There are two good historical examples that demonstrate the importance of the so-called "separation of church and state" clause*: 1) The corruption of Christianity at the hands of Constantine by making it the state religion; and 2) the corruption of Christianity at the hands of the Church of England (wherein the monarch was and still is the head of the church).
This second example was the primary impetus for the clause in the Constitution, since the memory of religious persecution in England was fresh on their minds. Remember, this separation is to keep religion from being run over by politics--it's for the protection of religion!
* Although it is often referred to as "separation of church and state," this is misleading and inaccurate. It says that, "Congress shall make no law concerning an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The use of "separation of church and state" tends to imply that people who hold religious beliefs cannot hold public office or apply their beliefs to their public actions. This is clearly not what was intended.
About telling the difference: you and I know what we're doing. The kind of users who frequent a university computer lab generally don't know enough to really be able to tell (or care, even) about the small things so long as everything is generally in the right place. In other words, so long as there's a rectangular looking thing in the lower left hand corner they can click to run a web browser, they're fine.
At any rate, you're correct about switching over gradually and using simple X terminals. Over all, I think if you had the right people in charge (and cheap or free student labor!), it could work nicely.
I do have to admit that it sounds like you've been involved in the setup of a lab of some kind. Personally, I've just been free tech support for our university labs in my four years there!
You'll spend thousands of dollars just answering "Where's the start button?"
It's called FVWM95. It's close enough to the so-called interface that Redmond pumps out that few would notice the difference. Additionally, you could just put icons on the desktop for the applications to be used (browser, office apps, etc.)
At any rate, it certainly wouldn't cost thousands of dollars. You simply make a background image that gives the details (we use this at my uni to let people know they should put their documents on a floppy).
Lets say using Windows software saves you only one of those sysadmins.
Not bloody likely. Answering questions about the BSOD and "This program has stopped running" are 99% of the job in a university computer lab or help desk. Seriously.
...that most of the other denizens of Slashdot suffer under. Namely, that slashdot is a news organization. Really, slashdot is just a clearinghouse for various news and pseudo-news organizations. They just say, "This is what foo has to say about bar. Discuss." They don't attempt to report or fact-check. They're not a news gathering organization.
I think it's because we have a completely materialistic (in both senses of the word;-) society where putting "gratis" in a list effectively erases the rest of the list. Just think of all the commercials you see that offer something for free.
Sheesh, soon they'll have you believing that the Americal Civil War was actually about slavery and not the economic differences between the North and South... oh, yeah - you probably do believe that.
The War Between the States was fought over the right to secede. The southern states formed their own nation and said, "We are an independent people!" Abraham Lincoln said, "That's what you think!" War ensued. Think of it as being similar to China vs. Tibet or Russia vs. Chechnya.
The Open Source movement really have to understand that it has moved beyond RMS and that the decision to junk the GPL was essential for the success of the movement.
Um, who has junked the GPL?
If Linux had been GPL
Linux is GPL'd.
it could not have been marketed by companies like IBM.
IBM makes their money from providing services. That's why they push Linux. They're cutting costs (and, I might add, raising quality at the same time;-)
The GPL is a self obsessed piece of control freakery. The whole point of GPL is that everything it touches must also become GPL.
The GPL is intended to crush the concept of proprietary software. Everyone knows this. The phrase "everything it touches must also become GPL" is vague. If by "touches," you mean that you can't run GPL software on a proprietary platform, then you are wrong. If you mean "openly published derivative works," then you are correct. Any speaker that uses vague language is either ignorant or deceptive.
Third, you should compare what both have actually done since leaving school, it is a far better measure.
So, in your mind, making a lot of money by selling a crappy product with slick marketing is evidence that Bill Gates is in some way "right"?
Re:And for all the military member who read /.
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Review: Pearl Harbor
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I tend to think the "UN taking away our guns" thing is off-center. However, have you read the Kyoto Protocol? Now, that is what I consider to be a reason to leave the UN.
We were in a very similar position in Vietnam. Many of our soldiers had a feeling that the war was wrong. It's difficult to oppose one's government in a situation like this, however; especially when you do find Communism abhorrent.
Re:Japanese (and American) revisionist history
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Review: Pearl Harbor
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Can we assume that you feel war to be avoidable?
Re:Well they did sign an agreement
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Launchcast Sued
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You've hit the nail on the head. It's not a single company, so I doubt that antitrust legislation would apply but it definitely seems anti-competitive to me.
Re:Well they did sign an agreement
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Launchcast Sued
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The RIAA can't sue about licenses signed with individual companies.
Of course they can.
If you were Warners, wouldn't you like the RIAA to do your suing for you? Mighty fine, reduce costs and get your competitors to pay for your lawyers. Somehow I think the other companies might object.
Not at all. It's a common defense fund type of thing. The RIAA is protecting all their interests.
Re:Well they did sign an agreement
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Launchcast Sued
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Yeah, they signed agreements with Universal, Sony, et al. Where does the RIAA get off? Should'nt the individual companies sue Launch it they want
Well, the RIAA is a cartel, er, coalition of various companies. They can act on behalf of the companies (a strength in numbers thing).
It appears that they aren't saying much, so it's entirely possible that the companies requested this move by the RIAA.
Last time I checked, it appeared relatively certain that I was a man. And yet, I don't check scores (I pretty much don't like sports). In fact, I don't watch much TV at all. Sounds like they're just kind of going on stereotypes here--stereotypes that may not be all that reliable.
As many have mentioned, Microsoft *isn't* releasing a GPL'd webserver. Their research team is using an existing webserver for hacking and testing.
The real significance of this event is that their researchers are quietly disproving what their marketing and executive leadership says. This is *exactly* why Free Software is useful. These folks realized that it would take a long time to modify IIS and it would have been buggy. All they want is a way to test their IPv6 stack. Now, why should they go to all the hassle of rolling their own when it's so easy to "stand on the shoulders of giants"?
You generally wouldn't write directly for Aqua. Instead, you would use the high level OpenStep frameworks (which are implemented in the GNUstep project and available on Linux, *BSD, Darwin, and partially on win32).
I just don't get this. Java is nothing more than a cheap knock off of OpenStep. Now, why on earth would you want to develop Java applications on a platform that has a good solid Application Kit and Foundation Kit?
Just as a sort of evangelistic aside, you might want to take a look at *cough*Cocoa*cough* for cross-platform stuff.
Re:QT is the best gui toolkit out there
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Qt for Mac
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Well, it isn't a toolkit, but for cross-platform development, nothing beats OpenStep which is native to MOSX. I'm personally aghast at the possibility of QT sullying the RAM of a G4 that's perfectly capable of running OpenStep apps! <grin>
Re:Can't get rich selling GPL'ed SW
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Mundie Responds
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How many purchase that, and how many download for free?
Who knows? But you seemed (to me, at least) to be suggesting that the GPL is in active opposition to selling software.
Slashdot Mirror
This second example was the primary impetus for the clause in the Constitution, since the memory of religious persecution in England was fresh on their minds. Remember, this separation is to keep religion from being run over by politics--it's for the protection of religion!
* Although it is often referred to as "separation of church and state," this is misleading and inaccurate. It says that, "Congress shall make no law concerning an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The use of "separation of church and state" tends to imply that people who hold religious beliefs cannot hold public office or apply their beliefs to their public actions. This is clearly not what was intended.
At any rate, you're correct about switching over gradually and using simple X terminals. Over all, I think if you had the right people in charge (and cheap or free student labor!), it could work nicely.
I do have to admit that it sounds like you've been involved in the setup of a lab of some kind. Personally, I've just been free tech support for our university labs in my four years there!
It's called FVWM95. It's close enough to the so-called interface that Redmond pumps out that few would notice the difference. Additionally, you could just put icons on the desktop for the applications to be used (browser, office apps, etc.)
At any rate, it certainly wouldn't cost thousands of dollars. You simply make a background image that gives the details (we use this at my uni to let people know they should put their documents on a floppy).
Not bloody likely. Answering questions about the BSOD and "This program has stopped running" are 99% of the job in a university computer lab or help desk. Seriously.
...that most of the other denizens of Slashdot suffer under. Namely, that slashdot is a news organization. Really, slashdot is just a clearinghouse for various news and pseudo-news organizations. They just say, "This is what foo has to say about bar. Discuss." They don't attempt to report or fact-check. They're not a news gathering organization.
Actually, why not just put a small Free Content license at the bottom of your post giving *everyone* the right to distribute and modify?
I think it's because we have a completely materialistic (in both senses of the word ;-) society where putting "gratis" in a list effectively erases the rest of the list. Just think of all the commercials you see that offer something for free.
The War Between the States was fought over the right to secede. The southern states formed their own nation and said, "We are an independent people!" Abraham Lincoln said, "That's what you think!" War ensued. Think of it as being similar to China vs. Tibet or Russia vs. Chechnya.
Um, who has junked the GPL?
If Linux had been GPL
Linux is GPL'd.
it could not have been marketed by companies like IBM.
IBM makes their money from providing services. That's why they push Linux. They're cutting costs (and, I might add, raising quality at the same time ;-)
The GPL is a self obsessed piece of control freakery. The whole point of GPL is that everything it touches must also become GPL.
The GPL is intended to crush the concept of proprietary software. Everyone knows this. The phrase "everything it touches must also become GPL" is vague. If by "touches," you mean that you can't run GPL software on a proprietary platform, then you are wrong. If you mean "openly published derivative works," then you are correct. Any speaker that uses vague language is either ignorant or deceptive.
There already *is* someone doing this. His name is Eric S. Raymond and he doesn't get along very well with Stallman. ;-)
So, in your mind, making a lot of money by selling a crappy product with slick marketing is evidence that Bill Gates is in some way "right"?
I tend to think the "UN taking away our guns" thing is off-center. However, have you read the Kyoto Protocol? Now, that is what I consider to be a reason to leave the UN.
We were in a very similar position in Vietnam. Many of our soldiers had a feeling that the war was wrong. It's difficult to oppose one's government in a situation like this, however; especially when you do find Communism abhorrent.
Can we assume that you feel war to be avoidable?
You've hit the nail on the head. It's not a single company, so I doubt that antitrust legislation would apply but it definitely seems anti-competitive to me.
Of course they can.
If you were Warners, wouldn't you like the RIAA to do your suing for you? Mighty fine, reduce costs and get your competitors to pay for your lawyers. Somehow I think the other companies might object.
Not at all. It's a common defense fund type of thing. The RIAA is protecting all their interests.
Well, the RIAA is a cartel, er, coalition of various companies. They can act on behalf of the companies (a strength in numbers thing).
It appears that they aren't saying much, so it's entirely possible that the companies requested this move by the RIAA.
Last time I checked, it appeared relatively certain that I was a man. And yet, I don't check scores (I pretty much don't like sports). In fact, I don't watch much TV at all. Sounds like they're just kind of going on stereotypes here--stereotypes that may not be all that reliable.
The real significance of this event is that their researchers are quietly disproving what their marketing and executive leadership says. This is *exactly* why Free Software is useful. These folks realized that it would take a long time to modify IIS and it would have been buggy. All they want is a way to test their IPv6 stack. Now, why should they go to all the hassle of rolling their own when it's so easy to "stand on the shoulders of giants"?
It may not be great but I would think the RIAA would be interested in trying to shut it down anyway.
You generally wouldn't write directly for Aqua. Instead, you would use the high level OpenStep frameworks (which are implemented in the GNUstep project and available on Linux, *BSD, Darwin, and partially on win32).
I just don't get this. Java is nothing more than a cheap knock off of OpenStep. Now, why on earth would you want to develop Java applications on a platform that has a good solid Application Kit and Foundation Kit?
Just as a sort of evangelistic aside, you might want to take a look at *cough*Cocoa*cough* for cross-platform stuff.
Well, it isn't a toolkit, but for cross-platform development, nothing beats OpenStep which is native to MOSX. I'm personally aghast at the possibility of QT sullying the RAM of a G4 that's perfectly capable of running OpenStep apps! <grin>
Who knows? But you seemed (to me, at least) to be suggesting that the GPL is in active opposition to selling software.