"There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist."
--Bill Gates, on the motivations of those who seek to reform patent law.
If they think this (which I highly doubt) it is because apparently no one in their legal department has read a *single item of case law about contributory infringement.
"You feel and believe that there is such thing as a soul, and that's fine as far as it goes, but the objective reality of the universe doesn't care what you believe or feel."
Probably true, but alas.. *you don't have any more access to the "objective reality of the universe" than anyone else.
But your commitment to measurement and science gives you access to something almost as good: *intersubjective reality -- which is essentialy a description of what is true based on common elements of multiple observers' descriptions.
"If a soul can be defined and measured, then it exists in an objective reality."
Nope. It exists in intersubjective reality, insofar as the languages people use to describe it can be calibrated.
This is true about GGP. Incidentally, OSX doesn't behave like Fedora either.
"Why on earth would you want a single window to take up your entire screen anyway??"
I don't blame it all on Macs, as I've just never sat down to learn all the differences, but the resizing and so many other things are *extremely mouse-centric out-of-the-box, and I can't stand that.
I can confirm that. I had the same annoyance. 10.5
Related annoyance: wtf with only resizing windows from the bottom-right corner? And not being able to resize certain windows (Sys Prefs, IIRC) at *all?
What I'm addressing is the tendency of people to favor what they think of as pragmatism over what they think of as "zealotry" (one of people's favorite words when talking about rms or the FSF).
Saying "I don't share rms/FSF's ethical principles/preferences" is fine and dandy. But dismissing him as an "idealist" because his principles aren't the same as yours is just namecalling.
"It's necessary for there to be an economic incentive to develop software. Nobody is going to donate millions of man-hours to write the software for the F-22 out of the goodness of their heart."
My guess would be that the people who need the F-22 to fly have a pretty convincing incentive to write software for it.
If no one develops proprietary software, all the software that is built is build for its value in *use, not its value in exchange. There would be lots.
Whether that's "enough" software or "the right software" is aseparate question. But saying there won't be any is idiotic.
The -- ahem -- "idealist" says "these are my principles, I don't violate them".
The "pragmatist" says "I just want this done by Friday and will violate my principles for the sake of that."
At first glance, it looks like the second person values action and results more than principles. But that's actually not the case: She just has a different principle: expedience, "getting it done by Friday", and values this more than her other principles.
Thought experiment: make it so that the thing won't be finished on Friday unless the pragmatist kills someone. You will discover a closeted (horror!) *idealist. In most cases, the thing won't be done on Friday.
To sum up: this is a false dichotomy, and a tiresome one.
Sorry, Taylor.. I've got some of the more cynical/paranoid posts in this thread, but I think I'm actually like you.
I loved the potential of Android when announced, and was very excited. But this G1 seems a halfhearted commitment to openness at best. My optimistic bit hopes that a couple phones later things will get better.
>"Why do people not see this?"
Instead of trying to analyze to death what Google/TMobile is actually doing, you might understand our frustration if you imagine what they *could have done but didn't.
If openness/hacking was an important part of this device's launch, I picture an article -- at Google, written by a Google dev in collaboration with a G1 firmware hacker -- about how to put Debian (or Ubuntu) on your G1 in six easy steps.
Instead we have saurik's 90-step scary-as-hell process, which btw will not work in a matter of hours prolly.
Slashdot Mirror
No,
They have a *priapic art
im in ur patent office
approvin teh obveeyus
"There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist."
--Bill Gates, on the motivations of those who seek to reform patent law.
you can edit photos on XP, sure, but you can't get the "Vista Memories Experience (TM)"
"but that doesn't make the OS unusable"
That's not what is contended.
"MS has thinly veiled patent threats against Linux which are now even weaker"
To clarify: the patents are weaker, but the threats are not.
The annual "Be Very Afraid Tour" was never actually based on reality, or law. It's pure marketing/lies.
"i don't think fine print by itself is sufficient defense against false advertisement charges"
Probably true, and clearly needs to be fixed:
There should be a EULA you have to click through, by touching a square on your TV, before you can see the ad.
"did you think that $50 million from Microsoft that enabled them to continue the lawsuits was an investment in actual business?"
It was not an investment; they *obviously were buying something extremely valuable from SCO.
It's a bit peculiar that *no *one *else seems to want to buy what SCO has, but MS works in mysterious ways, no?
"the reign of the film tycoon is over.. ."
Weird coincidence: I'm currently reading "The Last Tycoon". Which is about that. And which was written in the 30s.
"Death penalty is not being lobbied by the international media corporations."
Yet.
"They think something is not legal...."
If they think this (which I highly doubt) it is because apparently no one in their legal department has read a *single item of case law about contributory infringement.
True, I quickly found 13,315 albums that definitely are *not.
F/OSS is negligible! Negligible, I tell you!
Negligible! Negligible! Negligible! Negligible!
-Steve Ballmer
"You feel and believe that there is such thing as a soul, and that's fine as far as it goes, but the objective reality of the universe doesn't care what you believe or feel."
Probably true, but alas.. *you don't have any more access to the "objective reality of the universe" than anyone else.
But your commitment to measurement and science gives you access to something almost as good: *intersubjective reality -- which is essentialy a description of what is true based on common elements of multiple observers' descriptions.
"If a soul can be defined and measured, then it exists in an objective reality."
Nope. It exists in intersubjective reality, insofar as the languages people use to describe it can be calibrated.
We're machines, and *we have souls...
This is true about GGP. Incidentally, OSX doesn't behave like Fedora either.
"Why on earth would you want a single window to take up your entire screen anyway??"
I don't blame it all on Macs, as I've just never sat down to learn all the differences, but the resizing and so many other things are *extremely mouse-centric out-of-the-box, and I can't stand that.
I can confirm that. I had the same annoyance. 10.5
Related annoyance: wtf with only resizing windows from the bottom-right corner? And not being able to resize certain windows (Sys Prefs, IIRC) at *all?
You are more or less correct.
What I'm addressing is the tendency of people to favor what they think of as pragmatism over what they think of as "zealotry" (one of people's favorite words when talking about rms or the FSF).
Saying "I don't share rms/FSF's ethical principles/preferences" is fine and dandy. But dismissing him as an "idealist" because his principles aren't the same as yours is just namecalling.
"It's necessary for there to be an economic incentive to develop software. Nobody is going to donate millions of man-hours to write the software for the F-22 out of the goodness of their heart."
My guess would be that the people who need the F-22 to fly have a pretty convincing incentive to write software for it.
If no one develops proprietary software, all the software that is built is build for its value in *use, not its value in exchange. There would be lots.
Whether that's "enough" software or "the right software" is aseparate question. But saying there won't be any is idiotic.
The -- ahem -- "idealist" says "these are my principles, I don't violate them".
The "pragmatist" says "I just want this done by Friday and will violate my principles for the sake of that."
At first glance, it looks like the second person values action and results more than principles. But that's actually not the case: She just has a different principle: expedience, "getting it done by Friday", and values this more than her other principles.
Thought experiment: make it so that the thing won't be finished on Friday unless the pragmatist kills someone. You will discover a closeted (horror!) *idealist. In most cases, the thing won't be done on Friday.
To sum up: this is a false dichotomy, and a tiresome one.
"That the experiment leading to such conclusion is easily reproducible"
Yes, and the term for scientific meaningfulness is not "objectively true" but "intersubjectively confirmable" for this reason.
"Objective" versus "subjective" is kind of an old, dead dichtomoy IMO
Just kidding.
AAW ruled, though
La plume de ma tante!!!
Sorry, Taylor .. I've got some of the more cynical/paranoid posts in this thread, but I think I'm actually like you.
I loved the potential of Android when announced, and was very excited. But this G1 seems a halfhearted commitment to openness at best. My optimistic bit hopes that a couple phones later things will get better.
>"Why do people not see this?"
Instead of trying to analyze to death what Google/TMobile is actually doing, you might understand our frustration if you imagine what they *could have done but didn't.
If openness/hacking was an important part of this device's launch, I picture an article -- at Google, written by a Google dev in collaboration with a G1 firmware hacker -- about how to put Debian (or Ubuntu) on your G1 in six easy steps.
Instead we have saurik's 90-step scary-as-hell process, which btw will not work in a matter of hours prolly.
The whole "it's your phone you can do what you want with it" paradigm comes from *free software, not an "open source" software.
As for "shut up and show them the code" this G1 is a great example.
"Look, we're an open platform! Look at the code, isn't it neat! Don't TOUCH it!!!"