You're right, I overstepped reality there with that one. Well, probably. It depends upon how long it takes the blackdown folk to shake-out every last arcane boundary-condition tested by the JCK. I bet the floating-point stuff will be fun.
And, as someone else pointed out, one could always just run swing on 1.1.7.
...but I think it's actually worse than the previous license, in terms of getting a functioning jdk for linux. Read this page for an idea of what needs to be done.
And don't forget to check out the classpath project, which stands a better chance of getting Java2 features to linux in a reasonable timeframe.
That's a good question, and my response is that ports to linux & freebsd could be made to pass the compliance tests much sooner if we could debug in parallel, which means letting people like you and me find bugs in the betas. Make sense?
I've read several people mention that one drawback of the new license is that it doesn't improve matters at all for the people doing the linux/jdk port at blackdown.org. Apparently, the new license scheme doesn't let them put their port up on an ftp server until it passes all of the compliance tests, meaning that we get none of the benefits of having a multitude of eyeballs to make the bugs shallow.
So, while it may seem like open-source on the surface, it seems like they've managed to make an almost-open-source license that has all of the hype and none of the benefit, at least for the freenix community, anyway.
I'd like to add that dvdeug's observation about Perl's dual-licensing scheme serves to refute Brett Glass's claim that multiple licenses encourage fragmentation.
The following is not authoritative, but it's probably more accurate than juuri's claim that Perl is not GPL'd.
The perl distribution contains two files ("Artistic" and "Copying"), each of which is a license for the software. The second file is GPL (v1). You, as a perl user, are allowed to choose the terms under which you redistribute the (possibly modified) perl source. One of these choices that you can make, is to distribute it under the GPL. Perl's dual licensing scheme was probably the inspiration for the recent changes in the NPL.
I know it's a matter of opinion, but I would call the work that I've seen "substantial". It would be cool if a good beta came soon, but that doesn't mean that their work has no substance. I'm sure that the average user (i.e. you?) will be serviced when the code is ready -- and, fortunately, no sooner.
If you can't appreciate the movie as a comedy, maybe you should take the film's central message to heart: if you're not happy in your cubicle, change careers.
That's a good way to put it. It triggered some thoughts...
The transition from trickle to torrent is what he's spotlighting. Katz hasn't claimed that there's never before been a film that appealed to geeks, or anything remotely similar. As you've said, he's calling attention to the sudden upswing. He's talking about the rise in frequency, and you're saying: so what, we've been getting a droplet per year for two decades now. To put it in terms that everyone can understand: One person is celebrating the sudden mainstream attention linux has been getting, and people are saying "Bah, linux is old; I've been using it since 1991".
Some here are already giving Jon a hard time about focusing on "geek films" and whatnot. I just wanted to throw-in my $0.02 by saying that over the last three years I've been waiting to see characters from my discipline reflected in the movies. I've gotten the hang of hollywood's view of doctors, lawyers, and law-enforcement officers and would love to see more programmers. Ok, so maybe we're not all that interesting, but the fact that movie-makers are trying more to appeal to our demographic is. (To me, at least.)
Thank you for the lesson. The argument is so clear that I feel a little disappointed in myself for not being able to think of it on my own. I guess that's the way it is with a lot of things.
I think that's enough to change my mind. I don't want to give them an excuse to spam me every time they release an update to their ActiveX control. Ugh.
Maybe a few hundred pieces of email asking the same quetion will pound them into submission.:-) If anybody can get through to their web site, post an address.
Are there any ergo keyboards with moveable keycaps? I type in dvorak, and I'm growing weary of the stickers. Half of my home-row is qwerty again, because the stickers just aren't very robust.
You're also into spiritual stuff, and many of those in the/. community are radical materialist atheists.
In my youth, I was hostile to the concept of "spirituality", mostly because it was an oft-thrown-around word which nobody seemed to be able to adequately define, for my tastes. Now that I'm older, I understand it better, yet managed to remain steadfast in my faith that there is no god.
Life, the universe, and everything is an awe-inspiring subject of thought -- and that's all that spirituality really is. There's nothing about being godless that prevents one from experiencing the mental state that some call "spirituality". The relationships between matter, energy, and information alone do it for me -- as do minds, memes, and media. Or models & mathematics. The quantum universe and the macroscopic. Endless meta-levels of abstraction. Transcending the holism/dualism dichotomy, badump-crash.
Oh, and the vastness of space. There's a good one.
P.S. Thank you, Jon Katz, for challenging the vocal minority of intolerant simpletons. And thank you, Rob Malda, for letting everybody know how you feel about their hostility. Put it in the FAQ for posterity.
You are correct. Diversity, not flames, is what equals diversity. The trolls and flamings of a vocal, idiotic minority is merely annoying. Ultimately, it's just the inconsequential cries of people who can't live with diversity, probably for not being fully upright.
The way I see it, fragmentation is equivalent to diversity, with the alternative being homogeneity. So, would I rather live with that which environmentalists want to preserve, or with that which nazis live to impose? Hmmm.:-)
I can't wait until Hollywood catches on to the story here: a PR-flack wannabe in charge of promoting split-ends-obsessed Stallman, trying desparately to make him a bigger star than Chomsky, periodically flashing to nightmares of a gun-waving ESR doing his User Friendly obiwan shtick, causing said flack to wake in cold sweat.
I can't get over how many of you morons jump to Katz's defence.
In my case, it's not defense, so much as taking offense at the mindless hostility. So that makes me a moron? Whatever.
Your opinion is entirely based upon the "News for Nerds" catchphrase. That's a weak, weak, weak foundation upon which to base an argument. Here's a better one: slashdot is Rob Malda's web site, and its content is subject to his fiat. Now, what authority do you have, then, to suggest that a Malda-approved article-submitter should pack up and leave?
That was a beautiful, well-reasoned post. Were I a moderator, I'd bump-up your score. I say this even though I don't share your views entirely.
The religious battles that we see are an integral part of the movement. If they were to disappear, it would be a symptom of collective disease: loss of passion, apathy, failure in the peer-review process (which, by the way, doesn't just apply to code but to the guiding memes as well). These battles happen in any human endeavor. The only difference is that they usually happen behind closed doors, buffered by a well-funded PR/Margeting machine.
Our battles happen in the open, but that's where they should happen. We don't need to kill the battles between ideologies. All we need to do is make sure that we're civil when we have them. That's a tall order; we just have to learn to value civility & work to achieve it.
I agree that Bruce has damaged is credibility with some, but he's strengthened it with others, like a few gnu freedom-purists who appreciate this gesture. Whether or not his own credibility flux extends to the credibility of the community is an open question.
We're never going to present a unified front, and I don't think that we should because doing so would necessarily entail promoting homogeneity at the expense of diversity. That would deal a more painful blow to the movement than the rant & resignation of any individual.
Slashdot Mirror
And, as someone else pointed out, one could always just run swing on 1.1.7.
And don't forget to check out the classpath project, which stands a better chance of getting Java2 features to linux in a reasonable timeframe.
That's a good question, and my response is that ports to linux & freebsd could be made to pass the compliance tests much sooner if we could debug in parallel, which means letting people like you and me find bugs in the betas. Make sense?
So, while it may seem like open-source on the surface, it seems like they've managed to make an almost-open-source license that has all of the hype and none of the benefit, at least for the freenix community, anyway.
I'd like to add that dvdeug's observation about Perl's dual-licensing scheme serves to refute Brett Glass's claim that multiple licenses encourage fragmentation.
The following is not authoritative, but it's probably more accurate than juuri's claim that Perl is not GPL'd.
The perl distribution contains two files ("Artistic" and "Copying"), each of which is a license for the software. The second file is GPL (v1). You, as a perl user, are allowed to choose the terms under which you redistribute the (possibly modified) perl source. One of these choices that you can make, is to distribute it under the GPL. Perl's dual licensing scheme was probably the inspiration for the recent changes in the NPL.
I know it's a matter of opinion, but I would call the work that I've seen "substantial". It would be cool if a good beta came soon, but that doesn't mean that their work has no substance. I'm sure that the average user (i.e. you?) will be serviced when the code is ready -- and, fortunately, no sooner.
If you can't appreciate the movie as a comedy, maybe you should take the film's central message to heart: if you're not happy in your cubicle, change careers.
That's a good way to put it. It triggered some thoughts...
The transition from trickle to torrent is what he's spotlighting. Katz hasn't claimed that there's never before been a film that appealed to geeks, or anything remotely similar. As you've said, he's calling attention to the sudden upswing. He's talking about the rise in frequency, and you're saying: so what, we've been getting a droplet per year for two decades now. To put it in terms that everyone can understand: One person is celebrating the sudden mainstream attention linux has been getting, and people are saying "Bah, linux is old; I've been using it since 1991".
Some here are already giving Jon a hard time about focusing on "geek films" and whatnot. I just wanted to throw-in my $0.02 by saying that over the last three years I've been waiting to see characters from my discipline reflected in the movies. I've gotten the hang of hollywood's view of doctors, lawyers, and law-enforcement officers and would love to see more programmers. Ok, so maybe we're not all that interesting, but the fact that movie-makers are trying more to appeal to our demographic is. (To me, at least.)
You said "suck".
Thank you for the lesson. The argument is so clear that I feel a little disappointed in myself for not being able to think of it on my own. I guess that's the way it is with a lot of things.
I think that's enough to change my mind. I don't want to give them an excuse to spam me every time they release an update to their ActiveX control. Ugh.
Maybe a few hundred pieces of email asking the same quetion will pound them into submission. :-) If anybody can get through to their web site, post an address.
Are there any ergo keyboards with moveable keycaps? I type in dvorak, and I'm growing weary of the stickers. Half of my home-row is qwerty again, because the stickers just aren't very robust.
Bah, that's old. Characters have been inaccurate representations since ancient greece. ;-)
I agree completely. That sentence was a weak attempt at some dry humor: a parody of unwavering faith.
You're not required to read anything here. It's all optional.
"Where do you get-off wasting an hour of my life? I've got half-a-mind to turn the TV off!"
Half-a-mind is 'bout right.
In my youth, I was hostile to the concept of "spirituality", mostly because it was an oft-thrown-around word which nobody seemed to be able to adequately define, for my tastes. Now that I'm older, I understand it better, yet managed to remain steadfast in my faith that there is no god.
Life, the universe, and everything is an awe-inspiring subject of thought -- and that's all that spirituality really is. There's nothing about being godless that prevents one from experiencing the mental state that some call "spirituality". The relationships between matter, energy, and information alone do it for me -- as do minds, memes, and media. Or models & mathematics. The quantum universe and the macroscopic. Endless meta-levels of abstraction. Transcending the holism/dualism dichotomy, badump-crash.
Oh, and the vastness of space. There's a good one.
P.S. Thank you, Jon Katz, for challenging the vocal minority of intolerant simpletons. And thank you, Rob Malda, for letting everybody know how you feel about their hostility. Put it in the FAQ for posterity.
You are correct. Diversity, not flames, is what equals diversity. The trolls and flamings of a vocal, idiotic minority is merely annoying. Ultimately, it's just the inconsequential cries of people who can't live with diversity, probably for not being fully upright.
Don't let them distract you.
The way I see it, fragmentation is equivalent to diversity, with the alternative being homogeneity. So, would I rather live with that which environmentalists want to preserve, or with that which nazis live to impose? Hmmm. :-)
Who would you cast?
In my case, it's not defense, so much as taking offense at the mindless hostility. So that makes me a moron? Whatever.
Your opinion is entirely based upon the "News for Nerds" catchphrase. That's a weak, weak, weak foundation upon which to base an argument. Here's a better one: slashdot is Rob Malda's web site, and its content is subject to his fiat. Now, what authority do you have, then, to suggest that a Malda-approved article-submitter should pack up and leave?
The religious battles that we see are an integral part of the movement. If they were to disappear, it would be a symptom of collective disease: loss of passion, apathy, failure in the peer-review process (which, by the way, doesn't just apply to code but to the guiding memes as well). These battles happen in any human endeavor. The only difference is that they usually happen behind closed doors, buffered by a well-funded PR/Margeting machine.
Our battles happen in the open, but that's where they should happen. We don't need to kill the battles between ideologies. All we need to do is make sure that we're civil when we have them. That's a tall order; we just have to learn to value civility & work to achieve it.
We're never going to present a unified front, and I don't think that we should because doing so would necessarily entail promoting homogeneity at the expense of diversity. That would deal a more painful blow to the movement than the rant & resignation of any individual.