A lot (or in slashdot-speak alot) of people are say (to paraphrase) "yeah, but without email you'd have to try to reach people on the phone or in person."
I don't think that anyone is debating the usefulness of email. OTOH, people do things (that in my opinion they shouldn't do) via email that they would NEVER do in person or via phone.
At my last job I'd say I got 40 messages a day that had NOTHING to do with work.
To: Everyone[company name withheld]
Subjects:
"Chili cookoff on Friday!" (Reminder number 12)
"Used mattress for sale."
"Marking newsletter for [today]" (that only marketing people care about. EVERY F---ING DAY!)
To: EveryoneAustin[company name withheld]
"Someone [at the building across town] left their lights on."
"Cake in the breakroom [at the building across town]"
Now, I LOVE email. But Merciful God STOP THESE PEOPLE.
Of course these people think this stuff is important, and think they are doing every one a favor. What they fail to realize is that they are wasting my valuable (slashdot) time.
First: You state "portions of my work are released into the public domain under GPL." Public domain and GPL are two mutually exclusive things.
Second: Have you considered that you will only be able to reuse the code in future programs if:
1. You have the company sign over copyrights to you or,
2. You get the first company to license the code to the second under some other license or,
3. You get the second company to go along with the GPL thing for that project as well.
I concede that saying nature is doing something willful is a gross over-simplification. However, I stand behind the point if not the phrasing.
As for "saving ourselves" your point is well taken, but I think your position is extreme given the situation.
First, unless I am misinformed, populations in "post-industrial" nations are leveling off, and more of the world is becoming post-industrial as time passes.
Second, most of the planet is still "wild" if not "unspoiled" (which I think is a bullshit phrase, since it seems to mean man, the "unnatural one" is not part of the region) so I don't think that alarmist "paved over and sterile" imagery is in line with what the future likely holds.
we've made unprecedented changes in the ecosystem
So did plants when they first escaped the seas. They filled the skies with a noxious poison call "oxygen." The side effects of this change would have been difficult to predict by an outside observer. To quote George Carlin "Mother Earth wants plastic!"
I think anyone who thinks they know what is best for Earth is a little too full of himself. I think that anyone who thinks that our first priority should be maintaining the environment in it?s current state is too in love with the present to allow the future to happen, and doesn?t respect how robust life on this planet is.
Remember, if the Democrats (or god forbid the Greens) were in charge a few million years ago I would be having a hell of a time typing this to you with my fins!
This is exactly the sort of self-importance I am talking about.
Why should extinction STOP because we suddenly became so fucking smart?
Nature is exitncting some swan, but some "environmentalist" knows BETTER than nature. So he takes it on himself to cause this species to survive. He, in his infinite wisdom, has foreseen that no better species will arise to take its place, and of course the swan is so weak and stupid that it can't possibly ADAPT. So it is up to him to save it. My hero.
Of course, he is jerking off this swan all day, he doesn't have a real job, so he has to spend PUBLIC (i.e. working peoples) funds in order to retard evolution.
Anyway, the point is that PBS has a liberal slant, I don't see anything in your post refuting that.
Forget programming for a second, how about several PBS stations (illegally) sharing their donator lists with the Democratic Party?
As far as programming goes, every show about nature ends with a sermon. Most scientific shows end with a sermon. Like ?Scientific Socialist Frontiers? with comrade Alan Alda. I love the show. Alda makes me want to vomit.
I dig watching shows about the ring-tailed fox-bat or whatever, but I don't want to hear about how I need to do something to save it from extinction.
Look, almost every species ever on this planet was extinct before the industrial revolution. Extinction is part of the process. Man is an ANIMAL when we change the ecosystem other species must adapt or perish. We are PART of nature, not ABOVE it, or somehow its enemy.
We do nature a disservice by feeding starving swans. They just breed, and we feed MORE starving swans.
Fuzed so that they don't go off on bandoliers when shot or when they are bumped hard. The fuze has to be set by them leaving the casing.
In the unlikely event that a bullet hits the primer of the round, the grenade has to travel a certain distance, I'm not sure how far, but at least 10m, before it goes off.
It actually still wouldn't go off. The "fuze" is and inertial screw. If it doesn?t go down a rifled barrel it won't arm.
In fact if you shoot someone point blank it won't go off, because the fuze will not have unscrewed yet.
First, in battle these guys are carrying grenades, ammo (from.223 to mortar rounds to 40mm grenades), (and probably explosives if I am an engineer.) I don't think a 3 pound power unit is going to turn effective soldiers into walking ordnance.
Second, the tank isn't going to have oxygen in it, so why would it explode? It seems like there would be a fireball where the fuel escapes, but that not nearly as big of a problem (like gut wound vs. singed uniform/missing eyebrows.) Not that it is trivial, but there are bigger fish to fry on the battlefield.
Come to think of it; if this thing could power effective friend/foe ID it would be well worth the risk.
So you don't equate slimy, underhanded behaviour with Wrong?
Absolutely not. There is a huge sea of behavior that, in my book, falls into the categories of slimy, unpleasant, crooked, unfair, and nasty which don't make it to capitol Wrong.
I disagree that it is capitol Wrong to do this. It isn't very neighborly, but in the absence of the "owner" licensing otherwise I don't see how you can argue that it is Wrong.
Is the BSD license "Wrong?"
Anyway, I don't think it is at all clear that his software was being sold for a profit anyway.
It seems like it might be Wrong for the author to give his software away, then suddenly say "oh, everyone EXCEPT for Mr. Corporation's customers can use this software for free. Mr. Corporation has to pay me."
I'm not actually saying that this is true, but I think this argument has more legs than saying, in effect, that the BSD license is morally reprehensible.
His license specifically stated what sorts of uses it could be put to, and Ariston's use was a violation of that license.
I don't see anything to support this statement in the article. Maybe I missed it. I didn't see the license in the article. I didn't see anything to indicate that the license restriced distribution, only use. And the only restriction on use was that the user (not the distributor) email him.
Please let me know if I am mistaken on any of these points.
What!? The post you are replying to IS a qestion if the company violated the license.
The software was shareware. It is totally normal for shareware to be distributed this way.
The article makes no point that I can find to the contrary. No doubt that money makes a difference in copyright cases, but I don't see how that is relevent here.
It really seems like this guy either a) didn't understand the implications of how he licensed this thing or b) thought it was all cool until he decided the rules should suddenly be different for someone with the means to pay.
Don't get me wrong. I am totally on the side of the little guy. And I'm not saying the little guy didn't get the shaft here. But, I see nothing to make me believe that he did.
Okay, he did not give any details on his license, but he calls it "email me ware." So if that companies customers actually use the software and fail to email him they would be in violation.
I though this sort of distribution was the whole point of shareware.
I am all for the little guy, but it seems like this guy wants to change the rules in the middle of the game to make a buck.
Actually, it looks fine in IE, which I would guess you are using.
Mozilla does not wrap within tables (To be totally honest, I don't know which is "correct.") which means that I had to scroll the page for EVERY LINE I READ! What is the "fatigue factor" of scrolling left to right and back again for EVERY FUCKING LINE?
So, I'm not an idiot, I just don't use IE. (Which, in my opinion is a small amount of evidence that I am not an idiot. Especially in light of a recent slashdot story . ..) On the other hand it may have been a little bit of a troll . . .
What really blows my mind is that a genius "human factors engineer" can't secure a slashdot login for himself.
Because the odds of each case occouring are not evenly distributed. Your logic would hold if the story was changed so that you sumble into the room of a child of one sex, and find a schedule for a child of the other. But it doesn't. The room was a girl's, so it is more likely that there are two girls. (by the authors logic)
Namely my NICs MAC address. Unique hardware IDs are ultamately necessary for networking. The question is will all of their uses be fully disclosed and optional.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot (or in slashdot-speak alot) of people are say (to paraphrase) "yeah, but without email you'd have to try to reach people on the phone or in person."
I don't think that anyone is debating the usefulness of email. OTOH, people do things (that in my opinion they shouldn't do) via email that they would NEVER do in person or via phone.
At my last job I'd say I got 40 messages a day that had NOTHING to do with work.
To: Everyone[company name withheld]
Subjects:
"Chili cookoff on Friday!" (Reminder number 12)
"Used mattress for sale."
"Marking newsletter for [today]" (that only marketing people care about. EVERY F---ING DAY!)
To: EveryoneAustin[company name withheld]
"Someone [at the building across town] left their lights on."
"Cake in the breakroom [at the building across town]"
Now, I LOVE email. But Merciful God STOP THESE PEOPLE.
Of course these people think this stuff is important, and think they are doing every one a favor. What they fail to realize is that they are wasting my valuable (slashdot) time.
Anyway, that's my rant.
-Peter
First: You state "portions of my work are released into the public domain under GPL." Public domain and GPL are two mutually exclusive things.
Second: Have you considered that you will only be able to reuse the code in future programs if:
1. You have the company sign over copyrights to you or,
2. You get the first company to license the code to the second under some other license or,
3. You get the second company to go along with the GPL thing for that project as well.
I concede that saying nature is doing something willful is a gross over-simplification. However, I stand behind the point if not the phrasing.
As for "saving ourselves" your point is well taken, but I think your position is extreme given the situation.
First, unless I am misinformed, populations in "post-industrial" nations are leveling off, and more of the world is becoming post-industrial as time passes.
Second, most of the planet is still "wild" if not "unspoiled" (which I think is a bullshit phrase, since it seems to mean man, the "unnatural one" is not part of the region) so I don't think that alarmist "paved over and sterile" imagery is in line with what the future likely holds.
we've made unprecedented changes in the ecosystem
So did plants when they first escaped the seas. They filled the skies with a noxious poison call "oxygen." The side effects of this change would have been difficult to predict by an outside observer. To quote George Carlin "Mother Earth wants plastic!"
I think anyone who thinks they know what is best for Earth is a little too full of himself. I think that anyone who thinks that our first priority should be maintaining the environment in it?s current state is too in love with the present to allow the future to happen, and doesn?t respect how robust life on this planet is.
Remember, if the Democrats (or god forbid the Greens) were in charge a few million years ago I would be having a hell of a time typing this to you with my fins!
-Peter
This is exactly the sort of self-importance I am talking about.
Why should extinction STOP because we suddenly became so fucking smart?
Nature is exitncting some swan, but some "environmentalist" knows BETTER than nature. So he takes it on himself to cause this species to survive. He, in his infinite wisdom, has foreseen that no better species will arise to take its place, and of course the swan is so weak and stupid that it can't possibly ADAPT. So it is up to him to save it. My hero.
Of course, he is jerking off this swan all day, he doesn't have a real job, so he has to spend PUBLIC (i.e. working peoples) funds in order to retard evolution.
Anyway, the point is that PBS has a liberal slant, I don't see anything in your post refuting that.
Cut a slit in a nerf football. A little duct tape . . .
It'll be on the ground ready to play well before the jumper arrives.
-Peter
Absolutely!
Forget programming for a second, how about several PBS stations (illegally) sharing their donator lists with the Democratic Party?
As far as programming goes, every show about nature ends with a sermon. Most scientific shows end with a sermon. Like ?Scientific Socialist Frontiers? with comrade Alan Alda. I love the show. Alda makes me want to vomit.
I dig watching shows about the ring-tailed fox-bat or whatever, but I don't want to hear about how I need to do something to save it from extinction.
Look, almost every species ever on this planet was extinct before the industrial revolution. Extinction is part of the process. Man is an ANIMAL when we change the ecosystem other species must adapt or perish. We are PART of nature, not ABOVE it, or somehow its enemy.
We do nature a disservice by feeding starving swans. They just breed, and we feed MORE starving swans.
Bottom line: Yes.
Yes, you do.
But it has to be line of sight.
Optimal FoF methodology is "shoot/don't shoot" a little green or red light in your sight picture.
We lost more people in Desert Storm to friendly fire (remeber, Murphy says "freindly fire . . . ain't.") than hostile fire.
So, in that confilict we would have gained more by FoF than by any other possible technologies.
-Peter
Fuzed so that they don't go off on bandoliers when shot or when they are bumped hard. The fuze has to be set by them leaving the casing.
In the unlikely event that a bullet hits the primer of the round, the grenade has to travel a certain distance, I'm not sure how far, but at least 10m, before it goes off.
It actually still wouldn't go off. The "fuze" is and inertial screw. If it doesn?t go down a rifled barrel it won't arm.
In fact if you shoot someone point blank it won't go off, because the fuze will not have unscrewed yet.
-Peter
I've seen several posts about explosions.
.223 to mortar rounds to 40mm grenades), (and probably explosives if I am an engineer.) I don't think a 3 pound power unit is going to turn effective soldiers into walking ordnance.
First, in battle these guys are carrying grenades, ammo (from
Second, the tank isn't going to have oxygen in it, so why would it explode? It seems like there would be a fireball where the fuel escapes, but that not nearly as big of a problem (like gut wound vs. singed uniform/missing eyebrows.) Not that it is trivial, but there are bigger fish to fry on the battlefield.
Come to think of it; if this thing could power effective friend/foe ID it would be well worth the risk.
-Peter
A few years ago I was doing phone tech support for Dell. We used to have to replace drives because of this problem all the time.
One day I got a call from a customer that happened to be calling from Iomega. "Yeah, when I put a disk in my zip drive it goes click, click, click."
Thankfully, I made it to the mute button. That was easily the second funniest call I ever took at Dell.
-Peter
So you don't equate slimy, underhanded behaviour with Wrong?
.
Absolutely not. There is a huge sea of behavior that, in my book, falls into the categories of slimy, unpleasant, crooked, unfair, and nasty which don't make it to capitol Wrong.
Napster comes to mind . .
"There is no number '1.'"
I'm not sure how I became the defender of this company but . . .
I don't think that they had to. They weren't using it.
No doubt that these guys were slimy about it. That isn't my point, the point was about Right and Wrong.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
I disagree that it is capitol Wrong to do this. It isn't very neighborly, but in the absence of the "owner" licensing otherwise I don't see how you can argue that it is Wrong.
Is the BSD license "Wrong?"
Anyway, I don't think it is at all clear that his software was being sold for a profit anyway.
It seems like it might be Wrong for the author to give his software away, then suddenly say "oh, everyone EXCEPT for Mr. Corporation's customers can use this software for free. Mr. Corporation has to pay me."
I'm not actually saying that this is true, but I think this argument has more legs than saying, in effect, that the BSD license is morally reprehensible.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
His license specifically stated what sorts of uses it could be put to, and Ariston's use was a violation of that license.
I don't see anything to support this statement in the article. Maybe I missed it. I didn't see the license in the article. I didn't see anything to indicate that the license restriced distribution, only use. And the only restriction on use was that the user (not the distributor) email him.
Please let me know if I am mistaken on any of these points.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
What!? The post you are replying to IS a qestion if the company violated the license.
The software was shareware. It is totally normal for shareware to be distributed this way.
The article makes no point that I can find to the contrary. No doubt that money makes a difference in copyright cases, but I don't see how that is relevent here.
It really seems like this guy either a) didn't understand the implications of how he licensed this thing or b) thought it was all cool until he decided the rules should suddenly be different for someone with the means to pay.
Don't get me wrong. I am totally on the side of the little guy. And I'm not saying the little guy didn't get the shaft here. But, I see nothing to make me believe that he did.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
Okay, he did not give any details on his license, but he calls it "email me ware." So if that companies customers actually use the software and fail to email him they would be in violation.
I though this sort of distribution was the whole point of shareware.
I am all for the little guy, but it seems like this guy wants to change the rules in the middle of the game to make a buck.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
This thing is a low end PC (600MHz celeron 64M) for $500 with "anti-redundant" features like shared hard disk and power supply.
What do you hope to gain?
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
Actually, it looks fine in IE, which I would guess you are using.
.) On the other hand it may have been a little bit of a troll . . .
Mozilla does not wrap within tables (To be totally honest, I don't know which is "correct.") which means that I had to scroll the page for EVERY LINE I READ! What is the "fatigue factor" of scrolling left to right and back again for EVERY FUCKING LINE?
So, I'm not an idiot, I just don't use IE. (Which, in my opinion is a small amount of evidence that I am not an idiot. Especially in light of a recent slashdot story . .
What really blows my mind is that a genius "human factors engineer" can't secure a slashdot login for himself.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
Okay, I'm really just pissed because of the tables.
But damned if he isn't running Win2k and IIS . . .
So Dale, how is that IIS treating you? When was MM DD, 2000 in Earth years?
-Peter
PS: If you don't know what I am talking about, look at the hit counter at the bottom.
"There is no number '1.'"
You might want to re-read that part.
You might have said "Send to him!"
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
Because the odds of each case occouring are not evenly distributed. Your logic would hold if the story was changed so that you sumble into the room of a child of one sex, and find a schedule for a child of the other. But it doesn't. The room was a girl's, so it is more likely that there are two girls. (by the authors logic)
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
employees have a fiduciary duty to their employers which is not discharged by termination.
That's nice. Maybe I can get the company that just layed me off to make some of my mortgage payments.
Oh, nevermind, it only goes one way.
"There is no number '1.'"
In X VNC does very well drawing at a higher level than pixel by pixel.
It "tries" in windows, but, unfortunately, since windows is a black-box, it is not very successful.
See http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/faq.html#q36 and #39
Nice troll though.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
How many people do you really think are going to get this obscure reference?
(I wonder if they are programmed in multiple techniques?)
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
. . . by a unique hardware ID.
Namely my NICs MAC address. Unique hardware IDs are ultamately necessary for networking. The question is will all of their uses be fully disclosed and optional.
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"