Linux does that. But you should really mention a long-supported ABI. Linux does definately not have that.
Linux most certainly does have a long-supported, stable ABI. Perhaps you were thinking about the C++ library ABI? That has nothing to do with Linux, it's GNU symbol mangling changes to become link-compatible with objects from other C++ compilers. If they hadn't made the changes, then people would bitch that they are incompatible with other compilers' output.
WINE has been in a perpetual state of "almost there" for over a decade. They'll never be suitable for end-users because Microsoft keep moving the goalposts.
You assume that Windows developers will continue to follow whatever new path Microsoft lays out for them. This is doubtful, because it takes time (money) to learn all the new gadgets and work through the inevitable bugs and misdesigns. All WINE has to cover is the APIs used by the majority of existing and in-development programs. Once it gets "close enough", then developers will use it as a compatibility testing target just like they do with Win98.
Linux *can* support all of your apps and hardware. It's incompetent support or apathy from your vendors that you should be placing the blame upon, not any technical deficiency of Linux (unless you can actually point one out).
She simply hasn't the slightest clue how the creative process or software development works. Her tunnel-vision perspective is that of shoe-horning open source development to fit within the box of traditional capitalist constructs, instead of finding ways to meld capitalism to best serve the software market through open source.
Unfortunately, these people are not official representatives of any organization. You're going to get that a lot when you run into things that have a large grassroots presence - people who have no background in public relations self-select themselves as representatives of that movement. I'd ignore such types just as I ignore the opinions of anyone else who ignores my point of view when presenting their opinion to me.
I have never seen RMS advocate outlawing proprietary source code. I have seen statements that would lead me to believe he would support a mandatory source code escrow as a condition of copyright protection on compiled code, which is not an unreasonable position no matter who you are.
No open source developer cares about their binary drivers. In certain respects, they are a competitive advantage because of the delicate optimizations and techniques they contain, so there is sufficient motivation to not publish the source code. What is hard to swallow is that they benefit in any way from closed hardware specs. They can cover any innovations with patents; but the problem remains, they open themselves to infringement suits with no possible counterattack if they take the first step in publishing their specs outside the company - the other companies will likely laugh all the way to the bank instead of following suit with their own specs. Patents really are a double edged sword for open source hardware drivers.
"Anyone can contribute" does not imply that software engineering is not performed. It is possible for poorly engineered software to be released under this model, but why would properly engineered software be rejected in a meritocratic community? That seems to be a contradiction, and so far I've seen no evidence that it has actually happened (a well engineered component being rejected in favor of a poorly engineered one).
If some people are claiming that a boogeyman exists, it is their responsibility to provide evidence for that claim. It is *not* the responsibility of everyone else to prove that a boogeyman doesn't exist, when there is no reason to believe that it might aside from somebody's unfounded assertions.
I really hope you don't represent the majority of *nix users out there. Because if you do, then fuck open source.
You know, I've run into Windows users just like him. I seriously doubt elitist arrogance is a phenomenon limited to the *nix world, or even limited to just the computing industry.
There are always people who assume they know what's best for you and how you should conduct yourself. My strategy would be to ignore them. Reacting just gives them the sense of inflated self-worth that they are seeking, so don't encourage them by even paying them any attention whatsoever. In the end, they are just noise to you if they cannot see or refuse to accept your perspective.
Sorry about the late reply - I've been extremely busy this past week, and to be honest, I was expecting to be flamed:-) Thanks for remaining rational in the face of an opposing perspective.
Still, that doesn't mean I approve of senselessly wasted opportunity. But this is the problem with a narrowly legalistic understanding such as yours. A crime without a victim might still be an evil.
Again, here we have the apparent necessity of "approval" of someone else's actions. You are also confusing "act", "crime", and "evil"/"wrong". An act can be wrong and not a crime. Similarly, it can be not wrong and yet be a crime. My position is that an act without a victim should not be a crime. It appears that you share this perspective. However, I also think that an act without a victim is very difficult to be objectively identified as wrong. Think about an act committed if the person was the last human on earth. Why would this same act become wrong now that other people are added? An obvious exception is things that would become harm if a third party didn't intervene in the chain of events. But I refuse to subject my own choices to judgements of others, and similarly I do not make such judgements upon others' choices that do not harm me. Sometimes I might be disappointed that someone else makes a particular choice, when I would have benefited from a different choice they made, but that's life.
As such the position "we can ignore them" is untenable, except as a kind of irresponsible bullshit statement or as a sophisticated expression of "I don't care".
Oh, I agree. To say that we should ignore things that bother us is to constrain us from improving our societies. But the problem is the mechanisms in which this is done. Talking to your friendly neighborhood burnout, becoming his friend, and advising him that perhaps he should consider a different sort of recreation is noble and charitable. Using the government to force these other people to subject themselves to your opinion of what they should be doing with their life is not. And that's what the US is doing, and consequently other countries are forced to follow suit or risk a war.
That's as may be, but this little lecture of yours
I wasn't lecturing, I was providing counterpoints to your claims. Lecturing would imply an arrogance which I don't believe I possess.
adversely affects your T-cell count,
I heard of this effect in mice, and I only know of one study in humans, which has seemingly contradicted that claim. The UCSF site is dead at the moment, but search for the following headline and you will find it when it returns: "UCSF Study Finds No Harm to HIV+ Patients From Short-Term Medical Cannabis".
cannabis smokers, pretty much opposite from cigarette smokers, tend to keep the smoke in their lungs for a much longer time.
Certainly this sounds terrible, but I've yet to see evidence that this actually does any quantifiable harm to the user.
And then there are the psychological effects to consider. On balance it seems cannabis is just as bad or good as any other drug, and it's primary benefit recreational.
Aside from having no lethal dose, no possibility of permanent harm, and side effects that are primarily psychological as opposed to physical? I guess we are just going to have to disagree here as a matter of perspective.
It seems to provide some short term relief of their symptoms -- as well as numerous side-effects such as nausea, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of initiative.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. cannabis is administered primarily as an anti-nausea agent. I know from experience that nausea does occur at extremely high doses due to the vertigo. Perhaps these people are using far in excess of what their symptoms require? Your other criteria are hardly objective. It may
Apparently Blizzard is now using BitTorrent to distribute World of Warcraft updates, within the game client. I found this out because Blizzard has a FAQ on slow game updates that my brother sent me, which essentially told me to open all the ports corresponding to BitTorrent on his firewall.
You're absolutely correct. The marijuana plant has never caused any harm to anyone. What has caused harm are people who use it as a component of evading responsibility in their lives, and misguided prohibitions trying to save those people from the consequences of their own irresponsible choices. Unfortunately, prohibition demonstrably has caused more harm than marijuana ever caused. This is why a different approach is necessary. Unfortunately, the victims of prohibition are sent up the river, so we never get to hear their opinion on the matter, only that of law enforcement and politicians attempting to prop up the status quo.
Most people in the US are two paychecks away from bankruptcy too. I fail to see how taking appropriate precautions (saving money and/or purchasing health insurance) is a real issue.
You misread. This report was from the "Alex de Tokeville" institute. That should clear up many of the questions that have been surrounding this article.
Power assisted steering is an obvious idea. The hard part is engineering something that actually implements that idea. Patenting the idea not only stifles engineering innovation to actually solve the problem, but also rules out competing implementations that solve the same problem.
The phrase "independently developed" is irrelevant. Patent infringement has nothing to do with whether or not the knowledge in the patent was used to develop the infringing product.
He has a particular purpose in mind, which is forcing everyone to release source to their software.
Clueless flamebait. If this were the goal, why would he choose a copyright license as the vessel of his agenda? A license that is optional for a developer to use? Why not just lobby for legislation that would remove the developer's choice in the matter?
Not that mandatory escrow of source code to the Library of Congress would be a bad idea. But you're attributing a false characteristic to Stallman.
Re:The responses to this post are fascinating
on
Donald Knuth On NPR
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· Score: 1
*Everyone* accepts many claims without evidence.
It's rather presumptuous to claim that you know what claims other people do and do not accept. I would say that *most* people readily accept claims without evidence when the claims are appealing enough to them. I consider this more of a flawed tenet of human nature than something to be comfortable with. There is also the observation that some people require less evidence than others when scrutinizing claims. The worst of these sort are referred to as "gullible", or "suckers".
For my part, I neither accept nor reject claims when there is no evidence, but retain the possibility that the claim is true if the source is credible. (Bear in mind, however, that sources I consider credible rarely present claims without evidence.) If the source is not credible, I tend towards forgetting those claims - a signal to noise issue. If evidence is presented for two contradictory claims on the same issue, the presentation from the more credible source will be examined first - again, a signal to noise issue.
Is there a better way to at the same time be open-minded, but also prevent a disproportionate amount of my time being consumed by people who have the least useful things to say?
I disagree. Withdrawal damages the social fabric and hurts productivity.
You've still not identified harm. Who is hurt, and how much are they hurt by? Are you talking about potential being wasted? In that case, are you also willing to outlaw anything else that might distract people from being productive?
But more importantly, sadness and despair don't confine themselves to the addict's room. They emanate out of his dirty windows into the street below. It's quite palpable.
I guess we should make alcohol illegal then (?), since it has the same effect on folks who abuse it? I really don't understand what you're getting at here. People like you and I can choose to ignore these other people who just waste their lives from our perspective. It's when they start fighting or stealing from others to supply themselves, that the harm begins.
I agree. But you know as well as I do that this is only because pretty much all the claims as to the miraculous nature of hemp and weed have been thoroughly debunked.
You know, you're really throwing a lot of false dichotomies around this whole thread. Just because hemp and weed are not "miraculous", doesn't mean that there are not benefits to industry, medical patients, and responsible individual users, that decimate any potential consequences of legalization.
Some of these survive as urban myths,
Some of these "myths" you quote are not really myths:
such as that weed is better for you than tobacco,
In the average case, yes. However, neither one is demonstrably better than abstaining from both. Given organically grown sources for both (eliminating pesticides, additives, and radioactive fertilizer): consider the amount of weed the average weed smoker smokes, compared to the average tobacco smoker. The sheer volume of tar is incomparable. Also consider the different natures of the substances. Tobacco tar infiltrates small airways, causing emphysema. Weed smoke does not. Nicotine causes heart and circulatory disease. THC does not. You can vaporize either, leaving you with the effects of nicotine compared to THC; nicotine is obviously the more damaging substance.
or that cannabis smoke cleans your lungs,
The source of this is probably a study that claimed people who smoke both tobacco and weed have a lower lung cancer rate. This isn't surprising, considering THC and other cannabinoids are anti-oxidants, but I don't think there's enough evidence yet to really support this claim.
or that cannabis is harmless,
You forgot the word "relatively", like most people like to do.
or that cannabis cures disease.
There have been studies to show that THC directly attacks cancer cells. I wouldn't say "cannabis cures disease", because it's obvious that weed smokers die, but I wouldn't throw out the hypothesis that "cannabis can treat certain diseases" yet.
Many if not most of these sorts of myths were at one time marshalled to support legalization. They were, in fact, what lent moral authority to the movement.
No, what lends moral authority to the legalization movement is that prohibition causes more harm than weed causes, and it has proven completely ineffective at erasing weed usage, so now you have the harm that weed causes plus the harm that prohibition causes.
Secondarily, what lends moral authority to the medical cannabis movement is that sick people are being denied access to a substance that they believe helps them and that some medical
professionals and societies even recommend. The only arguments the government presents to the contrary are based on lies, such as that Marinol is a substitute for inhaled THC, or that cannabis has no medical uses even against the claims of the few federally sanctioned medical users.
Slashdot Mirror
Utah-GLX has 3D acceleration for all pre-GeForce NVIDIA cards (exception: NV1). It was based on the obfuscated NVIDIA source release from ~2000.
Linux *can* support all of your apps and hardware. It's incompetent support or apathy from your vendors that you should be placing the blame upon, not any technical deficiency of Linux (unless you can actually point one out).
She simply hasn't the slightest clue how the creative process or software development works. Her tunnel-vision perspective is that of shoe-horning open source development to fit within the box of traditional capitalist constructs, instead of finding ways to meld capitalism to best serve the software market through open source.
Unfortunately, these people are not official representatives of any organization. You're going to get that a lot when you run into things that have a large grassroots presence - people who have no background in public relations self-select themselves as representatives of that movement. I'd ignore such types just as I ignore the opinions of anyone else who ignores my point of view when presenting their opinion to me.
I have never seen RMS advocate outlawing proprietary source code. I have seen statements that would lead me to believe he would support a mandatory source code escrow as a condition of copyright protection on compiled code, which is not an unreasonable position no matter who you are.
No open source developer cares about their binary drivers. In certain respects, they are a competitive advantage because of the delicate optimizations and techniques they contain, so there is sufficient motivation to not publish the source code. What is hard to swallow is that they benefit in any way from closed hardware specs. They can cover any innovations with patents; but the problem remains, they open themselves to infringement suits with no possible counterattack if they take the first step in publishing their specs outside the company - the other companies will likely laugh all the way to the bank instead of following suit with their own specs. Patents really are a double edged sword for open source hardware drivers.
Try installing the smartmontools package for HDD monitoring and problem reporting.
"Anyone can contribute" does not imply that software engineering is not performed. It is possible for poorly engineered software to be released under this model, but why would properly engineered software be rejected in a meritocratic community? That seems to be a contradiction, and so far I've seen no evidence that it has actually happened (a well engineered component being rejected in favor of a poorly engineered one).
Get back to me when Flash can be automatically indexed and searched, or when you can link into the "middle" of a Flash file.
If some people are claiming that a boogeyman exists, it is their responsibility to provide evidence for that claim. It is *not* the responsibility of everyone else to prove that a boogeyman doesn't exist, when there is no reason to believe that it might aside from somebody's unfounded assertions.
There are always people who assume they know what's best for you and how you should conduct yourself. My strategy would be to ignore them. Reacting just gives them the sense of inflated self-worth that they are seeking, so don't encourage them by even paying them any attention whatsoever. In the end, they are just noise to you if they cannot see or refuse to accept your perspective.
Again, here we have the apparent necessity of "approval" of someone else's actions. You are also confusing "act", "crime", and "evil"/"wrong". An act can be wrong and not a crime. Similarly, it can be not wrong and yet be a crime. My position is that an act without a victim should not be a crime. It appears that you share this perspective. However, I also think that an act without a victim is very difficult to be objectively identified as wrong. Think about an act committed if the person was the last human on earth. Why would this same act become wrong now that other people are added? An obvious exception is things that would become harm if a third party didn't intervene in the chain of events. But I refuse to subject my own choices to judgements of others, and similarly I do not make such judgements upon others' choices that do not harm me. Sometimes I might be disappointed that someone else makes a particular choice, when I would have benefited from a different choice they made, but that's life.
Oh, I agree. To say that we should ignore things that bother us is to constrain us from improving our societies. But the problem is the mechanisms in which this is done. Talking to your friendly neighborhood burnout, becoming his friend, and advising him that perhaps he should consider a different sort of recreation is noble and charitable. Using the government to force these other people to subject themselves to your opinion of what they should be doing with their life is not. And that's what the US is doing, and consequently other countries are forced to follow suit or risk a war.
I wasn't lecturing, I was providing counterpoints to your claims. Lecturing would imply an arrogance which I don't believe I possess.
I heard of this effect in mice, and I only know of one study in humans, which has seemingly contradicted that claim. The UCSF site is dead at the moment, but search for the following headline and you will find it when it returns: "UCSF Study Finds No Harm to HIV+ Patients From Short-Term Medical Cannabis".
Certainly this sounds terrible, but I've yet to see evidence that this actually does any quantifiable harm to the user.
Aside from having no lethal dose, no possibility of permanent harm, and side effects that are primarily psychological as opposed to physical? I guess we are just going to have to disagree here as a matter of perspective.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. cannabis is administered primarily as an anti-nausea agent. I know from experience that nausea does occur at extremely high doses due to the vertigo. Perhaps these people are using far in excess of what their symptoms require? Your other criteria are hardly objective. It may
Um, OS/2 never had Win32 support. You're probably thinking about Win32S, which is not Win32.
Apparently Blizzard is now using BitTorrent to distribute World of Warcraft updates, within the game client. I found this out because Blizzard has a FAQ on slow game updates that my brother sent me, which essentially told me to open all the ports corresponding to BitTorrent on his firewall.
You're absolutely correct. The marijuana plant has never caused any harm to anyone. What has caused harm are people who use it as a component of evading responsibility in their lives, and misguided prohibitions trying to save those people from the consequences of their own irresponsible choices. Unfortunately, prohibition demonstrably has caused more harm than marijuana ever caused. This is why a different approach is necessary. Unfortunately, the victims of prohibition are sent up the river, so we never get to hear their opinion on the matter, only that of law enforcement and politicians attempting to prop up the status quo.
Most people in the US are two paychecks away from bankruptcy too. I fail to see how taking appropriate precautions (saving money and/or purchasing health insurance) is a real issue.
You misread. This report was from the "Alex de Tokeville" institute. That should clear up many of the questions that have been surrounding this article.
Power assisted steering is an obvious idea. The hard part is engineering something that actually implements that idea. Patenting the idea not only stifles engineering innovation to actually solve the problem, but also rules out competing implementations that solve the same problem.
The phrase "independently developed" is irrelevant. Patent infringement has nothing to do with whether or not the knowledge in the patent was used to develop the infringing product.
Not that mandatory escrow of source code to the Library of Congress would be a bad idea. But you're attributing a false characteristic to Stallman.
For my part, I neither accept nor reject claims when there is no evidence, but retain the possibility that the claim is true if the source is credible. (Bear in mind, however, that sources I consider credible rarely present claims without evidence.) If the source is not credible, I tend towards forgetting those claims - a signal to noise issue. If evidence is presented for two contradictory claims on the same issue, the presentation from the more credible source will be examined first - again, a signal to noise issue.
Is there a better way to at the same time be open-minded, but also prevent a disproportionate amount of my time being consumed by people who have the least useful things to say?
You've still not identified harm. Who is hurt, and how much are they hurt by? Are you talking about potential being wasted? In that case, are you also willing to outlaw anything else that might distract people from being productive?
I guess we should make alcohol illegal then (?), since it has the same effect on folks who abuse it? I really don't understand what you're getting at here. People like you and I can choose to ignore these other people who just waste their lives from our perspective. It's when they start fighting or stealing from others to supply themselves, that the harm begins.
You know, you're really throwing a lot of false dichotomies around this whole thread. Just because hemp and weed are not "miraculous", doesn't mean that there are not benefits to industry, medical patients, and responsible individual users, that decimate any potential consequences of legalization.
Some of these "myths" you quote are not really myths:
In the average case, yes. However, neither one is demonstrably better than abstaining from both. Given organically grown sources for both (eliminating pesticides, additives, and radioactive fertilizer): consider the amount of weed the average weed smoker smokes, compared to the average tobacco smoker. The sheer volume of tar is incomparable. Also consider the different natures of the substances. Tobacco tar infiltrates small airways, causing emphysema. Weed smoke does not. Nicotine causes heart and circulatory disease. THC does not. You can vaporize either, leaving you with the effects of nicotine compared to THC; nicotine is obviously the more damaging substance.
The source of this is probably a study that claimed people who smoke both tobacco and weed have a lower lung cancer rate. This isn't surprising, considering THC and other cannabinoids are anti-oxidants, but I don't think there's enough evidence yet to really support this claim.
You forgot the word "relatively", like most people like to do.
There have been studies to show that THC directly attacks cancer cells. I wouldn't say "cannabis cures disease", because it's obvious that weed smokers die, but I wouldn't throw out the hypothesis that "cannabis can treat certain diseases" yet.
No, what lends moral authority to the legalization movement is that prohibition causes more harm than weed causes, and it has proven completely ineffective at erasing weed usage, so now you have the harm that weed causes plus the harm that prohibition causes.
Secondarily, what lends moral authority to the medical cannabis movement is that sick people are being denied access to a substance that they believe helps them and that some medical professionals and societies even recommend. The only arguments the government presents to the contrary are based on lies, such as that Marinol is a substitute for inhaled THC, or that cannabis has no medical uses even against the claims of the few federally sanctioned medical users.