That's more handwaving. You're defining function so that your argument works, and you really have no basis upon which to do that. In my example, the function of the kiosk is to print dog tags; it just so happens that the user interface is based on Firefox. How can you say that it can fulfill its purpose without Firefox?
That's an awfully handwavy explanation. If you take GCC out of the IDE, you can't develop programs. The purpose of the IDE isn't fulfilled.
What if I write a proprietary CUPS filter? What if I create a special kiosh that relies on a Firefox plugin for some special task, say, engraving pet nametags? Without the plugin, the kiosk wouldn't serve its purpose. Does that make the system as a whole a derivative work of Firefox?
Bullshit. Say I wrote an IDE that integrates with gcc, and gcc only, that generates command line options for gcc and parses its output, that front end is not a derivative work of gcc. It incorporates no code, only an interface.
You can claim that any program that interacts with any other program (and contains code specifically for that program) is a derivative work of that program, and I don't believe we live in a world like that.
Otherwise every plugin, every extension, every tuning tool and every backup program would be a derivative work of every other one.
I don't like that part of the GPLv3 either, but you should understand the other side of the argument: it makes it possible to create a certified device using GPLv3 software. Imagine a voting machine using GPLv3d software, for example.
Running a GPLv3d executable under a modified BSD kernel that prevented that GPLv3ed program from violating its constraints would be the moral equivalent of what this company is suggesting, but without all the virtual machine crap. I'll let other posters deal with that issue (though I suspect that what they're doing doesn't really violate the letter or spirit of the GPL.)
What I'm complaining about is the buzz about virtualization. What is the point? How many levels of abstraction do we need before we realize enough is enough, and that we can do nearly everything we need with what we've had forever?
The goal of the GPL is to keep software free; the goal of BSD-style licenses is to ensure that high-quality software is used as widely as possible. They're conflicting goals, to an extent, though there's a big overlap.
The GPLv3's anti-tivoization clause is true to the GPL's goal. When putting software under the GPL license, one accepts that it might not get as much use as BSD-licensed (or, as an intermediate, GPLv2-licensed) software, and that's the price for the code itself remaining free.
A lot of people say that we shouldn't expect life to look like the life we know. While I'm not a biologist, I think that we CAN expect life, at least on a biochemical level, to be similar to the life we know.
Life can come about only by evolution; evolution something to start with -- an entity that can reproduce itself (with some slight imperfection to provide room for mutations). Generally, that's going to be a primitive molecule. These molecules have to be able to attract raw materials with which to replicate themselves: in the beginning, they won't be able to fix compounds from the atmosphere or extract them from the bedrock.
First, the simplest way to make these raw materials available is to dissolve them in a solution of some sort. Water is one of the plentiful and versatile solvents in the universe, and is a liquid in the temperature range that's high enough to allow reactions to happen at a decent speed, but low enough not to tear the resulting molecules apart.
Second, you have to give natural selection a way to increase the complexity of these self-replicating molecules if you want to see complex life. Carbon* is the only realistic candidate atom for forming arbitrarily complex molecules -- even if you do get some strange self-replicating Bromine-Iron compound, without being able to form more complex molecules (to give the complex ones an advantage over the other ones), natural selection will have a hard time increasing the complexity of life.
Again, IANAB, but all over evolution history, we see convergent evolution, where two unrelated organisms will independently evolve similar mechanisms to solve similar problems. I don't see why that same principle wouldn't apply to biochemistry as well.
I don't want to discount the possibility we'll see radically different biochemistries -- I'd be excited -- but I think we're going to find that alien life is about as different from our own as our phyla are from each other.
* Silicon can also form complex bonds, but it's not quite versatile in doing so as carbon.
Ooh. That sounds interesting -- I'll have to add it to the (nigh-infinite) list of books I should read.
Along the same lines, though, is Dawkin's Unweaving the Rainbow, which touches many of the same themes. There's an entire chapter dedicated to how probability and coincidence often convey the impression of preternatural effects.
Disclaimer: I'm not trolling; I'm genuinely curious.
How is it that you can be both a geek and a believer in a god, especially an omnipotent and omniscient one?
In saying you're a geek, I assume you're a pretty intelligent fellow who uses reason to form his view of the universe. I assume you don't follow crowds, that you evaluate products you buy on their merits, and that, at least sometime in your life, you've reasoned out who would win in a battle between two fantasy characters.
How is it, then, that you make a special exemption for your god? How do you reconcile the inherent illogic of religion with the rest of your life?
And how would you go about disproving the existence of ESP? Studies have been done (I don't have references handy, but I could go find some if needed), and have failed to find evidence of ESP. These studies have been repeated. How many would you need to be convinced that ESP does not exist? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?
ESP is about as likely as creationism, and the people believing in it are using the same thought processes as the made-in-seven-days crowd. Science can disprove nothing. What it can do is collect evidence and give us likelyhoods. With no reliable evidence supporting it, ESP is as likely as the tooth fairy. You can't believe something simply because you'd prefer it to be true.
I have human rights; the constitution recognizes many (but not all) of them. The constitution applies in US territory, and the airport is US territory. Therefore, my constitutional rights apply.
The underlying problem underlying the problems we're having with social security numbers is the confusion between identification and authentication.
A SSN is an identification number. In principle, there's no harm in everyone knowing that Bob Smith from Wichita is person 072-33-1234. The harm comes from being able to obtain credit, medical records, and so on just by saying "I'm Bob Smith, also known as 072-33-1234."
We need some kind of authentication mechanism to ensure that anyone claiming to be Bob Smith really/is/ Bob Smith. A password would be a logical answer. Since anyone needing identification only can just use the SSN, there's no reason for anyone to store the password.
Evolution can act on any self-replicating structure, not just "life" as we know it. The origin of life surely had something to do with very simple molecules that were able to coerce molecules like themselves to form, and those simple molecules could have originated via random chemical processes. Indeed, life formed soon after the earth had any liquid water at all.
The problem with anarchy is that in the real world, it inevitably leads to a formation of power systems. Historically, these systems have been rather nasty, at least for the first few generations. Look what happened in Somalia. Besides: we started with anarchy, didn't we?
All things being equal, I'd rather live with (and try to improve) a relatively benign government than destroy it, and let the next brutal strongman take control. It's not worship: it's pragmatism.
Yes, I know what you mean. We selected MySQL for our most recent project, even though PostgreSQL is better. Why? Our one beefy database server already ran MySQL. Putting two database engines on that server would be... inefficient.
Might be worth it anyway, though, if things continue going the way they're going.
It's better than that, at least for posix. rename(2) is atomic and overwrites an existing file, so there's really no window between deleting the old file and replacing it with the new one.
Slashdot Mirror
That's more handwaving. You're defining function so that your argument works, and you really have no basis upon which to do that. In my example, the function of the kiosk is to print dog tags; it just so happens that the user interface is based on Firefox. How can you say that it can fulfill its purpose without Firefox?
That's an awfully handwavy explanation. If you take GCC out of the IDE, you can't develop programs. The purpose of the IDE isn't fulfilled.
What if I write a proprietary CUPS filter? What if I create a special kiosh that relies on a Firefox plugin for some special task, say, engraving pet nametags? Without the plugin, the kiosk wouldn't serve its purpose. Does that make the system as a whole a derivative work of Firefox?
Bullshit. Say I wrote an IDE that integrates with gcc, and gcc only, that generates command line options for gcc and parses its output, that front end is not a derivative work of gcc. It incorporates no code, only an interface.
You can claim that any program that interacts with any other program (and contains code specifically for that program) is a derivative work of that program, and I don't believe we live in a world like that.
Otherwise every plugin, every extension, every tuning tool and every backup program would be a derivative work of every other one.
The GPL is telling you, the user, what you can do with my software. DRM is telling you, the user, what you can do with your own data.
You can't do that. Where would you draw the line?
"This software cannot run on the same CPU as software that implements DRM"
The DRMer will just use a separate coprocessor.
"This software cannot be distributed with software that implements DRM"
Oops. You can't distribute a Windows machine with a GPLed program on it.
"This software cannot communicate with software that implements DRM"
It can't connect to the internet?
You're asking for the legal equivalent of an evil bit.
I don't like that part of the GPLv3 either, but you should understand the other side of the argument: it makes it possible to create a certified device using GPLv3 software. Imagine a voting machine using GPLv3d software, for example.
What are you talking about? If you don't like the GPLv3's restrictions, use the GPLv2 for your code. Or the BSD license.
I happen to think that the GPLv3 is appropriate for many projects, but it's ultimately up to the creator to choose the license, not you.
Running a GPLv3d executable under a modified BSD kernel that prevented that GPLv3ed program from violating its constraints would be the moral equivalent of what this company is suggesting, but without all the virtual machine crap. I'll let other posters deal with that issue (though I suspect that what they're doing doesn't really violate the letter or spirit of the GPL.)
What I'm complaining about is the buzz about virtualization. What is the point? How many levels of abstraction do we need before we realize enough is enough, and that we can do nearly everything we need with what we've had forever?
The goal of the GPL is to keep software free; the goal of BSD-style licenses is to ensure that high-quality software is used as widely as possible. They're conflicting goals, to an extent, though there's a big overlap.
The GPLv3's anti-tivoization clause is true to the GPL's goal. When putting software under the GPL license, one accepts that it might not get as much use as BSD-licensed (or, as an intermediate, GPLv2-licensed) software, and that's the price for the code itself remaining free.
Huh?
A lot of people say that we shouldn't expect life to look like the life we know. While I'm not a biologist, I think that we CAN expect life, at least on a biochemical level, to be similar to the life we know.
Life can come about only by evolution; evolution something to start with -- an entity that can reproduce itself (with some slight imperfection to provide room for mutations). Generally, that's going to be a primitive molecule. These molecules have to be able to attract raw materials with which to replicate themselves: in the beginning, they won't be able to fix compounds from the atmosphere or extract them from the bedrock.
First, the simplest way to make these raw materials available is to dissolve them in a solution of some sort. Water is one of the plentiful and versatile solvents in the universe, and is a liquid in the temperature range that's high enough to allow reactions to happen at a decent speed, but low enough not to tear the resulting molecules apart.
Second, you have to give natural selection a way to increase the complexity of these self-replicating molecules if you want to see complex life. Carbon* is the only realistic candidate atom for forming arbitrarily complex molecules -- even if you do get some strange self-replicating Bromine-Iron compound, without being able to form more complex molecules (to give the complex ones an advantage over the other ones), natural selection will have a hard time increasing the complexity of life.
Again, IANAB, but all over evolution history, we see convergent evolution, where two unrelated organisms will independently evolve similar mechanisms to solve similar problems. I don't see why that same principle wouldn't apply to biochemistry as well.
I don't want to discount the possibility we'll see radically different biochemistries -- I'd be excited -- but I think we're going to find that alien life is about as different from our own as our phyla are from each other.
* Silicon can also form complex bonds, but it's not quite versatile in doing so as carbon.
Ooh. That sounds interesting -- I'll have to add it to the (nigh-infinite) list of books I should read.
Along the same lines, though, is Dawkin's Unweaving the Rainbow , which touches many of the same themes. There's an entire chapter dedicated to how probability and coincidence often convey the impression of preternatural effects.
Disclaimer: I'm not trolling; I'm genuinely curious.
How is it that you can be both a geek and a believer in a god, especially an omnipotent and omniscient one?
In saying you're a geek, I assume you're a pretty intelligent fellow who uses reason to form his view of the universe. I assume you don't follow crowds, that you evaluate products you buy on their merits, and that, at least sometime in your life, you've reasoned out who would win in a battle between two fantasy characters.
How is it, then, that you make a special exemption for your god? How do you reconcile the inherent illogic of religion with the rest of your life?
And how would you go about disproving the existence of ESP? Studies have been done (I don't have references handy, but I could go find some if needed), and have failed to find evidence of ESP. These studies have been repeated. How many would you need to be convinced that ESP does not exist? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?
ESP is about as likely as creationism, and the people believing in it are using the same thought processes as the made-in-seven-days crowd. Science can disprove nothing. What it can do is collect evidence and give us likelyhoods. With no reliable evidence supporting it, ESP is as likely as the tooth fairy. You can't believe something simply because you'd prefer it to be true.
I have human rights; the constitution recognizes many (but not all) of them. The constitution applies in US territory, and the airport is US territory. Therefore, my constitutional rights apply.
The underlying problem underlying the problems we're having with social security numbers is the confusion between identification and authentication.
/is/ Bob Smith. A password would be a logical answer. Since anyone needing identification only can just use the SSN, there's no reason for anyone to store the password.
A SSN is an identification number. In principle, there's no harm in everyone knowing that Bob Smith from Wichita is person 072-33-1234. The harm comes from being able to obtain credit, medical records, and so on just by saying "I'm Bob Smith, also known as 072-33-1234."
We need some kind of authentication mechanism to ensure that anyone claiming to be Bob Smith really
Identity theft becomes a little harder.
err, strlcpy.
#define strlcpy(dst, src, size) snprintf((size), (dst), "%s", (src))
#define strlcat(dst, src, size) snprintf((size) - strlen(dst), (dst) + strlen(dst), "%s", (src))
If you really want to silently truncate data, go ahead:
:-)
#define strlcat(dst, src, size) snprintf(size, dest, "%s", src)
Aren't you usually better off dynamically allocating these things anyway? asprintf works well. Python works better yet.
Isn't "repress" a better verb than "erase" here?
Evolution can act on any self-replicating structure, not just "life" as we know it. The origin of life surely had something to do with very simple molecules that were able to coerce molecules like themselves to form, and those simple molecules could have originated via random chemical processes. Indeed, life formed soon after the earth had any liquid water at all.
The problem with anarchy is that in the real world, it inevitably leads to a formation of power systems. Historically, these systems have been rather nasty, at least for the first few generations. Look what happened in Somalia. Besides: we started with anarchy, didn't we?
All things being equal, I'd rather live with (and try to improve) a relatively benign government than destroy it, and let the next brutal strongman take control. It's not worship: it's pragmatism.
Yes, I know what you mean. We selected MySQL for our most recent project, even though PostgreSQL is better. Why? Our one beefy database server already ran MySQL. Putting two database engines on that server would be... inefficient.
Might be worth it anyway, though, if things continue going the way they're going.
Eeek. We just upgraded to 5.0.45. What's a good, stable version?
It's better than that, at least for posix. rename(2) is atomic and overwrites an existing file, so there's really no window between deleting the old file and replacing it with the new one.
At least juries, drawn from random people, aren't as vulnerable to the kind of systemic corruption a small group of patent judges would be.