heh... yeah. Printing books and carting them out into the jungle is way more cost-effective than loading up, I dunno, a few thousand onto a 5-ounce chip and meshing it with 100 other 5-ounce chips that can instantly duplicate the entire library if you turn the crank a few times.
By the way, what does "obsolete computer hardware" mean in the context of a society with no electricity.
And where did you get the idea that these machines were for software development/programming?
I don't mean to be a dick, but the first sentence there ("Most arsenic enters water supplies either from natural deposits in the earth or from industrial and agricultural pollution") can be summarized as "some is natural and some is from pollution", which gets us nowhere until some *ratio between the two is asserted...
Must use restrictive "that": "Proper spelling and grammar are unnatural constructs that were foisted upon the world by upper class tits who needed another way to make themselves feel special." Unless all unnatural constructs were foisted by these people for this reason. No, 95% doesn't count as all.
You can -immunize 100 children against those diseases OR -give 100 people the ability to access, share and store enough information that they can learn how to develop vaccines themselves, and immunize as many as they need to, not only against currently-known diseases but many others that could crop up......you're aware that vaccination is centuries-old technology, right?
Hm... I was a liberal before I read this thread...
on
Time For Anti-Trust 2.0?
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
First: everyone check my comment history to confirm that I'm as much a raving anti-MS, logiciel libre freak as the next guy.
But this thread is dangerous: "if major pc manufacturers start shipping pcs without windows, they lose their discount pricing on windows & other ms software" "In addition, there should be no "incentives" of any kind"
C'mon guys, we believe in a free market here. What's needed is for a manufacturer or two to grow a pair, offer preinstalled Linux, and put some effort behind it. Some marketing that makes the case for Linux. How much is the discount? $50? How many people would notice the difference between a $1400 computer and a $1450 one?
Abusing monopoly power in order to crush new markets is wrong; offering incentives to partners in order to maintain market share is 100% legal and moral.
Admittedly, I didn't read TFA, but I think the relevance to technology is pretty solid. The networks are making it so that ordinary people can call out the old-guard information monopolists. It is widely known that most broadcasting companies long ago internalized the values of the establishment, with the consequence that people are not exposed to criticism of the establishment... in the absence of official censorship!. Cf. "The Propaganda Model"
Youtube's not going to save us all, but it can and should start a trend toward egalitarian broadcasting of serious content & criticism.
After they keep saying it, including in TFA? Subscriptions and advertising.
MS 1.0 = turn computing into an "experience" and sell the experience. MS 2.0 = add ads to the "experience" and rent it instead of selling it.
Pretty straightforward. What I can't wait for is the next wave of FUD: "Linux isn't ready for the desktop because the advertising experience is severely limited."
The GPL totally obviates a EULA by saying "you can run the program for any purpose whatsover, have fun". The point stands about Dvorak implying that the GPL is weird, tough to parse, rife with gotchas, etc.
If you want to distribute free software under the GPL, it's fairly easy to understand in what circumstances you can do so. If you want to take other people's code that they've licensed under the GPL, and distribute it under terms of your choosing, then I agree it is kind of difficult to figure out how to do that. The reason, though, is not that the GPL is weird or difficult but that distributing other people's code under your own terms is not currently allowed by our copyright system
The legal wtf, in my opinion (but IANAL) is how exactly Novell can presume to cut a deal between its users and Microsoft. Here's why they think GPLs7 doesn't apply:
"Our agreement with Microsoft is focused on our customers, and does not include a patent license or covenant not to sue from Microsoft to Novell (or, for that matter, from Novell to Microsoft). Novell's customers receive a covenant not to sue directly from Microsoft"
Am I (and PJ) reading that wrong? "Our agreement with Microsoft" somehow causes customers to "receive a covenant not to sue directly from Microsoft". This seems impossible.
How is it possible for my agreement with Microsoft (were I to have one) to cause other non-involved people to receive things directly from microsoft?
Well, it seems pretty obvious, but Moglen tells Novell to stop distributing his clients' code without a license, and (I believe the usual routine) opens up negotiations as to how they can resume distribution.
Funny how the open source movement is about choice until you decide not to use them.... People aren't always going to use what you think is best. They may have different requirements than you. Heck, they may just want to get stuff done without dragging ridiculous debates on software distribution into everything.
I have no problem with anyone at all choosing to use non-free software. As you said, they have different requirements than I do.
What irks me (and most of the people who get pist about this) is when they suggest that there's some big shortcoming in "Linux" (though they usually mean off-the-shelf distros) because nobody has customized it, for them, for free, yet.
Instead of complaining about it, figure out what made them be dissuaded, and evaluate whether their complaints are legitimate. If they are, then fix the underlying problem
another post in this thread talks about an NGO where the funders (without whom nothing is possible) require some windows-only software to be installed on the NGO's machines. Perfectly valid reason to keep windows. I think Mark Shuttleworth should hire someone to fix that, because there are going to be a lot of NGOs using a lot of Ubuntu installations in Africa pretty soon.
First, though, give those apps a shot in WINE. Gets better by the hour.
"that can actually cost more than having Windows on an enterprise machine"... guy: it's when you have more than one machine that the benefits of free software get obvious. When you have more than a dozen, they're stunning.
Public domain at worst, according to Dvorak. The man's grasp of licensing is astounding, isn't it?
BTW when he says "Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses" I think it's pretty hilarious because:
-(obv) he's projecting his own confusion about licenses onto microsoft -(also obv) he and his ilk are the creators of the confusion b/c they love writing columns about what they do not understand -Sorry.. is the GPL that much tougher to comprehend than, for example, the Windows EULA?
Remember that? "We're not saying we actually have any code or other "intellectual property" in Linux, 'cause if we said that we'd have to.. y'know, identify where it is and that sort of thing. At which time it would be wiped the #$^# out of Linux within hours. We're just saying that in case we do have any you should pay us some money and then we won't sue you. We really don't want to go through the hassle of a big trial, partly because we're such nice guys and partly because there isn't a shred of evidence for our claims. So how 'bout just a little money?
Red Hat seems to be making an honorable stand. They likely don't have the resources to take on MS solo, but IBM does and I could just about see them joining the fray. Note, IBM didn't have to spend 3 years demolishing SCO.
"Sir Nicholas may well err on the gloomy side. And it is certainly impossible to predict precisely what effect climate change will have had on the world economy in a century's time. But neither point invalidates Sir Nicholas's central perception -- that governments should act not on the basis of the likeliest outcome from climate change but on the risk of something really catastrophic..."
The main inhibitor to the efficiency of democracy (at least in the U.S.) is not -- you're correct -- a lack of information. It's the outdated system by which information is *legitimated.
That system, which in a nutshell is "media conglomerates tell the unwashed masses what is true" can and will be outdated by decentralized tools. I don't think mySpace is going to save the proletariat, but the fact is that empowerment-in-general grew with the free flow of information, and it will grow again with reliable, objective (and egalitarian!) ways of sorting the good information from the bad.
No, you will be taxed an additional 10-20% to help cover it. Anyone who opposes this tax increase will be demonized as someone who "voted against saving our asses from the terrorists ZOMG!!!!11 Z". Lather, rinse, repeat.
Slashdot Mirror
heh... yeah. Printing books and carting them out into the jungle is way more cost-effective than loading up, I dunno, a few thousand onto a 5-ounce chip and meshing it with 100 other 5-ounce chips that can instantly duplicate the entire library if you turn the crank a few times.
By the way, what does "obsolete computer hardware" mean in the context of a society with no electricity.
And where did you get the idea that these machines were for software development/programming?
Actually it was not correct.
m l#that
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/t.ht
I don't mean to be a dick, but the first sentence there ("Most arsenic enters water supplies either from natural deposits in the earth or from industrial and agricultural pollution") can be summarized as "some is natural and some is from pollution", which gets us nowhere until some *ratio between the two is asserted...
Must use restrictive "that": "Proper spelling and grammar are unnatural constructs that were foisted upon the world by upper class tits who needed another way to make themselves feel special." Unless all unnatural constructs were foisted by these people for this reason. No, 95% doesn't count as all.
question one should be How Did the Arsenic Get In There?
Is this a normal geological property or result of pollution?
You can ...you're aware that vaccination is centuries-old technology, right?
-immunize 100 children against those diseases
OR
-give 100 people the ability to access, share and store enough information that they can learn how to develop vaccines themselves, and immunize as many as they need to, not only against currently-known diseases but many others that could crop up...
First: everyone check my comment history to confirm that I'm as much a raving anti-MS, logiciel libre freak as the next guy.
But this thread is dangerous:
"if major pc manufacturers start shipping pcs without windows, they lose their discount pricing on windows & other ms software"
"In addition, there should be no "incentives" of any kind"
C'mon guys, we believe in a free market here. What's needed is for a manufacturer or two to grow a pair, offer preinstalled Linux, and put some effort behind it. Some marketing that makes the case for Linux. How much is the discount? $50? How many people would notice the difference between a $1400 computer and a $1450 one?
Abusing monopoly power in order to crush new markets is wrong; offering incentives to partners in order to maintain market share is 100% legal and moral.
I enjoyed attaching "itsatrap" to this one.
Admittedly, I didn't read TFA, but I think the relevance to technology is pretty solid. The networks are making it so that ordinary people can call out the old-guard information monopolists. It is widely known that most broadcasting companies long ago internalized the values of the establishment, with the consequence that people are not exposed to criticism of the establishment ... in the absence of official censorship!. Cf. "The Propaganda Model"
Youtube's not going to save us all, but it can and should start a trend toward egalitarian broadcasting of serious content & criticism.
After they keep saying it, including in TFA? Subscriptions and advertising.
MS 1.0 = turn computing into an "experience" and sell the experience.
MS 2.0 = add ads to the "experience" and rent it instead of selling it.
Pretty straightforward. What I can't wait for is the next wave of FUD: "Linux isn't ready for the desktop because the advertising experience is severely limited."
The GPL totally obviates a EULA by saying "you can run the program for any purpose whatsover, have fun". The point stands about Dvorak implying that the GPL is weird, tough to parse, rife with gotchas, etc.
If you want to distribute free software under the GPL, it's fairly easy to understand in what circumstances you can do so. If you want to take other people's code that they've licensed under the GPL, and distribute it under terms of your choosing, then I agree it is kind of difficult to figure out how to do that. The reason, though, is not that the GPL is weird or difficult but that distributing other people's code under your own terms is not currently allowed by our copyright system
... discussed here1 11321376
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061109
The legal wtf, in my opinion (but IANAL) is how exactly Novell can presume to cut a deal between its users and Microsoft. Here's why they think GPLs7 doesn't apply:
"Our agreement with Microsoft is focused on our customers, and does not include a patent license or covenant not to sue from Microsoft to Novell (or, for that matter, from Novell to Microsoft). Novell's customers receive a covenant not to sue directly from Microsoft"
Am I (and PJ) reading that wrong? "Our agreement with Microsoft" somehow causes customers to "receive a covenant not to sue directly from Microsoft". This seems impossible.
How is it possible for my agreement with Microsoft (were I to have one) to cause other non-involved people to receive things directly from microsoft?
Well, it seems pretty obvious, but Moglen tells Novell to stop distributing his clients' code without a license, and (I believe the usual routine) opens up negotiations as to how they can resume distribution.
Funny how the open source movement is about choice until you decide not to use them. ... People aren't always going to use what you think is best. They may have different requirements than you. Heck, they may just want to get stuff done without dragging ridiculous debates on software distribution into everything.
I have no problem with anyone at all choosing to use non-free software. As you said, they have different requirements than I do.
What irks me (and most of the people who get pist about this) is when they suggest that there's some big shortcoming in "Linux" (though they usually mean off-the-shelf distros) because nobody has customized it, for them, for free, yet.
Instead of complaining about it, figure out what made them be dissuaded, and evaluate whether their complaints are legitimate. If they are, then fix the underlying problem
another post in this thread talks about an NGO where the funders (without whom nothing is possible) require some windows-only software to be installed on the NGO's machines. Perfectly valid reason to keep windows. I think Mark Shuttleworth should hire someone to fix that, because there are going to be a lot of NGOs using a lot of Ubuntu installations in Africa pretty soon.
First, though, give those apps a shot in WINE. Gets better by the hour.
"that can actually cost more than having Windows on an enterprise machine" ... guy: it's when you have more than one machine that the benefits of free software get obvious. When you have more than a dozen, they're stunning.
Public domain at worst, according to Dvorak. The man's grasp of licensing is astounding, isn't it?
.. is the GPL that much tougher to comprehend than, for example, the Windows EULA?
BTW when he says "Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses" I think it's pretty hilarious because:
-(obv) he's projecting his own confusion about licenses onto microsoft
-(also obv) he and his ilk are the creators of the confusion b/c they love writing columns about what they do not understand
-Sorry
I thought that had been pretty-much refuted...
Is there a joke I'm not in on?
Remember that? "We're not saying we actually have any code or other "intellectual property" in Linux, 'cause if we said that we'd have to .. y'know, identify where it is and that sort of thing. At which time it would be wiped the #$^# out of Linux within hours. We're just saying that in case we do have any you should pay us some money and then we won't sue you. We really don't want to go through the hassle of a big trial, partly because we're such nice guys and partly because there isn't a shred of evidence for our claims. So how 'bout just a little money?
Red Hat seems to be making an honorable stand. They likely don't have the resources to take on MS solo, but IBM does and I could just about see them joining the fray. Note, IBM didn't have to spend 3 years demolishing SCO.
Someone go get me some popcorn.
..which is generally pretty levelheaded:
"Sir Nicholas may well err on the gloomy side. And it is certainly impossible to predict precisely what effect climate change will have had on the world economy in a century's time. But neither point invalidates Sir Nicholas's central perception -- that governments should act not on the basis of the likeliest outcome from climate change but on the risk of something really catastrophic..."
The main inhibitor to the efficiency of democracy (at least in the U.S.) is not -- you're correct -- a lack of information. It's the outdated system by which information is *legitimated.
That system, which in a nutshell is "media conglomerates tell the unwashed masses what is true" can and will be outdated by decentralized tools. I don't think mySpace is going to save the proletariat, but the fact is that empowerment-in-general grew with the free flow of information, and it will grow again with reliable, objective (and egalitarian!) ways of sorting the good information from the bad.
...that, of course, is the day you go to the polls and let these people know that all this stuff is A-OK with you.
(credit to Jim Schutze for phrasing)
No, you will be taxed an additional 10-20% to help cover it. Anyone who opposes this tax increase will be demonized as someone who "voted against saving our asses from the terrorists ZOMG!!!!11 Z". Lather, rinse, repeat.
Man, america has peaked...
no text today.