You've got the wrong idea if that's what you think I did. "Selling binaries" is no more earning money by programming than "support" is. That's one reason why most indies delegate that task to app stores these days.
Again, my position is this. In practice GPL software leaves few opportunities to be paid to program. There are openings in large companies that adapt big projects like Linux to their purposes, or write drivers. But they are relatively few, in number and variety. And there are openings in non-software companies that need internal business software. They are more common, but mostly dull.
Heck virtually all GPL projects are copies of existing software. The two you mention: Linux is a Unix copy. Mozilla is a me-too browser.
Try doing an innovative project that interests you, and will be of value to many other people. Doing it in the GPL world will mean you have trouble putting food on the table. In the commercial world, you make your living with it.
The GPL is good for non-creators that want free stuff. For creative programmers it is suicide.
Of course, if people are caught pointing lasers at planes, they should be punished. I just don't think that spending money on hunting them down, or sending them to jail for long periods is worth it. The money is better spent on technical means to reduce the effect on pilots.
So that's only 2 example projects. With the money largely coming from support, or being told what to do (contract programming), rather than creating an original product that you believe in and think other people will like.
You're talking like a hater. Past experience shows it's a waste of time engaging. I've made the point. You are welcome to your opinion regardless of the fact you are wrong.
Nobody said it was acceptable. The point being made is that it won't be eradicated by threatening serious punishments, as the offenders may not hear of the threats, and/or believe they won't be caught.
So one need to deal with the fact that lasers will be shone at aircraft, rather than pretend that cops can stop it happening.
These pilots anti laser glasses block multiple frequencies, and do NOT impair ability to view instruments. And they are no more distracting than donning or removing sunglasses or prescription glasses, both of which pilots already use.
Other comments assumed technical issues have been refuted.
but should they? Or rather, should they have to?
It's a crime that won't be eradicated. Thus it's responding to a fact of life. You might as well ask whether a cyclist should have to wear a helmet, a car driver a seat belt, or a promiscuous teen a prophylactic.
Otherwise you might as well conclude that pilots should don bullet proof vests to deal with the people who discharge a firearm in the direction of a plane taking off/landing.
But they don't just ban guns, and give serious penalties to transgressors. They also have a security door to the cockpit, only openable from the cockpits side. Anti-laser glasses is the equivalent of that door.
Regardless, I'm not sure where your stance (if I'm interpreting it correctly) of "attempting to harshly punish those pointing laser pointers at planes, is a bad idea" is coming from.
a) It won't eradicate the crime. They never do. Drug dealing for example is harshly punished, but still very common. As is violence and murder.
b) These laser pointer attacks will either come from children, idiots or (if it's really a serious threat) terrorists. These are the types least likely to be affected by threat of serious punishment.
c) Serious punishment costs the taxpayer serious money. For little useful effect.
"These glasses have been tested by pilots for a major U.S. airline, who confirm that they can still safely distinguish colors in the cockpit (including green on indicators and LCD displays), and on airport lighting." http://www.laserpointersafety....
Anti laser goggles only work against a limited set of wavelengths, otherwise they would be completely black. You can buy enough different lasers now (I've seen red, green orange, blue and near-UV) that it isn't practical to make goggles that will block them all.
You only need to cover the common ones. Laser pointer incidents are relatively infrequent. Incidents with uncommon laser types will be very rare indeed.
Even if laesrs don't cause eye damage (and I believe they have), they can cause distraction (which is deadly in aircraft - one of the largest causes of accidents), and can prevent the pilot from seeing the instruments.
Since setting down the challenge to cite a pilot who's eyes have been damaged, there have been no takers. So I don't think it's happened.
Heck if it seriously put pilots and planes in danger, there'd be reports of terrorists doing it. High impact, and low risk, if the ground point is well chosen. But again I haven't seen it be a significant terrorist tactic.
For sure it's distracting, and I'm in no way defending those kids and idiots that do it. But there is no way of stamping this crime out. Catching the odd offender and giving harsh penalties hasn't eradicated other crimes and it won't this one either. Therefore a technical approach for when, not if, it happens is more sensible.
Or, more rationally, you could get glasses specially made for pilots, that block the common laser pointer wavelengths. You might have checked whether they existed before assuming they don't.
When lasers get pointed at police helicopters, the pilots respond by heading closer to the laser to identify the position for ground cops to follow up on. Doesn't sound like they are that incapacitated.
Does someone actually have to be hurt or killed before we say stop?
Generally speaking, yes. There are an infinite number of potentially harmful or lethal things. Society usually waits until they've shown themselves to be actually harmful or legal.
The only real danger time is take off and landing. And pilots could wear anti-laser glasses at those times.
When a plane is in normal flight it's far too far away and fast moving to have any dangerous effect from a laser. Contrary to popular opinion laser light does diverge.
Think any different? Cite an example of a pilot with eye damage.
Name 3 examples. And it has to be profit from programming, and not support. Not that I'm saying you can't find three examples, but my suggestion is that they are fringe, niche cases, not a model that can keep significant numbers of programmers earning a living.
A case can be made for "against making profit by subjugating users", though.
"subjugating"? You guys are insane. Working hard to make a product, and then selling it is how virtually all the things you rely on get made, from your home to your transport to your food.
In this case, if the software had been GPL, we would have given back the bug fixes, since it wouldn't have involved releasing all our software or anything, and the advantage of using it would outweigh the advantage of rewriting it (although we did consider that too).
There's no reason for to to be any different with GPL. The GPL only requires you give access to source to people who you supply the binaries to. In your case, you say it was only used within the company, so there would be no requirement to distribute the source outside the company.
There's no reason why your bosses decision would be any different with the GPL, so long as he wasn't misinformed about the nature of the license.
Thank you for demonstrating the exact slashdotter misconception of invention that I wrote about.
As I said no one invents from scratch. Everything has precursors. But the Dyson baglass cyclone vac is not a simple scale down and adding or wheels as you claim. And the patentable part of the "bladeless" fan is not a matter of outlet diameter, but a new physics principle that was not used in the Toshiba fan.
Slashdot Mirror
You've got the wrong idea if that's what you think I did. "Selling binaries" is no more earning money by programming than "support" is. That's one reason why most indies delegate that task to app stores these days.
Again, my position is this. In practice GPL software leaves few opportunities to be paid to program. There are openings in large companies that adapt big projects like Linux to their purposes, or write drivers. But they are relatively few, in number and variety. And there are openings in non-software companies that need internal business software. They are more common, but mostly dull.
Heck virtually all GPL projects are copies of existing software. The two you mention: Linux is a Unix copy. Mozilla is a me-too browser.
Try doing an innovative project that interests you, and will be of value to many other people. Doing it in the GPL world will mean you have trouble putting food on the table. In the commercial world, you make your living with it.
The GPL is good for non-creators that want free stuff. For creative programmers it is suicide.
Of course, if people are caught pointing lasers at planes, they should be punished. I just don't think that spending money on hunting them down, or sending them to jail for long periods is worth it. The money is better spent on technical means to reduce the effect on pilots.
So that's only 2 example projects. With the money largely coming from support, or being told what to do (contract programming), rather than creating an original product that you believe in and think other people will like.
It's niche, and it's unappealing work. No thanks.
You're talking like a hater. Past experience shows it's a waste of time engaging. I've made the point. You are welcome to your opinion regardless of the fact you are wrong.
Nobody said it was acceptable. The point being made is that it won't be eradicated by threatening serious punishments, as the offenders may not hear of the threats, and/or believe they won't be caught.
So one need to deal with the fact that lasers will be shone at aircraft, rather than pretend that cops can stop it happening.
Cite a case that's more than a pilot complaining. One that actually caused damage, or serious danger.
Cite a pilot who's eyes have been damed by lasers whilst flying.
Of course a laser at close range can cause optic damage, but that's not the issue here.
These pilots anti laser glasses block multiple frequencies, and do NOT impair ability to view instruments. And they are no more distracting than donning or removing sunglasses or prescription glasses, both of which pilots already use.
http://www.laserpointersafety....
If you've ever had to wear laser safety goggles, you'd know its highly disorienting to wear them for a long period of time.
Goggles for lab laser work, and glasses for pilots are very different things.
Other comments assumed technical issues have been refuted.
but should they? Or rather, should they have to?
It's a crime that won't be eradicated. Thus it's responding to a fact of life. You might as well ask whether a cyclist should have to wear a helmet, a car driver a seat belt, or a promiscuous teen a prophylactic.
Otherwise you might as well conclude that pilots should don bullet proof vests to deal with the people who discharge a firearm in the direction of a plane taking off/landing.
But they don't just ban guns, and give serious penalties to transgressors. They also have a security door to the cockpit, only openable from the cockpits side. Anti-laser glasses is the equivalent of that door.
Regardless, I'm not sure where your stance (if I'm interpreting it correctly) of "attempting to harshly punish those pointing laser pointers at planes, is a bad idea" is coming from.
a) It won't eradicate the crime. They never do. Drug dealing for example is harshly punished, but still very common. As is violence and murder.
b) These laser pointer attacks will either come from children, idiots or (if it's really a serious threat) terrorists. These are the types least likely to be affected by threat of serious punishment.
c) Serious punishment costs the taxpayer serious money. For little useful effect.
The technical approaches make much more sense.
"These glasses have been tested by pilots for a major U.S. airline, who confirm that they can still safely distinguish colors in the cockpit (including green on indicators and LCD displays), and on airport lighting."
http://www.laserpointersafety....
Anti laser goggles only work against a limited set of wavelengths, otherwise they would be completely black. You can buy enough different lasers now (I've seen red, green orange, blue and near-UV) that it isn't practical to make goggles that will block them all.
You only need to cover the common ones. Laser pointer incidents are relatively infrequent. Incidents with uncommon laser types will be very rare indeed.
Even if laesrs don't cause eye damage (and I believe they have), they can cause distraction (which is deadly in aircraft - one of the largest causes of accidents), and can prevent the pilot from seeing the instruments .
Since setting down the challenge to cite a pilot who's eyes have been damaged, there have been no takers. So I don't think it's happened.
Heck if it seriously put pilots and planes in danger, there'd be reports of terrorists doing it. High impact, and low risk, if the ground point is well chosen. But again I haven't seen it be a significant terrorist tactic.
For sure it's distracting, and I'm in no way defending those kids and idiots that do it. But there is no way of stamping this crime out. Catching the odd offender and giving harsh penalties hasn't eradicated other crimes and it won't this one either. Therefore a technical approach for when, not if, it happens is more sensible.
The common laser pointer wavelengths.
Or, more rationally, you could get glasses specially made for pilots, that block the common laser pointer wavelengths. You might have checked whether they existed before assuming they don't.
http://www.iridian.ca/english/...
These ones. http://www.iridian.ca/english/...
Indeed that would be stupid. But there's no reason you shouldn't wear anti-laser glasses.
Just issue the pilots with anti-laser glasses. They can choose for themselves when to filter and when not to.
When lasers get pointed at police helicopters, the pilots respond by heading closer to the laser to identify the position for ground cops to follow up on. Doesn't sound like they are that incapacitated.
Does someone actually have to be hurt or killed before we say stop?
Generally speaking, yes. There are an infinite number of potentially harmful or lethal things. Society usually waits until they've shown themselves to be actually harmful or legal.
And here's the pilots little friend.
http://www.iridian.ca/english/...
The only real danger time is take off and landing. And pilots could wear anti-laser glasses at those times.
When a plane is in normal flight it's far too far away and fast moving to have any dangerous effect from a laser. Contrary to popular opinion laser light does diverge.
Think any different? Cite an example of a pilot with eye damage.
Anti-laser glasses for pilots are readily available.
Name 3 examples. And it has to be profit from programming, and not support. Not that I'm saying you can't find three examples, but my suggestion is that they are fringe, niche cases, not a model that can keep significant numbers of programmers earning a living.
A case can be made for "against making profit by subjugating users", though.
"subjugating"? You guys are insane. Working hard to make a product, and then selling it is how virtually all the things you rely on get made, from your home to your transport to your food.
In this case, if the software had been GPL, we would have given back the bug fixes, since it wouldn't have involved releasing all our software or anything, and the advantage of using it would outweigh the advantage of rewriting it (although we did consider that too).
There's no reason for to to be any different with GPL. The GPL only requires you give access to source to people who you supply the binaries to. In your case, you say it was only used within the company, so there would be no requirement to distribute the source outside the company.
There's no reason why your bosses decision would be any different with the GPL, so long as he wasn't misinformed about the nature of the license.
No, that's not it. The most common Mercedes taxi is the E-Class. Which is not the cheap range,and it is sold in the USA.
Thank you for demonstrating the exact slashdotter misconception of invention that I wrote about.
As I said no one invents from scratch. Everything has precursors. But the Dyson baglass cyclone vac is not a simple scale down and adding or wheels as you claim. And the patentable part of the "bladeless" fan is not a matter of outlet diameter, but a new physics principle that was not used in the Toshiba fan.