Why would someone vote Libertarian when it really just ends up a vote for the Democrats?
Why would someone vote Green when it really just ends up a vote for the Republicans?
You know what the really horrible thing is? The Greens and Libertarians have two things in common: both advocate shifting power away from the Federal government and towards the states, and neither is authoritarian. But even if, like me, you would be happy voting for either of them for these reasons, your vote would end up helping the Republicrats who have exactly the opposite goals (centralized power and authoritarianism)!
I'd like to see a direct election of the president.
I'd like to see electors chosen by state legislatures (like it was supposed to be all along), without any popular vote at all! Then not only would the presidency cease to be a popularity contest, but state elections would become important again.
it can be constantly and immediately updated with new information as it becomes available
Encyclopedia != news. Once most articles are "done," the rate at which they're modified should be really low. After all, "new information" about a 500-year-old event doesn't come up very often...
But surely to "cream the competition" one must steal customers away from your competitors, and therefore targeting people in those competitors' target market.
Nope. You can either do that or you can attract other customers and expand the market. It doesn't matter if the competition is getting the same absolute number of customers they would have anyway, as long as they're still getting relatively much fewer customers than you.
Yeah, but the problem is that they all use different copies of the library (at least on Windows and Mac. In other words, Firefox is loading something like/firefox/gecko.so while Thunderbird is loading/thunderbird/gecko.so. Even though both gecko.sos are the same, the operating system doesn't realize that and loads them into different memory locations.
What needs to happen is that the installers for Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird should put the core Mozilla libs in the same place, outside the application's folder (e.g. install libs in/mozilla/core/ and install Firefox in/mozilla/firefox/.)
What you did actually does an "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google search for "Slashdot." What he did (ctrl-shift-enter) inserts the http:// and.org and fetches the site normally. (By the way, ctrl-enter appends.com and shift-enter appends.net.)
No it's not. The prevailing attitude in the US is that the market should be subject to more and more interference in the name of protecting "IP" (i.e., imaginary property).
Um, how is that logical? So you create a cookie recipe and distribute it freely on the Internet and give all the cookies you make away for free. I have a cookie recipe but I keep it a secret and sell my cookies for a profit. Despite the fact that your cookies are free, more people want my cookies and are willing to pay for it. So you are saying the only fair thing to do is make it so that my cookies are free and that everyone should have my recipe.
How is it logical for Microsoft? It's not, of course; that's why the EU is having to force MS to do it!
Having and using open standards is a big advantage to the consumer and to free software.... How does that benefit MS?
It doesn't! It benefits the EU's citizens, which is what the EU cares about.
I'm really not sure I understand the point of your objection here. Don't you realize that asking "how does this benefit MS" is exactly like asking "how does going to jail benefit a criminal?" Benefiting the criminal isn't the point!
What are you talking about? This discussion is about releasing documentation, not any kind of "product." I'm just making the point that allowing Microsoft to charge for its standards (turning a secret proprietary standard into a public -- but still proprietary -- one) doesn't do any good; the standards and documentation have to be royalty-free so that the documents and code can be redistributed within the Free Software community without each individual having to personally get permission from Microsoft first. To require such would cause those individuals to violate the GPL, among other things.
What does that matter? If the documentation is the source code, and the EU requires MS to release documentation, that just means MS is required to release the source code (or write new (sufficient) documentation that it feels comfortable releasing).
The only mechanism that should set prices is the market.
Great idea, I'm all for it! Are you willing to abolish copyrights and patents, and other government-granted monopolies (i.e., government interference in the market) to make that happen?
Those tech companies would pull out if and only if the EU's punishment were worse than losing the EU market. For example, what would happen if MS stopped selling Windows in Europe? The entire continent would switch to Free Software almost instantly. I'll bet Microsoft is willing to put up with a Hell of a lot to prevent that from happening! And that's not just because of the lost sales directly, but also because it would prove to US businesses that Free Software is viable on a grand scale.
The EU's goal is ostensibly to ensure proper competition in the market, right? And let's face it, MS's only real competition is Free Software. Therefore, the only possible fair price for the protocol specs is free, and with free redistribution, so that it's able to be used by Free Software.
(Note that I'm talking about interoperability specifications (and patent licenses) only... Microsoft should be able to charge whatever it wants for its reference implementation.)
That is because the engineering processes (including the mathematical algorithms that produced them [I'm talking even outside of software]) are protected trade secrets.
And of course that whole situation is bullshit to begin with, because the whole point or patents was to get the inventor to disclose his methods instead or keeping them secret! In a perfect world, patents (and copyrights) would be incompatible with trade secrets.
The fact is that if you have n packages there will be a number of interactions among them that will fastly tend to be 2^n (and then think about 8000 packages and do the math).
Yes, that's the theoretical upper limit. However, for the most part spaghetti code went out along with Disco. Nowadays we have various techniques (abstraction, organizing into libraries, etc.) specifically for the purpose of reducing the number of those interactions. Therefore, the actual number should stay manageable.
You seem to forget that you are not a user. Since you know the root password you are a system administration (maybe not a for-the-money one, maybe not on a heavy duty or difficult environment, but that's what you are), take it or leave it.
Whatever. As an admin, I'm still at least a client of the developer, not a developer myself. Happy now? It still doesn't change anything, because you know damn well what I meant!
Slashdot Mirror
You know what the really horrible thing is? The Greens and Libertarians have two things in common: both advocate shifting power away from the Federal government and towards the states, and neither is authoritarian. But even if, like me, you would be happy voting for either of them for these reasons, your vote would end up helping the Republicrats who have exactly the opposite goals (centralized power and authoritarianism)!
I'd like to see electors chosen by state legislatures (like it was supposed to be all along), without any popular vote at all! Then not only would the presidency cease to be a popularity contest, but state elections would become important again.
You want shortcut keys for all the country-code TLDs? For that, you'll probably need an extension (not to mantion a space cadet keyboard!).
On the other hand, having a standard shortcut key for one of them (i.e., the one corresponding to the current locale) might be useful...
Encyclopedia != news. Once most articles are "done," the rate at which they're modified should be really low. After all, "new information" about a 500-year-old event doesn't come up very often...
Nope. You can either do that or you can attract other customers and expand the market. It doesn't matter if the competition is getting the same absolute number of customers they would have anyway, as long as they're still getting relatively much fewer customers than you.
What does that make RMS then, Thomas Paine?
Yeah, but the problem is that they all use different copies of the library (at least on Windows and Mac. In other words, Firefox is loading something like /firefox/gecko.so while Thunderbird is loading /thunderbird/gecko.so. Even though both gecko.sos are the same, the operating system doesn't realize that and loads them into different memory locations.
What needs to happen is that the installers for Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird should put the core Mozilla libs in the same place, outside the application's folder (e.g. install libs in /mozilla/core/ and install Firefox in /mozilla/firefox/.)
Ctrl-enter goes to http://slashdot.com , not .org.
What you did actually does an "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google search for "Slashdot." What he did (ctrl-shift-enter) inserts the http:// and .org and fetches the site normally. (By the way, ctrl-enter appends .com and shift-enter appends .net.)
That campfire looks like clipart.
All the artists should just do what I do and post art that is so crappy no one in their right mind would copy it.
[Life Lesson #427: Not everyone on the Internet is in their right mind.]
Ostensibly (adv.) -- seemingly, apparently, on the surface.
5 years is "almost instantly."
No it's not. The prevailing attitude in the US is that the market should be subject to more and more interference in the name of protecting "IP" (i.e., imaginary property).
How is it logical for Microsoft? It's not, of course; that's why the EU is having to force MS to do it!
It doesn't! It benefits the EU's citizens, which is what the EU cares about.
I'm really not sure I understand the point of your objection here. Don't you realize that asking "how does this benefit MS" is exactly like asking "how does going to jail benefit a criminal?" Benefiting the criminal isn't the point!
What are you talking about? This discussion is about releasing documentation, not any kind of "product." I'm just making the point that allowing Microsoft to charge for its standards (turning a secret proprietary standard into a public -- but still proprietary -- one) doesn't do any good; the standards and documentation have to be royalty-free so that the documents and code can be redistributed within the Free Software community without each individual having to personally get permission from Microsoft first. To require such would cause those individuals to violate the GPL, among other things.
What does that matter? If the documentation is the source code, and the EU requires MS to release documentation, that just means MS is required to release the source code (or write new (sufficient) documentation that it feels comfortable releasing).
Great idea, I'm all for it! Are you willing to abolish copyrights and patents, and other government-granted monopolies (i.e., government interference in the market) to make that happen?
Those tech companies would pull out if and only if the EU's punishment were worse than losing the EU market. For example, what would happen if MS stopped selling Windows in Europe? The entire continent would switch to Free Software almost instantly. I'll bet Microsoft is willing to put up with a Hell of a lot to prevent that from happening! And that's not just because of the lost sales directly, but also because it would prove to US businesses that Free Software is viable on a grand scale.
The EU's goal is ostensibly to ensure proper competition in the market, right? And let's face it, MS's only real competition is Free Software. Therefore, the only possible fair price for the protocol specs is free, and with free redistribution, so that it's able to be used by Free Software.
(Note that I'm talking about interoperability specifications (and patent licenses) only... Microsoft should be able to charge whatever it wants for its reference implementation.)
No, "it" was referring to the /proc filesystem.
And of course that whole situation is bullshit to begin with, because the whole point or patents was to get the inventor to disclose his methods instead or keeping them secret! In a perfect world, patents (and copyrights) would be incompatible with trade secrets.
No, Bill Gates was "inspired"... Jobs actually licensed the technology.
Yes, that's the theoretical upper limit. However, for the most part spaghetti code went out along with Disco. Nowadays we have various techniques (abstraction, organizing into libraries, etc.) specifically for the purpose of reducing the number of those interactions. Therefore, the actual number should stay manageable.
Whatever. As an admin, I'm still at least a client of the developer, not a developer myself. Happy now? It still doesn't change anything, because you know damn well what I meant!
I wonder if you spoke too soon...