I want clueless Windows users using Linux, just like I wanted clueless AOL users joining the internet. Let them stay in their walled garden, unaware of the riches available in Linux and free software generally.
I don't mean that there are not many who should be enticed to switch and would enrich the community on the community's terms, but keep those who prefer to pay for proprietary software like Windows paying for it, I say. They and their mindset is only a liability.
Linux does not have to be more popular than Windows to be a success, and in striving to be a success, it could become much less than it is now, as we see happening with the internet, which now must be legally sanitized for popular consumption.
Presumably it was not an HP person that would moderate a reasonable request to be a flaimbait. There are lots of them and their customers, I am sure, who still know how great it is. Digital stuff was great stuff, and they had many technologies before the market curve, some that have never appeared outside. How about their spiralog filesystem. I'd love to be able to try to make those concepts work with Linux.
I really wish they hadn't. It would be nice at least to have a second source. Of course they would have had to eventually limit searches on binary groups they offered, but it was a sad day when they dropped it altogether.
Altavista advanced search capabilities always seemed far more advanced than Google, even now. For example, how, again, in google can I search for an article where a specific word is near another specific word (within n words), to avoid all the false matches of composite content? Google seems to spend most of its efforts determining where 80% would like to go relative to a particular topic rather than any degree of accuracy.
If HP Unix is dominant in your business model, why not open source the other, more advanced offerings so that others not constrained by your business model can make it work?
What Sun probably did not do, was triple license for compatibility, as Mozilla did (you can use alternative licenses of GPL or LGPL if you choose). This makes the work much less useful to outsiders who are not part of the Sun mainstream.
Admittedly this weakens the terms, but it shows much greater goodwill as opposed to code that cannot be easily incorporated in GPLed works in spite of the GPL code that keeps showing up in proximity to Solaris.
In fairness, Linux is also not triple licensed to serve Solaris, but how would you expect it to be at this point or in the future now, since Sun, coming after, defined the incompatibility.
FWIW, I always liked the MPL patent "gotcha" clause which has been mentioned in conjunction with this new license (Good work Mitchell Baker).
Personally, I believe that the United States needs to understand that they aren't the only entity in the world and that they cannot determine the future of the Internet because they are paranoid about "terrorism".
While there is some hope in other nations, the US seems to continuously invent new means of suppression and export them around the world.
Regulation of the internet starts here, just like DVD encoding, DMCA, patriot act, etc. It becomes fashionable because the USA set the standard and most governments have a natural tendency to want to regulate things.
Look at all the ammo Bush and predecessors have given to repressive governments all around the world.
While I might take advantage of it if I knew there were problems, knowing I would have to wait a year to see it again (even if I later had real problems) would make me think twice before requesting it just to look it over.
The hybrids I have seen actually seem to get better milage in the city than on the highway, because of their hybrid nature.
One that a friend has was rated that way. So just because someone is measuring highway MPG below the rated number does not mean it does not get better mileage in the city.
Can you prove that "9 times out of 10" assertion? Can you prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt, data being entered via the keyboard can always be assumed to be interstate material?
Can you prove it for a telephone?
Warrants are only needed when people are making out-of-state calls?
It does not help for incremental patents. Let's say I invented XML, so Microsoft says, "we invented using XML for a calendar", and everyone who wants to do it has to pay.
It does not work when Microsoft goes out filing incremental patents.
Forum to discuss new GPL, defensive patents, etc?
on
GPL Revision Coming Soon
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I have significant code I have been working on for some time. I have placed GPL language at the top, etc. in anticipation that I would publish it as soon as I felt I and it were ready.
One thing stopping me is that the code has lots of quite new ideas in it that I feel could become quickly widespread in use, in some cases as an alternative to existing, increasingly encumbered and controlled, standards.
I feel that it may be good to take out lots of patent claims, not that I feel that offensive patent use is ever justified, but that I see Microsoft patent around such things as XML.
I would like to stop them or anyone else to the extent from patenting use of the technology for X or Y (as Microsoft does with XML, for example), when it is obvious to anyone that it is a technology that is general purpose in nature and should be open to all uses.
I need to discuss this sort of thing, preferrably on a forum with someone actively pursuing FSF agendas to talk about the pitfalls and what might be possible in this respect. I would be perfectly happy signing patent rights to a third party as long as they could be used defensively by myself and others to the widest extent possible.
(Let me make it clear that it would not be my intent to use such to control or enforce a particular usage in any way, as Sun or Microsoft, for example, often try to do when making a "public" grant).
It listed no one even remotely acceptable for president that had a snowball's chance.
But the solution to that is instant runnoff. While verification of the actual vote would be nice, we have no record at all of how many people were quite dissatisfied with both candidates. Was it a majority voting out of fear that the stupid system we have would punish them for voting for a third party candidate by giving them their worst nightmare?
For someone who is not completely clueless, which
on
Netscape Reborn?
·
· Score: 1
Which brand would the not-completely-clueless be more-likely to buy:
1. AOL
2. Netscape
Perhaps the better alternative would be to try to sell open-source brands, but don't expect AOL to understand that.
I think that the terms of the publicized SCO negotiation would make it very difficult for SCO to contemplate new litigation over open-sourcing Solaris. No new litigation is included in the fees, which seem to nearly drain SCO coffers.
They say that somehow every time someone protected himself with a gun, someone died. Criminals are not that dedicated to always require you to kill them to stop them from killing them. Typically, they will run, and a citizen is less likely to shoot them in the back than a drug dealer or 7-11 stickup who clearly would not permit a victim to run.
Perhaps you never talked to small retailers before. When I say small, I am talking about cut-rate places, that give good prices as a way of generating business, not cartel members who don't offer reasonable prices in the first place.
I used an ad to get a price match at a retailer that I will not name. The competitor was local, and they DID have the item in stock. The salesdrone asked me "Well, why didn't you buy it there?" as if I were annoying him just by trying to spend my money there.
So, why didn't you buy it there? Reward the retailer who was willing to discount without any prodding.
Often, if you take advantage of price matching, the retailer then goes back to his supplier and puts pressure on the supplier to stop supplying the usually-smaller business that is undercutting him. This happens all the time.
I believe there is an ethical problem with taking advantage of price matching. Just go buy it at the better price. If you doon't want to deal with the person making the lower price, pay the higher price. Don't punish the person competing and thus keeping prices low.
"You're arrested for Gate-Breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-Keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-Buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food."
"And what else?" said Frodo.
"That'll do to go on with," said the Shiriff-leader.
"I can add some more, if you'd like it," said Sam. "Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-Fools."
How long till we have to water the tree of liberty with more blood. But then we would be terrorists, for even thinking it.
I was never really one to love one performing artist or another anyway.
You can sure fit a lot of midi's on a CD, and the RIAA doesn't seem to be gunning for you yet. I think the IP enforcement is much muddier, and they don't have a virtual monopoly on all the rights involved.
Midi is less final form than mp3, so you can easily change speed, instruments, etc., making it far more flexible if you like to be more involved in music than listening to exactly the same performance over and over.
I wonder what the appropriate open-source license for Midi is? I suspect a million monkeys might occasionally come up with better arrangement and original music and new styles once they had the tools and non-final-form exchange media.
Should the world because Mormons are no longer able to take the heat, now start persecuting those who practice polygamy and define marriage in the Catholic / Protestant -- a man and a woman -- manner to ensure persecution of others as the Mormons have been persecuted in the past? To advocate such laws and actions seems complete hypocricy, without homosexuality entering into the discussion at all.
I saw news a number of years ago, citing an authority of the Mormon church that the Church was indeed accepting polygamists in Africa, just not permitting them to continue to add wives. It does not seem strange that this should have been true, although I do not expect you to take my word for it. If the leadership could not stand the heat again and now advocate divorce for prospective members rather than a continuation of the committment of marriage that they legally and morally entered, I am not suprised. You have not presented evidence that this was never the case.
With respect to homosexuality, thinking it is unacceptable (just as others thought polygamy was unacceptable) is a long ways from justifying a constitutional ammendment. Serious committment, even in a homosexual relationship, may be much preferred by a rational government and a rational Mormon to no committment at all and Federal control over the religious definition of marriage. What if they change their mind again? What if we made it illegal for blacks to marry just because they were not permitted to marry for many years in the Mormon temples? It is a huge population with committed couples to say they should not be permitted to marry, although I suspect the slavers in the south would have been just as happy if they were never permitted to marry and instead were subjects of breeding.
Perhaps the issue is too complex for you or your system of beliefs.
The quote does not claim that what went before was wrong, but the Mormon doctrine still affirms that it was right. Your quote lacks any discreditation or condemnation. All it would have to say was "these teachings of the early leaders were wrong, and no one, Mormon leaders included, ever had a right to variant definitions of mariage even if they believe it is a good and justified thing to make such vows of fidelity and call them mariage". If Hinckley decides to make that proclamation, I am sure it will not be vague, and it would clear things up.
I am not condemning the prior teachings of polygamous Mormon leaders, and neither does Hinckley. I am pointing out the hypocricy in Utahns with a purported religion that still on the one hand clings to the interpretation of religious suffering and persecution in the name of Mormonism of prior leaders and members due to polygamy, and on the other hand believes in legislating religious definitions at the federal constitutional level and many others that would, in fact, condemn these same leaders and new targets of persecution today.
One century, the great leaders denounce the opposition to polygamy as religious persecution and unconstitutional and the next, these Utah Mormons are the ones wanting to place such restrictions into the constitution.
Slashdot Mirror
I want clueless Windows users using Linux, just like I wanted clueless AOL users joining the internet. Let them stay in their walled garden, unaware of the riches available in Linux and free software generally.
I don't mean that there are not many who should be enticed to switch and would enrich the community on the community's terms, but keep those who prefer to pay for proprietary software like Windows paying for it, I say. They and their mindset is only a liability.
Linux does not have to be more popular than Windows to be a success, and in striving to be a success, it could become much less than it is now, as we see happening with the internet, which now must be legally sanitized for popular consumption.
Presumably it was not an HP person that would moderate a reasonable request to be a flaimbait. There are lots of them and their customers, I am sure, who still know how great it is. Digital stuff was great stuff, and they had many technologies before the market curve, some that have never appeared outside. How about their spiralog filesystem. I'd love to be able to try to make those concepts work with Linux.
I really wish they hadn't. It would be nice at least to have a second source. Of course they would have had to eventually limit searches on binary groups they offered, but it was a sad day when they dropped it altogether.
Altavista advanced search capabilities always seemed far more advanced than Google, even now. For example, how, again, in google can I search for an article where a specific word is near another specific word (within n words), to avoid all the false matches of composite content? Google seems to spend most of its efforts determining where 80% would like to go relative to a particular topic rather than any degree of accuracy.
If HP Unix is dominant in your business model, why not open source the other, more advanced offerings so that others not constrained by your business model can make it work?
What Sun probably did not do, was triple license for compatibility, as Mozilla did (you can use alternative licenses of GPL or LGPL if you choose). This makes the work much less useful to outsiders who are not part of the Sun mainstream.
Admittedly this weakens the terms, but it shows much greater goodwill as opposed to code that cannot be easily incorporated in GPLed works in spite of the GPL code that keeps showing up in proximity to Solaris.
In fairness, Linux is also not triple licensed to serve Solaris, but how would you expect it to be at this point or in the future now, since Sun, coming after, defined the incompatibility.
FWIW, I always liked the MPL patent "gotcha" clause which has been mentioned in conjunction with this new license (Good work Mitchell Baker).
A one meter/three foot balloon has 27 times the lift of a 33 cm/one foot balloon, etc.
Personally, I believe that the United States needs to understand that they aren't the only entity in the world and that they cannot determine the future of the Internet because they are paranoid about "terrorism".
While there is some hope in other nations, the US seems to continuously invent new means of suppression and export them around the world.
Regulation of the internet starts here, just like DVD encoding, DMCA, patriot act, etc. It becomes fashionable because the USA set the standard and most governments have a natural tendency to want to regulate things.
Look at all the ammo Bush and predecessors have given to repressive governments all around the world.
While I might take advantage of it if I knew there were problems, knowing I would have to wait a year to see it again (even if I later had real problems) would make me think twice before requesting it just to look it over.
The hybrids I have seen actually seem to get better milage in the city than on the highway, because of their hybrid nature.
One that a friend has was rated that way. So just because someone is measuring highway MPG below the rated number does not mean it does not get better mileage in the city.
Can you prove that "9 times out of 10" assertion? Can you prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt, data being entered via the keyboard can always be assumed to be interstate material?
Can you prove it for a telephone?
Warrants are only needed when people are making out-of-state calls?
It does not help for incremental patents. Let's say I invented XML, so Microsoft says, "we invented using XML for a calendar", and everyone who wants to do it has to pay.
It does not work when Microsoft goes out filing incremental patents.
I have significant code I have been working on for some time. I have placed GPL language at the top, etc. in anticipation that I would publish it as soon as I felt I and it were ready.
One thing stopping me is that the code has lots of quite new ideas in it that I feel could become quickly widespread in use, in some cases as an alternative to existing, increasingly encumbered and controlled, standards.
I feel that it may be good to take out lots of patent claims, not that I feel that offensive patent use is ever justified, but that I see Microsoft patent around such things as XML.
I would like to stop them or anyone else to the extent from patenting use of the technology for X or Y (as Microsoft does with XML, for example), when it is obvious to anyone that it is a technology that is general purpose in nature and should be open to all uses.
I need to discuss this sort of thing, preferrably on a forum with someone actively pursuing FSF agendas to talk about the pitfalls and what might be possible in this respect. I would be perfectly happy signing patent rights to a third party as long as they could be used defensively by myself and others to the widest extent possible.
(Let me make it clear that it would not be my intent to use such to control or enforce a particular usage in any way, as Sun or Microsoft, for example, often try to do when making a "public" grant).
It listed no one even remotely acceptable for president that had a snowball's chance.
But the solution to that is instant runnoff. While verification of the actual vote would be nice, we have no record at all of how many people were quite dissatisfied with both candidates. Was it a majority voting out of fear that the stupid system we have would punish them for voting for a third party candidate by giving them their worst nightmare?
Which brand would the not-completely-clueless be more-likely to buy:
1. AOL
2. Netscape
Perhaps the better alternative would be to try to sell open-source brands, but don't expect AOL to understand that.
I think that the terms of the publicized SCO negotiation would make it very difficult for SCO to contemplate new litigation over open-sourcing Solaris. No new litigation is included in the fees, which seem to nearly drain SCO coffers.
This was a hacked version, after all.
Little difference.
They say that somehow every time someone protected himself with a gun, someone died. Criminals are not that dedicated to always require you to kill them to stop them from killing them. Typically, they will run, and a citizen is less likely to shoot them in the back than a drug dealer or 7-11 stickup who clearly would not permit a victim to run.
Perhaps you never talked to small retailers before. When I say small, I am talking about cut-rate places, that give good prices as a way of generating business, not cartel members who don't offer reasonable prices in the first place.
I used an ad to get a price match at a retailer that I will not name. The competitor was local, and they DID have the item in stock. The salesdrone asked me "Well, why didn't you buy it there?" as if I were annoying him just by trying to spend my money there.
So, why didn't you buy it there? Reward the retailer who was willing to discount without any prodding.
Often, if you take advantage of price matching, the retailer then goes back to his supplier and puts pressure on the supplier to stop supplying the usually-smaller business that is undercutting him. This happens all the time.
I believe there is an ethical problem with taking advantage of price matching. Just go buy it at the better price. If you doon't want to deal with the person making the lower price, pay the higher price. Don't punish the person competing and thus keeping prices low.
"You're arrested for Gate-Breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-Keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-Buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food."
"And what else?" said Frodo.
"That'll do to go on with," said the Shiriff-leader.
"I can add some more, if you'd like it," said Sam. "Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-Fools."
How long till we have to water the tree of liberty with more blood. But then we would be terrorists, for even thinking it.
I was never really one to love one performing artist or another anyway.
You can sure fit a lot of midi's on a CD, and the RIAA doesn't seem to be gunning for you yet. I think the IP enforcement is much muddier, and they don't have a virtual monopoly on all the rights involved.
Midi is less final form than mp3, so you can easily change speed, instruments, etc., making it far more flexible if you like to be more involved in music than listening to exactly the same performance over and over.
I wonder what the appropriate open-source license for Midi is? I suspect a million monkeys might occasionally come up with better arrangement and original music and new styles once they had the tools and non-final-form exchange media.
Should the world because Mormons are no longer able to take the heat, now start persecuting those who practice polygamy and define marriage in the Catholic / Protestant -- a man and a woman -- manner to ensure persecution of others as the Mormons have been persecuted in the past? To advocate such laws and actions seems complete hypocricy, without homosexuality entering into the discussion at all.
I saw news a number of years ago, citing an authority of the Mormon church that the Church was indeed accepting polygamists in Africa, just not permitting them to continue to add wives. It does not seem strange that this should have been true, although I do not expect you to take my word for it. If the leadership could not stand the heat again and now advocate divorce for prospective members rather than a continuation of the committment of marriage that they legally and morally entered, I am not suprised. You have not presented evidence that this was never the case.
With respect to homosexuality, thinking it is unacceptable (just as others thought polygamy was unacceptable) is a long ways from justifying a constitutional ammendment. Serious committment, even in a homosexual relationship, may be much preferred by a rational government and a rational Mormon to no committment at all and Federal control over the religious definition of marriage. What if they change their mind again? What if we made it illegal for blacks to marry just because they were not permitted to marry for many years in the Mormon temples? It is a huge population with committed couples to say they should not be permitted to marry, although I suspect the slavers in the south would have been just as happy if they were never permitted to marry and instead were subjects of breeding.
Perhaps the issue is too complex for you or your system of beliefs.
The quote does not claim that what went before was wrong, but the Mormon doctrine still affirms that it was right. Your quote lacks any discreditation or condemnation. All it would have to say was "these teachings of the early leaders were wrong, and no one, Mormon leaders included, ever had a right to variant definitions of mariage even if they believe it is a good and justified thing to make such vows of fidelity and call them mariage". If Hinckley decides to make that proclamation, I am sure it will not be vague, and it would clear things up.
I am not condemning the prior teachings of polygamous Mormon leaders, and neither does Hinckley. I am pointing out the hypocricy in Utahns with a purported religion that still on the one hand clings to the interpretation of religious suffering and persecution in the name of Mormonism of prior leaders and members due to polygamy, and on the other hand believes in legislating religious definitions at the federal constitutional level and many others that would, in fact, condemn these same leaders and new targets of persecution today.
One century, the great leaders denounce the opposition to polygamy as religious persecution and unconstitutional and the next, these Utah Mormons are the ones wanting to place such restrictions into the constitution.