I've played Go some. When I was going to school at Berkeley, and when there was a lunchtime Go club at a place I worked. Generally though, it's hard to find people to play Go in the US, I agree.
It's a more forgiving game for people like me who get things right the second time -- usually.:) It's also much, much harder to brute force.
I think you're absolutely right that we don't need to be urging everyone to use Linux, at least not yet. Linux isn't ready for most people and they aren't ready for it. Mostly the latter.
I think it important that we do whatever possible to help anyone who *wants* to try it have a successful experience. I think this is pretty easy in business and academia, where there is usually a paid guru around to help anyone with problems. It's still chancy for a home user with a low patience threshold, or with needs for specific applications.
While we should be friendly to the curious who want to try Linux we shouldn't do anything to alienate it's core constituency: software and web developers, students, scientists, and engineers. If Linux can capture most of that desktop market, and a good share of the general server market, then application and driver scarcity will be history, and more desktop marketshare will follow naturally with time, as will the polished desktops and pricey application sets. World domination is a nice, fun hobby. Keeping the core developers and users of Linux happy is a matter of survival.
In other words, Linux should always be the choice of those who value computing power and are willing to learn to have it. Those who value being able to tinker and share knowledge, rather than buying off-the-shelf proprietary solutions. It very likely will also be made useful to nearly anyone, but that must remain a secondary goal. It is not elitist to say that "Do one thing *well*" is a fundamental philosophy of Unix.
Yes, that is the fallacy of our times, that all value is based on money. It should eventually wither because it is not based on reality.
To equate a software product's value to counting the hours someone paid to have it written is seriously bent. Even equating its value to the hours spent writing it is absurd. The value is much better measured as the satisfaction of the user without regard to the method of production of the software, or its cost. Measuring it this way naturally includes such factors such as support and accountability.
BTW, the managers are correct that support and accountability are the playing field, that is exactly what RedHat, VA Linux, etc. need to provide and *market* to succeed. It's only high cost as indicator of quality that is a ridiculous criterion, and I suspect most smart managers know that. How large that subset is...
I quite agree that there was no point to or basis for a court case in the Sun/Blackdown matter.
However, open source developers do not develop for money as their primary reward, as do corporate developers. Open source development is a social activity more than a business. It's for fun, not work. For this reason I think that social rules can be just as important as legal rules, if you want *effective* open source development. Not crediting the Blackdown folks was ethically akin to not paying their own developers -- a stupid mistake if you want further development. Sun should be civil towards those doing work for them, Blackdown's reaction was justified. That most of them think Java on Linux is important enough to continue after Sun apologized speaks well of their tolerance.
Re:Anybody know how GAS2MASM works?
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Quake 1 GPL'ed
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Your compiler should provide an option to just run the pre-processor on the gas source, which should output a file with all # constructs removed. Maybe GAS2MASM might work on that file.
"Yep. Lottery tickets, cigarattes and Budweiser really add up. "
Interesting that you should list the three state-approved addictions. Maybe you should think about that a little more in the context of why the poor remain poor and who might want it that way.
I agree that choice is what open source is all about.
But I would argue the Brazilian government, presumably working in the interests of the Brazilian people, have the right to choose policy on procurement for software used by the government, which is what this appears to do.
There is a practical issue here for one thing. Interoperability and upgradeability are both greatly enhanced by a monolithic solution. Open source has advantages in both areas, and provides more choices at the same time. Think about the money and time required for a government to switch to W2K for a minute. If the taxpayers revolt against that, you think the government should ignore them?
More importantly, open source is a little like the freedom of information act. It allows the software infrastructure to be examined by anyone who wishes to. As software becomes more and more critical to our way of life the risk of closed software doing unknown things becomes more and more of a real threat to privacy and democracy.
Just for example, if internet voting is adopted I think a law requiring the sources for the voting software to be public would not be unwise. Otherwise the designer of the voting software could exert political influence, or datamine voters, without anyone realizing it. Such an argument could be made for almost any government agency's use of computer software. Software purchased on behalf of the public should be open to public scrutiny -- not really that radical is it?
Ken, if you're thinking of slashdot as information you already have the wrong idea. It's not information, it's data. There is an important difference between the two.
Even the slant given by how the article's poster saw it is data. You may not agree, you may find media that doesn't agree, but you will never find any way to invalidate the fact that the poster had that reaction to the article. It's data. Think of it as a pre-pended comment.
You are correct that there is no point in trusting the summaries -- *whether* they are accurate or not. They are *always* someone's idea of what was important in an article and that's all they are.
If slashdot isn't feeding you regurgitated information in the way you desire, you'll need to find a site that will. Otherwise, dust off those brain cells and come to your own conclusions, as, in fact, it appears you have.
I guess schools are leading people to think that you are supposed to go to the info superstore and buy colorfully packaged bundles of truth. Sorry, not in this lifetime. All media should carry the warning "DANGER: chew before swallowing."
We need a permanently open slashdot feedback article for comments such as this thread.
I'm sorry, but this is quite a major misconception.
The FSF has *nothing* against selling software. They sell their own software. Check it out. It's true.
What the FSF has moral compunctions about is distributing software without the right to inspect and modify the source code, independent of whether money was paid for the program or not.
Yes, the FSF does suggest that a world without intellectual property would be better, but I have *never* heard them suggest that anyone break the existing law. In fact their GPL license *depends* on intellectual property law, for copyrights, and presumably they would prosecute or sue anyone in violation of the GPL. It would be hypocrisy of the highest order to enforce laws you were recommending someone else break. Stallman may be many things to some, but a hypocrite he is not.
Hmm... I didn't mean to give the impression I wanted to involuntarily commit a lot of people. I don't feel threatened by the homeless with obvious problems usually, just sympathetic that it must be hard to be on the street under those conditions. Only in cases where danger to themselves or others exists is a good standard for commitment I think. In most cases, some outpatient drug therapy or counseling might well be enough.
I'm more concerned with the people who were seeking help voluntarily and got dumped on the street for lack of ability to pay. This seems to me short-sighted on our part. I apologize for dragging politics into it, my personal view of the cause is pretty irrelevant.
There are several things going here at once, and I think it's necessary to separate them before discussion will help.
Mental health in the US is completely ignored unless you have money to pay for treatment (or are violently wacko of course.) All you have to do is talk to and watch the homeless in your city for a while, and you'll find some rather obvious cases. Part of the legacy of the Reagan years is that public mental health care is no longer available, the streets are our mental hospitals for those that can't afford better -- and it's hard for them to maintain family ties or keep a job. The mentally ill have been abandoned by the very same government bemoaning the lack of treatment. This is rather cruel treatment, but the mentally ill have never fared well, cf. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.
Mental health is sometimes used as an excuse for behavior control. If a child is unruly, don't worry about why too much, just find a drug that quiets them down. If a child has behavior problems, and you have money, just institutionalize them over the summer so they are out of the way. While some children can benefit from such treatment, inarguably, it is applied to many more that are only lacking love or attention from parents. Drugs are cheaper than time though.
I find it rather amusing that the same government so concerned with the "War On Drugs" is peddling pharmaceuticals out of the other side of their mouth. Oh, just say "no" to free(as in speech) mood altering drugs, I get it. There should be no doubt that there is a marketing side to this desire to solve mental health problems thru drugs. It may be good therapy in many cases, but don't assume it is always applied where appropriate. Profits increase if it is applied more widely than it should be.
Mental health problems continue to be a serious stigma in terms of employment and housing. We need some real education on the subject, and this is the only part of the government's announcement I find valuable.
A good start on the problem would be making sure everyone who *wants* mental healthcare can get it. It's in no one's best interest to have the mentally dysfunctional wandering the streets I think.
A handy list of alternatives to Amazon can be found here . There is an article on technocrat.net discussing this, but it's down right now.
I do not have a credit card, so I wouldn't purchase from them anyway, but I do use them to decide if it's time to pile in a bus and visit my bookstore. I suppose taking page impressions away is part of the deal, so I'll try elsewhere for now at least, been meaning to check out the others anyway.
I think the patent is quite silly, but I still wonder if a boycott action is useful here. How may other silly patents are being muscled right now, and should we boycott all products from any such company? Is Amazon the most evil company deserving our attention? If we take multinational corporate ties into account, that could get to be a *long* list of products.
Most telling, I wonder if Amazon would or could drop their suit as a result. If the result is a suit by the shareholders for negligence w.r. to their intellectual property they haven't gained much.
Perhaps our lobbying and action should directed be towards those making patent law, and overseeing the patent office instead. If a corporation has a legal means to expand its marketshare or create licensing profit it is almost required by current law to exploit it. Just reducing the length of software patents from decades to years would greatly improve the situation and it's mildly realistic to hope it could be done.
Nightfall is a great comparison I hadn't thought of. Just hope it's not prophetic. I'll recommend reading that to any Y2K paranoid friends -- it illustrates the true danger from Y2K nicely.
You know, I think we could do pretty well without businesses doing research. I like the idea of well funded basic research carried out by academic institutions, the way it used to be. The kind of research corporations like to support is in benefit of forumulas for floor wax that smell better, or ways to make cereal stay crunchy in milk rather than basic research. The only science and math that gets done these days is directly related to someone's bottom line. The pharmaceutical companies and some others are obvious exceptions, but most corporate research is very narrow and not terribly interesting to the public, who never would have imagined or missed flakes that stay crunchy in milk without advertising.
Inventions are rarely the result of teamwork or huge projects, they come from individual inspiration, or careful observation. The kind of inventions many corporations do by pouring money and people on a problem are really discoveries, not inventions. Unfortunately since it takes a huge team of lawyers and the contents of a bank or two to get and defend a patent these days, individual inventors are no longer rewarded by patents, they are the domain of corporations.
So for my money, corporations no more belong in the invention business than they do the health care support business. 'Twould be better if a public entity developed ideas and the corporations competed on the implementations. It was once a different world than it is now, and patents did have their purpose then, but I think it has now passed -- they interfere with the expansion of knowledge more than they encourage it.
Well said. And I think many religious people will agree with you. I've read opinions on this before from some and was frankly surprised at their willingness to contemplate such an experiment. I'm often guilty, as many are, of letting the media associate religious with fanatical in my mind. I should know better.
It's not like a major religious text has forbidden creation of life. If living things require a soul that only God can implant we're about to find that out maybe:) Or maybe not if God plays along...
From a purely secular standpoint it is absolutely critical that this organism be isolated, whether they think it can reproduce or not. Whether you're building self-replicating machines or organisms, you don't want to let them loose without exhaustive study, and a care for mutations. If that condition is satisfied I look forward to the results of the experiment.
Yes, Linux stocks are vastly overvalued. Microsoft stock is too. I'd agree a correction is likely, and I share the hopes it won't be too drastic.
But not owning a share of stock myself, I can see this as simply good news. A bunch of people on Wall Street, one of the most conservative and change-hating bastions in mainstream America, are willing to bet a little money on Linux. Nay, they're tripping over their own feet to do so. Hah!:)
VA Linux and Andover both got considerable stocks of cash out of their IPO, and that won't go away even if the whole market goes south. Since those are two of my favorite businesses, good deal, and congratulations all around.
Andover's IPO may have been especially significant, even if not quite the record smasher VA's was because it is the first instance of a very successful Open IPO of which I've heard. Those who were toying with the idea of buying VA stock after it reached the public, only to find it opening at $300, will readily understand the advantages to regular people of a Dutch auction style IPO now. Andover not only made a bunch of bucks, but they found a way to share it with anyone who wanted to and could afford to buy.
Frankly, unless you've got stock in the market, it seems time to lighten up and enjoy the ride. It's not like it's slashdot reader's money driving the stock to these heights, there's nothing we can do to to slow it down now, and no lack of mainstream voices yelling about the overvaluation already.
I imagine the Linux companies are a bit nervous about the situation too. Who would want to be the one blamed for the stock market tumbling? Not the time for dumb moves or foot-in-mouth disease. Shareholders forcing proprietary schemes on Linux companies to preserve artificially high stock prices is the only conceivable downside I can see to this. Shareholders must be made to realize that proprietary scheming could tank their stock quickly thru developer boycotts and general bad publicity.
I agree. In fact the current situation is basically that mega-organizations can hire the U.S. government to harass and bully weaker economic competitors.
These are often the same organizations screaming for "badly needed" tort reform. Obviously a frivolous lawsuit is defined as any in which they are a defendant.
Money has distorted the legal system to a point where the resemblence to justice is at best passing except for those with unlimited supplies of it. This will eventually force those without money to seek solutions outside the system of law. I doubt the powers that be truly want to encourage such.
People talk of medical insurance all the time, and seriously discuss the right to medical care. This is much less convincing than the suggestion that everyone should have the right to equal treatment under the law, as the government is known to be directly responsible for providing such an environment. Doubt that's the solution, but some way has to be found to judge cases on their merits rather than the size of the litigant's wallets.
You are right that Sun is within their legal rights under the SCSL. There is such a thing as unethical though. Removing credits from a project, or changing them is one of the most serious sins in the Hacker culture according to ESR's "Homesteading the Noosphere". I have to agree that nothing is more despicable. Free software contributors don't ask for money, all they ask is recognition that they contributed. Otherwise open source really is just faceless communism. Credit is very cheap to provide for anyone using the code.
If someone collected contributions to a charity, and then claimed to be contributing the money themselves with no mention of the real contributors, people would be outraged, and rightly so. This is not much different. In the real world, the money goes where it's needed and seemingly no harm is done. But try getting contributions again from those that were shafted. The problem is the same for Sun. Unless they move to correct this quickly, I think the SCSL is dead.
Sorry, but the only thing that has gone downhill since the sale, that I've noticed, is the greatly increased number of comments bemoaning Slashdot's descent into corporate evil.
You shouldn't come here for accuracy. You might come here for breadth of view and new insights -- or just a place to rant:). You want accuracy -- maybe you'd like a real corporate news outlet like ABC or CNN better. Compare their Linux coverage for example, and see what you think about accuracy then. They check *all* their stories before release (and still manage to get them wrong -- go figure.)
If you want easy to use, predigested news, you're simply in the wrong place. Slashdot news requires thought, and sometimes research, not just passive acceptance as truth.
If this article is so bad, why not tell us why? Do you have facts that contradict it? Yes, the title is hyperbole, it was the credit that was stolen, not the code, but it's as accurate as most newspaper headlines. Seems to me this is an important story and I'm glad it ran. For a better written article try the place it broke, LinuxGrrls .
"Isn't this a bit like saying "My computer has no input devices, except for a keyboard and mouse"?"
That's the free market dogma alright. If you believe it out of faith, I hope you enjoy and benefit from your religion. Otherwise, please look around -- does it look like purchases are an effective control to you?
What products do I stop buying to make corporations stop drugtesting, datamining, and redlining? All of them? Which product do I not buy to make them stop lobbying congress? If I'm a kid in a sweatshop making Nikes how do I gain decent working conditions when I've never been able to even afford a Nike?
Sorry, purchase power is nice, but it's not enough.
Yes that is part of the problem. When a corporation negligently or intentionally produces and promotes a shoddy product that injures or kills someone, or devastates the environment, no one arrests them and charges them with criminal behavior. They have the rights of citizens, but are not burdened by the same laws as citizens. They have in fact become super-citizens that have more than their fair share of influence on politics and scientific research, while having almost no responsibility for the consequences of their choices and actions outside their own bottom line.
I think you've put your finger on one of the biggest problems. Either revoke corporations citizenship status, or make the responsibilities attendant on that citizenship of similar weight to those placed on individuals. We get busted if we litter. Corporations can devastate whole countrysides without serious consequences. The few environmental fines come out of petty cash -- there is a disconnect between *total* cost of their operations to the world and their profits from sales in developed markets.
Good point. Many in the '60s had a hard time separating the notion of government and military from the real evils of the Viet Nam war and the draft. There were regrettable instances of disrepect for returning military personnel and harrassment of individual low level bureaucrats. And, as in Seattle, a few nihlist anarchists among the masses of protestors. (And some honest revolutionaries too, but I mean the folks who just *like* throwing bottles thru windows.)
The ability to band together in large groups to create technology and do big science is absolutely essential. Neither business nor the concept of a corporation is evil, no more than the concept of government is. However, when a government is out of control people are entitled to use any means necessary to correct the situation. This can often be accomplished by education, protest, or voting, but if it can't be other means are fair play in an ethical sense. As corporations become more powerful than governments the same should be true of them.
The problem with corporations is that there is no feedback mechanism to control them other than the purchase of their products. Lobbying governments, which have questionable jurisdiction over multi-nationals in any case, is no more effective than suing them unless you have untold riches at your disposal. You may win a settlement, but the chances of changing their behavior are miniscule.
Boycotts used to be effective but since corporations discovered diversification it has been less so. The other problem is that the bad effects from a corporation may take place a long way away from the people who are buying the product. If you can make a cheap and good product in a distant country by raping their environment or abusing their workers, the product is still likely to sell well at home. So if the corporations globalize it is important that individuals also globalize their information network. Fortunately, we have the internet. Unfortunately, we're not using it effectively enough.
In the US, and some other countries, we have a document expressing rights of the citizen that may not be abridged or restricted by government. Perhaps we need a bill of rights referring to multi-national corporations, and some way of collecting and publicizing violations of it.
I must disagree that "open source" is nothing more than a marketing term for "free software." It may be that to you, but it's more than that to many people.
Neither open source nor free software have much to do with either money or law, IMO. Free software maintains it is a moral imperative to open sources because information shouldn't be property, while open source just says software works better and develops faster if you do. You can honestly believe in the efficacy of sharing sources without believing it has anything to do with morality. To provide an umbrella that includes such people is more than mere marketing.
Yes, the GPL has never been tested in court. So what? That argues against there being much reason to write cute articles to prepare legal positions that probably will never be necessary.
You really can't throw out things like "widespread abuse" and call for the overturn of the GPL and open source before it's too late without backing up your argument. I am not aware of any abuses.
If you don't like the GPL and Open Source, why do you think you have a right to the labors of those who do, and wish to voluntarily pool their own efforts together? Do you believe in nationalization of all intellectual property or just that of groups you disagree with? In actual fact, if the GPL fails, it should fail safe, that is, all GPL software will become undistributable without permission from all copyright holders. Is that what you want?
It was an interesting historical article that barely mentioned either free software or open source.
I think there are a lot of good aspects to what happened. First of all, it was demonstrated that the community is open. You can't keep secrets among a clique at the top, if anyone knows, soon everyone knows. This may be embarassing for Bruce, and I feel for him, but what happened is what should have happened and should be a warning to all those who post or email. Kudos to Hemos for posting, this is a better result than an unsubstantiated rumor that Bruce wants to sue Corel. It is *less* likely to be blown up in the mainstream media because everyone can now see there is nothing there.
In terms of the actual event (not the posting to Slashdot) I think it not unreasonable for Bruce to get angry. Not ideal maybe, but quite understandable. I think the under-18 Debian developers deserve some anger in their behalf. I'll bet Corel knows Bruce was angry. This is good.
The negative consequences described seem to be mainly that the corporate Linux supporters and those yet to be will take from this that the Linux community is sue-happy and will back off, or not extend support. This is unreasonable. First, any who read Slashdot already know that hundreds of us will yell "Sue!" at a perceived GPL violation. Bruce is rather mellow compared to some in that regard. However the fact is that the GPL remains untested in court to this day. Since such a case would more likely revolve around the right to distribute rather than money, I don't believe there is likely to be one soon, even with the increased commerical support. It's a no-win proposition unless a critical principle is involved.
Finally, copyrights are *only* meaningful if they are defended. If a company truly violates the GPL and won't change we *should* sue them. Since the results of losing the case could be catastrophic, we need to pick the case extremely carefully however, and this spat with Corel doesn't cut it, at least as it appears to me.
Slashdot Mirror
I've played Go some. When I was going to school at Berkeley, and when there was a lunchtime Go club at a place I worked. Generally though, it's hard to find people to play Go in the US, I agree.
:) It's also much, much harder to brute force.
It's a more forgiving game for people like me who get things right the second time -- usually.
I think you're absolutely right that we don't need to be urging everyone to use Linux, at least not yet. Linux isn't ready for most people and they aren't ready for it. Mostly the latter.
I think it important that we do whatever possible to help anyone who *wants* to try it have a successful experience. I think this is pretty easy in business and academia, where there is usually a paid guru around to help anyone with problems. It's still chancy for a home user with a low patience threshold, or with needs for specific applications.
While we should be friendly to the curious who want to try Linux we shouldn't do anything to alienate it's core constituency: software and web developers, students, scientists, and engineers. If Linux can capture most of that desktop market, and a good share of the general server market, then application and driver scarcity will be history, and more desktop marketshare will follow naturally with time, as will the polished desktops and pricey application sets. World domination is a nice, fun hobby. Keeping the core developers and users of Linux happy is a matter of survival.
In other words, Linux should always be the choice of those who value computing power and are willing to learn to have it. Those who value being able to tinker and share knowledge, rather than buying off-the-shelf proprietary solutions. It very likely will also be made useful to nearly anyone, but that must remain a secondary goal. It is not elitist to say that "Do one thing *well*" is a fundamental philosophy of Unix.
Yes, that is the fallacy of our times, that all value is based on money. It should eventually wither because it is not based on reality.
To equate a software product's value to counting the hours someone paid to have it written is seriously bent. Even equating its value to the hours spent writing it is absurd. The value is much better measured as the satisfaction of the user without regard to the method of production of the software, or its cost. Measuring it this way naturally includes such factors such as support and accountability.
BTW, the managers are correct that support and accountability are the playing field, that is exactly what RedHat, VA Linux, etc. need to provide and *market* to succeed. It's only high cost as indicator of quality that is a ridiculous criterion, and I suspect most smart managers know that. How large that subset is...
I quite agree that there was no point to or basis for a court case in the Sun/Blackdown matter.
However, open source developers do not develop for money as their primary reward, as do corporate developers. Open source development is a social activity more than a business. It's for fun, not work. For this reason I think that social rules can be just as important as legal rules, if you want *effective* open source development. Not crediting the Blackdown folks was ethically akin to not paying their own developers -- a stupid mistake if you want further development. Sun should be civil towards those doing work for them, Blackdown's reaction was justified. That most of them think Java on Linux is important enough to continue after Sun apologized speaks well of their tolerance.
Your compiler should provide an option to just run the pre-processor on the gas source, which should output a file with all # constructs removed. Maybe GAS2MASM might work on that file.
"Yep. Lottery tickets, cigarattes and Budweiser really add up. "
Interesting that you should list the three state-approved addictions. Maybe you should think about that a little more in the context of why the poor remain poor and who might want it that way.
I agree that choice is what open source is all about.
But I would argue the Brazilian government, presumably working in the interests of the Brazilian people, have the right to choose policy on procurement for software used by the government, which is what this appears to do.
There is a practical issue here for one thing. Interoperability and upgradeability are both greatly enhanced by a monolithic solution. Open source has advantages in both areas, and provides more choices at the same time. Think about the money and time required for a government to switch to W2K for a minute. If the taxpayers revolt against that, you think the government should ignore them?
More importantly, open source is a little like the freedom of information act. It allows the software infrastructure to be examined by anyone who wishes to. As software becomes more and more critical to our way of life the risk of closed software doing unknown things becomes more and more of a real threat to privacy and democracy.
Just for example, if internet voting is adopted I think a law requiring the sources for the voting software to be public would not be unwise. Otherwise the designer of the voting software could exert political influence, or datamine voters, without anyone realizing it. Such an argument could be made for almost any government agency's use of computer software. Software purchased on behalf of the public should be open to public scrutiny -- not really that radical is it?
Ken, if you're thinking of slashdot as information you already have the wrong idea. It's not information, it's data. There is an important difference between the two.
Even the slant given by how the article's poster saw it is data. You may not agree, you may find media that doesn't agree, but you will never find any way to invalidate the fact that the poster had that reaction to the article. It's data. Think of it as a pre-pended comment.
You are correct that there is no point in trusting the summaries -- *whether* they are accurate or not. They are *always* someone's idea of what was important in an article and that's all they are.
If slashdot isn't feeding you regurgitated information in the way you desire, you'll need to find a site that will. Otherwise, dust off those brain cells and come to your own conclusions, as, in fact, it appears you have.
I guess schools are leading people to think that you are supposed to go to the info superstore and buy colorfully packaged bundles of truth. Sorry, not in this lifetime. All media should carry the warning "DANGER: chew before swallowing."
We need a permanently open slashdot feedback article for comments such as this thread.
My parents often claimed they pulled this off years ago.
I'm sorry, but this is quite a major misconception.
The FSF has *nothing* against selling software. They sell their own software. Check it out. It's true.
What the FSF has moral compunctions about is distributing software without the right to inspect and modify the source code, independent of whether money was paid for the program or not.
Yes, the FSF does suggest that a world without intellectual property would be better, but I have *never* heard them suggest that anyone break the existing law. In fact their GPL license *depends* on intellectual property law, for copyrights, and presumably they would prosecute or sue anyone in violation of the GPL. It would be hypocrisy of the highest order to enforce laws you were recommending someone else break. Stallman may be many things to some, but a hypocrite he is not.
Hmm... I didn't mean to give the impression I wanted to involuntarily commit a lot of people. I don't feel threatened by the homeless with obvious problems usually, just sympathetic that it must be hard to be on the street under those conditions. Only in cases where danger to themselves or others exists is a good standard for commitment I think. In most cases, some outpatient drug therapy or counseling might well be enough.
I'm more concerned with the people who were seeking help voluntarily and got dumped on the street for lack of ability to pay. This seems to me short-sighted on our part. I apologize for dragging politics into it, my personal view of the cause is pretty irrelevant.
There are several things going here at once, and I think it's necessary to separate them before discussion will help.
Mental health in the US is completely ignored unless you have money to pay for treatment (or are violently wacko of course.) All you have to do is talk to and watch the homeless in your city for a while, and you'll find some rather obvious cases. Part of the legacy of the Reagan years is that public mental health care is no longer available, the streets are our mental hospitals for those that can't afford better -- and it's hard for them to maintain family ties or keep a job. The mentally ill have been abandoned by the very same government bemoaning the lack of treatment. This is rather cruel treatment, but the mentally ill have never fared well, cf. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.
Mental health is sometimes used as an excuse for behavior control. If a child is unruly, don't worry about why too much, just find a drug that quiets them down. If a child has behavior problems, and you have money, just institutionalize them over the summer so they are out of the way. While some children can benefit from such treatment, inarguably, it is applied to many more that are only lacking love or attention from parents. Drugs are cheaper than time though.
I find it rather amusing that the same government so concerned with the "War On Drugs" is peddling pharmaceuticals out of the other side of their mouth. Oh, just say "no" to free(as in speech) mood altering drugs, I get it. There should be no doubt that there is a marketing side to this desire to solve mental health problems thru drugs. It may be good therapy in many cases, but don't assume it is always applied where appropriate. Profits increase if it is applied more widely than it should be.
Mental health problems continue to be a serious stigma in terms of employment and housing. We need some real education on the subject, and this is the only part of the government's announcement I find valuable.
A good start on the problem would be making sure everyone who *wants* mental healthcare can get it. It's in no one's best interest to have the mentally dysfunctional wandering the streets I think.
A handy list of alternatives to Amazon can be found here . There is an article on technocrat.net discussing this, but it's down right now.
I do not have a credit card, so I wouldn't purchase from them anyway, but I do use them to decide if it's time to pile in a bus and visit my bookstore. I suppose taking page impressions away is part of the deal, so I'll try elsewhere for now at least, been meaning to check out the others anyway.
I think the patent is quite silly, but I still wonder if a boycott action is useful here. How may other silly patents are being muscled right now, and should we boycott all products from any such company? Is Amazon the most evil company deserving our attention? If we take multinational corporate ties into account, that could get to be a *long* list of products.
Most telling, I wonder if Amazon would or could drop their suit as a result. If the result is a suit by the shareholders for negligence w.r. to their intellectual property they haven't gained much.
Perhaps our lobbying and action should directed be towards those making patent law, and overseeing the patent office instead. If a corporation has a legal means to expand its marketshare or create licensing profit it is almost required by current law to exploit it. Just reducing the length of software patents from decades to years would greatly improve the situation and it's mildly realistic to hope it could be done.
Nightfall is a great comparison I hadn't thought of. Just hope it's not prophetic. I'll recommend reading that to any Y2K paranoid friends -- it illustrates the true danger from Y2K nicely.
You know, I think we could do pretty well without businesses doing research. I like the idea of well funded basic research carried out by academic institutions, the way it used to be. The kind of research corporations like to support is in benefit of forumulas for floor wax that smell better, or ways to make cereal stay crunchy in milk rather than basic research. The only science and math that gets done these days is directly related to someone's bottom line. The pharmaceutical companies and some others are obvious exceptions, but most corporate research is very narrow and not terribly interesting to the public, who never would have imagined or missed flakes that stay crunchy in milk without advertising.
Inventions are rarely the result of teamwork or huge projects, they come from individual inspiration, or careful observation. The kind of inventions many corporations do by pouring money and people on a problem are really discoveries, not inventions. Unfortunately since it takes a huge team of lawyers and the contents of a bank or two to get and defend a patent these days, individual inventors are no longer rewarded by patents, they are the domain of corporations.
So for my money, corporations no more belong in the invention business than they do the health care support business. 'Twould be better if a public entity developed ideas and the corporations competed on the implementations. It was once a different world than it is now, and patents did have their purpose then, but I think it has now passed -- they interfere with the expansion of knowledge more than they encourage it.
Well said. And I think many religious people will agree with you. I've read opinions on this before from some and was frankly surprised at their willingness to contemplate such an experiment. I'm often guilty, as many are, of letting the media associate religious with fanatical in my mind. I should know better.
:) Or maybe not if God plays along...
It's not like a major religious text has forbidden creation of life. If living things require a soul that only God can implant we're about to find that out maybe
From a purely secular standpoint it is absolutely critical that this organism be isolated, whether they think it can reproduce or not. Whether you're building self-replicating machines or organisms, you don't want to let them loose without exhaustive study, and a care for mutations. If that condition is satisfied I look forward to the results of the experiment.
My, all the doom and gloom.
:)
Yes, Linux stocks are vastly overvalued. Microsoft stock is too. I'd agree a correction is likely, and I share the hopes it won't be too drastic.
But not owning a share of stock myself, I can see this as simply good news. A bunch of people on Wall Street, one of the most conservative and change-hating bastions in mainstream America, are willing to bet a little money on Linux. Nay, they're tripping over their own feet to do so. Hah!
VA Linux and Andover both got considerable stocks of cash out of their IPO, and that won't go away even if the whole market goes south. Since those are two of my favorite businesses, good deal, and congratulations all around.
Andover's IPO may have been especially significant, even if not quite the record smasher VA's was because it is the first instance of a very successful Open IPO of which I've heard. Those who were toying with the idea of buying VA stock after it reached the public, only to find it opening at $300, will readily understand the advantages to regular people of a Dutch auction style IPO now. Andover not only made a bunch of bucks, but they found a way to share it with anyone who wanted to and could afford to buy.
Frankly, unless you've got stock in the market, it seems time to lighten up and enjoy the ride. It's not like it's slashdot reader's money driving the stock to these heights, there's nothing we can do to to slow it down now, and no lack of mainstream voices yelling about the overvaluation already.
I imagine the Linux companies are a bit nervous about the situation too. Who would want to be the one blamed for the stock market tumbling? Not the time for dumb moves or foot-in-mouth disease. Shareholders forcing proprietary schemes on Linux companies to preserve artificially high stock prices is the only conceivable downside I can see to this. Shareholders must be made to realize that proprietary scheming could tank their stock quickly thru developer boycotts and general bad publicity.
I agree. In fact the current situation is basically that mega-organizations can hire the U.S. government to harass and bully weaker economic competitors.
These are often the same organizations screaming for "badly needed" tort reform. Obviously a frivolous lawsuit is defined as any in which they are a defendant.
Money has distorted the legal system to a point where the resemblence to justice is at best passing except for those with unlimited supplies of it. This will eventually force those without money to seek solutions outside the system of law. I doubt the powers that be truly want to encourage such.
People talk of medical insurance all the time, and seriously discuss the right to medical care. This is much less convincing than the suggestion that everyone should have the right to equal treatment under the law, as the government is known to be directly responsible for providing such an environment. Doubt that's the solution, but some way has to be found to judge cases on their merits rather than the size of the litigant's wallets.
You are right that Sun is within their legal rights under the SCSL. There is such a thing as unethical though. Removing credits from a project, or changing them is one of the most serious sins in the Hacker culture according to ESR's "Homesteading the Noosphere". I have to agree that nothing is more despicable. Free software contributors don't ask for money, all they ask is recognition that they contributed. Otherwise open source really is just faceless communism. Credit is very cheap to provide for anyone using the code.
If someone collected contributions to a charity, and then claimed to be contributing the money themselves with no mention of the real contributors, people would be outraged, and rightly so. This is not much different. In the real world, the money goes where it's needed and seemingly no harm is done. But try getting contributions again from those that were shafted. The problem is the same for Sun. Unless they move to correct this quickly, I think the SCSL is dead.
Sorry, but the only thing that has gone downhill since the sale, that I've noticed, is the greatly increased number of comments bemoaning Slashdot's descent into corporate evil.
:). You want accuracy -- maybe you'd like a real corporate news outlet like ABC or CNN better. Compare their Linux coverage for example, and see what you think about accuracy then. They check *all* their stories before release (and still manage to get them wrong -- go figure.)
You shouldn't come here for accuracy. You might come here for breadth of view and new insights -- or just a place to rant
If you want easy to use, predigested news, you're simply in the wrong place. Slashdot news requires thought, and sometimes research, not just passive acceptance as truth.
If this article is so bad, why not tell us why? Do you have facts that contradict it? Yes, the title is hyperbole, it was the credit that was stolen, not the code, but it's as accurate as most newspaper headlines. Seems to me this is an important story and I'm glad it ran. For a better written article try the place it broke, LinuxGrrls .
"Isn't this a bit like saying "My computer has no input devices, except for a keyboard and mouse"?"
That's the free market dogma alright. If you believe it out of faith, I hope you enjoy and benefit from your religion. Otherwise, please look around -- does it look like purchases are an effective control to you?
What products do I stop buying to make corporations stop drugtesting, datamining, and redlining? All of them? Which product do I not buy to make them stop lobbying congress? If I'm a kid in a sweatshop making Nikes how do I gain decent working conditions when I've never been able to even afford a Nike?
Sorry, purchase power is nice, but it's not enough.
Yes that is part of the problem. When a corporation negligently or intentionally produces and promotes a shoddy product that injures or kills someone, or devastates the environment, no one arrests them and charges them with criminal behavior. They have the rights of citizens, but are not burdened by the same laws as citizens. They have in fact become super-citizens that have more than their fair share of influence on politics and scientific research, while having almost no responsibility for the consequences of their choices and actions outside their own bottom line.
I think you've put your finger on one of the biggest problems. Either revoke corporations citizenship status, or make the responsibilities attendant on that citizenship of similar weight to those placed on individuals. We get busted if we litter. Corporations can devastate whole countrysides without serious consequences. The few environmental fines come out of petty cash -- there is a disconnect between *total* cost of their operations to the world and their profits from sales in developed markets.
Good point. Many in the '60s had a hard time separating the notion of government and military from the real evils of the Viet Nam war and the draft. There were regrettable instances of disrepect for returning military personnel and harrassment of individual low level bureaucrats. And, as in Seattle, a few nihlist anarchists among the masses of protestors. (And some honest revolutionaries too, but I mean the folks who just *like* throwing bottles thru windows.)
The ability to band together in large groups to create technology and do big science is absolutely essential. Neither business nor the concept of a corporation is evil, no more than the concept of government is. However, when a government is out of control people are entitled to use any means necessary to correct the situation. This can often be accomplished by education, protest, or voting, but if it can't be other means are fair play in an ethical sense. As corporations become more powerful than governments the same should be true of them.
The problem with corporations is that there is no feedback mechanism to control them other than the purchase of their products. Lobbying governments, which have questionable jurisdiction over multi-nationals in any case, is no more effective than suing them unless you have untold riches at your disposal. You may win a settlement, but the chances of changing their behavior are miniscule.
Boycotts used to be effective but since corporations discovered diversification it has been less so. The other problem is that the bad effects from a corporation may take place a long way away from the people who are buying the product. If you can make a cheap and good product in a distant country by raping their environment or abusing their workers, the product is still likely to sell well at home. So if the corporations globalize it is important that individuals also globalize their information network. Fortunately, we have the internet. Unfortunately, we're not using it effectively enough.
In the US, and some other countries, we have a document expressing rights of the citizen that may not be abridged or restricted by government. Perhaps we need a bill of rights referring to multi-national corporations, and some way of collecting and publicizing violations of it.
I must disagree that "open source" is nothing more than a marketing term for "free software." It may be that to you, but it's more than that to many people.
Neither open source nor free software have much to do with either money or law, IMO. Free software maintains it is a moral imperative to open sources because information shouldn't be property, while open source just says software works better and develops faster if you do. You can honestly believe in the efficacy of sharing sources without believing it has anything to do with morality. To provide an umbrella that includes such people is more than mere marketing.
Yes, the GPL has never been tested in court. So what? That argues against there being much reason to write cute articles to prepare legal positions that probably will never be necessary.
You really can't throw out things like "widespread abuse" and call for the overturn of the GPL and open source before it's too late without backing up your argument. I am not aware of any abuses.
If you don't like the GPL and Open Source, why do you think you have a right to the labors of those who do, and wish to voluntarily pool their own efforts together? Do you believe in nationalization of all intellectual property or just that of groups you disagree with? In actual fact, if the GPL fails, it should fail safe, that is, all GPL software will become undistributable without permission from all copyright holders. Is that what you want?
It was an interesting historical article that barely mentioned either free software or open source.
I think there are a lot of good aspects to what happened. First of all, it was demonstrated that the community is open. You can't keep secrets among a clique at the top, if anyone knows, soon everyone knows. This may be embarassing for Bruce, and I feel for him, but what happened is what should have happened and should be a warning to all those who post or email. Kudos to Hemos for posting, this is a better result than an unsubstantiated rumor that Bruce wants to sue Corel. It is *less* likely to be blown up in the mainstream media because everyone can now see there is nothing there.
In terms of the actual event (not the posting to Slashdot) I think it not unreasonable for Bruce to get angry. Not ideal maybe, but quite understandable. I think the under-18 Debian developers deserve some anger in their behalf. I'll bet Corel knows Bruce was angry. This is good.
The negative consequences described seem to be mainly that the corporate Linux supporters and those yet to be will take from this that the Linux community is sue-happy and will back off, or not extend support. This is unreasonable. First, any who read Slashdot already know that hundreds of us will yell "Sue!" at a perceived GPL violation. Bruce is rather mellow compared to some in that regard. However the fact is that the GPL remains untested in court to this day. Since such a case would more likely revolve around the right to distribute rather than money, I don't believe there is likely to be one soon, even with the increased commerical support. It's a no-win proposition unless a critical principle is involved.
Finally, copyrights are *only* meaningful if they are defended. If a company truly violates the GPL and won't change we *should* sue them. Since the results of losing the case could be catastrophic, we need to pick the case extremely carefully however, and this spat with Corel doesn't cut it, at least as it appears to me.