You need to define "derivative". You used it a lot in your post, but it doesn't address the core problem: can I or can I not link to a GPL library with my application.
Copyright law does not address linking, but it does define "derivative work". The mere act of linking (or otherwise calling a function by its signature) is not sufficient to create derivation.
Effective boycotts don't punish the companies you don't like, they reward those you do like. You don't do it to be spiteful, you do it to help yourself.
Very true. UML is a nice tool, but it's just a tool. It will give you the external shape of the program, and maybe some glimpses into the inner workings, but it's as far removed from coding as the ToC is from the contents of a book. It's a great organizational tool, but that's the extent of it.
Batteries are bad for the environment. Lead, cadium, icky heavy metals. They can explode, injuring humans and spilling toxics into the ground. Aquiring these metals involves strip mining. The metallurgy throws other nasties into the environment. And the electricity to charge is by no means free, typically generated from burning coal or drowning biomes to build a dam.
The question though, are batteries less harmful than the internal combustion engine? I say no. Batteries and electrical generators cause dense point pollution as opposed to diffused thin pollution. The batteries get the pollution out of your backyard, but they do not eliminate it. Spill a gallon of gasoline on your lawn and you get a big spot of dead grass. Spill the contents of your average battery on your lawn and endangered species downstream will start having mutations. Heavy metals are BAD! We've solved the problem of heavy metals in gasoline, we haven't solved it for batteries.
Don't take this wrong and think I'm arguing against electric engines. I'm not. Eventually we'll have realistic fuel cells to power these engines. But in the meantime we shouldn't be acting like batteries are a general and universal solution.
In the old days those simple X11 tarballs were extremely limited. No common printing. No common look and feel. No XML file formats. No integration with other packages. Each application was wholly new and isolated from all the others.
If all you wanted was two or three applications, that wasn't much of a problem. But if you used a lot of programs, then suddenly the lack of code reuse reared its ugly head. Those 120MB of dependencies saves you ten times that amount of wheel reinventions. Why should I write my own widget handling routines when I have GTK and Qt? Why should I write my own file format and parser when I have libxml? Why should I write my own HTML rendering engine when I have KHTML and Gecko?
I see they're still trying to replace the programmer after thirty years. This is nothing new folks. Let me explain the situation. The people running businesses hate programmers. Maybe it's because we have real degrees instead of MBAs, or maybe it's just because we didn't join the right fraternities. But they just don't like us. So they keep trying to come up with ways to fire all the programmers.
It all started with Cobol, the language that didn't need a degree to use. In more modern times it was Visual Basic, the language that even monkeys could use. You've got entire programming environments where all you do is drag and drop stuff around the screen. Rational [sic] salesmen claim you can generate your entire application from UML.
For some generic "fill in the blank" type applications, they're correct. For maybe half (wild ass guess) of applications out there all you need is to wire a form into a database. But what about the other half of applications? And what about the remaining 90% of software that is NOT an application?
At the core of Google is a Damned Big(tm) database, but does anyone in their right mind think Google could ever have gotten off the ground without real programmers writing real code in a real language? Or what about the Linux kernel? Does anyone think it could have been created with a CASE tool? Is there anything in GNOME, KDE or Mozilla that could have been automatically generated from UML? Would you feel safe driving a car which had an ignition system written in Visual Basic?
Programmers aren't goin to go away, no matter how advanced the tools become. They'll make the programmers' jobs easier, but they won't replace them.
Two points. First, I don't NEED to see it, because I already know what it contains. After all, it's recording MY actions. Second, there's nothing stopping drivers from knowing this information except that they simply aren't interested. For example, there are many ways to get info out of your car's computer (like why the "check engine" light came on), but no one really cares about it. If it became an issue, then it's a simple matter of marketing a device that plugs into the black box.
The statist will automatically argue that insurance companies are nasty evil entities that won't let you look at the black box. BFD! If I want to look at it and my insurance company doesn't want me to, I'll take my business elsewhere! Plus, there's no justifiable economic reason to keep this info secret, so I really doubt any company would want to. They may not be the ones marketing a black box reader, but they have no economic interest in lobbying congress to outlaw them.
I built my current system around the Antec Sonata case. It was designed to be quiet. Large (low RPM) fan, sensible airflow, rubber grommets to mount drives, special power supply. My brother just came by and commented that he thought the system was off because he couldn't hear anything.
I've got no problems running Konqueror 3.3.1. Sometimes the mplayer plugin crashes, but the browser itself is extremely stable. Maybe I should dump FreeBSD and KDE and switch to Windows and Firefox to see what all this hoopla is about.
Sorry, but Slashdot never had any standards. I've been around Slashdot as long as you in another identity, and I simply do not recall the standards you are alluding to.
Frankly, I don't have a problem with this. And I'm a libertarian. Even if they made it mandatory, it's still something I would want to have. After all, seat belts are mandatory in cars, but I'm still using mine even when the cops aren't looking.
If I get into an accident the government will know about it, and it will be on my record. Ditto for speeding, reckless driving, etc. What this black box does is to verify my side of the story. It's a tool that can be used for my benefit.
I've been in two accidents, and it was determined that I was not at fault after I presented evidence. This black box is evidence that will support my story against the hearsay of the police.
The economy isn't about spending money, it's about creating wealth. So while Kyoto will cause a heck of a lot of spending, it won't actually create anything.
Let me guess, you're a fan of the "hurricane" theory of economics, which holds that hurricanes and other natural disasters are beneficial to the economy. The problem is that theory is a bunch of horse hockey. A hurricane may be really good for roofing contractors, but it's really bad for the economy as a whole.
Considering the extremely low results Cobb got, I think the Democrat slogan of "Fuck your Conscience, Vote for Kerry" resonated quite well with most Greens.
Exit polls are composed of a self-selected population, and thus mean nothing. I'll throw out a few points illustrate the problem.
1) People who vote in the morning are a different demographic than those who vote in the afternoon or evening. It is normal for the percentages to change significantly over the course of a day.
2) The employed are a different demographic than the unemployed and retired. These are also the people most likely to deselect themselves from an exit poll because they have to get to work. Since voting follows the pocketbook, the employed who aren't polled are the most likely to have voted for the incumbant.
3) People will answer incorrectly in a poll due to intimidation. Yes, intimidation. If you're in a heavily Democrat district you're less likely to publicly admit you voted Republican.
4) If you're "on a mission" you're more likely to select yourself for the poll. You've just spent the last year on mission to elect/de-elect someone, you're still going to be gungho after voting.
5) Most exit polls have built in assumptions that are frankly wrong. Their purpose is to generate news stories, not to be scientifically accurate. For example, "let's heavily poll Miami/Dade and then extrapolate for the rest of the state."
What it IS, is that companies want to fill CURRENT US Jobs (Hear: YOUR job) with an H1 worker who will work for less pay...
Well of course! You get paid $120,000 to sit around reading Slashdot and swapping out a backup tape once in a while even though your only tech qualification is dropping out of freshman Java programming to join a startup. Of course I'm going to try to find someone cheaper than you!
I think most people bitching about the tech job market are just pissed that they're not being treated like royalty anymore. They're pissed that their company stopped paying for their maid service. They're pissed that they no longer get three month paid vacation. They're pissed that the company foot masseur was laid off.
In reality, tech workers are doing pretty good. No, it's not a perfect world, so expect to hear the anecdotes about some techie who starved to death waiting in line at the unemployment office barefoot in the snow. But you guys need to stop acting like this is 1929 all over again.
the most expensive support plan from SUN is less then the least expensive support plan from RedHat.
Big Fat Hairy Deal. Sun has more support contracts than Redhat. Sun also has legendary service. Sun's only problem is that they keep changing their long term goals every three months.
As an embedded real time operating system, that's no big deal. How many embedded devices do you know that have two harddrives, let alone the need to boot from the second?
Slashdot Mirror
Any news on effort to port Konqueror to Windows? While Firefox is a great browser and all, I'm not particularly relishing yet another monoculture.
You forgot to add the "" tags to your post. Without them the moderators missed your subtle humour and marked your post "insightful".
You need to define "derivative". You used it a lot in your post, but it doesn't address the core problem: can I or can I not link to a GPL library with my application.
Copyright law does not address linking, but it does define "derivative work". The mere act of linking (or otherwise calling a function by its signature) is not sufficient to create derivation.
we have been exorbitantly friendly to new users and developers
To new users, yes. But to users of other operating systems thinking about switching you can be quite rude and insulting.
Effective boycotts don't punish the companies you don't like, they reward those you do like. You don't do it to be spiteful, you do it to help yourself.
Very true. UML is a nice tool, but it's just a tool. It will give you the external shape of the program, and maybe some glimpses into the inner workings, but it's as far removed from coding as the ToC is from the contents of a book. It's a great organizational tool, but that's the extent of it.
Batteries are bad for the environment. Lead, cadium, icky heavy metals. They can explode, injuring humans and spilling toxics into the ground. Aquiring these metals involves strip mining. The metallurgy throws other nasties into the environment. And the electricity to charge is by no means free, typically generated from burning coal or drowning biomes to build a dam.
The question though, are batteries less harmful than the internal combustion engine? I say no. Batteries and electrical generators cause dense point pollution as opposed to diffused thin pollution. The batteries get the pollution out of your backyard, but they do not eliminate it. Spill a gallon of gasoline on your lawn and you get a big spot of dead grass. Spill the contents of your average battery on your lawn and endangered species downstream will start having mutations. Heavy metals are BAD! We've solved the problem of heavy metals in gasoline, we haven't solved it for batteries.
Don't take this wrong and think I'm arguing against electric engines. I'm not. Eventually we'll have realistic fuel cells to power these engines. But in the meantime we shouldn't be acting like batteries are a general and universal solution.
In the old days those simple X11 tarballs were extremely limited. No common printing. No common look and feel. No XML file formats. No integration with other packages. Each application was wholly new and isolated from all the others.
If all you wanted was two or three applications, that wasn't much of a problem. But if you used a lot of programs, then suddenly the lack of code reuse reared its ugly head. Those 120MB of dependencies saves you ten times that amount of wheel reinventions. Why should I write my own widget handling routines when I have GTK and Qt? Why should I write my own file format and parser when I have libxml? Why should I write my own HTML rendering engine when I have KHTML and Gecko?
Just like on, say, Windows.
ROTFLMAO!
I see they're still trying to replace the programmer after thirty years. This is nothing new folks. Let me explain the situation. The people running businesses hate programmers. Maybe it's because we have real degrees instead of MBAs, or maybe it's just because we didn't join the right fraternities. But they just don't like us. So they keep trying to come up with ways to fire all the programmers.
It all started with Cobol, the language that didn't need a degree to use. In more modern times it was Visual Basic, the language that even monkeys could use. You've got entire programming environments where all you do is drag and drop stuff around the screen. Rational [sic] salesmen claim you can generate your entire application from UML.
For some generic "fill in the blank" type applications, they're correct. For maybe half (wild ass guess) of applications out there all you need is to wire a form into a database. But what about the other half of applications? And what about the remaining 90% of software that is NOT an application?
At the core of Google is a Damned Big(tm) database, but does anyone in their right mind think Google could ever have gotten off the ground without real programmers writing real code in a real language? Or what about the Linux kernel? Does anyone think it could have been created with a CASE tool? Is there anything in GNOME, KDE or Mozilla that could have been automatically generated from UML? Would you feel safe driving a car which had an ignition system written in Visual Basic?
Programmers aren't goin to go away, no matter how advanced the tools become. They'll make the programmers' jobs easier, but they won't replace them.
Well, the awful annoying blue spotlights were on, which is why my brother asked. It *looked* like the computer was on, but he couldn't hear anything.
Two points. First, I don't NEED to see it, because I already know what it contains. After all, it's recording MY actions. Second, there's nothing stopping drivers from knowing this information except that they simply aren't interested. For example, there are many ways to get info out of your car's computer (like why the "check engine" light came on), but no one really cares about it. If it became an issue, then it's a simple matter of marketing a device that plugs into the black box.
The statist will automatically argue that insurance companies are nasty evil entities that won't let you look at the black box. BFD! If I want to look at it and my insurance company doesn't want me to, I'll take my business elsewhere! Plus, there's no justifiable economic reason to keep this info secret, so I really doubt any company would want to. They may not be the ones marketing a black box reader, but they have no economic interest in lobbying congress to outlaw them.
I built my current system around the Antec Sonata case. It was designed to be quiet. Large (low RPM) fan, sensible airflow, rubber grommets to mount drives, special power supply. My brother just came by and commented that he thought the system was off because he couldn't hear anything.
I've got no problems running Konqueror 3.3.1. Sometimes the mplayer plugin crashes, but the browser itself is extremely stable. Maybe I should dump FreeBSD and KDE and switch to Windows and Firefox to see what all this hoopla is about.
Have we totally lost our standards?
Sorry, but Slashdot never had any standards. I've been around Slashdot as long as you in another identity, and I simply do not recall the standards you are alluding to.
Frankly, I don't have a problem with this. And I'm a libertarian. Even if they made it mandatory, it's still something I would want to have. After all, seat belts are mandatory in cars, but I'm still using mine even when the cops aren't looking.
If I get into an accident the government will know about it, and it will be on my record. Ditto for speeding, reckless driving, etc. What this black box does is to verify my side of the story. It's a tool that can be used for my benefit.
I've been in two accidents, and it was determined that I was not at fault after I presented evidence. This black box is evidence that will support my story against the hearsay of the police.
The economy isn't about spending money, it's about creating wealth. So while Kyoto will cause a heck of a lot of spending, it won't actually create anything.
Let me guess, you're a fan of the "hurricane" theory of economics, which holds that hurricanes and other natural disasters are beneficial to the economy. The problem is that theory is a bunch of horse hockey. A hurricane may be really good for roofing contractors, but it's really bad for the economy as a whole.
Considering the extremely low results Cobb got, I think the Democrat slogan of "Fuck your Conscience, Vote for Kerry" resonated quite well with most Greens.
My points have as much relevance as your two do ("technical errors, or voter fraud").
Nonsense! It's called "bias". No matter how correct the numbers in the paper are, they are not ALL the correct numbers.
And before you object, "bias" is not synonymous with "lying". You can be 100% accurate and truthful and still be biased.
Exit polls are composed of a self-selected population, and thus mean nothing. I'll throw out a few points illustrate the problem.
1) People who vote in the morning are a different demographic than those who vote in the afternoon or evening. It is normal for the percentages to change significantly over the course of a day.
2) The employed are a different demographic than the unemployed and retired. These are also the people most likely to deselect themselves from an exit poll because they have to get to work. Since voting follows the pocketbook, the employed who aren't polled are the most likely to have voted for the incumbant.
3) People will answer incorrectly in a poll due to intimidation. Yes, intimidation. If you're in a heavily Democrat district you're less likely to publicly admit you voted Republican.
4) If you're "on a mission" you're more likely to select yourself for the poll. You've just spent the last year on mission to elect/de-elect someone, you're still going to be gungho after voting.
5) Most exit polls have built in assumptions that are frankly wrong. Their purpose is to generate news stories, not to be scientifically accurate. For example, "let's heavily poll Miami/Dade and then extrapolate for the rest of the state."
What it IS, is that companies want to fill CURRENT US Jobs (Hear: YOUR job) with an H1 worker who will work for less pay...
Well of course! You get paid $120,000 to sit around reading Slashdot and swapping out a backup tape once in a while even though your only tech qualification is dropping out of freshman Java programming to join a startup. Of course I'm going to try to find someone cheaper than you!
I think most people bitching about the tech job market are just pissed that they're not being treated like royalty anymore. They're pissed that their company stopped paying for their maid service. They're pissed that they no longer get three month paid vacation. They're pissed that the company foot masseur was laid off.
In reality, tech workers are doing pretty good. No, it's not a perfect world, so expect to hear the anecdotes about some techie who starved to death waiting in line at the unemployment office barefoot in the snow. But you guys need to stop acting like this is 1929 all over again.
the most expensive support plan from SUN is less then the least expensive support plan from RedHat.
Big Fat Hairy Deal. Sun has more support contracts than Redhat. Sun also has legendary service. Sun's only problem is that they keep changing their long term goals every three months.
As an embedded real time operating system, that's no big deal. How many embedded devices do you know that have two harddrives, let alone the need to boot from the second?