If you wouldn't let a man shovel coal for 16 hours, when you know there is a perfectly good machine on which to train him in order to make his productivity, health and income rise, why would you let someone toil at Microsoft software when you know there exists a better solution?
Yeah, but then I thought we were supposed to whine about all the coal shovelers who lost their job to a machine (or how all programming jobs are disappearing because of Free Software).
With respect, ethics may be YOUR whole point behind free software but it is not everyone's point.
You need to brush up on your terminology. You are looking for the Open Source movement. Open Source is the philosophy that many eyes make bugs shallow. Free Software (note the capitalization) is a different philosophy, and it is about the ethics of software ownership.
And *again* you demonstrate your ability to completely not understand the situation.
Oh, I understand the situation, but you seem to be reading a great deal more into my words than I put there. I was merely commenting on the fact that your original post was pretty frivolous (not to mention that it is a misrepresentation of the newpapers position). The media in which the stolen information apprears doesn't matter. The fact that it may or may not be seen by millions of people doesn't matter. The question about whether or not the people involved are *really* journalists doesn't matter. In fact, I really don't give a rats ass about what happens to the perps. You might want to try not being so defensive. Hell, the comment I'm replying to is about 20x more interesting than the original comment that got a +5 Insightful and started this whole thread in the first place.
Any random person cannot have a newspaper, nor can they distribute things like print flyers/pamplets, or spoken word, anywhere *near* as widely or as quickly as a the internet.
You are aware that you can speak to a reporter at a newspaper without owning the newpaper, right? But I digress. We wouldn't be having this conversation if your original post wasn't completely without content. A "first post!" would have been more entertaining.
So how does the fact that this information was revealed on a "web site" (your words not mine) have any bearing at all on the case? Oh yeah, it doesn't. There is nothing different about this case if web hadn't been involved at all. So what was your point again?
So now, in their world, all anyone has to do to knowingly break binding contractual confidentiality agreements that they have agreed to in good faith with their employers with no danger whatsoever of being caught, is simply by leaking it to a newspaper!
... is simply by leaking it to a TV reporter!
...is simply by printing it on handbills and leaving them in a public place!
...is simply by posting to Usenet from the public library!
...is simply by calling people from a payphone!
...is simply by dropping an anonymous letter in the mail!
...is simply by placing graffiti on public bathroom walls!
Let's be frank here and admit that this article was nothing but a troll from the New York Times. Its sole purpose was to console people from blue states that they are better than those from red states. Let's look at these choice quotes from the article...
The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the industry say - perhaps a dozen or fewer...
OK. So we can agree its a small number. Slow news day at the Times, huh?
"Volcanoes," released in 2003 and sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation and Rutgers University, has been turned down at about a dozen science centers, mostly in the South, said Dr. Richard Lutz, the Rutgers oceanographer who was chief scientist for the film. He said theater officials rejected the film because of its brief references to evolution, in particular to the possibility that life on Earth originated at the undersea vents.
Let's ask the chief scientist why the movie is failing, surely he wouldn't be biased.
Carol Murray, director of marketing for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, said the museum decided not to offer the movie after showing it to a sample audience, a practice often followed by managers of Imax theaters. Ms. Murray said 137 people participated in the survey, and while some thought it was well done, "some people said it was blasphemous."
Some people. Glad we're being scientific and putting a number on it. My bet is that the number is one.
In their written comments, she explained, they made statements like "I really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact," or "I don't agree with their presentation of human existence."
Hmm. Survey says: some people didn't like certain aspects of the movie. But you did ask them for their opinion, and they gave it. Also notice that there wasn't any mention of people trying to get their money back, or saying they wouldn't let their children go to the movie, or that they wouldn't recommend it to their friends. I guess we're supposed to infer this, based on two second hand quotes.
On other criteria, like narration and music, the film did not score as well as other films, Ms. Murray said, and over all, it did not receive high marks, so she recommended that the museum pass.
"If it's not going to draw a crowd and it is going to create controversy," she said, "from a marketing standpoint I cannot make a recommendation" to show it.
So I guess we're supposed to believe that they routinly show movies that are going to financially bomb, as long as they're not controversial. Uh huh. Sounds likely.
Her theater had not ruled out ever showing "Volcanoes," Ms. Buzzelli said, "but being in the Bible Belt, the movie does have a lot to do with evolution, and we weigh that carefully."
Oh, so maybe we've got the cart before the horse, since the movie hasn't been ruled out.
Some in the industry say they fear that documentary filmmakers will steer clear of science topics likely to offend religious fundamentalists.
Good we're not going to overgeneralize everything in this article, 'cause we wouldn't want to name names. Is this tripe standard fare at the NYTimes? No wonder they're bleeding readers.
I could try to make other points, but what's the use? Looks like a troll, plain and simple.
Businessmen are turning down metric tons of cash for fear of upsetting a tiny minority. (And we know how ethical people get when money gets involved)
Most IMAX theaters are located in science museums. When questioned why they were showing fewer science movies and more "Brittney Spears! Live!", they panicked. Instead of explaining that Brittney makes them about 10x more money, they decided the easy way to avert this controversy was to blame it on religious fanatics.
Call me a cynic, but I'm inclined to think option #2 is closer to reality.
Here's my first attempt at a version which performs decent in Haskell. It doesn't do any memoization, and isn't particularily dynamic. It ended up being only 35 non-blank lines of code. The 9x3 case takes 26 seconds to complete on my Athlon 1600 compiled with GHC 6.4. Erg. You'll have to grab a copy here as/. thinks my Haskell code has too many 'junk' characters.
And it for those of us who love Free software, it sticks in our craw that we depend of the benevolance of a commercial enterprise to preform web searches.
What better motivation for a Free search engine could there be?
Seems like what we really need is a distributed search engine (a la bittorrent) with a PGP Web of Trust thingy added in. First of all, I want to do searches, you want to do searches, we all want to do searches. So why not use our machines cooperatively to search the web? But why should I trust any of the links you find for me? (you could be a commercial spammer after all) Well, that's where the web of trust comes in. I might not know you, but I might know someone who knows someone, who knows someone who can vouch for your trustworthiness. Why would anyone cooperate? Well if you're tired of the same old crap, maybe you wouldn't. And if you wanted your stuff to be found, you'd have great incentive to cooperate. We'd just need to build something into the protocol to ensure reciprocity. Ta, da. Surely, that would be an interesting project for someone to start hacking on.
I always thought it would be fun to get a list of employees at the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. and send a hardcopy of "The Lie Behind the Lie Detector" to a large number of them. Then their next annual polygraph test might be fun...
Examiner: So Johnson, do you have anything you'd like to tell us before we begin?
Employee: Well, er, I got this package in the mail...
Examiner: And? (starts to take notes, fiddles with knobs on polygraph)
Employee:...and it contained a copy of this book you see...
Examiner: (eyebrows raise) Go on.
Employee: Well, it had the title like "The lie behind the lie detector" or something.
Examiner: (shit! Fourth one today!) Did you read it?
Employee: Uh, no.
Examiner: But how can we believe you now , since if you did read it you would know how to beat the machine? You could simply lie to us and tell us you didn't read the book.
Employee: I guess you'll just have to believe me.
Examiner: But if we believed you in the first place, we wouldn't have had to test you with the polygraph, now would we?
Employee: Er, um...
Examiner: So logically, we have to fire you.
Employee: What?!? How can you fire me for simply getting a book in the mail from some nut on the internet?
Examiner: I feel for you Johnson, but them's the breaks. My hands are tied. Better luck next time.
Yeah, I don't get much spam from my addresses that I keep secret. I only get it from addresses that are used in public mailing lists, discussion boards, usenet, etc. And I get an assortment of foreign language spam which I presume are ads for Chinese herbal viagra and Russian home mortgages.
Maybe we should all step back a take a deep breath. Instead of getting all hot and bothered about defunding a mission on its last legs, maybe we should be grateful that the taxpayers of this country have ponied up $$$ for the last 30 years to keep this afloat. Just a suggestion.
What we need here is a little out-of-the-box-thinking. Why not turn it into an all volunteer project? Here's our chance for one of the greatest open source hacks of all time. If we can create multiple operating systems and associated software with only ad-hoc means of funding, I think we can do the same with this project. Surely we could reverse engineer the transmission protocol which communicates with the spacecraft (even if the data is encrypted, its 1970's based encryption which we should be able to break). In fact what we are dealing with here is all 70's based technology. Moore's law to the rescue. But we'd also need a large antenna right? Well I have not done any signal-to-noise calculations, but what if we used 1,000+ smaller antenna distributed throughout the country? You know, like those large dishes from the analog satellite TV days. Okay, maybe the recievers would have to be sitting in a bath of liquid nitrogen. So what? It's cheaper than milk. And we might have to be syncronized in time and know the precise locations of each antenna. Hey, that's what the 'Net and GPS are for. There are a thousand other reasons why the pessimists might say this couldn't work, but pessimists never accomplish anything anyway, ignore them.
Which gets me all the time. Its also been discussed at Mozillazine. Just for the heck of it, next time FF starts to wig-out, attach gdb to it and print a backtrace. See if it ends up with about 100 level deep nesting of...
nsPRUint32Key::Clone() const ()
...which is interesting, because the file where nsPRUint32Key::Clone() is defined has some fine comments like the following...
/** * nsHashtable is OBSOLETE. Use nsTHashtable or a derivative instead. */
Defining exactly what constitutes bloat may be hard, but take a look at the QNX demo disk sometime if you want to see the absence of bloat. Each bootable 1.44MB floppy contained the OS, GUI, networking, Web browser, file browser, Web server, and several demo applications.
Even better, a virus that installs a Windows root kit which intercepts calls to the get_date function and only mis-reports the date to the HP printer device driver.
How about... there will be BSD because its the only FAIR license that allows ANYONE to use the code?
I think your definition of anyone isn't broad enough. You can't use BSD code if you can't/won't/don't agree with...
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
...also you can't use BSD code if you need...
The software to have WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
LIABILITY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
So, while that might be good enough for 99.99% of people, that isn't necessarily good enough for everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
Might as well mention that it looks like Darcs is getting the git religion also.
I thought telephone company monopolies were unamerican?
So how does the fact that this information was revealed on a "web site" (your words not mine) have any bearing at all on the case? Oh yeah, it doesn't. There is nothing different about this case if web hadn't been involved at all. So what was your point again?
-
So now, in their world, all anyone has to do to knowingly break binding contractual confidentiality agreements that they have agreed to in good faith with their employers with no danger whatsoever of being caught, is simply by leaking it to a newspaper!
... is simply by leaking it to a TV reporter!
...is simply by printing it on handbills and leaving them in a public place!
...is simply by posting to Usenet from the public library!
...is simply by calling people from a payphone!
...is simply by dropping an anonymous letter in the mail!
...is simply by placing graffiti on public bathroom walls!
Won't somebody think of the children?You can submit your faster programs here
I could try to make other points, but what's the use? Looks like a troll, plain and simple.
- Businessmen are turning down metric tons of cash for fear of upsetting a tiny minority. (And we know how ethical people get when money gets involved)
- Most IMAX theaters are located in science museums. When questioned why they were showing fewer science movies and more "Brittney Spears! Live!", they panicked. Instead of explaining that Brittney makes them about 10x more money, they decided the easy way to avert this controversy was to blame it on religious fanatics.
Call me a cynic, but I'm inclined to think option #2 is closer to reality.Here's my first attempt at a version which performs decent in Haskell. It doesn't do any memoization, and isn't particularily dynamic. It ended up being only 35 non-blank lines of code. The 9x3 case takes 26 seconds to complete on my Athlon 1600 compiled with GHC 6.4. Erg. You'll have to grab a copy here as /. thinks my Haskell code has too many 'junk' characters.
Some of us think Linux is already pretty far along the path to microkernel-hood.
And it for those of us who love Free software, it sticks in our craw that we depend of the benevolance of a commercial enterprise to preform web searches. What better motivation for a Free search engine could there be?
Seems like what we really need is a distributed search engine (a la bittorrent) with a PGP Web of Trust thingy added in. First of all, I want to do searches, you want to do searches, we all want to do searches. So why not use our machines cooperatively to search the web? But why should I trust any of the links you find for me? (you could be a commercial spammer after all) Well, that's where the web of trust comes in. I might not know you, but I might know someone who knows someone, who knows someone who can vouch for your trustworthiness. Why would anyone cooperate? Well if you're tired of the same old crap, maybe you wouldn't. And if you wanted your stuff to be found, you'd have great incentive to cooperate. We'd just need to build something into the protocol to ensure reciprocity. Ta, da. Surely, that would be an interesting project for someone to start hacking on.
Well, at least some of them.
Yeah, I don't get much spam from my addresses that I keep secret. I only get it from addresses that are used in public mailing lists, discussion boards, usenet, etc. And I get an assortment of foreign language spam which I presume are ads for Chinese herbal viagra and Russian home mortgages.
Maybe we should all step back a take a deep breath. Instead of getting all hot and bothered about defunding a mission on its last legs, maybe we should be grateful that the taxpayers of this country have ponied up $$$ for the last 30 years to keep this afloat. Just a suggestion.
What we need here is a little out-of-the-box-thinking. Why not turn it into an all volunteer project? Here's our chance for one of the greatest open source hacks of all time. If we can create multiple operating systems and associated software with only ad-hoc means of funding, I think we can do the same with this project. Surely we could reverse engineer the transmission protocol which communicates with the spacecraft (even if the data is encrypted, its 1970's based encryption which we should be able to break). In fact what we are dealing with here is all 70's based technology. Moore's law to the rescue. But we'd also need a large antenna right? Well I have not done any signal-to-noise calculations, but what if we used 1,000+ smaller antenna distributed throughout the country? You know, like those large dishes from the analog satellite TV days. Okay, maybe the recievers would have to be sitting in a bath of liquid nitrogen. So what? It's cheaper than milk. And we might have to be syncronized in time and know the precise locations of each antenna. Hey, that's what the 'Net and GPS are for. There are a thousand other reasons why the pessimists might say this couldn't work, but pessimists never accomplish anything anyway, ignore them.
Defining exactly what constitutes bloat may be hard, but take a look at the QNX demo disk sometime if you want to see the absence of bloat. Each bootable 1.44MB floppy contained the OS, GUI, networking, Web browser, file browser, Web server, and several demo applications.
Even better, a virus that installs a Windows root kit which intercepts calls to the get_date function and only mis-reports the date to the HP printer device driver.
- The software to have WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
- LIABILITY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
So, while that might be good enough for 99.99% of people, that isn't necessarily good enough for everyone.