About 15 years ago, I had a job as a PC repair monkey at the computer center at my university. As was often the case with student jobs, people came and went all the time. We were hiring new kids every couple of weeks.
About halfway through my senior year, we hired this freshman. Nice kid, but a little on the clueless side. Not only had he never worked on a Mac before, he'd never even seen one in person.
One day he had to go to one of the computer labs to pick up a Mac and bring it into the shop for service. (The analog board needed replacing, or something like that.) He hauled it in, set it on the bench, and proceeded to dig through all the bins in the shop.
"What are you looking for?" I asked him.
"A Mac power cord," he said. I just kinda stared for a minute. "What?" he demanded.
Without saying anything, I reached down into the bin by my bench, grabbed a power cord, and threw it at him.
"You mean Macs use regular power cords?" he asked.
Your question wasn't quite that stupid. But man, was it ever close.
Erm, no. Of those 525 lines, only 486 are picture lines. The rest are vertical blanking. And all NTSC recorders of all types record all 486 lines. If they didn't, you'd get a big black stripe across your screen.
The rate of innovation has gone up, so patent/copytight lifetime should go down.
Nonsense.
OP was speaking about WRONGLY issued patents on OBVIOUS things, though.
But that's a matter of opinion on a subject about which I don't have any reason to think you or I are qualified to speak.
Ah--but what of "Others already thought of that & didn't have the $$$ to get a patent."
It costs a thousand bucks to get a patent. Anybody can get a patent.
And also likely to be sued or have his work stolen out-from-under-him.
Sued? You're making stuff up here. And as for having "his work stolen," it's not his work any more. A person who waives his ownership of a creation and puts it in the public domain can no longer refer to it as "his work." Nobody owns it.
And it's impossible for it to be "stolen," because nobody can claim ownership over it. You can take a copy, sure, but so can I. It's in the public domain, you see.
It seems like you don't really understand how the public domain works.
F/OSS is not about the copyright-holder giving up his own basic rights.
Exactly. Exactly. It's not about freedom or sharing. It's about control.
The problem comes from the Big Lie: that "open source" is about freedom. It's not.
If it was in the public domain, you could do exactly this. You can also do it with OSI-licensed software.
I had to Google "OSI." Can we keep the jargon to a minimum, please?
You can't use OS X "as you see fit."
Sure I can. I can link to the Mac OS X software frameworks without anybody telling me how I have to license the resulting software. The same can't be said of so-called "open source" software libraries.
There terms are LESS restrictive than licenses "everybody else" uses.
So? It's pretty absurd to stand up and say, "We're about freedom!" when the truth is that you're just peddling a different kind of restriction, isn't it? Isn't it a bit deceptive? Isn't it, in fact, a big ol' honkin' lie?
I don't think you really understand it (if you did, you wouldn't have a problem with it over-and-above any problems you have with closed source software).
Yes, that must be it. I can't possibly have a point. It must be the case that I'm just ignorant. Way to keep peddling that Kool-Aid.
This presumes your terminal of choice supports UTF-8. Not all do.
Hang on a sec. Now you're trying to tell me that Grep isn't broken, but rather just Grep's user interface? I don't think I buy that.
There is a reasonable expectation that a majority of your files will be in one of a few very common encodings.
That expectation was reasonable in 1979, when computers were rare and expensive. Now Pashtun tribesmen have laptops. No longer reasonable.
If your *NIX has a grep that doesn't process the ones that are common to your system, it is a problem with your OS vendor for bundling it that way, not with grep itself.
You don't understand. Grep itself cannot handle anything but plain seven-bit ASCII. It's got nothing to do with Apple or anybody else. It's a flaw in Grep.
It means you can convert line-endings on the fly
And on what planet is it considered practical for you to have to write a little computer program just to search your files?
I'm quoting Douglas Adams a lot today. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that 'it is very easy to be blinded by the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all.' In other words -- and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxywide success is founded -- their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."
IT handles Latin-1 (ISO8859/1) fine.
Windows Latin 1 and ISO-8859/1 are not the same encoding.
Set your locale to UTF-8 & you can use all UTF-8 characters.
Except, you know, characters like ø and æ. You know, characters that reside outside the seven-bit ASCII character set.
You don't have to. That only happens the very first time you install Tiger.
It sounds like maybe you're unfamiliar with Spotlight is and how it works. Maybe you'd like to spend a little time on Apple's site reading about it?
Searchlight is not open source.
Spotlight, you mean? No, it's not. It's also not an umbrella, or a novel by Isaac Singer, since we're spinning off on unrelated tangents.
I believe I've heard Spotlight will be usable from the command line; if not then of course this whole discussion is moot. Whatever search I use needs to produce stdout so it works with build systems, source control, and other tools.
Silly rabbit. Join us in the 21st century. It's nice here.
Besides, it's a cross-platform world.
Not really, no. I've never understood why people say that. It's simply not true.
The software is not relevant to the fact that you cannot buy similarly priced PPC-based hardware that will compete favorably with the suggested $800 AMD64.
If we can't judge by use, how, then, are we supposed to judge? Mass? Volume? It's certainly true that you can buy a heavier PC for $499.
As has been discussed, a Mac mini does not fit my needs.
Actually, that has not been discussed. Seeing as how all you seem to do with your computer is write programs and commit acts of petty theft, I'd say that a Mac would be more than enough for you. In fact, considering that you can write more kinds of computer programs on the Mac than any other platform, I'd say that a Mac would be a far better choice for you than anything else.
Sure sounds like BSD code to me.
Yeah, like I said: You read something without understanding it. I'd suggest you go further to educate yourself before speaking on this topic again. In particular, you need to learn about the modular architecture of Mach, which was the basis for XNU.
My poorly made computer runs just fine, and is faster than any Apple machine you can buy in its price range.
Faster in terms of what? It doesn't do anything.
The iPod was only successful because it works with PCs.
The iPod was a phenomenal commercial success before Apple released the first Windows-compatible model. It held something on the order of 60% of sales in units and 75% of sales in dollars among players that include a hard drive before the first Windows-compatible model was shipped.
I see you are incapable of understanding that entertainment is a practical use.
Correct. Playing games is not a practical use. It's not productive, it creates nothing, it can't be used to make money. It's a waste of time. If you find it entertaining that's fine, but it's still not a productive use of time.
Mm, so you have 1 Xserve and 1 Xserve RAID attached via fibre channel? Is that how those pricey mofos work?
For now. My production manager is pushing me to buy Xsan. I'm thinking about it for next quarter.
Perhaps you neglected to include the part of the comment where you promised to describe something that would work just as well but would cost less. I didn't find that part in your comment.
How much RAM, number of CPUs, etc?
Two CPUs and two gigabytes of RAM.
A Linux system can do all of that just fine.
No, it can't. Let me count the ways.
It can't be a file server for Macs, so we'd have to use Windows file sharing or NFS, neither of which are as good as AppleShare. (I know from my brief and disastrous experience with trying to use it as such that there is a piece of software that attempts to emulate AppleShare. It doesn't work. It can't handle files with resource forks correctly [such as fonts], it gets confused on long file names, and it incorrectly maps UNIX file attributes to AppleShare attributes.)
It can't act as a print server for the Macs without an assload of configuration on each desktop, because it doesn't include Rendezvous support.
It can't be an Open Directory server at all.
It might be possible for it to be a VPN server. My unlamented IT expert couldn't get it to work.
It can't run FileMaker Pro.
It can't run Meeting Maker.
It can't run Adobe Distiller.
So no, it can't "do all that just fine."
Maybe you're too stuck-up to RTFM, but I am not.
You didn't answer the question. Why would you do it the hard, expensive way when you can do it the cheap, easy way? My Xserve RAID was considerably less expensive than a RAID from another vendor, and my Xserve cost about $2,000 plus 30 minutes of my time. I saved four times the cost of the whole package --including a bunch of iMacs for my staff -- by firing my IT guy. So my way was both easier and cheaper than what you're advocating (unless you plan to work for free, in whi
Try modifying OS X & selling it as "Leo McGarry's OS XI" & see how far you get. IP-holders restrict the rights to modify their IP.
Oh, I get it! It's about the freedom to create new works based on existing works. It's about taking other people's stuff without their permission.
Silly me. I thought we were talking about freedom. Turns out we're just talking about "gimme gimme, mine, mine."
Thanks for clearing that up.
Please share which restrictions are draconian.
Here's one: "If you use this software library, you must apply the following software license to your program." As opposed to the commercial world, where you pay your money and receive the right to use the library as you see fit.
Howzabout that?
Others don't want to abolish IP-control--just to make sure that users have more rights than they do under conventional patent and copyright schemes.
Then why do they include the poisonous "You must use this software license" clause? Why not just release the software with terms like everybody else does?
You've got two choices, either of which is perfectly fine: Release the library into the public domain so anybody can use it for free, or release it only to select people under terms. Either of those is fine. This whole "We're releasing it to everybody, but only if you're willing to accept our terms, and by the way our terms require you to propagate our terms to others" thing is for the birds.
Wrongly issued patents on obvious processes and the adhesion contracts that accompany them prohibit people from improving software.
Only for a limited time. Patents are temporary. The argument that you should be able to profit from somebody else's innovation is sound, but to say that you should be able to profit from it right now loses some of its impact, I think.
And as for the "obvious processes" thing, do I have to haul out the old Douglas Adams quote? "It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry 'I could have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too."
In addition, a BIOS that requires every compiled program to have been signed by the hardware vendor prohibits people from modifying software and even from creating wholly original software.
I think what you mean to say is that such a thing would prevent such tasks, if it existed. At present it does not. But if somebody creates one, should he not be allowed to sell it on the open market? With the rapid proliferation of viruses and other malicious software, is hardware-based authentication not a perfectly valid idea?
There are lots of projects under BSD or MIT licenses.
License schmicense. Don't give me that "I released it under a license" bullshit. Just release the work into the public domain. Then, and only then, is a creator qualified to make high-minded pronouncements about freedom and the virtue of sharing.
No kidding? Explain to me, please, how to use it to find the name "Bjørn Stærk?"
So iconv everything to UTF-8 & pipe it to grep.
There are terabytes of files out there in legacy encodings. Converting everything is hardly practical. Besides, this in no way helps with the UTF-16 problem, and a massive problem it is.
So submit a bug report.
Why? I prefer to use tools that aren't fundamentally broken rather than wasting my time trying to help other people put duct tape over the cataclysmic fissures in tools that are.
I'm sure they'd get a chuckle out of it since you don't really know what you're talking about.
I don't? I said that Grep can't deal with Mac line endings, which is true. ("Use/r?" What the hell is that supposed to mean?) I said it can't deal with Mac Roman or Windows Latin 1 encodings, which is true. I said it can't deal with UTF-8, which is true. (Unless, as you did, you restrict your interpretation to just the seven-bit part of the UTF-8 character set.) I said it can't deal with Shift JIS, it can't deal with GB 18030, and it most certainly can't deal with UTF-16, all of which are completely true.
So in what way, precisely, do I not know what I'm talking about?
But if the tool is actually a hinderance, isn't it better to abandon it? I'm not saying that you should avoid doing the task. I'm saying that it sounds like your choice of tools is...well, kinda dumb. At least from the description given.
I know what the words "fact" and "opinion" mean, but I'm pleased as much to learn that you also know their definitions. The part that makes no sense is where you said, "You presented your opinion as though it were fact." To me, that still boils down to, "You said what you think."
Would you mind cutting through the bullshit, please, and just getting to your point?
Yah, very funny. I'll just wait overnight before grepping my new files so it can index them.
Spotlight indexed about 400 GB of files of a wide variety of types in about 20 minutes.
Oh well, maybe I need to scratch my own itch and add that CR line ending option to grep.
See? That's why "open source" is a disaster. Rather than innovating, people with decent ideas just bolt additions on old, obsolete, fundamentally broken programs. The net result is an entire operating system that is completely unusable by people who are unwilling to take the time to learn a new and cryptic language.
It can't handle old-style Mac line endings. It can't handle Mac Roman or Latin 1 eight-bit encodings, or UTF-8. And UTF-16 is, of course, completely out of the question, as are all the myriad legacy non-Roman 8-bit encodings.
They're fighting for the right to modify, improve and redistribute software.
That right is not in jeopardy, though! That's like saying that you're fighting for the right to walk down the street, or that you're fighting for the right to wear green underwear. That right isn't something that needs to be fought for, because we've already got it!
No, they're not fighting for the right to do anything. To the contrary, they're fighting against the right of creators to exercise control over their creations. They're not trying to increase freedom, which is already absolute. They're trying to decrease freedom by keeping their work out of the public domain and saddling it with draconian restrictions.
There's a very simple "why not" test. If they're interested in freedom and rights, why are they not just releasing their work into the public domain? The answer is that they're not interested in freedom or rights, but rather in maintaining the strictest possible control. Which is fine --the tradition of intellectual property ensures that they're free to exercise that control -- but the fact that they're maintaining an iron grip on their work with one hand and making wild gestures about freedom and sharing with the other overloads my capacity for irony.
It's closed-source, Windows/Linux x86 only, is a terrible editor, the UI is horrible and it's generally a pain to use in comparison to subetha which Just Works, but it's a lot better than nothing.
That doesn't add up to me. If it doesn't run on a Mac, is a bad program with a bad user interface and is a pain to use...how is it better than nothing? If the tool gets in the way, aren't you better off ditching the tool?
If a person's name is Tom and everyone calls him "Jim", that doesn't make his name "Jim".
What's Elton John's name? What's Bob Dylan's name? That thing everybody calls you: That's your name.
Your name argument claims that whatever "everyone else" does is correct, therefore since "everyone else" talks about having freedoms, you believe it is correct to do so.
That sentence is so silly, I have a hard time believing you typed it with a straight face. I think you're mocking me now. Which is fine and all, but not very interesting.
It is stupid and/or dishonest
"And/or?" This is what passes for writing these days? I despair.
What I said is that, based on your message, you formed your opinion about open source on a single incident. Given that this is what you said, it's a reasonable conclusion.
Of course it is not, but that didn't stop you from leaping to it anyway. The funny thing is that, once corrected, you continue to insist that you were right. Bizarre.
You're trying to claim that you are so unfamiliar with online forums that you don't know what at troll is. I do not believe you.
Okay. I'm sorry that I'm not up on the jargon. I'm sorry that I'm "wack" or "ill," or that I'm not "keeping it real" enough for you. Or whatever.
It says that you presented your opinion as though it were fact.
I don't know what that means. I think it means "You stated your opinion," but you've insisted that that's not right. Maybe it means, "You stated an opinion that made me uncomfortable."
I find it impossible to believe that you are so amazingly ignorant that you can't understand this.
Well, life is just full of surprises.
This conversation has already gone way past the point of usefulness.
How is a conversation supposed to be useful? See, that's the problem in a nutshell. You keep using words that I think I understand in ways that don't make any sense to me. You talk about being offended when I state my opinion, evidently because my opinion made you unhappy or something. You call me a troll, and when I ask you what you mean, you call me a liar. And now you talk about conversations as if they were ratchet screwdrivers.
I just don't understand at all.
As for my owns points, I'm not really concerned about getting agreement from anyone.
I'm lost. What have you said that somebody could agree or disagree with?
If you continue posting in your current manner you will be modded down over time. The lower your karma goes the less often you'll be able to post in a day.
I didn't realize it was a game. I didn't realize somebody was keeping score.
I just don't get this at all. It just doesn't make a lick of sense.
Slashdot Mirror
People are cheering on various screens shown on a Macintosh. Quite corny.
Yeah, thank God nobody ever does that any more.
About 15 years ago, I had a job as a PC repair monkey at the computer center at my university. As was often the case with student jobs, people came and went all the time. We were hiring new kids every couple of weeks.
About halfway through my senior year, we hired this freshman. Nice kid, but a little on the clueless side. Not only had he never worked on a Mac before, he'd never even seen one in person.
One day he had to go to one of the computer labs to pick up a Mac and bring it into the shop for service. (The analog board needed replacing, or something like that.) He hauled it in, set it on the bench, and proceeded to dig through all the bins in the shop.
"What are you looking for?" I asked him.
"A Mac power cord," he said. I just kinda stared for a minute. "What?" he demanded.
Without saying anything, I reached down into the bin by my bench, grabbed a power cord, and threw it at him.
"You mean Macs use regular power cords?" he asked.
Your question wasn't quite that stupid. But man, was it ever close.
It was January 24, 1984, and the setting was Apple's annual shareholders' meeting.
Here's a description of the event from somebody who was there.
Erm, no. Of those 525 lines, only 486 are picture lines. The rest are vertical blanking. And all NTSC recorders of all types record all 486 lines. If they didn't, you'd get a big black stripe across your screen.
I didn't write any code at all. I executed a command line program that was already written.
Nonsense. What you typed in your last comment was a little computer program, completely with input and output and syntax and the whole thing.
The rate of innovation has gone up, so patent/copytight lifetime should go down.
Nonsense.
OP was speaking about WRONGLY issued patents on OBVIOUS things, though.
But that's a matter of opinion on a subject about which I don't have any reason to think you or I are qualified to speak.
Ah--but what of "Others already thought of that & didn't have the $$$ to get a patent."
It costs a thousand bucks to get a patent. Anybody can get a patent.
And also likely to be sued or have his work stolen out-from-under-him.
Sued? You're making stuff up here. And as for having "his work stolen," it's not his work any more. A person who waives his ownership of a creation and puts it in the public domain can no longer refer to it as "his work." Nobody owns it.
And it's impossible for it to be "stolen," because nobody can claim ownership over it. You can take a copy, sure, but so can I. It's in the public domain, you see.
It seems like you don't really understand how the public domain works.
F/OSS is not about the copyright-holder giving up his own basic rights.
Exactly. Exactly. It's not about freedom or sharing. It's about control.
The problem comes from the Big Lie: that "open source" is about freedom. It's not.
If it was in the public domain, you could do exactly this. You can also do it with OSI-licensed software.
I had to Google "OSI." Can we keep the jargon to a minimum, please?
You can't use OS X "as you see fit."
Sure I can. I can link to the Mac OS X software frameworks without anybody telling me how I have to license the resulting software. The same can't be said of so-called "open source" software libraries.
There terms are LESS restrictive than licenses "everybody else" uses.
So? It's pretty absurd to stand up and say, "We're about freedom!" when the truth is that you're just peddling a different kind of restriction, isn't it? Isn't it a bit deceptive? Isn't it, in fact, a big ol' honkin' lie?
I don't think you really understand it (if you did, you wouldn't have a problem with it over-and-above any problems you have with closed source software).
Yes, that must be it. I can't possibly have a point. It must be the case that I'm just ignorant. Way to keep peddling that Kool-Aid.
This presumes your terminal of choice supports UTF-8. Not all do.
Hang on a sec. Now you're trying to tell me that Grep isn't broken, but rather just Grep's user interface? I don't think I buy that.
There is a reasonable expectation that a majority of your files will be in one of a few very common encodings.
That expectation was reasonable in 1979, when computers were rare and expensive. Now Pashtun tribesmen have laptops. No longer reasonable.
If your *NIX has a grep that doesn't process the ones that are common to your system, it is a problem with your OS vendor for bundling it that way, not with grep itself.
You don't understand. Grep itself cannot handle anything but plain seven-bit ASCII. It's got nothing to do with Apple or anybody else. It's a flaw in Grep.
It means you can convert line-endings on the fly
And on what planet is it considered practical for you to have to write a little computer program just to search your files?
I'm quoting Douglas Adams a lot today. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that 'it is very easy to be blinded by the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all.' In other words -- and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxywide success is founded -- their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."
IT handles Latin-1 (ISO8859/1) fine.
Windows Latin 1 and ISO-8859/1 are not the same encoding.
Set your locale to UTF-8 & you can use all UTF-8 characters.
Except, you know, characters like ø and æ. You know, characters that reside outside the seven-bit ASCII character set.
How about non-scientists stop submitting articles about science topics
I'll throw my vote behind that enthusiastically if we can add "in order to advance a political agenda" to the end of your suggestion. Deal?
Aha. So it is an attempt to deliberate confuse people in order to piggyback on somebody else's trademark.
I thought so, but it's nice to have somebody confirm that for me. Thanks a million.
I can't wait 20 minutes to search my files!
You don't have to. That only happens the very first time you install Tiger.
It sounds like maybe you're unfamiliar with Spotlight is and how it works. Maybe you'd like to spend a little time on Apple's site reading about it?
Searchlight is not open source.
Spotlight, you mean? No, it's not. It's also not an umbrella, or a novel by Isaac Singer, since we're spinning off on unrelated tangents.
I believe I've heard Spotlight will be usable from the command line; if not then of course this whole discussion is moot. Whatever search I use needs to produce stdout so it works with build systems, source control, and other tools.
Silly rabbit. Join us in the 21st century. It's nice here.
Besides, it's a cross-platform world.
Not really, no. I've never understood why people say that. It's simply not true.
The software is not relevant to the fact that you cannot buy similarly priced PPC-based hardware that will compete favorably with the suggested $800 AMD64.
If we can't judge by use, how, then, are we supposed to judge? Mass? Volume? It's certainly true that you can buy a heavier PC for $499.
As has been discussed, a Mac mini does not fit my needs.
Actually, that has not been discussed. Seeing as how all you seem to do with your computer is write programs and commit acts of petty theft, I'd say that a Mac would be more than enough for you. In fact, considering that you can write more kinds of computer programs on the Mac than any other platform, I'd say that a Mac would be a far better choice for you than anything else.
Sure sounds like BSD code to me.
Yeah, like I said: You read something without understanding it. I'd suggest you go further to educate yourself before speaking on this topic again. In particular, you need to learn about the modular architecture of Mach, which was the basis for XNU.
My poorly made computer runs just fine, and is faster than any Apple machine you can buy in its price range.
Faster in terms of what? It doesn't do anything.
The iPod was only successful because it works with PCs.
The iPod was a phenomenal commercial success before Apple released the first Windows-compatible model. It held something on the order of 60% of sales in units and 75% of sales in dollars among players that include a hard drive before the first Windows-compatible model was shipped.
I see you are incapable of understanding that entertainment is a practical use.
Correct. Playing games is not a practical use. It's not productive, it creates nothing, it can't be used to make money. It's a waste of time. If you find it entertaining that's fine, but it's still not a productive use of time.
Mm, so you have 1 Xserve and 1 Xserve RAID attached via fibre channel? Is that how those pricey mofos work?
For now. My production manager is pushing me to buy Xsan. I'm thinking about it for next quarter.
Perhaps you neglected to include the part of the comment where you promised to describe something that would work just as well but would cost less. I didn't find that part in your comment.
How much RAM, number of CPUs, etc?
Two CPUs and two gigabytes of RAM.
A Linux system can do all of that just fine.
No, it can't. Let me count the ways.
It can't be a file server for Macs, so we'd have to use Windows file sharing or NFS, neither of which are as good as AppleShare. (I know from my brief and disastrous experience with trying to use it as such that there is a piece of software that attempts to emulate AppleShare. It doesn't work. It can't handle files with resource forks correctly [such as fonts], it gets confused on long file names, and it incorrectly maps UNIX file attributes to AppleShare attributes.)
It can't act as a print server for the Macs without an assload of configuration on each desktop, because it doesn't include Rendezvous support.
It can't be an Open Directory server at all.
It might be possible for it to be a VPN server. My unlamented IT expert couldn't get it to work.
It can't run FileMaker Pro.
It can't run Meeting Maker.
It can't run Adobe Distiller.
So no, it can't "do all that just fine."
Maybe you're too stuck-up to RTFM, but I am not.
You didn't answer the question. Why would you do it the hard, expensive way when you can do it the cheap, easy way? My Xserve RAID was considerably less expensive than a RAID from another vendor, and my Xserve cost about $2,000 plus 30 minutes of my time. I saved four times the cost of the whole package --including a bunch of iMacs for my staff -- by firing my IT guy. So my way was both easier and cheaper than what you're advocating (unless you plan to work for free, in whi
Try modifying OS X & selling it as "Leo McGarry's OS XI" & see how far you get. IP-holders restrict the rights to modify their IP.
Oh, I get it! It's about the freedom to create new works based on existing works. It's about taking other people's stuff without their permission.
Silly me. I thought we were talking about freedom. Turns out we're just talking about "gimme gimme, mine, mine."
Thanks for clearing that up.
Please share which restrictions are draconian.
Here's one: "If you use this software library, you must apply the following software license to your program." As opposed to the commercial world, where you pay your money and receive the right to use the library as you see fit.
Howzabout that?
Others don't want to abolish IP-control--just to make sure that users have more rights than they do under conventional patent and copyright schemes.
Then why do they include the poisonous "You must use this software license" clause? Why not just release the software with terms like everybody else does?
You've got two choices, either of which is perfectly fine: Release the library into the public domain so anybody can use it for free, or release it only to select people under terms. Either of those is fine. This whole "We're releasing it to everybody, but only if you're willing to accept our terms, and by the way our terms require you to propagate our terms to others" thing is for the birds.
Wrongly issued patents on obvious processes and the adhesion contracts that accompany them prohibit people from improving software.
Only for a limited time. Patents are temporary. The argument that you should be able to profit from somebody else's innovation is sound, but to say that you should be able to profit from it right now loses some of its impact, I think.
And as for the "obvious processes" thing, do I have to haul out the old Douglas Adams quote? "It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry 'I could have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too."
In addition, a BIOS that requires every compiled program to have been signed by the hardware vendor prohibits people from modifying software and even from creating wholly original software.
I think what you mean to say is that such a thing would prevent such tasks, if it existed. At present it does not. But if somebody creates one, should he not be allowed to sell it on the open market? With the rapid proliferation of viruses and other malicious software, is hardware-based authentication not a perfectly valid idea?
There are lots of projects under BSD or MIT licenses.
License schmicense. Don't give me that "I released it under a license" bullshit. Just release the work into the public domain. Then, and only then, is a creator qualified to make high-minded pronouncements about freedom and the virtue of sharing.
GNU grep most certainly does handle UTF-8.
/r?" What the hell is that supposed to mean?) I said it can't deal with Mac Roman or Windows Latin 1 encodings, which is true. I said it can't deal with UTF-8, which is true. (Unless, as you did, you restrict your interpretation to just the seven-bit part of the UTF-8 character set.) I said it can't deal with Shift JIS, it can't deal with GB 18030, and it most certainly can't deal with UTF-16, all of which are completely true.
No kidding? Explain to me, please, how to use it to find the name "Bjørn Stærk?"
So iconv everything to UTF-8 & pipe it to grep.
There are terabytes of files out there in legacy encodings. Converting everything is hardly practical. Besides, this in no way helps with the UTF-16 problem, and a massive problem it is.
So submit a bug report.
Why? I prefer to use tools that aren't fundamentally broken rather than wasting my time trying to help other people put duct tape over the cataclysmic fissures in tools that are.
I'm sure they'd get a chuckle out of it since you don't really know what you're talking about.
I don't? I said that Grep can't deal with Mac line endings, which is true. ("Use
So in what way, precisely, do I not know what I'm talking about?
But if the tool is actually a hinderance, isn't it better to abandon it? I'm not saying that you should avoid doing the task. I'm saying that it sounds like your choice of tools is ...well, kinda dumb. At least from the description given.
I know what the words "fact" and "opinion" mean, but I'm pleased as much to learn that you also know their definitions. The part that makes no sense is where you said, "You presented your opinion as though it were fact." To me, that still boils down to, "You said what you think."
Would you mind cutting through the bullshit, please, and just getting to your point?
Yah, very funny. I'll just wait overnight before grepping my new files so it can index them.
Spotlight indexed about 400 GB of files of a wide variety of types in about 20 minutes.
Oh well, maybe I need to scratch my own itch and add that CR line ending option to grep.
See? That's why "open source" is a disaster. Rather than innovating, people with decent ideas just bolt additions on old, obsolete, fundamentally broken programs. The net result is an entire operating system that is completely unusable by people who are unwilling to take the time to learn a new and cryptic language.
Worse than useless.
Weren't you the one saying something is what everyone calls it?
Please don't try too hard to understand me. I'd hate to see you give yourself a headache.
The license of F/OSS limits your (natural or not) rights more tahn the licenses of closed source software.
Agreed. Finally.
Because it isn't broken.
It can't handle old-style Mac line endings. It can't handle Mac Roman or Latin 1 eight-bit encodings, or UTF-8. And UTF-16 is, of course, completely out of the question, as are all the myriad legacy non-Roman 8-bit encodings.
Sounds broken to me.
They're fighting for the right to modify, improve and redistribute software.
That right is not in jeopardy, though! That's like saying that you're fighting for the right to walk down the street, or that you're fighting for the right to wear green underwear. That right isn't something that needs to be fought for, because we've already got it!
No, they're not fighting for the right to do anything. To the contrary, they're fighting against the right of creators to exercise control over their creations. They're not trying to increase freedom, which is already absolute. They're trying to decrease freedom by keeping their work out of the public domain and saddling it with draconian restrictions.
There's a very simple "why not" test. If they're interested in freedom and rights, why are they not just releasing their work into the public domain? The answer is that they're not interested in freedom or rights, but rather in maintaining the strictest possible control. Which is fine --the tradition of intellectual property ensures that they're free to exercise that control -- but the fact that they're maintaining an iron grip on their work with one hand and making wild gestures about freedom and sharing with the other overloads my capacity for irony.
You end up using all the proprietary applications, and freedom will vanish.
Yes, and if we have to go through X-ray machines at the airport, the terrorists win.
This is what passes for insight around here? I weep.
It's closed-source, Windows/Linux x86 only, is a terrible editor, the UI is horrible and it's generally a pain to use in comparison to subetha which Just Works, but it's a lot better than nothing.
...how is it better than nothing? If the tool gets in the way, aren't you better off ditching the tool?
That doesn't add up to me. If it doesn't run on a Mac, is a bad program with a bad user interface and is a pain to use
This seems really interesting but I have no Mac to run it on.
Why not?
If a person's name is Tom and everyone calls him "Jim", that doesn't make his name "Jim".
What's Elton John's name? What's Bob Dylan's name? That thing everybody calls you: That's your name.
Your name argument claims that whatever "everyone else" does is correct, therefore since "everyone else" talks about having freedoms, you believe it is correct to do so.
That sentence is so silly, I have a hard time believing you typed it with a straight face. I think you're mocking me now. Which is fine and all, but not very interesting.
It is stupid and/or dishonest
"And/or?" This is what passes for writing these days? I despair.
What I said is that, based on your message, you formed your opinion about open source on a single incident. Given that this is what you said, it's a reasonable conclusion.
Of course it is not, but that didn't stop you from leaping to it anyway. The funny thing is that, once corrected, you continue to insist that you were right. Bizarre.
You're trying to claim that you are so unfamiliar with online forums that you don't know what at troll is. I do not believe you.
Okay. I'm sorry that I'm not up on the jargon. I'm sorry that I'm "wack" or "ill," or that I'm not "keeping it real" enough for you. Or whatever.
It says that you presented your opinion as though it were fact.
I don't know what that means. I think it means "You stated your opinion," but you've insisted that that's not right. Maybe it means, "You stated an opinion that made me uncomfortable."
I find it impossible to believe that you are so amazingly ignorant that you can't understand this.
Well, life is just full of surprises.
This conversation has already gone way past the point of usefulness.
How is a conversation supposed to be useful? See, that's the problem in a nutshell. You keep using words that I think I understand in ways that don't make any sense to me. You talk about being offended when I state my opinion, evidently because my opinion made you unhappy or something. You call me a troll, and when I ask you what you mean, you call me a liar. And now you talk about conversations as if they were ratchet screwdrivers.
I just don't understand at all.
As for my owns points, I'm not really concerned about getting agreement from anyone.
I'm lost. What have you said that somebody could agree or disagree with?
If you continue posting in your current manner you will be modded down over time. The lower your karma goes the less often you'll be able to post in a day.
I didn't realize it was a game. I didn't realize somebody was keeping score.
I just don't get this at all. It just doesn't make a lick of sense.