I'm not sure the details of the case support that point. If IBM had a contractual obligation that gave ownership of the code they developed for AIX to SCO then SCO has the ownership rights to the code. Then the case isn't a copyright case, but a case concerning contract law. It may turn out in the process that the GPL is evaluated for its legal standing (especially considering SCO's distribution of Linux containing the code in question), but it might turn out that the judgement could go SCO's way and not invalidate the GPL. In that case any Linux containing code by IBM would be illegal, but Linux without code by IBM would be legally distributed under the GPL.
SCO says they're challenging the GPL. But in court it appears they're really just challenging IBM and the nature of the licensing and contractual agreements between the two companies... so far.
In that worst-case scenario, distributing any version of Linux without a license from SCO or 100 percent clean room-developed code would be illegal.
But Linux can't be distributed under any license but the GPL. So an SCO licensed "Linux" would contain no lines of Linux code outside the code in question. So the choices should SCO win are a clean room implementation or no legal Linux at all. This is precisely the kind of statement that people like the author use to cloud the issue, not clarify it.
Re:Bill Gates, Hall of Fame Hacker? (P.S. First Po
on
Hackers Hall of Fame
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· Score: 1
Sure. I agree that criticism should be based on the text. I also think you can make the valid claim the Wolfram is an egotistical person (and hence prone to these sorts of common reactions) simply based on textual evidence from a NKS. That being said, most people probably didn't bother to read the thing.
The entire first chapter is spent distancing Wolfram's theory from all the fields that gave rise to that theory. His thesis requires that his ideas be new, hence A New Kind of Science. Something is certainly un-aesthetic about having to justify exactly why a particular revolutionary idea is new. Normally, as with dramatic scientific discoveries of the past, the revolutionary aspect to the idea is self-evident. With NKS, it is certainly not. That is cause for concern.
Nobody should claim that Wolfram is not a genius. Egotistical yes. Idiot no. A valid point can be made that he is stepping outside the domain of his genius with NKS. His thesis is essentially a philosophical thesis, and I think his approach leaves entirely open whether the philosophical aspects of his thesis are in any way correct.
For example, the principle of computability is certainly not new. I came across it in Emperor's New Mind. But as a philosophical assertion, I fail to see how it is a priori correct. Wolfram's further developments in NKS focus on the building on an assumption, that while interesting to think about, certainly does not seem sturdy enough to drastically alter science as a whole. That, I think, has more to do with Wolfram's ego than his scientific credibility.
Further, what Wolfram develops through his explorations of emergence is so general that I find it difficult to believe that any results derived from this approach would be appreciable in any human terms. I am not a physicist, but I image working in abstract physics requires some ability to internalize the meaning behind the predictive equations that govern modern thinking on physics. Where are the predictive equations in NKS? What can be internalized or understood? How can Wolfram's theory be used to create new theories?
Instead, I think the approach yields a sort of theory of everything through linguistic trickery. Wolfram's model is so general as to be useless, akin to saying here is a theory of everything, the only catch being to use the theory you have to know everything.
Slot machines in Vegas don't serve the same purpose as voting machines, but the system set up to regulate those slot machines, their manufacture, programming, every part of their operation, is very secure. Voting machines are just another example of an industry prime for careful regulation.
Feller's books on probability often turn many modern students of math off. His language is very representative of "classic" texts. But he succeeds in three ways: he gives plenty of examples which motivate the theorems and definitions, he includes formal proofs, he includes exercises with answers. It is the best formula for teaching mathematics, but it is so rarely emulated.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure the details of the case support that point. If IBM had a contractual obligation that gave ownership of the code they developed for AIX to SCO then SCO has the ownership rights to the code. Then the case isn't a copyright case, but a case concerning contract law. It may turn out in the process that the GPL is evaluated for its legal standing (especially considering SCO's distribution of Linux containing the code in question), but it might turn out that the judgement could go SCO's way and not invalidate the GPL. In that case any Linux containing code by IBM would be illegal, but Linux without code by IBM would be legally distributed under the GPL.
... so far.
SCO says they're challenging the GPL. But in court it appears they're really just challenging IBM and the nature of the licensing and contractual agreements between the two companies
Windows, Office,
... MSN??
Sure. I agree that criticism should be based on the text. I also think you can make the valid claim the Wolfram is an egotistical person (and hence prone to these sorts of common reactions) simply based on textual evidence from a NKS. That being said, most people probably didn't bother to read the thing.
The entire first chapter is spent distancing Wolfram's theory from all the fields that gave rise to that theory. His thesis requires that his ideas be new, hence A New Kind of Science. Something is certainly un-aesthetic about having to justify exactly why a particular revolutionary idea is new. Normally, as with dramatic scientific discoveries of the past, the revolutionary aspect to the idea is self-evident. With NKS, it is certainly not. That is cause for concern.
Nobody should claim that Wolfram is not a genius. Egotistical yes. Idiot no. A valid point can be made that he is stepping outside the domain of his genius with NKS. His thesis is essentially a philosophical thesis, and I think his approach leaves entirely open whether the philosophical aspects of his thesis are in any way correct.
For example, the principle of computability is certainly not new. I came across it in Emperor's New Mind. But as a philosophical assertion, I fail to see how it is a priori correct. Wolfram's further developments in NKS focus on the building on an assumption, that while interesting to think about, certainly does not seem sturdy enough to drastically alter science as a whole. That, I think, has more to do with Wolfram's ego than his scientific credibility.
Further, what Wolfram develops through his explorations of emergence is so general that I find it difficult to believe that any results derived from this approach would be appreciable in any human terms. I am not a physicist, but I image working in abstract physics requires some ability to internalize the meaning behind the predictive equations that govern modern thinking on physics. Where are the predictive equations in NKS? What can be internalized or understood? How can Wolfram's theory be used to create new theories?
Instead, I think the approach yields a sort of theory of everything through linguistic trickery. Wolfram's model is so general as to be useless, akin to saying here is a theory of everything, the only catch being to use the theory you have to know everything.
Slot machines in Vegas don't serve the same purpose as voting machines, but the system set up to regulate those slot machines, their manufacture, programming, every part of their operation, is very secure. Voting machines are just another example of an industry prime for careful regulation.
Feller's books on probability often turn many modern students of math off. His language is very representative of "classic" texts. But he succeeds in three ways: he gives plenty of examples which motivate the theorems and definitions, he includes formal proofs, he includes exercises with answers. It is the best formula for teaching mathematics, but it is so rarely emulated.