And all this could have been avoided by just one extra word: telling these idiots that if they could point and click that they probably could pass the class.
And I'm not sure about anyone else, but doesn't getting sued over one little word seem just a bit rediculous in any context?
If people are allowed to freely copy paintings, music, software, etc. this has the potential to erode the economic incentive of artists to produce the works in the first place. This means fewer works, and this means a less successful economy, which is bad for society.
Lets say, just for the sake of argument, that paintings, music, and software are all art. (Many think that yes, even software, is art.) Art is a form of an idea, right?
One of the funny things about art is that there are people who will do it, and do it well, without ever having the promise of receiving any amount of money for it. They love doing it, so they do it. And the reason they are able to do it is because all of their other needs are taken care of--in other words, they don't have to worry about finding food or shelter or any of the other various necessities of life because those things have become very easy to attain.
Now we're trying to make art into an ``industry''. We, as a society, are trying to replace all this free time for artful expression with economically profitable work time by actually making art into something that a person needs to be paid for in order to survive. All of a sudden, the compensation for creating a painting or writing music or coding software or doing any other number of `arty' things has changed from the nearly unexplainable, ``if you have to ask, you'll never know'' why, to being compensated with money. This is nothing new, I suppose. But copyright and patent laws are also stopping people from utilizing their freedom of expression which is something rather new. There are enough people in the world that sometimes ideas are reproduced many times. Is it right that only the first person to get to the patent office gets to use their idea? To answer my own question, no, I do not think that is right.
This is all a load of bull. Economics aren't everything. I'm happy to have a roof over my head, food in my kitchen, and a computer to hack on. I don't need a whole lot else. Chasing ugly little slips of paper doesn't make me as happy as crashing my kernel does.
Of course, not everyone thinks this way. I wouldn't dream of stopping anyone in their pursuit of ugly slips of paper if that is what makes them happy. But I'll be damned if I let them stop me from doing what I love to do. Those people who like copyright and patent laws on ideas only seem to want to do that to me.
Microsoft Bob, J.R. ``Bob'' Dobbs' Evil Twin? New Study Suggests
The teriffically horrific attempt to make Microsoft's point-and-drool OS even more point-and-drool. MS Bob was supposed to be a sort-of helping hand to new users of Windows 95; your digital friend to this brand new world of incompatibility and crashes. Or something like that.
It ended up being even more annoying than that paperclip from Microsoft Orofice..er..Office and bombed despite the fact that it was widely touted as being next generation stuff--at least, it was here in Bill's home town. Of course, at the time, Bob required top of the line, super expensive hardware to even run properly. Come to think of it, Microsoft Office is similar in that respect. At least you can shut the more annoying ``features'' off though...
Yes, I am definitely new. Although I heard about Linux a few years ago, I haven't had the chance to actually use it and learn it (and find that I really, really like it!) until the last 6 months to a year or so.
I had heard about the Hitler-Gates picture but have never seen it. Um, what? I fail to see the connection between Adolph and Bill. No contest. One is worse than the other and I'm sure you know which one!
I've also read the Halloween stuff, too. Not funny.
``I'd much rather be connected with the FSF/Free software movement. Plain and simple freedom.''
I can see your point and agree as well. It's really too bad that such a high price is placed on information.
About the Obi-Wan thing, I actually thought that was a little humorous (despite being rediculous), but I'm trying to get Linux in use at the workplace and I really don't want to show the boss something like that. Bad image == no Linux at work. The more interesting my job can be, and the less I have to deal with expensive NT, the better.
On topic: Since I obviously wasn't at the `summit' (why does that word seem so like one that only a suit would use?) it gets difficult to see what actually transpired. However, I'm not going to toss out what Scoville had to say just because ESR says that he's wrong. I have a hard time thinking that a man who wrote something like Elements of Style: Unix as Literature as being almost completely unable to comprehend what went on at that meeting. It would make more sense to think, all this being the third-hand information that it is and perceptions being what they are, that the truth of what went on is somewhere in between what Scoville and ESR say.
Off topic (somewhat): ESR is the guy whose web pages originally told me about this world of hackers and Unix and free software and all that -- without which I would still be wallowing in the pits of MS hell -- but lately I've been losing some degree of respect for the guy.
Calling Scoville ``Mr. `You can't handle the truth''' strikes me as both incredibly silly and strangely immature. I'm not sure where in Scoville's assessment of the `summit' that he might have even thrown a bit of mud ESR's way that would incite ESR to toss some back. You would think that someone who wants to be taken seriously for what he's trying to do would act just a tad bit more responsibly, wouldn't you?
Futhermore, his dressing up as Obi-Wan Kenobi (or, perhaps more appropriately, PDP-1) at the Microsoft-Refund event was just as immature. Sure, it may have been a joke, but as a parallelism, ``how do you stop a rhino from charging--take away his credit card'' ceases to be as funny as it used to be at some point on most peoples' lives and just marks you as a schmuck if you tell it.
I won't even start on the Perens-OSI cat fight since, for me, the jury's still out on that one...
ESR has some pretty big balls (metaphorically speaking) to do what he's trying to do with free software. Straddling the fence between hackers (who tend to dislike most suits--with exceptions) and suits (who don't usually care about much more than the profit margins--with exceptions) is a very difficult task and he deserves credit for that. But if he keeps up with this immaturity trip, he might lose the support of at least one of the ``sides'' that he's trying to bring together.
Sorry if I'm out of line with this; just a newbie's thoughts.
I might actually fork out the dough (matinee prices aren't so bad) to go and see Wing Commander even without the new Star Wars trailer on it as long as Chris Roberts doesn't direct it. The movie scenes in WC IV were absolutely horrid. Roberts may be a pretty good game designer, but he's a crappy director.
Perhaps I suffer from a tad bit of multiple personality-identity disorder, but I actually rather like the way many Linux and *NIX apps look different. It's my belief that different jobs need different tools; and you don't ever see a crescent wrench and a screwdriver that look the same, do you?
Not to mention the fact that I would very quickly get bored with my X displays if they looked just like the standard MS UI. I got very sick of seeing the same gray, day after day, and all my tools and applications just became a blur. They all could do some of the same things the others could do, they were almost all bloated, and it just stripped the usefulness of even investing the time and effort to learn something new, because I had already done it before.
But then, I am also more inclined to want to learn how to use my tools properly than the ordinary random person. You won't catch me using a tire iron to carve a chair leg, just like you won't see me using a MicroSoft Word-style word processor to write HTML. You'll see me using proper carving tools in the former, and either vi or Emacs and possibly a perl script to check my work in the latter.
In other words, I believe that the tools I use in Linux have (for the most part) been designed from the ground up to be as efficient in both form and function as possible. I wouldn't change that for the world; efficiency is very valuable IMHO. More so than a "standardized UI".
Slashdot Mirror
And I'm not sure about anyone else, but doesn't getting sued over one little word seem just a bit rediculous in any context?
Lets say, just for the sake of argument, that paintings, music, and software are all art. (Many think that yes, even software, is art.) Art is a form of an idea, right?
One of the funny things about art is that there are people who will do it, and do it well, without ever having the promise of receiving any amount of money for it. They love doing it, so they do it. And the reason they are able to do it is because all of their other needs are taken care of--in other words, they don't have to worry about finding food or shelter or any of the other various necessities of life because those things have become very easy to attain.
Now we're trying to make art into an ``industry''. We, as a society, are trying to replace all this free time for artful expression with economically profitable work time by actually making art into something that a person needs to be paid for in order to survive. All of a sudden, the compensation for creating a painting or writing music or coding software or doing any other number of `arty' things has changed from the nearly unexplainable, ``if you have to ask, you'll never know'' why, to being compensated with money. This is nothing new, I suppose. But copyright and patent laws are also stopping people from utilizing their freedom of expression which is something rather new. There are enough people in the world that sometimes ideas are reproduced many times. Is it right that only the first person to get to the patent office gets to use their idea? To answer my own question, no, I do not think that is right.
This is all a load of bull. Economics aren't everything. I'm happy to have a roof over my head, food in my kitchen, and a computer to hack on. I don't need a whole lot else. Chasing ugly little slips of paper doesn't make me as happy as crashing my kernel does.
Of course, not everyone thinks this way. I wouldn't dream of stopping anyone in their pursuit of ugly slips of paper if that is what makes them happy. But I'll be damned if I let them stop me from doing what I love to do. Those people who like copyright and patent laws on ideas only seem to want to do that to me.
The teriffically horrific attempt to make Microsoft's point-and-drool OS even more point-and-drool. MS Bob was supposed to be a sort-of helping hand to new users of Windows 95; your digital friend to this brand new world of incompatibility and crashes. Or something like that.
It ended up being even more annoying than that paperclip from Microsoft Orofice..er..Office and bombed despite the fact that it was widely touted as being next generation stuff--at least, it was here in Bill's home town. Of course, at the time, Bob required top of the line, super expensive hardware to even run properly. Come to think of it, Microsoft Office is similar in that respect. At least you can shut the more annoying ``features'' off though...
Nah, PPP isn't that difficult. Just RTM. This newbie figured out how to do it without losing too many hairs. :)
Yes, I am definitely new. Although I heard about Linux a few years ago, I haven't had the chance to actually use it and learn it (and find that I really, really like it!) until the last 6 months to a year or so.
I had heard about the Hitler-Gates picture but have never seen it. Um, what? I fail to see the connection between Adolph and Bill. No contest. One is worse than the other and I'm sure you know which one!
I've also read the Halloween stuff, too. Not funny.
I won't discuss guns if you won't.
I can see your point and agree as well. It's really too bad that such a high price is placed on information.
About the Obi-Wan thing, I actually thought that was a little humorous (despite being rediculous), but I'm trying to get Linux in use at the workplace and I really don't want to show the boss something like that. Bad image == no Linux at work. The more interesting my job can be, and the less I have to deal with expensive NT, the better.
Since I obviously wasn't at the `summit' (why does that word seem so like one that only a suit would use?) it gets difficult to see what actually transpired. However, I'm not going to toss out what Scoville had to say just because ESR says that he's wrong. I have a hard time thinking that a man who wrote something like Elements of Style: Unix as Literature as being almost completely unable to comprehend what went on at that meeting. It would make more sense to think, all this being the third-hand information that it is and perceptions being what they are, that the truth of what went on is somewhere in between what Scoville and ESR say.
Off topic (somewhat):
ESR is the guy whose web pages originally told me about this world of hackers and Unix and free software and all that -- without which I would still be wallowing in the pits of MS hell -- but lately I've been losing some degree of respect for the guy.
Calling Scoville ``Mr. `You can't handle the truth''' strikes me as both incredibly silly and strangely immature. I'm not sure where in Scoville's assessment of the `summit' that he might have even thrown a bit of mud ESR's way that would incite ESR to toss some back. You would think that someone who wants to be taken seriously for what he's trying to do would act just a tad bit more responsibly, wouldn't you?
Futhermore, his dressing up as Obi-Wan Kenobi (or, perhaps more appropriately, PDP-1) at the Microsoft-Refund event was just as immature. Sure, it may have been a joke, but as a parallelism, ``how do you stop a rhino from charging--take away his credit card'' ceases to be as funny as it used to be at some point on most peoples' lives and just marks you as a schmuck if you tell it.
I won't even start on the Perens-OSI cat fight since, for me, the jury's still out on that one...
ESR has some pretty big balls (metaphorically speaking) to do what he's trying to do with free software. Straddling the fence between hackers (who tend to dislike most suits--with exceptions) and suits (who don't usually care about much more than the profit margins--with exceptions) is a very difficult task and he deserves credit for that. But if he keeps up with this immaturity trip, he might lose the support of at least one of the ``sides'' that he's trying to bring together.
Sorry if I'm out of line with this; just a newbie's thoughts.
--
Jeramey Crawford
Would anyone happen to know if there is to be a Perl conference in the Pacific Northwest area anytime soon?
I might actually fork out the dough (matinee prices aren't so bad) to go and see Wing Commander even without the new Star Wars trailer on it as long as Chris Roberts doesn't direct it. The movie scenes in WC IV were absolutely horrid. Roberts may be a pretty good game designer, but he's a crappy director.
Thanks for the link. Perhaps I can spice up my 'desktop' at work. That's the only place I plan on using Windows 9x anymore. :-)
Perhaps I suffer from a tad bit of multiple personality-identity disorder, but I actually rather like the way many Linux and *NIX apps look different. It's my belief that different jobs need different tools; and you don't ever see a crescent wrench and a screwdriver that look the same, do you?
:-)
Not to mention the fact that I would very quickly get bored with my X displays if they looked just like the standard MS UI. I got very sick of seeing the same gray, day after day, and all my tools and applications just became a blur. They all could do some of the same things the others could do, they were almost all bloated, and it just stripped the usefulness of even investing the time and effort to learn something new, because I had already done it before.
But then, I am also more inclined to want to learn how to use my tools properly than the ordinary random person. You won't catch me using a tire iron to carve a chair leg, just like you won't see me using a MicroSoft Word-style word processor to write HTML. You'll see me using proper carving tools in the former, and either vi or Emacs and possibly a perl script to check my work in the latter.
In other words, I believe that the tools I use in Linux have (for the most part) been designed from the ground up to be as efficient in both form and function as possible. I wouldn't change that for the world; efficiency is very valuable IMHO. More so than a "standardized UI".
Just my humble opinion.