To put it more simply for those who don't work in corporate land:
I need to schedule a meeting with 20 people, and book a conference room. Find me the first 1-hour slot when all 20 and any room is free. Now notify everybody about the meeting and tell me if they're going to come - and put everything on everybody's calendars for them.
No open source package does this to my knowledge. If anything did it as well as Outlook/Exchange it would take off very quickly. Outlook has just-about eliminated the administrative assistant for most ordinary workers...
Hmm - 24888 files in my.maildir - and IMAP works just fine.
I don't delete mail as a matter of principle (well except for email used only for large file transfer - I save files and delete emails). It only consumes 1GB, and that is all of about 50 cents these days (even with RAID5). Why would I spend my time to shave 20 cents off my infrastructure costs? And at the risk of accidentally tossing something important?
I'm pretty sure you can only deduct the cost of production in the USA - which isn't much for a pharmaceutical. The main motive (besides charity) is trying to avoid price controls. And if it works then I wouldn't knock it too much.
Many major pharma companies offer steep discounts to those without the means to pay. Some offer completely free access to drugs (even brand new ones).
Does that in itself fix the drug-access problem in the US - certainly not. But it isn't a bad gesture until the problem is actually fixed. And I think it is a bit nieve to think that you can make something cheaper just by dictating a cheaper price. Somebody has to pay for it or it won't get made - but that doesn't mean that the costs can't be covered in some other way...
Someone who is using an ICBM (or some other sort of long-range delivery system) is not going to be using GPS. They're going to be using a combination of radar, topographic map data/recognition systems, and inertial guidance (as to prevent navigation references to be screwed with during the cruise phase of the weapon in question).
Not to mention that if you can build ICBMs and nuclear warheads in sufficient quantity to actually make you unafraid of retaliation then the cost of adding a navigation package that doesn't use GPS is pretty-much small change. And the retaliation that does occur (conventional or otherwise) would make the cost of all of that gear a VERY small drop in the bucket. Nuclear war is INSANELY expensive - the best anybody can really do is try to sneak in a bomb and hope nobody figures out where it came from.
While the US is certainly interested in developing ASAT capabilities I doubt they're really intending to use them anytime soon - especially against EU nations.
However, there is a legitimate concern about sensitive technology like real-time imaging getting into the hands of somebody you're at war with. If in ANY war in history somebody came along and started selling intel to the highest bidder you can be sure they'd be treated as a military target.
The EU isn't going to let private industry sell anything of high military value to anybody - it would just lead to some kind of retaliation - probably in an underhanded way (aiding corporate espionage of competitors, maybe providing data to terrorists likely to strike the EU, etc). Not many nations have high-tech gadgets useful for advanced warfare - none of them are going to just give it away to 3rd-world nations. If the EU blusters about selling satellite images to Iran or something it is probably just a negotiating tactic to get a better rate on some kind of imports/exports - the US would just find a compromise of some kind and the appropriate powers will get their take. US/EU conflict is mainly a tool for getting votes and negotiating in trade. Nobody is going to actually start a shooting war...
Basically the GPS unit transmits what it thinks the time is, and where it is (this is somewhat simplified - I'm sure there is more to it in reality).
When you get signals from 3 satellites you look at the differences in times between them. There is only one point on the earth that has the precise time differences corresponding to the data available. Due to error there is some error in the calculated position, which decreases as you get more satellite data.
Now, the GPS transmits the time in the clear, and it also transmits it encrypted. Currently both streams transmit the same data, so military and civilian units are equally accurate.
However, in time of war intentional error can be introduced into the cleartext time data - making civilian GPS receivers inaccurate. The correct time will be transmitted encrypted, so military units can make use of the accurate time and get full precision.
All of this posturing between EU/US proponents is silly. Most likely both governments would agree to collaborate - a threat to either an EU member or the US would probably lead to both systems being degraded. Sure, the US probably has the capability to play hardball by threatening to shoot down or otherwise disable satellites if others don't go along, but more likely than not it wouldn't be necessary to make threats. The US isn't about to go shooting down the satellites of major trading partners anyway unless we're talking all-out nuclear war. And if nukes are flying all over the place I think the EU will be interested in shutting off Galileo since they're just as likely to be in the path of missiles as anybody.
Terrorism probably isn't on anybody's mind - GPS probably isn't all that useful to terrorists. It is more useful as a conventional military technology.
I think part of the program is that most professional programmers tend to think in terms of systems with 1" requirement specifications.
VB6 addresses a completely different niche. Suppose I have a task that I need to do, and by writing 30 lines of code I can get it done in an hour instead of a week. I might not every share my code with anybody. Maybe I'll give it to 5 others. It is a very powerful tool (and an easily misused one).
At work we are always running into VBA apps cobbled together by somebody in their spare time. The solution of many IT managers would be to ban VBA and try to fire anybody who writes something in it (other than a professionally-designed application). It will NEVER happen. No manager is going to come down hard on the guy in his group who saved the group 3 weeks of solid effort in 15 minutes of his spare time, without asking for a 100 page requirements spec.
There is a need to better manage and educate workers on the PROPER use for these kinds of tools, but the outright ban just won't work, and if it did it would put a company at a disadvantage.
The people who use VB are basically just scratching an itch. If somebody wants to come up with a better tool by all means do it (some might argue that a few of these tools already exist). But to expect that ALL software will one day be well-written is foolish - as it neglects problems that fall between just-do-it-by-hand and hire-fulltime-coder.
The issue of organizations apologizing for their roots is a complex one. Sure, it isn't a bad idea in terms of just being nice - especially if you don't agree with the position of your predecessors. However, you need to be careful about holding people today accountable for things that organizations they belonged to did 100 years ago. Should American's today apologize to the Indians for displacing their land? If so, which ones? Should an immigrant who got their citizenship last Tuesday apologize? Should one with a Green card? Sure, they weren't around back when the wrongs were done, but then again neither was anybody else on the planet.
I'm sure lots of present-day organizations have negative pasts - but you need to hold people accountable for the things THEY did - not their forefathers. Now, if an organization still has something objectionable in its charter, that is a different issue - we do have a duty to clean up when we're given something nasty when it only requires a vote of the board...
I'm sorry if you don't see it. I'm sorry most people don't see it. But, y'know what? There's nothing I can do about it. I ask clear, carefully structured questions, and the GPL people just ignore the parts they don't want to hear.
Uh, you might start by dropping the if-only-the-entire-world-could-see-things-as-clear ly-as-me attitude you might get a little further...:)
Look, I'm really trying to keep this non-personal and simply address your points, and I apologize if in any way I presented an attitude. If you feel like GPL proponents are idiots I can understand your frustration even if I don't agree. Let's just try to keep it civil?
Furthermore, that kind of makes my point in another direction: BSD code can be used in GPL code, but not vice versa. That's an asinine limitation.
Well, that would be a limitation in the BSD. If you wanted people to have to give their code back to you then you shouldn't let them freely relicense it. By releasing under the BSD you are giving permission for others to do ANYTHING with your code. Well, ANYTHING includes relicensing it so that a competing project can lock up future code revisions under a different license. Which of course is half the reason the GPL exists in the first place...
And I do agree that often borrowing code from other projects is not practical, and yet it does happen - which is why so much of linux originated in BSD projects.
Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say. You see any corporations knocking on your door? That's a fantasy based on delusions of grandeur. Companies don't want to use your code badly enough to pay you. If you made it BSD, they might use it. When they used it, they might extend it (they might not; it might be usable as is.) If they extended it, they'd usually give you the extensions back, because even though you're weird and paranoid about other people, most of us aren't, and when someone does us a favor, we return the favor.
Hey, I'd be the first to agree that most of my software contributions aren't worth any corporation's time. However, they do add up when you get thousands of volunteers. There are a number of GPL projects that are very popular - most of the GNU toolchain/utils and linux among them. Individual contributors get any redistributed code changes back.
Sure, it could happen under BSD as well. However, the fact is that linux has gotten a lot more traction - why do you suppose that is? Perhaps the license is a contributing factor.
Of course, none of what you said actually follows from the GPL at all. Y'see, the GPL doesn't protect you from the situation you describe in any way. All the GPL requires for a company to use your code is for that company to redistribute your code. Period. That's it. They can use it without paying you a red cent and without giving you a single line of code.
Uh, what I meant was that if they use my code they would pay either in cash or in giving back any improvements they made. If they just use it as-is then obviously they don't owe me a cent, and I'm generally fine with that. If I weren't I wouldn't use the GPL.
In the meantime, you're sealing off that gap between useful enough to pay for and not worth having.
Yes, but that isn't really a problem for me. And I do acknowledge that the gap exists. However, most strong GPL proponents disagree to some degree with the whole concept of non-free commercial software. The GPL is a tool for social change and it does accomplish exactly what it sets out to do by creating an ever-growing software commons. So, to say that in doing so some people who would like to publish non-free versions of your code won't be able to do so kind of misses the point. The whole goal of the GPL is to make life hard on people who publish non-free software, by making them compete with free software that they both cannot adopt and which is free of cost. It essentially forces the issue, and it raises the bar for what peopl
I believe I've been quite repeatedly clear that I am interested only in the motivations of companies, which in context are all that are germane. I'm quite aware of why individuals do it;
Ok, let's assume that NO COMPANY would EVER want to release code under the GPL (ideally). What exactly is your point? Individuals will still release code under the GPL, and so there will be GPL code out in the world. Companies will still consider using GPL code - even if they wouldn't ideally choose to do so. The reason is simple - money. The GPL code is free to use as long as you comply with the license (which I agree is a sort of cost). They could instead license code obtained elsewhere, assuming it is available.
So, you have a number of groups using the GPL:
1. Individuals with a FSF mindset (to varying degrees). 2. Individuals who just want to contribute to a GPL project and who don't care about license. 3. Companies that have a business goal in using the GPL. You singled out Linux ISR/ISVs, but non-linux companies like Trolltech and MySQL have found value in it to create multiple market tiers. 4. Companies that dislike releasing code under the GPL, but dislike paying for or writing their own code even more.
So what exactly is your question? You seem to be asking why ANYBODY (err, any company) would want to release code under the GPL. The fact is that lots of companies do it all the time - so if you don't like what everybody else is telling you why don't you call up IBM or Trolltech and ask them? Obviously they like it for SOME reason. And of course quite a bit of the contributions are from individuals - who will release their code under GPL whether companies like it or not...
And I'm not a communist corporation-hater either. I happen to work for a rather large one. However, they pay me in gold and in return I do quality work for them. I'm not in the habit of just letting anybody who walks by exploit my work without any conditions at all...
Yes, but his point is that a dead battery should be like a flat tire - not something that requires an overnight stay in the first place. I'm not aware of any car model that requires an overnight operation any time there is a flat before it can be operated again. Most cars just require the swaping of a provided spare. Others use run-flat tires, which can generally be replaced fairly quickly at the owner's convenience.
First off, I was pretty careful to be clear that the answer I wanted would be about what benefit the license provides, rather than the problems it doesn't cause. I don't see you answering that. I just see you repeating what problems you've thought of which won't happen.
The benefit the GPL provides is that other people can use your source code AT ALL. If you didn't release the software under an open-source license than nobody could redistribute it AT ALL. So, the GPL clearly PROVIDES something.
What it doesn't provide is the ability to redistribute the code without releasing the corresponding source.
And, it can result in less headaches to the person who wrote the software in the first place, which is why many choose to use the GPL.
As for me - if somebody wants to use code that I've written they're going to pay me for it, or at least let me have my code in return. Just cause I'm not a commercial enterprise doesn't mean that I don't mind if somebody leaches off my work. And I think that is what most GPL contributers are thinking when they pick that license.
Why do you think that is? I'll give you a hint: my company only donates to free-as-in-free open source, and we donate tens of thousands of lines of code a month. We're not alone. Your GPL is costing you tremendously.
Uh, if you're doing that under the BSD then every one of those lines can be used in GPL'ed software.
You just can't use the future GPL'ed derivations in your software - just as you can't use the bazillion commercialized copies of your code.
I'm I'll for corporations. However, if one of those corporations wants to use MY code they're going to pay me for it - either by giving me some improved code back, or by giving me cash for a license. Therefore, if I write code I'm going to release it under the GPL.
If that means some corporation isn't going to use my code at all, well that's fine - that wasn't why I wrote it in the first place...:)
It's a semi-government organization. Have you worked in one of those? The directors basically spend their time calling, writing, meeting, lobbying, everything they have to do to get that funding in.
No, and I agree. However, I think that such behavior should be strongly punished to put a stop to it.
The NWS exists to serve the taxpayers. If it is in the interest of the taxpayers to have a fancy satellite then he should make an accurate and realistic case for it. The DoD should make accurate and realistic cases for more bombers. The dept of welfare should make an accurate and realistic case for giving out free cash. Then congress should weigh the options and propose appropriate funding.
That is what is in the interest of the taxpayers, which is who ALL of these people work for and represent.
Are there worse things to waste money on, sure. And I'd be the first in line to criticize those wastes as well.
It should be slightly over the top. He's a fucking salesman, and Congress damn well knows this.
If I hire somebody to work for me, I want them to tell me the facts, not be a salesperson for his little empire against the needs of the greater organization. If I'm the CEO of a fortune-500 company and I'm told that some manufacturing plant is about to have serious problems without a cash infusion and that would mean a halt in production of a key product, then I'm going to go ahead and lay off 1000 people in R&D to pay for a big plant upgrade. If I find out later that the plant manager just wanted nice offices for his staff his head will be put on a pike at the entrance to the corporate headquarters - his salesmanship just cost 1000 people their jobs and the company its future position. As CEO my job is to get good info to make good decisions - and that starts by firing people who give me bad info.
Satellites get older. Sensors decay due to cosmic rays damaging sensor pixels. Models use multiple inputs of data and when one satellite heavily degrades, that's a loss for science.
Sure, but so is funnelling money away from other projects to pay for a possibly-unneeded satellite. You know what is a huge loss for science? Every day American workers take home maybe 60% of their paychecks to use for whatever they please. That is a HUGE loss to science - if we just taxed that money and gave it to the NSF we'd be WAY ahead in the R&D game.
Society has many needs that must compete for a pool of resources. Government must work to best meet current needs and grow the pool so that future needs can be more easily met. Sometimes that means investing in the general economy (ie not taxing it) and not a particular person's pet project.
Just look at the name of the game - it is INTENDED to be its own reality.
What is next, arresting people for assault when they shoot NPC characters in video games? How about player characters?
How about when you get ambushed by an organized gang of thieves. Should you have recourse in the courts?
What societal end is gained by punishing these people? In real life it is obvious - preservation of life and the economy. What economy is there in virtual goods that has an impact on the real world other than entertainment value (which certainly is a real thing, but not something we should be locking people up over).
The NHS can purchase millions of shots in one go. That allows you to hammer the drug companies on price and share the proceeds with the population. In the American system, it is you against the drug company and you are needy; you are willing to pay anything to fix yourself. In short you're screwed.
Uh, as with any monospony or price-fixing scheme, this only works to a VERY limited degree. No matter what you do you get what you pay for. If you charge significantly above total cost so that there is a decent profit for your provider, then you have good supply as well as future improvements in capability. If you charge just above total cost (including opportunity cost) you will probably have good supply but probably not so much in the way of developments in capability. If you charge slightly less than total cost (including opportunity cost) your supply will begin to slowly shrink - existing capital (doctors, drug factories, etc) will continue to provide you with product, but they won't be renewed over time, and as capital disappears so does your supply. If you "hammer" the providers then you'll see supply dry up very quickly.
Unless you plan on walking into your local high school and compelling individuals to persue health-care-related careers under pain of punishment of some sort your healthcare system will only be as good as what you offer in salaries.
You picked drug companies in particular but the issue applies everywhere. Drug companies are just a common target because their marginal cost * units of production is far less than total cost. If you set a price limit of 25 cents on any pill your supply would remain intact, but nobody would invest in future R&D as it would be a net-loss. Sure, fewer people would die TODAY from lack of affordable medicine, but MORE people would die 20 years from now for the same reason - because the drugs they need wouldn't be purchasable at any price (not invented yet), where they would be invented if R&D were profitable.
Sure, there are other models of funding healthcare R&D (and drugs in particular) than the patent-funded model. However, if that is your goal you can accomplish it apart from nationalized health care - they're really two different issues (universality of care vs cost of care for those who can get it). Just have the NIH or whatever else fund full drug development and license the resulting patents free of charge. Now, this would include a lot more than the NIH traditionally does - they couldn't get a concept molecule and stop there - they would need to spend vast amounts of money actually doing the boring drudgery of developing it (or subcontract to existing drug companies while retaining the patent). The resulting drugs would be very cheap to buy. The public could then weigh the value of these drugs vs privately-developed drugs on the open market and the model could be tested. And none of this requires anything drastic like banning drug patents. If you did ban drug patents you'd have to come up with some sort of public R&D system anyway - so why not do that first? And you wouldn't even need to ban the patents - competition would reduce prices, and the expensive private drugs that don't have any competition are just an added bonus that you wouldn't have at all under the public system.
As long as there are people who work that are not eligible for health insurance, then the people who don't work are irrelevant. A health system shouldn't ignore large groups of people because they cannot pay for themselves.
Uh, you just contradicted yourself. There are people who don't work in the US - therefore the people who cannot pay for themselves are irrelevant.
Would you object to an employer-pays national health system that DOES NOT cover those who are not employed or recently unemployed or disabled? By your argument those are the people we should be helping first.
Just because one problem exists doesn't mean that we should ignore the fact that we're creating another problem by solving the one we have now. The question is a fair one.
It is clear in talking to them that healthcare in the U.S. is more highly regulated than in GB.
That is an interesting comment. Some might think that having government run the hospitals would mean that they would be well-regulated - because there is no profit motive to cut costs.
In reality it creates a huge conflict of interest - the body that regulates health care is the body that pays for health care. So, every corner cut is a dollar saved on YOUR OWN budget.
In the US the regulators don't save any money by allowing corners to be cut. The profit motive creates tremendous incentive for the providers and insurers to cut corners, but the government is a potential watchdog over both.
Not that the US system is perfect, but it is a good illustration of how there are more to such things than might be apparent.
The GPL isn't about leaching off of others code anyway. Three years ago khtml didn't benefit from webkit - they haven't really lost anything if next year they're back to the same situation...
No one outside the geek community knows or cares about these distinctions. People see the FSF doing something stupid and they associate it with open source as a whole.
And the FSF (and most of its developers) don't really care if anybody adopts linux, GNU, or any other open source software, at least not so much that they are willing to give up the intent of the GPL.
If I had written a chunk of khtml code and Apple stole it without compensating me I'd be pretty ticked - even if I did allow it to be freely used by others who share their code back with me. Maybe I'd like to buy an iphone and mod it - they modded my code and aren't willing for me to do the same? Legally Apple has no right to use ANYBODY'S code for anything without a license. Just because I allow SOME people to use my code freely for some purposes doesn't mean that ANYBODY can use it freely for anything they'd like to.
If Apple wants a fancy web browser and aren't willing to abide by the redistribution terms the copyright holders have stipulated then they should go write their own...:)
However, that's not to say such a system is flawless. A parallel, private system may draw personelle and resources away from the public system with higher salaries, more cutting edge facilities, etc, thus harming the public system. Of course, it's unclear if this truly happens in practice, but it is a risk.
Such a course of action is not only possible, but very likely given the tendency of legislative bodies to impose rules and not spend the cash needed to implement them. I'm not sure I'd necessarily consider it a flaw, however - it is just competition. If a public system wants to maintain resources it has to spend money on them competitively. Of course, in the long term public care loses out if it doesn't spend enough whether or not there is competition with private care, because there is always competition with the rest of the economy. It is just more obvious when all the doctors go to work at the private hospital.
You are correct that I did not understand that healthcare is under the purvue of the provinces. I was apparently correct that it was the intent of the Quebec government to ban private health care.
According to the article the state doesn't seem to like the ruling and is looking for ways to work around it.
In any case, we both seem to be in agreement that even a nation which has public healthcare should allow its citizens to arrange private care, and that would be my main point.
Actually, there is something to be said for increasing general quality of life. Crime dropped significantly when efforts were made to stop petty crimes like graffiti. When your neighborhood doesn't look like a sewer you're less likely to act like a rat. The same might apply to medical care. It isn't like the dregs of society are any dumber than the rest of us on average...
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To put it more simply for those who don't work in corporate land:
I need to schedule a meeting with 20 people, and book a conference room. Find me the first 1-hour slot when all 20 and any room is free. Now notify everybody about the meeting and tell me if they're going to come - and put everything on everybody's calendars for them.
No open source package does this to my knowledge. If anything did it as well as Outlook/Exchange it would take off very quickly. Outlook has just-about eliminated the administrative assistant for most ordinary workers...
Hmm - 24888 files in my .maildir - and IMAP works just fine.
I don't delete mail as a matter of principle (well except for email used only for large file transfer - I save files and delete emails). It only consumes 1GB, and that is all of about 50 cents these days (even with RAID5). Why would I spend my time to shave 20 cents off my infrastructure costs? And at the risk of accidentally tossing something important?
I'm pretty sure you can only deduct the cost of production in the USA - which isn't much for a pharmaceutical. The main motive (besides charity) is trying to avoid price controls. And if it works then I wouldn't knock it too much.
Many major pharma companies offer steep discounts to those without the means to pay. Some offer completely free access to drugs (even brand new ones).
Does that in itself fix the drug-access problem in the US - certainly not. But it isn't a bad gesture until the problem is actually fixed. And I think it is a bit nieve to think that you can make something cheaper just by dictating a cheaper price. Somebody has to pay for it or it won't get made - but that doesn't mean that the costs can't be covered in some other way...
Someone who is using an ICBM (or some other sort of long-range delivery system) is not going to be using GPS. They're going to be using a combination of radar, topographic map data/recognition systems, and inertial guidance (as to prevent navigation references to be screwed with during the cruise phase of the weapon in question).
Not to mention that if you can build ICBMs and nuclear warheads in sufficient quantity to actually make you unafraid of retaliation then the cost of adding a navigation package that doesn't use GPS is pretty-much small change. And the retaliation that does occur (conventional or otherwise) would make the cost of all of that gear a VERY small drop in the bucket. Nuclear war is INSANELY expensive - the best anybody can really do is try to sneak in a bomb and hope nobody figures out where it came from.
While the US is certainly interested in developing ASAT capabilities I doubt they're really intending to use them anytime soon - especially against EU nations.
However, there is a legitimate concern about sensitive technology like real-time imaging getting into the hands of somebody you're at war with. If in ANY war in history somebody came along and started selling intel to the highest bidder you can be sure they'd be treated as a military target.
The EU isn't going to let private industry sell anything of high military value to anybody - it would just lead to some kind of retaliation - probably in an underhanded way (aiding corporate espionage of competitors, maybe providing data to terrorists likely to strike the EU, etc). Not many nations have high-tech gadgets useful for advanced warfare - none of them are going to just give it away to 3rd-world nations. If the EU blusters about selling satellite images to Iran or something it is probably just a negotiating tactic to get a better rate on some kind of imports/exports - the US would just find a compromise of some kind and the appropriate powers will get their take. US/EU conflict is mainly a tool for getting votes and negotiating in trade. Nobody is going to actually start a shooting war...
Basically the GPS unit transmits what it thinks the time is, and where it is (this is somewhat simplified - I'm sure there is more to it in reality).
When you get signals from 3 satellites you look at the differences in times between them. There is only one point on the earth that has the precise time differences corresponding to the data available. Due to error there is some error in the calculated position, which decreases as you get more satellite data.
Now, the GPS transmits the time in the clear, and it also transmits it encrypted. Currently both streams transmit the same data, so military and civilian units are equally accurate.
However, in time of war intentional error can be introduced into the cleartext time data - making civilian GPS receivers inaccurate. The correct time will be transmitted encrypted, so military units can make use of the accurate time and get full precision.
All of this posturing between EU/US proponents is silly. Most likely both governments would agree to collaborate - a threat to either an EU member or the US would probably lead to both systems being degraded. Sure, the US probably has the capability to play hardball by threatening to shoot down or otherwise disable satellites if others don't go along, but more likely than not it wouldn't be necessary to make threats. The US isn't about to go shooting down the satellites of major trading partners anyway unless we're talking all-out nuclear war. And if nukes are flying all over the place I think the EU will be interested in shutting off Galileo since they're just as likely to be in the path of missiles as anybody.
Terrorism probably isn't on anybody's mind - GPS probably isn't all that useful to terrorists. It is more useful as a conventional military technology.
I think part of the program is that most professional programmers tend to think in terms of systems with 1" requirement specifications.
VB6 addresses a completely different niche. Suppose I have a task that I need to do, and by writing 30 lines of code I can get it done in an hour instead of a week. I might not every share my code with anybody. Maybe I'll give it to 5 others. It is a very powerful tool (and an easily misused one).
At work we are always running into VBA apps cobbled together by somebody in their spare time. The solution of many IT managers would be to ban VBA and try to fire anybody who writes something in it (other than a professionally-designed application). It will NEVER happen. No manager is going to come down hard on the guy in his group who saved the group 3 weeks of solid effort in 15 minutes of his spare time, without asking for a 100 page requirements spec.
There is a need to better manage and educate workers on the PROPER use for these kinds of tools, but the outright ban just won't work, and if it did it would put a company at a disadvantage.
The people who use VB are basically just scratching an itch. If somebody wants to come up with a better tool by all means do it (some might argue that a few of these tools already exist). But to expect that ALL software will one day be well-written is foolish - as it neglects problems that fall between just-do-it-by-hand and hire-fulltime-coder.
The issue of organizations apologizing for their roots is a complex one. Sure, it isn't a bad idea in terms of just being nice - especially if you don't agree with the position of your predecessors. However, you need to be careful about holding people today accountable for things that organizations they belonged to did 100 years ago. Should American's today apologize to the Indians for displacing their land? If so, which ones? Should an immigrant who got their citizenship last Tuesday apologize? Should one with a Green card? Sure, they weren't around back when the wrongs were done, but then again neither was anybody else on the planet.
I'm sure lots of present-day organizations have negative pasts - but you need to hold people accountable for the things THEY did - not their forefathers. Now, if an organization still has something objectionable in its charter, that is a different issue - we do have a duty to clean up when we're given something nasty when it only requires a vote of the board...
I'm sorry if you don't see it. I'm sorry most people don't see it. But, y'know what? There's nothing I can do about it. I ask clear, carefully structured questions, and the GPL people just ignore the parts they don't want to hear.
:)
Uh, you might start by dropping the if-only-the-entire-world-could-see-things-as-clear ly-as-me attitude you might get a little further...
Look, I'm really trying to keep this non-personal and simply address your points, and I apologize if in any way I presented an attitude. If you feel like GPL proponents are idiots I can understand your frustration even if I don't agree. Let's just try to keep it civil?
Furthermore, that kind of makes my point in another direction: BSD code can be used in GPL code, but not vice versa. That's an asinine limitation.
Well, that would be a limitation in the BSD. If you wanted people to have to give their code back to you then you shouldn't let them freely relicense it. By releasing under the BSD you are giving permission for others to do ANYTHING with your code. Well, ANYTHING includes relicensing it so that a competing project can lock up future code revisions under a different license. Which of course is half the reason the GPL exists in the first place...
And I do agree that often borrowing code from other projects is not practical, and yet it does happen - which is why so much of linux originated in BSD projects.
Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say. You see any corporations knocking on your door? That's a fantasy based on delusions of grandeur. Companies don't want to use your code badly enough to pay you. If you made it BSD, they might use it. When they used it, they might extend it (they might not; it might be usable as is.) If they extended it, they'd usually give you the extensions back, because even though you're weird and paranoid about other people, most of us aren't, and when someone does us a favor, we return the favor.
Hey, I'd be the first to agree that most of my software contributions aren't worth any corporation's time. However, they do add up when you get thousands of volunteers. There are a number of GPL projects that are very popular - most of the GNU toolchain/utils and linux among them. Individual contributors get any redistributed code changes back.
Sure, it could happen under BSD as well. However, the fact is that linux has gotten a lot more traction - why do you suppose that is? Perhaps the license is a contributing factor.
Of course, none of what you said actually follows from the GPL at all. Y'see, the GPL doesn't protect you from the situation you describe in any way. All the GPL requires for a company to use your code is for that company to redistribute your code. Period. That's it. They can use it without paying you a red cent and without giving you a single line of code.
Uh, what I meant was that if they use my code they would pay either in cash or in giving back any improvements they made. If they just use it as-is then obviously they don't owe me a cent, and I'm generally fine with that. If I weren't I wouldn't use the GPL.
In the meantime, you're sealing off that gap between useful enough to pay for and not worth having.
Yes, but that isn't really a problem for me. And I do acknowledge that the gap exists. However, most strong GPL proponents disagree to some degree with the whole concept of non-free commercial software. The GPL is a tool for social change and it does accomplish exactly what it sets out to do by creating an ever-growing software commons. So, to say that in doing so some people who would like to publish non-free versions of your code won't be able to do so kind of misses the point. The whole goal of the GPL is to make life hard on people who publish non-free software, by making them compete with free software that they both cannot adopt and which is free of cost. It essentially forces the issue, and it raises the bar for what peopl
I believe I've been quite repeatedly clear that I am interested only in the motivations of companies, which in context are all that are germane. I'm quite aware of why individuals do it;
Ok, let's assume that NO COMPANY would EVER want to release code under the GPL (ideally). What exactly is your point? Individuals will still release code under the GPL, and so there will be GPL code out in the world. Companies will still consider using GPL code - even if they wouldn't ideally choose to do so. The reason is simple - money. The GPL code is free to use as long as you comply with the license (which I agree is a sort of cost). They could instead license code obtained elsewhere, assuming it is available.
So, you have a number of groups using the GPL:
1. Individuals with a FSF mindset (to varying degrees).
2. Individuals who just want to contribute to a GPL project and who don't care about license.
3. Companies that have a business goal in using the GPL. You singled out Linux ISR/ISVs, but non-linux companies like Trolltech and MySQL have found value in it to create multiple market tiers.
4. Companies that dislike releasing code under the GPL, but dislike paying for or writing their own code even more.
So what exactly is your question? You seem to be asking why ANYBODY (err, any company) would want to release code under the GPL. The fact is that lots of companies do it all the time - so if you don't like what everybody else is telling you why don't you call up IBM or Trolltech and ask them? Obviously they like it for SOME reason. And of course quite a bit of the contributions are from individuals - who will release their code under GPL whether companies like it or not...
And I'm not a communist corporation-hater either. I happen to work for a rather large one. However, they pay me in gold and in return I do quality work for them. I'm not in the habit of just letting anybody who walks by exploit my work without any conditions at all...
Yes, but his point is that a dead battery should be like a flat tire - not something that requires an overnight stay in the first place. I'm not aware of any car model that requires an overnight operation any time there is a flat before it can be operated again. Most cars just require the swaping of a provided spare. Others use run-flat tires, which can generally be replaced fairly quickly at the owner's convenience.
First off, I was pretty careful to be clear that the answer I wanted would be about what benefit the license provides, rather than the problems it doesn't cause. I don't see you answering that. I just see you repeating what problems you've thought of which won't happen.
The benefit the GPL provides is that other people can use your source code AT ALL. If you didn't release the software under an open-source license than nobody could redistribute it AT ALL. So, the GPL clearly PROVIDES something.
What it doesn't provide is the ability to redistribute the code without releasing the corresponding source.
And, it can result in less headaches to the person who wrote the software in the first place, which is why many choose to use the GPL.
As for me - if somebody wants to use code that I've written they're going to pay me for it, or at least let me have my code in return. Just cause I'm not a commercial enterprise doesn't mean that I don't mind if somebody leaches off my work. And I think that is what most GPL contributers are thinking when they pick that license.
Why do you think that is? I'll give you a hint: my company only donates to free-as-in-free open source, and we donate tens of thousands of lines of code a month. We're not alone. Your GPL is costing you tremendously.
:)
Uh, if you're doing that under the BSD then every one of those lines can be used in GPL'ed software.
You just can't use the future GPL'ed derivations in your software - just as you can't use the bazillion commercialized copies of your code.
I'm I'll for corporations. However, if one of those corporations wants to use MY code they're going to pay me for it - either by giving me some improved code back, or by giving me cash for a license. Therefore, if I write code I'm going to release it under the GPL.
If that means some corporation isn't going to use my code at all, well that's fine - that wasn't why I wrote it in the first place...
It's a semi-government organization. Have you worked in one of those? The directors basically spend their time calling, writing, meeting, lobbying, everything they have to do to get that funding in.
No, and I agree. However, I think that such behavior should be strongly punished to put a stop to it.
The NWS exists to serve the taxpayers. If it is in the interest of the taxpayers to have a fancy satellite then he should make an accurate and realistic case for it. The DoD should make accurate and realistic cases for more bombers. The dept of welfare should make an accurate and realistic case for giving out free cash. Then congress should weigh the options and propose appropriate funding.
That is what is in the interest of the taxpayers, which is who ALL of these people work for and represent.
Are there worse things to waste money on, sure. And I'd be the first in line to criticize those wastes as well.
It should be slightly over the top. He's a fucking salesman, and Congress damn well knows this.
If I hire somebody to work for me, I want them to tell me the facts, not be a salesperson for his little empire against the needs of the greater organization. If I'm the CEO of a fortune-500 company and I'm told that some manufacturing plant is about to have serious problems without a cash infusion and that would mean a halt in production of a key product, then I'm going to go ahead and lay off 1000 people in R&D to pay for a big plant upgrade. If I find out later that the plant manager just wanted nice offices for his staff his head will be put on a pike at the entrance to the corporate headquarters - his salesmanship just cost 1000 people their jobs and the company its future position. As CEO my job is to get good info to make good decisions - and that starts by firing people who give me bad info.
Satellites get older. Sensors decay due to cosmic rays damaging sensor pixels. Models use multiple inputs of data and when one satellite heavily degrades, that's a loss for science.
Sure, but so is funnelling money away from other projects to pay for a possibly-unneeded satellite. You know what is a huge loss for science? Every day American workers take home maybe 60% of their paychecks to use for whatever they please. That is a HUGE loss to science - if we just taxed that money and gave it to the NSF we'd be WAY ahead in the R&D game.
Society has many needs that must compete for a pool of resources. Government must work to best meet current needs and grow the pool so that future needs can be more easily met. Sometimes that means investing in the general economy (ie not taxing it) and not a particular person's pet project.
Just look at the name of the game - it is INTENDED to be its own reality.
What is next, arresting people for assault when they shoot NPC characters in video games? How about player characters?
How about when you get ambushed by an organized gang of thieves. Should you have recourse in the courts?
What societal end is gained by punishing these people? In real life it is obvious - preservation of life and the economy. What economy is there in virtual goods that has an impact on the real world other than entertainment value (which certainly is a real thing, but not something we should be locking people up over).
The NHS can purchase millions of shots in one go. That allows you to hammer the drug companies on price and share the proceeds with the population. In the American system, it is you against the drug company and you are needy; you are willing to pay anything to fix yourself. In short you're screwed.
Uh, as with any monospony or price-fixing scheme, this only works to a VERY limited degree. No matter what you do you get what you pay for. If you charge significantly above total cost so that there is a decent profit for your provider, then you have good supply as well as future improvements in capability. If you charge just above total cost (including opportunity cost) you will probably have good supply but probably not so much in the way of developments in capability. If you charge slightly less than total cost (including opportunity cost) your supply will begin to slowly shrink - existing capital (doctors, drug factories, etc) will continue to provide you with product, but they won't be renewed over time, and as capital disappears so does your supply. If you "hammer" the providers then you'll see supply dry up very quickly.
Unless you plan on walking into your local high school and compelling individuals to persue health-care-related careers under pain of punishment of some sort your healthcare system will only be as good as what you offer in salaries.
You picked drug companies in particular but the issue applies everywhere. Drug companies are just a common target because their marginal cost * units of production is far less than total cost. If you set a price limit of 25 cents on any pill your supply would remain intact, but nobody would invest in future R&D as it would be a net-loss. Sure, fewer people would die TODAY from lack of affordable medicine, but MORE people would die 20 years from now for the same reason - because the drugs they need wouldn't be purchasable at any price (not invented yet), where they would be invented if R&D were profitable.
Sure, there are other models of funding healthcare R&D (and drugs in particular) than the patent-funded model. However, if that is your goal you can accomplish it apart from nationalized health care - they're really two different issues (universality of care vs cost of care for those who can get it). Just have the NIH or whatever else fund full drug development and license the resulting patents free of charge. Now, this would include a lot more than the NIH traditionally does - they couldn't get a concept molecule and stop there - they would need to spend vast amounts of money actually doing the boring drudgery of developing it (or subcontract to existing drug companies while retaining the patent). The resulting drugs would be very cheap to buy. The public could then weigh the value of these drugs vs privately-developed drugs on the open market and the model could be tested. And none of this requires anything drastic like banning drug patents. If you did ban drug patents you'd have to come up with some sort of public R&D system anyway - so why not do that first? And you wouldn't even need to ban the patents - competition would reduce prices, and the expensive private drugs that don't have any competition are just an added bonus that you wouldn't have at all under the public system.
As long as there are people who work that are not eligible for health insurance, then the people who don't work are irrelevant. A health system shouldn't ignore large groups of people because they cannot pay for themselves.
Uh, you just contradicted yourself. There are people who don't work in the US - therefore the people who cannot pay for themselves are irrelevant.
Would you object to an employer-pays national health system that DOES NOT cover those who are not employed or recently unemployed or disabled? By your argument those are the people we should be helping first.
Just because one problem exists doesn't mean that we should ignore the fact that we're creating another problem by solving the one we have now. The question is a fair one.
It is clear in talking to them that healthcare in the U.S. is more highly regulated than in GB.
That is an interesting comment. Some might think that having government run the hospitals would mean that they would be well-regulated - because there is no profit motive to cut costs.
In reality it creates a huge conflict of interest - the body that regulates health care is the body that pays for health care. So, every corner cut is a dollar saved on YOUR OWN budget.
In the US the regulators don't save any money by allowing corners to be cut. The profit motive creates tremendous incentive for the providers and insurers to cut corners, but the government is a potential watchdog over both.
Not that the US system is perfect, but it is a good illustration of how there are more to such things than might be apparent.
The GPL isn't about leaching off of others code anyway. Three years ago khtml didn't benefit from webkit - they haven't really lost anything if next year they're back to the same situation...
No one outside the geek community knows or cares about these distinctions. People see the FSF doing something stupid and they associate it with open source as a whole.
:)
And the FSF (and most of its developers) don't really care if anybody adopts linux, GNU, or any other open source software, at least not so much that they are willing to give up the intent of the GPL.
If I had written a chunk of khtml code and Apple stole it without compensating me I'd be pretty ticked - even if I did allow it to be freely used by others who share their code back with me. Maybe I'd like to buy an iphone and mod it - they modded my code and aren't willing for me to do the same? Legally Apple has no right to use ANYBODY'S code for anything without a license. Just because I allow SOME people to use my code freely for some purposes doesn't mean that ANYBODY can use it freely for anything they'd like to.
If Apple wants a fancy web browser and aren't willing to abide by the redistribution terms the copyright holders have stipulated then they should go write their own...
However, that's not to say such a system is flawless. A parallel, private system may draw personelle and resources away from the public system with higher salaries, more cutting edge facilities, etc, thus harming the public system. Of course, it's unclear if this truly happens in practice, but it is a risk.
Such a course of action is not only possible, but very likely given the tendency of legislative bodies to impose rules and not spend the cash needed to implement them. I'm not sure I'd necessarily consider it a flaw, however - it is just competition. If a public system wants to maintain resources it has to spend money on them competitively. Of course, in the long term public care loses out if it doesn't spend enough whether or not there is competition with private care, because there is always competition with the rest of the economy. It is just more obvious when all the doctors go to work at the private hospital.
You are correct that I did not understand that healthcare is under the purvue of the provinces. I was apparently correct that it was the intent of the Quebec government to ban private health care.
According to the article the state doesn't seem to like the ruling and is looking for ways to work around it.
In any case, we both seem to be in agreement that even a nation which has public healthcare should allow its citizens to arrange private care, and that would be my main point.
Then what was this court case about?
Actually, there is something to be said for increasing general quality of life. Crime dropped significantly when efforts were made to stop petty crimes like graffiti. When your neighborhood doesn't look like a sewer you're less likely to act like a rat. The same might apply to medical care. It isn't like the dregs of society are any dumber than the rest of us on average...