The cyberlibertarian approach leads to a situation where public authorities spent millions on their commercial counterparts and useful projects run with almost no fuel.
I don't say decision. I say funding for what is succesful.
Does not really matter. Wikipedia is younger than a usual EB review cycles. EB set quality standards. But regardless where wikipedia is today. A new release of EB takes ages while Wikipedia documents uptodate issues as well. There is no other encyclopedic source for many topics. where wikipedia is today at 40% it will be 97% in two years. EB nor any other medium can surpass Wikipedia given its continuous growth and improvement.
Wikipedia is just fine as it is. Press complains about single cases but non-perfection is essential for getting people involved. 'Peak Britannica' is just a matter of time.
The complaints of conservative outsiders have to be used in a productive fashion. Ask them to donate staff to QA wikipedia.
Wikipedia has almost no employees. A public library gets more public funding than wikipedia. I think as Wikipedia fulfills an important or key task for society, the governments shoudl spent a few dollars on it.
So if they complain about Wikipedia next time ask for more public funds. And deny any approach which compromises the WIKI-success model.
Maybe I am a little bit oldfashioned but hacker ethics is very important for me. What I dislike is dirty gaming, what I dislike is negative campaigning...
What is true?
* Friedman presented the 3d Desktop * Novell developed it in a closed manner. * They gave Gnome an artifical competitive advantage * They did it as a Novell showcase.
The ugly(my taste) 'optional' menu is also bad from a Gnome user perspective. Because Gnome has an unique default feel which is 'not bad', not at all. But here Gnome gets a menu which serves the sole purpose to migrate KDE and XP guys to Gnome.
Maybe my speculations are wrong. But trust and confidence is based on experience. At least things got worse and worse.
Now Gnome gets unnecessary Mono dependencies. It is the same pattern we already know from the past. It is the way they promote their technology.
Kerry = Beagle frontend = depends on Mono = makes your system feel slow ---> Users think KDE was slow.
+ Novell introduces dependcies on immature Ximian technology
KDE prepares strigi, tenor etc. I guess Novell will not respect that. No, they will impose Beagle so that a better tool has no chance. They want Mono dependencies. You don't like it? You think it's too slow. Oh well, subscribe to the mailing list and contribute.
Next?
Kontact is canceled, Evolution becomes default. Reason: because it is from Ximian, not because users wanted it.;-)
Perhaps you are right. Some users like what happens. Perhaps the Novell customers. But among the old Suse customers we a pretty upset. It feels like a hostile takeover and things started to become worse when key Suse staff left Novell.
Novell looks for a new market and they destroy the old core market of Suse. They turn a soccer club into basket ball just because they also had a basket ball group. It is difficult to turn a Soccer fan into a basket ball fan. So Novell looks for new cusomers. But who will serve the market they ignore?
I think this shows how Novell is driven by Gnome-tehcnology pushists and that is why I as a customer ask Novell to drop Friedman and other unsound guys.
Just take XGL. RedHat did the proper solution AIGLX. But Novell developed XGL in a closed manner and Friedman presented XGL as a Gnome-only "showcase" and made a lot of fuzz. KDE to follow....
We all know that AIGLX is the future and will get included in X. But Friedman wanted to advance the show and the worst case is that XGL survives and we will have AIGLX and XGL in parallel.
Be sure Novell will standardise on XGL...
Novell presented a new menu for Gnome. It is really ugly, they break Gnome and introduce a different desktop philosophy just to migrate users. But what will happen next. It is a temporary bridge.
It is exactly the thinking of "technology push", we write software and then it should be sold. But the real issue is to please customers, to make them happy. I am a customer and I like Suse but I don't like what it gets turned into.
I think you fail to understand that we paid for Suse as it was. The real problem is:
* customer demand vs.
* technology push
I am a customer. I don't want technology imposed on me. I liked Suse and I want to continue to use it. Opensuse.org is only "translated to German". This sents a negative message to the German market, which is that Suse lost one of its features.
Next they will further shorter the Suse manual, support Gnome only, add mono dependencies,...
1) Novell, or better SUSE listens to its customers. Just go to openSUSE.org and start contributing. Go to the factory mailinglist and start discussing the new ideas that are there.
As I said. I am willing to pay. I am a customer. A technology pushist argues like that. 'If you don't like it, change it.' misses the point. I pay for the product.
2) Yes, SUSE fucked up with YaST. They have updates and are in the process of adding more changes.Are you contributing on the mailinglist and on openSUSE.org yet?
Again you fail to understand. YaST was fine before Novell started to add ximian technology. Not because we as customers wanted it, but because some Novell managers wanted to push ximian technology. The usual Gnome method, throw premature technology on the market, promote it and ask others to fix the problems. I *buy* a working product. But what did Novell do, force integration of Ximian technology as default, break YaST and then let customers wait and wait and wait for features they did not want. What was responsible for the release delay?
All this would be fine if the trust in the plattform would not be undermined by the moves to transform Suse into something else.
3) KDE support is just as strong as it ever was. The sole difference is that now you must choose with SUSE Linux wether you want GNOME or KDE.
Wrong. Suse was a primary KDE distribution which also had rather bad Gnome support. Users wanted KDE, some geeks took Gnome, fine. Now you are forced to use Gnome as default. I mean, nothing wrong with Ubuntu as Gnome default. But when your customerbase is KDE-centric you have to respect that or your customers get angry. So many Suse professionals were laid off or left the company when Novell changed Suse.
4) SUSE asks what they want on the factory mailinglist all the time. Other places is bugzilla.
I want Nat Friedman to go. I don't trust that person. It's time for him to leave and for Novell to listen to the market again. As a company it is dangerous when you employ people who do not listen to customers but push technology because they have a stake in it. A worm must taste the fish, not the fisher. Business ethics is certainly not his domain.
I want Nat Friedman to go. This would sent a clear signal to the market.
How many leading professionals of Suse left the company? After Richard Seibt gave up in early 2005 things got worse and worse.
5) The amount of users has increased since Novell took over, so please don't say people don't want Novell just because you dion't like it.
Novell is a strong trademark and Suse is now free. So that does not count.
6) Novell mad YaST GPL.
YaST is GPL, so what is the problem?
So yes, indeed SUSE lost some of its credability due to the zen-issues with 10.1.
These are the issues we are used to. Nothing special. Zen is experiemental technology.
That however is just one distro during about one month. 10.2 will be out in december.
What will we have to expect next? Mono dependencies?
So it looks as if you were listen in the wrong place. You want Novell to listen to you? Go to openSUSE.org and start contributing, ideally on the mailinglists.
OpenSuse is a community project, haha. I don't have problems with Suse employees, I have problems with those Novell bastards who make their life a hell and take technology decisions against user interests.
It means: You don't get the software, you get the broken brandnew Vista Operating System and a superb support contract for fixing it also known as the Microsoft tax.
I think we would be better off when our governments would spent a billion or two, fix the remaining issues of Linux and switch to the open plattform. It is very important to avoid strategic dependencies in procurement. Governments secure oil abroad, but what nation defends its digital interests against MS exploitation? What if It plattforms are more important than oil? It is time to think 'digital geostrategy'. Hmmph?
Novell run out of ideas what to do for Linux?
I have a simple idea: Listen to your customers and fire technology pushists like Nat Friedman.
In fact it is Novell which fucked up our SuSe distribution and key Suse specialist were laid off, technology no one requested like Red Carpet broke stability and the KDE support, SuSe's great advantage was disrupted be the strange push for Gnome. No wonder when people like Friedman become desktop strategists. Listen to your customers, ask them what they want. Not: Listen to your managerial staff and the solutions they prefer and impose them on your userbase.
It is possible that SuSe could regain its reputation. But users are fed up with Novell.
No, the idea that words need strict definitions is a misconception which originates from modern science.
Words are based on open conventions. It is more a kind of fuzzy definition scheme, and those definitions are part of open negotiation in a language game.
Try to explain the difference of table and chair. We know what chairs are. We know what tables are. But when does a table become a chair etc. It is very difficult to define a chair or a table. Whatever exact definition you propose, you will fail to nail it down.
Pluto is a planet of the hearts. Why define what constitutes a planet? We know by now that our universe is full of intresting objects which adhere to a solar cult. Pluto was always considered as the mysterious dark planet. And how should we call it now? A belt object?
Will researchers show up and tell us that Gnome, Suse, KDE and Classpath have no planets?
First of all: Part of the Linux success is narration. It is a project we can tell stories about.
Proprietary drivers? License them? Uhmmm. But of course it is really surprising how supralegal Linux users think. Why not just "take them".
For world domination we need: a) easy migration tools which are open sourced b) a windows compatibility layer c) proper sound infrastructure d) drivers which just work e) standardisation of distributions f) specialised user communities g) *insert other crap gap argument*
The history of Linux is a history of technology gaps. But gaps of today will be closed tomorrow and other issues will be put forward. The real question is not what gaps exist but what markets should be approached. And here the fundamental issue is user communities. When say the group of sound engineers uses Linux software will be provided or emerge. Linux and open source have a huge potential in consulting driven business environments. Think of Youth Hostel management software, think of ERP-systems but here no real progress was made. Linux/Open Source has a originary user community in the former unix market, server market and internet infrastructure, including the CMS market, and cluster computing. Now, when you ask about expansion I would say cluster computing is used by professional 3D rendering specialists, so this could be the next intresting user community dominated by Linux solutions.
This is a rather bizarre take on how the internet was developed. Almost all the development before 1990 or so was done with US government (military) funding.
Engineers do not care who pays for the party. In fact it was a tiny project. Not "military had a vision and planned the creation of the net". Rather: military paid the party and engineers performed their task. Nothing in internet regulation and procedures and way of conduct follows military organisational thinking.
When it comes to the Internet the paying founding father could well be the red cross or the soros foundation. What would that change? Nothing Pre-1990 the internet was a mini-net of huge data centers. And military has a lot of data centers and money.
Not really. Eff wins individual cases and makes noise. Given the budget EFF does nothing against software patents. Esp. the way EFF approaches Congress etc. is pretty amateurish.
It is a learning process and the US lack a catalyst that helps people to move fast.
- the patent problem is no examiner problem
- obviousness etc. are not the problem
- it is very important to talk about subject matter when you deal with non-inventions such as software.
EFF follows a populist approach. They don't have much success with it but make a lot of noise. They fight like activists who do not aim to win. Somebody has to invest 200 000 $ in order to teach the us audience how to solve the mess and how to fight efficiently.
Pupils should not believe what they are told in school and 60% of leading scientific teachings are bogus as we will be told in 20 years - in fact the teachings which are considered bogus today were bogus 20 years ago as well. So thinking different is important in evolutionary theory. And maybe the alternative teachings are more entertaining and pupils learn something important for life: resistance against indoctrination.
Social darwinism is crap and was crap but society also follows evolutionary principles.
Let's consider them: 1) mutation
2) recombination
3) selection
4) isolation
Very good principles, also for US society. The current mindfuck approach follows "4) isolation" but real fucking mindfuck is based on 2) recombination. Scientific purity approaches follow 3) selection which is the most problematic one because pluralism is essential for evolutionary progress. But, ehemm it makes it easier to separate wheat from chaff. Just aks them about their opinion. Ehmm, and 4) mutation is just a new braindead idea in the field of evolution... (sorry alien theory is already existing). Should not happen too often.
Net neutrality follows an ordoliberal approach. It is not about 'regulation' at all. The libertarian argument by the lobby is silly. Telcom providers are regulated like hell. The Internet is a regulation paradise compared to other services, that is why other networks go IP. The internet is based on net neutrality. Now that other services migrate to IP networks a regulatory nightmare would be telcom regulation imposed on the net. The infringement of the net neutrality principle transforms the net into something else, which looks more like telcom. Net neutrality advocates want to migrate the telcom and cable industries to IP and stay with IP "non-regulation" which is net neutrality. Net neutrality wasn't even a principle before these institutions invaded the net and proposed to change the rules. Net neutrality means "Internet conservatism" or never change a running system.
We have fair trade and "anti-trust" statutes on the books, with the ostensible purpose of preventing businesses from abusing monopoly powers to hurt their customers.
Anti-trust law works ex post. Ordo-Policy aims to avoid that it happens. It prevents the abuse. Your approach is like: why should parents care about their children as we have prisons and death penalty?
When b) is simple and a) is chaotic you cannot feel safe. And a) and b) have little in common.
It is like putting garbage down under your bed.
And we know that Gnome, like or not, is rotten on level b.
I don't think KDE increased its complexity.
Problems of Graphical Operating Environments are today not on the KDE/Gnome level but in the backend, in the space where distributors take responsibility. I mean system configuration, package management, etc. Most problems are interface related. You don't get sound because the driver is broken, not because the KDE configuration panel was too bad. Most usability problems we have today have nothing to do with KDE or Gnome. They can be boiled down to a simple: How long does it take to fix your problem and what knowledge do you need?
I mean - no sound - installation problems - driver and configuration problem
Gnome and KDE together have the power to set standards in these fields. System configuration tools should be integrated. YaST for Debian was an intresting approach. LSB is a lame duck for getting distributors together.
The whole net neutrality discussion is a slashback. net neutrality is about codification of status quo. Net neutrality follows an ordo approach, not a regulatory one. The FCC should be the institution that understands NN. But here it is a competition authority which asks the public to explain what 'competition' means.
The Net will survive the FCC. But I wonder what it all means for the United States as a market place. Software patents, 0DMCA, Patriot Act, and now a clueless FCC. What next? Is the US a safe place for business? I doubt so. Time for you to move crucial facilities oversees to divert risks.
a) non-inventions such a as organisational rules or algorithms
b) inventions
b1) patentable - novelty, inventive step, technical character
b2) non-patentable -
"I still believe that what is patentable is simply based on a cost-benefit analysis that results in a social contract." - In theory that is a useful approach but it never happens. I would word it like that. "A patent system is an incentive tool you as a society apply top a certain field provided it works." The problem with the social contract theory is that you give "patent law" in return for something. I don't think that's true. It is more like: You as society apply a mouse trap. Patent law, the mouse trap aims to trap the mouse, so we offer the mouse cheese, rationale: Not to feed the mouse in return for beeing captured as a social contract nor to feed cheese because it had the 'Right to Cheese'. But: cheese as an incentive for trapping the mouse.
Of course European nations could amend the European Patent Convention to grant patents on organisational rules. Remember what happened in the "biosphere": gene patents means patents on discoveries. Here the auithorities found it useful to apply the tool patent law to the field of discoveries. To my knowledge a severe mistake. Not that genetic engineering needed no protection, that is another discussion, but: patent law was the wrong tool for the subject matter.
Slashdot Mirror
The cyberlibertarian approach leads to a situation where public authorities spent millions on their commercial counterparts and useful projects run with almost no fuel. I don't say decision. I say funding for what is succesful.
Does not really matter. Wikipedia is younger than a usual EB review cycles. EB set quality standards. But regardless where wikipedia is today. A new release of EB takes ages while Wikipedia documents uptodate issues as well. There is no other encyclopedic source for many topics. where wikipedia is today at 40% it will be 97% in two years. EB nor any other medium can surpass Wikipedia given its continuous growth and improvement.
I mean persons employed for working on wikipedia QA not by wikipedia.
Wikipedia is just fine as it is. Press complains about single cases but non-perfection is essential for getting people involved. 'Peak Britannica' is just a matter of time.
The complaints of conservative outsiders have to be used in a productive fashion. Ask them to donate staff to QA wikipedia.
Wikipedia has almost no employees. A public library gets more public funding than wikipedia. I think as Wikipedia fulfills an important or key task for society, the governments shoudl spent a few dollars on it.
So if they complain about Wikipedia next time ask for more public funds. And deny any approach which compromises the WIKI-success model.
Maybe I am a little bit oldfashioned but hacker ethics is very important for me. What I dislike is dirty gaming, what I dislike is negative campaigning...
What is true?
* Friedman presented the 3d Desktop
* Novell developed it in a closed manner.
* They gave Gnome an artifical competitive advantage
* They did it as a Novell showcase.
The ugly(my taste) 'optional' menu is also bad from a Gnome user perspective. Because Gnome has an unique default feel which is 'not bad', not at all. But here Gnome gets a menu which serves the sole purpose to migrate KDE and XP guys to Gnome.
Maybe my speculations are wrong. But trust and confidence is based on experience. At least things got worse and worse.
Now Gnome gets unnecessary Mono dependencies. It is the same pattern we already know from the past. It is the way they promote their technology.
Kerry = Beagle frontend = depends on Mono = makes your system feel slow
;-)
---> Users think KDE was slow.
+ Novell introduces dependcies on immature Ximian technology
KDE prepares strigi, tenor etc. I guess Novell will not respect that. No, they will impose Beagle so that a better tool has no chance. They want Mono dependencies. You don't like it? You think it's too slow. Oh well, subscribe to the mailing list and contribute.
Next?
Kontact is canceled, Evolution becomes default. Reason: because it is from Ximian, not because users wanted it.
Perhaps you are right. Some users like what happens. Perhaps the Novell customers. But among the old Suse customers we a pretty upset. It feels like a hostile takeover and things started to become worse when key Suse staff left Novell.
Novell looks for a new market and they destroy the old core market of Suse. They turn a soccer club into basket ball just because they also had a basket ball group. It is difficult to turn a Soccer fan into a basket ball fan. So Novell looks for new cusomers. But who will serve the market they ignore?
I think this shows how Novell is driven by Gnome-tehcnology pushists and that is why I as a customer ask Novell to drop Friedman and other unsound guys.
Just take XGL. RedHat did the proper solution AIGLX. But Novell developed XGL in a closed manner and Friedman presented XGL as a Gnome-only "showcase" and made a lot of fuzz. KDE to follow....
We all know that AIGLX is the future and will get included in X. But Friedman wanted to advance the show and the worst case is that XGL survives and we will have AIGLX and XGL in parallel.
Be sure Novell will standardise on XGL...
Novell presented a new menu for Gnome. It is really ugly, they break Gnome and introduce a different desktop philosophy just to migrate users. But what will happen next. It is a temporary bridge.
It is exactly the thinking of "technology push", we write software and then it should be sold. But the real issue is to please customers, to make them happy. I am a customer and I like Suse but I don't like what it gets turned into.
I think you fail to understand that we paid for Suse as it was. The real problem is:
...
* customer demand vs.
* technology push
I am a customer. I don't want technology imposed on me. I liked Suse and I want to continue to use it. Opensuse.org is only "translated to German". This sents a negative message to the German market, which is that Suse lost one of its features.
Next they will further shorter the Suse manual, support Gnome only, add mono dependencies,
1) Novell, or better SUSE listens to its customers. Just go to openSUSE.org and start contributing. Go to the factory mailinglist and start discussing the new ideas that are there.
As I said. I am willing to pay. I am a customer. A technology pushist argues like that. 'If you don't like it, change it.' misses the point. I pay for the product.
2) Yes, SUSE fucked up with YaST. They have updates and are in the process of adding more changes.Are you contributing on the mailinglist and on openSUSE.org yet?
Again you fail to understand. YaST was fine before Novell started to add ximian technology. Not because we as customers wanted it, but because some Novell managers wanted to push ximian technology. The usual Gnome method, throw premature technology on the market, promote it and ask others to fix the problems. I *buy* a working product.
But what did Novell do, force integration of Ximian technology as default, break YaST and then let customers wait and wait and wait for features they did not want. What was responsible for the release delay?
All this would be fine if the trust in the plattform would not be undermined by the moves to transform Suse into something else.
3) KDE support is just as strong as it ever was. The sole difference is that now you must choose with SUSE Linux wether you want GNOME or KDE.
Wrong. Suse was a primary KDE distribution which also had rather bad Gnome support. Users wanted KDE, some geeks took Gnome, fine. Now you are forced to use Gnome as default. I mean, nothing wrong with Ubuntu as Gnome default. But when your customerbase is KDE-centric you have to respect that or your customers get angry. So many Suse professionals were laid off or left the company when Novell changed Suse.
4) SUSE asks what they want on the factory mailinglist all the time. Other places is bugzilla.
I want Nat Friedman to go. I don't trust that person. It's time for him to leave and for Novell to listen to the market again. As a company it is dangerous when you employ people who do not listen to customers but push technology because they have a stake in it. A worm must taste the fish, not the fisher. Business ethics is certainly not his domain.
I want Nat Friedman to go. This would sent a clear signal to the market.
How many leading professionals of Suse left the company? After Richard Seibt gave up in early 2005 things got worse and worse.
5) The amount of users has increased since Novell took over, so please don't say people don't want Novell just because you dion't like it.
Novell is a strong trademark and Suse is now free. So that does not count.
6) Novell mad YaST GPL.
YaST is GPL, so what is the problem?
So yes, indeed SUSE lost some of its credability due to the zen-issues with 10.1.
These are the issues we are used to. Nothing special. Zen is experiemental technology.
That however is just one distro during about one month. 10.2 will be out in december.
What will we have to expect next? Mono dependencies?
So it looks as if you were listen in the wrong place. You want Novell to listen to you? Go to openSUSE.org and start contributing, ideally on the mailinglists.
OpenSuse is a community project, haha. I don't have problems with Suse employees, I have problems with those Novell bastards who make their life a hell and take technology decisions against user interests.
OpenSuse is
It means: You don't get the software, you get the broken brandnew Vista Operating System and a superb support contract for fixing it also known as the Microsoft tax.
I think we would be better off when our governments would spent a billion or two, fix the remaining issues of Linux and switch to the open plattform. It is very important to avoid strategic dependencies in procurement. Governments secure oil abroad, but what nation defends its digital interests against MS exploitation? What if It plattforms are more important than oil? It is time to think 'digital geostrategy'. Hmmph?
Novell run out of ideas what to do for Linux? I have a simple idea: Listen to your customers and fire technology pushists like Nat Friedman. In fact it is Novell which fucked up our SuSe distribution and key Suse specialist were laid off, technology no one requested like Red Carpet broke stability and the KDE support, SuSe's great advantage was disrupted be the strange push for Gnome. No wonder when people like Friedman become desktop strategists. Listen to your customers, ask them what they want. Not: Listen to your managerial staff and the solutions they prefer and impose them on your userbase. It is possible that SuSe could regain its reputation. But users are fed up with Novell.
No, the idea that words need strict definitions is a misconception which originates from modern science.
Words are based on open conventions. It is more a kind of fuzzy definition scheme, and those definitions are part of open negotiation in a language game.
Try to explain the difference of table and chair. We know what chairs are. We know what tables are. But when does a table become a chair etc. It is very difficult to define a chair or a table. Whatever exact definition you propose, you will fail to nail it down.
Pluto is a planet of the hearts. Why define what constitutes a planet? We know by now that our universe is full of intresting objects which adhere to a solar cult. Pluto was always considered as the mysterious dark planet. And how should we call it now? A belt object?
Will researchers show up and tell us that Gnome, Suse, KDE and Classpath have no planets?
First of all: Part of the Linux success is narration. It is a project we can tell stories about.
Proprietary drivers? License them? Uhmmm. But of course it is really surprising how supralegal Linux users think. Why not just "take them".
For world domination we need:
a) easy migration tools which are open sourced
b) a windows compatibility layer
c) proper sound infrastructure
d) drivers which just work
e) standardisation of distributions
f) specialised user communities
g) *insert other crap gap argument*
The history of Linux is a history of technology gaps. But gaps of today will be closed tomorrow and other issues will be put forward. The real question is not what gaps exist but what markets should be approached. And here the fundamental issue is user communities. When say the group of sound engineers uses Linux software will be provided or emerge. Linux and open source have a huge potential in consulting driven business environments. Think of Youth Hostel management software, think of ERP-systems but here no real progress was made. Linux/Open Source has a originary user community in the former unix market, server market and internet infrastructure, including the CMS market, and cluster computing. Now, when you ask about expansion I would say cluster computing is used by professional 3D rendering specialists, so this could be the next intresting user community dominated by Linux solutions.
This is a rather bizarre take on how the internet was developed. Almost all the development before 1990 or so was done with US government (military) funding.
Engineers do not care who pays for the party. In fact it was a tiny project. Not "military had a vision and planned the creation of the net". Rather: military paid the party and engineers performed their task. Nothing in internet regulation and procedures and way of conduct follows military organisational thinking.
When it comes to the Internet the paying founding father could well be the red cross or the soros foundation. What would that change? Nothing Pre-1990 the internet was a mini-net of huge data centers. And military has a lot of data centers and money.
Not really. Eff wins individual cases and makes noise. Given the budget EFF does nothing against software patents. Esp. the way EFF approaches Congress etc. is pretty amateurish.
Good speakers but unsuccesful fighters for the cause.
It is a learning process and the US lack a catalyst that helps people to move fast.
- the patent problem is no examiner problem
- obviousness etc. are not the problem
- it is very important to talk about subject matter when you deal with non-inventions such as software.
EFF follows a populist approach. They don't have much success with it but make a lot of noise. They fight like activists who do not aim to win. Somebody has to invest 200 000 $ in order to teach the us audience how to solve the mess and how to fight efficiently.
The answer is mindfuck.
Pupils should not believe what they are told in school and 60% of leading scientific teachings are bogus as we will be told in 20 years - in fact the teachings which are considered bogus today were bogus 20 years ago as well. So thinking different is important in evolutionary theory. And maybe the alternative teachings are more entertaining and pupils learn something important for life: resistance against indoctrination.
Social darwinism is crap and was crap but society also follows evolutionary principles.
Let's consider them:
1) mutation
2) recombination
3) selection
4) isolation
Very good principles, also for US society. The current mindfuck approach follows "4) isolation" but real fucking mindfuck is based on 2) recombination. Scientific purity approaches follow 3) selection which is the most problematic one because pluralism is essential for evolutionary progress. But, ehemm it makes it easier to separate wheat from chaff. Just aks them about their opinion. Ehmm, and 4) mutation is just a new braindead idea in the field of evolution... (sorry alien theory is already existing). Should not happen too often.
Read Walter Eucken.
Ordo means the governmental task is to provide the political framework for economic freedom.
Net neutrality follows an ordoliberal approach. It is not about 'regulation' at all. The libertarian argument by the lobby is silly. Telcom providers are regulated like hell. The Internet is a regulation paradise compared to other services, that is why other networks go IP. The internet is based on net neutrality. Now that other services migrate to IP networks a regulatory nightmare would be telcom regulation imposed on the net. The infringement of the net neutrality principle transforms the net into something else, which looks more like telcom. Net neutrality advocates want to migrate the telcom and cable industries to IP and stay with IP "non-regulation" which is net neutrality. Net neutrality wasn't even a principle before these institutions invaded the net and proposed to change the rules. Net neutrality means "Internet conservatism" or never change a running system.
We have fair trade and "anti-trust" statutes on the books, with the ostensible purpose of preventing businesses from abusing monopoly powers to hurt their customers.
Anti-trust law works ex post. Ordo-Policy aims to avoid that it happens. It prevents the abuse. Your approach is like: why should parents care about their children as we have prisons and death penalty?
a) internals
b) surface
When b) is simple and a) is chaotic you cannot feel safe. And a) and b) have little in common.
It is like putting garbage down under your bed.
And we know that Gnome, like or not, is rotten on level b.
I don't think KDE increased its complexity.
Problems of Graphical Operating Environments are today not on the KDE/Gnome level but in the backend, in the space where distributors take responsibility. I mean system configuration, package management, etc. Most problems are interface related. You don't get sound because the driver is broken, not because the KDE configuration panel was too bad. Most usability problems we have today have nothing to do with KDE or Gnome. They can be boiled down to a simple: How long does it take to fix your problem and what knowledge do you need?
I mean
- no sound
- installation problems
- driver and configuration problem
Gnome and KDE together have the power to set standards in these fields. System configuration tools should be integrated. YaST for Debian was an intresting approach. LSB is a lame duck for getting distributors together.
The whole net neutrality discussion is a slashback. net neutrality is about codification of status quo. Net neutrality follows an ordo approach, not a regulatory one. The FCC should be the institution that understands NN. But here it is a competition authority which asks the public to explain what 'competition' means.
The Net will survive the FCC. But I wonder what it all means for the United States as a market place. Software patents, 0DMCA, Patriot Act, and now a clueless FCC. What next? Is the US a safe place for business? I doubt so. Time for you to move crucial facilities oversees to divert risks.
"KDE is far more customizable than GNOME, but because of that, also more complex."
complex customizing = complex internals?
Don't think that is true. When you look at the depencies KDE is clean. And QT is beauty, very clean and organised.
Gnome was chaotic, then they removed the setting. But you can still customize it.
----
Controversy makes discussions intresting. Same goes for politics.
The EPC rules are even better.
a) non-inventions such a as organisational rules or algorithms
b) inventions
b1) patentable - novelty, inventive step, technical character
b2) non-patentable -
"I still believe that what is patentable is simply based on a cost-benefit analysis that results in a social contract." - In theory that is a useful approach but it never happens. I would word it like that. "A patent system is an incentive tool you as a society apply top a certain field provided it works." The problem with the social contract theory is that you give "patent law" in return for something. I don't think that's true. It is more like: You as society apply a mouse trap. Patent law, the mouse trap aims to trap the mouse, so we offer the mouse cheese, rationale: Not to feed the mouse in return for beeing captured as a social contract nor to feed cheese because it had the 'Right to Cheese'. But: cheese as an incentive for trapping the mouse.
Of course European nations could amend the European Patent Convention to grant patents on organisational rules. Remember what happened in the "biosphere": gene patents means patents on discoveries. Here the auithorities found it useful to apply the tool patent law to the field of discoveries. To my knowledge a severe mistake. Not that genetic engineering needed no protection, that is another discussion, but: patent law was the wrong tool for the subject matter.