Nobody doubts the accuracy of Microsoft's concern (well at least I don't). It's the motive behind Microsoft's voicing their concern that has us amused.
Does WebGL create a security risk? Yes all plugins do. Some more than others.
Does John Carmack have a motive for speaking out against WebGL? Not that is apparent.
Does Microsoft have a motive for speaking out against WebGL? Yes. In fact they point out the security issues in WebGL while actively ignoring the ones being introduced in their products that are poised to compete with WebGL.
It's management's responsibility to hire IT guys that know how to keep up with what the business needs. If IT personnel can't keep up then maybe there needs to be a change.
Don't be. ActiveX and WebGL share a common trait of being complicated to implement and have access to hardware therefore Microsoft should know what it's talking about when it comes to dangerous plugins.
Despite this experience, Microsoft is only attacking WebGL because it competes with their interest. Silverlight version 3 advertises some features similar to WebGL as well as version 4 offering the ability to execute other applications within a "extended sandbox". If that doesn't scream over complexity for a single platform then what does?
Let me use a sort of car analogy, it's Slashdot after all and I haven't made a terrible one in a while.
There was a need to have a paved road to connect the east coast with the west coast of the US. Before the road existed, groups of early pioneers travelled westward for a better life and many of them were never heard from again. It took a bold pioneer to not only see the need for a paved road but make an effort to build the roads and bridges over rough terrain. He had to sell the feasibility of the idea to potential supporters, the government and builders. Because of that bold pioneer and the people that shared his idea, other people can now take advantage of the paved road to do more than anyone thought possible.
So I considered RMS the bold pioneer who had a desire that all software should be free. He preached his gospel to potential supporters. He built emacs and gcc that could be used to develop the free software. He did this over rough terrain (no world wide web at the time).
I consider Linus another pioneer who's job wasn't as hard due to all the groundwork laid by RMS. He only had to concentrate on building Linux. Truth be told there was a symbiotic relationship between RMS and Linus Torvalds. Linus wanted a free unix compatible kernel and needed help creating it. RMS needed a catalyst to propel his philosophy into the view of mainstream geeks. FSF saw the potential for Linux and used it as an opportunity to advocate for free software. Linux benefited from the advocacy due to the increased number of volunteers. Let's not forget the others that advocated on the behalf of the free software movement and made it more palatable to mainstream businesses. So my point all along was that there were more than one pioneer in the "open innovation" movement. However if I was asked to name one person, I would have to say RMS. Like I said in my first post in this conversation, this is despite the fact that I don't always agree with RMS' philosophies.
That may be true. Not all pioneers got it right the first time. In fact I think the number of pioneers who did is rather small or practically non-existent.
What RMS was doing was exactly what most of the mathematical and scientific community was doing already, namely sharing ideas like crazy and giving everybody who knew what they were doing a way to contribute.
That is not my experience with the mathematical and scientific community. It is true they are open and peered review, but they are definitely not that way from the very beginning. It's very competitive and they hold on to key pieces of data that they worked on so they can be the first to publish. It's not until after they publish their findings when they start freely sharing ideas like crazy.
Now compare this to open software development where people don't have to show their doctoral credentials before they are allowed to contribute. Also the goals of the software are known from the very beginning and additions can be submitted from anyone from anywhere. The key difference being that it is a community effort even prior to first release.
The two communities may look similar, but they are definitely not alike.
And it had been what was going on in Unix-land before it became heavily commercial, most notably in BSD Unix.
I do agree that BSD and public domain software was sharing software longer than FSF. However the distinction I was giving RMS credit for what is considered the open development model where all of the derivatives remain open and available to original author and the community. BSD and public domain do not have this trait. BSD Unix has an active open development community but it's derivatives can and are being used in commercial and closed source versions. It is the principle behind GPL that allowed Linux to garner the popularity that it enjoys now even eclipsing that of BSD.
I agree that it would be more accurate to call RMS a pioneer of the all software shall remain open movement.
As much as RMS is portrayed as a radical, the real radical position is the idea that software source code should be hidden from users and protected from prying user eyes for the purposes of profit.
I would have to respectfully disagree with you on this point. Considering the major contributor to the origins of computing in the US was the DoD, the idea of software code being secret isn't really that radical. That doesn't even take into consideration the competitive nature between DoD contractors during the war effort (WW II not today:P).
What about gcc and emacs? They both existed longer than Linux and enjoy a much larger install base.
I don't really understand your point. You seem to have completely disregarded the fact that not only did RMS delivered "physical" software, he did it before Linus.
I did read the article and didn't buy into his comparison of the two. The top down structure versus asking for volunteers on the internet over simplifies a lot. For instance, RMS has been doing this much longer and part of that time he couldn't take advantage of the internet. When I first started using GNU software my first access to the products was via floppy disks through the mail. Creating a unix like kernel using floppy disk or BBS distribution is significantly harder than downloading from USENET or kernel.org
Linus Torvalds has done well with Linux and now Git, but I don't really seeing him deserving the title of pioneer of "open innovation". At least not in the way the author is using the word "pioneer". Linux being the most popular open source project makes the project itself the catalyst for this so called "open innovation". There is a difference between taking advantage of open source methodologies and creating methodologies. The author has seems to lost the grasp of that difference in his zeal for idol worship.
I think RMS deserves the title of the creator (or pioneer) of "open innovation", and that says a lot since I don't always agree with his philosophy. RMS is the one that really stuck his neck out and preached the gospel. Even today he is either loved or hated by the software community.
Then there are all the advocates that came and went during the lifespan of Linux. They wrote manuscripts, sold the idea to their employer, or invested their own money in open source development. During all this time Linus focused on his vision of the kernel, and having a take it or leave it attitude towards advocacy. His main concern was making a quality kernel and rightly so.
If we used the word pioneer correctly then we would consider Linus one of many pioneers in this open source crusade. There are a lot of them with the scars from all the arrows in their backs. Sorry for the slight negative tone, but the idol worship in that article irritated me this early in the morning. More coffee!
Obama is really only saying we don't have enough young engineers.
Starting engineers might be underpaid by up to 20-25%, but at a company worth it's squat, you have tremendous career opportunity.
The problem being that the number of companies that you'd consider "worth it's squat" is dwindling. A number of companies that I've dealt with have told me that they took pride in hiring mostly college freshouts in order to remain on the leading edge of technology. I always considered this market speak for we like our labor young and cheap. These firms get away with it because they hire their labor for a single project and when the project is done they only keep enough people on staff to maintain that project. The engineers that are looking for another project to work on then must compete with the college freshouts. I'm not saying all engineering firms are doing this, but I do see a lot of aerospace firms that have this labor model. Especially the one that gives a lot of money to democrats and won a tanker contract from the Air Force after 3 retries forced by congress.
One of the reasons the number of engineering students are in decline is that students aren't as dumb as companies think. They listen and hear stories about older engineers being replaced by younger and cheaper engineers. They also know about the amount of money they will invest in college and how they will be competing with H1Bs for jobs. They can get a degree in another field and earn more money, better yet they can just learn a trade and start making more money earlier than a 4 year degree. It used to not be this way. The republicans are actively starving the labor department of funds, and the free trade agreement give corporations leverage to use against us. How many times have you heard "If you don't lower the cost of doing business then the companies will just take their jobs over seas" ? Of course they can. We gave them a free pass since we still allow them to have access to the largest economy on the planet without the fear of tariffs on imports.
Between the republicans making it easier for corporations to use the global employment market to force domestic labor practices to remain "competitive" and the democrats rewarding large engineering firms with questionable labor practices, it's a wonder the US isn't spinning around the drain when it comes to technological competitiveness. Oh wait, we are...
I don't notice that much speed difference on my systems at work or home. I have enough headroom in my CPU when I'm not doing massive data processing that I believe even the slowest benchmarked web browser wouldn't be noticeable. I do have a netbook that I carry around with me, and Firefox 4 hasn't been noticeably slow on that one either.
I'm not advocating against Chrome (or Chromium). I just stated a reason why I stick with firefox. As for bug reports, unless the Chrome team know and have access to Deltek, I don't know how I would be able to help them (or have enough time to follow through).
Acid3 is nothing but a single measure of performance. It is useful when you want to create a benchmark that allows you to advertise how compatible your browser is to the upcoming or very current web standard. It doesn't measure the backward compatibility of that browser. One of the criteria for choosing a browser is "does it work with the websites that I need to visit?". I'm sure there are plenty of Google fans and geeks that insist on using the latest big thing to keep Chrome around. But for us old guys that have to use a web browser at work, Chrome just doesn't measure up.
In that case, I'd expect IE to be your default browser.
Why? I don't run windows and I already use firefox. Did you notice I already said firefox was my default browser?
Do you know that it's a bug in Chrome and not in the website?
Why should I care? Firefox renders the website correctly and the website is part of enterprise software that existed long before Chrome. If it renders correctly on IE and Firefox, why should the website rewrite its code to conform to the new kid on the block?
I tend to use Chrome until a website actually breaks in a way that makes me try it in Firefox -- and then, half the time, it still won't work.
I gave up on Chrome. It doesn't offer me anything that firefox can't already do. Also firefox has an extensive add on collection. It is extremely rare that I find a website that doesn't render correctly with firefox. In fact I can't remember the last time I had layout problems with firefox.
You got me there. I really should of said "... amazingly quiet about cutting government subsidies going to profitable industries.
I agree about the oil subsidy issue being a little nonpartisan. Mainly because:
1. Oil companies are successful at equating subsidies to local jobs in the minds of the voter. The republicans use this argument to justifying their pro-corporate agenda, and democrats (particularly the ones in oil states) fear the possibility that a republican opponent in the next reelection may equate the nonsupport of said subsidy as not being for job growth in their state.
2. A politician in a state with oil interests will do everything in his/her power to keep the petroleum industry happy enough to help finance their reelection campaign, and not give them a reason to help finance the election campaign of an opponent.
Taking tax dollars from 49 states and using it to undercut local providers isn't competition.
Nice spin. You're implying that the telecommunications grant isn't available to the other 49 states and somehow the rest of the country is being shortchanged. You also overlooked the purpose of these grants. Without them private entities would not expand their broadband offering to rural areas. If there was truly a free market telecommunication market then people in rural areas would still be paying too much for POTS (plain old telephone system) and would only have dial up access to their ISP.
I can't help but notice that the republican party advocates cutting subsidies to non-profits because of "free market" concerns, yet is amazingly quiet about government subsidies going to profitable industries (eg. oil).
There is something wrong with getting rid of buses? Large gridlocked car less city's sure but the rest.
After the government buys them their used car, who pays for the gas and insurance?
While we are on the subject. Why is the political party that's supposedly against handouts the same party that promotes "vouchers" other than it's obviously harder for companies to make money off of poaching the poor if they already have what they need from the government.
Slashdot Mirror
You confuse facts with motive.
Nobody doubts the accuracy of Microsoft's concern (well at least I don't). It's the motive behind Microsoft's voicing their concern that has us amused.
Does WebGL create a security risk? Yes all plugins do. Some more than others.
Does John Carmack have a motive for speaking out against WebGL? Not that is apparent.
Does Microsoft have a motive for speaking out against WebGL? Yes. In fact they point out the security issues in WebGL while actively ignoring the ones being introduced in their products that are poised to compete with WebGL.
Let me use a famous phrase that explains it best. It takes one to know one.
It's management's responsibility to hire IT guys that know how to keep up with what the business needs. If IT personnel can't keep up then maybe there needs to be a change.
Because the IT departments use the word "NO" when they don't understand the problem or it falls out of their own expertise.
Don't be. ActiveX and WebGL share a common trait of being complicated to implement and have access to hardware therefore Microsoft should know what it's talking about when it comes to dangerous plugins.
Despite this experience, Microsoft is only attacking WebGL because it competes with their interest. Silverlight version 3 advertises some features similar to WebGL as well as version 4 offering the ability to execute other applications within a "extended sandbox". If that doesn't scream over complexity for a single platform then what does?
a dangerous web idea when they see one. They created ActiveX.
Thanks! I had to fence it to keep the neighbour's dog from eating my tomatoes.
Understood.
Let me use a sort of car analogy, it's Slashdot after all and I haven't made a terrible one in a while.
There was a need to have a paved road to connect the east coast with the west coast of the US. Before the road existed, groups of early pioneers travelled westward for a better life and many of them were never heard from again. It took a bold pioneer to not only see the need for a paved road but make an effort to build the roads and bridges over rough terrain. He had to sell the feasibility of the idea to potential supporters, the government and builders. Because of that bold pioneer and the people that shared his idea, other people can now take advantage of the paved road to do more than anyone thought possible.
So I considered RMS the bold pioneer who had a desire that all software should be free. He preached his gospel to potential supporters. He built emacs and gcc that could be used to develop the free software. He did this over rough terrain (no world wide web at the time).
I consider Linus another pioneer who's job wasn't as hard due to all the groundwork laid by RMS. He only had to concentrate on building Linux. Truth be told there was a symbiotic relationship between RMS and Linus Torvalds. Linus wanted a free unix compatible kernel and needed help creating it. RMS needed a catalyst to propel his philosophy into the view of mainstream geeks. FSF saw the potential for Linux and used it as an opportunity to advocate for free software. Linux benefited from the advocacy due to the increased number of volunteers. Let's not forget the others that advocated on the behalf of the free software movement and made it more palatable to mainstream businesses. So my point all along was that there were more than one pioneer in the "open innovation" movement. However if I was asked to name one person, I would have to say RMS. Like I said in my first post in this conversation, this is despite the fact that I don't always agree with RMS' philosophies.
That may be true. Not all pioneers got it right the first time. In fact I think the number of pioneers who did is rather small or practically non-existent.
That is not my experience with the mathematical and scientific community. It is true they are open and peered review, but they are definitely not that way from the very beginning. It's very competitive and they hold on to key pieces of data that they worked on so they can be the first to publish. It's not until after they publish their findings when they start freely sharing ideas like crazy.
Now compare this to open software development where people don't have to show their doctoral credentials before they are allowed to contribute. Also the goals of the software are known from the very beginning and additions can be submitted from anyone from anywhere. The key difference being that it is a community effort even prior to first release.
The two communities may look similar, but they are definitely not alike.
I do agree that BSD and public domain software was sharing software longer than FSF. However the distinction I was giving RMS credit for what is considered the open development model where all of the derivatives remain open and available to original author and the community. BSD and public domain do not have this trait. BSD Unix has an active open development community but it's derivatives can and are being used in commercial and closed source versions. It is the principle behind GPL that allowed Linux to garner the popularity that it enjoys now even eclipsing that of BSD.
I agree that it would be more accurate to call RMS a pioneer of the all software shall remain open movement.
I would have to respectfully disagree with you on this point. Considering the major contributor to the origins of computing in the US was the DoD, the idea of software code being secret isn't really that radical. That doesn't even take into consideration the competitive nature between DoD contractors during the war effort (WW II not today :P).
Two cups of coffee and still no clue. Let me know if you figure it out. :P
What about gcc and emacs? They both existed longer than Linux and enjoy a much larger install base.
I don't really understand your point. You seem to have completely disregarded the fact that not only did RMS delivered "physical" software, he did it before Linus.
I did read the article and didn't buy into his comparison of the two. The top down structure versus asking for volunteers on the internet over simplifies a lot. For instance, RMS has been doing this much longer and part of that time he couldn't take advantage of the internet. When I first started using GNU software my first access to the products was via floppy disks through the mail. Creating a unix like kernel using floppy disk or BBS distribution is significantly harder than downloading from USENET or kernel.org
Linus Torvalds has done well with Linux and now Git, but I don't really seeing him deserving the title of pioneer of "open innovation". At least not in the way the author is using the word "pioneer". Linux being the most popular open source project makes the project itself the catalyst for this so called "open innovation". There is a difference between taking advantage of open source methodologies and creating methodologies. The author has seems to lost the grasp of that difference in his zeal for idol worship.
I think RMS deserves the title of the creator (or pioneer) of "open innovation", and that says a lot since I don't always agree with his philosophy. RMS is the one that really stuck his neck out and preached the gospel. Even today he is either loved or hated by the software community.
Then there are all the advocates that came and went during the lifespan of Linux. They wrote manuscripts, sold the idea to their employer, or invested their own money in open source development. During all this time Linus focused on his vision of the kernel, and having a take it or leave it attitude towards advocacy. His main concern was making a quality kernel and rightly so.
If we used the word pioneer correctly then we would consider Linus one of many pioneers in this open source crusade. There are a lot of them with the scars from all the arrows in their backs. Sorry for the slight negative tone, but the idol worship in that article irritated me this early in the morning. More coffee!
Obama is really only saying we don't have enough young engineers.
The problem being that the number of companies that you'd consider "worth it's squat" is dwindling. A number of companies that I've dealt with have told me that they took pride in hiring mostly college freshouts in order to remain on the leading edge of technology. I always considered this market speak for we like our labor young and cheap. These firms get away with it because they hire their labor for a single project and when the project is done they only keep enough people on staff to maintain that project. The engineers that are looking for another project to work on then must compete with the college freshouts. I'm not saying all engineering firms are doing this, but I do see a lot of aerospace firms that have this labor model. Especially the one that gives a lot of money to democrats and won a tanker contract from the Air Force after 3 retries forced by congress.
One of the reasons the number of engineering students are in decline is that students aren't as dumb as companies think. They listen and hear stories about older engineers being replaced by younger and cheaper engineers. They also know about the amount of money they will invest in college and how they will be competing with H1Bs for jobs. They can get a degree in another field and earn more money, better yet they can just learn a trade and start making more money earlier than a 4 year degree. It used to not be this way. The republicans are actively starving the labor department of funds, and the free trade agreement give corporations leverage to use against us. How many times have you heard "If you don't lower the cost of doing business then the companies will just take their jobs over seas" ? Of course they can. We gave them a free pass since we still allow them to have access to the largest economy on the planet without the fear of tariffs on imports.
Between the republicans making it easier for corporations to use the global employment market to force domestic labor practices to remain "competitive" and the democrats rewarding large engineering firms with questionable labor practices, it's a wonder the US isn't spinning around the drain when it comes to technological competitiveness. Oh wait, we are...
I don't notice that much speed difference on my systems at work or home. I have enough headroom in my CPU when I'm not doing massive data processing that I believe even the slowest benchmarked web browser wouldn't be noticeable. I do have a netbook that I carry around with me, and Firefox 4 hasn't been noticeably slow on that one either.
I'm not advocating against Chrome (or Chromium). I just stated a reason why I stick with firefox. As for bug reports, unless the Chrome team know and have access to Deltek, I don't know how I would be able to help them (or have enough time to follow through).
Acid3 is nothing but a single measure of performance. It is useful when you want to create a benchmark that allows you to advertise how compatible your browser is to the upcoming or very current web standard. It doesn't measure the backward compatibility of that browser. One of the criteria for choosing a browser is "does it work with the websites that I need to visit?". I'm sure there are plenty of Google fans and geeks that insist on using the latest big thing to keep Chrome around. But for us old guys that have to use a web browser at work, Chrome just doesn't measure up.
Why? I don't run windows and I already use firefox. Did you notice I already said firefox was my default browser?
Why should I care? Firefox renders the website correctly and the website is part of enterprise software that existed long before Chrome. If it renders correctly on IE and Firefox, why should the website rewrite its code to conform to the new kid on the block?
I gave up on Chrome. It doesn't offer me anything that firefox can't already do. Also firefox has an extensive add on collection. It is extremely rare that I find a website that doesn't render correctly with firefox. In fact I can't remember the last time I had layout problems with firefox.
Or they are a bunch of script kiddies that are bored because school is out for the summer.
3: It doesn't render some websites correctly.
My default browser remains firefox for this reason.
You got me there. I really should of said "... amazingly quiet about cutting government subsidies going to profitable industries.
I agree about the oil subsidy issue being a little nonpartisan. Mainly because:
1. Oil companies are successful at equating subsidies to local jobs in the minds of the voter. The republicans use this argument to justifying their pro-corporate agenda, and democrats (particularly the ones in oil states) fear the possibility that a republican opponent in the next reelection may equate the nonsupport of said subsidy as not being for job growth in their state.
2. A politician in a state with oil interests will do everything in his/her power to keep the petroleum industry happy enough to help finance their reelection campaign, and not give them a reason to help finance the election campaign of an opponent.
Nice spin. You're implying that the telecommunications grant isn't available to the other 49 states and somehow the rest of the country is being shortchanged. You also overlooked the purpose of these grants. Without them private entities would not expand their broadband offering to rural areas. If there was truly a free market telecommunication market then people in rural areas would still be paying too much for POTS (plain old telephone system) and would only have dial up access to their ISP.
I can't help but notice that the republican party advocates cutting subsidies to non-profits because of "free market" concerns, yet is amazingly quiet about government subsidies going to profitable industries (eg. oil).
After the government buys them their used car, who pays for the gas and insurance?
While we are on the subject. Why is the political party that's supposedly against handouts the same party that promotes "vouchers" other than it's obviously harder for companies to make money off of poaching the poor if they already have what they need from the government.
I have been conditioned to believe that huge red arrow means a hunter is trying to kill the person under it.... :P
Not to mention the "right to confront our accuser" is within the court of law not on the side of the street.