When you say "According to RMS" it could be interpreted as if he was pushing some narrow view in others, one really has to explain the argument.
At first it would seem like using non-free software is an entirely free choice and thus harmless or even benign.
Inhaling crack the first time is also a free choice so it shouldn't be illegal does it? Closed source software is like crack, it creates a dependency which gives you power over other people, that's why it is unethical (note I said unethical, not illegal).
Wait so Apple took SproutIt and "created" SproutCore? That's almost as bad as Microsoft's Office Open documents, SQL Server an other self aggrandizing names...
I have only know 5 programmer women and I have only seen 2 of them coding, they are sloppy copy pasters that hardly ever write any code of their own and never comment anything.
People thought I was a cryptic programmer back in my previous job, for instance they considered: is_overdue = movie.last_checkout() > OVERDUE_TIME extra_points = Not is_overdue
as hackish, instead preferring the more "readable" form:
If movie.last_checkout() > OVERDUE_TIME Then
is_overdue = True
extra_points = False Else
is_overdue = False
extra_points = True End If
The former looks more obfuscated to me. I blame Visual Basic and brain rotage. Anyway because of that I began commenting lines as simple as.
Use[1] of GPLv* code does not pose ANY form of risk besides probably a software malfunction that is probable in proprietary code as well.
The GPLv* implicates a PRICE. If you use[1] a GPLv* licenced work (a.k.a. taking other people's work) you don't risk giving retribution you owe giving it.
1) Use in this context can mean either copy pasting code, linking libraries or even re-branding their entire application. Not simply using the software, a distinction that is intentionally not made.
You are seriously confusing the oppressive nature of deadlines with the more laid back nature of open source periodic releases.
If you fail to meet a deadline you get fired, your product gets trashed, your company gets sued etcetera.
In the case of a distribution like Ubuntu, the only thing that happens if you miss the freeze date is that your application ships with the same features than last Ubuntu version, hardly a punishment at all.
The question here is what do you want them to do, because they aren't going to do anything to you at all. So you want them to package a more recent version of your software? They will do it, with one condition, they need a stable version before the freeze date. I'd like to finish there with "and that's it" but I've something left to say.
There are essentially two ways to add features to an application, You can either throw a bunch of stubs and let them grow into maturity over a long time or you can concentrate on one individual feature before moving to the next. Both work, the difference is that with the later method, you always have something exiting to release, with the former method your software is for all practical purposes unmaintained for a long period of time, because you never release a stable version. And of course then you release and take the world by surprise but meanwhile you'll have lost some of your user base to some other project.
In conclusion, if you can't possibly make a decent release on time then by all means ignore the freeze date. All I'm saying is that if you think you can release something decent, get it ready before the feature freeze and it will appear in the last Ubuntu release, for free.
But complaining about complaining is even lamer, let Willy report us on twitter and move along.
On Twitter, I know he is supposed to be a sockpuppeteering troll, but his comment here I agree with. If the only thing the OLPC project manages to do is spawn a generation of MCP then the it will have failed.
When I say a well rounded education that goes beyond hard sciences I mean something like that.
Probably my focus is on education because that's my hammer looking at the problem as a nail. I'm an autodidact, I was the only constant kid at the library, thanks to the internet, I taught myself English, programming, I even taught myself out of my religion. The experiences I got from interacting with theists, atheists, junkies, homosexuals, lawyers, faith healers and healed, preachers, isolationists, pluralists, Americans, Britons, Spaniards, French, Germans, Romanians, Brazilians, Argentineans, etc... have taught me that there are good and bad people everywhere, greedy people, stupid people (and not too stupid people with really stupid ideas).
I'm sure you can tell a similar story. My point being, I not more intelligent than the average person, the difference in me was a willingness to learn, but if this kind of experience were to be propagated at a young age, it has to make an impression.
In my experience schools simply not deal with politics, the history of abuse of power, most people are not even aware of how well documented our past is. The Socratic method of teaching is lost, etc.
Does cosmopolitanism cannot be taught? The Japanese seems to deal better with the new and the unknown, and while deeply xenophobic, it has more to do with Japan's low immigration rate and overpopulation. Its not that bad an example.
You speak of "re-engineering" people. I'm just aiming for a less invasive version of the same. Maybe I'm still too young. Don't worry, in the future, I'm planning to rejoin the public education system, then I guess, I'll be banging my head at the desk so hard, that furniture makers are going to use me for QA testing.
But aren't the social structures for educated people to find rewarding and secure employment already in place? Yet the security theater demonstrates that a smoke screen can be deployed before the eyes of the population without much resistance.
The rest is not taking care of itself very well.
We, slashdot, know that the TSA/Customs are exceeding their jurisdiction playing moral police, we know that laptop searches are ineffective in stopping terrorist plots, we know the huge window for abuse, scape-goating and plain old fascism this opens, but the population at large can only guess there is a reason for practice, they lack solid arguments against it, and when they hear a foreign complain about it they actually turn defensive of their government!
Given that American schools are still debating -actually- have begun debating whether ID most be tough as an equally valid theory as modern evolutionary theory, it seems obvious to me that good education is the thing we are missing here. I'm not talking about math and physics, many religious fundamentalist actually have good a grasp of hard sciences.
I'm talking about a well rounded education that washes off a provincialism that is very obvious when compared to (a sample of) the European population for example.
If the societal structures you are talking about are in fact, not in place, in capitalism capital America, and you pointed Russia (equating it with Marxism in the process) as an example of another failed societal structure, are you arguing for a limited socialist administration of the kind of Norway perhaps?
I also want to point out that "The rest will take care of itself" is not a very meaningful phrase when talking about the state of society, since society will always take care of itself for there isn't anything else to help society except that which society itself produces.
Just for the record, your point is that an uneducated, religious society is better or at least as much equipped to deal with globalization, science and post-modernism, than an educated one, right?
Your evolution-dictated, hormone-driven brain seems to cope with the mish-mash of religious dogmas, base animal instincts, and the results of industrial and scientific progress very well so it is a matter of fact that evolution-dictated, hormone-driven brains can cope with the mish-mash of religious dogmas, base animal instincts, and the results of industrial and scientific progress.
The matter here is repeating this process on other human beings. It could be that only some brains are capable of, well I don't feel like copy pasting that again...
But it could also be a matter of education.
In any case better, dogma-free education is bound to help.
Ok i got you wrong, but, well the insurance company can use his private data to say he was planing to get AIDS. I mean, they are lawyers and bankers, they've got to at lest try...
Du'h, the phrase "Man gets AIDS 10 years later" means he got AIDS after 10 years of not having AIDS, not that he got AIDS and 10 years later he was looking for treatment.
And buying stuff with cash is treating the symptoms (of tracing, not AIDS) not the disease.
Your response is similar to the post below but much, much more sane.
The there is a little blame for the driver for working at Google but I realize he must get a living somehow. The there is a little blame for the map maker but I understand anyone can commit mistakes. There is a lot to blame Google for starting a project so obviously prone to abuse with little added value (because if I wanted my home address indexed along photos of my house I could use my blog) but I can see lotsa people wanting Google to exhibit they home.
I blame the asshole who decided to make it an opt-out. Like the Safari "upgrade" to iTunes, or every other stupid opt-out, this is yet another instance of "let's sell them something they don't want, for our own monetary gain, hopping they are too shy, ignorant, lazy or distracted to do something about it".
*sigh* The old, boring trick of appealing to current legislation. Laws are changed when they don't protect the rights of the public don't you know? Its like SPAM, there wasn't a law saying that I can't send hundreds of unsolicited email to your inbox. The law got changed because that's annoying, more exactly, because it's detrimental to the public good.
I have already stated that there are a lot of good reasons to allow the public to "capture the sunlight bouncing off your house" from journalism to mere accidental capture. This, is different.
I guess it's useless arguing with you, when the Google telescreens enable GoogleStreetViewOnLive I know you will be there cheering for them and defending them.
The world is getting uglier and uglier for the non-exhibitionist.
You are defending an opt-out for $deity's sake. This is many, many times more intrusive than facebook telling your contacts you suck at scrabble or a telemarketer asking if you would like a new credit card. Why are you doing it? Because its Google? Do you pretend for every American to google they address daily until they are photographed so they can request to be removed?
Publishing photos of your home in the internet must be an opt-in feature.
Suing is doing something, but I rather initiate a class action suit against Google for abusing fair use. This isn't an art student capturing typical American architecture. This isn't a parent taking photos during vacation, this is a queryable database of every single body's home, social status, cultural background, family size, brand awareness and all other information that can be gathered from looking at your house.
Private detectives for comparison, have to get a license in order to stalk people around. Google is making getting into other people's life increasingly easier. And don't think for a second that advertising, banking and insurance companies are going to let this data mining venue intact out of respect for our privacy.
The level of Google fanaticism on this discussion makes me coin a word I though I'd never use... googletards.
Does it mean I can follow you everywhere you go, tape everything you do, broadcast it publicly 24/7 and tie it with ample metadata so every one and their cat can search for your "public" data?
Wow who needs Big Brother when you've got Google! Funny that you let a company do what most people wouldn't like the government doing.
About this, this "expect no privacy" seems reasonable with new technologies where security by technical means is possible and encouraged. Yes you should encrypt your traffic. Yes you should secure your wireless network. But when it comes to things like street view, technical means can't protect you. You can't, for instance wrap your home with a shaded dome, because since you are the only one doing it you will become even more visible. So we have been relying on leaf-in-a-forest-type security for centuries for this.
A query-able permanent archive of our streets changes everything.
More specifically, few engineers are likely to buy that they are going to get 50 virgins after death if they fight in the name of $god.
Also, engineers are likely to prefer technical approaches to problem solving whereas terrorism is strictly a political move.
And finally is the fact that while engineers are capable of making better plans they are also more capable of foreseeing possible ways to be caught or stopped. Engineers are deterred by their awareness other engineers.
Quite a bit of advertising is for things that people need, but not right now. When the time comes that one does need a new car/mortgage/personal injury attorney/etc., the knowledge of where to get one is saturated in prior experiences. When we do go to Google or the Yellow Pages, we're drawn to the already familiar items and tune out those that are unfamiliar.
Which is still wrong because you are making your decisions based on the effectiveness of the advertisement rather than the actual merits of the product. Advertisers exploit holes in human physique like the "Exposure effect" to profit. Of course, products should have advertisements ready for whenever we browse for them but as informative tools they are hopelessly vain and misguiding. Really, the only positive effect of advertisement is that it provides for a lot of free products.
Well at least the right edge is reserved for the scrollbar so it is out of the question. The only other edge left is the left one but really, two tool bars are enough.
As far as I'm concerned, KDE also uses two tool bars by default, is just that they are both placed at the bottom, merged. Haven't you noticed that the default kicker panel has two rows of window buttons, tray icons and virtual desktops? The app launcher icons are twice as big (that's pretty) and the clock applet is also very big (and ugly IMHO).
But you are right that they did copy something from apple and that is the top panel menus, the idea being that it is easier to use three menus than one big menu with a lot of sub-nesting.
Personally I think that the Applications menu should go at the left of the system menu. I wish I could configure that.
Consider 'Consider Phlebas'
on
Matter
·
· Score: 1
'Consider Phlebas' is the postmodern pirate tale complete with the Spanish Inquisition and a lost Paradise island filled with Cannibals.
It was also the book that though me that there are things that are impossible to translate to translate into a movie and not because of budget/length/audience constraints but because it's simply impossible to capture in film. Although it could be done if you make a *very, very intensive* use of voice over narration, but its awkward to do it compared to a book where it is expected.
I have a better idea to track specious people. Let's put CC cameras every-fucking-where, period. In every room of every house including the closets, and the bathrooms, on for the tube, one for the toilet, and one behind the mirror.
Go ahead, rise your police state, you know you want it.
You see, once you accept the idea that "if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" is that it makes compromises unjustifiable. You simply cannot be too intrusive because there's nothing wrong with public surveillance.
Any sort of balance must start from the assumption that privacy intrusion is wrong. That it hinders progress by fiercely protecting the status quo, that the establishment abuses its power, that privacy is a natural human right that etc, etc...
Supposedly our culture already works like that, politician presumptively care about our privacy, all this surveillance is presented as a compromise, a shamelessly increasing compromise, but the moment you start tracking innocent people you have already crossed the "if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide"-line. And its all down from there.
Slashdot Mirror
When you say "According to RMS" it could be interpreted as if he was pushing some narrow view in others, one really has to explain the argument.
At first it would seem like using non-free software is an entirely free choice and thus harmless or even benign.
Inhaling crack the first time is also a free choice so it shouldn't be illegal does it? Closed source software is like crack, it creates a dependency which gives you power over other people, that's why it is unethical (note I said unethical, not illegal).
So they waited until 7 to get the version number right? Just like Final Fantasy!!
Wait so Apple took SproutIt and "created" SproutCore? That's almost as bad as Microsoft's Office Open documents, SQL Server an other self aggrandizing names...
I have only know 5 programmer women and I have only seen 2 of them coding, they are sloppy copy pasters that hardly ever write any code of their own and never comment anything.
People thought I was a cryptic programmer back in my previous job, for instance they considered:
is_overdue = movie.last_checkout() > OVERDUE_TIME
extra_points = Not is_overdue
as hackish, instead preferring the more "readable" form:
If movie.last_checkout() > OVERDUE_TIME Then
is_overdue = True
extra_points = False
Else
is_overdue = False
extra_points = True
End If
The former looks more obfuscated to me. I blame Visual Basic and brain rotage. Anyway because of that I began commenting lines as simple as.
button.enabled = !button.enabled ' toggle button visibility.
My point is, inane comments are often necessary when you are surrounded by MSCP.
How can I have your cake and eat it too?
What's a TFS?
Use[1] of GPLv* code does not pose ANY form of risk besides probably a software malfunction that is probable in proprietary code as well.
The GPLv* implicates a PRICE. If you use[1] a GPLv* licenced work (a.k.a. taking other people's work) you don't risk giving retribution you owe giving it.
1) Use in this context can mean either copy pasting code, linking libraries or even re-branding their entire application. Not simply using the software, a distinction that is intentionally not made.
You are seriously confusing the oppressive nature of deadlines with the more laid back nature of open source periodic releases.
If you fail to meet a deadline you get fired, your product gets trashed, your company gets sued etcetera.
In the case of a distribution like Ubuntu, the only thing that happens if you miss the freeze date is that your application ships with the same features than last Ubuntu version, hardly a punishment at all.
The question here is what do you want them to do, because they aren't going to do anything to you at all. So you want them to package a more recent version of your software? They will do it, with one condition, they need a stable version before the freeze date. I'd like to finish there with "and that's it" but I've something left to say.
There are essentially two ways to add features to an application, You can either throw a bunch of stubs and let them grow into maturity over a long time or you can concentrate on one individual feature before moving to the next. Both work, the difference is that with the later method, you always have something exiting to release, with the former method your software is for all practical purposes unmaintained for a long period of time, because you never release a stable version. And of course then you release and take the world by surprise but meanwhile you'll have lost some of your user base to some other project.
In conclusion, if you can't possibly make a decent release on time then by all means ignore the freeze date. All I'm saying is that if you think you can release something decent, get it ready before the feature freeze and it will appear in the last Ubuntu release, for free.
But complaining about complaining is even lamer, let Willy report us on twitter and move along.
On Twitter, I know he is supposed to be a sockpuppeteering troll, but his comment here I agree with. If the only thing the OLPC project manages to do is spawn a generation of MCP then the it will have failed.
When I say a well rounded education that goes beyond hard sciences I mean something like that.
Probably my focus is on education because that's my hammer looking at the problem as a nail. I'm an autodidact, I was the only constant kid at the library, thanks to the internet, I taught myself English, programming, I even taught myself out of my religion. The experiences I got from interacting with theists, atheists, junkies, homosexuals, lawyers, faith healers and healed, preachers, isolationists, pluralists, Americans, Britons, Spaniards, French, Germans, Romanians, Brazilians, Argentineans, etc... have taught me that there are good and bad people everywhere, greedy people, stupid people (and not too stupid people with really stupid ideas).
I'm sure you can tell a similar story. My point being, I not more intelligent than the average person, the difference in me was a willingness to learn, but if this kind of experience were to be propagated at a young age, it has to make an impression.
In my experience schools simply not deal with politics, the history of abuse of power, most people are not even aware of how well documented our past is. The Socratic method of teaching is lost, etc.
Does cosmopolitanism cannot be taught? The Japanese seems to deal better with the new and the unknown, and while deeply xenophobic, it has more to do with Japan's low immigration rate and overpopulation. Its not that bad an example.
You speak of "re-engineering" people. I'm just aiming for a less invasive version of the same. Maybe I'm still too young. Don't worry, in the future, I'm planning to rejoin the public education system, then I guess, I'll be banging my head at the desk so hard, that furniture makers are going to use me for QA testing.
But aren't the social structures for educated people to find rewarding and secure employment already in place? Yet the security theater demonstrates that a smoke screen can be deployed before the eyes of the population without much resistance.
The rest is not taking care of itself very well.
We, slashdot, know that the TSA/Customs are exceeding their jurisdiction playing moral police, we know that laptop searches are ineffective in stopping terrorist plots, we know the huge window for abuse, scape-goating and plain old fascism this opens, but the population at large can only guess there is a reason for practice, they lack solid arguments against it, and when they hear a foreign complain about it they actually turn defensive of their government!
Given that American schools are still debating -actually- have begun debating whether ID most be tough as an equally valid theory as modern evolutionary theory, it seems obvious to me that good education is the thing we are missing here. I'm not talking about math and physics, many religious fundamentalist actually have good a grasp of hard sciences.
I'm talking about a well rounded education that washes off a provincialism that is very obvious when compared to (a sample of) the European population for example.
If the societal structures you are talking about are in fact, not in place, in capitalism capital America, and you pointed Russia (equating it with Marxism in the process) as an example of another failed societal structure, are you arguing for a limited socialist administration of the kind of Norway perhaps?
I also want to point out that "The rest will take care of itself" is not a very meaningful phrase when talking about the state of society, since society will always take care of itself for there isn't anything else to help society except that which society itself produces.
Sorry for calling you a Troll.
Just for the record, your point is that an uneducated, religious society is better or at least as much equipped to deal with globalization, science and post-modernism, than an educated one, right?
Your evolution-dictated, hormone-driven brain seems to cope with the mish-mash of religious dogmas, base animal instincts, and the results of industrial and scientific progress very well so it is a matter of fact that evolution-dictated, hormone-driven brains can cope with the mish-mash of religious dogmas, base animal instincts, and the results of industrial and scientific progress.
The matter here is repeating this process on other human beings. It could be that only some brains are capable of, well I don't feel like copy pasting that again...
But it could also be a matter of education.
In any case better, dogma-free education is bound to help.
Ok i got you wrong, but, well the insurance company can use his private data to say he was planing to get AIDS. I mean, they are lawyers and bankers, they've got to at lest try...
Du'h, the phrase "Man gets AIDS 10 years later" means he got AIDS after 10 years of not having AIDS, not that he got AIDS and 10 years later he was looking for treatment.
And buying stuff with cash is treating the symptoms (of tracing, not AIDS) not the disease.
Seriously, Am I missing a here?
Your response is similar to the post below but much, much more sane.
The there is a little blame for the driver for working at Google but I realize he must get a living somehow. The there is a little blame for the map maker but I understand anyone can commit mistakes. There is a lot to blame Google for starting a project so obviously prone to abuse with little added value (because if I wanted my home address indexed along photos of my house I could use my blog) but I can see lotsa people wanting Google to exhibit they home.
I blame the asshole who decided to make it an opt-out. Like the Safari "upgrade" to iTunes, or every other stupid opt-out, this is yet another instance of "let's sell them something they don't want, for our own monetary gain, hopping they are too shy, ignorant, lazy or distracted to do something about it".
*sigh* The old, boring trick of appealing to current legislation. Laws are changed when they don't protect the rights of the public don't you know? Its like SPAM, there wasn't a law saying that I can't send hundreds of unsolicited email to your inbox. The law got changed because that's annoying, more exactly, because it's detrimental to the public good.
I have already stated that there are a lot of good reasons to allow the public to "capture the sunlight bouncing off your house" from journalism to mere accidental capture. This, is different.
I guess it's useless arguing with you, when the Google telescreens enable GoogleStreetViewOnLive I know you will be there cheering for them and defending them.
The world is getting uglier and uglier for the non-exhibitionist.
You are defending an opt-out for $deity's sake. This is many, many times more intrusive than facebook telling your contacts you suck at scrabble or a telemarketer asking if you would like a new credit card. Why are you doing it? Because its Google? Do you pretend for every American to google they address daily until they are photographed so they can request to be removed?
Publishing photos of your home in the internet must be an opt-in feature.
Suing is doing something, but I rather initiate a class action suit against Google for abusing fair use. This isn't an art student capturing typical American architecture. This isn't a parent taking photos during vacation, this is a queryable database of every single body's home, social status, cultural background, family size, brand awareness and all other information that can be gathered from looking at your house.
Private detectives for comparison, have to get a license in order to stalk people around. Google is making getting into other people's life increasingly easier. And don't think for a second that advertising, banking and insurance companies are going to let this data mining venue intact out of respect for our privacy.
The level of Google fanaticism on this discussion makes me coin a word I though I'd never use... googletards.
Does it mean I can follow you everywhere you go, tape everything you do, broadcast it publicly 24/7 and tie it with ample metadata so every one and their cat can search for your "public" data?
Wow who needs Big Brother when you've got Google! Funny that you let a company do what most people wouldn't like the government doing.
About this, this "expect no privacy" seems reasonable with new technologies where security by technical means is possible and encouraged. Yes you should encrypt your traffic. Yes you should secure your wireless network. But when it comes to things like street view, technical means can't protect you. You can't, for instance wrap your home with a shaded dome, because since you are the only one doing it you will become even more visible. So we have been relying on leaf-in-a-forest-type security for centuries for this.
A query-able permanent archive of our streets changes everything.
More specifically, few engineers are likely to buy that they are going to get 50 virgins after death if they fight in the name of $god.
Also, engineers are likely to prefer technical approaches to problem solving whereas terrorism is strictly a political move.
And finally is the fact that while engineers are capable of making better plans they are also more capable of foreseeing possible ways to be caught or stopped. Engineers are deterred by their awareness other engineers.
Which is still wrong because you are making your decisions based on the effectiveness of the advertisement rather than the actual merits of the product. Advertisers exploit holes in human physique like the "Exposure effect" to profit. Of course, products should have advertisements ready for whenever we browse for them but as informative tools they are hopelessly vain and misguiding. Really, the only positive effect of advertisement is that it provides for a lot of free products.
Uhmm what happens when you bash Apple in pro of the OLPC?
Well at least the right edge is reserved for the scrollbar so it is out of the question. The only other edge left is the left one but really, two tool bars are enough.
As far as I'm concerned, KDE also uses two tool bars by default, is just that they are both placed at the bottom, merged. Haven't you noticed that the default kicker panel has two rows of window buttons, tray icons and virtual desktops? The app launcher icons are twice as big (that's pretty) and the clock applet is also very big (and ugly IMHO).
But you are right that they did copy something from apple and that is the top panel menus, the idea being that it is easier to use three menus than one big menu with a lot of sub-nesting.
Personally I think that the Applications menu should go at the left of the system menu. I wish I could configure that.
'Consider Phlebas' is the postmodern pirate tale complete with the Spanish Inquisition and a lost Paradise island filled with Cannibals.
It was also the book that though me that there are things that are impossible to translate to translate into a movie and not because of budget/length/audience constraints but because it's simply impossible to capture in film. Although it could be done if you make a *very, very intensive* use of voice over narration, but its awkward to do it compared to a book where it is expected.
I have a better idea to track specious people. Let's put CC cameras every-fucking-where, period. In every room of every house including the closets, and the bathrooms, on for the tube, one for the toilet, and one behind the mirror.
Go ahead, rise your police state, you know you want it.
You see, once you accept the idea that "if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" is that it makes compromises unjustifiable. You simply cannot be too intrusive because there's nothing wrong with public surveillance.
Any sort of balance must start from the assumption that privacy intrusion is wrong. That it hinders progress by fiercely protecting the status quo, that the establishment abuses its power, that privacy is a natural human right that etc, etc...
Supposedly our culture already works like that, politician presumptively care about our privacy, all this surveillance is presented as a compromise, a shamelessly increasing compromise, but the moment you start tracking innocent people you have already crossed the "if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide"-line. And its all down from there.