Why do you spend 4 years in research anyway? Start small and let it evolve, so you additionally have the feedback of your users.
Look, the 4 year vs. 2 month thing was taken from the OP's scenario. I imagine there's some hyperbole involved. I didn't mean that 4 years was spent on research anyway. The 4 years is spent on the whole process of research, starting a company, getting funding, developing the product, and testing it. Why didn't you - like the kiddie - build on something that was there?
Because I wanted to make money and he didn't. Where did you get seed capital without showing proof you will have a product you can earn money with. Software can be copied, we all know that.
Maybe that's why it took 4 years:-)
Seriously, I think that's the point. The OP is complaining that it's too hard to get a product funded these days. If the kid didn't have access to the vast GPL code base, he couldn't put me out of business. (And if the existing code base was BSD or something then I maybe wouldn't have such a long development cycle.)
If you plan earning for your years of research (still don't understand this), file a patent!
If I don't mention filing a patent, I get 3 responses telling me I should. If I did suggest filing a patent, I would get 15 replies telling me they hate patents.
Cry me a fucking river. It's called competition. It's something that exists in the Real World. Seriously, if you have a product that can be replaced in 2 months via current tools, your products value has diminished to the point where maybe you should make a new product.
I can't read the OP's mind, but I do think you are oversimplifying the matter. Let's say you have an idea for some kind of innovation. Say a better type of web browser. You spend 4 years researching the idea, gaining seed capital, and developing the whole browser including your innovation. Meanwhile the damned kiddie just copies your idea and spends 2 months kludging it on to Mozilla. It crashes half the time, but who cares cuz it's free. Eventually, some other altruistic soul will take the time to debug it.
-a
Re:Just look at the gaming market
on
Funding Open Source?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You're forgetting that 90% of the software in the world is not shrinkwrapped, commercial software, it's custom software, usually for in-house use.
I can't say I speak for all leftists. However, a key underlying philosophy of the left-wing is egalitarianism. You are closer to the right-wing than the left it seems.
I think there's a lot more to right wing vs. left wing than elitism vs. pragmatism. Your classification of people into two groups seems rather extremist. Personally, I try to stay away from most *isms. (except, perhaps, pragmatism) The egalitarian view basically implies that humans are equal, both in terms of their desires, as well as their capabilities. Sure, there are people who are much better off than anyone else but these people are negligible (they probably constitute less than 1% of the population).
If you think that 98% of people are genetically equivalent in terms of intelligence, athleticism, etc. then you are flying in the face of biology. If you think men and women are equal in terms of their desires then you have been proven wrong many times over.
So what I am saying is that diversity within a culture certainly exists. As for differences in the average ability between cultures, that probably exists too. I would be very surprised if scientific research ever proved that black Americans are not, on average, genetically better atheletes than white Americans or that Kenyans aren't better marathon runners. There have been studies which showed that some ethnic groups may be more intelligent than others, but of course this research can't be pursued because it might result in politically incorrect conclusions.
Of course, that discussion is not really relevant to what we disagree about because I concur that the vast majority of American software jobs are replaceable by Chinese. However, I don't agree that this would automatically drop American wages by 3/4ths. For one thing, keep in mind that the jobs will be going to well-off Chinese programmers with Masters degrees. Yes, it will affect wages and maybe cut them in half, but there is some advantage to be gained from location as long as R&D isn't the dominant cost (plus you get R&D tax credits anyway). If the programmers are out of a job, they won't be programming OS|FS. The reason people can afford to spend time on OS|FS is because: (i) they are being paid for it (eg. Red Hat/SuSE/Mandrake employees, university researchers, etc). (ii) they love doing it, (iii) they are trying to accomplish something (eg. provide an alternative that is less restrictive and more free (in terms of freedom)).
Don't underestimate the impact of university research. That's where a lot of OSS development gets done. Not just researchers, but also students with too much time on their hands. This is how wars get started: a few charismatic (by geek standards) leaders and a lot of young influential people playing small roles.
Incidentally, lowering costs results in lower prices for consumers. However, it also results in lower wages. A classic example is Wal-Mart, which has killed many retailers, yet provides very low prices to consumers. People who work in Wal-Mart get lower wages than the old retailers.
Yes, I completely agree. That is why I think the/. argument that businesses should be thankful for OSFSF because it lowers their costs. There's a similar argument to the above for profits. Lowered costs only benefit a company if they are the only ones who can realize those savings. If everyone's costs are lowered, profits will go down. Your view seems to be that margins dictate salaries. I strongly disagree with this. Margins have little to do with salaries. Companies may be TEMPTED to provide higher salaries if margins are high but that is not a rule.
Margins dictate salaries to a certain extent, but there is a limit. IT salaries were spiraling way out of control. Not everyone deserves to be making $150,000. But keep in mind that R&D is only a fraction of your costs. You can't export your US sales force to Malaysia. You could export your marketing department, but you probably wouldn't want to. You can export your tech support (and many do), although your customer service may suffer from having the phone answered by non-native English speakers.
Given these fixed costs, you get a tangible advantage from having your R&D co-located with marketing, sales, and support. In my job, customer service reps are constantly at my desk to discuss a customer issue. When dealing with the sales engineers in other time zones, it often takes several days of e-mail tag to get an issue resolved.
So my point is that R&D costs are only a portion of your total costs, but if they rise above a certain percentage, companies are going to start thinking about exporting the jobs. In Microsoft's case, I think they are perpetually worried that OSFSF is going to erode their margins, so they are taking preemptive measures. If you can get someone else in another part of the world to do the same job for a quarter of the cost, wouldn't that automatically drive my wage down by a 1/4th?
I don't understand your logic here. Why down by 1/4th? Why not 3/4ths? And if you are a leftist, you already subscribe to the view that humans are equal and can do things fairly equal to one another
I wouldn't say I was a leftist, I'd say centrist. I do believe that people in different countries are fairly equal to each other (is that a leftist idea?), but that within each country there is still wide variance in terms of intelligence, etc. (That was probably what you meant.)
I do worry that jobs are being exported to 3rd world countries and this is going to affect my salary. However, I also worry that OSFSF is going to make the problem twice as bad.
I am damn tired of everyone saying "artists should get paid for what they do." No $hit!. We all feel that way. Seriously though, this is a form of laziness. Everyone wants something, but hopes that someone else will do it for them. A message to everyone who is in the public eye: Do not only say you support things, for you have power and influence not only in your words. Support things with your person or pocketbook.
Okay, let me make an extension to that statement. I want artists to be paid for what they do using a free-market system in which consumers are forced to pay for the music they listened to, and not a charitable system in which they donate to the musicians they feel sorry for.
(I also thing the labels deserve to be paid, and probably a lot more than people here give them credit for.)
Those "top sellers" are bands I've never heard of with the exception of radiohead and yet to ever actually meet someone who has purchased their music.
Radiohead is the only one of those that I actually listen to, but if you don't know who the other ones are then you're just fuckin ignorant.
Whether or not they would make profits by selling cd's for $5 or $2 is definately an issue of debate since it's not at all unreasonable to think that sales would triple... they don't operate this way because if they sell 1 cd they only have to cut the artist back in for.25, if they sell 3 to get that same $15 then they have to shell out.75 to the musician!! my god!
Obviously you put very little thought into that comment. The CD does not wholesale for $13.49. You have to manufacture the CD & cover, ship it to the store, pay the rent, electricity, and the guy behind the counter, etc. Plus, in addition to paying royalties to the musician, they also have to pay the composer and producer. Also, for all I know, the royalties on the CD could be a percentage of the retail price and not a flat rate.
The real travesty is that anti-American sentiment is up all over the world. I read in a magazine today that "90% of Palestinians and 86% of Jordanians view Osama Bin Laden as one of the top 3 most respected world leaders." This is only likely to lead to more terrorist attacks.
I guess artists can always just give up on the idea of making big bucks off of selling recorded music, and simply tour for a living.
That's what always bugs me about the notion that artists should make all their money from touring. Let us remember that one of the greatest moments in rock music was the days the Beatles stopped touring. Before they stopped: Please Please Me, With the Beatles, Help, etc. After they stopped: Sgt. Pepper's, White Album, Abbey Road, etc.
Considering the supply curve starts at ~$20 for a new release, there's a lot of area under the curve where people won't value the product enough to make the purchase at the ~$20 price. What I don't understand is why this market isn't targeted, unless the curve is such that a much lower price wouldn't attact that many more buyers.
Firstly, the price doesn't start at $20 for a new release. That's a piece of bullshit/. propaganda that readers like you propagate without bothering to fact-check it. If you don't want to pay $20 for a new release, don't shop at Walmart. According to amazon.com, they offer "top sellers as low as $12.99". When I look at their list of top sellers, including Radiohead, Clay Akin, Nora Jones, Annie Lennox, and Coldplay, most of these CDs are selling for $13.49. So I wish you and everyone else on/. would stop spreading this bullshit hyperbole that you can only buy CDs for $20.
Secondly, the market *is* targeted. Of course it's targeted. If you don't think it's targeted, you're nuts. If they sold CDs for $5, they would hardly make any profit. They sell CDs for $13.50 to consumers who are willing to shop around. If you're too lazy to shop around then they milk you for $20.
"Curiously, many of those who fought the hardest for the SBCEA were those who had benefited the most from the public domain. Disney, afraid of losing exclusive control of Mickey Mouse (who first appeared in 1928 and would have gone public this year), lobbied vigorously for the 20-year extension, despite having made billions off such classic characters and stories as Cinderella and The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
Yeah... as if they wouldn't have simply bought the rights to them for $50,000 and then made billions off them.
I don't think you're confused, but I do think you're disillusioned.
All I know is there's a million unemployed programmers out there, companies are going out of business left and right, and when I post a job req on monster.com, it gets 200 responses in the first week. Guys with 20 years experience are applying for testing jobs, and new grads don't stand a chance.
Of course, you may say that this is due to the economy in general, but it would be wrong to discount the effect of OSS. Linux may not have overtaken Windows, but it certainly devalued UNIX. Apache didn't kill IIS and websphere, but what is their market share? (Websphere has an advantage because IBM is good at FUD.) You may also want to consider that OSS contributed to both the meteoric rise and the catastrophic fall of the stock market.
You, my friend, are a starry-eyed idealist. But on the other hand, I can see that you have given this more thought than the average/. reader.
The majority of OSFSF advocates claim to be capitalists (at least the ones that argue with me). They don't care whether or not OSFSF puts programmers out of work. All they care about is some libertarian ideal. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Richard Stallman is pretty far to the left.
One thing I'm sure of is that OSFSF will drive down salaries. Sure, some programmers will still have jobs, but there will be fewer jobs. By supply and demand, salaries must fall. Additionally, OSFSF creates a lower barrier of entry for new companies, which leads to more competition, and thus lower margins. If there are lower margins, clearly salaries must fall.
This last point is crucial. When margins are high, companies don't need to export their workforce to Bangladore. As I said, not every programmer will be out of a job, but the salaries will be much lower. Right now, programmers enjoy the privilege of being paid as professionals. In the future, we could make less than a lot of unskilled labourers who just happen to have a strong union.
But you, my friend, only used one period, one question mark, and... two commas! Whereas I have exceeded that number and introduced an exclamation mark preceeded by an ellipsis (for suspense) in my first sentance, thus impacting the reader in a more substantial manner.
I'm arranging with my G/F to have our phones call each other every 10 minutes when we're together. We never answer the phone, but it will keep the bugs away.
There aren't many bugs in Vancouver anyway. If you lived somewhere with bad mosquitos you would know that they are very persistent. If you wear insect repellant, they don't bite you, but they still hover within 6 inches of your face. A range of 3 feet is useless. You would have to be calling yourself constantly. Your phone's going to run out of batteries within the hour.
Completely correct. An old saying is that you should plan to program it twice, because you will be reprogramming it, no matter how large the pile of documentation and hours of planning sessions. Spending multiples more time "doing it right" when it, with pretty much certainty, will be rewritten is just a waste of time and effort.
Not necessarily. *You* may not be re-programming it. How many startups have you worked for? If you can do it quick and dirty enough to impress the man upstairs, some poor new grad will be stuck maintaining your spaghetti code while you are VP of R&D or at least director of new product research.
You forgot to mention the part about your employer being located in Berlin. Not that I'd mind living in Germany for a few years.. but my girlfriend almost certainly would object. Perhaps after I finish my second masters, I should apply?
What... and give up on your third masters? I'm disappointed in you.
My biggest beef with your various takes is that you color China as some sort of immoral IP scofflaw - perhaps I imply too much, but probably not.
I'm not trying to slander China. I'm merely pointing out that modern day Chinese adults didn't grow up in the same kind of culture we did. When it comes to IP, morality and ethics factors in not at all for current U.S. businesses.
No doubt. But if the employees in those companies need to be complicit then cultural attitudes matter. If we, the U.S., were really that concerned with the Chinese making off with IP, then we'd be actively pursuing regime change within that country.
Yeah... right after we finish with Iraq, we'd take on China. The US may be willing to go to war under fairly suspect circumstances, but they only take on weaker opponents. The US is keen to trade with China at any cost because the last few administrations have been part of the fad of globalization at any cost, and China is one hell of a market. I'm sorry, I just don't buy the "U.S.-style IP laws and proprietary software is good for us all" lines.
I can't see how the GPL would be of benefit to them either (which was your assertion). Every license is a gamble - and if IBM, as you say, is constantly assessing its positions regarding the GPL, they have pretty consistently found the GPL to be a very good gamble.
I don't think IBM is blown away by the success of its decision to support Linux. However, every decision has an opportunity cost. They're not going to switch strategies unless they have a better idea of what to do.
You can start a union if you want. I bet most geeks won't join though.
I don't want a union. I want a lobby group to buy some politicians and get the GPL ruled unenforceable. Of course starting a union is actual work so you might be all that interested.
Fuck you. I love how just because I stated that I don't want to work 80 hours a week for the rest of my life, you call me a lazy leech on society. What do you feel is an appropriate work week, 100 hours? Are you a gnostic?
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Right you are. It's about time someone brought an end to this ridiculous charade.
-a
Why do you spend 4 years in research anyway? Start small and let it evolve, so you additionally have the feedback of your users.
Look, the 4 year vs. 2 month thing was taken from the OP's scenario. I imagine there's some hyperbole involved. I didn't mean that 4 years was spent on research anyway. The 4 years is spent on the whole process of research, starting a company, getting funding, developing the product, and testing it.
Why didn't you - like the kiddie - build on something that was there?
Because I wanted to make money and he didn't.
Where did you get seed capital without showing proof you will have a product you can earn money with. Software can be copied, we all know that.
Maybe that's why it took 4 years
Seriously, I think that's the point. The OP is complaining that it's too hard to get a product funded these days. If the kid didn't have access to the vast GPL code base, he couldn't put me out of business. (And if the existing code base was BSD or something then I maybe wouldn't have such a long development cycle.)
If you plan earning for your years of research (still don't understand this), file a patent!
If I don't mention filing a patent, I get 3 responses telling me I should. If I did suggest filing a patent, I would get 15 replies telling me they hate patents.
-a
Cry me a fucking river. It's called competition. It's something that exists in the Real World. Seriously, if you have a product that can be replaced in 2 months via current tools, your products value has diminished to the point where maybe you should make a new product.
I can't read the OP's mind, but I do think you are oversimplifying the matter. Let's say you have an idea for some kind of innovation. Say a better type of web browser. You spend 4 years researching the idea, gaining seed capital, and developing the whole browser including your innovation. Meanwhile the damned kiddie just copies your idea and spends 2 months kludging it on to Mozilla. It crashes half the time, but who cares cuz it's free. Eventually, some other altruistic soul will take the time to debug it.
-a
You're forgetting that 90% of the software in the world is not shrinkwrapped, commercial software, it's custom software, usually for in-house use.
Source?
-a
I know you're not allowed to provide legal advice, but can you clarify this one simple question that's been dragging on all our minds:
Is music piracy theft, or is it just analogous to theft? Or is it analogous to stealing buggy whips?
-a
I can't say I speak for all leftists. However, a key underlying philosophy of the left-wing is egalitarianism. You are closer to the right-wing than the left it seems.
I think there's a lot more to right wing vs. left wing than elitism vs. pragmatism. Your classification of people into two groups seems rather extremist. Personally, I try to stay away from most *isms. (except, perhaps, pragmatism)
The egalitarian view basically implies that humans are equal, both in terms of their desires, as well as their capabilities. Sure, there are people who are much better off than anyone else but these people are negligible (they probably constitute less than 1% of the population).
If you think that 98% of people are genetically equivalent in terms of intelligence, athleticism, etc. then you are flying in the face of biology. If you think men and women are equal in terms of their desires then you have been proven wrong many times over.
So what I am saying is that diversity within a culture certainly exists. As for differences in the average ability between cultures, that probably exists too. I would be very surprised if scientific research ever proved that black Americans are not, on average, genetically better atheletes than white Americans or that Kenyans aren't better marathon runners. There have been studies which showed that some ethnic groups may be more intelligent than others, but of course this research can't be pursued because it might result in politically incorrect conclusions.
Of course, that discussion is not really relevant to what we disagree about because I concur that the vast majority of American software jobs are replaceable by Chinese. However, I don't agree that this would automatically drop American wages by 3/4ths. For one thing, keep in mind that the jobs will be going to well-off Chinese programmers with Masters degrees. Yes, it will affect wages and maybe cut them in half, but there is some advantage to be gained from location as long as R&D isn't the dominant cost (plus you get R&D tax credits anyway).
If the programmers are out of a job, they won't be programming OS|FS. The reason people can afford to spend time on OS|FS is because: (i) they are being paid for it (eg. Red Hat/SuSE/Mandrake employees, university researchers, etc). (ii) they love doing it, (iii) they are trying to accomplish something (eg. provide an alternative that is less restrictive and more free (in terms of freedom)).
Don't underestimate the impact of university research. That's where a lot of OSS development gets done. Not just researchers, but also students with too much time on their hands. This is how wars get started: a few charismatic (by geek standards) leaders and a lot of young influential people playing small roles.
-a
is that you can't buy and sell characters on eBay.
-a
Incidentally, lowering costs results in lower prices for consumers. However, it also results in lower wages. A classic example is Wal-Mart, which has killed many retailers, yet provides very low prices to consumers. People who work in Wal-Mart get lower wages than the old retailers.
Yes, I completely agree. That is why I think the
Your view seems to be that margins dictate salaries. I strongly disagree with this. Margins have little to do with salaries. Companies may be TEMPTED to provide higher salaries if margins are high but that is not a rule.
Margins dictate salaries to a certain extent, but there is a limit. IT salaries were spiraling way out of control. Not everyone deserves to be making $150,000. But keep in mind that R&D is only a fraction of your costs. You can't export your US sales force to Malaysia. You could export your marketing department, but you probably wouldn't want to. You can export your tech support (and many do), although your customer service may suffer from having the phone answered by non-native English speakers.
Given these fixed costs, you get a tangible advantage from having your R&D co-located with marketing, sales, and support. In my job, customer service reps are constantly at my desk to discuss a customer issue. When dealing with the sales engineers in other time zones, it often takes several days of e-mail tag to get an issue resolved.
So my point is that R&D costs are only a portion of your total costs, but if they rise above a certain percentage, companies are going to start thinking about exporting the jobs. In Microsoft's case, I think they are perpetually worried that OSFSF is going to erode their margins, so they are taking preemptive measures.
If you can get someone else in another part of the world to do the same job for a quarter of the cost, wouldn't that automatically drive my wage down by a 1/4th?
I don't understand your logic here. Why down by 1/4th? Why not 3/4ths?
And if you are a leftist, you already subscribe to the view that humans are equal and can do things fairly equal to one another
I wouldn't say I was a leftist, I'd say centrist. I do believe that people in different countries are fairly equal to each other (is that a leftist idea?), but that within each country there is still wide variance in terms of intelligence, etc. (That was probably what you meant.)
I do worry that jobs are being exported to 3rd world countries and this is going to affect my salary. However, I also worry that OSFSF is going to make the problem twice as bad.
-a
I am damn tired of everyone saying "artists should get paid for what they do." No $hit!. We all feel that way. Seriously though, this is a form of laziness. Everyone wants something, but hopes that someone else will do it for them. A message to everyone who is in the public eye: Do not only say you support things, for you have power and influence not only in your words. Support things with your person or pocketbook.
Okay, let me make an extension to that statement. I want artists to be paid for what they do using a free-market system in which consumers are forced to pay for the music they listened to, and not a charitable system in which they donate to the musicians they feel sorry for.
(I also thing the labels deserve to be paid, and probably a lot more than people here give them credit for.)
-a
Those "top sellers" are bands I've never heard of with the exception of radiohead and yet to ever actually meet someone who has purchased their music.
Radiohead is the only one of those that I actually listen to, but if you don't know who the other ones are then you're just fuckin ignorant.
Whether or not they would make profits by selling cd's for $5 or $2 is definately an issue of debate since it's not at all unreasonable to think that sales would triple... they don't operate this way because if they sell 1 cd they only have to cut the artist back in for
Obviously you put very little thought into that comment. The CD does not wholesale for $13.49. You have to manufacture the CD & cover, ship it to the store, pay the rent, electricity, and the guy behind the counter, etc. Plus, in addition to paying royalties to the musician, they also have to pay the composer and producer. Also, for all I know, the royalties on the CD could be a percentage of the retail price and not a flat rate.
-a
-a
-a
Actually, about 10 years ago there was a windowing library for DOS called Db++.
-a
The real travesty is that anti-American sentiment is up all over the world. I read in a magazine today that "90% of Palestinians and 86% of Jordanians view Osama Bin Laden as one of the top 3 most respected world leaders." This is only likely to lead to more terrorist attacks.
But as Bush says, "bring 'em on..."
-a
I guess artists can always just give up on the idea of making big bucks off of selling recorded music, and simply tour for a living.
That's what always bugs me about the notion that artists should make all their money from touring. Let us remember that one of the greatest moments in rock music was the days the Beatles stopped touring. Before they stopped: Please Please Me, With the Beatles, Help, etc. After they stopped: Sgt. Pepper's, White Album, Abbey Road, etc.
-a
Considering the supply curve starts at ~$20 for a new release, there's a lot of area under the curve where people won't value the product enough to make the purchase at the ~$20 price. What I don't understand is why this market isn't targeted, unless the curve is such that a much lower price wouldn't attact that many more buyers.
Firstly, the price doesn't start at $20 for a new release. That's a piece of bullshit
Secondly, the market *is* targeted. Of course it's targeted. If you don't think it's targeted, you're nuts. If they sold CDs for $5, they would hardly make any profit. They sell CDs for $13.50 to consumers who are willing to shop around. If you're too lazy to shop around then they milk you for $20.
-a
From the article:
"Curiously, many of those who fought the hardest for the SBCEA were those who had benefited the most from the public domain. Disney, afraid of losing exclusive control of Mickey Mouse (who first appeared in 1928 and would have gone public this year), lobbied vigorously for the 20-year extension, despite having made billions off such classic characters and stories as Cinderella and The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
Yeah... as if they wouldn't have simply bought the rights to them for $50,000 and then made billions off them.
-a
I don't think you're confused, but I do think you're disillusioned.
All I know is there's a million unemployed programmers out there, companies are going out of business left and right, and when I post a job req on monster.com, it gets 200 responses in the first week. Guys with 20 years experience are applying for testing jobs, and new grads don't stand a chance.
Of course, you may say that this is due to the economy in general, but it would be wrong to discount the effect of OSS. Linux may not have overtaken Windows, but it certainly devalued UNIX. Apache didn't kill IIS and websphere, but what is their market share? (Websphere has an advantage because IBM is good at FUD.) You may also want to consider that OSS contributed to both the meteoric rise and the catastrophic fall of the stock market.
-a
You, my friend, are a starry-eyed idealist. But on the other hand, I can see that you have given this more thought than the average /. reader.
The majority of OSFSF advocates claim to be capitalists (at least the ones that argue with me). They don't care whether or not OSFSF puts programmers out of work. All they care about is some libertarian ideal. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Richard Stallman is pretty far to the left.
One thing I'm sure of is that OSFSF will drive down salaries. Sure, some programmers will still have jobs, but there will be fewer jobs. By supply and demand, salaries must fall. Additionally, OSFSF creates a lower barrier of entry for new companies, which leads to more competition, and thus lower margins. If there are lower margins, clearly salaries must fall.
This last point is crucial. When margins are high, companies don't need to export their workforce to Bangladore. As I said, not every programmer will be out of a job, but the salaries will be much lower. Right now, programmers enjoy the privilege of being paid as professionals. In the future, we could make less than a lot of unskilled labourers who just happen to have a strong union.
-a
But you, my friend, only used one period, one question mark, and... two commas! Whereas I have exceeded that number and introduced an exclamation mark preceeded by an ellipsis (for suspense) in my first sentance, thus impacting the reader in a more substantial manner.
Haven't you heard that less is more?
-a
I thought giving the judge the finger was political speech, but sadly I was proven wrong.
-a
I'm arranging with my G/F to have our phones call each other every 10 minutes when we're together. We never answer the phone, but it will keep the bugs away.
There aren't many bugs in Vancouver anyway. If you lived somewhere with bad mosquitos you would know that they are very persistent. If you wear insect repellant, they don't bite you, but they still hover within 6 inches of your face. A range of 3 feet is useless. You would have to be calling yourself constantly. Your phone's going to run out of batteries within the hour.
-a
Completely correct. An old saying is that you should plan to program it twice, because you will be reprogramming it, no matter how large the pile of documentation and hours of planning sessions. Spending multiples more time "doing it right" when it, with pretty much certainty, will be rewritten is just a waste of time and effort.
Not necessarily. *You* may not be re-programming it. How many startups have you worked for? If you can do it quick and dirty enough to impress the man upstairs, some poor new grad will be stuck maintaining your spaghetti code while you are VP of R&D or at least director of new product research.
-a
You forgot to mention the part about your employer being located in Berlin. Not that I'd mind living in Germany for a few years
What... and give up on your third masters? I'm disappointed in you.
-a
My biggest beef with your various takes is that you color China as some sort of immoral IP scofflaw - perhaps I imply too much, but probably not.
I'm not trying to slander China. I'm merely pointing out that modern day Chinese adults didn't grow up in the same kind of culture we did.
When it comes to IP, morality and ethics factors in not at all for current U.S. businesses.
No doubt. But if the employees in those companies need to be complicit then cultural attitudes matter.
If we, the U.S., were really that concerned with the Chinese making off with IP, then we'd be actively pursuing regime change within that country.
Yeah... right after we finish with Iraq, we'd take on China. The US may be willing to go to war under fairly suspect circumstances, but they only take on weaker opponents. The US is keen to trade with China at any cost because the last few administrations have been part of the fad of globalization at any cost, and China is one hell of a market.
I'm sorry, I just don't buy the "U.S.-style IP laws and proprietary software is good for us all" lines.
I can't see how the GPL would be of benefit to them either (which was your assertion).
Every license is a gamble - and if IBM, as you say, is constantly assessing its positions regarding the GPL, they have pretty consistently found the GPL to be a very good gamble.
I don't think IBM is blown away by the success of its decision to support Linux. However, every decision has an opportunity cost. They're not going to switch strategies unless they have a better idea of what to do.
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Hey, I agree completely. I was just trying to make a funny comment.
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You can start a union if you want. I bet most geeks won't join though.
I don't want a union. I want a lobby group to buy some politicians and get the GPL ruled unenforceable.
Of course starting a union is actual work so you might be all that interested.
Fuck you. I love how just because I stated that I don't want to work 80 hours a week for the rest of my life, you call me a lazy leech on society. What do you feel is an appropriate work week, 100 hours? Are you a gnostic?
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