But isn't it overkill for a data-crunching operation? As many other people have noted, it would seem you're much better off checkpointing your data to disk, rather than relying on low-level OS process wizardry.
Perhaps the process is running software he didn't write, in which case this might not be so easy.---Bruce F.
Re:Begging Questions and Urban Planning
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 2
Again, read the damned article. It says being bumped into by one of these is like being bumped into by a person. And since they can be slowed down, they can move with pedestrians.
So, why don't you go bump into someone who weighs 65 lbs above average at 17mph and tell us how it feels? Better yet, what if they're going 17mph in the opposite direction?
At that speed you have a non-zero stopping distance, so you need to ride in a place where there are well-understood rules that reserve a right-of-way for a safe distance in front of you. This is the same reason that sensible cyclists ride in the road and behave like drivers of vehicles. People who don't understand this principle think they must avoid riding in traffic at all costs, and get themselves badly hurt crossing driveways on the sidewalk at bicycle speeds.
Those massive speeding hunks of metal in the road make cyclists/scooter-riders/whatever *more safe* rather than less, because they enforce certain rules and habits that you need to ride safely at any useful speed.
(Note, however, that despite the safety advantages of riding like a vehicle, it is also *not* illegal everywher to ride bikes on the sidewalk, as other posters have claimed, although some local governments do have laws that restrict riding on the sidewalk in some areas. Riding on the sidewalk is safe if you ride extremely slowly and treat every driveway and intersection as if it had a stop sign. When traffic is really bad, sometimes this is actually a useful alternative to have....)
---J. Bruce Fields
Re:I couldnt use it daily, but I would like one.
on
This is IT?
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· Score: 2
My street is 45mph, it only does 17mph. I only live 5 miles from work, but we dont have bike lanes or sidewalks for me to use it.
I ride my bicycle on roads marked 45mph all the time, and I'm sure I average less than 17 mph! Safe, sensible cyclists have done so for years. It's legal and good for you. Just ride in the lane, obey all the traffic laws (don't ride against traffic, run red lights, hug the gutter, or make sudden left turns from the right side of the road), and you'll be fine. If you're also courteous about sharing the road---keep to the right of the lane when there's space for people to pass you, etc.---then you won't slow up any that 45mph traffic for more than a moment.
Bike lanes and sidewalks can be dangerous for cyclists. You still interact with other vehicles constantly (at every driveway, intersection, etc.); the difference is that the interactions are more complex and unexpected--do you check for 15mph sidewalk bicycle traffic when you turn into your driveway?
A high-efficiency, cheap, fun, non-polluting, fast, reasonably long-range car-alternative has been available for years--the only reason so many people don't realize it is that they were brought up to think of the bicycle as a toy good only for sidewalks and playgrounds. A bicycle is a real vehicle; treat as such, and you'll be much happier.
...a number of commenters on Slashdot and www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org have suggested that there would be no open source implementation of RAND standards at all.
He makes this sound like a statement of opinion (or perhaps a threat of boycott?) by a few advocates, when it actually is a simple fact that, for any of the comunity's accepted definitions of the term "open source", writing open source software that implements RAND standards is a literal impossibility.
But wait, there's more! Not only is the broadband carriage business in trouble -- so is the broadband content business. There isn't a single company providing high-bandwidth content to mass consumers that is making any money on it.... When you watch a broadband video clip on abcnews.com or cnn.com, both companies are losing money to bring you that content. And the accountants have spoken: There is no way they'll ever make that money back. So companies that used to put a lot of money into high bandwidth content are putting in less and less money, so there is less and less content available. If you thought it was bad before, it will get worse.
Cringley falls into the same trap as everyone else when talking about what broadband is used for. It's not about speed. Nobody cares about "multimedia", and the reason that the video clips on CNN's website will never attract customers is that none of their customers care about the stupid video clips, not even the broadband customers; I'll go to their website to read the articles, and I'll watch TV if I want video. (When the major news sites pared down their website to the bare essentials on September 11, did you miss all the fluff?)
The reasons I have DSL are:
It allows me to log in to my home computer from work and while travelling.
It gives me the option of running various kinds of servers and persistent clients that give me more control over my web pages, my email, etc.
I can use google more easily for quick reference, since I don't need to wait to make the connection and don't need to worry about hogging the phone line.
I can download software, OS upgrades, etc. This dosn't require lots of Mbps, just a persistent connection--I can always let downloads run overnight.
I wish broadband companies would stop trying to sell their service as some sort of expensive low-grade form of cable TV and instead figure out how to explain to customers the real advantages of a reliable, persistent internet connection. As first steps they could stop blocking ports and using dynamic IPs, and they could stop advertising high Mbps numbers, which nobody believes, and "streaming video", which nobody wants.
That is untrue.. According to the AT&T Broadband leasing agreement it states that you can run a http or ftp server on your cable modem connection. But they will not support it.
AT&T Broadband provides an Internet connection for personal use. Redistribution of the AT&T Broadband service is a violation of our policies. There are several ways that this could be accomplished.
FTP servers: Running an FTP server is a violation of the AT&T Broadband Terms of Service.
AT&T Broadband does not allow servers to be connected to the cable modem. This means that no computer in a personal network can be used as a server.
That seems pretty clear to me! Perhaps the leasing agreement isn't the only agreement you're subject to (I notice they also have links to an "acceptable use policy", but they seem not to be accessible by non-AT&T users). In any case, I wouldn't want to have to be in the position of having to argue the point with them after they'd blocked port 80. If you want to run servers, go elsewhere if you have the choice. If that choice isn't exercised, it may eventually diseappear....
What would you do if someone were holding a gun at your head? If you had the opportunity, would you shoot them first, or would you wait to hear his point of view, apologize for making them angry at you, say you're sorry for making them so mad that they would hold a gun at your head?
Help me out with your analogy here; what exactly in the real-life situation corresponds to the "gun"? Who exactly is the "someone" holding it?
The "detective noir" style that Jeter incorporates into "Noir" is traditionally laden with violent similes and metaphors.... <snip>....This is a style choice, not bad writing. Check out any Mickey Spillane novel and compare it to "Noir".
I'm not familiar with Mickey Spillane. The author that came to my mind was Raymond Chandler, who also does this sort of thing. Compare an excerpt from Noir:
He had turned from the window where he had stood waiting, turned upon the sense and smell of its arrival -- no sound, it walked so softly, silent as that other world -- and had seen the smear of blood on its brow, Cain-marked and Lilith-born, the great wisdom of indulgence in its idiot eyes. That had scanned and judged him, like the lenses of the watching security cameras at every corner of every building. First from across the room, as he had felt the first tremors of fear move out from his gut, then inches away, then less than that as it had stood right in front of him. The other's eyes had been round dark mirrors in which he had seen himself, perhaps more clearly than ever before.
...with an excerpt from Chandler's "The Long Goodbye":
"I'm a licensed private investigator and have been for quite a while. I'm a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged and not rich. I've been in jail more than once and I don't do divorce business. I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don't like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I'm a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers or sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens, as it could to anyone in my business, and to plenty of people in any business or no business at all these days, nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life."
Both of them have digressions, but some side trips are worth more than others....
Huh? It certainly sounds to me like a rant against the fact that copyright protection is getting TOO STRONG. Hello, do you really think he's serious about suggesting that death is a fitting punishment for copyright infringement?
That's what I would have though, too. But how about taking a look at the links section on his website and then taking a guess at which side of the issue he comes down on?
It leaves you with a weird impression; on the one hand, you can't believe he's really serious about the scene in which a script-kiddie type is vivisected for providing the hero (acting as an undercover cop) with a key which he claims will provide access to an off-shore internet archive of copyrighted material. On the other hand, given the author's apparent views, you can't help but imagine that you're supposed to take a certain sadistic pleasure in the scene, even if it's just a joke. Since the author doesn't (as far as I can tell) ever present any middle ground, you're left with nothing to go on.
I read the book hoping I'd find some interesting thoughts on copyright issues, and was disappointed. (I was also disappointed by the prose which, as the original poster pointed out, can be tiresome.)
The copy I read actually had a URL in the back that claimed to point to an essay on his views on copryight, but the URL was bad; has anyone actually read that essay?
Oh man, you have never taught. Granted, there's
teachers that are flakes, but there's lots that aren't, too, and
to be even a barely competent teacher, you have to:
Prepare lectures, classroom activities,
homework assignments, etc.
Deal with all the logistics of keeping track of all your
students' papers, grades, problems, etc.
Grade (oh, the agony)
A gazillion other things I've forgotten
Oh yeah, and you also have to stand up in front
of the class each day, give lectures, help students
with class activities, enforce discipline, etc. This
is the only part most people see, so they tend to forget
the other stuff, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Doing this well, heck, even doing it passably, is
really, really hard. It's such an important job that
lots of people are willing to do it despite the fact that it's
such hard work for (usually) such low pay. And
there are rewards, for example when you get to see someone
learn a difficult new idea. But don't ever
say it's easy till you've spent a year or two trying it.
You've got no idea.
My wife has read it, and tells me that it is Really Bad.
It's not *that* bad! The plot's a bit loose, the writing might not be up to his usual standards, but it's really, really, funny. I'm almost tempted to read it again....
Yeah, although ZDNet is now claiming the copyright.
No, they reproduced his usual copyright statement and license at the bottom of his article. They copyright at the bottom of the whole page covers the whole shebang, including all zdnet's other page elements, but doesn't prevent anyone from lifting out just Stallman's article under the terms he provides.
But he FSF, as far as I know, isn't in the business of providing legal advice to anyone, much less to random programmers on general issues of copyright or contract law.
they could have clarified any questions you might have on the license, especially what they mean by owner etc.
It is not up to the FSF, or the GPL, to determine who the "owner" of the software is; that is up to copyright law, and the contract that the employer and employee made in this case. The question isn't what the GPL says, the question is whether anyone had the right to apply it in the first case.
If nobody authorized to make that kind of decision was consulted, then you are at fault, and the govt. is probably obligated to abide by the GPL (since the existing code you used was only licensed under it)....
The programmer didn't mention using anyone else's GPL'd code. If that were the case, then obviously both the DOD and the employee (at least if s/he expects to continue to be employed by the DOD) are screwed.
But as far as we can tell, all the code involved was written by the employee; in which case, it all belongs to the DOD (absent a contract to the contrary), so the DOD can do whatever it wants with it, and the GPL is irrelevant since the employee never had the authority to use it in the first place.
Why don't you ask the FSF since they wrote the license...?
The license is irrelevant here; the question is what sort of agreement the employee in this case had with his/her employer. If they had a written agreement saying, for example, that the employee could keep copyright to the code if it was made available to the employer under the GPL, then that's OK. If not, then by default copyright law assigns ownership to the employer (the code in this case is called "work for hire").
The admission that immediate supervisors didn't really understand the GPL, and the fact that higher supervisors didn't seem aware of the situation, suggests to me that there was no formal agreement, in which case I think s/he's probably screwed.... If the code clearly stated the employee's copyright claim since day 1 and supervisors have seen it and not objected, maybe that would be sufficient evidence of a contract. I don't know (and IANAL). But it would really have been smart to get a formal written agreement at the start.
In any case, this situation has *nothing* to do with the terms of the GPL in particular, and would be exactly the same if the APSL or any other license had been involved.
By requiring return notification, they can limit their liability, and take responsibility when appropriate.
I don't understand how the notification requirement would limit their liability; in your air traffic control example, wouldn't it actually appear to *increase* the chance that they could be blamed? Someone could say "you knew about this unsafe modification, yet you took no action to warn of its risks", whereas if Apple hadn't been notified, the fact that they could claim complete complete ignorance of the modification would seem to help absolve them of responsibility for it. In the case that they did want to guarantee a piece of software for a given use, they could just make an individual agreement, independent of the license, with users that needed the guarantee, certifying a particular unmodified version for a particular use.
In general, this is the obvious way to handle GPL'd software in critical situations where a user needs someone else to accept responsibility for software flaws; some entity (perhaps the author, perhaps a third party) can study a particular version of the code and promise to accept responsibility for it for a given use; I don't see that anything in the GPL prevents this. You're not preventing a user with which you make such a contract from modifying and redistributing the software, you're just giving them additional rights above those the GPL gives them, which apply only to a certain unmodified version.
I'm having some trouble understanding which parts of Stallman's commentary apply to the revised version of the license; from his comment on 1.2, it would appear that he's saying that the only remaining problem is the requirement to publish all modifications, but from the license it looks like some of his other comments might still apply; anyone else understand the situation?
It sounds like she was just trying to do some version of the classic experiments that Kenneth and Mamie Clark did with dolls, which provided central evidence in the brown v. board case. Who knows, she may have studied that in class that year; must be an awfully confusing lesson to her now.
Well, they asked for it; we're going to have to retaliate by boycotting every page that isn't valid HTML 3.2.
That allows forms and tables, already more than I'd trust some people with. Of course, most uses of background and inline images wouldn't be missed either, but let's take this campaign one step at a time here.
Be worried! Why do so few of the comments take this sort of threat seriously? They can do much more than "limit open-source penetration in government, schools, etc." Since volunteers (with few resources) are often major contributors to open-source/free software, it is very easy for minor changes in the law to have major effects on us.
What if the UCITA makes it impossible for anyone to distribute software without using a shrink-wrap license? What if widespread software patents, stiffer IP laws, and prohibitions against reverse engineering make it impossible for people without deep pockets to write programs that interoperate with popular software? Could users of free software be completely left out when the Next Big Killer App for the internet comes along?
Everyone is full of this confidence that, as the morally and technically superior solution, free software not only *should* triumph, but that it *will* triumph, no matter they say at Microsoft. Don't be so sure; the proprietary software houses have much deeper pockets, and a much broader audience, than we do. If big changes in IP policy go through next month, are legislatures going to know (or care) what we think?
Pay attention. Write your congressperson.
Join the EFF. Help the League for Programming Freedom get their act together.
Just don't sit there and assume everything will work out fine without you.
If you spend 1/2 as much on gasoline, that's more money you can spend on other things. Explain again why this is bad for the economy?
The important thing is to make sure that the price of gasoline is *correct*, so that people can Do the Right Thing, for the economy and the environment, simply by adding up the prices they see themselves. If the price of gasoline is too low, because (for example), insufficiently strict environmental regulations have the effect of undervaluing the use of natural resources, then people make incorrect decisions, like driving to a more distant store when they should have walked to a closer one, when it's the driving that really used more resources.
The Salon article is actually devoted to debunking the claim that the net is a significant power drain. (And they do a fairly convincing job of it, if you ask me.) Please read before posting....
There's no free lunch in education. In the long term, you'll be useful to your employer if you have real skills (programming, mathematics, writing, whatever), and employers will pay for you if you're useful to them. Start thinking about why you're learning what you're learning.
If nothing else, this will be good practice for your job interviews; somehow, I don't think it will go down well if you explain that you chose your degree because you thought it was the one that would give you the maximum starting salary for the minimum effort....
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps the process is running software he didn't write, in which case this might not be so easy.---Bruce F.
So, why don't you go bump into someone who weighs 65 lbs above average at 17mph and tell us how it feels? Better yet, what if they're going 17mph in the opposite direction?
At that speed you have a non-zero stopping distance, so you need to ride in a place where there are well-understood rules that reserve a right-of-way for a safe distance in front of you. This is the same reason that sensible cyclists ride in the road and behave like drivers of vehicles. People who don't understand this principle think they must avoid riding in traffic at all costs, and get themselves badly hurt crossing driveways on the sidewalk at bicycle speeds.
Those massive speeding hunks of metal in the road make cyclists/scooter-riders/whatever *more safe* rather than less, because they enforce certain rules and habits that you need to ride safely at any useful speed.
(Note, however, that despite the safety advantages of riding like a vehicle, it is also *not* illegal everywher to ride bikes on the sidewalk, as other posters have claimed, although some local governments do have laws that restrict riding on the sidewalk in some areas. Riding on the sidewalk is safe if you ride extremely slowly and treat every driveway and intersection as if it had a stop sign. When traffic is really bad, sometimes this is actually a useful alternative to have....)
---J. Bruce FieldsI ride my bicycle on roads marked 45mph all the time, and I'm sure I average less than 17 mph! Safe, sensible cyclists have done so for years. It's legal and good for you. Just ride in the lane, obey all the traffic laws (don't ride against traffic, run red lights, hug the gutter, or make sudden left turns from the right side of the road), and you'll be fine. If you're also courteous about sharing the road---keep to the right of the lane when there's space for people to pass you, etc.---then you won't slow up any that 45mph traffic for more than a moment.
Bike lanes and sidewalks can be dangerous for cyclists. You still interact with other vehicles constantly (at every driveway, intersection, etc.); the difference is that the interactions are more complex and unexpected--do you check for 15mph sidewalk bicycle traffic when you turn into your driveway?
A high-efficiency, cheap, fun, non-polluting, fast, reasonably long-range car-alternative has been available for years--the only reason so many people don't realize it is that they were brought up to think of the bicycle as a toy good only for sidewalks and playgrounds. A bicycle is a real vehicle; treat as such, and you'll be much happier.
---J. Bruce Fields
He makes this sound like a statement of opinion (or perhaps a threat of boycott?) by a few advocates, when it actually is a simple fact that, for any of the comunity's accepted definitions of the term "open source", writing open source software that implements RAND standards is a literal impossibility.
--Bruce Fields
Cringley falls into the same trap as everyone else when talking about what broadband is used for. It's not about speed. Nobody cares about "multimedia", and the reason that the video clips on CNN's website will never attract customers is that none of their customers care about the stupid video clips, not even the broadband customers; I'll go to their website to read the articles, and I'll watch TV if I want video. (When the major news sites pared down their website to the bare essentials on September 11, did you miss all the fluff?)
The reasons I have DSL are:
I wish broadband companies would stop trying to sell their service as some sort of expensive low-grade form of cable TV and instead figure out how to explain to customers the real advantages of a reliable, persistent internet connection. As first steps they could stop blocking ports and using dynamic IPs, and they could stop advertising high Mbps numbers, which nobody believes, and "streaming video", which nobody wants.
--Bruce Fields
Learn to touch-type, and you will be enlightened.
--Bruce Fields
How does that jibe with the following, from http://help.broadband.att.com/legal/violations.jsp ?
Interestingly, I can find no such clause forbidding redistribution in the leasing agreement that you quote (only a clause prohibiting *selling* services). But clearly they believe that running any kind of server is a violation. From http://help.broadband.att.com/faq.jsp?content_id=4 16&category_id=34:
That seems pretty clear to me! Perhaps the leasing agreement isn't the only agreement you're subject to (I notice they also have links to an "acceptable use policy", but they seem not to be accessible by non-AT&T users). In any case, I wouldn't want to have to be in the position of having to argue the point with them after they'd blocked port 80. If you want to run servers, go elsewhere if you have the choice. If that choice isn't exercised, it may eventually diseappear....
--J. Bruce Fields
Help me out with your analogy here; what exactly in the real-life situation corresponds to the "gun"? Who exactly is the "someone" holding it?
--Bruce Fields
Just let us know when it starts advancing backwards, OK?
I'm not familiar with Mickey Spillane. The author that came to my mind was Raymond Chandler, who also does this sort of thing. Compare an excerpt from Noir:
...with an excerpt from Chandler's "The Long Goodbye":
Both of them have digressions, but some side trips are worth more than others....
--Bruce Fields
That's what I would have though, too. But how about taking a look at the links section on his website and then taking a guess at which side of the issue he comes down on?
It leaves you with a weird impression; on the one hand, you can't believe he's really serious about the scene in which a script-kiddie type is vivisected for providing the hero (acting as an undercover cop) with a key which he claims will provide access to an off-shore internet archive of copyrighted material. On the other hand, given the author's apparent views, you can't help but imagine that you're supposed to take a certain sadistic pleasure in the scene, even if it's just a joke. Since the author doesn't (as far as I can tell) ever present any middle ground, you're left with nothing to go on.
I read the book hoping I'd find some interesting thoughts on copyright issues, and was disappointed. (I was also disappointed by the prose which, as the original poster pointed out, can be tiresome.)
The copy I read actually had a URL in the back that claimed to point to an essay on his views on copryight, but the URL was bad; has anyone actually read that essay?
--Bruce Fields
Oh man, you have never taught. Granted, there's teachers that are flakes, but there's lots that aren't, too, and to be even a barely competent teacher, you have to:
Doing this well, heck, even doing it passably, is really, really hard. It's such an important job that lots of people are willing to do it despite the fact that it's such hard work for (usually) such low pay. And there are rewards, for example when you get to see someone learn a difficult new idea. But don't ever say it's easy till you've spent a year or two trying it. You've got no idea.
--Bruce Fields
It's not *that* bad! The plot's a bit loose, the writing might not be up to his usual standards, but it's really, really, funny. I'm almost tempted to read it again....
--Bruce Fields
No, they reproduced his usual copyright statement and license at the bottom of his article. They copyright at the bottom of the whole page covers the whole shebang, including all zdnet's other page elements, but doesn't prevent anyone from lifting out just Stallman's article under the terms he provides.
But he FSF, as far as I know, isn't in the business of providing legal advice to anyone, much less to random programmers on general issues of copyright or contract law.
It is not up to the FSF, or the GPL, to determine who the "owner" of the software is; that is up to copyright law, and the contract that the employer and employee made in this case. The question isn't what the GPL says, the question is whether anyone had the right to apply it in the first case.
--Bruce Fields
The programmer didn't mention using anyone else's GPL'd code. If that were the case, then obviously both the DOD and the employee (at least if s/he expects to continue to be employed by the DOD) are screwed.
But as far as we can tell, all the code involved was written by the employee; in which case, it all belongs to the DOD (absent a contract to the contrary), so the DOD can do whatever it wants with it, and the GPL is irrelevant since the employee never had the authority to use it in the first place.
---Bruce Fields
The license is irrelevant here; the question is what sort of agreement the employee in this case had with his/her employer. If they had a written agreement saying, for example, that the employee could keep copyright to the code if it was made available to the employer under the GPL, then that's OK. If not, then by default copyright law assigns ownership to the employer (the code in this case is called "work for hire").
The admission that immediate supervisors didn't really understand the GPL, and the fact that higher supervisors didn't seem aware of the situation, suggests to me that there was no formal agreement, in which case I think s/he's probably screwed.... If the code clearly stated the employee's copyright claim since day 1 and supervisors have seen it and not objected, maybe that would be sufficient evidence of a contract. I don't know (and IANAL). But it would really have been smart to get a formal written agreement at the start.
In any case, this situation has *nothing* to do with the terms of the GPL in particular, and would be exactly the same if the APSL or any other license had been involved.
--Bruce Fields
I don't understand how the notification requirement would limit their liability; in your air traffic control example, wouldn't it actually appear to *increase* the chance that they could be blamed? Someone could say "you knew about this unsafe modification, yet you took no action to warn of its risks", whereas if Apple hadn't been notified, the fact that they could claim complete complete ignorance of the modification would seem to help absolve them of responsibility for it. In the case that they did want to guarantee a piece of software for a given use, they could just make an individual agreement, independent of the license, with users that needed the guarantee, certifying a particular unmodified version for a particular use.
In general, this is the obvious way to handle GPL'd software in critical situations where a user needs someone else to accept responsibility for software flaws; some entity (perhaps the author, perhaps a third party) can study a particular version of the code and promise to accept responsibility for it for a given use; I don't see that anything in the GPL prevents this. You're not preventing a user with which you make such a contract from modifying and redistributing the software, you're just giving them additional rights above those the GPL gives them, which apply only to a certain unmodified version.
So what's the advantage of the APSL again?
--Bruce Fields
For easy reference, here's a link to the Apple Public Source License, v. 1.2.
I'm having some trouble understanding which parts of Stallman's commentary apply to the revised version of the license; from his comment on 1.2, it would appear that he's saying that the only remaining problem is the requirement to publish all modifications, but from the license it looks like some of his other comments might still apply; anyone else understand the situation?
--Bruce FieldsIt sounds like she was just trying to do some version of the classic experiments that Kenneth and Mamie Clark did with dolls, which provided central evidence in the brown v. board case. Who knows, she may have studied that in class that year; must be an awfully confusing lesson to her now.
--Bruce Fields
Well, they asked for it; we're going to have to retaliate by boycotting every page that isn't valid HTML 3.2.
That allows forms and tables, already more than I'd trust some people with. Of course, most uses of background and inline images wouldn't be missed either, but let's take this campaign one step at a time here.
---Bruce Fields
Be worried! Why do so few of the comments take this sort of threat seriously? They can do much more than "limit open-source penetration in government, schools, etc." Since volunteers (with few resources) are often major contributors to open-source/free software, it is very easy for minor changes in the law to have major effects on us.
What if the UCITA makes it impossible for anyone to distribute software without using a shrink-wrap license? What if widespread software patents, stiffer IP laws, and prohibitions against reverse engineering make it impossible for people without deep pockets to write programs that interoperate with popular software? Could users of free software be completely left out when the Next Big Killer App for the internet comes along?
Everyone is full of this confidence that, as the morally and technically superior solution, free software not only *should* triumph, but that it *will* triumph, no matter they say at Microsoft. Don't be so sure; the proprietary software houses have much deeper pockets, and a much broader audience, than we do. If big changes in IP policy go through next month, are legislatures going to know (or care) what we think?
Pay attention. Write your congressperson. Join the EFF. Help the League for Programming Freedom get their act together. Just don't sit there and assume everything will work out fine without you.
--Bruce Fields
If you spend 1/2 as much on gasoline, that's more money you can spend on other things. Explain again why this is bad for the economy?
The important thing is to make sure that the price of gasoline is *correct*, so that people can Do the Right Thing, for the economy and the environment, simply by adding up the prices they see themselves. If the price of gasoline is too low, because (for example), insufficiently strict environmental regulations have the effect of undervaluing the use of natural resources, then people make incorrect decisions, like driving to a more distant store when they should have walked to a closer one, when it's the driving that really used more resources.
---J. Bruce Fields
The Salon article is actually devoted to debunking the claim that the net is a significant power drain. (And they do a fairly convincing job of it, if you ask me.) Please read before posting....
---J. Bruce Fields
There's no free lunch in education. In the long term, you'll be useful to your employer if you have real skills (programming, mathematics, writing, whatever), and employers will pay for you if you're useful to them. Start thinking about why you're learning what you're learning.
If nothing else, this will be good practice for your job interviews; somehow, I don't think it will go down well if you explain that you chose your degree because you thought it was the one that would give you the maximum starting salary for the minimum effort....
---jbf