One might think it makes more sense for Gates to argue this one when salaries rise again. Not so.
At the moment, engineers are at a low point in terms of their employment prospects and hence their bargaining position. The engineers are at their weakest now, making this the ideal time to strike.
The other part of this is that the wheels of government turn slowly. By the time this is all ironed out, there will likely be an upturn. If BG waits until then to make his request it will be both too late, and the engineers will be stronger again.
NASA's big decade was the 60s. They were doing amazing things and were the darlings of the US and much of the world. Even those that thought space research was useless still saw some side-benefit from the space research (eg. supposedly non-stick fry pans).
Now NASA has a far less glowing image. So we see another probe every now and then. We see an archaic shuttle. By releasing software, NASA is potentially creating more positive press again. Even those people who think space reasearch is stupid might say "Hey at least we get some new software".
Besides... if you're an american tax payer you already paid for this stuff anyway.
MS really has done nothing to advance their mainstream OS for the last eight years or so. A bit of eye candy here or there...
They've had a hard enough time motivating people away from Win95/98 with significant numbers of people finding no real reason to change. Given how hard it has been to get a good uptake of XP, how hard will it be to get people to move from XP to Longhorn? It is going to be a very hard sell.
Copyright was intended as a way of protecting the rights of a person to their works. That is fine for something like a book etc.
Software, particularly OSS, is very different. Much of the value in software is derived from all the testing etc that is done to prove the software and flush out the bugs. I have heard of this being compared to the "stone soup" story. Throw out any (sometimes crappy) software and let people give you feedback. Copyright only protects the interests of the authors - not of those who do all the testing etc. Often the value added by the testers etc is many times the value added by the original authors.
11:34:46: A few exception stack numbers etc. 11:34:49: User said:"Duck". 11:34:53: User said:"Ewe phukkan piss of shirt". 11:34:53: HDD reports tracking errors due to high impact shock.
Of course I didn't RTFA, but if them lil microbe things are breaking off the hydrogen the carbon is going to have to go somewhere.... unless they're bonding it into a solid carbon form (diamonds or graphite or such) then it's going to be into CO2 or similar. Not exactly a huge leap forward in environmental friendliness.
So how many of these were fat people who died of heart disease?
The point I'm making is that the "fat people are going to die sooner" wisom does not hold for people I know. It might hold for others though. One person's observations are not statistically valid.
Of course I didn't RTFA, but this package is, it seems, a modelling tool. Models don't always help understanding because they're based on assumptions. If the assumptions don't fit reality then they break down. The bad thing is that often the people start believing the models more than reality and if the field evidence starts to disagree with the models (which look very scientific with graphs etc) people start to doubt the field data.
While the models (assumptions) hold true, they can provide some nice "what if" input, but they can never replace field data.
All the younger people I know who have died of health related causes have been health freaks. I'll leave the military and motor vehicle deaths out of this.
Two twenty-something marathoin runner types. Dead from cancer.
Two thirty-somethings dead from cancer.
One marathoin runner killed on the road, same for another serious bike rider.
But consider the alternative. If you buy a camera to use with OSS, then first do the due diligence to make sure it works. If it doesn't then don't go piss about rights. Buy one that does.
Voting with your dollars is something that companies understand.
Sadly very true. I don't travel to the USA much, but when I do I notice a lot of choice about things that don't really matter to me (three kinds of bun for my hamburger) and little choice in the things that do.
You can be there's going to be some horsing around to make Linux slow.
Back in the old days of WinNT3.x, Microsoft was attempting to get people to switch off *nix (SCO et al) to NT. People didn't mind since an NT license cost only a third of a SCO licence. To support this move, MS added a bunch of features to make the switch easy (eg. supporting streams modules). However, much of this comparability stuff was crippled. People did some "proof of concepts" and started porting but soon found that they had to switch to native NT drivers etc to get reasonable performance. Soon thereafter, MS dropped the support for much of the compatability stuff thereby completing the bait and switch.
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A University is even worse than NASA and other govt institutions when it comes to delivering. Give the job to to the private sector.
Lemme see $11M/m x 15000km x 50 strands... Vokkov Bill Gates go stand in the poor people's line.
Now class, after me: "Mr Korean Sir, do you want fries with that?"
At the moment, engineers are at a low point in terms of their employment prospects and hence their bargaining position. The engineers are at their weakest now, making this the ideal time to strike.
The other part of this is that the wheels of government turn slowly. By the time this is all ironed out, there will likely be an upturn. If BG waits until then to make his request it will be both too late, and the engineers will be stronger again.
Er em uuuh finding out how to do more stuff in the ol' US of A.
Now NASA has a far less glowing image. So we see another probe every now and then. We see an archaic shuttle. By releasing software, NASA is potentially creating more positive press again. Even those people who think space reasearch is stupid might say "Hey at least we get some new software".
Besides... if you're an american tax payer you already paid for this stuff anyway.
IBM: The world will only need five snails.
DEC: Nobody wants a snail in their home.
Microsoft: The new Longhorned snail is shipping.
They've had a hard enough time motivating people away from Win95/98 with significant numbers of people finding no real reason to change. Given how hard it has been to get a good uptake of XP, how hard will it be to get people to move from XP to Longhorn? It is going to be a very hard sell.
Software, particularly OSS, is very different. Much of the value in software is derived from all the testing etc that is done to prove the software and flush out the bugs. I have heard of this being compared to the "stone soup" story. Throw out any (sometimes crappy) software and let people give you feedback. Copyright only protects the interests of the authors - not of those who do all the testing etc. Often the value added by the testers etc is many times the value added by the original authors.
Need to fly around the world naked by flapping arms with a sparkler hanging out his butt.
I have a Linux/Windows dual boot. Only the Linux stuff is configured to access the outside world. The MS stuff is strictly offline.
11:34:46: A few exception stack numbers etc. 11:34:49: User said:"Duck". 11:34:53: User said:"Ewe phukkan piss of shirt". 11:34:53: HDD reports tracking errors due to high impact shock.
If you go burn hydrogen you get h20. You still get the NOx stuff too. There's nothing magic about hydrogen except that it is all buzzwordy.
Of course I didn't RTFA, but if them lil microbe things are breaking off the hydrogen the carbon is going to have to go somewhere.... unless they're bonding it into a solid carbon form (diamonds or graphite or such) then it's going to be into CO2 or similar. Not exactly a huge leap forward in environmental friendliness.
The point I'm making is that the "fat people are going to die sooner" wisom does not hold for people I know. It might hold for others though. One person's observations are not statistically valid.
No wonder people write down their passwords on postit notes stuck on their monitors.
Ask around a bit. Think of the people you know who have dies young of diseases etc.
While the models (assumptions) hold true, they can provide some nice "what if" input, but they can never replace field data.
Two twenty-something marathoin runner types. Dead from cancer.
Two thirty-somethings dead from cancer.
One marathoin runner killed on the road, same for another serious bike rider.
All my tubby frieds are doing fine.
But consider the alternative. If you buy a camera to use with OSS, then first do the due diligence to make sure it works. If it doesn't then don't go piss about rights. Buy one that does.
Voting with your dollars is something that companies understand.
Sadly very true. I don't travel to the USA much, but when I do I notice a lot of choice about things that don't really matter to me (three kinds of bun for my hamburger) and little choice in the things that do.
Download for free from www.cuntry.com
Yup
Back in the old days of WinNT3.x, Microsoft was attempting to get people to switch off *nix (SCO et al) to NT. People didn't mind since an NT license cost only a third of a SCO licence. To support this move, MS added a bunch of features to make the switch easy (eg. supporting streams modules). However, much of this comparability stuff was crippled. People did some "proof of concepts" and started porting but soon found that they had to switch to native NT drivers etc to get reasonable performance. Soon thereafter, MS dropped the support for much of the compatability stuff thereby completing the bait and switch.
... that the state in a "free country" is debating what order you may watch video material and whether or not you may skip watching stuff.