It's really not about who's richer. By that logic, if we just gave up all our wealth brought to us by democracy and "evil" capitalism, we could be just as destitute and hungry as them. I have to point out the similarity I see to survivors' guilt in what you are implying.
The only solution I ever hear put forth for addressing economic inequality is to reduce all of us to a common baseline through taxation, regulation, and sending our wealth elsewhere. Maybe what we really need to focus on is sharing our ideals rather than striving to share their pain. Some of the thoughts mentioned previously in this thread on colonialism were very thought-provoking.
It is interesting, that if the US is only 3 times more wealthy, how much more mileage we are getting out of our money here--and how much more equitable our system of government must be. I know I am more than 3 times better fed than the starving Africans portrayed on TV. And I have a TV to watch them on, in a waterproof house with climate control. I am not saying that to be insensitive, just that it does give some credibility to the idea of exporting American ideals. Call it imperialism if you must.
Kelvin is the only system that *actually* makes sense if you want to say things like "it's twice as hot" or "10% warmer." When I hear someone say 64F is twice as hot as 32F, I just shake my head.
I appreciate the sentiment. I do agree with your overall assertion that the IP system is horked, all varities included. I have some ideas that are patentable under the current system. I have to choose between executing them without a patent and getting sued by someone else later or patenting and detailing the secret as a starting point for a company with deeper pockets to squash me with slight tweaks to my design. My limited understanding of the recent patent "reform" is that prior art will be replaced by a first-to-file system.
I apologize. None of the other replies were visible to me at the time. Am I the only one just noticing this weird filtered-threaded view? I'm not a fan.
Point 1 - right
Point 2 - right
Point 3 - wrong, wrong, wrong
Why do you think people get so up in arms over Supreme Court openings and nominations? They do indeed have the last call on interpreting and applying the Constitution and, in fact, all American law. The Congress tries to override their decisions from time to time, but if the decision is based on Constitutional law rather than merely common law or precedent, the Supreme Court wins. It is serious stuff, so when you vote for President you should be voting for the person you want to have in charge of nominating these justices rather than the lesser of two evils or the guy who helps you assuage your guilty feelings (I won't go further down that particular thought path further, because that would definitely open up the controversy).
I wish you all the best and offer my most heartfelt appreciation for all you have done. Slashdot has been a part of my daily life as long as I can remember. If I had just signed up instead of lurking, maybe I could have had a lower UID to go with my obsession. Any time I am sitting on the couch with my laptop and half-listening to my wife she asks "are you working or Slashdotting?"
I've heard various explanations of the recent earthquakes, but I am starting to suspect it is the universe trying to adjust to all the tech leaders resigning this week!
Don't worry. I was once quite good at writing textbook penmanship, but I dumped it anyway. I think the readability argument for cursive is terrible. It seems everyone I know just adopted whatever they liked of cursive. If they thought an upper-case S or Q looked funny or it was too much work to make a well-formed lower-case r, they just scribbled some alternate rendition. Take everyone's individual quirks and you basically get something unreadable. I read something previous in the thread about 60 to 80-somethings, and I can tell you there is nothing readable about my grandparents' letters. It is quite taxing to read them.
I'm just now joining the thread. I would say force is too strong a word as it brings to mind lawsuits and court orders. However, for commercial projects that I work on that use open source software (non-GPL), I would certainly not go out of my way to list all the software I was using without being compelled to by a license. The simple reason is that there is creativity in aggregating software just as there is in writing code. If a competitor had in their hands a complete list of technologies used to implement an enterprise product, it would certainly not be equivalent to having access to our source code, but it could certainly provide insight into how some of our sexiest features were composed. On the surface, the competition argument in this case doesn't seem that compelling because it's a governement site, but in reality the government contractors are competing in the marketplace like any other software consulting company.
Of course I could start another thread here about how people who use open source should open source their software. I think the reality of that is that most businesses are not open to this. Although none of the applications that I have worked on professionally are open source, I have contributed several patches and bug fixes to help improve the underlying libraries the software depends on. I still sleep fine at night.
>There are only maybe 2 million evangenical christians total in the US, yet they seem like a much bigger group because Bush is their mouthpiece and has been running our country for them, and not in a legal way.
I have yet to meet a single evangenical Christian, but the evangelicals I know aren't even happy with how President Bush does things. And, although the Census bureau reports like 0.5% of all Christians in the U.S. reported themselves as evangelicals, it is not so much an affiliation as a state of mind. I think the number of people who would like the United States to be a right-wing quasi-theocracy is very large. They thought Bush was the man for the job, but have since changed their minds.
I consider myself quite conservative, which of course means I don't like how President Bush is doing either. I myself value the Constitution a great deal.
People come to Slashdot looking for advice. There are a lot of impressionable teenagers here who are tired of high school and just want to move on to something new and exciting (I know, I used to be one of them). When you make it sound like you're pleased making 60k 13 years after dropping out of college, they are going to think, "wow, that's a lot of money." To a kid, $60,000 would be an amazing treasure to behold, a holy grail of sorts. The fact is, 1 year after college, I am making more than that. Money is not everything by any means, but a college degree greatly increases the chances of obtaining financial security. My intent is not in any way to diminish your accomplishments. I just want the juniors and seniors in high school who are naturally attracted to this type of thread to have a balanced perspective. If you take two people with the same amount of natural skill and intelligence and have one get a degree and one not, you are probably going to see the one who gets a degree come out ahead financially.
Dude. You have an ugly website with links to NUDIST organizations, and you can't figure out why you're unemployed??
Sometimes it seems like Slashdot is a portal to an alternate reality...
Well said. It seems like part of the problem is people thinking $60,000 is some sort of holy grail when those with a degree can quickly hit 6 figures... You'd have to rack up a lot of student loan debt to make skipping college/skipping a technical degree worth that.
I know what you are saying is true where you're at, but I feel very sorry for you! I live in the Kansas City area, and I went from renting a horrible 1 bedroom apartment at $700 (with horrible utility costs because the thing wasn't insulated and you could pretty much feel every gust of wind through the walls) to a mortgage on a beautiful 3 bedroom 2 bath home for $1250 a month (including insurance and property taxes). I live in a very quiet and safe neighborhood also.
The coasts are suffering from extremely high population densities and years of investors driving up prices. Much of the middle of the nation can still benefit from home ownership. Even 1 year out of college, my house is quite affordable. The years before I purchased it, it was appreciating in the 6-7% range consistently.
I disagree. If GPL v. 3 is based on this concept, the free software movement will closely resemble communism, or at least communism as it is actually practiced. All licensees are equal, but some are more equal than others. Ring any bells?
If you are working for a small to medium-sized family business and are actually getting paid every payday, consider yourself lucky. Some of us have much worse to deal with than the boss being an idiot.
The GPL is all about GIVING people rights. There is only one right you don't get with the GPL--redistributing binaries without source. That's it. Under the GPL, people have the right to use the software for any reason--even because it doesn't cost them anything financially. Yes, GPL'd software can be sold. But you can never prevent the purchaser from giving it away to someone else. You can even use GPL'd code as the basis for a completely proprietary internal system for which you never release the binaries to an outside organization. It may break RMS's heart, but the GPL is that FREE. I stand by any user's right to use free software for any reason, provided the terms of the license are met. That includes using GPL software because you are too cheap to buy commercial software.
"No matter what tool or code you cite, I can cite closed code that is very cheap or no cost."
Your examples suck, particularly the one about Windows being available cheap over P2P (illegal) or in China on pirated CD's (also illegal). So what if free software is about cost for some users? Since SCO obviously didn't have a case against Linux, no one is likely to face huge fines or prison time for using Linux. Pirated Windows software??? You'd better have good friends at the BSA. You can't give someone the right to do something and then criticize them because they use it!!!
Slashdot Mirror
It's really not about who's richer. By that logic, if we just gave up all our wealth brought to us by democracy and "evil" capitalism, we could be just as destitute and hungry as them. I have to point out the similarity I see to survivors' guilt in what you are implying.
The only solution I ever hear put forth for addressing economic inequality is to reduce all of us to a common baseline through taxation, regulation, and sending our wealth elsewhere. Maybe what we really need to focus on is sharing our ideals rather than striving to share their pain. Some of the thoughts mentioned previously in this thread on colonialism were very thought-provoking.
It is interesting, that if the US is only 3 times more wealthy, how much more mileage we are getting out of our money here--and how much more equitable our system of government must be. I know I am more than 3 times better fed than the starving Africans portrayed on TV. And I have a TV to watch them on, in a waterproof house with climate control. I am not saying that to be insensitive, just that it does give some credibility to the idea of exporting American ideals. Call it imperialism if you must.
Kelvin is the only system that *actually* makes sense if you want to say things like "it's twice as hot" or "10% warmer." When I hear someone say 64F is twice as hot as 32F, I just shake my head.
I appreciate the sentiment. I do agree with your overall assertion that the IP system is horked, all varities included. I have some ideas that are patentable under the current system. I have to choose between executing them without a patent and getting sued by someone else later or patenting and detailing the secret as a starting point for a company with deeper pockets to squash me with slight tweaks to my design. My limited understanding of the recent patent "reform" is that prior art will be replaced by a first-to-file system.
I apologize. None of the other replies were visible to me at the time. Am I the only one just noticing this weird filtered-threaded view? I'm not a fan.
I don't know why this is moderated as insightful. The poster has no understanding of the distinguishing features of copyright, trademark, and patents.
Point 1 - right Point 2 - right Point 3 - wrong, wrong, wrong Why do you think people get so up in arms over Supreme Court openings and nominations? They do indeed have the last call on interpreting and applying the Constitution and, in fact, all American law. The Congress tries to override their decisions from time to time, but if the decision is based on Constitutional law rather than merely common law or precedent, the Supreme Court wins. It is serious stuff, so when you vote for President you should be voting for the person you want to have in charge of nominating these justices rather than the lesser of two evils or the guy who helps you assuage your guilty feelings (I won't go further down that particular thought path further, because that would definitely open up the controversy).
I wish you all the best and offer my most heartfelt appreciation for all you have done. Slashdot has been a part of my daily life as long as I can remember. If I had just signed up instead of lurking, maybe I could have had a lower UID to go with my obsession. Any time I am sitting on the couch with my laptop and half-listening to my wife she asks "are you working or Slashdotting?"
I've heard various explanations of the recent earthquakes, but I am starting to suspect it is the universe trying to adjust to all the tech leaders resigning this week!
True, but you are bringing up completely irrelevant facts to make a point. This discussion is around Java VM initialization, not web development.
Brian who?
As a Java developer, I regularly find myself misreading directory listings containing Maven POMs as p-o-r-n.xml.
Don't worry. I was once quite good at writing textbook penmanship, but I dumped it anyway. I think the readability argument for cursive is terrible. It seems everyone I know just adopted whatever they liked of cursive. If they thought an upper-case S or Q looked funny or it was too much work to make a well-formed lower-case r, they just scribbled some alternate rendition. Take everyone's individual quirks and you basically get something unreadable. I read something previous in the thread about 60 to 80-somethings, and I can tell you there is nothing readable about my grandparents' letters. It is quite taxing to read them.
I'm just now joining the thread. I would say force is too strong a word as it brings to mind lawsuits and court orders. However, for commercial projects that I work on that use open source software (non-GPL), I would certainly not go out of my way to list all the software I was using without being compelled to by a license. The simple reason is that there is creativity in aggregating software just as there is in writing code. If a competitor had in their hands a complete list of technologies used to implement an enterprise product, it would certainly not be equivalent to having access to our source code, but it could certainly provide insight into how some of our sexiest features were composed. On the surface, the competition argument in this case doesn't seem that compelling because it's a governement site, but in reality the government contractors are competing in the marketplace like any other software consulting company. Of course I could start another thread here about how people who use open source should open source their software. I think the reality of that is that most businesses are not open to this. Although none of the applications that I have worked on professionally are open source, I have contributed several patches and bug fixes to help improve the underlying libraries the software depends on. I still sleep fine at night.
You are retarded. I was pointing out a particularly bad spelling error.
>There are only maybe 2 million evangenical christians total in the US, yet they seem like a much bigger group because Bush is their mouthpiece and has been running our country for them, and not in a legal way.
I have yet to meet a single evangenical Christian, but the evangelicals I know aren't even happy with how President Bush does things. And, although the Census bureau reports like 0.5% of all Christians in the U.S. reported themselves as evangelicals, it is not so much an affiliation as a state of mind. I think the number of people who would like the United States to be a right-wing quasi-theocracy is very large. They thought Bush was the man for the job, but have since changed their minds.
I consider myself quite conservative, which of course means I don't like how President Bush is doing either. I myself value the Constitution a great deal.
> 1. The Indianapolis is the biggest annual sporting event. Period. More people attend, and more people watch on TV worldwide then any other event.
>>Bullshit. The Indy 500 is about 110 million viewers. The world cup held in France in 1998 had 2 BILLION people watching.
But...the World Cup is not annual. And, is that accumulated viewers or number of viewers watching one game?
People come to Slashdot looking for advice. There are a lot of impressionable teenagers here who are tired of high school and just want to move on to something new and exciting (I know, I used to be one of them). When you make it sound like you're pleased making 60k 13 years after dropping out of college, they are going to think, "wow, that's a lot of money." To a kid, $60,000 would be an amazing treasure to behold, a holy grail of sorts. The fact is, 1 year after college, I am making more than that. Money is not everything by any means, but a college degree greatly increases the chances of obtaining financial security. My intent is not in any way to diminish your accomplishments. I just want the juniors and seniors in high school who are naturally attracted to this type of thread to have a balanced perspective. If you take two people with the same amount of natural skill and intelligence and have one get a degree and one not, you are probably going to see the one who gets a degree come out ahead financially.
Dude. You have an ugly website with links to NUDIST organizations, and you can't figure out why you're unemployed?? Sometimes it seems like Slashdot is a portal to an alternate reality...
Well said. It seems like part of the problem is people thinking $60,000 is some sort of holy grail when those with a degree can quickly hit 6 figures... You'd have to rack up a lot of student loan debt to make skipping college/skipping a technical degree worth that.
I know what you are saying is true where you're at, but I feel very sorry for you! I live in the Kansas City area, and I went from renting a horrible 1 bedroom apartment at $700 (with horrible utility costs because the thing wasn't insulated and you could pretty much feel every gust of wind through the walls) to a mortgage on a beautiful 3 bedroom 2 bath home for $1250 a month (including insurance and property taxes). I live in a very quiet and safe neighborhood also.
The coasts are suffering from extremely high population densities and years of investors driving up prices. Much of the middle of the nation can still benefit from home ownership. Even 1 year out of college, my house is quite affordable. The years before I purchased it, it was appreciating in the 6-7% range consistently.
Tort is a civil law concept...
I wouldn't be too surprised if a lawyer could get a direct subpoena against the phone company for data anyway.
I disagree. If GPL v. 3 is based on this concept, the free software movement will closely resemble communism, or at least communism as it is actually practiced. All licensees are equal, but some are more equal than others. Ring any bells?
If you are working for a small to medium-sized family business and are actually getting paid every payday, consider yourself lucky. Some of us have much worse to deal with than the boss being an idiot.
The GPL is all about GIVING people rights. There is only one right you don't get with the GPL--redistributing binaries without source. That's it. Under the GPL, people have the right to use the software for any reason--even because it doesn't cost them anything financially. Yes, GPL'd software can be sold. But you can never prevent the purchaser from giving it away to someone else. You can even use GPL'd code as the basis for a completely proprietary internal system for which you never release the binaries to an outside organization. It may break RMS's heart, but the GPL is that FREE. I stand by any user's right to use free software for any reason, provided the terms of the license are met. That includes using GPL software because you are too cheap to buy commercial software.
Your examples suck, particularly the one about Windows being available cheap over P2P (illegal) or in China on pirated CD's (also illegal). So what if free software is about cost for some users? Since SCO obviously didn't have a case against Linux, no one is likely to face huge fines or prison time for using Linux. Pirated Windows software??? You'd better have good friends at the BSA. You can't give someone the right to do something and then criticize them because they use it!!!