous.
Also note that there are so many dialects of even Mandarin that it's ridiculous to lump all Mandarin speakers together.
I took my data from the 1999 estimates at http://www.prb.org/pubs/wpds99.htm
Absolutely! You hit the nail on the head wrt Asia and India. There are so many different national and tribal languages, with ethnic animosity going back over a thousand years. I find it inconceivable the Japanse would ever voluntarily start using a Mandarin dialect as a principal second language, for example. English fits in very well here because it is relatively neutral politically (local politics) and is the gateway to international commerce. A lot of Asian countries are heavily pushing English on the younger generation.
Yes, it certainly helps English's case that most programming and markup languages use English keywords.
It's a lot like political systems. Try reading Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty" for some background on why the "rationalistic" belief that we can use human reason to design ideal institutions (and by analogy, languages) is so often wrong, and that evolved institutions, for all their well known warts, actually do a much better job than they are given credit for.
To say nothing of the fact that there is no single spoken Chinese language, and that the Chinese writing system is cumbersome to put it mildly.
Bectour, you had something else besides English in mind? Add up the population of the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and the various African and Carribean countries that speak English as their principal language. I think it would add up to more than 5% of the world's population. Close to 10% I'd expect. Then of course a lot more people than that speak English as a second language.
Did you have some other language you'd like to propose as an alternate? Why do you believe that is superior?
Actually, that's one of the great reasons English has done so well as an international language. It is a living language that is constantly growing, changing, and is not afraid to adopt foreign words if it likes them. Think of it as the capitalist language. Much like America, which is a melting pot of other cultures, constantly adopting new ways of doing things from newcomers of all stripes, so it is with the English language.
Other language seem much more bound up with a national culture. The best example here being French, where the notorious Academy attempts to impose its vision of language purity. Stagnation is more like it.
French, Spanish, and Portugues are widely spoken international languages, though I'd say French is the most important of those. Various Chiense dialetcs have lots of native speakers, but there is so much history of mutual animosity among the principal Asian cultures that it's very unlikely they'd agree to speak each other's language. Thus English does well there as a neutral tongue.
So I expect English dominance of world commerce and the Internet for quite some time, with the best of other languages imported in. No IP in languages so they work like the GPL and English can adopt other people's code whenever it wants.
Yeah, the European net plays have gotten a bit insane recently. The FT says part of the reason is that people want to move their money into the European tech sectors, but the number of companies is still relatively small. Hence supply > demand = insane market caps.
When is gzip going to provide (transparent) support for bzip2 files and the Burrows-Wheeler algorithm?
Will BW be an algorithm option within the gzip file format itself ever?
I'm not sure why Tor started with The Cassini Division instead of The Stone Canal, but IIRC there is some problem with the US rights to the Star Fraction that is delaying its official US release. Tor would dearly love to put that out, but first they're going with The Stone Canal and The Sky Road.
Ok, maybe not quite that, but Ken MacLeod is the best thing to happen to science fiction in a long time. All four of his books are unbelievably great and those not available in the US are well worth special ordering from the UK.
I've written reviews of all of them, available on my web site:
The Star Fracion
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
The Sky Road
Note that the Star Fraction is available in bookstores in Canada. A $10 paperback edition is also available in the US via mail order from Laissez-Faire Books
Writing your MP is not like writing your US Congressman. In the US, Congressmen are indepdenent entities who can vote their conscience. In the UK, MP's are facless minions of their party, who would probably get themselves expelled from it and ostracized if they voted against their party leader. In a parliamentary country like the UK, control of the government is totally dependent on maintaining a majority in parliament, thus party discipline tends to be very strong.
Actually, virtually all modern translations of the Bible are in fact copyrighted. Only the King James Version is public domain, to the best of my knowledge. I presume the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic manuscripts are as well.
You are wrong. An individual's copyright is life+70. So you get your entire life, plus 70 additional years after you're maggot food.
Gregory Benford has a new book out called "The Martian Race" in which man reaches Mars when the nations of the world pledge a $30 billion bounty to the first expedition to do it. While I'm not sure this is the way to go with a Mars mission, I think it could work for a number of space exploration type things.
I realize you will not want to disclose the details of your pending patent application, but I am interested in knowing whether or not it is a software patent. And, what VA's policy towards software patents is, in general. Will VA apply for software patents? If so, how will they be licensed? Will they be made available on free software terms to free software developers?
I would just like to make a couple comments on Berner-Lee. Yes, inventing the web was cool, but he's also the driver a major change in the net that is not good. Namely away from the open process for setting standards based on the IETF working group model, and towards standards set by the corporate membership model of the W3C. Interestingly, I've read that Berners-Lee has basically dictatorial powers at W3C and that as part of becoming a member you have to agree that his word is the law there.
In the new world of Net administration, users don't count for much, only corporations with enough dough to join organizations like W3C.
This looks like a classic "sorry I got caught" situation. Sun designed their "Community Source License" specifically to allow them to do this sort of thing. The only strange thing would be if they didn't actual do what their license said they planned to do all along. Had there not been a firestorm of protest about this, but only a few polite email, I highly doubt Sun would apologize. And if you read the article, they didn't sound too apologetic.
On the other hand, insisting that all software developers be credited in announcements of commerical releases is really just an attempt to institutionalize the "obnoxious advertising clause" from the BSD license. In fact, that original BSD license with the advertising clause is the only free software license I know of that insists on giving credit to the original authors. The FreeBSD license, the GPL, and others do not. As a general rule, perhaps giving some credit to the original developers is appropriate in certain instances, but making this an iron-clad rule would make marketing free software very difficult indeed.
Just a reminder, the Sun Community Source License is not a free software license. Please do not use it.
By the way, I thought I would mention that UPS Ground is probably the absolute worst method of shipping anything on the entire planet. One time I ordered some coffee from Peet's, had them mark the package perishable and prominently put "No Signature Required" all over it since I knew UPS would deliver during the day when I was at work. Sure enough, UPS gave me the dreaded yellow slip, resulting in a two day delay. After numerous experiences like this I've told people that if they UPS me anything and I get yellow slipped, I'll simply refuse delivery.
Another recent problem is with amazon.com. Their standard shipping uses Priority Mail for smaller orders, UPS Ground for bigger ones. Packages sent Priority Mail always arrive two days after shipping. My UPS Ground packages never take less than a week, and usually ten days or more. I've written to bitch and moan about this, and to suggest that amazon have a "No UPS" option on their standard shipping. Heh, no such luck yet, but there is a number you can call to request that your order be shipped Priority Mail. It is (800) 201-7575.
I can't be sure what these people's claims are, but I doubt they will win. The Tax Court case, IIRC, was that UPS set up an insurance subsidiary in a tax haven, then had that subsidary charge UPS very high rates for insurance, which were then written off against earnings as a business expense. The IRS basically said this was a sham designed to avoid taxes because the rates charged to UPS America were so much higher than those reasonably needed to provide insurance. I think this is a relative common thing where companies in low tax countries charge affliates in high tax countries above market rates for supplies in some sort of tax avoidance scheme. I don't see where the customers of UPS have a claim for this.
I think you're right there. Most of the low end hosting services use Apache and cram lots of virtual domains on a single FreeBSD or Linux box.