Having an open algorithm isn't enough. If the community is contributing to a database, and relying on that database, then the database has to be open, distributed, and resilient, along with the algorithms, protocols, etc. Otherwise, it won't belong to the community that created it, but to some company that can act as gatekeeper to our own data, or even coerce us into using it.
p.s.: the Venezuelan open-source related stuff on encouraging their own economy is also directly relevant to why governments should care about open source. Not to mention the underhanded (and prooven) bribes from companies like Microsoft while attempting to keep things closed. The fact that such things can't happen with open development ALONE should make you want your government leaning towards that.
Actually, I think you'll find that a single moon around a water planet is the intergalactic quarantine symbol. Why do you think no one comes to see us?;)
They're definitely shooting themselves in the foot though. By saying that legally allowed so-called "ripping" is "unauthorised", What they're doing is essentially saying is that they don't recognised the law's jurisdiction.
This could easily come back to haunt them in a court of law, if it's able to be presented as evidence of intent or behaviour. Somehow I think they'll get away with it though. A company with enough time and lobbying power on its hands can easily direct (usually pervert) the cause of justice, unlike citizens sadly. Our only hope is if they directly piss off enough consumers that they consumers really turn on them and bring down the hole system by boycotting them or creating a better system. Which, laughably, is how this all started, with the better systems provided by the internet.
make it sound like Open Source software is somehow different. It's all just software.
That's like saying murderers and humanitarians are all just people. It's true if you exclude lots of factors, but in the wider sense of contribution to society, it's complete BS.
lol... yes, I know:) But if you're presuming one has been set with some attempt at correctness, then you might as well assume that two have been, and that the margin of error diminishes as more clocks are factored in.
They're talking about people providing a service which purports to be checking domain availability, in case you want to purchase it. They're pretending to offer a low-level service for high-level users. It seems they are actually a high-level, competing service, lying to their competitors about what they do, in order to get inside information about their competitors, and beat them to the "punch" by snapping up property first.
So. You're really going to claim that's not a crime, are you? To anyone with a functioning moral compass, it should immediately stink of being unethical, even before you've fully considered the reasons why it's not right. Even if you don't get the ethics, you'll probably find it's against the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law. Bypassing competition is generally considered to be a bad thing in a capitalist marketplace. You know... "tearing up the fabric of society"-type bad.
Bull. Nothing you like, maybe, but that's just you. Linux, GCC... thousands of projects on freshmeat, sourceforge, and many other sites... the list of openly developed free software is very extensive. In fact, none of that closed source development would ever have been opened if it wasn't for the innovation in the free software world first. Why do you think they did that? I doubt it was because those closed-source people saw no value in free software, and never used it themselves.
The stars spelling out "We Are Here" are tough to read given the language differences and they use a pentagon to point instead of an arrow given they never developed archery.
It's when they start using pentagrams that you need to worry.
They seem to misunderstand what KITT was. KITT was sleek, and elegant. It had class. And it was something we all imagined we might have some day. Until the producers get what the old show had, they should stop trying to reproduce it with horrible bulky cars.
"But burning them will release more CO2 into the air than they took in."
That's not possible.
I think you're confusing CO2 with raw energy. It's not possible to produce more energy than it took in, but it's easily possible for something to take in CO2, along with some O and C, and release more CO2 than it took in.
No, it really doesn't. No matter how "standard" some electronic format is today, it's still unlikely that 50 years from now your average home computer (or whatever the equivalent is by then) will read the legacy file format
Do you actually have any experience of government's need for historical archiving? It doesn't sound like it. Just go listen to Peter Quinn's speech on ODF, if you want some evidence against what you're saying.
As for it not being my problem. I'm a citizen. In a democracy, citizens are RESPONSIBLE for their government: electing it, keeping it in power, and legitimising it. Every choice your government makes affects the lives of everyone around you, now, and into the future. It most certainly is our problem.
Anyway, this isn't a topic that fascinates me all that much, so I'll call it a day here.
Whether they do this by publishing it in some popular electronic format(s), or by providing reference copies and any hardware/software necessary to read them at public libraries, or by posting a printed copy to every citizen, or through some combination of means, doesn't really matter.
Of course it matters! You've obviously never tried to interface different systems or to find some way of using legacy data that no one makes a reader for any more. When a commercial company goes bust (or deliberately shuts down a division), all of the contracts you have for support are null and void.
Apart from that, there's the issue of competition, and competitive tendering, which governments have a duty to their citizens (and yes, to their private organisations) to provide.
On "proof by ad hominem attack"... what makes you think it was intended to be a proof of anything? It was a statement, for which you do your own research and find your own proof. I'm not your research department. Try not to confuse the two.
On ODF being the pinnacle of software standards? Never said it was. Nonetheless, my *statement* stands.
Also, if someone has an OS preference and is the IT department or has purchasing power in the IT department, one should be able to install the preferred OS. Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Suse, OpenSuse, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, RedHat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Knoppix, eComStation, QNX, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003
You forgot BeOS and AROS;)
Seriously... I could care less about getting machines with ANY of these these installed. I just want to know that they'll work on it, and that I'm not paying for some OS I don't plan to use (either directly, through a hidden tax, or through balancing of costs for other customers who DO want that OS).
Just give me search form, with options like "Windows 32-bit drivers: Certified", "Windows 64-bit drivers: direct from manufacturer", "Linux 64-bit drivers: in kernel tree (mainline/mm/etc)", "Linux 32-bit drivers: open source", and, importantly even for windows, "manufacturer guarantees to support new OS versions and bit-widths for these drivers until ___ years from now". Then, I just need an option to complain (bitterly) if the search comes back with no results.
Why is this news? Because it clearly shows unethical thinking at work, and people sense that deep down, even if their background of growing up under dodgy corporate leaders tells them "it's just business".
The fact is, if you can provide something to someone without charge, and you then take time to remove that because you want them to pay for an entirely different service... well then, very simply, you're deliberately going out of your way to screw people.
It's fine being a logic nazi, but don't expect everyone, in short comments on slashdot, to point out every logical step for you. Reading a few points, thinking about the connections between them, and finding the way to a conclusion on your own is becoming a lost art. In this case, the public and private character* of a company, which basically amounts to their previous practices, is the first thing to go on, when speculating on how they might license something new.
Anyone who's a citizen knows enough about the requirements to make the fundamental point: that the information a government generates belongs to the people, and should not be tied up in a format that is controlled by a single organisation. OOXML is just such a format. More than that, it's a hugely stupid format, that no developer in their right (read: unbought) mind could possibly endorse.
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Having an open algorithm isn't enough. If the community is contributing to a database, and relying on that database, then the database has to be open, distributed, and resilient, along with the algorithms, protocols, etc. Otherwise, it won't belong to the community that created it, but to some company that can act as gatekeeper to our own data, or even coerce us into using it.
Companies are SUPPOSED to work for the people. Their freedom is NEVER the more important factor.
p.s.: the Venezuelan open-source related stuff on encouraging their own economy is also directly relevant to why governments should care about open source. Not to mention the underhanded (and prooven) bribes from companies like Microsoft while attempting to keep things closed. The fact that such things can't happen with open development ALONE should make you want your government leaning towards that.
Actually, I think you'll find that a single moon around a water planet is the intergalactic quarantine symbol. Why do you think no one comes to see us? ;)
You really should listen to Peter Quinn's talk on ODF, and learn about sovereignty before you say that. You'll almost certainly find it enlightening.
They're definitely shooting themselves in the foot though. By saying that legally allowed so-called "ripping" is "unauthorised", What they're doing is essentially saying is that they don't recognised the law's jurisdiction.
This could easily come back to haunt them in a court of law, if it's able to be presented as evidence of intent or behaviour. Somehow I think they'll get away with it though. A company with enough time and lobbying power on its hands can easily direct (usually pervert) the cause of justice, unlike citizens sadly. Our only hope is if they directly piss off enough consumers that they consumers really turn on them and bring down the hole system by boycotting them or creating a better system. Which, laughably, is how this all started, with the better systems provided by the internet.
That's like saying murderers and humanitarians are all just people. It's true if you exclude lots of factors, but in the wider sense of contribution to society, it's complete BS.
lol... yes, I know :) But if you're presuming one has been set with some attempt at correctness, then you might as well assume that two have been, and that the margin of error diminishes as more clocks are factored in.
They're talking about people providing a service which purports to be checking domain availability, in case you want to purchase it. They're pretending to offer a low-level service for high-level users. It seems they are actually a high-level, competing service, lying to their competitors about what they do, in order to get inside information about their competitors, and beat them to the "punch" by snapping up property first.
So. You're really going to claim that's not a crime, are you? To anyone with a functioning moral compass, it should immediately stink of being unethical, even before you've fully considered the reasons why it's not right. Even if you don't get the ethics, you'll probably find it's against the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law. Bypassing competition is generally considered to be a bad thing in a capitalist marketplace. You know... "tearing up the fabric of society"-type bad.
Bull. Nothing you like, maybe, but that's just you. Linux, GCC... thousands of projects on freshmeat, sourceforge, and many other sites... the list of openly developed free software is very extensive. In fact, none of that closed source development would ever have been opened if it wasn't for the innovation in the free software world first. Why do you think they did that? I doubt it was because those closed-source people saw no value in free software, and never used it themselves.
On the other hand a man with two clocks who averages them can know better than a man with one clock.
Something which KITT does for fun, of course
It's when they start using pentagrams that you need to worry.
They seem to misunderstand what KITT was. KITT was sleek, and elegant. It had class. And it was something we all imagined we might have some day. Until the producers get what the old show had, they should stop trying to reproduce it with horrible bulky cars.
Not quite. That's how commercial progress works under capitalism. It's one of the reasons I prefer Free Software development.
I think you're confusing CO2 with raw energy. It's not possible to produce more energy than it took in, but it's easily possible for something to take in CO2, along with some O and C, and release more CO2 than it took in.
Do you actually have any experience of government's need for historical archiving? It doesn't sound like it. Just go listen to Peter Quinn's speech on ODF, if you want some evidence against what you're saying.
As for it not being my problem. I'm a citizen. In a democracy, citizens are RESPONSIBLE for their government: electing it, keeping it in power, and legitimising it. Every choice your government makes affects the lives of everyone around you, now, and into the future. It most certainly is our problem.
Anyway, this isn't a topic that fascinates me all that much, so I'll call it a day here.
Someone mod this up, for the love of... well, common sense really.
Of course it matters! You've obviously never tried to interface different systems or to find some way of using legacy data that no one makes a reader for any more. When a commercial company goes bust (or deliberately shuts down a division), all of the contracts you have for support are null and void.
Apart from that, there's the issue of competition, and competitive tendering, which governments have a duty to their citizens (and yes, to their private organisations) to provide.
On "proof by ad hominem attack"... what makes you think it was intended to be a proof of anything? It was a statement, for which you do your own research and find your own proof. I'm not your research department. Try not to confuse the two.
On ODF being the pinnacle of software standards? Never said it was. Nonetheless, my *statement* stands.
Exactly. Russian space tech was always a little ropey. Why should their galaxy class cruisers be any different?
You forgot BeOS and AROS
Seriously... I could care less about getting machines with ANY of these these installed. I just want to know that they'll work on it, and that I'm not paying for some OS I don't plan to use (either directly, through a hidden tax, or through balancing of costs for other customers who DO want that OS).
Just give me search form, with options like "Windows 32-bit drivers: Certified", "Windows 64-bit drivers: direct from manufacturer", "Linux 64-bit drivers: in kernel tree (mainline/mm/etc)", "Linux 32-bit drivers: open source", and, importantly even for windows, "manufacturer guarantees to support new OS versions and bit-widths for these drivers until ___ years from now". Then, I just need an option to complain (bitterly) if the search comes back with no results.
Why is this news? Because it clearly shows unethical thinking at work, and people sense that deep down, even if their background of growing up under dodgy corporate leaders tells them "it's just business".
The fact is, if you can provide something to someone without charge, and you then take time to remove that because you want them to pay for an entirely different service... well then, very simply, you're deliberately going out of your way to screw people.
It's fine being a logic nazi, but don't expect everyone, in short comments on slashdot, to point out every logical step for you. Reading a few points, thinking about the connections between them, and finding the way to a conclusion on your own is becoming a lost art. In this case, the public and private character* of a company, which basically amounts to their previous practices, is the first thing to go on, when speculating on how they might license something new.
;)
* you can use it that way, it's perfect English
Anyone who's a citizen knows enough about the requirements to make the fundamental point: that the information a government generates belongs to the people, and should not be tied up in a format that is controlled by a single organisation. OOXML is just such a format. More than that, it's a hugely stupid format, that no developer in their right (read: unbought) mind could possibly endorse.
It's called capitalist marketing. Welcome to the show. Popcorn?