For heaven's sake, being a liberal or a socialist doesn't mean one wants big brother. Geesh. Clearly a "big brother" is not good for society, as the point of society is not to turn us into an ant colony.
My personal hypothesis for the purpose of society is to maximize discretionary time while simultaneously minimizing survival pressures. This may require giving up some individual actions, but nobody at all wants to give up more than is strictly necessary. And I consider myself a socialist, because I put the good of society ahead of the good of the individual. For instance, I prefer light rail projects over widening freeways. I think it is ridiculuous that my country, the USA, has the strongest (or nearly?) economy in the world, but reasonable healthcare is out of reach for many of its citizens.
But I don't believe that anyone thinks George Orwell's _1984_ is a good plan for a healthy society. If you want to preach about responsibility, quit pointing fingers at "the liberals/socialists". That is antiproductive, and therefore, antisocial behavior.
You write "Just like you don't seem to know enough about HTML to set off your comments from mine...".
Hey buddy, don't pick on people who can communicate in plain text. Plain text is not a crime. Some of us have fond memories of consuming an entire printer ribbon (and a day to get the paper fed properly) printing ascii versions of the Starship Enterprise crew, hanging the results on our bedroom walls and showing them off to our friends and family.
Besides, there's no indication that Hawk doesn't know HTML.
Damn, you betcha. I believe that the thing which will really take Microsoft down is that THEY HAVE NO FRIENDS. They have inept cronies, just like bad guys in the movies ("Igor, write some letters to the State Attorney Generals, and use your good brain!"). But they have no friends.
They've pissed off *all* of their customers. It doesn't matter whether you think their customers are end-consumers or OEMs, because they've made enemies of both groups. They've pissed off the government and at least one federal judge -- and I expect they're starting to get on the nerves of their former friends in the appealate court, too.
Unless they take over the military and stage a coup, they're going to suffer for their antisocial behavior.
Compaq's Alpha compilers produce better code for Alphas than gcc does for Alphas. From what I understand, this is almost entirely because of Compaq's compilers being tuned for the Alpha's memory heirarchy (i.e. cache and stuff), whereas the gcc folks are more generic in this area.
All in all, the gcc folks have made a very good tradeoff. Their portability and generality allow them to quickly move to the latest, greatest architecture, giving them a nontrivial across-the-board performance increase. Compaq's Alpha compiler will become completely useless when there are no more Alphas.
The same goes for Intel's latest tuning of an x86 core. Let's see how good their P4 compiler does on the Athlon or Merced. Not that anything could help Itanic's performance...
I know what you're talking about, as Ph.D. math candidate -- of course, I'm more interested in teaching than research, so this isn't necessarily bad news for me. What I really want to point out to people not in the post-high-school teaching market is that college teaching and primary/secondary teaching are completely separate markets, with different goals and priorities. I think the main thrust of this thread is toward primary/secondary teaching markets.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Deja Vu all over again
on
$1200 Cheap!
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· Score: 2
I didn't make any specific references to the Xbox bundling when discussing subversion of the public good. In fact, at the top of my post I pointed out that the Xbox bundling wasn't really that interesting.
Yes *we* granted Microsoft the right to do business in the United States. Why did you turn "we" into "I" in your attack? I expect it's because you couldn't find enough to attack otherwise. The U.S. economy and law are public matters, not private. Just try to start your own business without obtaining the right licenses. If you're a lemonade stand, nobody will care. If you're the size of Microsoft, people will care. And I think they *should* care. Your transactions with Microsoft are probably uninteresting and don't affect the public good, unless "you"=="Compaq" or "you"=="Fred McLain" (old story from early 1997, more relevant today than it was then) or "you"=="Government of England".
Suggesting that Microsoft has an inalienable right to do business in the United States is pure bullshit. Suggesting that I shouldn't care about public issues in my society is sinister. If you don't care about public issues in your society, and you live in any sort of roughly democratic state, then you are irresponsible.
The Government in the U.S. is here to enact the will of the people, taken collectively. Your response points out exactly why the U.S. is so often accused of selling out to big business -- because so many of its citizens put the individual (as long as "the individual"=="me") above the society, and fail to see beyond their own immediate interests. The horrible lack of effective mass transportation in major cities like Seattle, WA is a fine example (especially if you've followed the history of Seattle and light rail service).
Back to subversion of the public good. I didn't want to dwell on specifics. But if you want one, take the bundling of IE and Win98. It was unnecessary, by the admission of Microsoft executives under oath. Users of Microsoft products, large (Boeing Corporation) and small (my father) didn't want it. Now we've got tax money helping decide whether they violated antitrust law, because Microsoft wouldn't back down on an unecessary bundling in the face of social pressure from Federal government, several state governments, some corporations, and some individuals. Whether or not they're a monopoly, whether or not they should have bundled IE, there was no good reason for them not to back down in this particular case. And don't get all macho or touchy-feely trying to defend their precious pride.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Deja Vu all over again
on
$1200 Cheap!
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· Score: 2
A fine point! The U.S. government is structured around balances of power, and is designed to resist both 1) majority factions and 2) stupid people. Consider the electoral system as an example, specifically put in place to protect the good of the society from majority factions as well as stupid people. Comments in the Federalist essays leave little doubt about intentions.
So why doesn't our economy built in the same robust fashion? You have to be careful not to interfere too much with social darwinism -- people who drink excessive amounts of alcohol during pregnancy should not be allowed to sue the manufacturer. However, I would love a much stronger "truth in advertising" law, akin to the laws in many European countries. If you say "We're the best", you better say at what your the best, and be able to back it up. I think we would do well to simply ban all footnotes (except copyright and trademark notices) from advertisements.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Deja Vu all over again
on
$1200 Cheap!
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· Score: 4, Informative
I agree with your assessment that people shouldn't buy things they don't want. However, it oversimplifies reality in many cases. Suppose you want Windows but don't want IE. Good luck. While we don't have a "right" to have Windows, many people find owning a license to operate Windows a necessity. The only reason I can write this without developing ulcers is that I'm not among this group of people.
As for bundling, Microsoft does have a monopoly in the operating systems market (the Supreme Court may reverse this, but it seems unlikely at best). Under United States law, that status puts restrictions on their conduct with respect to the operating systems market (properly defined for PCs, yadda, yadda, yadda). I don't think this XBox bundling issue is relevant, because 1) The XBox isn't really part of the operating systems market in question, no matter what OS it is running, and 2) MS isn't doing the bundling themselves.
However, I think there is an interesting point to be made about an acute failure of capitalism illustrated in this example. Those with the most money are most able to change pulic opinion about their products and competitors' products. I don't believe Adam Smith's "The Invisible Hand" took proper account of this. The closest hint comes from this excerpt:
"Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it...He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."
The question then arises, what happens to a person that intentionally subvert public interest for his or her own gain? It is difficult to argue that Corporate America has the public's best interest at heart -- but this wouldn't bother Adam Smith. What I hope would bother Adam Smith is that many companies intentionally act against their customers interests. For example, recall the quote "The customer is the enemy" from the Arthur Daniels Midland case a few years back.
Interestingly, Adam Smith did have something to say about those who use their business deliberately to help public interest:
"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."
So should Microsoft cut the "customers' best interest" crap that they want us to believe, and admit they don't care? Or should the voluntarily put themselves into Adam Smith's catagory of "those who affected to trade for the public good"?
Coming back to my original statement, I believe Adam Smith was grossly naive about how a real market works, where people by stuff because they're told to buy it. After all, we're social creatures trying to harmonize with and improve society. We granted Microsoft the right to do business in our country and in the State of Washington, and I don't think that, as a society, we're reaping rewards proportionate to the privileges granted. Of course no one can say with certainty what things would have been like without Microsoft. My opinion is that we might have gained quality and *useful* innovation at the expense of some progress. And since we'll be here until the cows come home, I don't mind losing a little bit of progress.
When I was a kid, we had to bite on aluminum foil to generate electricity to power the motherboard. The motherboard was tied to my chest with my chest hair because we couldn't afford anything else. We couldn't afford network cable so I would lick my fingers and use my arms as thicknet cables. When my brother was born they put a vampire tap on my left arm to extend the network.
"I believe firmly that the EFF are wrong to negotiate on this one. This needs to be fought in court, all the way to the top, with the intention of having the DMCA or parts thereof ruled unworkable."
While your sentiment for improving the world is nice, don't forget that there are real humans with real lives involved. Not only Dmitri, but his family. Dmitri didn't ask to be a poster boy for defects in US laws. I think his opinion on how to handle this is far more important than yours, mine, or whatever motives the EFF has. I'd like to think the EFF is working on his behalf, rather than using him for their own purposes.
I guess I'm picking at nits, but "With just a little EE knowledge..." doesn't seem true. "Just a little EE knowledge" *might* be enough to design a small computer. But building products is much, much harder. Despite their "high" price for these units, a little EE knowledge won't build these things for anywhere close to their price. Nor will it be as reliable. Or tested. There's a lot of engineering involved in any product, especially a small-form-factor computer. Much of it isn't even electrical.
You always pay for space. All rackmount equipment is expensive. And low-volume equipement is always expensive, too. Mabye the briQ cost will come down if they have massive demand.
Interesting story about "turning the other cheek" as is mentioned in the Western bible's New Testament. Supposedly Romans would only slap with one hand, let's say the right one. Also, they would only use the back (again, whatever) of this hand. Once slapped, if you turned your head and offered your other cheek, they couldn't easily slap it without using the palm of their right hand or the back of their left hand. In this possibly historical sense, turning the other cheek was an act of defiance and control, not of submission.
However, this really isn't relevant for the modern usage of the expression. =-)
I think most of the violations of the GPL are perpetrated by lazy and dishonest programmers within some more-or-less ethical company. For instance, some guy needs a regex parser, but Windows doesn't include any libraries for this (true the last time I asked, quite a while ago). Options:
1) go read about automata and regular expressions, and build your own parser.
2) go grab the first regex engine for which you can find the source.
I think many people would choose 2. Lazy and dishonest people may not check whether they are violating the rights of the copyright holder, or may intentionally disregard these rights. The company didn't mean to do anything wrong, but they don't even know this is happening. The guy gets fired eventually (hopefully all such assholes get fired eventually) and now nobody at the company knows about the violation, until someone discovers it accidently.
If you could watermark in such a way to make it easier for the dishonest, unethical programmer to use someone else's code (maybe they'll come across something with a BSD license) than remove the watermark, then you've protected your rights as the copyright holder. Honest, ethical programmers don't need to sweat the watermark issue, and encounter no additional barriers to assuming ownership of a copy of your code -- just as you desired. Of course, I have no idea right now how to make such a watermark.
Copyright says that the recipients don't have any ownership of the code at all. GPL says you have ownership, but with some responsibilities. Seems to me that the GPL is less restrictive (you own it and can produce derivative works, etc) than copyright. I think you have the wrong idea about copyright, including the idea of "derivative works".
I can see why you use the term "infect". But "protect" would work just as well, as would "enhance". I expect that you use "infect" because you have a bias, probably one that you copy from other people. If this is the case, you might consider reading about copyright, and engaging your brain before opening your mouth (or typing =-).
Screw right or wrong. Simply put, the company isn't meeting it's obligations if it doesn't make it's best effort to prevent this sort of thing. They accepted those obligations when they assumed ownership (not copyright) of their copy of the library's code.
I really don't understand why you're picking on the GPL with this scenario. I expect that LGPL'd libraries infrequently switch to GPL. It seems much more likely that a commercial vendor would require a a new license fee for every version they released, regardless of whether you get anything more for your money.
For example, consider the mozilla/netscape split. Mozilla ended up recreating everything from scratch, because some of Netscape's code was integrated with closed-source products. That sounds like a much worse "infection" than your infectious-GPL example. At least in the LGPL->GPL example, one could continue using the LGPL'd code if one wanted, because one *owns* the code.
If you ever create anything worth owning, I expect you'll come to appreciate the purpose of the GPL and LGPL, and quit acting so high an mighty about your decision to disagree with them on an ideological level. You'll might even come to agree with them if you ever wish to own something you created after signing an intellectual property release for your employer.
The GPL and LGPL are well concieved licenses, and were produced with legal advisors. They are *not*, as you claim, ridiculous.
Everything you argue is based on how many Agenda units can be sold. One would hope that Agenda has forseen that they aren't going to sell a unit to every human on the planet. One would hope that Agenda has made a good effort to realistically predict the size of their market, and adopted an appropriate business model including appropriate margins on each device sold.
If they haven't done these things, they are a bad business and will fail, no matter what they are selling. If they have done these things, I don't understand why they would necessarily fail in one year. As far as this goes, it's worth keeping in mind that something like 50% of new businesses fail within the first year or two. At any rate, I am in the niche market that wants a hendheld computer to do on-the-spot network analysis, Python scripting, and LaTeX compsosition (using a keyboard, of course). Therefore I can assure you that a powerful palmtop does have a market, and that market is not on drugs.
And what do you mean by a "full-fledged personal computer"? Do you mean something like an Altair, TI 99/4A or C64, Amiga, Mac Classic, 386 or clone, NeXT cube, Athlon, or Alpha? I see no reason to insist that palmtops fall at the bottom of this list of "personal computers". I'll take as much power as I can get at a reasonable price. As far as this goes, the Agenda appears underpowered compared to the Casio E-125 Cassiopiea, which is definitely a mass-marketed palmtop running PocketPC. If PocketPC doesn't allow ssh sessions, that's a weakness, not a strength.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Linux advocacy: VR3 framework for the Desktop?
on
Agenda, Not Hidden
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· Score: 2
The developers aren't necessarily on a high horse just because they don't want to deal with interface issues. I expect that it is almost always a matter of priorities. Interfaces can be extremely difficult to design and implement and, depending on the developer's priorities, it is possible that time might be more efficiently spent somewhere else -- for instance, learning how to use the crappy interface.
If you really want a good interface, pay a developer to put your priorities at the head of his list. Give direct input about how you want things done. And you'll get the world's best GUI for you. Of course, nobody else will like it, and your contribution will be decried as the self-centered work of a pompus developer.
The developers are targetting a different niches in which they're interested. If you aren't in the same niche as a particular developer, it's not surprising that you don't like some of the work from that developer. It's very similar to regional or cultural preferences, and quite unlike the mass consumerism and marketing that you see in the record industry (everyone knows who Brittney Speares is), the movie industry (we've all heard of Steven Spielburg by now), and the consumer-oriented software industry (Windows, McAfee, etc).
There is no reason for one developer to try to please everyone, anymore than the French should remove mold from their cheeses to achieve greater US market penetration. The internet allows physically separated niche communities to come together, to make things like GNU/Linux. For people in the right niche, GNU/Linux is the best thing ever. Even better, the GNU/Linux folks work hard to make their programs interoperable with programs from outside their culture/region/niche. That's because they don't expect to everything to everyone. They just try to be friendly to outsiders, and useful to insiders.
World domination is a *joke*. The internet is (hopefully) the death of mass marketing and mass consumerism, and the return to proper customer relations. If the GNU/Linux "movement" is going to dominate the world in any way, it will be the *style* that dominates, not the programs.
"There is such a thing as a supercritical fluid, but that is way beyond the scope of this discussion."
Hi, I'm not a ChemE, just a mathematician. But what little I know about supercritical fluids pertains to their use as solvents -- which sounds like a bad idea for underground cabling. However, I'm glad you mentioned them. This is the first time I've seen mention of supercritical fluids since the summer of 1991.
There was a question above about the environmental impact of the nitrogen line breaking. Using supercritical fluids, for instance supercritical nitrogen, to replace nasty organic solvents has great environmental benefits. And just as funny as the worry about releasing nitrogen into the air, was that you could (jokingly) negate any greenhouse effects from supercritical carbon dioxide by putting a plant where this solvent was exhausted.
-Paul Komarek
environmentally-friendly aspects of replacing traditional organic solvents with supercritical carbon dioxide,
Slashdot Mirror
For heaven's sake, being a liberal or a socialist doesn't mean one wants big brother. Geesh. Clearly a "big brother" is not good for society, as the point of society is not to turn us into an ant colony.
My personal hypothesis for the purpose of society is to maximize discretionary time while simultaneously minimizing survival pressures. This may require giving up some individual actions, but nobody at all wants to give up more than is strictly necessary. And I consider myself a socialist, because I put the good of society ahead of the good of the individual. For instance, I prefer light rail projects over widening freeways. I think it is ridiculuous that my country, the USA, has the strongest (or nearly?) economy in the world, but reasonable healthcare is out of reach for many of its citizens.
But I don't believe that anyone thinks George Orwell's _1984_ is a good plan for a healthy society. If you want to preach about responsibility, quit pointing fingers at "the liberals/socialists". That is antiproductive, and therefore, antisocial behavior.
-Paul Komarek
You write "Just like you don't seem to know enough about HTML to set off your comments from mine...".
Hey buddy, don't pick on people who can communicate in plain text. Plain text is not a crime. Some of us have fond memories of consuming an entire printer ribbon (and a day to get the paper fed properly) printing ascii versions of the Starship Enterprise crew, hanging the results on our bedroom walls and showing them off to our friends and family.
Besides, there's no indication that Hawk doesn't know HTML.
-Paul Komarek, who feels old at age 28.
Damn, you betcha. I believe that the thing which will really take Microsoft down is that THEY HAVE NO FRIENDS. They have inept cronies, just like bad guys in the movies ("Igor, write some letters to the State Attorney Generals, and use your good brain!"). But they have no friends.
They've pissed off *all* of their customers. It doesn't matter whether you think their customers are end-consumers or OEMs, because they've made enemies of both groups. They've pissed off the government and at least one federal judge -- and I expect they're starting to get on the nerves of their former friends in the appealate court, too.
Unless they take over the military and stage a coup, they're going to suffer for their antisocial behavior.
-Paul Komarek
Compaq's Alpha compilers produce better code for Alphas than gcc does for Alphas. From what I understand, this is almost entirely because of Compaq's compilers being tuned for the Alpha's memory heirarchy (i.e. cache and stuff), whereas the gcc folks are more generic in this area.
All in all, the gcc folks have made a very good tradeoff. Their portability and generality allow them to quickly move to the latest, greatest architecture, giving them a nontrivial across-the-board performance increase. Compaq's Alpha compiler will become completely useless when there are no more Alphas.
The same goes for Intel's latest tuning of an x86 core. Let's see how good their P4 compiler does on the Athlon or Merced. Not that anything could help Itanic's performance...
-Paul Komarek
I know what you're talking about, as Ph.D. math candidate -- of course, I'm more interested in teaching than research, so this isn't necessarily bad news for me. What I really want to point out to people not in the post-high-school teaching market is that college teaching and primary/secondary teaching are completely separate markets, with different goals and priorities. I think the main thrust of this thread is toward primary/secondary teaching markets.
-Paul Komarek
I didn't make any specific references to the Xbox bundling when discussing subversion of the public good. In fact, at the top of my post I pointed out that the Xbox bundling wasn't really that interesting.
Yes *we* granted Microsoft the right to do business in the United States. Why did you turn "we" into "I" in your attack? I expect it's because you couldn't find enough to attack otherwise. The U.S. economy and law are public matters, not private. Just try to start your own business without obtaining the right licenses. If you're a lemonade stand, nobody will care. If you're the size of Microsoft, people will care. And I think they *should* care. Your transactions with Microsoft are probably uninteresting and don't affect the public good, unless "you"=="Compaq" or "you"=="Fred McLain" (old story from early 1997, more relevant today than it was then) or "you"=="Government of England".
Suggesting that Microsoft has an inalienable right to do business in the United States is pure bullshit. Suggesting that I shouldn't care about public issues in my society is sinister. If you don't care about public issues in your society, and you live in any sort of roughly democratic state, then you are irresponsible.
The Government in the U.S. is here to enact the will of the people, taken collectively. Your response points out exactly why the U.S. is so often accused of selling out to big business -- because so many of its citizens put the individual (as long as "the individual"=="me") above the society, and fail to see beyond their own immediate interests. The horrible lack of effective mass transportation in major cities like Seattle, WA is a fine example (especially if you've followed the history of Seattle and light rail service).
Back to subversion of the public good. I didn't want to dwell on specifics. But if you want one, take the bundling of IE and Win98. It was unnecessary, by the admission of Microsoft executives under oath. Users of Microsoft products, large (Boeing Corporation) and small (my father) didn't want it. Now we've got tax money helping decide whether they violated antitrust law, because Microsoft wouldn't back down on an unecessary bundling in the face of social pressure from Federal government, several state governments, some corporations, and some individuals. Whether or not they're a monopoly, whether or not they should have bundled IE, there was no good reason for them not to back down in this particular case. And don't get all macho or touchy-feely trying to defend their precious pride.
-Paul Komarek
A fine point! The U.S. government is structured around balances of power, and is designed to resist both 1) majority factions and 2) stupid people. Consider the electoral system as an example, specifically put in place to protect the good of the society from majority factions as well as stupid people. Comments in the Federalist essays leave little doubt about intentions.
So why doesn't our economy built in the same robust fashion? You have to be careful not to interfere too much with social darwinism -- people who drink excessive amounts of alcohol during pregnancy should not be allowed to sue the manufacturer. However, I would love a much stronger "truth in advertising" law, akin to the laws in many European countries. If you say "We're the best", you better say at what your the best, and be able to back it up. I think we would do well to simply ban all footnotes (except copyright and trademark notices) from advertisements.
-Paul Komarek
I agree with your assessment that people shouldn't buy things they don't want. However, it oversimplifies reality in many cases. Suppose you want Windows but don't want IE. Good luck. While we don't have a "right" to have Windows, many people find owning a license to operate Windows a necessity. The only reason I can write this without developing ulcers is that I'm not among this group of people.
As for bundling, Microsoft does have a monopoly in the operating systems market (the Supreme Court may reverse this, but it seems unlikely at best). Under United States law, that status puts restrictions on their conduct with respect to the operating systems market (properly defined for PCs, yadda, yadda, yadda). I don't think this XBox bundling issue is relevant, because 1) The XBox isn't really part of the operating systems market in question, no matter what OS it is running, and 2) MS isn't doing the bundling themselves.
However, I think there is an interesting point to be made about an acute failure of capitalism illustrated in this example. Those with the most money are most able to change pulic opinion about their products and competitors' products. I don't believe Adam Smith's "The Invisible Hand" took proper account of this. The closest hint comes from this excerpt:
"Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it...He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."
The question then arises, what happens to a person that intentionally subvert public interest for his or her own gain? It is difficult to argue that Corporate America has the public's best interest at heart -- but this wouldn't bother Adam Smith. What I hope would bother Adam Smith is that many companies intentionally act against their customers interests. For example, recall the quote "The customer is the enemy" from the Arthur Daniels Midland case a few years back.
Interestingly, Adam Smith did have something to say about those who use their business deliberately to help public interest:
"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."
So should Microsoft cut the "customers' best interest" crap that they want us to believe, and admit they don't care? Or should the voluntarily put themselves into Adam Smith's catagory of "those who affected to trade for the public good"?
Coming back to my original statement, I believe Adam Smith was grossly naive about how a real market works, where people by stuff because they're told to buy it. After all, we're social creatures trying to harmonize with and improve society. We granted Microsoft the right to do business in our country and in the State of Washington, and I don't think that, as a society, we're reaping rewards proportionate to the privileges granted. Of course no one can say with certainty what things would have been like without Microsoft. My opinion is that we might have gained quality and *useful* innovation at the expense of some progress. And since we'll be here until the cows come home, I don't mind losing a little bit of progress.
-Paul Komarek
When I was a kid, we had to bite on aluminum foil to generate electricity to power the motherboard. The motherboard was tied to my chest with my chest hair because we couldn't afford anything else. We couldn't afford network cable so I would lick my fingers and use my arms as thicknet cables. When my brother was born they put a vampire tap on my left arm to extend the network.
-Paul Komarek
"I believe firmly that the EFF are wrong to negotiate on this one. This needs to be fought in court, all the way to the top, with the intention of having the DMCA or parts thereof ruled unworkable."
While your sentiment for improving the world is nice, don't forget that there are real humans with real lives involved. Not only Dmitri, but his family. Dmitri didn't ask to be a poster boy for defects in US laws. I think his opinion on how to handle this is far more important than yours, mine, or whatever motives the EFF has. I'd like to think the EFF is working on his behalf, rather than using him for their own purposes.
-Paul Komarek
I guess I'm picking at nits, but "With just a little EE knowledge..." doesn't seem true. "Just a little EE knowledge" *might* be enough to design a small computer. But building products is much, much harder. Despite their "high" price for these units, a little EE knowledge won't build these things for anywhere close to their price. Nor will it be as reliable. Or tested. There's a lot of engineering involved in any product, especially a small-form-factor computer. Much of it isn't even electrical.
I just want to give credit where credit is due.
-Paul Komarek
You always pay for space. All rackmount equipment is expensive. And low-volume equipement is always expensive, too. Mabye the briQ cost will come down if they have massive demand.
-Paul Komarek
Interesting story about "turning the other cheek" as is mentioned in the Western bible's New Testament. Supposedly Romans would only slap with one hand, let's say the right one. Also, they would only use the back (again, whatever) of this hand. Once slapped, if you turned your head and offered your other cheek, they couldn't easily slap it without using the palm of their right hand or the back of their left hand. In this possibly historical sense, turning the other cheek was an act of defiance and control, not of submission.
However, this really isn't relevant for the modern usage of the expression. =-)
-Paul Komarek
I think most of the violations of the GPL are perpetrated by lazy and dishonest programmers within some more-or-less ethical company. For instance, some guy needs a regex parser, but Windows doesn't include any libraries for this (true the last time I asked, quite a while ago). Options:
1) go read about automata and regular expressions, and build your own parser.
2) go grab the first regex engine for which you can find the source.
I think many people would choose 2. Lazy and dishonest people may not check whether they are violating the rights of the copyright holder, or may intentionally disregard these rights. The company didn't mean to do anything wrong, but they don't even know this is happening. The guy gets fired eventually (hopefully all such assholes get fired eventually) and now nobody at the company knows about the violation, until someone discovers it accidently.
If you could watermark in such a way to make it easier for the dishonest, unethical programmer to use someone else's code (maybe they'll come across something with a BSD license) than remove the watermark, then you've protected your rights as the copyright holder. Honest, ethical programmers don't need to sweat the watermark issue, and encounter no additional barriers to assuming ownership of a copy of your code -- just as you desired. Of course, I have no idea right now how to make such a watermark.
-Paul Komarek
Copyright says that the recipients don't have any ownership of the code at all. GPL says you have ownership, but with some responsibilities. Seems to me that the GPL is less restrictive (you own it and can produce derivative works, etc) than copyright. I think you have the wrong idea about copyright, including the idea of "derivative works".
I can see why you use the term "infect". But "protect" would work just as well, as would "enhance". I expect that you use "infect" because you have a bias, probably one that you copy from other people. If this is the case, you might consider reading about copyright, and engaging your brain before opening your mouth (or typing =-).
Screw right or wrong. Simply put, the company isn't meeting it's obligations if it doesn't make it's best effort to prevent this sort of thing. They accepted those obligations when they assumed ownership (not copyright) of their copy of the library's code.
I really don't understand why you're picking on the GPL with this scenario. I expect that LGPL'd libraries infrequently switch to GPL. It seems much more likely that a commercial vendor would require a a new license fee for every version they released, regardless of whether you get anything more for your money.
For example, consider the mozilla/netscape split. Mozilla ended up recreating everything from scratch, because some of Netscape's code was integrated with closed-source products. That sounds like a much worse "infection" than your infectious-GPL example. At least in the LGPL->GPL example, one could continue using the LGPL'd code if one wanted, because one *owns* the code.
If you ever create anything worth owning, I expect you'll come to appreciate the purpose of the GPL and LGPL, and quit acting so high an mighty about your decision to disagree with them on an ideological level. You'll might even come to agree with them if you ever wish to own something you created after signing an intellectual property release for your employer.
The GPL and LGPL are well concieved licenses, and were produced with legal advisors. They are *not*, as you claim, ridiculous.
What's wrong with the Russians' work on ISS? Near as I could tell, it's been mainly our Yankee work that's coming apart at the seams.
-Paul Komarek
Sounds like you perl junkies are looking for an excuse to ignore Python! -Paul Komarek
This isn't really funny. I bet you're the type that watches America's Funniest Home Videos hoping to see someone get hurt.
-Paul Komarek
Wasn't it Sun's support that asked customers to sign an NDA about a bad hardware bug?
-Paul Komarek
I imagine you have no objections to requiring bash or sh for kernel compilation. Think of Python as a better shell scripting language.
-Paul Komarek
Looking at the price, and the hardware, I think this is just a box with a Compaq iPAQ inside (folded in half, probably).
-Paul Komarek
"Some even leave their platform of choice (such as Solaris on the desktop)..."
I don't believe you, what you write makes no sense. Nobody would ever call Solaris their desktop platform of choice. =-)
-Paul Komarek
Everything you argue is based on how many Agenda units can be sold. One would hope that Agenda has forseen that they aren't going to sell a unit to every human on the planet. One would hope that Agenda has made a good effort to realistically predict the size of their market, and adopted an appropriate business model including appropriate margins on each device sold.
If they haven't done these things, they are a bad business and will fail, no matter what they are selling. If they have done these things, I don't understand why they would necessarily fail in one year. As far as this goes, it's worth keeping in mind that something like 50% of new businesses fail within the first year or two. At any rate, I am in the niche market that wants a hendheld computer to do on-the-spot network analysis, Python scripting, and LaTeX compsosition (using a keyboard, of course). Therefore I can assure you that a powerful palmtop does have a market, and that market is not on drugs.
And what do you mean by a "full-fledged personal computer"? Do you mean something like an Altair, TI 99/4A or C64, Amiga, Mac Classic, 386 or clone, NeXT cube, Athlon, or Alpha? I see no reason to insist that palmtops fall at the bottom of this list of "personal computers". I'll take as much power as I can get at a reasonable price. As far as this goes, the Agenda appears underpowered compared to the Casio E-125 Cassiopiea, which is definitely a mass-marketed palmtop running PocketPC. If PocketPC doesn't allow ssh sessions, that's a weakness, not a strength.
-Paul Komarek
The developers aren't necessarily on a high horse just because they don't want to deal with interface issues. I expect that it is almost always a matter of priorities. Interfaces can be extremely difficult to design and implement and, depending on the developer's priorities, it is possible that time might be more efficiently spent somewhere else -- for instance, learning how to use the crappy interface.
If you really want a good interface, pay a developer to put your priorities at the head of his list. Give direct input about how you want things done. And you'll get the world's best GUI for you. Of course, nobody else will like it, and your contribution will be decried as the self-centered work of a pompus developer.
The developers are targetting a different niches in which they're interested. If you aren't in the same niche as a particular developer, it's not surprising that you don't like some of the work from that developer. It's very similar to regional or cultural preferences, and quite unlike the mass consumerism and marketing that you see in the record industry (everyone knows who Brittney Speares is), the movie industry (we've all heard of Steven Spielburg by now), and the consumer-oriented software industry (Windows, McAfee, etc).
There is no reason for one developer to try to please everyone, anymore than the French should remove mold from their cheeses to achieve greater US market penetration. The internet allows physically separated niche communities to come together, to make things like GNU/Linux. For people in the right niche, GNU/Linux is the best thing ever. Even better, the GNU/Linux folks work hard to make their programs interoperable with programs from outside their culture/region/niche. That's because they don't expect to everything to everyone. They just try to be friendly to outsiders, and useful to insiders.
World domination is a *joke*. The internet is (hopefully) the death of mass marketing and mass consumerism, and the return to proper customer relations. If the GNU/Linux "movement" is going to dominate the world in any way, it will be the *style* that dominates, not the programs.
-Paul Komarek
"There is such a thing as a supercritical fluid, but that is way beyond the scope of this discussion."
Hi, I'm not a ChemE, just a mathematician. But what little I know about supercritical fluids pertains to their use as solvents -- which sounds like a bad idea for underground cabling. However, I'm glad you mentioned them. This is the first time I've seen mention of supercritical fluids since the summer of 1991.
There was a question above about the environmental impact of the nitrogen line breaking. Using supercritical fluids, for instance supercritical nitrogen, to replace nasty organic solvents has great environmental benefits. And just as funny as the worry about releasing nitrogen into the air, was that you could (jokingly) negate any greenhouse effects from supercritical carbon dioxide by putting a plant where this solvent was exhausted.
-Paul Komarek
environmentally-friendly aspects of replacing traditional organic solvents with supercritical carbon dioxide,