So, rant aside, I believe the issue is that the DRM in question is proprietary, and won't be available on linux until someone cracks it, like CSS. -------- Which will take like what, twenty minutes? Maybe half-an-hour if the guy stops for a beer?
Doubtful. Red 7.3 consisted of 30 million lines of code. Fedora is probably closer to 50 million. Debian is likely several times that. There is no way Maya is that large. That would make it larger than Windows!
Actually, I think Softimage's XSI is cooler in the 3.x iteration than Maya. I like the interface better, and they have a free EXP version (for Linux too! PLE is only Windows and Mac) that has fewer restrictions than PLE. Many people think its more powerful in certain areas, especially subdivision surfaces, than Maya.
Free trade has nothing to do with price controls, dipshit. Free trade and lack of price controls are both part of the free market, but you can do one without doing the other.
The other guys are right. I've been a Debian user for quite awhile, and upgrade doesn't remove packages. dist-upgrade (which is something quite different) will, which is why you should only use it for, well, distribution upgrades...
Debian doesn't do stuff like that without asking your permission. It'll err on the side of not doing anything. Certainly, there can be packaging bugs, but Windows installers have "packaging" bugs too. Waiting a couple of days for the exceedingly occasional packaging bug to be resolved is not what I'd call dependency hell.
And dependency hell that exceeds.dll hell... --------- This is an old, and utterly irrelevent argument in this day and age where pretty much everybody is using something like APT or Yum.
And a very inconsistent and often difficult application install process... ---------- The Windows installer is utterly inconsistent and difficult compared to something like KPackage or Synaptic.
And applications for general consumer and business use rather than just for developers... ----------- This is actually a valid argument. Try sticking to these instead of making stupid, irrelevent, outdated ones!
A lot of the improvements in 3.2 were *not* because of the contributed Apple code. Some significant parts went in, but other major parts are going into 3.3. Its great that Apple is helping, and I don't want to minimize their contribution, but I'd like to see credit given where credit is due.
The future is *always* uncertain. Those farmers did not see factory work as anything more than fledgling, uncertain industries, which they were. There was a huge amount of skepticism and uncertainty about the tech industry as well. Life just works that way, unfortunately.
But there are other fields out there. Academics is always a safe one --- who is going to teach all those outsourced programmers? Classical engineering is a mature, low-growth field, but its also stable and has only moderate competition. Biotech and nanotech are emerging, uncertain, and possibly very high-growth fields. The situation is no different from how it has always been. We're in one of our periodic recessions now, but it is also a nature of our economy that our booms keep getting longer and our recessions less severe. Our current one is the smallest we've ever had! Like all our recessions, it'll pass, and lucky for you, things will be back to normal just as you get out of college.
Much of what you're saying is predicated on the basis of an even playing field. ---------- None of it is predicated on the basis of an even playing field.
In other words, the difference in making a product in western world and (let's say) china is that in the western world, we have rights, limits, and values. -------- Well, they have rights, limits, and values in India too. That doesn't stop the logic-train anti-free-trade people. In any case, free trade is doing wonders for human rights in China!
In fact, strikes are very simple to solve: kill'em all. --------- I cannot remember the last time that happened. Modern China is *not* as barbarian as people think. Link?
At the current status quo, we could never compete commercially with driven, near-slave labor. -------- Since free-trade benefits both-sides, the other side will not be able to keep up near-slave labor for long. As their economic situation improves, they will demand more leisure time. Such is the nature of economies. Beyond that, our people do not work in jobs where slave-labor is necessary or even useful. Much of our manual labor has been replaced by white-collar work. This is just the nature of our developed economy. The thing you have to understand is that in free trade, countries do not necessarily compete in the same industry. Countries concentrate on the areas in which they have comparative advantage. Much more developed economies like the US should not compete in markets where slave labor is useful.
Programming: all mental, VERY specialized, large experience and education requirements, not easy to get into. -------- A certain class of programming jobs are like this, but not all. Many programming jobs these days are relatively unskilled, and a guy with a Masters in Computer Science is overkill for them.
What you're saying to the experinced programmer is all of that time and engergy that was expended in their vocation (and a part of their life's meaning) was pointless. All of their work was for nothing, and now they need to start all over again. ----------- Well that's really just too bad. If the nature of programming has changed such that we no longer need so many skilled programmers, than that's too bad. I don't remember Slashdot crying for all the unemployed liberal-arts PhDs in the 1990s.
I've noticed the popular economics doesn't care at all for people or humanity, just money. ----------- Modern economics is all warm and fuzzy. It is actually concerned not so much with money, but what people value. For example, a clean environment and leisure time are considered to be goods to which people attach value. Economics is about maximizing those things that people value most highly. In practice, that means maximizing money, because that's what people these days value. That's not the nature of economics, but rather the nature of people.
This is perhaps the only good argument in this direction I've heard. I agree that our government does intervene on the behalf of the wealthy and powerful, but I don't think it happens enough to mitigate the advantages of free trade. If this Enron thing has some decent results, than we might close the CEO loopwhole --- where the CEO doesn't necessarily do what is in the long-term best interest of the company.
I disagree with the equal-mobility argument entirely. If anything, American workers are in a far better position to move to where the jobs are than foreign workers. An American passport does wonders elsewhere in the world.
Just because Napoleon controlled bread prices does not mean that he did not encourage free trade. He tore down trade barriers within France, to the benefit of the economy. We now know that price controls are inherently self-defeating (*cough* New York rents *cough*) but Napoleon did not. That doesn't change the fact that he understood free trade and applied it to his country.
I am dissapointed that programmers are losing their jobs. Cyclical unemployment is the nature of our economy, but that doesn't make it any easier. At the same time, I'm happy that people in India are getting some good jobs. Why should I care more about the former than the later?
Detachment does not necessarily mean a lack of emotion. It means not letting that emotion affect your judgement.
You don't need a global democratic governent. Consider: I'm a CEO. I want to hire offshore workers. Its my money, my company, and my ass on the line. I should be able to hire whomever I want to hire. If the government prevents me from doing so, they better have a damn good reason for it.
Actually, according to classical definitions, socialism is equivilent to communism. Remember, Marx and Engles considered themselves socialists. It is *modern* socialism that is different from communism. Both definitions are valid, and I chose to use the former.
What kind of crack are you on, and where can I get some? Unless the US government managed to buy out the majority of economists, both in the US and in Europe, and went back in the past and bought out historical economists, then your claim is full of shit.
Now, how in the hell could a law that keeps 75000 jobs in the US be costing $15 billion? -------- This money is lost in other industries because of the protectionist laws. Consider the recent attempt to put a tarrif on steel. The Europeans threatened to put their own tarrifs on US goods. If this had happened, the steel industry would have made more money, but those other industries would have lost money.
You talk about morality, but how is it moral to save a buck by moving labor to countries where worker protections don't exist, or where greedy governments force people to work fourteen hour days? ---------- Do you have any idea what you are talking about? First, many of the countries in question do have worker protections and governments do not force people to work fourteen hour days. India is a democracy, for god's sake! Beyond that, look at the alternative: these countries have no new jobs at all. Working fourteen hour days is a hell of a lot better than not eating, and more importantly, will help the economy in the long run so you won't have to work fourteen hour days in the future.
Have a dangerous, highly polluting industry? We have four choices: Spend the money to clean it up. Rely on the industry less. Live in our own filth. Outsource the industry to the brown people, and let them live in our pollution. Guess which one we consistently choose? ---------- Guess which one will result in those countries getting enough money to institute proper environmental controls?
Finally, we can shove the grunt work off to someone who is just happy having a crowded little apartment and enough kerosene to boil the dysentery out of the water. ----------- The correct choice of action depends on which of these actions maximizes our cost/benefit ratio. Certainly, there is nothing bad about giving them the grunt work. We went through that phase in the development of our economy, and the sooner they get through that phase in the development of their economy, the better their economy will be in the long run. There is no quick buck. Industrialization is painful, and you have to go through with it. You can either do it now, or postpone it and suffer in the meantime.
(eg: France under Napoleon
Free trade ? Man, France was at war with pretty much all the countries they had not invaded back then! There was certainly no trade at all with the UK, for instance! -------- Before Napoleon, there are numerous internal barriers inside France. There was no free trade *within* the country. Napoleon tore down those barriers, which caused a huge improvement in the French economy.
Er, with heavily subsidized farms ? You call this 'free trade'? ------ Farm subsidies don't have a whole lot to do with free trade. They're bad, but they are not an indication that the EU does not support free trade.
Subsidizing agriculture was (and still is, at large) the the basics of the EU!!! ------ Your logic is flawed. Just because the EU has certain bad economic policies doesn't mean that all their economic policies are bad. The EU has tried very hard to tear down trade barriers between EU member nations, and for the most part, it has worked.
Was it 'free trade' that came up with that Internet idea and the 'new economy' that followed on ? -------- Free trade has nothing to do with "the new economy." Its an idea that goes back hundreds of years to British economic theory.
No, it was a government-funded project: DARPA. ---------- And your point is? Economic theory actually accepts that the government is necessary for certain things which the free market does not produce efficiently. National defense (DARPA is part of the DoD) is one of them.
In any case, when I was talking about the USA, I was more referring to the US's trade in the wester hemisphere, particularly with Canada. Free trade has been extremely good for both economies in this case.
In the end, it's also a matter of democracy and choosing who really decides of economic policies: we can leave this up to a handful of technocrats at the WTO and the Federal Reserve, or we can decide to handle this as citizens, with our own votes. ------------ We are not a country where the will of the mob rules. The people don't know jack-shit about the economy, and there is a reason we put technocrats in charge of it. Don't be fuzzy about this: protectionist laws limit individual freedom. Its as simple as that. Whenever society passes laws to limit individual freedom, they better have a damn good reason. And for protectionist laws, there are no good economic arguments, and no good moral ones --- just gut feelings.
Lots of kinds of software development are now commodity. And for years, companies have been working very hard to make them that way. Witness Java --- whose main design goal is to make things so highly structured and inflexible, that there is only one way to do anything. That makes not only code pluggable, but developers too.
Now of course, this idea doesn't scale to many types of software development, but it certainly holds true for certain types.
Jesus breakdancing Christ. If I see one more hand-waving post devoid of either fact or theory, I will scream.
Free-trade is a basic tool of a capitalist economy. It has a proven track-record of working (eg: France under Napoleon, the modern EU, the US of fucking A!). There are also lots of statistics that show that protectionist laws save a few jobs at the cost of much greater costs to the rest of the economy. A certain law that protects US textile workers saved 75,000 jobs at a cost of $15 billion a year. That $200,000 that each of those textile jobs is costing is being taken right out of *your* pocket. That's money you could have, but do not.
Free-trade is also the only thing that makes sense in a democracy. People have rights, and it takes a very strong argument to limit those rights. Strong moral arguments give us reason to limit the right of people to commit murder. Strong economic arguments give us reason to limit the right of companies to form cartels. There are no such arguments in favor of protectionism. Morality says that people should hire whom they damn-well please, and economics says that this freedom is best for the economy in the long run. The only arguments we get in favor of protectionism is crap about patriotism, and hand-waving about "the destruction of the US middle class." Two points: One, as a Virginian, I care about as much about a guy in Texas as I do about a guy in Afghanistan. Two, the middle class did just fine when farm work, which was a middle class job, disappeared. They did just fine when factory work, another middle class job, disappeared. They'll do just fine when the programming jobs disappear!
The predictions in this article are precisely those predicted by economic theory. A certain class of jobs will be destroyed, but many more jobs will be created. Such predictions have been borne out numerous times before (NAFTA really didn't cause all American jobs to be sucked to Mexico, did it???) and will be borne out again.
Of course, this is assuming you believe in capitalism. If you'd prefer the stability of a socialist system, then by all means, move to a communist country! I take particular pleasure in saying this --- as a liberal I rarely get the chance to call *other* people communists, but that doesn't change the fact that calls for protectionism are nothing less than attempt to subvert the capitalistic ideals of this country!
Slashdot Mirror
So, rant aside, I believe the issue is that the DRM in question is proprietary, and won't be available on linux until someone cracks it, like CSS.
--------
Which will take like what, twenty minutes? Maybe half-an-hour if the guy stops for a beer?
Doubtful. Red 7.3 consisted of 30 million lines of code. Fedora is probably closer to 50 million. Debian is likely several times that. There is no way Maya is that large. That would make it larger than Windows!
Its owned by Avid now. And it makes great sense for them --- customers want it. Most famously, ILM uses XSI on Linux/Intel for its graphics artists.
Actually, I think Softimage's XSI is cooler in the 3.x iteration than Maya. I like the interface better, and they have a free EXP version (for Linux too! PLE is only Windows and Mac) that has fewer restrictions than PLE. Many people think its more powerful in certain areas, especially subdivision surfaces, than Maya.
On the other hand, the English system is absolutely terrible for doing actual physics, where you end up with all sorts of conversion factors.
Free trade has nothing to do with price controls, dipshit. Free trade and lack of price controls are both part of the free market, but you can do one without doing the other.
The other guys are right. I've been a Debian user for quite awhile, and upgrade doesn't remove packages. dist-upgrade (which is something quite different) will, which is why you should only use it for, well, distribution upgrades...
Debian doesn't do stuff like that without asking your permission. It'll err on the side of not doing anything. Certainly, there can be packaging bugs, but Windows installers have "packaging" bugs too. Waiting a couple of days for the exceedingly occasional packaging bug to be resolved is not what I'd call dependency hell.
That doesn't even make sense? Apple regularly sends patches to the KDE developers for KHTML. That's "contributing" by any definition of the word.
And dependency hell that exceeds .dll hell...
---------
This is an old, and utterly irrelevent argument in this day and age where pretty much everybody is using something like APT or Yum.
And a very inconsistent and often difficult application install process...
----------
The Windows installer is utterly inconsistent and difficult compared to something like KPackage or Synaptic.
And applications for general consumer and business use rather than just for developers...
-----------
This is actually a valid argument. Try sticking to these instead of making stupid, irrelevent, outdated ones!
A lot of the improvements in 3.2 were *not* because of the contributed Apple code. Some significant parts went in, but other major parts are going into 3.3. Its great that Apple is helping, and I don't want to minimize their contribution, but I'd like to see credit given where credit is due.
The future is *always* uncertain. Those farmers did not see factory work as anything more than fledgling, uncertain industries, which they were. There was a huge amount of skepticism and uncertainty about the tech industry as well. Life just works that way, unfortunately.
But there are other fields out there. Academics is always a safe one --- who is going to teach all those outsourced programmers? Classical engineering is a mature, low-growth field, but its also stable and has only moderate competition. Biotech and nanotech are emerging, uncertain, and possibly very high-growth fields. The situation is no different from how it has always been. We're in one of our periodic recessions now, but it is also a nature of our economy that our booms keep getting longer and our recessions less severe. Our current one is the smallest we've ever had! Like all our recessions, it'll pass, and lucky for you, things will be back to normal just as you get out of college.
Much of what you're saying is predicated on the basis of an even playing field.
----------
None of it is predicated on the basis of an even playing field.
In other words, the difference in making a product in western world and (let's say) china is that in the western world, we have rights, limits, and values.
--------
Well, they have rights, limits, and values in India too. That doesn't stop the logic-train anti-free-trade people. In any case, free trade is doing wonders for human rights in China!
In fact, strikes are very simple to solve: kill'em all.
---------
I cannot remember the last time that happened. Modern China is *not* as barbarian as people think. Link?
At the current status quo, we could never compete commercially with driven, near-slave labor.
--------
Since free-trade benefits both-sides, the other side will not be able to keep up near-slave labor for long. As their economic situation improves, they will demand more leisure time. Such is the nature of economies. Beyond that, our people do not work in jobs where slave-labor is necessary or even useful. Much of our manual labor has been replaced by white-collar work. This is just the nature of our developed economy. The thing you have to understand is that in free trade, countries do not necessarily compete in the same industry. Countries concentrate on the areas in which they have comparative advantage. Much more developed economies like the US should not compete in markets where slave labor is useful.
Programming: all mental, VERY specialized, large experience and education requirements, not easy to get into.
--------
A certain class of programming jobs are like this, but not all. Many programming jobs these days are relatively unskilled, and a guy with a Masters in Computer Science is overkill for them.
What you're saying to the experinced programmer is all of that time and engergy that was expended in their vocation (and a part of their life's meaning) was pointless. All of their work was for nothing, and now they need to start all over again.
-----------
Well that's really just too bad. If the nature of programming has changed such that we no longer need so many skilled programmers, than that's too bad. I don't remember Slashdot crying for all the unemployed liberal-arts PhDs in the 1990s.
I've noticed the popular economics doesn't care at all for people or humanity, just money.
-----------
Modern economics is all warm and fuzzy. It is actually concerned not so much with money, but what people value. For example, a clean environment and leisure time are considered to be goods to which people attach value. Economics is about maximizing those things that people value most highly. In practice, that means maximizing money, because that's what people these days value. That's not the nature of economics, but rather the nature of people.
This is perhaps the only good argument in this direction I've heard. I agree that our government does intervene on the behalf of the wealthy and powerful, but I don't think it happens enough to mitigate the advantages of free trade. If this Enron thing has some decent results, than we might close the CEO loopwhole --- where the CEO doesn't necessarily do what is in the long-term best interest of the company.
I disagree with the equal-mobility argument entirely. If anything, American workers are in a far better position to move to where the jobs are than foreign workers. An American passport does wonders elsewhere in the world.
I'm inclined to trust studies that show the same results predicted by economic theory. I would say the burden of proof is on you.
Just because Napoleon controlled bread prices does not mean that he did not encourage free trade. He tore down trade barriers within France, to the benefit of the economy. We now know that price controls are inherently self-defeating (*cough* New York rents *cough*) but Napoleon did not. That doesn't change the fact that he understood free trade and applied it to his country.
I am dissapointed that programmers are losing their jobs. Cyclical unemployment is the nature of our economy, but that doesn't make it any easier. At the same time, I'm happy that people in India are getting some good jobs. Why should I care more about the former than the later?
Detachment does not necessarily mean a lack of emotion. It means not letting that emotion affect your judgement.
You don't need a global democratic governent. Consider: I'm a CEO. I want to hire offshore workers. Its my money, my company, and my ass on the line. I should be able to hire whomever I want to hire. If the government prevents me from doing so, they better have a damn good reason for it.
Why?
Actually, according to classical definitions, socialism is equivilent to communism. Remember, Marx and Engles considered themselves socialists. It is *modern* socialism that is different from communism. Both definitions are valid, and I chose to use the former.
What kind of crack are you on, and where can I get some? Unless the US government managed to buy out the majority of economists, both in the US and in Europe, and went back in the past and bought out historical economists, then your claim is full of shit.
Now, how in the hell could a law that keeps 75000 jobs in the US be costing $15 billion?
--------
This money is lost in other industries because of the protectionist laws. Consider the recent attempt to put a tarrif on steel. The Europeans threatened to put their own tarrifs on US goods. If this had happened, the steel industry would have made more money, but those other industries would have lost money.
You talk about morality, but how is it moral to save a buck by moving labor to countries where worker protections don't exist, or where greedy governments force people to work fourteen hour days?
----------
Do you have any idea what you are talking about? First, many of the countries in question do have worker protections and governments do not force people to work fourteen hour days. India is a democracy, for god's sake! Beyond that, look at the alternative: these countries have no new jobs at all. Working fourteen hour days is a hell of a lot better than not eating, and more importantly, will help the economy in the long run so you won't have to work fourteen hour days in the future.
Have a dangerous, highly polluting industry? We have four choices: Spend the money to clean it up. Rely on the industry less. Live in our own filth. Outsource the industry to the brown people, and let them live in our pollution. Guess which one we consistently choose?
----------
Guess which one will result in those countries getting enough money to institute proper environmental controls?
Finally, we can shove the grunt work off to someone who is just happy having a crowded little apartment and enough kerosene to boil the dysentery out of the water.
-----------
The correct choice of action depends on which of these actions maximizes our cost/benefit ratio. Certainly, there is nothing bad about giving them the grunt work. We went through that phase in the development of our economy, and the sooner they get through that phase in the development of their economy, the better their economy will be in the long run. There is no quick buck. Industrialization is painful, and you have to go through with it. You can either do it now, or postpone it and suffer in the meantime.
(eg: France under Napoleon
Free trade ? Man, France was at war with pretty much all the countries they had not invaded back then! There was certainly no trade at all with the UK, for instance!
--------
Before Napoleon, there are numerous internal barriers inside France. There was no free trade *within* the country. Napoleon tore down those barriers, which caused a huge improvement in the French economy.
Er, with heavily subsidized farms ? You call this 'free trade'?
------
Farm subsidies don't have a whole lot to do with free trade. They're bad, but they are not an indication that the EU does not support free trade.
Subsidizing agriculture was (and still is, at large) the the basics of the EU!!!
------
Your logic is flawed. Just because the EU has certain bad economic policies doesn't mean that all their economic policies are bad. The EU has tried very hard to tear down trade barriers between EU member nations, and for the most part, it has worked.
Was it 'free trade' that came up with that Internet idea and the 'new economy' that followed on ?
--------
Free trade has nothing to do with "the new economy." Its an idea that goes back hundreds of years to British economic theory.
No, it was a government-funded project: DARPA.
----------
And your point is? Economic theory actually accepts that the government is necessary for certain things which the free market does not produce efficiently. National defense (DARPA is part of the DoD) is one of them.
In any case, when I was talking about the USA, I was more referring to the US's trade in the wester hemisphere, particularly with Canada. Free trade has been extremely good for both economies in this case.
In the end, it's also a matter of democracy and choosing who really decides of economic policies: we can leave this up to a handful of technocrats at the WTO and the Federal Reserve, or we can decide to handle this as citizens, with our own votes.
------------
We are not a country where the will of the mob rules. The people don't know jack-shit about the economy, and there is a reason we put technocrats in charge of it. Don't be fuzzy about this: protectionist laws limit individual freedom. Its as simple as that. Whenever society passes laws to limit individual freedom, they better have a damn good reason. And for protectionist laws, there are no good economic arguments, and no good moral ones --- just gut feelings.
Lots of kinds of software development are now commodity. And for years, companies have been working very hard to make them that way. Witness Java --- whose main design goal is to make things so highly structured and inflexible, that there is only one way to do anything. That makes not only code pluggable, but developers too.
Now of course, this idea doesn't scale to many types of software development, but it certainly holds true for certain types.
Jesus breakdancing Christ. If I see one more hand-waving post devoid of either fact or theory, I will scream.
Free-trade is a basic tool of a capitalist economy. It has a proven track-record of working (eg: France under Napoleon, the modern EU, the US of fucking A!). There are also lots of statistics that show that protectionist laws save a few jobs at the cost of much greater costs to the rest of the economy. A certain law that protects US textile workers saved 75,000 jobs at a cost of $15 billion a year. That $200,000 that each of those textile jobs is costing is being taken right out of *your* pocket. That's money you could have, but do not.
Free-trade is also the only thing that makes sense in a democracy. People have rights, and it takes a very strong argument to limit those rights. Strong moral arguments give us reason to limit the right of people to commit murder. Strong economic arguments give us reason to limit the right of companies to form cartels. There are no such arguments in favor of protectionism. Morality says that people should hire whom they damn-well please, and economics says that this freedom is best for the economy in the long run. The only arguments we get in favor of protectionism is crap about patriotism, and hand-waving about "the destruction of the US middle class." Two points: One, as a Virginian, I care about as much about a guy in Texas as I do about a guy in Afghanistan. Two, the middle class did just fine when farm work, which was a middle class job, disappeared. They did just fine when factory work, another middle class job, disappeared. They'll do just fine when the programming jobs disappear!
The predictions in this article are precisely those predicted by economic theory. A certain class of jobs will be destroyed, but many more jobs will be created. Such predictions have been borne out numerous times before (NAFTA really didn't cause all American jobs to be sucked to Mexico, did it???) and will be borne out again.
Of course, this is assuming you believe in capitalism. If you'd prefer the stability of a socialist system, then by all means, move to a communist country! I take particular pleasure in saying this --- as a liberal I rarely get the chance to call *other* people communists, but that doesn't change the fact that calls for protectionism are nothing less than attempt to subvert the capitalistic ideals of this country!