Persons who obtain FCC radio licenses (amateur, commercial, etc.) have to study material and pass a test prior to obtaining the license. Even when the test is passed, they still pay an application fee for the license.
Well, technically that's not true. To get a ham (amateur radio) license, you have to pay a fee to to the VEC who gives you the test in order to take the test, but the license itself is free. This has the effect of causing you to have to pay again for another test if you fail the first one or want to upgrade your license, but you don't have to pay any fee for the license itself.
Imagine the FCC announcing a planned auction of 144 MHz to 148 MHz - they'd hear very quickly that someone already has that license.
144-148 MHz is the 2 meter amateur band. Nobody really has a license to that band per se; the FCC simply has decided to grant amateurs with valid licenses the right to do certain things on those frequencies. Theoretically, anytime they wanted the FCC could revoke that right and do whatever they felt like with those particular frequencies. There has already been some concern that the FCC may do just that with some of the less used amateur frequencies, so there's no reason to believe they COULDN'T do it with the 2 meter band, which is perhaps the most commonly used amateur band.
I think you mean astronomy, not astrology. Astronomy is the study of celestial bodies. Astrology, as Isaac Asimov once put it when someone called him an astrologer, "is superstitious crap". All that "Venus rising in the seventh house of Mars" nonsense.
OK, that's it. Now I'm really upset. Someone moderated the above troll, which is older than JESUS HIMSELF, +1 informative? Come on! This is ridiculous. This is what happens when too many people read at +3 and then get moderator points so they decide they should drop down to -1. They can't recognize the same old rehashed shit when they see it. I read at -1, and to tell the truth, it's not so bad. After about the first 10% of the article pretty much all the crap goes away. So do all the moderators, so you get to read a lot of interesting stuff posted later that's at 0 and 1. Even some good stuff at -1, since some of the moderators are on crack or just feel they need to censor opinions they don't agree with.
I think only people who regularly read at -1 should be allowed to moderate... Be sort of an interesting system. If you're not willing to be in the trenches, we don't want you fighting. Or something like that.
Pardon me, but where did I say it was alright to pirate software?
Fine, I grant you that you never said it directly, but I felt it could be reasonably extrapolated from what you said about Microsoft's claim being BS. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in saying that you supported piracy because of that, but it seems to me that you were just toeing the party line around here and the party line around here also seems to be "piracy is OK, especially if it's Microsoft, because all software should be free."
As for my communist propaganda, I'm a card-carrying libertarian. But I learned my economics in a classroom, not from press releases.
In my experience, learning economics from a classroom is not a good thing. I found my economics classes (and textbooks, for that matter) to be strongly biased towards the left. Economics is not an exact science by any means. But I feel it's not fair to say that Microsoft's claim is "complete BS", because it has been my experience that, Office (or any other software program) IS worth that much to most of the people who pirate it. Most of these people, however, given the choice between paying for a license and pirating do not see any problem with piracy and do not fear any consequences, so they go ahead and save the money. For the most part, it's not a question of "Oh, hey, I can get that for free, cool... I might use it," so much as "I need that software. I don't like having to pay for it though, so I'll just copy it from someone else."
Take most of the people who pirate Windows. If they couldn't get it any other way, would they buy a copy? You bet. They certainly wouldn't install any free OSes in its stead, because that's an option anyway and most of the pirates are W@R3Z d00dz who just want to play Quake III without having to learn how to really use the computer. Now, granted, a situation where there is no piracy only exists in an ideal world, which is no place to live. But I still think Microsoft is entitled to make that claim and reasonably accurate in doing so.
However, I appreciate you taking the time to reply with a lucid argument, and hereby apologize for, retract, and rescind any inflammatory comments I made towards you in my original post.
In that case, the end result of the restriction of one freedom (you cant threaten people with lead pipes) is greater freedom for all (because Mr Bloggs doesnt have to be constantly scared of getting a lead pipe bent over his head).
Whoa, whoa, whoa, cowboy. Can you see the logical flaw? You're confusing liberty with security. Restricting people from beating each other over the head with lead pipes promotes security, not freedom. Just like using the GPL (supposedly) promotes "open source", not freedom. Again, freedom can only be given by removing restrictions, never imposing them in the name of some other value, be it security or tranquility or open source. Freedom can be used for good or bad (define these however you please, of course), but you have to be willing to take the bad with the good or else restrict liberties. But don't try to get rid of the bad in the name of "freedom"... it ironically smacks of fascism.
Going back... Easy. Because I run across more originally BSD/X11/etc licensed code that I cannot read/fix than GPL code that I cannot read/fix. That means my freedom is more limited than it would have been, had the code been GPL from the start.
I don't understand this at all. Why can't you read or fix the code? If you're saying you got it in binary format, and therefore didn't get the source, there's another logical fallacy. If someone wants to distribute the source code of his software that uses BSD code, that's his choice. Obviously, if he doesn't distribute it he has a reason. It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to desire some functionality he can only find in GPLed code and decide to GPL his own entire project rather than rewrite his own algorithm (I'm willing to bet less than 5% of actual GPLed code is really reusable anyway). Saying that the GPL better promotes general freedom because any binaries you get that are compiled with GPLed code in them come with the source code is a bit like saying that a fascist government promotes freedom by eliminating all non-conformists, since you know anyone you meet will act and think the same way and you won't have to deal with anyone who ever acts unpredictably.
To tell the truth, I'm not crazy about that last anaolgy there, but I like analogies so I'm keeping it and standing by it to the death.
>>sorry... bsd license promotes freedom more than gpl...
>How so?
OK, I'll tell you how so, Mr. Kooky Boots (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).
Freedom is defined as "The condition of being free of restraints". BSD licensed code is just that. GPL code is not free in any sense of the word (the perverted definition of "free" as in "software that's free as in speech" notwithstanding*). The GPL imposes restrictions, the BSD license does not. If I get a bit of BSD licensed code I am free to do with it as I please. However, if I get some GPLed code, there are certan things I cannot do with it. Imposing restrictions simply does not promote freedom. Forcing someone else to do something your way because you think it promotes freedom is not only a laughably stupid position to take, but it shows you really don't know the definition of freedom.
>Right... bestowing unto others the freedoms you got when you took the GPL... thus promoting freedom.
"Bestowing"? More like forcing upon others the "freedoms" that were forced upon you when you used someone else's GPLed code. The only way to give freedom is to take away restrictions. If you want freedom, you have to support the freedom for people to do things you don't agree with. Why can't any of the GPL zealots see that?
Let's take an analogy (I like analogies). Look at the Indian pacifist Gandhi. He used passive resistance to promote freedom. He did not want others to adopt Hinduism, or march in parades, or do anything else to explicitly promote his particular viewpoint. He simply wanted people to be more tolerant of others.
Joe Bloggs says to himself, "Hey, that bald robed guy has some pretty good ideas! I'm going to adopt some of his philosophies and apply them privately to my daily life." He is happy, Gandhi is happy, and freedom has been promoted.
Now, let's say Gandhi, instead of being happy that Joe Bloggs has found something useful in the viewpoints he has proffered, decides that's not enough. He shows up at Mr. Bloggs' house with a lead pipe and an evil sneer and says "Uh uh, sucker. You want my viewpoints? That's what you're gonna get, boy. You want to do the whole tolerance thing? Let's see you get out there in the streets. Lead some sit ins. Make up some signs and march. You don't wanna do all that? Fine, then don't use my ideas, motherfucker." Bloggs looks at Gandhi in amazement, and in his confusion rationalizes it by saying, "Oh, well, it's promoting freedom, so I'll do it..."
I would love to hear anyone try to explain how the GPL is more free (that is to say, less restrictive) than a BSD license.
*What the hell does "free as in speech" mean anyway? That the government imposes no restrictions on the content? Well, I've got news for you. The government (at least in the U.S.) imposes exactly the same restrictions on the content of open source software as closed source software--that is to say, damn few. Basically these days, "free as in speech" means open-source, and more specifically, GPLed. What a load of horse kaka.
Seriously, are you a complete moron? You're saying that if someone doesn't want to pay for something they use they should just go ahead and take it anyway. Why then should anyone pay for any software? Just because most of the people who pirated Office wouldn't pay for it doesn't invalidate Microsoft's claim a bit. Yes, they are losing money due to piracy, because a license to use Office is worth $X to THEM. Now I'm no fan of Microsoft, but let's please keep our silly anti-corporate communist propaganda in check, OK?
Let's put it this way. I decide I don't want to work a job to get money anymore. I figure, well, why not just print up my own money? I copy the design of the greenback and produce several million dollars of counterfeit money. Have I committed a crime? By your logic, no, since I haven't taken anything away from anyone else and I wasn't going to work to get that money anyway. But as far as the Federal Government is concerned, yeah, there's something slightly wrong with what I'm doing. I suddenly have extra copies of a product that they have clearly set the "licensing terms" for.
Yes, the above analogy is a bit absurd, but that's only because your logic is absurd.
"Comrades, we all know and love the GNU General Public License, the premier software license for today's cybercommunist."
Bah, you want real open source? Try a BSD style license. You could even put it in the public domain, and it would be a helluva lot more free than it would be under the politically motivated GPL.
Actually, a BSD license might be more acceptable to the employer anyway, since it could then still use and resell the compiled code without being forced (by this alleged "freedom in software movement" license, no less) to open its entire code base.
People who just care about good code will use a BSD license; people with agendas to push will use the GPL. Personally, I feel a little bit violated every time I install GPLed software... that's why I try not to do it whenever possible.
Nevertheless, one thing is admirable: in the newspaper page attached to this article, the general tone is more of an "Oh, damn," instead of an "Oh, shit!" That is, the American press gives credit where it is due, says that the U.S. now has to play catchup, and does it all with an attitude of "well, OK, they did it and that was pretty good, but we think we can do better." This is despite the fact that all evidence now showed that the Russians were technologically superior and could crush us like a bug, thus causing the fear you mentioned.
Do you really think a similar article would have appeared in Pravda had we made it to space first? I doubt it.
"Evil Capitalist War Machine Sends Man Into Space to Threaten the State of Well Being of the Laborer in This Glorious Worker's Paradise," seems more likely. Well, ok, maybe that's a bit much, but still...
This reminds me of something I want to bitch about. Quite a few Mac programs install extensions, and therefore require a reboot after install. Usually it will pop up a box with options to either quit the installer, continue, or reset. Sometimes it will pop up a box that only gives you the reset option. In this case, it's usually not modal, and you can just send it to the background and gracefully shut down whatever you were working on, or just keep on working. In either case, it will usually tell you before you install and will sometimes also alert you that it will automatically quit any other running programs before the install and force a reboot afterwards. Now, keep in mind these are only conventions, and nobody HAS to do any of that.
Anyway, I installed some software recently that not only didn't tell you it required a reboot beforehand, but popped up a reset only dialog box after the install--a dialog box that was fucking modal. I had to force quit the installer in order to continue working. That annoyed me to no end.
Moral of the story? I dunno. Modal dialog boxes are bad. I hate them. They always annoy me and I wish people would stop using them unless they were absolutely necessary. I guess a dialog box along the lines of "Are you sure you want to shut down?" is OK, but almost nothing else NEEDS to be modal.
Yeah, but come on man, 100,000km? I'll use the conventional system 'til they pry my Fahrenheit thermometer out of my cold dead fingers, but I still know that 100,000km is helluva lot more than any car can do on a tank of gas, by several orders of magnitude!
Engineer: It was 50 gigabits. Dilbert: I think you mean 50 MEGAbits. Engineers: Hahahahah*snort* Dilbert: All of us are so fun loving, you'd think one of us has a friend outside of work.
Well, the way I see it, if you take a metal bunker, put a flag in it, refuse to pay taxes, and fight off the police, the army, and whatever else the government you're declaring independence from throws at you when they come to get you, that bunker is fucking yours.
I don't see this processor yet listed on the NetBSD page, even on the mind-bending list of not-yet-integrated ports; is this a first?:)
Well, not exactly. Perhaps some of us remember MkLinux? Apple ported that to the older Nubus based Macs, something nobody else seems to have done with any other OS. So IBM porting Linux to a chip they designed? Whoo hoo. Yay Linux. They could've just as easily ported NetBSD or any other operating system to it, if they had the inclination (which, obviously, they don't given their latest Linux kick). Now, if they'd ported Mac OS X to the PPC64, that'd be something to write home about. =-)
I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Katz here, 'cause I'm not. But something that really bugs me about JonKatz posted articles is that he can never seem to get the "dept." tag right. For example:
from the -tech-culture:--the-nerd-squad- dept.
should be:
from the tech-culture:-the-nerd-squad dept.
See what I mean? Yeah, it's sort of a minor thing, perhaps even bordering on a nitpick, but it does bug me.
Do you still hold on to your cassettes because you don't want to have to learn how to operate those complicated CD players? Come on, I figured out what the ports collection was in under 10 seconds after doing a cd to the ports directory while just poking around my brand new FreeBSD install. After reading two pages of a book, I was CVSupping on a weekly cronjob. I've seen people putz around with the apt system... yeah, it works, but it seems to me kind of the cassette deck of packaging systems.
Oh, ok. So lemme get this straight: you, someone who most likely does not purchase Apple products anyway, is going to now not purchase any more Apple products in the future. That will certainly be effective. What are you going to boycott next? Mack Trucks? JPL? The Bolivian government?
life would be so much more interesting if we were all mel brooks.
Well, yes, it certainly would be interesting if we were all Jewish comedian Mel Brooks--that is to say, the man who directed Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. However, I think the man you have in mind is Mel Gibson.
Dammit, now I've got that song running through my head... "The Inquistion, let's begin, the Inquistion, look out sin..."
FreeBSD is free. Linux is freer. And NT is worth less.
Huh? How is Linux "freer" (more free)* than FreeBSD? Are you saying that a license that REQUIRES people to do something in order to use some code (GPL) is somehow less restrictive than a license that effectively lets one do whatever he wants with the code (BSD)?
The GPL is one of the most restrictive open source licenses out there. Come on people, get a grip and stop swallowing the GNU propaganda.
Oh, and your sig's not funny.
*Of course, the very concept of "more free" is absurd, so for the sake of argument (something I am admittedly quite fond of) I will assume you meant "less restrictive" when you said "freer".
I couldn't agree with you more. That's why I propose the following:
1) Develop psychic powers and use them to determine the guilt or innocence of people who are accused of crimes. 2) Until such powers are developed, settle disputes with trial by joust. 3) Interpret law as it was meant to be. It's obvious what things like "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," mean. We don't need any lawyers to argue about the meaning of that! It's so obvious! 4) Eliminate the concept of personal ownership. Put all property and ideas into a general public trust. Anyone who tries to defend "his" property or ideas should be killed.
Now, I realize that some of these concepts may be hard for the public to accept. However, I think that if we made a movie based on your life and showed it to them, the touching scene where Daddy says to little Frankie, "Son, it's a great big world out there, and if you want to be a good person, you must have people respect you. And the only way to have people respect you is to always tell the truth," and Frankie says, "Oh, I understand. Thank you, I love you Daddy" and Daddy replies, "I'm sure if Mommy were still alive she'd be proud of you," would cause them to immediately abandon their selfish lying ways and make them want to wear togas and throw rose petals and imbibe much wine and celebrate in the Joy That Comes From Truth.
Incidentally, would you be willing to share some of the other pearls of wisdom your parents bestowed upon you? I'd be very interested.
You know, when I read this I couldn't help but think about the parallels in the audio world. We had audiotapes, and they sucked, but they were good enough. Then they came out with CD's, and they were pretty good quality, but you couldn't record to them. They took over audiotape much like DVD is taking over VHS today. Then there was DAT -- Digital Audio Tape. Great quality, recordable, digital in/out, the works. Very expensive, and because nobody ever bought them, the price tag never went down. I think a new DAT Walkman is on the order of $800 today.
Meanwhile, out came the first generation CD burners. They were slow and very expensive, so not many people bought them. But given that CD's already had such a large installed base, it made sense to work to improve the CD burner until it was cheap and fast, since it was reasonable to believe there was a demand for it. Since DAT had virtually no installed base (outside of the professional market, where it still remains the "low-end" digital tape format) it didn't make sense to bother trying to make it any cheaper or better.
Anyway, what with the whole digital video "revolution" nonsense going on, I predict the recordable video market splits off into two distinct paths: The high end consumer format, where people edit their own video and burn it to DVD, and the low end consumer format, where people simply record shows off of TV onto VHS and play them back later (I don't think most people record movies off of TV anymore, since the quality is generally pretty low and you can go rent the damn thing for less effort and less money than a blank tape). That would closely resemble what we have today for audio, with the exception that most people with CD burners aren't creating their own music to burn to CD. After all, you can still buy audio tape decks and tapes without too much trouble.
Oh, and as for recordable on the fly DVD? I don't see that really going anywhere. They have recordable on the fly CD burners now, and as it turns out it's much easier to edit a mix on a computer anyway, so the only consumers who buy them are people with CD players but without computers or computer skills (or someone in the house with computer skills =-) ), which is a rather small segment of the market these days.
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Persons who obtain FCC radio licenses (amateur, commercial, etc.) have to study material and pass a test prior to obtaining the license. Even when the test is passed, they still pay an application fee for the license.
Well, technically that's not true. To get a ham (amateur radio) license, you have to pay a fee to to the VEC who gives you the test in order to take the test, but the license itself is free. This has the effect of causing you to have to pay again for another test if you fail the first one or want to upgrade your license, but you don't have to pay any fee for the license itself.
Imagine the FCC announcing a planned auction of 144 MHz to 148 MHz - they'd hear very quickly that someone already has that license.
144-148 MHz is the 2 meter amateur band. Nobody really has a license to that band per se; the FCC simply has decided to grant amateurs with valid licenses the right to do certain things on those frequencies. Theoretically, anytime they wanted the FCC could revoke that right and do whatever they felt like with those particular frequencies. There has already been some concern that the FCC may do just that with some of the less used amateur frequencies, so there's no reason to believe they COULDN'T do it with the 2 meter band, which is perhaps the most commonly used amateur band.
Oh, so you are an astrologer... Well, I'm sorry about that.
However, many people don't seem to know the difference and I think it's important to distinguish science from pseudoscience.
I think you mean astronomy, not astrology. Astronomy is the study of celestial bodies. Astrology, as Isaac Asimov once put it when someone called him an astrologer, "is superstitious crap". All that "Venus rising in the seventh house of Mars" nonsense.
OK, that's it. Now I'm really upset. Someone moderated the above troll, which is older than JESUS HIMSELF, +1 informative? Come on! This is ridiculous. This is what happens when too many people read at +3 and then get moderator points so they decide they should drop down to -1. They can't recognize the same old rehashed shit when they see it. I read at -1, and to tell the truth, it's not so bad. After about the first 10% of the article pretty much all the crap goes away. So do all the moderators, so you get to read a lot of interesting stuff posted later that's at 0 and 1. Even some good stuff at -1, since some of the moderators are on crack or just feel they need to censor opinions they don't agree with.
I think only people who regularly read at -1 should be allowed to moderate... Be sort of an interesting system. If you're not willing to be in the trenches, we don't want you fighting. Or something like that.
btw, we don't call him the "rocket guy" around here. at best he's the "rocket cook".
'Ey, pizano, you-a tasta da nice-a rocket, eh si? Izza good for you! You like, eh? Luigi cooka da rocket a-good, no?
Pardon me, but where did I say it was alright to pirate software?
Fine, I grant you that you never said it directly, but I felt it could be reasonably extrapolated from what you said about Microsoft's claim being BS. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in saying that you supported piracy because of that, but it seems to me that you were just toeing the party line around here and the party line around here also seems to be "piracy is OK, especially if it's Microsoft, because all software should be free."
As for my communist propaganda, I'm a card-carrying libertarian. But I learned my economics in a classroom, not from press releases.
In my experience, learning economics from a classroom is not a good thing. I found my economics classes (and textbooks, for that matter) to be strongly biased towards the left. Economics is not an exact science by any means. But I feel it's not fair to say that Microsoft's claim is "complete BS", because it has been my experience that, Office (or any other software program) IS worth that much to most of the people who pirate it. Most of these people, however, given the choice between paying for a license and pirating do not see any problem with piracy and do not fear any consequences, so they go ahead and save the money. For the most part, it's not a question of "Oh, hey, I can get that for free, cool... I might use it," so much as "I need that software. I don't like having to pay for it though, so I'll just copy it from someone else."
Take most of the people who pirate Windows. If they couldn't get it any other way, would they buy a copy? You bet. They certainly wouldn't install any free OSes in its stead, because that's an option anyway and most of the pirates are W@R3Z d00dz who just want to play Quake III without having to learn how to really use the computer. Now, granted, a situation where there is no piracy only exists in an ideal world, which is no place to live. But I still think Microsoft is entitled to make that claim and reasonably accurate in doing so.
However, I appreciate you taking the time to reply with a lucid argument, and hereby apologize for, retract, and rescind any inflammatory comments I made towards you in my original post.
In that case, the end result of the restriction of one freedom (you cant threaten people with lead pipes) is greater freedom for all (because Mr Bloggs doesnt have to be constantly scared of getting a lead pipe bent over his head).
Whoa, whoa, whoa, cowboy. Can you see the logical flaw? You're confusing liberty with security. Restricting people from beating each other over the head with lead pipes promotes security, not freedom. Just like using the GPL (supposedly) promotes "open source", not freedom. Again, freedom can only be given by removing restrictions, never imposing them in the name of some other value, be it security or tranquility or open source. Freedom can be used for good or bad (define these however you please, of course), but you have to be willing to take the bad with the good or else restrict liberties. But don't try to get rid of the bad in the name of "freedom"... it ironically smacks of fascism.
Going back...
Easy. Because I run across more originally BSD/X11/etc licensed code that I cannot read/fix than GPL code that I cannot read/fix. That means my freedom is more limited than it would have been, had the code been GPL from the start.
I don't understand this at all. Why can't you read or fix the code? If you're saying you got it in binary format, and therefore didn't get the source, there's another logical fallacy. If someone wants to distribute the source code of his software that uses BSD code, that's his choice. Obviously, if he doesn't distribute it he has a reason. It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to desire some functionality he can only find in GPLed code and decide to GPL his own entire project rather than rewrite his own algorithm (I'm willing to bet less than 5% of actual GPLed code is really reusable anyway). Saying that the GPL better promotes general freedom because any binaries you get that are compiled with GPLed code in them come with the source code is a bit like saying that a fascist government promotes freedom by eliminating all non-conformists, since you know anyone you meet will act and think the same way and you won't have to deal with anyone who ever acts unpredictably.
To tell the truth, I'm not crazy about that last anaolgy there, but I like analogies so I'm keeping it and standing by it to the death.
>>sorry... bsd license promotes freedom more than gpl... >How so?
OK, I'll tell you how so, Mr. Kooky Boots (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).
Freedom is defined as "The condition of being free of restraints". BSD licensed code is just that. GPL code is not free in any sense of the word (the perverted definition of "free" as in "software that's free as in speech" notwithstanding*). The GPL imposes restrictions, the BSD license does not. If I get a bit of BSD licensed code I am free to do with it as I please. However, if I get some GPLed code, there are certan things I cannot do with it. Imposing restrictions simply does not promote freedom. Forcing someone else to do something your way because you think it promotes freedom is not only a laughably stupid position to take, but it shows you really don't know the definition of freedom.
>Right... bestowing unto others the freedoms you got when you took the GPL... thus promoting freedom.
"Bestowing"? More like forcing upon others the "freedoms" that were forced upon you when you used someone else's GPLed code. The only way to give freedom is to take away restrictions. If you want freedom, you have to support the freedom for people to do things you don't agree with. Why can't any of the GPL zealots see that?
Let's take an analogy (I like analogies). Look at the Indian pacifist Gandhi. He used passive resistance to promote freedom. He did not want others to adopt Hinduism, or march in parades, or do anything else to explicitly promote his particular viewpoint. He simply wanted people to be more tolerant of others.
Joe Bloggs says to himself, "Hey, that bald robed guy has some pretty good ideas! I'm going to adopt some of his philosophies and apply them privately to my daily life." He is happy, Gandhi is happy, and freedom has been promoted.
Now, let's say Gandhi, instead of being happy that Joe Bloggs has found something useful in the viewpoints he has proffered, decides that's not enough. He shows up at Mr. Bloggs' house with a lead pipe and an evil sneer and says "Uh uh, sucker. You want my viewpoints? That's what you're gonna get, boy. You want to do the whole tolerance thing? Let's see you get out there in the streets. Lead some sit ins. Make up some signs and march. You don't wanna do all that? Fine, then don't use my ideas, motherfucker." Bloggs looks at Gandhi in amazement, and in his confusion rationalizes it by saying, "Oh, well, it's promoting freedom, so I'll do it..."
I would love to hear anyone try to explain how the GPL is more free (that is to say, less restrictive) than a BSD license.
*What the hell does "free as in speech" mean anyway? That the government imposes no restrictions on the content? Well, I've got news for you. The government (at least in the U.S.) imposes exactly the same restrictions on the content of open source software as closed source software--that is to say, damn few. Basically these days, "free as in speech" means open-source, and more specifically, GPLed. What a load of horse kaka.
Seriously, are you a complete moron? You're saying that if someone doesn't want to pay for something they use they should just go ahead and take it anyway. Why then should anyone pay for any software? Just because most of the people who pirated Office wouldn't pay for it doesn't invalidate Microsoft's claim a bit. Yes, they are losing money due to piracy, because a license to use Office is worth $X to THEM. Now I'm no fan of Microsoft, but let's please keep our silly anti-corporate communist propaganda in check, OK?
Let's put it this way. I decide I don't want to work a job to get money anymore. I figure, well, why not just print up my own money? I copy the design of the greenback and produce several million dollars of counterfeit money. Have I committed a crime? By your logic, no, since I haven't taken anything away from anyone else and I wasn't going to work to get that money anyway. But as far as the Federal Government is concerned, yeah, there's something slightly wrong with what I'm doing. I suddenly have extra copies of a product that they have clearly set the "licensing terms" for.
Yes, the above analogy is a bit absurd, but that's only because your logic is absurd.
Nah... it should read:
"Comrades, we all know and love the GNU General Public License, the premier software license for today's cybercommunist."
Bah, you want real open source? Try a BSD style license. You could even put it in the public domain, and it would be a helluva lot more free than it would be under the politically motivated GPL.
Actually, a BSD license might be more acceptable to the employer anyway, since it could then still use and resell the compiled code without being forced (by this alleged "freedom in software movement" license, no less) to open its entire code base.
People who just care about good code will use a BSD license; people with agendas to push will use the GPL. Personally, I feel a little bit violated every time I install GPLed software... that's why I try not to do it whenever possible.
Nevertheless, one thing is admirable: in the newspaper page attached to this article, the general tone is more of an "Oh, damn," instead of an "Oh, shit!" That is, the American press gives credit where it is due, says that the U.S. now has to play catchup, and does it all with an attitude of "well, OK, they did it and that was pretty good, but we think we can do better." This is despite the fact that all evidence now showed that the Russians were technologically superior and could crush us like a bug, thus causing the fear you mentioned.
Do you really think a similar article would have appeared in Pravda had we made it to space first? I doubt it.
"Evil Capitalist War Machine Sends Man Into Space to Threaten the State of Well Being of the Laborer in This Glorious Worker's Paradise," seems more likely. Well, ok, maybe that's a bit much, but still...
God bless the first amendment!
Idealistic eccesses are reserved for the small scale business, like mom & pop stores that tolerate inefficient practices merely because they want to.
I believe a certain Mr. Jobs would respectfully disagree with you there.
This reminds me of something I want to bitch about. Quite a few Mac programs install extensions, and therefore require a reboot after install. Usually it will pop up a box with options to either quit the installer, continue, or reset. Sometimes it will pop up a box that only gives you the reset option. In this case, it's usually not modal, and you can just send it to the background and gracefully shut down whatever you were working on, or just keep on working. In either case, it will usually tell you before you install and will sometimes also alert you that it will automatically quit any other running programs before the install and force a reboot afterwards. Now, keep in mind these are only conventions, and nobody HAS to do any of that.
Anyway, I installed some software recently that not only didn't tell you it required a reboot beforehand, but popped up a reset only dialog box after the install--a dialog box that was fucking modal. I had to force quit the installer in order to continue working. That annoyed me to no end.
Moral of the story? I dunno. Modal dialog boxes are bad. I hate them. They always annoy me and I wish people would stop using them unless they were absolutely necessary. I guess a dialog box along the lines of "Are you sure you want to shut down?" is OK, but almost nothing else NEEDS to be modal.
Yeah, but come on man, 100,000km? I'll use the conventional system 'til they pry my Fahrenheit thermometer out of my cold dead fingers, but I still know that 100,000km is helluva lot more than any car can do on a tank of gas, by several orders of magnitude!
Engineer: It was 50 gigabits.
Dilbert: I think you mean 50 MEGAbits.
Engineers: Hahahahah*snort*
Dilbert: All of us are so fun loving, you'd think one of us has a friend outside of work.
Or something close to that.
Well, the way I see it, if you take a metal bunker, put a flag in it, refuse to pay taxes, and fight off the police, the army, and whatever else the government you're declaring independence from throws at you when they come to get you, that bunker is fucking yours.
I don't see this processor yet listed on the NetBSD page, even on the mind-bending list of not-yet-integrated ports; is this a first? :)
Well, not exactly. Perhaps some of us remember MkLinux? Apple ported that to the older Nubus based Macs, something nobody else seems to have done with any other OS. So IBM porting Linux to a chip they designed? Whoo hoo. Yay Linux. They could've just as easily ported NetBSD or any other operating system to it, if they had the inclination (which, obviously, they don't given their latest Linux kick). Now, if they'd ported Mac OS X to the PPC64, that'd be something to write home about. =-)
I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Katz here, 'cause I'm not. But something that really bugs me about JonKatz posted articles is that he can never seem to get the "dept." tag right. For example:
from the -tech-culture:--the-nerd-squad- dept.
should be:
from the tech-culture:-the-nerd-squad dept.
See what I mean? Yeah, it's sort of a minor thing, perhaps even bordering on a nitpick, but it does bug me.
Do you still hold on to your cassettes because you don't want to have to learn how to operate those complicated CD players? Come on, I figured out what the ports collection was in under 10 seconds after doing a cd to the ports directory while just poking around my brand new FreeBSD install. After reading two pages of a book, I was CVSupping on a weekly cronjob. I've seen people putz around with the apt system... yeah, it works, but it seems to me kind of the cassette deck of packaging systems.
Oh, ok. So lemme get this straight: you, someone who most likely does not purchase Apple products anyway, is going to now not purchase any more Apple products in the future. That will certainly be effective. What are you going to boycott next? Mack Trucks? JPL? The Bolivian government?
life would be so much more interesting if we were all mel brooks.
Well, yes, it certainly would be interesting if we were all Jewish comedian Mel Brooks--that is to say, the man who directed Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. However, I think the man you have in mind is Mel Gibson.
Dammit, now I've got that song running through my head... "The Inquistion, let's begin, the Inquistion, look out sin..."
FreeBSD is free. Linux is freer. And NT is worth less.
Huh? How is Linux "freer" (more free)* than FreeBSD? Are you saying that a license that REQUIRES people to do something in order to use some code (GPL) is somehow less restrictive than a license that effectively lets one do whatever he wants with the code (BSD)?
The GPL is one of the most restrictive open source licenses out there. Come on people, get a grip and stop swallowing the GNU propaganda.
Oh, and your sig's not funny.
*Of course, the very concept of "more free" is absurd, so for the sake of argument (something I am admittedly quite fond of) I will assume you meant "less restrictive" when you said "freer".
Love that Joker!
Oh, wait, that was Smilex...
Well, mostly the fact that, according to the site, these particular units DON'T have any localhost ports on them.
k ing/netrax/X1/details.html#rc See subheading "Interconnect".
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hw/networ
I couldn't agree with you more. That's why I propose the following:
1) Develop psychic powers and use them to determine the guilt or innocence of people who are accused of crimes.
2) Until such powers are developed, settle disputes with trial by joust.
3) Interpret law as it was meant to be. It's obvious what things like "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," mean. We don't need any lawyers to argue about the meaning of that! It's so obvious!
4) Eliminate the concept of personal ownership. Put all property and ideas into a general public trust. Anyone who tries to defend "his" property or ideas should be killed.
Now, I realize that some of these concepts may be hard for the public to accept. However, I think that if we made a movie based on your life and showed it to them, the touching scene where Daddy says to little Frankie, "Son, it's a great big world out there, and if you want to be a good person, you must have people respect you. And the only way to have people respect you is to always tell the truth," and Frankie says, "Oh, I understand. Thank you, I love you Daddy" and Daddy replies, "I'm sure if Mommy were still alive she'd be proud of you," would cause them to immediately abandon their selfish lying ways and make them want to wear togas and throw rose petals and imbibe much wine and celebrate in the Joy That Comes From Truth.
Incidentally, would you be willing to share some of the other pearls of wisdom your parents bestowed upon you? I'd be very interested.
You know, when I read this I couldn't help but think about the parallels in the audio world. We had audiotapes, and they sucked, but they were good enough. Then they came out with CD's, and they were pretty good quality, but you couldn't record to them. They took over audiotape much like DVD is taking over VHS today. Then there was DAT -- Digital Audio Tape. Great quality, recordable, digital in/out, the works. Very expensive, and because nobody ever bought them, the price tag never went down. I think a new DAT Walkman is on the order of $800 today.
Meanwhile, out came the first generation CD burners. They were slow and very expensive, so not many people bought them. But given that CD's already had such a large installed base, it made sense to work to improve the CD burner until it was cheap and fast, since it was reasonable to believe there was a demand for it. Since DAT had virtually no installed base (outside of the professional market, where it still remains the "low-end" digital tape format) it didn't make sense to bother trying to make it any cheaper or better.
Anyway, what with the whole digital video "revolution" nonsense going on, I predict the recordable video market splits off into two distinct paths: The high end consumer format, where people edit their own video and burn it to DVD, and the low end consumer format, where people simply record shows off of TV onto VHS and play them back later (I don't think most people record movies off of TV anymore, since the quality is generally pretty low and you can go rent the damn thing for less effort and less money than a blank tape). That would closely resemble what we have today for audio, with the exception that most people with CD burners aren't creating their own music to burn to CD. After all, you can still buy audio tape decks and tapes without too much trouble.
Oh, and as for recordable on the fly DVD? I don't see that really going anywhere. They have recordable on the fly CD burners now, and as it turns out it's much easier to edit a mix on a computer anyway, so the only consumers who buy them are people with CD players but without computers or computer skills (or someone in the house with computer skills =-) ), which is a rather small segment of the market these days.