I actually think it's one of the more inefficient consequences of a free market- where money and brains are very rarely matched together enough to bring products to market fast enough.
Do you really think government control can match money and brains any better? We can barely get politicians smart enough to wipe their own asses, but you want to turn over the economy to them? Hah! The free market may not be an inefficient allocator of goods, but it runs rings around any other system that's been tried.
So eventually hardware will become so powerful, that it's shear complexity will cause complete abandonment of testing? We'll have electrocuted customers, with manufacturers claiming it's not their fault...
There is GPL code in OpenBSD. One example is GCC. But that does not cover the whole of OpenBSD. The license violation would affect the driver, nothing else.
license-violation@gnu.org sounds like their legal enforcement arm to me. Add to that the various stories about GPL license enforcement on Slashdot, and that CC line starts looking like a very big club to be speaking softly with.
But YOU are the one who made this mistake public, who CCd two mailing lists, and the GNU license violation squad... and then laughed about it on IRC! You knew Theo is a loose cannon, yet you made sure he would react publicly.
As I've said elsewhere, if your neighbor's dog shit on your petunias, your reaction would be to write a nice polite note, and then send copies of it to several newspapers and a major legal firm.
BSD is the thief and the thief does NOT get to complain about how the victim responds.
Except BSD is not the thief. At least not according to RMS, who says you should not use the word "theft". Funny how you RMS worshippers have never read RMS.
In any case, shooting someone for accidentally straying onto your front lawn is not an appropriate response to trespass, even if you do put up a big giant GPL No Trespass sign.
Buesch posted a formal but not in any way harsh question to the BSD developer on the public bcm43xx list and to the BSD list.
I would call CCing the license enforcement goons at GNU to be definitely harsh. It's like sending a polite note to your neighbor about his untrimmed hedges, and CCing your lawyer. He spoke softly, but the club in his hand was fucking huge.
If my dog craps on your lawn, and you post a demand that I clean it up in the town newspaper, then you're being an asshole. That's not how civilized people behave. But you GPL folks are too high and mighty to be civilized. You would rather call the lawyers and news hounds rather than display some etiquette.
Buesch may have had the legal right to make a public spectacle of Marcus, but that make him no less an asshole.
It causes a phenomenon that the BSD folks really hate, though, which is that the GPL applies to the entire product.
No it doesn't! You of all people should know better, The GPL does not cover third party code. Marcus' mistake may apply to Marcus' code, but it does not apply to OpenBSD as a whole.
Well what you do expect? He wakes up in the morning only to find umpteen gazillion emails in his inbox calling him the second coming of Hitler. As Theo said, this issue could have been quietly resolved by asking nicely, without first making it into a major issue. The GNU license enforcement police was on the CC list, for crying out loud!
Your rights online? The only "right" I see here is the "right" to be a whiny bitch that wants to get out of the contract easy. I can see it now, thousands of surfers marching on Washington demanding their rights to "No Fault Divorce from ISPs". Big cluestick time: You signed a contract, If you didn't want to pay these fees for early termination, you shouldn't have signed that contract. Most ISPs will gladly let you sign up month-by-month if you either pay additional setup fees or pay a higher monthly charge.
I don't know what kind of libertarians you are talking about, but as a libertarian for over twenty five years, I've never met one. Like Democrats, Republicans and Greens, no two libertarians are alike. Objectivists are actually a tiny subgroup. It's as silly to characterize all libertarians as raving randroids as it is to characterize all Democrats as wild eyes socialists. To lump us all into one strawman mold is ridiculous.
To the point, we don't slavishly mold our beliefs to articles in Reason. Some of us "believe" in global warming, some of us don't, and some of us are in the middle trying to separate the media hype from the actual data. Where most libertarians do agree, however, is that massively intrusive government solutions to combat "global warming" are the wrong approach.
I think that General Configuration is easier on Windows from a GUI POV.
In what way? I would put them both on the same level. I'm including OSX in here as well. Some have more options, knobs and sliders, and some of less. But the ease of use stays roughly the same. In terms of hardware specificity, Windows has the edge, but in terms of *general* configuration, there's not much difference. The simplicity of GNOME and OSX are offset by the frustration of missing functionality, which evens out to the slightly more complex Windows and KDE configurations that offer more control.
p.s. I'm being overly fair, of course. Objectively, the Windows control panel has severe usability problems. It's only user familiarity that causes people to assume that it's easy.
As for desktop apps, they are, still, faster and more reliable than their web counterparts... OTOH, web app interface development seems to be a lot easier and shorter than QT, GTK, etc...
It's called making a better deal than your competition. If you think that's immoral, then by all means, don't do it. But you may find yourself a bit broke.
If you want to talk about morality, let's talk about the 51% of New Mexicans who voted to tax the other 49% to pay for their space dreams. They didn't want the spaceport bad enough to invest in it out of their own pocket, so they're forcing everyone else to do it instead. That isn't competition, that's petty tyranny.
Yes! We certainly have more free time than the common man in agrarian societies. Working sunup to sundown is a thing of the past, for the most part. Some of us take two jobs to make ends meet, but on average we have far more free time than our agrarian ancestors.
Hunter gatherer societies are different, as you pointed out. But their free time came at a tremendous cost.
Is the quality of our lives any better?
It depends on what you mean by quality. We're healthy, live longer, have better diets, have greater lifestyle options, etc.
Do we have meaningful connections with the world around us?
That's a very fuzzy question, and I'm not sure what you mean. But I do routinely hold conversations with people thousands of miles away, so I would say yes. We are more connected with people around the world than ever before in history. As for the earth itself, industrialization has actually met so many of our needs, that we are looking outside of ourselves to the needs of world at large. Environmentalism as we know it did not exist before the 18th century.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am NOT arguing that the world is perfect! I am NOT arguing that we have no problems. What I am saying is that we have better lives today than our ancestors did three centuries ago, and that is due in large part to industrialization.
the elimination of destitution, poverty and slavery? you obviously never tried to support yourself at or anywhere near the minimum wage.
I didn't say the elimination of poverty, I said the elimination of extreme poverty. But you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with history. People used to literally starve to death. Not just get the munchies, but actually starve to death. That doesn't happen anymore in modern industrialized nations.
Would you rather be poor in 2007, or poor in 1707? I damned well know which one I would choose, and it's not the nostalgia trip!
p.s. But I should clarify more. I meant more than just "industrialization". I really meant "industrialization plus free society". Industrialization gives us the potential to rid ourselves of poverty, but only a free society is able to realize it. The Soviet Union was industrialized, but Stalin still managed to starve several million people to death.
I don't think you know what "industrialization" really means. It is industrialization that gives us iPods, CDs, stereos, and radios. It is industrialization that gives us microphones, synthesizers, keyboards and speakers. It is industrialization that creates the trucks that deliver stage equipment to the live concert in the park.
The *expression* of music shouldn't be industrialized, but its production, storage, distribution and playback SHOULD be!
It has made the richest 1% of the people richer, the middle classes havent changed much and those with lower incomes are generally poorer nowadays.
Don't be so ignorant. The middle class has changed so much it's almost not the same class. And true poverty, as our ancestors knew it, is all but gone in industrialized nations. The poor of today are so much better off than their ancestors of the 18th century that only an idiot would claim they're materially worse off. The poor of today have a problem with obesity, for God's sake! The problems facing the poor today isn't the lack of food, but the lack of education to know that junk food is junk!
And invading countries over oil/WMDs is nice and clean nowadays. I guess it is for that top 1%.
Actually, it is nice and clean nowadays! I would much rather be a soldier in today's US Army than under any 18th century army. Go study your military history and the life of the soldier. You may disagree with the justification for this war, but to claim it isn't "clean" in comparison to earlier wars is naive.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually think it's one of the more inefficient consequences of a free market- where money and brains are very rarely matched together enough to bring products to market fast enough.
Do you really think government control can match money and brains any better? We can barely get politicians smart enough to wipe their own asses, but you want to turn over the economy to them? Hah! The free market may not be an inefficient allocator of goods, but it runs rings around any other system that's been tried.
So eventually hardware will become so powerful, that it's shear complexity will cause complete abandonment of testing? We'll have electrocuted customers, with manufacturers claiming it's not their fault...
There is GPL code in OpenBSD. One example is GCC. But that does not cover the whole of OpenBSD. The license violation would affect the driver, nothing else.
license-violation@gnu.org sounds like their legal enforcement arm to me. Add to that the various stories about GPL license enforcement on Slashdot, and that CC line starts looking like a very big club to be speaking softly with.
But YOU are the one who made this mistake public, who CCd two mailing lists, and the GNU license violation squad... and then laughed about it on IRC! You knew Theo is a loose cannon, yet you made sure he would react publicly.
As I've said elsewhere, if your neighbor's dog shit on your petunias, your reaction would be to write a nice polite note, and then send copies of it to several newspapers and a major legal firm.
The world needs to know that we care about copyrights, and that we will defend them.
RMS: "Software should not be owned"
bonefry: "The world needs to know that we will defend our property!"
BSD is the thief and the thief does NOT get to complain about how the victim responds.
Except BSD is not the thief. At least not according to RMS, who says you should not use the word "theft". Funny how you RMS worshippers have never read RMS.
In any case, shooting someone for accidentally straying onto your front lawn is not an appropriate response to trespass, even if you do put up a big giant GPL No Trespass sign.
Buesch posted a formal but not in any way harsh question to the BSD developer on the public bcm43xx list and to the BSD list.
I would call CCing the license enforcement goons at GNU to be definitely harsh. It's like sending a polite note to your neighbor about his untrimmed hedges, and CCing your lawyer. He spoke softly, but the club in his hand was fucking huge.
Do you disagree?
Both I and the US Copyright Code disagree with you.
If my dog craps on your lawn, and you post a demand that I clean it up in the town newspaper, then you're being an asshole. That's not how civilized people behave. But you GPL folks are too high and mighty to be civilized. You would rather call the lawyers and news hounds rather than display some etiquette.
Buesch may have had the legal right to make a public spectacle of Marcus, but that make him no less an asshole.
It causes a phenomenon that the BSD folks really hate, though, which is that the GPL applies to the entire product.
No it doesn't! You of all people should know better, The GPL does not cover third party code. Marcus' mistake may apply to Marcus' code, but it does not apply to OpenBSD as a whole.
The BSD developer walked off in a huff.
Well what you do expect? He wakes up in the morning only to find umpteen gazillion emails in his inbox calling him the second coming of Hitler. As Theo said, this issue could have been quietly resolved by asking nicely, without first making it into a major issue. The GNU license enforcement police was on the CC list, for crying out loud!
"If they know that they could fix the problems later on, they could beat the competition to market."
Oh great, now we'll have hardware as crappy as software. I guess we'll have to get used to the new QA mantra: "If it solders, ship it!" Sigh.
Your rights online? The only "right" I see here is the "right" to be a whiny bitch that wants to get out of the contract easy. I can see it now, thousands of surfers marching on Washington demanding their rights to "No Fault Divorce from ISPs". Big cluestick time: You signed a contract, If you didn't want to pay these fees for early termination, you shouldn't have signed that contract. Most ISPs will gladly let you sign up month-by-month if you either pay additional setup fees or pay a higher monthly charge.
Why Desktop Email Still Trumps Webmail
Because webmail interfaces suck ass? Just guessing...
I don't know what kind of libertarians you are talking about, but as a libertarian for over twenty five years, I've never met one. Like Democrats, Republicans and Greens, no two libertarians are alike. Objectivists are actually a tiny subgroup. It's as silly to characterize all libertarians as raving randroids as it is to characterize all Democrats as wild eyes socialists. To lump us all into one strawman mold is ridiculous.
To the point, we don't slavishly mold our beliefs to articles in Reason. Some of us "believe" in global warming, some of us don't, and some of us are in the middle trying to separate the media hype from the actual data. Where most libertarians do agree, however, is that massively intrusive government solutions to combat "global warming" are the wrong approach.
I think that General Configuration is easier on Windows from a GUI POV.
In what way? I would put them both on the same level. I'm including OSX in here as well. Some have more options, knobs and sliders, and some of less. But the ease of use stays roughly the same. In terms of hardware specificity, Windows has the edge, but in terms of *general* configuration, there's not much difference. The simplicity of GNOME and OSX are offset by the frustration of missing functionality, which evens out to the slightly more complex Windows and KDE configurations that offer more control.
p.s. I'm being overly fair, of course. Objectively, the Windows control panel has severe usability problems. It's only user familiarity that causes people to assume that it's easy.
For that matter, why would they be on Slashdot?
I'm not...
As for desktop apps, they are, still, faster and more reliable than their web counterparts... OTOH, web app interface development seems to be a lot easier and shorter than QT, GTK, etc...
That's no accident.
It's called making a better deal than your competition. If you think that's immoral, then by all means, don't do it. But you may find yourself a bit broke.
If you want to talk about morality, let's talk about the 51% of New Mexicans who voted to tax the other 49% to pay for their space dreams. They didn't want the spaceport bad enough to invest in it out of their own pocket, so they're forcing everyone else to do it instead. That isn't competition, that's petty tyranny.
But are we any happier?
Paradoxically, no. See The Progress Paradox.
Do we have more free time?
Yes! We certainly have more free time than the common man in agrarian societies. Working sunup to sundown is a thing of the past, for the most part. Some of us take two jobs to make ends meet, but on average we have far more free time than our agrarian ancestors.
Hunter gatherer societies are different, as you pointed out. But their free time came at a tremendous cost.
Is the quality of our lives any better?
It depends on what you mean by quality. We're healthy, live longer, have better diets, have greater lifestyle options, etc.
Do we have meaningful connections with the world around us?
That's a very fuzzy question, and I'm not sure what you mean. But I do routinely hold conversations with people thousands of miles away, so I would say yes. We are more connected with people around the world than ever before in history. As for the earth itself, industrialization has actually met so many of our needs, that we are looking outside of ourselves to the needs of world at large. Environmentalism as we know it did not exist before the 18th century.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am NOT arguing that the world is perfect! I am NOT arguing that we have no problems. What I am saying is that we have better lives today than our ancestors did three centuries ago, and that is due in large part to industrialization.
the elimination of destitution, poverty and slavery? you obviously never tried to support yourself at or anywhere near the minimum wage.
I didn't say the elimination of poverty, I said the elimination of extreme poverty. But you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with history. People used to literally starve to death. Not just get the munchies, but actually starve to death. That doesn't happen anymore in modern industrialized nations.
Would you rather be poor in 2007, or poor in 1707? I damned well know which one I would choose, and it's not the nostalgia trip!
p.s. But I should clarify more. I meant more than just "industrialization". I really meant "industrialization plus free society". Industrialization gives us the potential to rid ourselves of poverty, but only a free society is able to realize it. The Soviet Union was industrialized, but Stalin still managed to starve several million people to death.
"Hey, we'd chip in if you built it here".
So it's bribery, in other words.
I don't think you know what "industrialization" really means. It is industrialization that gives us iPods, CDs, stereos, and radios. It is industrialization that gives us microphones, synthesizers, keyboards and speakers. It is industrialization that creates the trucks that deliver stage equipment to the live concert in the park.
The *expression* of music shouldn't be industrialized, but its production, storage, distribution and playback SHOULD be!
It has made the richest 1% of the people richer, the middle classes havent changed much and those with lower incomes are generally poorer nowadays.
Don't be so ignorant. The middle class has changed so much it's almost not the same class. And true poverty, as our ancestors knew it, is all but gone in industrialized nations. The poor of today are so much better off than their ancestors of the 18th century that only an idiot would claim they're materially worse off. The poor of today have a problem with obesity, for God's sake! The problems facing the poor today isn't the lack of food, but the lack of education to know that junk food is junk!
And invading countries over oil/WMDs is nice and clean nowadays. I guess it is for that top 1%.
Actually, it is nice and clean nowadays! I would much rather be a soldier in today's US Army than under any 18th century army. Go study your military history and the life of the soldier. You may disagree with the justification for this war, but to claim it isn't "clean" in comparison to earlier wars is naive.