The only problem is, if it costs more than $200 it will probably be a tough sell.
Are you kidding? If it is as easy to read as newspaper, than imagine the change for students, especially college age. Instead of constantly carrying heavy textbooks everywhere, you just have one appliance that holds all your information.
Imagine the cost savings in buying textbooks if there is no more physical costs involved. If there is something like a 60% discount for e-books, you could pay for the thing in one semester. Of course that would require the books be available on whatever format that is required, but this has killer app written all over it.
Also, I dream of having all of my reference books, my whole O'Reilly shelf, in one easy-to-read, portable, cheap-when-compared-to-a-laptop device. If they could integrate some sort of note takening interface on this, even at 1/2 the battery life, I would definately buy one for $200.
Though I can tell by your artfully crafted website that you are a professional web designer, I'll have to disagree and say that IE is most definately "broken". Yes, it fulfills most of what web users want, but as for programming for IE, most non-trival applications require cludgy hacks, or IE extentions.
Am I some Mozilla drone? No, I think all browsers need improvement, and in fact, last time I checked no broswer was 100% compliant with the current versions of (X)HTML/CSS.
Normal people aren't into updating their software weekly. They want something mature that works. IE is mature. It works.
It works... mostly. And though it may meet the definition of mature in some people's book, that title is far from indisputed.
End of story. Mozilla is filling a nonexistent hole.
What about boxen that aren't WINTEL? You're right in saying that that's what most people do use, but for a lot of people, and a lot of business, going with something that is vendor independent gives a lot of flexibility.
Add to the fact that Mozilla is actually innovative. But seriously, there are so many roles for Mozilla to play that it's not even worth mentioning them here. To think otherwise is niave.
Or to perform music. Seriously though, at least here in Pittsburgh, small venues for people to perform at are going quickly. Supporting local music translates directly into given support to the "real" music industry people: the musicians. So get out there and go to some indy shows. Musicians still should get compensated for music they sell, but at a much smaller rate, think $5 a CD (direct to artist)
All right, I've had enough about the bitching about this "branding stuff", read bruce parens' open source definition:
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code.
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.
Some authors were afraid that others would distribute source code with modifications that would be percieved as the work of the original author, and would reflect poorly on that author. This gives them a way to enforce a separation between modifications and their own work without prohibiting modifications. Some consider it un-esthetic that modifications might have to be distributed in a separate "patch" file from the source code, even though Linux distributions like Debian and Red Hat use this procedure for all of the modifications they make to the programs they distribute. There are programs that automaticaly merge patches into the main source, and one can have these programs run automaticaly when extracting a source package. Thus, this provision should cause little or no hardship.
Note also that this provision says that in the case of patch files, the modification takes place at build-time. This loophole is employed in the Qt Public License to mandate a different, though less restrictive, license for the patch files, in contradiction of section 3 of the Open Source Definition. There is a proposal to clean up this loophole in the definition while keeping Qt within Open Source.
Come on, they built this into the OSS Definition! Bruce Perens! Ah! I know he posts to slashdot, where is he tonight?
"Thus, there's a MASSIVE performance loss when a functional programming language is executed on any of the existing processors. Because the compilers can't think and optimise the code to best fit the imperative model. Where as the human being s can. That's why we should stick to imperative programming languages."
If this discussion was 25 years ago it would have been "OO languages? They are only good it theory. Sure you can easily write programs in them, but they abstract over how the program is executed. Besides, OO is slow!!"
But through the use of OO we have seen that programming at a higher level is better. Compilers get better all the time. Moore's Law has kept. There are few places in a program where you really need speed. There are notable exceptions (graphics, higher math, real time) but there is no reason to assume compiler theory won't advance to the level that we can write games and OS'es in Java.
The speed argument becomes much less of a factor when you can be more expressive with a language.
"Because the compilers can't think and optimise the code to best fit the imperative model. Where as the human being s can."
Err... if human being s (sic) can, then they can abstract and automate. Computers don't "think" at all, they are only good at what we've figured out at automating. If we can do it, there's no reason why computers can't either. In short if a programming paradigm works, then it makes sense to invest in it. Optimization will come later.
Did you profile your code to see exactly what part of the code was slow? Most high level languages (even java,perl,python, and AFAIK ruby) allow you to write intensive code in C outside of it's virtual machine.
The most intensive part of a code tends to be quite small in relation to the whole. Most code in programs are GUI stuff, event handlers, error checking/handling, I/O processing, non-computational business logic.
If you are doing serious number crunching, or creating alot of advanced data types, most likely the critical code can be exacted into a small amount of C while still recieving the high-level benefits of newer languages for most of the program.
errr... "dude", look up what non-volitile means. Volatile memory generally is implemented as a series of capacitors which can be queried if they have a charge or not (1 or 0). The capacitors in the RAM in your computer, however, lose their charge very quickly, and need to be "refreshed" every couple milliseconds or so.
Non-volatile needs little or no refreshing. It's usually implemented by component that do something else than hold a charge. And thus, since it doesn't need freshing it keeps information when the power goes out. The reason all memory isn't like Non-volatile is that it is either much slower (magnetic storage) or much more expensive (ie flash and this RAM disk).
How is mandating public safety creating a Nanny state? An analogous argument... don't require cars with seat belts, and those that do have them, don't require them to use 'em, because some people don't like to use them. Don't require roads to have guardrails, mostly only poeple that at stupid enough to fall asleep need them. Oh, and disable that feature that allows 911 to trace land-line calls, it's an invation of privacy.
because people can't be bothered to know where they are...
You expect people to account for where they are to within shouting distance at all times? What if you are on an unfamiliar road, hit some black ice and crash in the woods? Is it your fault you don't know exactly where you are?
You're suggesting that I, as a taxpayer, should pay more for emergency services to have GPS systems and mapping software (along with all the updates).
No, the mandate is for the cell company to be able to provide information to locate you and tell emergency services where you are. ie. 1.85 miles down route 18 to the right 100 yards. Therefore there's no need to have EMTs walking around with GPS stuff. It's just that cell-phones will be a little more expensive. I don't know why this is so objectionable to you, as you can't buy a car without the safety features.
This mandate will save lives. At the expense of what? somebody misusing your location? If you are that concerned, turn the phone off and if you can't afford to missed calls, get a pager. Or here is an idea, have the GPS, (or whatever system) off by default and have 911 or whoever have the ability to turn it on.
err... yes, there is. If they are only an option, then people won't buy it as most will see it as an option they don't need. If 911 can't find you, they spend more time looking, which costs taxpayer money. You injuries are probably more severe, which cost more in not only money (mostly to insurance companies who in turn pass it back to me), but time at the hospital. Time that could be spent on me.
If EMTs and police can't find you for a half an hour, that's taxing the system. If doctors spend an extra hour on your, that's taxing the system. Your telling me, I, as a taxpayer should pay for your privacy? If you want privacy, don't use a cell phone. If there are critical systems dependent (fire,police,med) on a private network, the government has every right to mandate how it's used. Or alternatively say that anybody who doesn't have GPS on their phone can't use/call emergency systems. And since that would never happen we are back at the first point.
Yes, but as Microsoft, you just can't go and say in your accounting statement that you "lost" $100 million. Even if it is only 2% of your on hand cash, you can't not account for 2%.
This had to be mentioned somewhere, maybe through a paper trail of many intermediary companies, but as a public company you can't spend $100 million and not specifically account where it is going. Well, you can do enron-like stuff, but much of that is illegal and my original question was if Microsoft is doing accounting "by the book" why didn't anybody notice this before?
Yes, and if, in fact, this e-mail is real, then it will be real interesting to see what happens to SCO's revenue stream. I'm sure that MS doesn't like to be played the fool, and that about what these guys are saying here. I mean, christ...
but there are other ways to get money from them, their partners,investment bank referrals, etc..
and
This Microsoft deal is the Ante to the poker game...We should get this
done and go after several $2-3 Million deals from the expense side of
their company.
...sure makes it seems like they think MS is an easy, endless source of money. Well, let's just wait and see what'll happen.
Also, ~$100 mil isn't chump change, shouldn't there be some sort of public record of MS explaining this transaction, or can you "creatively account" for it?
QT is daul licensed. If you want to use it in your open source project, you can. But if you use it in a closed-source proprietray project, then you have to pay. Thus Qt is free-as-in-speech, but not necessarily free-as-in-beer.
What argument? You just asked a bunch of questions. How can you discern my argument before I give you the answers, unless you just assume to know them in advance in which case you're likely wrong.
Yes, I was anticipating you argument, and as invalid as that might have been, I'm just saying that one person's definition of UCE may be different than someone else's and some compromise might be necessary in order to get a more usable e-mail system.
Why should a recipient bear ANY cost of unsolicited advertising, however small?
In a perfect world yes, I would like that too, but as long as we leave no legal outlet for SPAM, illegal spam will likely clog our lines.
If people want to buy the sunday paper (or any other periodical) for the ads, let them. But quit *forcing* the stuff on me!
That's exactly what I am advocating. You shouldn't have to look, or even download UCE, recieve junk mail if you don't want to. You should be able to go to each company and say, "Please don't send me more information, erase what records you have of me, and do not transfer any of my information to third parties." And have that be enforced.
At the same time, allow people to contact you _once_, without any tangible (read very small) cost to you. I know you'd rather have NO cost to you, but isn't spending a few kilobytes and some CPU cycles in order to get a more usable e-mail system acceptable? I'm advocating compromise not idealism here.
I do know the technology. And I never said to block because of the subject line. I'm suggesting changes to the whole system, to allow indentification of e-mail at the router level (transport layer) or some other tecnological solution. Also, I never said that all reciever based cost can be eliminated. What I am advocating is that we may have to settle to bear a small cost (such as a few kilobytes a month, and maybe 10 or 20 seconds of CPU time), in order to have a much more usable email system.
Perhaps I made the equation between ISP and mail provider, but this is a valid assumption to make for a lot of people. There are ways to drop stuff before it wastes your bandwidth.
If some random person e-mails you and asks an inane question, is that SPAM? is that theft? So only when somebody's intention is to make a profit does it become theft? What do you define as SPAM? Is that the legal definition? So only mail that you don't want is illegitmate (sic) and theft?
That argument doesn't hold up very well.
I agree that my plan isn't perfect and likely could never be implemented, but my main point is that any reciever based costs can be mitigated, that advertising is far from illegal, and there is probably an acceptable way to implement e-mail marketing.
from http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-Januar y/003892.html
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 06:41:25PM -0500, Alan Cox wrote: >For code owned by me (Alan Cox) please keep the original license and do not >change it, as I wish my code to be usable by forks of the XFree86 codebase >that allow GPL drivers (like AlanH's VNC driver and the new touchpad drivers) >as well as linking with GPL code.
No worries. License changes apply only to code where "The XFree86 Project, Inc" is the copyright holder (and a subset of that, in fact). XFree86 contributors remain free to choose which license applies to their code, within classes of licenses that are listed in our LICENSE document <http://www.xfree86.org/current/LICENSE.html>. The original license is still acceptable for contributions.
Please review the source patch at <http://www.xfree86.org/license-200401.diff.gz > , and notify us if there are any errors in edits for the new license.
David -- David Dawes developer/release engineer The XFree86 Project
Funny, but grand parent makes a good point. Spam is legit. I wouldn't mind getting an e-mail from the pizza place down the street, or that a near-by mall store is having a sale. I wouldn't mind a grocery store sending me coupons, or anything like that.
Just put "adv:" in the subject so I don't have to look at it if I don't want to. The problem isn't with spam, it is with the unaccountability of e-mail. Fix fradulent headers, have clear subject line, ensure accountability, sprinkle some legislation, and e-mail becomes a legit enterprise.
Thing is you have to throw in some things for spammers too, or they'll always try to break the rules. Provide a mechanism to target geographic and demographic areas. Perhaps a WHOIS registry for e-mail, perhaps only stating 'mail service start in CITY,STATE,COUNTRY'. Make it so that only people with a physical presence in that region can spam users in that region. Restrict access to this database with a fee and ensure only that person is spamming with 'sender permitted from' (SPF) Then there is a way to _target_ and _control_ spam.
Spam becomes a valuable tool for regular businesses and spammers cater to them and not porn and adult services and whatever other crap is being produced now. Users see real advantage in reading spam because it is about stuff in their region, and could possible save them money. People buy the sunday paper for the ads, people will read spam for the same purpose. Everybody wins, even spammers.
Marketers sometimes fail to see that you can't force advertising down on people. Give the people a reason to listen to you, and they will come.
And we certainly don't despise those who sell marijuana; they are putting themselves at risk and doing a service to the community. Most of them are not doing any harm to anyone.
Are you kidding here? A service to the community? Perhaps you are talking about the TINY percentage of users that use mary jane for medical purpose. The rest just use it for fun. Now I don't have anything against marijuana specifically, but I've never met a dealer who sold _just_ weed. And I'm not counting the frat boys who do hydroponics, their yeild is far too small. Even they are in it for themselves and not some altruistic philosophy.
Yes I've met many. No I don't do drugs, but you meet a lot of shady people during and after college. Maybe it's a lot different outside the city but generally hanging with a weed dealer is hazardous to your health.
Hmmm... it's hard to say this here, but I think Windows is the product of some of the world's greatest programmers. They just had their hands tied because of management who extoll features over stability and security. Furthermore Redmonds Exec's suffer from the "I want mine to be special" way of implementing and using standards.
Windows does what it was designed to do very well: be an operating system for the masses. Its headaches are caused by managerial nearsitedness and monopolistic practices. Disclaimer: IANA microsoft employee, or even a windows programmer, I run linux and develop cross-Unix (HP,SUN,Linux) software, but still I feel somebody has to give Microsoft developers some credit.
Perhaps he was refering to the adage that the only intuitive interface is the nipple. Nipple=intuition. What does one do on nipple? Suck. Therefore intuition sucks. Or maybe he was a boob man.
Because Microsoft never had its code freely audited. Because they won't take patches from Joe Shmo. Because they design for features first, security third. Because they relied on security through obsurity. Because they don't have a global network of developer-users to fix patches when they see them. Because it takes Microsoft a relatively long time to fix bugs. Because...
Yeah, and there is nothing stopping independent resellers of closed source software to insert anything they want. Poeple tend to forget that you don't need source code to figure out how the program works. It's just easier. And it's not like you really need to know the program either, just find a good place to stick something.
This is why we have trusted vendors. I'd bet from here to Tuesday that IBM performs internal audits on the software that it redistributes. And before it gets to IBM, Redhat does it's own. Before that then it is the people writing the software. There are three layers of people, two of which there are responsible people behind. If you are not using software except from a trusted vendor,your risk is low.
The only argument this guy makes is that it is not good to use software from people you don't trust. Duh. That point is true wether you are talking about open source software or not.
Slashdot Mirror
The only problem is, if it costs more than $200 it will probably be a tough sell.
Are you kidding? If it is as easy to read as newspaper, than imagine the change for students, especially college age. Instead of constantly carrying heavy textbooks everywhere, you just have one appliance that holds all your information.
Imagine the cost savings in buying textbooks if there is no more physical costs involved. If there is something like a 60% discount for e-books, you could pay for the thing in one semester. Of course that would require the books be available on whatever format that is required, but this has killer app written all over it.
Also, I dream of having all of my reference books, my whole O'Reilly shelf, in one easy-to-read, portable, cheap-when-compared-to-a-laptop device. If they could integrate some sort of note takening interface on this, even at 1/2 the battery life, I would definately buy one for $200.
HP-UX also. We use it here to do all documentation. It has a dated interface but it is still much better than Word for corporate type authoring.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Though I can tell by your artfully crafted website that you are a professional web designer, I'll have to disagree and say that IE is most definately "broken". Yes, it fulfills most of what web users want, but as for programming for IE, most non-trival applications require cludgy hacks, or IE extentions.
Am I some Mozilla drone? No, I think all browsers need improvement, and in fact, last time I checked no broswer was 100% compliant with the current versions of (X)HTML/CSS.
Normal people aren't into updating their software weekly. They want something mature that works. IE is mature. It works.
It works... mostly. And though it may meet the definition of mature in some people's book, that title is far from indisputed.
End of story. Mozilla is filling a nonexistent hole.
What about boxen that aren't WINTEL? You're right in saying that that's what most people do use, but for a lot of people, and a lot of business, going with something that is vendor independent gives a lot of flexibility.
Add to the fact that Mozilla is actually innovative. But seriously, there are so many roles for Mozilla to play that it's not even worth mentioning them here. To think otherwise is niave.
Or to perform music. Seriously though, at least here in Pittsburgh, small venues for people to perform at are going quickly. Supporting local music translates directly into given support to the "real" music industry people: the musicians. So get out there and go to some indy shows. Musicians still should get compensated for music they sell, but at a much smaller rate, think $5 a CD (direct to artist)
All right, I've had enough about the bitching about this "branding stuff", read bruce parens' open source definition:
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code.
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.
Some authors were afraid that others would distribute source code with modifications that would be percieved as the work of the original author, and would reflect poorly on that author. This gives them a way to enforce a separation between modifications and their own work without prohibiting modifications. Some consider it un-esthetic that modifications might have to be distributed in a separate "patch" file from the source code, even though Linux distributions like Debian and Red Hat use this procedure for all of the modifications they make to the programs they distribute. There are programs that automaticaly merge patches into the main source, and one can have these programs run automaticaly when extracting a source package. Thus, this provision should cause little or no hardship.
Note also that this provision says that in the case of patch files, the modification takes place at build-time. This loophole is employed in the Qt Public License to mandate a different, though less restrictive, license for the patch files, in contradiction of section 3 of the Open Source Definition. There is a proposal to clean up this loophole in the definition while keeping Qt within Open Source.
Come on, they built this into the OSS Definition! Bruce Perens! Ah! I know he posts to slashdot, where is he tonight?
"Thus, there's a MASSIVE performance loss when a functional programming language is executed on any of the existing processors. Because the compilers can't think and optimise the code to best fit the imperative model. Where as the human being s can. That's why we should stick to imperative programming languages."
If this discussion was 25 years ago it would have been "OO languages? They are only good it theory. Sure you can easily write programs in them, but they abstract over how the program is executed. Besides, OO is slow!!"
But through the use of OO we have seen that programming at a higher level is better. Compilers get better all the time. Moore's Law has kept. There are few places in a program where you really need speed. There are notable exceptions (graphics, higher math, real time) but there is no reason to assume compiler theory won't advance to the level that we can write games and OS'es in Java.
The speed argument becomes much less of a factor when you can be more expressive with a language.
"Because the compilers can't think and optimise the code to best fit the imperative model. Where as the human being s can."
Err... if human being s (sic) can, then they can abstract and automate. Computers don't "think" at all, they are only good at what we've figured out at automating. If we can do it, there's no reason why computers can't either. In short if a programming paradigm works, then it makes sense to invest in it. Optimization will come later.
Did you profile your code to see exactly what part of the code was slow? Most high level languages (even java,perl,python, and AFAIK ruby) allow you to write intensive code in C outside of it's virtual machine.
The most intensive part of a code tends to be quite small in relation to the whole. Most code in programs are GUI stuff, event handlers, error checking/handling, I/O processing, non-computational business logic.
If you are doing serious number crunching, or creating alot of advanced data types, most likely the critical code can be exacted into a small amount of C while still recieving the high-level benefits of newer languages for most of the program.
errr... "dude", look up what non-volitile means. Volatile memory generally is implemented as a series of capacitors which can be queried if they have a charge or not (1 or 0). The capacitors in the RAM in your computer, however, lose their charge very quickly, and need to be "refreshed" every couple milliseconds or so.
Non-volatile needs little or no refreshing. It's usually implemented by component that do something else than hold a charge. And thus, since it doesn't need freshing it keeps information when the power goes out. The reason all memory isn't like Non-volatile is that it is either much slower (magnetic storage) or much more expensive (ie flash and this RAM disk).
How is mandating public safety creating a Nanny state? An analogous argument... don't require cars with seat belts, and those that do have them, don't require them to use 'em, because some people don't like to use them. Don't require roads to have guardrails, mostly only poeple that at stupid enough to fall asleep need them. Oh, and disable that feature that allows 911 to trace land-line calls, it's an invation of privacy.
because people can't be bothered to know where they are...
You expect people to account for where they are to within shouting distance at all times? What if you are on an unfamiliar road, hit some black ice and crash in the woods? Is it your fault you don't know exactly where you are?
You're suggesting that I, as a taxpayer, should pay more for emergency services to have GPS systems and mapping software (along with all the updates).
No, the mandate is for the cell company to be able to provide information to locate you and tell emergency services where you are. ie. 1.85 miles down route 18 to the right 100 yards. Therefore there's no need to have EMTs walking around with GPS stuff. It's just that cell-phones will be a little more expensive. I don't know why this is so objectionable to you, as you can't buy a car without the safety features.
This mandate will save lives. At the expense of what? somebody misusing your location? If you are that concerned, turn the phone off and if you can't afford to missed calls, get a pager. Or here is an idea, have the GPS, (or whatever system) off by default and have 911 or whoever have the ability to turn it on.
err... yes, there is. If they are only an option, then people won't buy it as most will see it as an option they don't need. If 911 can't find you, they spend more time looking, which costs taxpayer money. You injuries are probably more severe, which cost more in not only money (mostly to insurance companies who in turn pass it back to me), but time at the hospital. Time that could be spent on me.
If EMTs and police can't find you for a half an hour, that's taxing the system. If doctors spend an extra hour on your, that's taxing the system. Your telling me, I, as a taxpayer should pay for your privacy? If you want privacy, don't use a cell phone. If there are critical systems dependent (fire,police,med) on a private network, the government has every right to mandate how it's used. Or alternatively say that anybody who doesn't have GPS on their phone can't use/call emergency systems. And since that would never happen we are back at the first point.
Yes, but as Microsoft, you just can't go and say in your accounting statement that you "lost" $100 million. Even if it is only 2% of your on hand cash, you can't not account for 2%.
This had to be mentioned somewhere, maybe through a paper trail of many intermediary companies, but as a public company you can't spend $100 million and not specifically account where it is going. Well, you can do enron-like stuff, but much of that is illegal and my original question was if Microsoft is doing accounting "by the book" why didn't anybody notice this before?
Yes, and if, in fact, this e-mail is real, then it will be real interesting to see what happens to SCO's revenue stream. I'm sure that MS doesn't like to be played the fool, and that about what these guys are saying here. I mean, christ...
...sure makes it seems like they think MS is an easy, endless source of money. Well, let's just wait and see what'll happen.
but there are other ways to get money from them, their partners,investment bank referrals, etc..
and
This Microsoft deal is the Ante to the poker game...We should get this done and go after several $2-3 Million deals from the expense side of their company.
Also, ~$100 mil isn't chump change, shouldn't there be some sort of public record of MS explaining this transaction, or can you "creatively account" for it?
QT is daul licensed. If you want to use it in your open source project, you can. But if you use it in a closed-source proprietray project, then you have to pay. Thus Qt is free-as-in-speech, but not necessarily free-as-in-beer.
What argument? You just asked a bunch of questions. How can you discern my argument before I give you the answers, unless you just assume to know them in advance in which case you're likely wrong.
Yes, I was anticipating you argument, and as invalid as that might have been, I'm just saying that one person's definition of UCE may be different than someone else's and some compromise might be necessary in order to get a more usable e-mail system.
Why should a recipient bear ANY cost of unsolicited advertising, however small?
In a perfect world yes, I would like that too, but as long as we leave no legal outlet for SPAM, illegal spam will likely clog our lines.
If people want to buy the sunday paper (or any other periodical) for the ads, let them. But quit *forcing* the stuff on me!
That's exactly what I am advocating. You shouldn't have to look, or even download UCE, recieve junk mail if you don't want to. You should be able to go to each company and say, "Please don't send me more information, erase what records you have of me, and do not transfer any of my information to third parties." And have that be enforced.
At the same time, allow people to contact you _once_, without any tangible (read very small) cost to you. I know you'd rather have NO cost to you, but isn't spending a few kilobytes and some CPU cycles in order to get a more usable e-mail system acceptable? I'm advocating compromise not idealism here.
I do know the technology. And I never said to block because of the subject line. I'm suggesting changes to the whole system, to allow indentification of e-mail at the router level (transport layer) or some other tecnological solution. Also, I never said that all reciever based cost can be eliminated. What I am advocating is that we may have to settle to bear a small cost (such as a few kilobytes a month, and maybe 10 or 20 seconds of CPU time), in order to have a much more usable email system.
Perhaps I made the equation between ISP and mail provider, but this is a valid assumption to make for a lot of people. There are ways to drop stuff before it wastes your bandwidth.
If some random person e-mails you and asks an inane question, is that SPAM? is that theft? So only when somebody's intention is to make a profit does it become theft? What do you define as SPAM? Is that the legal definition? So only mail that you don't want is illegitmate (sic) and theft?
That argument doesn't hold up very well.
I agree that my plan isn't perfect and likely could never be implemented, but my main point is that any reciever based costs can be mitigated, that advertising is far from illegal, and there is probably an acceptable way to implement e-mail marketing.
Or you can tell your email provider to block them for you. Then it is never delivered.
from http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2004-Januar y/003892.html
;.
z > , and notify us if
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 06:41:25PM -0500, Alan Cox wrote:
>For code owned by me (Alan Cox) please keep the original license and do not
>change it, as I wish my code to be usable by forks of the XFree86 codebase
>that allow GPL drivers (like AlanH's VNC driver and the new touchpad drivers)
>as well as linking with GPL code.
No worries. License changes apply only to code where "The XFree86
Project, Inc" is the copyright holder (and a subset of that, in
fact). XFree86 contributors remain free to choose which license
applies to their code, within classes of licenses that are listed
in our LICENSE document <http://www.xfree86.org/current/LICENSE.html>
The original license is still acceptable for contributions.
Please review the source patch at
<http://www.xfree86.org/license-200401.diff.g
there are any errors in edits for the new license.
David
--
David Dawes
developer/release engineer The XFree86 Project
Funny, but grand parent makes a good point. Spam is legit. I wouldn't mind getting an e-mail from the pizza place down the street, or that a near-by mall store is having a sale. I wouldn't mind a grocery store sending me coupons, or anything like that.
Just put "adv:" in the subject so I don't have to look at it if I don't want to. The problem isn't with spam, it is with the unaccountability of e-mail. Fix fradulent headers, have clear subject line, ensure accountability, sprinkle some legislation, and e-mail becomes a legit enterprise.
Thing is you have to throw in some things for spammers too, or they'll always try to break the rules. Provide a mechanism to target geographic and demographic areas. Perhaps a WHOIS registry for e-mail, perhaps only stating 'mail service start in CITY,STATE,COUNTRY'. Make it so that only people with a physical presence in that region can spam users in that region. Restrict access to this database with a fee and ensure only that person is spamming with 'sender permitted from' (SPF) Then there is a way to _target_ and _control_ spam.
Spam becomes a valuable tool for regular businesses and spammers cater to them and not porn and adult services and whatever other crap is being produced now. Users see real advantage in reading spam because it is about stuff in their region, and could possible save them money. People buy the sunday paper for the ads, people will read spam for the same purpose. Everybody wins, even spammers.
Marketers sometimes fail to see that you can't force advertising down on people. Give the people a reason to listen to you, and they will come.
And we certainly don't despise those who sell marijuana; they are putting themselves at risk and doing a service to the community. Most of them are not doing any harm to anyone.
Are you kidding here? A service to the community? Perhaps you are talking about the TINY percentage of users that use mary jane for medical purpose. The rest just use it for fun. Now I don't have anything against marijuana specifically, but I've never met a dealer who sold _just_ weed. And I'm not counting the frat boys who do hydroponics, their yeild is far too small. Even they are in it for themselves and not some altruistic philosophy.
Yes I've met many. No I don't do drugs, but you meet a lot of shady people during and after college. Maybe it's a lot different outside the city but generally hanging with a weed dealer is hazardous to your health.
Hmmm... it's hard to say this here, but I think Windows is the product of some of the world's greatest programmers. They just had their hands tied because of management who extoll features over stability and security. Furthermore Redmonds Exec's suffer from the "I want mine to be special" way of implementing and using standards.
Windows does what it was designed to do very well: be an operating system for the masses. Its headaches are caused by managerial nearsitedness and monopolistic practices. Disclaimer: IANA microsoft employee, or even a windows programmer, I run linux and develop cross-Unix (HP,SUN,Linux) software, but still I feel somebody has to give Microsoft developers some credit.
Perhaps he was refering to the adage that the only intuitive interface is the nipple. Nipple=intuition. What does one do on nipple? Suck. Therefore intuition sucks. Or maybe he was a boob man.
Because Microsoft never had its code freely audited. Because they won't take patches from Joe Shmo. Because they design for features first, security third. Because they relied on security through obsurity. Because they don't have a global network of developer-users to fix patches when they see them. Because it takes Microsoft a relatively long time to fix bugs. Because...
Yeah, and there is nothing stopping independent resellers of closed source software to insert anything they want. Poeple tend to forget that you don't need source code to figure out how the program works. It's just easier. And it's not like you really need to know the program either, just find a good place to stick something.
This is why we have trusted vendors. I'd bet from here to Tuesday that IBM performs internal audits on the software that it redistributes. And before it gets to IBM, Redhat does it's own. Before that then it is the people writing the software. There are three layers of people, two of which there are responsible people behind. If you are not using software except from a trusted vendor,your risk is low.
The only argument this guy makes is that it is not good to use software from people you don't trust. Duh. That point is true wether you are talking about open source software or not.