"No matter how propietary their use of it is, that does not lessen the value of the existing code one bit, and only reflects positively on myself."
It doesn't reflect on you at all, they can strip your name from the code, there is no obligation to credit you. They might not do this, but they can, and most will (human nature does lean this way as a rule).
Yes, some large projects are public domain, that's their choice. In the case you cite, SQLlite, the project is so large that people would likely notice a complete copy that was proprietary anyway, bringing discredit to any firm claiming to have developed it in house. The other important aspect is that it is a collaborative work, the people involved will almost certainly have personal work as well. It's different if it's all your own code being taken and locked away.
I'd never use public domain, although I allow my code to be extensivelly used by others (ports and derivatives take up a lot of my time, I enjoy the collaboration). I would take issue with people claiming my work as their own (in some cases it represents years of hard work on my part, and I definatelly want credit along with my existing academic priority through publications related to the work), but I have no problem whatso-ever with people supplanting my code with better implementations.
Ok, I don't like public domain much, I'll admit that, but if you want to use it that's your choice, I can do nought but say it's entirely up to you what you do with your own code.
You automatically have copyright unless you specify otherwise.
Public domain isn't the same as open source, open source means the developers retain rights, public domain means you give them all up, public domain can be taken by a stranger and made proprietary, is that really what you want? I suggest you have a little think on that issue.
Google isn't specifically addressing that issue yet, just open source. Perhaps you should submit a request to have public domain added, it is after all only in the initial stages.
I've used sourcrforge for my project for the last four years. I have a small but constant stream of people downloading my project.
I have had numerous problems with services going offline, each time it's been annoying. recently I couldn't access the web page admin, so I haven't been able to update the site to reflect a new version of my software. As I've been working on the new release for a couple of months, this is a major issue for me.
Plus you now have to pay to get the very best service. I can't afford this, so I'm stuck with the less able service. They claim the normal free service is unnaffected, but I have my doubts. Even when everythings working it's not especially easy to use, and I don't much like some of the changes to the site they've added of late.
Their intentions may be good, and I do understand the need for funding, but non paying users are being effected, regardless of their intent. Paying users get better project admin options/tools too, and I'd rather like that. I'm a poor student though, such things are outside of my budget. I must say sourceforge has lost its appeal for me of late because of these things.
I think I may give google a try, and tramline the two for a while.
That's the open source way, the superior product survives based on how good it is.
I use prevx1 on windows and it kills trojans that my antivirus doesn't touch (not just mine, other people I know use it too).
My windows machine runs loads of stuff to keep it safe (grisoft avg, zonealarm and prevx1).
My linux machine runs iptables and only has ssh open (rsa key protected), and I've never had a single intrusion or trojan/virus problem.
I'm very careful with windows to keep it safe, but I'm constantly finding trojans and spyware on other peoples machines. It's very frustrating. I install prevx1 on every machine I encounter thats infected, and it keeps them clean.
"Aside from improving his android's lip synchronization and developing autonomous control of eye gaze, Ishiguro wants to start interacting with students through Geminoid."
Which makes this an avatar. He provides the essential interactive elements which would make it appealing to students (he seems to hope).
Psychologists may find something interesting here, being the way humans relate to this 'once removed' human presence.
When I was a kid in australia we had some friends who lived a long way away in the outback. Their kids attended school by Radio sometimes (perhaps all the time, I don't recall, this was over thirty years ago). A teacher who had a local presence might be an interesting extension of that basic idea. It's virtually the same thing as radio in this context, but more advanced.
What might be good is to use such a device to interact with people who are severely disabled. A system capable of translating the teachers actions into stimuli useful for the particuler student would have a lot of advantages. That way one teacher could interact with a class full of students with varying needs, where their own version of the Avatar translates to their needs.
'We can't have another Microsoft unless someone else is prepared to bend over and be the next IBM'
Microsoft is scared of Google because unlike them, google built up it's current powerbase through being better then everyone else, not through rushing to, and maintaining, a manopoly.
Of the two, Google's business model is the most stable.
Microsoft missed out on search completelly. They dislike google for having the market share they should 'rightly' have. However, if Microsofts vision was so good, why did MSN fail on it's first outing. No-one was interested in it, or at least not enough people. I tried it, I hated it.
It's a matter of corporate outlook. Googles vision simply suits the market better. They have a superior market share because of this, but not a monopoly. Microsoft are almost certainly going to try for a monopoly position in search, it's the only way they work. Have Google tried to shut down competition? Nope, they just beat them by simply being better.
Whether conciously or not, people like google because they are good at what they do, people like microsoft because they don't see any alternative. Many still don't realise there is an alternative in fact. I meet computer users who don't even know linux exists for example.
Microsoft aren't going anywhere soon, and they will remain powerful, albeit possibly changed. Alas for them they sat back and basked in manopoly while other, smaller companies and groups started out, exploiting the area's that microsoft were ingnoring, being Unix clones in X86 (linux/BSD), and Search. Too late microsoft have woken up, and it is too late. All they can hope for now is to gain leverage in the corporate world through their installed base to bring in products that compete with google and Linux.
Their browser will remain default on most computers for the time being, but I can see other browsers being bundled as default soon. The old microsoft cudgle to prevent this isn't as powerful as it once was.
It will be a good thing if Vista really is better then windows XP. Admining the windows boxes of my family will become a lot easier. As it is Prevx1 is the only thing that manages to keep the tide of trojans at bay. If they manage to reduce the trojan problem with Vista I'd be happy.
It matters not to me personally what Vista is like, I have one windows machine because I need to compile stuff on it from time to time, otherwise it's Linux all the way.
If Counterstrike source were available for Linux, my son wouldn't use windows either.
The indian government took a wrong step there, it's good they reversed the decision.
We're all having to learn how the internet works. Governments, great lumbering beasts that they are, are prone to dumb decisions when it comes to new technology, at least at first.
I wonder what unseen pressure group was responsible for that. Google's blogspot was blocked. Hmm, I do wonder what microsoft were whispering in the ear of indian politicians before the decision.
Actually, your vision would require that billions of people be dead. Any event capable of dealing that kind of damage, even in a few hundred years would be an extinction event, the matter of robot overlords would be moot. To be an overlord you need someone to lord it over first.
No, our biggest problem, were we to create super intelligent machines, would be convincing them to stay here. The Galaxy would be an inviting place for beings that weren't organic and didn't have to worry about journey times.
Two scientists turn on the greatest computer ever built, smarter than any human, and ask it the question 'is there a god'.
To which the computer replies 'there is now'.
But seriously
The most important thing we can learn from experiments that emulate the brain is it's remarkable ability to route round damage. I've seen people who've stroked and can't respond gradually come back, learn to talk and walk and generally stun other people.
It's not all speech and physio therapy, somehow the brain can re-organise itself after being seriously hurt. You have to see it first hand to realise what an amazing thing that is.
Forget copying the brain for intelligence, discovering how it repairs would be unbeleivably useful.
2: Because it's run/written by someone I know personally or respect.
Those reasons are, although (2) is evolved a bit, the exact same reasons why I would read a newspaper, a book, or a leaflet.
The medium has changed, and analysts feel they need to redefine the same old impulses using new terminology. People don't change that fast. They barely change at all. All that changes is the world they live in.
People like a constant supply of new 'content'. Not everyone requires that it be high quality, the key is 'interesting'.
When I was a teenager this was supplied by hunting through second hand bookshops for old sci-fi books. Now teenagers search the web for interesting stuff to view. It's *exactly* the same thing, with less dust.
Which is worse, the government making their own format, or them using a microsoft one? I vote the latter. The format is open to public scrutiny, and that's a very good thing. I rather like this.
If nothing else this advances the idea that people should have control over the format they use. OK the people in this case is the government, but we shouldn't complain about anything that may improve communication of data.
It looks pretty competant too.
Time for Open Source people to leap forward and develop tools for it.
I have no faith in Lines of Code cost/time estimates.
Perhaps in a workplace with fixed quota's that might work, but I code at night, or when I'm in the mood, or when I've been for a nice walk, and I seem to be plenty productive enough. I doubt it could be costed easily though.
"WTF is that all about? Are these people perhaps trying to suggest that open-source software is valuable, and that its developers should charge for it?"
Stage 1: Establish tht open source has a cost in real money.
Stage 2: Get Hired as consultants by microsoft to state this in press releases..... well, you know the tune
As a small games developer with big idea's, this is great stuff. It's not especially new information though, it's been obvious for a while.
The problem is that the major companies are in an arms race. None of them dare innovate massivelly in case it causes losses that upset shareholders, right now they have a stable, if stale, market, and their shareholders do like stability. I have no shareholders to worry about.
I can't afford the kinds of graphics they can, but I see no evidence that this money they have is helping. Was C&C generals really all that good? Nope, a small increment that looked a bit prettier, and while I hate to critisize the creators of Doom 1 and 2, ID software proved with Doom 3 that fabulous graphics do not equal a great game.
What we need is some fresh idea's, something to wow us and crete the industry anew. I'm trying to play my part, a small and mean part, but we all have to start somewhere.
the trouble is, it won't trouble microsoft at all.
They'd spend that much opening up a new market and not blink. If that's what it costs to work in the EU, so what? Turnover matters more then losing the fine money.
Just exactly how much did the US anti-trust ruling hurt them? Not the slightest bit.
Other then this fine, which does no more then itch microsoft, they can't do anything, and microsoft knows it. Market forces are on their side, unfortunate as it is.
There is a big difference between the people at microsoft knowing how to document protocols and microsoft the corporate entity knowing how to document a protocol.
The main difference is that a corporate entity of the size of microsoft is represented by Lawyers, not engineers.
If they say say they cannot comply, and the lawyers provide lots of reasons which keep the facts in dispute, then they get to pay a nothing fine and maintain their advantage.
Losing their monopoly position would potentially mean the collapse of their major product lines, in terms of market share.
I'd be willing to bet that if microsoft the corporate entity felt this was something they desperatelly needed, they'd throw the engineers at it.
Since we're not able currently even to build a spaceship capable of making it to the moon (having mothballed all the relevent tech and gone for the technical nightmare that is the shuttle, and the hidiously expensive disaster that is the ISS), why bother with these types of experiments?
Such experiments, while useful, aren't practical when we have a real and current need to figure out how to get construction workers and ordinary people into space, so we can build a realistic presence there. Once we're there, we could perform experiments like this at a fraction of the cost.
Ok, perhaps I'm thinking too fancifully, but it's real concern. Let's face it, every environment we've moved into only becomes liveable when the ordinary people who know how to build stuff and make things arrive. The larger the number of people, the faster things progress.
So long as it's only scientists and the 'elite' going into space and performing experiments progress will be very slow. That can't be good.
What we need is people going 'prospecting' for interesting asteroids/orbiting 'junk' that can be exploited, building commercial stations, setting up routine flights into space. In short, we need economic forces active in space.
Slashdot Mirror
"No matter how propietary their use of it is, that does not lessen the value of the existing code one bit, and only reflects positively on myself."
It doesn't reflect on you at all, they can strip your name from the code, there is no obligation to credit you. They might not do this, but they can, and most will (human nature does lean this way as a rule).
Yes, some large projects are public domain, that's their choice. In the case you cite, SQLlite, the project is so large that people would likely notice a complete copy that was proprietary anyway, bringing discredit to any firm claiming to have developed it in house. The other important aspect is that it is a collaborative work, the people involved will almost certainly have personal work as well. It's different if it's all your own code being taken and locked away.
I'd never use public domain, although I allow my code to be extensivelly used by others (ports and derivatives take up a lot of my time, I enjoy the collaboration). I would take issue with people claiming my work as their own (in some cases it represents years of hard work on my part, and I definatelly want credit along with my existing academic priority through publications related to the work), but I have no problem whatso-ever with people supplanting my code with better implementations.
Ok, I don't like public domain much, I'll admit that, but if you want to use it that's your choice, I can do nought but say it's entirely up to you what you do with your own code.
You automatically have copyright unless you specify otherwise.
Public domain isn't the same as open source, open source means the developers retain rights, public domain means you give them all up, public domain can be taken by a stranger and made proprietary, is that really what you want? I suggest you have a little think on that issue.
Google isn't specifically addressing that issue yet, just open source. Perhaps you should submit a request to have public domain added, it is after all only in the initial stages.
I've used sourcrforge for my project for the last four years. I have a small but constant stream of people downloading my project.
I have had numerous problems with services going offline, each time it's been annoying. recently I couldn't access the web page admin, so I haven't been able to update the site to reflect a new version of my software. As I've been working on the new release for a couple of months, this is a major issue for me.
Plus you now have to pay to get the very best service. I can't afford this, so I'm stuck with the less able service. They claim the normal free service is unnaffected, but I have my doubts. Even when everythings working it's not especially easy to use, and I don't much like some of the changes to the site they've added of late.
Their intentions may be good, and I do understand the need for funding, but non paying users are being effected, regardless of their intent. Paying users get better project admin options/tools too, and I'd rather like that. I'm a poor student though, such things are outside of my budget. I must say sourceforge has lost its appeal for me of late because of these things.
I think I may give google a try, and tramline the two for a while.
That's the open source way, the superior product survives based on how good it is.
I've been running a debian MPI cluster for, ooh, two years now.
Ok, it wasn't simple getting everything to work, as it wasn't in the stable release, but I got there in the end.
In all that time it hasn't had any problems, nd only needed rebooting when the mchines were moved once.
I use prevx1 on windows and it kills trojans that my antivirus doesn't touch (not just mine, other people I know use it too).
My windows machine runs loads of stuff to keep it safe (grisoft avg, zonealarm and prevx1).
My linux machine runs iptables and only has ssh open (rsa key protected), and I've never had a single intrusion or trojan/virus problem.
I'm very careful with windows to keep it safe, but I'm constantly finding trojans and spyware on other peoples machines. It's very frustrating. I install prevx1 on every machine I encounter thats infected, and it keeps them clean.
"Aside from improving his android's lip synchronization and developing autonomous control of eye gaze, Ishiguro wants to start interacting with students through Geminoid."
Which makes this an avatar. He provides the essential interactive elements which would make it appealing to students (he seems to hope).
Psychologists may find something interesting here, being the way humans relate to this 'once removed' human presence.
When I was a kid in australia we had some friends who lived a long way away in the outback. Their kids attended school by Radio sometimes (perhaps all the time, I don't recall, this was over thirty years ago). A teacher who had a local presence might be an interesting extension of that basic idea. It's virtually the same thing as radio in this context, but more advanced.
What might be good is to use such a device to interact with people who are severely disabled. A system capable of translating the teachers actions into stimuli useful for the particuler student would have a lot of advantages. That way one teacher could interact with a class full of students with varying needs, where their own version of the Avatar translates to their needs.
'We can't have another Microsoft unless someone else is prepared to bend over and be the next IBM'
Microsoft is scared of Google because unlike them, google built up it's current powerbase through being better then everyone else, not through rushing to, and maintaining, a manopoly.
Of the two, Google's business model is the most stable.
Microsoft missed out on search completelly. They dislike google for having the market share they should 'rightly' have. However, if Microsofts vision was so good, why did MSN fail on it's first outing. No-one was interested in it, or at least not enough people. I tried it, I hated it.
It's a matter of corporate outlook. Googles vision simply suits the market better. They have a superior market share because of this, but not a monopoly. Microsoft are almost certainly going to try for a monopoly position in search, it's the only way they work. Have Google tried to shut down competition? Nope, they just beat them by simply being better.
Whether conciously or not, people like google because they are good at what they do, people like microsoft because they don't see any alternative. Many still don't realise there is an alternative in fact. I meet computer users who don't even know linux exists for example.
Microsoft aren't going anywhere soon, and they will remain powerful, albeit possibly changed. Alas for them they sat back and basked in manopoly while other, smaller companies and groups started out, exploiting the area's that microsoft were ingnoring, being Unix clones in X86 (linux/BSD), and Search.
Too late microsoft have woken up, and it is too late. All they can hope for now is to gain leverage in the corporate world through their installed base to bring in products that compete with google and Linux.
Their browser will remain default on most computers for the time being, but I can see other browsers being bundled as default soon. The old microsoft cudgle to prevent this isn't as powerful as it once was.
It will be a good thing if Vista really is better then windows XP. Admining the windows boxes of my family will become a lot easier. As it is Prevx1 is the only thing that manages to keep the tide of trojans at bay. If they manage to reduce the trojan problem with Vista I'd be happy.
It matters not to me personally what Vista is like, I have one windows machine because I need to compile stuff on it from time to time, otherwise it's Linux all the way.
If Counterstrike source were available for Linux, my son wouldn't use windows either.
The indian government took a wrong step there, it's good they reversed the decision.
We're all having to learn how the internet works. Governments, great lumbering beasts that they are, are prone to dumb decisions when it comes to new technology, at least at first.
I wonder what unseen pressure group was responsible for that. Google's blogspot was blocked. Hmm, I do wonder what microsoft were whispering in the ear of indian politicians before the decision.
AH, Well it's good to see that at least someone in the shallow end of the gene pool is attempting the art of the critique.
Needs a tad more work though. I recommend going for four sylable words next time.
Actually, your vision would require that billions of people be dead. Any event capable of dealing that kind of damage, even in a few hundred years would be an extinction event, the matter of robot overlords would be moot. To be an overlord you need someone to lord it over first.
No, our biggest problem, were we to create super intelligent machines, would be convincing them to stay here. The Galaxy would be an inviting place for beings that weren't organic and didn't have to worry about journey times.
Perhaps so, but I saw the Matrix, and the hot chick ratio was definatelly up in the virtual world.
For that reason alone.....
Two scientists turn on the greatest computer ever built, smarter than any human, and ask it the question 'is there a god'.
To which the computer replies 'there is now'.
But seriously
The most important thing we can learn from experiments that emulate the brain is it's remarkable ability to route round damage. I've seen people who've stroked and can't respond gradually come back, learn to talk and walk and generally stun other people.
It's not all speech and physio therapy, somehow the brain can re-organise itself after being seriously hurt. You have to see it first hand to realise what an amazing thing that is.
Forget copying the brain for intelligence, discovering how it repairs would be unbeleivably useful.
'Betray your family and frinds, fabulous prizes to be won.'
It's horrific that a few years ago that was a joke, now it's true. My god...
1: because it covers a topic that interests me.
2: Because it's run/written by someone I know personally or respect.
Those reasons are, although (2) is evolved a bit, the exact same reasons why I would read a newspaper, a book, or a leaflet.
The medium has changed, and analysts feel they need to redefine the same old impulses using new terminology. People don't change that fast. They barely change at all. All that changes is the world they live in.
People like a constant supply of new 'content'. Not everyone requires that it be high quality, the key is 'interesting'.
When I was a teenager this was supplied by hunting through second hand bookshops for old sci-fi books. Now teenagers search the web for interesting stuff to view. It's *exactly* the same thing, with less dust.
Which is worse, the government making their own format, or them using a microsoft one? I vote the latter. The format is open to public scrutiny, and that's a very good thing. I rather like this.
If nothing else this advances the idea that people should have control over the format they use. OK the people in this case is the government, but we shouldn't complain about anything that may improve communication of data.
It looks pretty competant too.
Time for Open Source people to leap forward and develop tools for it.
I have no faith in Lines of Code cost/time estimates.
Perhaps in a workplace with fixed quota's that might work, but I code at night, or when I'm in the mood, or when I've been for a nice walk, and I seem to be plenty productive enough. I doubt it could be costed easily though.
"WTF is that all about? Are these people perhaps trying to suggest that open-source software is valuable, and that its developers should charge for it?"
.... well, you know the tune
Stage 1: Establish tht open source has a cost in real money.
Stage 2: Get Hired as consultants by microsoft to state this in press releases.
As a small games developer with big idea's, this is great stuff. It's not especially new information though, it's been obvious for a while.
The problem is that the major companies are in an arms race. None of them dare innovate massivelly in case it causes losses that upset shareholders, right now they have a stable, if stale, market, and their shareholders do like stability. I have no shareholders to worry about.
I can't afford the kinds of graphics they can, but I see no evidence that this money they have is helping. Was C&C generals really all that good? Nope, a small increment that looked a bit prettier, and while I hate to critisize the creators of Doom 1 and 2, ID software proved with Doom 3 that fabulous graphics do not equal a great game.
What we need is some fresh idea's, something to wow us and crete the industry anew. I'm trying to play my part, a small and mean part, but we all have to start somewhere.
the trouble is, it won't trouble microsoft at all.
They'd spend that much opening up a new market and not blink. If that's what it costs to work in the EU, so what? Turnover matters more then losing the fine money.
Just exactly how much did the US anti-trust ruling hurt them? Not the slightest bit.
Other then this fine, which does no more then itch microsoft, they can't do anything, and microsoft knows it. Market forces are on their side, unfortunate as it is.
There is a big difference between the people at microsoft knowing how to document protocols and microsoft the corporate entity knowing how to document a protocol.
The main difference is that a corporate entity of the size of microsoft is represented by Lawyers, not engineers.
If they say say they cannot comply, and the lawyers provide lots of reasons which keep the facts in dispute, then they get to pay a nothing fine and maintain their advantage.
Losing their monopoly position would potentially mean the collapse of their major product lines, in terms of market share.
I'd be willing to bet that if microsoft the corporate entity felt this was something they desperatelly needed, they'd throw the engineers at it.
Are we caring about this?
My point is that, even though it risks the occasional loss of life, we *must* have a routine and large scale presence in space.
Since we're not able currently even to build a spaceship capable of making it to the moon (having mothballed all the relevent tech and gone for the technical nightmare that is the shuttle, and the hidiously expensive disaster that is the ISS), why bother with these types of experiments?
Such experiments, while useful, aren't practical when we have a real and current need to figure out how to get construction workers and ordinary people into space, so we can build a realistic presence there.
Once we're there, we could perform experiments like this at a fraction of the cost.
Ok, perhaps I'm thinking too fancifully, but it's real concern. Let's face it, every environment we've moved into only becomes liveable when the ordinary people who know how to build stuff and make things arrive. The larger the number of people, the faster things progress.
So long as it's only scientists and the 'elite' going into space and performing experiments progress will be very slow. That can't be good.
What we need is people going 'prospecting' for interesting asteroids/orbiting 'junk' that can be exploited, building commercial stations, setting up routine flights into space. In short, we need economic forces active in space.
Perhaps. Clicking on your link still produces no 'did you mean' entry.
Odd that.