" The theoretical possibility that you can examine the source code is just security theatre unless you actually spend the time and resources to do it."
Except that both thory and History disproved that. Read about Bentham's panopticon.
"If I were going to live in Mexico or China, or anywhere else for that matter, then I would seriously immerse myself with my host country's language and social/behavioral norms."
Except you wouldn't get any job because, you know, you shouldn't hire first generation immigrants as it's highly undesirable: They are very xenophobic and they will congregate into their respective groups and, in their native language, will badmouth and gossip about everybody who is not like they are.
"One is a minor problem in need of a solution, the other is negligence which cannot be defeated by any mechanical means."
How can this be modded up "insightful". It says nothing to nobody the fact that children shooting their parents' firearms *is* in fact defeated by mechanical means (from gun secures to gun locks, to safe boxes to disasemble the arm when not in use)?
"I believe the target market here is peace officers"
I don't know what's the target for the company but it's obvious what's the target for *this* product: sportive shooters. Nobody would even *think* to use a.22 cal for self defense and given its current limitations (people normally aim a short gun with the arm *without* the wristwatch, which automatically comes out of range) just think not how it can fail but where can it be safely used: a shooting gallery where you will shoot always the standard way (two handed), where there's no danger of being taken by surprise and where the real danger is for a gun to be misused, not being aimed with one for lethal purpouses. And once you get off the firing standing the gun becomes a safe device (you just need to wear it with the other hand and this only for the time while you inactivate the device) so it works like an advanced locking device.
It is still too expensive, but for the above scenario is indeed an advancement over current solutions.
"Untrue. Microsoft has always said "we'd rather people steal our product then use a competitors product.""
Of course they prefer to be "stolen" that way since they don't lose even a dime with that.
Microsoft can say all they want, that won't make it any more true.
Are you sure that if somebody effectively managed to steal their product (as in they were not able to sell it to anyone else since now they don't own it, nor use it as a basis to produce their next product line, since then they won't be able to put their hand on it) they still would prefer that to somebody using a competitor's?
Remember: copying something without its copyright holder permission is quite a different thing to steal it.
"I'm not even a Windows admin and I can set up 4 MS Servers in an afternoon."
Point being that by the national planning you'd need 4 *racks* full of Windows servers to achieve the same operation levels they get with only 4 Linux servers.
Facts are facts. History is the tale of those facts. And of course the tale changes depending on who tells it.
"If teachers and writers didn't have an agenda, but simply recorded the facts, ideally there would be no issue."
Even if there were no teachers or writers and you were talking about the very facts you saw with your very eyes, you would find that others that were there, not less neutral than you about the facts, would tell a different story. Hence, History is not the untestable facts, but the tale about them.
Yeah, of course not. And then, failing at a sprint goals is absolutly not accepted either (not at least by managment, which is all that matters). Do you know what happens when those two "absolutes" collide?
"High quality code is imperative to maintain a successful product in the long run"
And doing what needs to be done to reach the short run goals is imperative to get this week's paycheck. Again, do you know what happens when those two "imperatives" collide?
"methodologies such a Scrum explicitly declare as non-negotiable."
Of course they do. Problem being that "quality" is not hard-definable while features are. "I want these bells by Friday" is easierly checkable than "but without degrading code quality".
"you don't stipulate what will be achieved by a certain dead-line -- instead you estimate."
Of course you estimate. It's your manager the one that stipulates.
"You can reduce the scope of the task, or you can put in more hours for a temporary boost"
Or you just can cut corners and cross your fingers.
All in all I don't think you are wrong: of course Agile can put into the table valuable ideas but the point is that the key success factor is, and always has been, not tools or metodologies but people; the higher they are the more critical for the project.
Take a good management team and you'll success with scrum, waterfall or whatever. Take your typical Dilbert-like management and you are doom no matter what.
"In the world of Free (Gratis + Libre) open source software (FLOSS?) there's little need to waste time patching an older system when everyone has free access to a newer system that's backward compatible."
It's only that in too many times it tends to be *not* so backward compatible.
I didn't mean it to ashame you. Yours is quite a good idea. So good indeed that it has been proved successful: you told nothing but a story published by the chapter, a very common way for a writer to make money, especially during the XIX century (the only difference being that instead of rising a public bounty is was a deal directly between the author and the periodic publisher): that's the way people like Dumas, Poe, Conan Doyle and a lot of others made a living.
As a general matter, reaching a deal *first* and only *then* make the work is a proven way to avoid risking your efforts. The world has changed and now publishing and copying an art work has lost its added value for the most part... so what? Find a different means to reach a deal *first* and work *after* that and you'll be safe. History has shown a lot of different ways to acomplish that.
And then, all this issue about "rigths" and "think of the authors!" begs the cite from Robert Heinlein (I hope this one to become such a common meme that will shut up RIAA et al. right on their first word):
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back." Robert A. Heinlein, Life-Line (1939)
"Here is how (I think) I would do it. I start to write a book. I will release a few chapters for free online. I could and would even solicit feedback from these chapters. I now start a bounty. I would want X dollars for my work and a little bit to keep me going."
Wow, you invented warm water, no less.
I'll tell you a secret: that's exactly how Alexander Dumas (and a lot of others) made his life.
"Where do any of you get off saying that there should be a point where things I create should not be mine"
Because it's fucking obvious. The moment you make something public it becomes, well, public.
"If my wife makes a wedding dress, why shouldn't it belong to her until she passes it on to my daughter to wear at her wedding?"
If your wife makes public her wedding dress design why should she expect that nobody will replicate its design? If she doesn't want the design to be copyied, she has the easy solution of maintain her dress well cared in the closet.
If you mind your mind products being disseminated, just leave them to your own.
"Would you actually say: You shouldn't own that. You didn't make it! ?"
Not at all. I would say: It's still your authorship, nobody will deny that but once published the copies are not your own. *I* did the copy so this copy belongs to *me*, not you.
"I'm starting an oxygen supply company- I wonder if there's anything I can do about this 'atmosphere' that people are currently getting their oxygen from?"
It really depends. If you are an entrepeneur then you are doomed: there's no bussiness in something people can get easier and cheaper by other means.
*BUT*
If you happen to already be a tycoon, then it's easy: you just buy some congressmen so they pass a bill (within a 5000 pages law about homosexual muslim child molesters/terrorists) to forbid "consumption, trading and/or accumulation of unregulated O2" and to assert to you a 200K year monopoly on its deliverance "for the good health of the USA citizens". Then you buy some more congressmen so breaking the law is a heavy criminal offense punished with life prision -which, of course, means they'll go to a jail that buys to you its O2 supplies.
"I believe it has already been done in Spain [http://noalprestamodepago.org/]. I'm not aware of the current status of the idiocy, but as far as I recall, the libraries there were going to charge a lending fee for the books for the "benefit of the authors"."
It was a "RIAA-sque" european directive by which public libraries should have to pay a compensation canon for the benefit of the authors. The point was back then if such a canon would be payed directly by the borrower of if it would be the government the one paying for it. For all I know the directive got approved and in order to stay bellow radar are governments the ones paying for the bill so to the final user it seems to remain free.
PS: In most European countries copying and redistribute art materials (books, music, paints...) not for-profit on a one-to-one basis (i.e. not broadcasting) is (it *used* to be) considered fair use, so legal, and in order to promote arts a canon for "private copy" added to blank supports and copying artifacts (blank CDs and videotapes, copiers, HDDs...). Contrary to USA point of view, this 'statu quo' is based on the double premise that what is public is public on one hand and that right to access culture is stronger than any "right" that the author could claim on the already made public piece of art on the other, so the "normal" state of things is freely copying which law refrains in some situations instead of America's where not-allowed to copy is the base status and then some exceptions are added (fair use).
"If you really think that all companies are populated with rational managers who will be convinced by their IT staff's reasons, rather than just listen to "I don't want my damn password to be 12 characters long", you are blissfully ignorant, my friend."
That's not the point. The point is that even if your manager listens to your explanations and even if he's convinced by them it still will be the manager the one that will establish the policy, not the technician, even if the policy ends up being "do as you suggest".
"If Joe User cannot create a password that has less than 12 characters"
He then will moan to management which in turn will ask the sysadmin who the hell does he think he is to enforce such an unasked for policy. Management stablishes policies not technical staff.
"the weakest link is actually the sysadmin, who isn't enforcing appropriate password complexity, length, age, etc..."
Who the hell do you think a sysadmin is? Stablishing policies is way beyond his duties. He can *counsel* about how technical means can help to acomplish a policy but he is not the one to build the policy in first place, much less to enforce anyone on his own.
"Have you ever lived in the UK? When I was growing up, the IRA (you know, the terrorist organisation that was very active in the UK for much of the last century) phoned in bomb threats fairly regularly."
Yeah... and certainly they didn't phone the police, identified themselves as the IRA, even exchanged some not so generally known tokens to ascertain that it was indeed IRA and then made an exact description about was going about to happen... Nah... they used a random public forum, let the individual to identify himself to be easily captured and told a week in advance so police could discretely counter.
Slashdot Mirror
"The only thing that Firefox is doing that's possibly wrong is allowing one to post to a weird port."
There's nothing wrong with POSTing to a weird port.
" The theoretical possibility that you can examine the source code is just security theatre unless you actually spend the time and resources to do it."
Except that both thory and History disproved that. Read about Bentham's panopticon.
"If I were going to live in Mexico or China, or anywhere else for that matter, then I would seriously immerse myself with my host country's language and social/behavioral norms."
Except you wouldn't get any job because, you know, you shouldn't hire first generation immigrants as it's highly undesirable: They are very xenophobic and they will congregate into their respective groups and, in their native language, will badmouth and gossip about everybody who is not like they are.
"One is a minor problem in need of a solution, the other is negligence which cannot be defeated by any mechanical means."
How can this be modded up "insightful". It says nothing to nobody the fact that children shooting their parents' firearms *is* in fact defeated by mechanical means (from gun secures to gun locks, to safe boxes to disasemble the arm when not in use)?
"I believe the target market here is peace officers"
I don't know what's the target for the company but it's obvious what's the target for *this* product: sportive shooters. Nobody would even *think* to use a .22 cal for self defense and given its current limitations (people normally aim a short gun with the arm *without* the wristwatch, which automatically comes out of range) just think not how it can fail but where can it be safely used: a shooting gallery where you will shoot always the standard way (two handed), where there's no danger of being taken by surprise and where the real danger is for a gun to be misused, not being aimed with one for lethal purpouses. And once you get off the firing standing the gun becomes a safe device (you just need to wear it with the other hand and this only for the time while you inactivate the device) so it works like an advanced locking device.
It is still too expensive, but for the above scenario is indeed an advancement over current solutions.
"Tell ya' what: if a .22 is so useless against people, I'll shoot you a bunch of times with a .22"
It is useless when you use it not to kill the other party but to avoid him killing you... which happens to be the case for so called "self defense".
"Untrue. Microsoft has always said "we'd rather people steal our product then use a competitors product.""
Of course they prefer to be "stolen" that way since they don't lose even a dime with that.
Microsoft can say all they want, that won't make it any more true.
Are you sure that if somebody effectively managed to steal their product (as in they were not able to sell it to anyone else since now they don't own it, nor use it as a basis to produce their next product line, since then they won't be able to put their hand on it) they still would prefer that to somebody using a competitor's?
Remember: copying something without its copyright holder permission is quite a different thing to steal it.
"I'm not even a Windows admin and I can set up 4 MS Servers in an afternoon."
Point being that by the national planning you'd need 4 *racks* full of Windows servers to achieve the same operation levels they get with only 4 Linux servers.
"History doesn't change. History is fact."
Wrong.
Facts are facts. History is the tale of those facts. And of course the tale changes depending on who tells it.
"If teachers and writers didn't have an agenda, but simply recorded the facts, ideally there would be no issue."
Even if there were no teachers or writers and you were talking about the very facts you saw with your very eyes, you would find that others that were there, not less neutral than you about the facts, would tell a different story. Hence, History is not the untestable facts, but the tale about them.
"In my experience, people at the level of a Scrum Master may have the responsibility to shield the team but they rarely have the authority."
You stole the words from my mouth.
"It's a myth that younger people are "better with computers and technology""
It doesn't make any difference as long as those hiring believe the myth.
"spaghetti code is absolutely not accepted"
Yeah, of course not. And then, failing at a sprint goals is absolutly not accepted either (not at least by managment, which is all that matters). Do you know what happens when those two "absolutes" collide?
"High quality code is imperative to maintain a successful product in the long run"
And doing what needs to be done to reach the short run goals is imperative to get this week's paycheck. Again, do you know what happens when those two "imperatives" collide?
"methodologies such a Scrum explicitly declare as non-negotiable."
Of course they do. Problem being that "quality" is not hard-definable while features are. "I want these bells by Friday" is easierly checkable than "but without degrading code quality".
"you don't stipulate what will be achieved by a certain dead-line -- instead you estimate."
Of course you estimate. It's your manager the one that stipulates.
"You can reduce the scope of the task, or you can put in more hours for a temporary boost"
Or you just can cut corners and cross your fingers.
All in all I don't think you are wrong: of course Agile can put into the table valuable ideas but the point is that the key success factor is, and always has been, not tools or metodologies but people; the higher they are the more critical for the project.
Take a good management team and you'll success with scrum, waterfall or whatever. Take your typical Dilbert-like management and you are doom no matter what.
"Invariant mass doesn't change."
Uhhh... that *might* explain why they chose such a flabbergasting adjective... "invariant"!
"The technique certainly sounds strangely attractive."
Where's the "+1: Nerdly funny" when you need it!?
"In the world of Free (Gratis + Libre) open source software (FLOSS?) there's little need to waste time patching an older system when everyone has free access to a newer system that's backward compatible."
It's only that in too many times it tends to be *not* so backward compatible.
I didn't mean it to ashame you. Yours is quite a good idea. So good indeed that it has been proved successful: you told nothing but a story published by the chapter, a very common way for a writer to make money, especially during the XIX century (the only difference being that instead of rising a public bounty is was a deal directly between the author and the periodic publisher): that's the way people like Dumas, Poe, Conan Doyle and a lot of others made a living.
As a general matter, reaching a deal *first* and only *then* make the work is a proven way to avoid risking your efforts. The world has changed and now publishing and copying an art work has lost its added value for the most part... so what? Find a different means to reach a deal *first* and work *after* that and you'll be safe. History has shown a lot of different ways to acomplish that.
And then, all this issue about "rigths" and "think of the authors!" begs the cite from Robert Heinlein (I hope this one to become such a common meme that will shut up RIAA et al. right on their first word):
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
Robert A. Heinlein, Life-Line (1939)
"Here is how (I think) I would do it. I start to write a book. I will release a few chapters for free online. I could and would even solicit feedback from these chapters. I now start a bounty. I would want X dollars for my work and a little bit to keep me going."
Wow, you invented warm water, no less.
I'll tell you a secret: that's exactly how Alexander Dumas (and a lot of others) made his life.
"Where do any of you get off saying that there should be a point where things I create should not be mine"
Because it's fucking obvious. The moment you make something public it becomes, well, public.
"If my wife makes a wedding dress, why shouldn't it belong to her until she passes it on to my daughter to wear at her wedding?"
If your wife makes public her wedding dress design why should she expect that nobody will replicate its design? If she doesn't want the design to be copyied, she has the easy solution of maintain her dress well cared in the closet.
If you mind your mind products being disseminated, just leave them to your own.
"Would you actually say: You shouldn't own that. You didn't make it! ?"
Not at all. I would say: It's still your authorship, nobody will deny that but once published the copies are not your own. *I* did the copy so this copy belongs to *me*, not you.
"I'm starting an oxygen supply company- I wonder if there's anything I can do about this 'atmosphere' that people are currently getting their oxygen from?"
It really depends. If you are an entrepeneur then you are doomed: there's no bussiness in something people can get easier and cheaper by other means.
*BUT*
If you happen to already be a tycoon, then it's easy: you just buy some congressmen so they pass a bill (within a 5000 pages law about homosexual muslim child molesters/terrorists) to forbid "consumption, trading and/or accumulation of unregulated O2" and to assert to you a 200K year monopoly on its deliverance "for the good health of the USA citizens". Then you buy some more congressmen so breaking the law is a heavy criminal offense punished with life prision -which, of course, means they'll go to a jail that buys to you its O2 supplies.
Easy, isn't it?
"I believe it has already been done in Spain [http://noalprestamodepago.org/]. I'm not aware of the current status of the idiocy, but as far as I recall, the libraries there were going to charge a lending fee for the books for the "benefit of the authors"."
It was a "RIAA-sque" european directive by which public libraries should have to pay a compensation canon for the benefit of the authors. The point was back then if such a canon would be payed directly by the borrower of if it would be the government the one paying for it. For all I know the directive got approved and in order to stay bellow radar are governments the ones paying for the bill so to the final user it seems to remain free.
PS: In most European countries copying and redistribute art materials (books, music, paints...) not for-profit on a one-to-one basis (i.e. not broadcasting) is (it *used* to be) considered fair use, so legal, and in order to promote arts a canon for "private copy" added to blank supports and copying artifacts (blank CDs and videotapes, copiers, HDDs...). Contrary to USA point of view, this 'statu quo' is based on the double premise that what is public is public on one hand and that right to access culture is stronger than any "right" that the author could claim on the already made public piece of art on the other, so the "normal" state of things is freely copying which law refrains in some situations instead of America's where not-allowed to copy is the base status and then some exceptions are added (fair use).
"If you really think that all companies are populated with rational managers who will be convinced by their IT staff's reasons, rather than just listen to "I don't want my damn password to be 12 characters long", you are blissfully ignorant, my friend."
That's not the point. The point is that even if your manager listens to your explanations and even if he's convinced by them it still will be the manager the one that will establish the policy, not the technician, even if the policy ends up being "do as you suggest".
"If Joe User cannot create a password that has less than 12 characters"
He then will moan to management which in turn will ask the sysadmin who the hell does he think he is to enforce such an unasked for policy. Management stablishes policies not technical staff.
"the weakest link is actually the sysadmin, who isn't enforcing appropriate password complexity, length, age, etc..."
Who the hell do you think a sysadmin is? Stablishing policies is way beyond his duties. He can *counsel* about how technical means can help to acomplish a policy but he is not the one to build the policy in first place, much less to enforce anyone on his own.
"All criminal cases in the UK are Regina V. Defendant."
Even in times of Henry V?
"Have you ever lived in the UK? When I was growing up, the IRA (you know, the terrorist organisation that was very active in the UK for much of the last century) phoned in bomb threats fairly regularly."
Yeah... and certainly they didn't phone the police, identified themselves as the IRA, even exchanged some not so generally known tokens to ascertain that it was indeed IRA and then made an exact description about was going about to happen... Nah... they used a random public forum, let the individual to identify himself to be easily captured and told a week in advance so police could discretely counter.
Yeah... so I thought.