The general response from the OS community about this deal is really starting to become disgusting FUD. Especially because it comes from the people who allways the first to point fingers when others are spreading FUD.
Everybody is so upset about how Novell paid MS for a patent license when in fact it's MS who paid Novell, not the other way around. Not to mention the fact there is a mutual do-not-sue agreement, no patent license.
Novell managed to get money from MS, managed to make them pledge not to sue their customers, their contributors and unpaid open-source developers. They also got MS to work with them on providing compatible document formats. In return they promised not to sue MS customers.
Cleary that makes Novell more evil than the devil himself.
And indeed MS is using it to spread FUD, as usual. But this time everybody here seems to fall for their FUD...
Your company seems to care more about smooth talk, then solid knowledge, more about selling the idea, then about the quality of the idea. I suspect the same principle is applied to there products, marketing over quality.
And that is indeed why solid education is of little value these days.
Don't take it personal, the company I work at is no better.
Computing Scientists are not all Programmers. Not all Programmers are Computing Scientists.
Indeed, and seeing the average quality of commercial software at the moment it seems to me that the demand for Programmers is far higher then the demand for Computing Scientists...
When democracy finally ended and the US started it own destruction, nobody noticed, because the site was slashdotted. What a way to get into the history books...
I'd choose to boycot the project wich has a 'head of marketing and product strategy' if I were you...
Indeed, the kind of people that put out crap like "This is how brands and trademarks are being managed in the world today" and "to protect consumers and the reputation of our products".
Please, cut the crap and just ship it named iceweasel, I for one trust Debian far more when it comes to putting out rock solid software then some Mozilla(tm) Corp.
Geez, ever heard of 'Innocent until proven otherwise'?
By the way, you owe me 10 million, please fly to europe andhire a lawyer to defend yourself. All at your cost ofcourse, just because I am feeling civilized today.
Does the US court really need the domain name to dismantle a company? I don't care when XYZ owns a domain name, they can have it. I might not even care when they are trying to send spam. I do care when my right to drop their crap is taken away.
The real problem here is that spam is considered an "annoyance" and is legislatively treated as such. In that light, it becomes "my business model, revenue, and profitability" vs "your annoyance" vs "their attempts to help others deal with spam." It also gets into a delightfully grey realm of defining "spam" vs "legitimate commercial email.
There are several problems here, but this is not one of them. There is no such think as 'a grey realm' between spam and legitimate commercial email. There is only email I wish to recieve and email I don't wish to recieve. I may not want any mail from my sister, i may not want any spam. I may choose to block all email with an even number of words. It still is my mailserver, my PC, my time.
The mail problem here is the fact that a US Judge either is to dumb to understand this or is, because of a fucked up system, unable to come to a proper judgement. Or there is some law in the US requiring you to listen to any marketing company that yells at you using your equipment. Either way, if you are a US citizen, you've got a problem.
In really doubt that any judge will fall for it, not even in the US, but it is a briliant idea anyway. Simply comply to any legal thread by removing the entry from the spammers list and adding them to the 'these people wanted to be removed' list. They can hardly claim they should not be on that list, but when they do, you just move 'm back to the spammers list...
What damage has the USA done? They were sued by a US corporation in a US court on injuries caused them by Spamhaus in the course of operations in the US. Spamhaus refused to defend themselves in court, and received a default judgment against them. This is pretty much the same thing that would happen in any other civilized country.
Erm, nope...
Most 'other civilized countries' whould have applied, at the very very least, common sense to a judgment. Yes, even when the accused thus not defend himself.
I for one whould like to see how ICANN responds when ordered to turn in a domain name. I'd like to know how the rest of the world responds when the US starts using it's ownership this way.
As for the list, switching to spamhaus.org.uk will be trivial in most cases, i really doubt the rbl domains are hardcoded anywere. Perhaps spamhaus should see if they can make the list inaccesible to US users as well, since they seem to think everybody (even foreigners) is required to accept their commercial email.
Just let it happen, and see is anyone likes the result. That just seems to be the only way to introduce commen sense into things like this.
Or perhaps coding in C++ is just a far better idea then coding in plain C? It may be rare, but sometimes the new thing is just better then the old one...
No, it's not. I may have an interest in growing developer base, but I don't care about a big user base when these users are only leeching the software. It's fine with me when they do, but it does not help the OSS community, it doesn't do anything to raise the quality of opensource programs, it does not add new features.
And all of this even more so when it is used to develop new closed source software.
And how is a company developing closed source software helping 'the adoption of OSS'? And by the way, who said we wanted 'adoption of OSS' in the first place? Personally i couldn't care less if others want to spoil there money on MS software, as long as they don't try to fore me into using the crap...
And so is rocket science. But rocket scientists try not to put people in a rocket until they are pretty sure the bugs are worked out. Same for airplanes. A modern Boeing airliner is far more complex than GNOME but jets don't fall from the sky on a daily basis.
Rocket science happens to include quite some software engineering and Boeing happens to employ quite a few developers. This goes to prove your point even more, when it is important enough, when we care (pay!) enough to get it right it is perfectly possible to build high quality software. But customers always want cheap and fast, so they get cheap and fast. With a huge maintenance contract of course.
Spend a little time and you will find countless projects dividing talent among slightly different versions of the same thing and developers who really don't understand their users and don't want to understand them. "If they want something to be different, have them code it themselves!" is a tired refrain, but it points to a mentality of software for the developer, not the wider audience. While I'll admit that it can be good to mess around and create something primarily for yourself, when your goal is widespread adoption of your product, it certainly helps to consider what the end user wants to achieve, and what their standards for usability are.
First of, i don't disagree with you, but it is not all black and white here. I have heard some pretty absurd, contradicting or simply wrong statements from customers. (Yes, that is *directly* from customers not from some consultant or something.) Some programmers are quit bright people and they may sound arrogant, but they might just a well be right.
There often is some gap between what the customer wants and what he needs. The 'technical' response (thus the programmers response) to this will be to start analyzing the situation and to start pointing out what goes wrong, what was overlooked, etc. The 'commercial' answer will be to simply give the customer what he askes for, because that will bring in the money. If that results in bad software it's all the better because upgrades and maintenance will bring in even more money. I'll leave it to somebody else to judge who is 'wrong' and who is 'right'. My personal experience is that it is perfectly possible to discuss flaws in the wishes of the customer as long as you make some effort to clearly explain your point and show you are being critical in order to create high quality software.
The site is in fact a nice demonstration of a some of the real reasons software sucks:
Because it is released before it is ready for example. And because we tend to stick to the old stuff, even when we know it is failing (like frontpage 5).
Because we believe all the marketing lies (Someone spend a pretty penny on frontpage and just look how wonderfull the result is...)
Because we fail to actually learn about, or even slightly investigate into the things we are planning to do (like learning to build websites, not firing up the first application that comes to mind and start clicking).
Because we believe everyting that made with on a computer is easy to do (Sure, I can build that website).
And of course, because the wrong people are making the important decisions (whoever decided frontpage was a good idea was clearly not capable to take this decision, same goes for the person who did the release planning for the book/website).
So there is something to learn from this book after all;-)
There is a middle-ground between the 'i don't give a shit' BSD license and the 'Doomed is all closed source software'. Or, more actual, there are several ways in between. The Apache license for example, or LGPL. Comparing the LGPL and the GPLv3 proves how extremist the FSF is becoming.
Or just use GPLv2 anyway...
...and I don't care because if it wasn't them it would be somebody else who is analyzing my data, hosting my emails, storing my chat's, selling me viagra (oh wait not that last part).
Now that's a nice self fulfilling prophecy. State often enough it's unavoidable, act as if it is unavoidable and you will be right eventually.
You could also use the services of companies who do respect you privacy, you could choose not to accep...
No, wait, you're right!
Now send me 500 dollar. You now it's unavoidable!
When GPLv3 gets up and running you might just see that happening. BSD licenced voting software that is. Tivo and the likes will simply revert to closed source software or stick with GPLv2. Make no mistake, no serious hardware vendor is going to use the GPLv3 in it's current form. It simply places to much limits on what they can do with it...
...which effectively makes the source code useless to anybody.
Why, why, why?
I mean, the whole point of the GPL(v2) is this, you can take my code and do with it whatever you want. And than I can take your modifications/additions and do with it whatever I want. And look, you can take the code used in the Tivo and you can do with it whatever you want. Nothing wrong there...
And then there's the fact that some hardware will only run manufacturer approved software. If you don't like that, don't buy the hardware. End of story, you don't need a software license for that.
Think about this one for a while: An open-source e-voting system so everyone can verify there is nothing messing with the election, released under GPLv3 to make sure everyone and his dog can update the code on the voting hardware. Thats one example, but you could add lots of others, e.g. drive/fly by wire sytems etc.
Slashdot Mirror
The general response from the OS community about this deal is really starting to become disgusting FUD. Especially because it comes from the people who allways the first to point fingers when others are spreading FUD. Everybody is so upset about how Novell paid MS for a patent license when in fact it's MS who paid Novell, not the other way around. Not to mention the fact there is a mutual do-not-sue agreement, no patent license. Novell managed to get money from MS, managed to make them pledge not to sue their customers, their contributors and unpaid open-source developers. They also got MS to work with them on providing compatible document formats. In return they promised not to sue MS customers. Cleary that makes Novell more evil than the devil himself. And indeed MS is using it to spread FUD, as usual. But this time everybody here seems to fall for their FUD...
This CS degree making me bald?
Nope, but you may have to grow yourself a beard.
Your company seems to care more about smooth talk, then solid knowledge, more about selling the idea, then about the quality of the idea. I suspect the same principle is applied to there products, marketing over quality.
And that is indeed why solid education is of little value these days.
Don't take it personal, the company I work at is no better.
Computing Scientists are not all Programmers. Not all Programmers are Computing Scientists.
Indeed, and seeing the average quality of commercial software at the moment it seems to me that the demand for Programmers is far higher then the demand for Computing Scientists...
When democracy finally ended and the US started it own destruction, nobody noticed, because the site was slashdotted. What a way to get into the history books...
I'd choose to boycot the project wich has a 'head of marketing and product strategy' if I were you...
Indeed, the kind of people that put out crap like "This is how brands and trademarks are being managed in the world today" and "to protect consumers and the reputation of our products".
Please, cut the crap and just ship it named iceweasel, I for one trust Debian far more when it comes to putting out rock solid software then some Mozilla(tm) Corp.
Ah, so the concept is know in the US, and does apply, just not when there is money involved. Wonderfull...
Geez, ever heard of 'Innocent until proven otherwise'?
By the way, you owe me 10 million, please fly to europe andhire a lawyer to defend yourself. All at your cost ofcourse, just because I am feeling civilized today.
Does the US court really need the domain name to dismantle a company? I don't care when XYZ owns a domain name, they can have it. I might not even care when they are trying to send spam. I do care when my right to drop their crap is taken away.
The real problem here is that spam is considered an "annoyance" and is legislatively treated as such. In that light, it becomes "my business model, revenue, and profitability" vs "your annoyance" vs "their attempts to help others deal with spam." It also gets into a delightfully grey realm of defining "spam" vs "legitimate commercial email.
There are several problems here, but this is not one of them. There is no such think as 'a grey realm' between spam and legitimate commercial email. There is only email I wish to recieve and email I don't wish to recieve. I may not want any mail from my sister, i may not want any spam. I may choose to block all email with an even number of words. It still is my mailserver, my PC, my time.
The mail problem here is the fact that a US Judge either is to dumb to understand this or is, because of a fucked up system, unable to come to a proper judgement. Or there is some law in the US requiring you to listen to any marketing company that yells at you using your equipment. Either way, if you are a US citizen, you've got a problem.
In really doubt that any judge will fall for it, not even in the US, but it is a briliant idea anyway. Simply comply to any legal thread by removing the entry from the spammers list and adding them to the 'these people wanted to be removed' list. They can hardly claim they should not be on that list, but when they do, you just move 'm back to the spammers list...
Briliant.
What damage has the USA done? They were sued by a US corporation in a US court on injuries caused them by Spamhaus in the course of operations in the US. Spamhaus refused to defend themselves in court, and received a default judgment against them. This is pretty much the same thing that would happen in any other civilized country.
Erm, nope...
Most 'other civilized countries' whould have applied, at the very very least, common sense to a judgment. Yes, even when the accused thus not defend himself.
Wrong, it will stay up. When ICANN pulls the .uk tld quite some dns admins may have some extra work, but most people won't even notice the difference.
I for one whould like to see how ICANN responds when ordered to turn in a domain name. I'd like to know how the rest of the world responds when the US starts using it's ownership this way.
As for the list, switching to spamhaus.org.uk will be trivial in most cases, i really doubt the rbl domains are hardcoded anywere. Perhaps spamhaus should see if they can make the list inaccesible to US users as well, since they seem to think everybody (even foreigners) is required to accept their commercial email.
Just let it happen, and see is anyone likes the result. That just seems to be the only way to introduce commen sense into things like this.
Or perhaps coding in C++ is just a far better idea then coding in plain C? It may be rare, but sometimes the new thing is just better then the old one...
it is all about growing the user base.
No, it's not. I may have an interest in growing developer base, but I don't care about a big user base when these users are only leeching the software. It's fine with me when they do, but it does not help the OSS community, it doesn't do anything to raise the quality of opensource programs, it does not add new features.
And all of this even more so when it is used to develop new closed source software.
And how is a company developing closed source software helping 'the adoption of OSS'? And by the way, who said we wanted 'adoption of OSS' in the first place? Personally i couldn't care less if others want to spoil there money on MS software, as long as they don't try to fore me into using the crap...
And so is rocket science. But rocket scientists try not to put people in a rocket until they are pretty sure the bugs are worked out. Same for airplanes. A modern Boeing airliner is far more complex than GNOME but jets don't fall from the sky on a daily basis.
Rocket science happens to include quite some software engineering and Boeing happens to employ quite a few developers. This goes to prove your point even more, when it is important enough, when we care (pay!) enough to get it right it is perfectly possible to build high quality software. But customers always want cheap and fast, so they get cheap and fast. With a huge maintenance contract of course.
Spend a little time and you will find countless projects dividing talent among slightly different versions of the same thing and developers who really don't understand their users and don't want to understand them. "If they want something to be different, have them code it themselves!" is a tired refrain, but it points to a mentality of software for the developer, not the wider audience. While I'll admit that it can be good to mess around and create something primarily for yourself, when your goal is widespread adoption of your product, it certainly helps to consider what the end user wants to achieve, and what their standards for usability are.
First of, i don't disagree with you, but it is not all black and white here. I have heard some pretty absurd, contradicting or simply wrong statements from customers. (Yes, that is *directly* from customers not from some consultant or something.) Some programmers are quit bright people and they may sound arrogant, but they might just a well be right.
There often is some gap between what the customer wants and what he needs. The 'technical' response (thus the programmers response) to this will be to start analyzing the situation and to start pointing out what goes wrong, what was overlooked, etc. The 'commercial' answer will be to simply give the customer what he askes for, because that will bring in the money. If that results in bad software it's all the better because upgrades and maintenance will bring in even more money. I'll leave it to somebody else to judge who is 'wrong' and who is 'right'. My personal experience is that it is perfectly possible to discuss flaws in the wishes of the customer as long as you make some effort to clearly explain your point and show you are being critical in order to create high quality software.
- Because it is released before it is ready for example. And because we tend to stick to the old stuff, even when we know it is failing (like frontpage 5).
- Because we believe all the marketing lies (Someone spend a pretty penny on frontpage and just look how wonderfull the result is...)
- Because we fail to actually learn about, or even slightly investigate into the things we are planning to do (like learning to build websites, not firing up the first application that comes to mind and start clicking).
- Because we believe everyting that made with on a computer is easy to do (Sure, I can build that website).
- And of course, because the wrong people are making the important decisions (whoever decided frontpage was a good idea was clearly not capable to take this decision, same goes for the person who did the release planning for the book/website).
So there is something to learn from this book after allThere is a middle-ground between the 'i don't give a shit' BSD license and the 'Doomed is all closed source software'. Or, more actual, there are several ways in between. The Apache license for example, or LGPL. Comparing the LGPL and the GPLv3 proves how extremist the FSF is becoming. Or just use GPLv2 anyway...
...and I don't care because if it wasn't them it would be somebody else who is analyzing my data, hosting my emails, storing my chat's, selling me viagra (oh wait not that last part).
Now that's a nice self fulfilling prophecy. State often enough it's unavoidable, act as if it is unavoidable and you will be right eventually.
You could also use the services of companies who do respect you privacy, you could choose not to accep...
No, wait, you're right!
Now send me 500 dollar. You now it's unavoidable!
And it is over 30 back when he wrote that down pretty clearly. It's sad how little is learned from his research.
When GPLv3 gets up and running you might just see that happening. BSD licenced voting software that is. Tivo and the likes will simply revert to closed source software or stick with GPLv2. Make no mistake, no serious hardware vendor is going to use the GPLv3 in it's current form. It simply places to much limits on what they can do with it...
...which effectively makes the source code useless to anybody.
Why, why, why?
I mean, the whole point of the GPL(v2) is this, you can take my code and do with it whatever you want. And than I can take your modifications/additions and do with it whatever I want. And look, you can take the code used in the Tivo and you can do with it whatever you want. Nothing wrong there...
And then there's the fact that some hardware will only run manufacturer approved software. If you don't like that, don't buy the hardware. End of story, you don't need a software license for that.
Think about this one for a while: An open-source e-voting system so everyone can verify there is nothing messing with the election, released under GPLv3 to make sure everyone and his dog can update the code on the voting hardware. Thats one example, but you could add lots of others, e.g. drive/fly by wire sytems etc.