In my view, I have far more admiration for Linus Torvalds than I do for RMS - at least Linus pretty much refuses to get involved in all the political arguing and just seems to get on and make decisions about what is ***TECHNICALLY*** the best thing to do with Linux.
Well, your view is based on the idea that technology is able to support itself, and that there is no need for political action in order to guarantee that its advances are sustainable, of consequence and accessible. It is rooted in the childish belief that there is no battle for the preservation of the social, economical and political conditions which allow the free development of technology and its free application.
It is an age-old strategy of people wanting preserve the status quo: to minimize and hide the political aspect of any endeavor involving a community. It has worked so well that by now the communities in question, in an amazing display of unawareness, have appropriated the idea and incomprehendablely present it as a mark of independece and rebellion.
To argue that licensing issues, for example, are irrelevant in regards to Linux and its existence is absurd, and to pretend that the discussion of licensing terms for a project like Linux is senseless `political argument' which can be ignored in preference to `technical' decisions is self-defeating. For no other reason, if you want, that the problem which those licensing issues attempt to solve and which is the point of that political argumentation is not a technical problem.
In reality, so far, the free software movement, be it Open Source, GNU, whatever, has not met the demands of some computer users who want (what they see as) easy-to-use but specialised software - heavy duty video editing is a classic example.
When you say this, you are deep into the very mistaken idea that free software means having someone else write the apps you need. No, it does not. It is competely unrelated to that.
If these masses who seem to be in need of heavy duty video editing software are really serious, they should either write the apps themselves, or arrange so that someone writes them, possibly by paying them. The itch must not be that strong, for otherwise it would have been scratched.
If the I-need-a-heavy-duty-editing-app masses are waiting for someone to provide it for them without their doing anything, well, they can very well wait till the end of times for all I care.
(Not that there are not projects out there writing video editing software. But the people behind them are precisely those who understood that free software is not having someone else write the apps you need)
In theory, Hotmail makes money from the ads, not the OS.
In any case, if they used ads which were not immensely annoying like a well-known competitor, people would be less willing to block them. I have yet to even considering blocking gmail's ads, for example.
Thank you for trying to build a political message about the current political climate into the book, just like everyone else has done since it was released.
That is why the book is good. It does not get old.
If you read the book as a frozen `explanation' fixed in the past and so on, well, then you are not a good reader.
This is well-known by anyone following minimally close the GNOME project or even reading the gnome foundation official statements. You seem to be out of touch with that.
Ron Paul himself does not want to smoke pot. You're talking about a guy who doesn't even like to take meds when they're prescribed
So he does not like to follow the advice of the people who know most about the problem (in this case, some health condition) and which he himself chose to advice him. Do you find that to be an attractive trait of a candidate?
What do you propose to do with those people then? Jail them? Ship them away to some distant island? Disposing of them in any other gentle way? Why not just kill them? You might want to feed on them...
"ad hominem attack" means essentially literally "attack the man" (not the argument). It is that simple. It does not matter who's feelings are hurt by the attack.
Your example and your analysis of it are rather unrelated to what an ad hominem attack is.
I honestly cannot see how you can read a description such as the one presented in the first few paragraphs of Wikipedia, for example, and understand that.
DO I correcly understand tha you think that my definition was correct apart from the abuse of "only", i.e. if the observers are neutral?
No, not at all. I do not think your definition is correct at all.
In http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441432&cid=22296494 you said
`[ad hominem] means an atack of the message that only the messenger recognizes as valid'. That has nothing to do with an ad hominem attack. An ad hominem attack consists in attacking the other party (by appealing to their wrong behaviour in the past, to their inconsistencies, and so on) instead of attacking the argument they are presenting. It is basically the reverse of an argument by authority: when you invoke an authority, you say "because X is so good/wise/whatever, this statement which they said must be true"; and ad hominem attack goes as "because X is so evil/inconsistent/whatever, this statement which they said must be false".
In the end, the issue comes down to whether people actually use the language and whether they find problems with this semantic-indentation-from-hell, and whether they even find pleasure in it.
As for UTF-8, I have used UTF-8 in source code, and everywhere else for the last 7 or so years, and I have to have trouble with it.
In your original message, you said corrected (!) someone and proposed a definition of what an ad hominem attack is. Both your correction and your definition were incorrect. I was simply trying to point this.
It is amazingly tiring to see people using terms which have pretty precise definitions (easily found with only very simplistic google skills) incorrectly. The usual culprits are `theory', `law' (cf. how many people amazingly believe that there is a law that Nazis have to be mentioned, or that one `breaks' a law when one mentions nazis in whatever context, or... any other of various total misunderstandings of what `law' means in `Godwin's law'), `ad hominem' and various other such terms describing fallacies and types of arguments, and many others. For a site that supposedly attracts geeks and nerds, the average appears to be quite low with regards to precision here.
I never said `ad hominem' means attacking the messenger and, much less, that it is `merely attacking the messenger'.
You said "it means an attack of the message that only the messenger recognizes as valid", That is not what an ad hominem argument is, that is not what Wikipedia says it is, that is not what Schopenhauer says it is, and that is not what any minimally sound book on logic says it is.
For your specific example: a web forum which does not preserve whitespace where it should is broken. So go fix it. The pre tag has been in HTML since its inception, for a reason.
In any case, your argument is of very little weight. Any non-US-ASCII encoded text which goes through any tool which is not prepared to handle it will become useless quite soon (like anyone which an accent mark in his name, I can tell you) yet that's an absurd objection to, say, UTF-8.
So, you do not see any connection between the policies implemented by the US regarding technology and science and whatever happens in your country? Ah, were it so!
If you cannot see the connection between politics and a presidential elections on one side and on the other, `stuff that matters' (even in the very small realm of technology), you have to turn your geek card back.
You are comparing the situation in the US with that in another country where, to the best of your knowledge, there might not be a democracy. You clearly have high exectations for your own country!
That you seem to think that Iraq is currently a democracy is quite telling, by the way...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, your view is based on the idea that technology is able to support itself, and that there is no need for political action in order to guarantee that its advances are sustainable, of consequence and accessible. It is rooted in the childish belief that there is no battle for the preservation of the social, economical and political conditions which allow the free development of technology and its free application.
It is an age-old strategy of people wanting preserve the status quo: to minimize and hide the political aspect of any endeavor involving a community. It has worked so well that by now the communities in question, in an amazing display of unawareness, have appropriated the idea and incomprehendablely present it as a mark of independece and rebellion.
To argue that licensing issues, for example, are irrelevant in regards to Linux and its existence is absurd, and to pretend that the discussion of licensing terms for a project like Linux is senseless `political argument' which can be ignored in preference to `technical' decisions is self-defeating. For no other reason, if you want, that the problem which those licensing issues attempt to solve and which is the point of that political argumentation is not a technical problem.
When you say this, you are deep into the very mistaken idea that free software means having someone else write the apps you need. No, it does not. It is competely unrelated to that.
If these masses who seem to be in need of heavy duty video editing software are really serious, they should either write the apps themselves, or arrange so that someone writes them, possibly by paying them. The itch must not be that strong, for otherwise it would have been scratched.
If the I-need-a-heavy-duty-editing-app masses are waiting for someone to provide it for them without their doing anything, well, they can very well wait till the end of times for all I care.
(Not that there are not projects out there writing video editing software. But the people behind them are precisely those who understood that free software is not having someone else write the apps you need)
In theory, Hotmail makes money from the ads, not the OS.
In any case, if they used ads which were not immensely annoying like a well-known competitor, people would be less willing to block them. I have yet to even considering blocking gmail's ads, for example.
There is neither an alternative to the iPhone not a pressing need for it.
That is why the book is good. It does not get old.
If you read the book as a frozen `explanation' fixed in the past and so on, well, then you are not a good reader.
It is not very difficult to imagine USian strategists telling each other precisely that before their involvement in Vietnam... See how well it went.
This is well-known by anyone following minimally close the GNOME project or even reading the gnome foundation official statements. You seem to be out of touch with that.
did you just call me old?!
The pills he's been prescribed to take are the kind that will make him `escape reality'?
So he does not like to follow the advice of the people who know most about the problem (in this case, some health condition) and which he himself chose to advice him. Do you find that to be an attractive trait of a candidate?
What do you propose to do with those people then? Jail them? Ship them away to some distant island? Disposing of them in any other gentle way? Why not just kill them? You might want to feed on them...
"ad hominem attack" means essentially literally "attack the man" (not the argument). It is that simple. It does not matter who's feelings are hurt by the attack.
Your example and your analysis of it are rather unrelated to what an ad hominem attack is.
I honestly cannot see how you can read a description such as the one presented in the first few paragraphs of Wikipedia, for example, and understand that.
Oh well.
I never said anything about whether http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441432&cid=22295922 is an ad hominem attack.
DO I correcly understand tha you think that my definition was correct apart from the abuse of "only", i.e. if the observers are neutral?No, not at all. I do not think your definition is correct at all.
In http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=441432&cid=22296494 you said `[ad hominem] means an atack of the message that only the messenger recognizes as valid'. That has nothing to do with an ad hominem attack. An ad hominem attack consists in attacking the other party (by appealing to their wrong behaviour in the past, to their inconsistencies, and so on) instead of attacking the argument they are presenting. It is basically the reverse of an argument by authority: when you invoke an authority, you say "because X is so good/wise/whatever, this statement which they said must be true"; and ad hominem attack goes as "because X is so evil/inconsistent/whatever, this statement which they said must be false".
In the end, the issue comes down to whether people actually use the language and whether they find problems with this semantic-indentation-from-hell, and whether they even find pleasure in it.
As for UTF-8, I have used UTF-8 in source code, and everywhere else for the last 7 or so years, and I have to have trouble with it.
In your original message, you said corrected (!) someone and proposed a definition of what an ad hominem attack is. Both your correction and your definition were incorrect. I was simply trying to point this.
It is amazingly tiring to see people using terms which have pretty precise definitions (easily found with only very simplistic google skills) incorrectly. The usual culprits are `theory', `law' (cf. how many people amazingly believe that there is a law that Nazis have to be mentioned, or that one `breaks' a law when one mentions nazis in whatever context, or... any other of various total misunderstandings of what `law' means in `Godwin's law'), `ad hominem' and various other such terms describing fallacies and types of arguments, and many others. For a site that supposedly attracts geeks and nerds, the average appears to be quite low with regards to precision here.
I never said `ad hominem' means attacking the messenger and, much less, that it is `merely attacking the messenger'.
You said "it means an attack of the message that only the messenger recognizes as valid", That is not what an ad hominem argument is, that is not what Wikipedia says it is, that is not what Schopenhauer says it is, and that is not what any minimally sound book on logic says it is.
10 minutes to fork it and then a lifetime to maintain and develop it.
People always forget about the second part...
No, that is not what `ad hominem' means. Just read the description on Wikipedia or on any decent book on logic.
For your specific example: a web forum which does not preserve whitespace where it should is broken. So go fix it. The pre tag has been in HTML since its inception, for a reason.
In any case, your argument is of very little weight. Any non-US-ASCII encoded text which goes through any tool which is not prepared to handle it will become useless quite soon (like anyone which an accent mark in his name, I can tell you) yet that's an absurd objection to, say, UTF-8.
So, you do not see any connection between the policies implemented by the US regarding technology and science and whatever happens in your country? Ah, were it so!
If you cannot see the connection between politics and a presidential elections on one side and on the other, `stuff that matters' (even in the very small realm of technology), you have to turn your geek card back.
I am quite far from being a Sarkozy supporter, but, sadly, I have to ask: are you referring to his personal life or his public policy?
You are comparing the situation in the US with that in another country where, to the best of your knowledge, there might not be a democracy. You clearly have high exectations for your own country!
That you seem to think that Iraq is currently a democracy is quite telling, by the way...
There is sane fundamental reform and there is insane fundamental reform.