"Are you people daft? The material _absorbs_ light! That doesn't mean it is invisible! It means it is black!"
That's not true. The point it is not that it absorbs light; it is that it doesn't *reflect* light. While a method not to reflect light is being black, it is not the only one: a transparent thing doesn't reflect light either. And since this material's refractive index is compared to that of glass or even thin air, you can go figure.
Not at all. The ones that prevents this (for any practical meaning) are statistical ones.
"How is it possible that this could happen?"
Your must remember that air is, for the most part just "dirty" vacuum: there's aplenty of empty space among air molecules, and they all are just "wandering at will". Of course, there's a chance that by mere casuality all air molecules wander just to a corner of a room, so all the rest of the volume is empty and you suffocated. Of course too, when you consider the *hughe* number or molecules there are in a room (just remember Avogadro's number), you can expect having to wait quite a lot universe lifes to see such an event.
I think you are playing words. Of course "revelation" dictionary-sense, can be reasonable: I can revelate to you that I won the lotto. You knowing I'm trustworthy, and looking at my new luxury car will reasonably believe it.
But this is not the theologal meaning for "revelation". Revelation is what God told us because a) He is in mood to tell us and b) we have no natural means to know it.
Believing a revelated truth requires no reasonement but *faith*. Even if God came down from heaven to tell me, a poor ignorant, that apples do fall at a speed that increases 9.8 metres per second each second at ground level, that wouldn't be a revelation (theological sense), because we can see and understand that ourselves. It is when God comes to Earth to tell that His Almightyness is somehow One and Three at the same time, or that we will live beyond death that it's a revelation since there's neither no reasonement nor natural means to know that for a fact, except God Himself coming here to tell us.
"Revelation can sometimes be varified independently, but it is not a pre-requisite for it."
Revelation can *never* be independently verified. The nearest thing to it is prophecy, but -again theologically, a prophecy and a revelation are different beasts.
"The peak of that Islamic civilisation seems to have been the Kingdom of Granada in Spain [...] Unfortunately their civilisation was destroyed by a European power under the aegis of the Catholic Church"
Well, well... To Caesar that from Caesar. On one hand you mean to imply that it was some "Catholic Church" oscurantism that that went after muslims in Spain. While that (as always) it an explanation to the masses (and probably make the fight), it was (as always is) a fight for power, for land and sea power those days. Is not by chance that the christian king of the day was "the Catholic Fernando" which is pondered as a mirror for statemen to learn their bussiness by no less than Machiavelo.
On the other hand, by the end of the fifteenth century (Granada was taken by the catholic kings on february the 2nd, 1492, the same year Colon -sponsored by those same kings, arrived the New Continent) all the south of Spain (till the time it went conquered by spanish christian kings) was known as "Taifas Kingdoms", short of little warlord reigns that fought against each other (even within kingdoms: Cordoba caliphate was destroyed by a civil war) no less than against the pressure from the christian principals. So, while the merit (and the history fact) came on the side of the Spanish christian kings it was muslims themselves the real makers of their own defeat (under this insight it takes a new sense the words that the Granada's king's mother told him when flying from the taken city: "cry like a woman what you weren't able to defend like a man").
"For much of recent history, Christian societies have attempted to control and dominate Islamic societies."
That's a wrong argument too. The truth is that "for much of recent history, powerful kingdoms, disregarding its official cult, have attemted to control and dominate their surrounding societies": the Otomanes against Bizancium first, then against italian republics; Italian republics against Aragon; then Aragon against otomanes; then French against Italian and Aragonese; then Spain against everybody; then comes again France... at the same time Spain against northern african warlords; german/polland warlords against russians; Otomanes against syrian and armenians... you name it. From more or less X century to the end of IWW the "big" Europe (including Asia Minor, North of Africa and East Europe to Caucasus) is the time when societies come from warlordships to modern states at a highest price in blood. In the big picture, religion is only one more card used to fool people to kill each other at the will of a bunch of almighty families.
"Islam has become increasingly a religion of the poor and ill educated. (I know this is a simplification, but it is a useful simplification.)"
It's not a useful simplification; it's a stupid one. To say that current oil arabic lords (Iran, Kuwait, United Emirates...) are poor or ill educated is stupid; to say that Salman Rushdie or Naguib Mahfuz are poor or ill educated is stupid; to say that King or Morocco is poor or ill educated is stupid.
"But it also shows that, no matter what you think of current entertainment standards, they were just as bad in the 1500s."
You forget that for the most part History resembles an spiral. Middle Ages were not known as Dark Ages because an specially long eclypse; Iuvenal didn't cry 'o tempora, o mores' out of bad mood nor Quevedo saw "incierto el bien y cierto el desengaño" but because where they were coming from. Today is quite fair to say that current standards are low because both their true level and where we come from (the standards that people wanted for themselves by the years following the end of IIWW) cast deep shadows of shame on us.
"If revelation has actually occurred, then it is rational to trust it"
You forget an important issue. If you can be sure it's true it's because you can atest it. But then you don't need any entity to revelate it to you; it's revelation (in the religious sense) no more: it's old plain natural knowledge.
"I've heard a rabbi comment on that... He said that following some principles because you believe them to be right is easy; following them just because your god commands you is hard."
And he is right indeed. But he cheated you a bit. He didn't told you *why* it's more difficult.
I'll do: it's more difficult because we are intelligent beings and irrationalism is against our highest nature. In other words: it's difficult because it's stupid, and being conciously stupid it's hard.
"So you tell me, how different is it from religion?"
There's the tiny fact that there's no God coming in a thunder to tell people what to do but free people deciding by themselves how they want to appear to their own eyes and acting in consecuence.
There's a problem with some religion fundamentalists in that they believe that no god must mean no ethics.
"The "private business model" is a red herring because it implies that there's some other viable business model. But in the case of open source it's not"
And then, old cute Diogene after carefully listening why indeed there's no movement in Universe, put himself on his feet and slowly went away.
Change Diogene by Novell, or Red Hat, or MySQL AB, or...
"Make a note that all the suggestions that people have made about how to make money with open source don't really have anything to do with the open part."
So there's no money on sellings since money always comes from what you sell, not on the selling fact.
"The "open" in open-source may give many benefits, but making money isn't one of them. And that's by design."
Even clever Bill Gates thougth there were no bussiness-case in the "Internet thingie"... till the facts showed him his mistake. You better say *you* don't know how to make money out of producing open source software. I myself have earned a life out of it for the last ten years, go figure.
There's one thing that's true: open source is by no means a basis for a bussiness as profitable as one based upon closed source can be. But that's no wonder: there's no other bussiness -in the whole world, in the whole History, with a profitability potential as the privative software one. Intellectual Property-based bussiness are the most profitable ever, and closed source-software based ones are the more profitable among them. Of course, the problem with such a bussiness is that is terribly unethical and diminishing for society as a whole.
"Translation: if you're trying to make money off it, it's not Open Source."
Retranslation: if you try to bastardize the expression "open source" so you can use it as a buzzword atracting people to your old privative bussiness model, then no, to my eyes it's not open source no matter the distribution license of the bare source code.
"We don't need proprietary software in the long term. But we don't have to fight them!"
It's only that "we" (whatever the meaning of "we" is) don't fight proprietary software. "We" simply don't use it. Is there any means on Fedora (or even Debian, for that matter) to deter others from building a repository full of not only proprietary but even devilesque, terraforming and stinky software directly instalable on a pristine open source-only system?
Uh...?
So I thougth.
"Natural forces will make them irrelevant"
Natural forces? Are those kind of "natural forces" akin to the "invisible hand". I have news for you: it's people the force that make things happen. As much as Stallman can be an histrionic extremist, it's people like him the ones that make open source flourish to the point it is today. With people like Raymond -or you, there weren't no "I want my HP drivers" -Stallman could have an easier day by simply looking for a more reasonable provider; there would be no Apache, no *BSD, no Linux, no nothing to talk about.
"we can help each other make the transition from the closed software world to FOSS as smooth as possible"
It is only that people like Raymond -or you, while saying "it's in order to transition from closed to open" are only meaning "from windows to linux" which is not the same thing, by far, and even that is questionable (I'd say it's even more than "from windows to linux": it's more like "from a trademard I happen not to like to another trademark I happen to like the more").
"If we destroyed closed, proprietary software overnight"
" I'm willing to bet the majority of systems do not fall into that category."
Obviously, whatever problems other people face due to malpractices is not my bussiness. Computers that are my bussiness have proper time configured and use NTP to stay in sync whenever possible -which means always except for non-conected computers that, on the other hand, don't tend to produce big problems due to slightly out sync (in the hours) dates.
But I don't have a "locked down environment"; changing computer date always needs administrative rights.
"or you use an os which doesn't have the new timezone settings, the user notices the clock is "wrong" and "corrects" it."
Only -again, on systems that are not really aware of UTC time. Even if the user will try to "correct" time, it wouldn't happen: "no sir, it *really* is 18:00 UTC now", my upstream NTP servers so tell me. On the other hand a system administrator might force the system onto a wrong time, but then, he is a sysadmin, so must know better.
Really: the problem is that too many people, by being exposed to systems where the hour showed at the little clock no the destop is *the* hour just doesn't understand that's only a representation of the current time, not the current time itself.
"at least thats what its like on windows"
That's exactly my point.
"i dunno about the modern linux desktops"
They are exactly as the old unix were: You have UTC (or GMT) and you *represent* it on the desktop (I was for a while abroad with my laptop, did I worried about timestamps going crazy because the time drift? No: time never goes backwards -or forward faster that 60 seconds per minute, while its external representation, drifted by whatever local time is of course can). Even more, we are talking about multiuser computers; why do you think my preferred local time has to be the same of any other user of the system?
"The only instance where i can see this causing a problem is when programs monitors the time on a particular day, say the day where daylight is supposed to kick in/out"
It shouldn't. You are right about no application having to deal with current time. They only ask the underlying OS "What time is it? and the OS answers "It's XX:YY UTC now"; that's all. And, ho and behold, the UTC second that follows the second prior to a daylight saving change is still one UTC second later, no time drift at all.
Except, of course, if you use an -ahem, OS that knows nothing about UTC and insists its showed time to be the same than the underlying system time.
" Irony should be avoided on all multinational,multilingual, and multicultural web sites like Slashdot because only a small percentage of the viewers will understand that the writer is being ironic."
Yeah, sure. I'd go further and propose to use only mathematical notation since, being the "universal language" avoids all misunderstanding. On the other hand, while it can be true that some idioms can be "lost in translation", you forgot people is *very* good at understandments. I'd bet is much more a question of personalitites than of mother languages.
"Also the great fortunes arising from software come from the sale and appreciation of corporate stock value."
So what? They become rich either because they sell licenses with a very gross margin (so they could be much cheaper) or because their stocks arise... because inverstors think this is a very good bussiness -mainly because its very big sell margins. Just go to Microsoft's quarter percentual benefits (invest vs incomes ratio) and you will see that they *indeed* sell at a very wide margin.
On the long run, every successfull privative software is sold at a *very* expensive price: the production marginale cost (the cost of producing one more license) being zero, any price is excessive. That and nothing else explains how it is that software giants became the richest people in the world in record time: it is the best bussiness ever designed in History (it makes oil, naval or telco bussiness seem miserable. As a general matter, all IP-related bussiness -selling nothing for money, say RIAA, patents, etc. are great, but software is the one with the best potential of all).
"Doesn't make it right. It just makes it easier to violate the law with reduced penalties for the perpetrator and other stupid people."
How in hell? Specially in a country that, like yours, has death penalty. Mr. X: You've been found guilty of murdering, so you will be hang out by your neck till you die. On the other hand, Smith&Colt (or Colt&Wesson-Koch, or whatever) is held co-responsible under the basis of manufacturing deadly weapons, and so it will pay one million dollar to the victim's widow.
"You don't blame the tool for how it's used."
Heck no! when it is a problem with the design of the tool you can bet I blame the tool and the one that built it. When you build an hydraulic press with no security button you can bet I'll blame the manufacturer with regards of the cutted-off hand of the worker (maybe the worker and his boss are guilty too in different degrees, but certainly the machine maker is part of the equation). And the design problem with a short tactic hand gun it is that it's main function is to kill, and to kill specifically people.
"I don't care for what it was made."
I *do* care what it was made for. Indeed a most basic pillar in justice is "what was done and what was done for". Since it is not the same killing someone by accident than killing her on purpouse I see perfectly fitted to consider it is not the same selling cars and having a car being used to kill someone than selling short guns and having a short gun being used to kill someone (after all, its main purpouse).
"The fact is that the operator is to blame, barring any malfunction or defect."
I consider there is a "defect" on selling tools directly aimed to kill people.
"You're simply passing blame to cover your own ass."
You won't find a single statement where I said that co-responsibility from the gun manufacturer diminish my own guiltiness if I kill someone on purpouse.
"They are a perfect reflection of all of you."
You seem to prejudice a bit too much. The discourse you say I sustain is certainly not the discourse I do sustain.
"I don't care where it is. The original post still stands. Free speech is unconditional, or it isn't free."
OK, no problem. This law has NOTHING against free speech. You can say whatever you want. You (your company) can make up a blog simulating you are a satisfied customer; no problem on that.
It is AFTER you have already talked when government will act upon your words.
It is like free market: you can buy whatever you want, but then you will have to cope with the consecuencies (you will have to pay the agreed amount of money). Here there is no kind of previous censorship: you are free to say whatever you want (and then, you will have to pay the price).
"Are you one of those types that believe a manufacturer should be liable if the product is used to commit a crime?"
I'd do, if the purpoused finality of the product is to kill people, like guns are. Don't you USA people have laws banning "objects" which main use is piracy?
"In addition to guns, how 'bout knives, and scissors, and automobiles, or a bar of soap"
The way they are properly used is not killing people. Guns are. GM don't produce killer machines, even if they do kill people, even on purpouse sometimes. Colt do.
"If something is used to commit crime, I want you to go after the perpetrator, not the tool he used"
That's naive. Law is full of cases of shared responsibility. Of course the shooter is the *main* responsible for the death, but the killer machine producer certainly has a (minor) part on it just as when someone pushes some other through a too fragile windows protection: the first one is a killer, the second one co-responsible on the amount of the damage. Don't you want to share such criminal responsibility? OK: stop producing hand guns and go after the teddy bear market for instance.
"Software companies have to charge $500 and sell thousands of copies at that price in order to cover development costs"
Yeah, sure. Their commercial margins are so low it's no surprise there's not a single big fortune made from selling software. People like Gates, Jobs, Ellison or Shuttleworth are just on the edge of starving.
"There are three major and important facts that proponents of Universal Heathcare ignore when pointing to Germany, Sweden, etc... 1. The US is both population wise and land wise considerably larger- at last estimate over 300 million people"
While this is true, the fact is that the whole EU goes with a universal health-care system, and the EU is... about 300 million people and about the surface the USA is.
"This means the logistical and administrative demands of any such system would be orders of magnitude larger"
This means the logistical and administrative demands of any such system on the USA would be exactly the same order of magnitude that it is in EU.
"2. Germany, England and Sweden are central government countries. They have a strong national government with mutiple parties working in coalitions and the Prime Minister is selected from this. This allows for things to work "all in one direction". However, the US is fragmented with a weakened federal government"
Still, the EU has an even weakener "federal" government that the USA has and all the countries within EU have universal-healthcare systems.
"This would make it both politically and socially difficult to implement a single Universal Heathcare without it being very regonal, complex, and beholden to local politics thus negating many of the advantages of "national heathcare"."
This could only be worse (by orders of magnitude) within the UE. Still, I, as an EU citizen (I'm Spanish) can go everywhere within the EU and recieve the benefits of the healthcare system of the country I happen to be by the moment. Would it be impossible or would it?
"Trying to find commonality beyond Nation & Citizenship for 300 million in this country is pipe dream."
And then, we in EU are managing to find common grounds even on the glaringly fact that we only have in common bloody wars for about a millenium.
So, don't tell us it is impossible when you just have to have a look at old Europe to see it is certainly possible.
"i don't believe that open source software development can only be either about money or about "self amusement""
Don't believe it, then.
"What about the satisfaction in contributing to solve a known problem"
That's self amusement.
"or in contributing to ease someone else's live, or in helping the spread of linux, or do just a little something sometimes to avoid the complete and utter monopoly of one single corporation over people's live for the next century ???"
That's self amusement too.
"i still think the overall lack of vision/focus of the open source community is partly responsible for this."
I offer you a deal: You meet me with "the open source comunity" and I manage to take apart his lack of vision/focus.
"Of course wether a very disparate community could ever aquire some vision or focus or even agree on what are the most important things to do"
Oh! But the very disparate community that develop open source on their spare time for free has a very precise and sharp focus. All of them, *all* of them, do it for the very same reason: their amusement. Now, 100% of a very disparate community going for the very same goal: that's focus, don't your think so?
Thrice on about a decade. On the other hand I've never seen a failed security upgrade on a Debian Stable, ever.
"You are in about the same situation with *redhat-like systems just as with Gentoo."
You must be joking. Where a typical Debian on "maintenance mode" usually takes me no more than twenty minutes weekly (usually much less) Gentoo clearly goes beyond the hour/week, not including upgrading profiles, which is a six-monthly task on average.
"if there is some problem with update on gentoo, it won't roll in, giving you clues what is wrong"
Yeah, sure. It never upgrades packages you will discover incompatible due to new functionality by the time you are about to merge the config files.
"And nobody forces you to use experimental packages or versions on production system"
I've never talked about anything but stable packages on "maintenance mode".
"We run Gentoo on about 40 production servers (Clustered firewalls, proxy servers, mail/DNS/ftp/mysql/apache/php) without a single glitch."
I'd really would want to see the results of an internal security audit over those boxes.
"how often do you do that, and you would definitely experience the same troubles on all other distributions."
Yeah, sure. Upon going from Woody to Sarge I went from 2.4 to 2.6 as standard. Do you know how many problems did it gave me? Zero, zitch, nada.
"do you upgrade every single day because "well, I want to be up-to-date""
I do upgrade every single day (that there's something to upgrade) because "well, I want to be up-to-date, security wise" with the certainty it won't break anything and that I won't have to change any single line on a config file. Don't you want it too?
"or because there is a good argument that your production servers in fact MUST have an upgrade?"
My Internet-facing servers MUST be upgraded as soon a security concern arises and there's a patch avaliable. On the other hand, my internal servers are upgraded too, because it's so easy and harmless to gain the advantage of a single baseline.
"that's taking a HUGE chance that things will break down and you will end up with using a LOT of hours fixing your troubles"
I'll repeat it again: I have had *zero* problems in about eight years "blindly" upgrading Debian Stable from their security repositories. Maybe I'm madly lucky, who knows...
Slashdot Mirror
"Are you people daft? The material _absorbs_ light! That doesn't mean it is invisible! It means it is black!"
That's not true. The point it is not that it absorbs light; it is that it doesn't *reflect* light. While a method not to reflect light is being black, it is not the only one: a transparent thing doesn't reflect light either. And since this material's refractive index is compared to that of glass or even thin air, you can go figure.
"If this new material retains these properties at radio wavelengths then it would work, no?"
Yes. It will work in the very exact maner it works hiding a liquor bottle within a transparent bag.
"Doesn't the laws of physics prevent this?"
Not at all. The ones that prevents this (for any practical meaning) are statistical ones.
"How is it possible that this could happen?"
Your must remember that air is, for the most part just "dirty" vacuum: there's aplenty of empty space among air molecules, and they all are just "wandering at will". Of course, there's a chance that by mere casuality all air molecules wander just to a corner of a room, so all the rest of the volume is empty and you suffocated. Of course too, when you consider the *hughe* number or molecules there are in a room (just remember Avogadro's number), you can expect having to wait quite a lot universe lifes to see such an event.
"Once again, you pose a false dichotomy."
I think you are playing words. Of course "revelation" dictionary-sense, can be reasonable: I can revelate to you that I won the lotto. You knowing I'm trustworthy, and looking at my new luxury car will reasonably believe it.
But this is not the theologal meaning for "revelation". Revelation is what God told us because a) He is in mood to tell us and b) we have no natural means to know it.
Believing a revelated truth requires no reasonement but *faith*. Even if God came down from heaven to tell me, a poor ignorant, that apples do fall at a speed that increases 9.8 metres per second each second at ground level, that wouldn't be a revelation (theological sense), because we can see and understand that ourselves. It is when God comes to Earth to tell that His Almightyness is somehow One and Three at the same time, or that we will live beyond death that it's a revelation since there's neither no reasonement nor natural means to know that for a fact, except God Himself coming here to tell us.
"Revelation can sometimes be varified independently, but it is not a pre-requisite for it."
Revelation can *never* be independently verified. The nearest thing to it is prophecy, but -again theologically, a prophecy and a revelation are different beasts.
"The peak of that Islamic civilisation seems to have been the Kingdom of Granada in Spain [...] Unfortunately their civilisation was destroyed by a European power under the aegis of the Catholic Church"
Well, well... To Caesar that from Caesar. On one hand you mean to imply that it was some "Catholic Church" oscurantism that that went after muslims in Spain. While that (as always) it an explanation to the masses (and probably make the fight), it was (as always is) a fight for power, for land and sea power those days. Is not by chance that the christian king of the day was "the Catholic Fernando" which is pondered as a mirror for statemen to learn their bussiness by no less than Machiavelo.
On the other hand, by the end of the fifteenth century (Granada was taken by the catholic kings on february the 2nd, 1492, the same year Colon -sponsored by those same kings, arrived the New Continent) all the south of Spain (till the time it went conquered by spanish christian kings) was known as "Taifas Kingdoms", short of little warlord reigns that fought against each other (even within kingdoms: Cordoba caliphate was destroyed by a civil war) no less than against the pressure from the christian principals. So, while the merit (and the history fact) came on the side of the Spanish christian kings it was muslims themselves the real makers of their own defeat (under this insight it takes a new sense the words that the Granada's king's mother told him when flying from the taken city: "cry like a woman what you weren't able to defend like a man").
"For much of recent history, Christian societies have attempted to control and dominate Islamic societies."
That's a wrong argument too. The truth is that "for much of recent history, powerful kingdoms, disregarding its official cult, have attemted to control and dominate their surrounding societies": the Otomanes against Bizancium first, then against italian republics; Italian republics against Aragon; then Aragon against otomanes; then French against Italian and Aragonese; then Spain against everybody; then comes again France... at the same time Spain against northern african warlords; german/polland warlords against russians; Otomanes against syrian and armenians... you name it. From more or less X century to the end of IWW the "big" Europe (including Asia Minor, North of Africa and East Europe to Caucasus) is the time when societies come from warlordships to modern states at a highest price in blood. In the big picture, religion is only one more card used to fool people to kill each other at the will of a bunch of almighty families.
"Islam has become increasingly a religion of the poor and ill educated. (I know this is a simplification, but it is a useful simplification.)"
It's not a useful simplification; it's a stupid one. To say that current oil arabic lords (Iran, Kuwait, United Emirates...) are poor or ill educated is stupid; to say that Salman Rushdie or Naguib Mahfuz are poor or ill educated is stupid; to say that King or Morocco is poor or ill educated is stupid.
"But it also shows that, no matter what you think of current entertainment standards, they were just as bad in the 1500s."
You forget that for the most part History resembles an spiral. Middle Ages were not known as Dark Ages because an specially long eclypse; Iuvenal didn't cry 'o tempora, o mores' out of bad mood nor Quevedo saw "incierto el bien y cierto el desengaño" but because where they were coming from. Today is quite fair to say that current standards are low because both their true level and where we come from (the standards that people wanted for themselves by the years following the end of IIWW) cast deep shadows of shame on us.
"Revelation is not irrational by definition"
Yes, it is.
"If revelation has actually occurred, then it is rational to trust it"
You forget an important issue. If you can be sure it's true it's because you can atest it. But then you don't need any entity to revelate it to you; it's revelation (in the religious sense) no more: it's old plain natural knowledge.
"I've heard a rabbi comment on that... He said that following some principles because you believe them to be right is easy; following them just because your god commands you is hard."
And he is right indeed. But he cheated you a bit. He didn't told you *why* it's more difficult.
I'll do: it's more difficult because we are intelligent beings and irrationalism is against our highest nature. In other words: it's difficult because it's stupid, and being conciously stupid it's hard.
"So you tell me, how different is it from religion?"
There's the tiny fact that there's no God coming in a thunder to tell people what to do but free people deciding by themselves how they want to appear to their own eyes and acting in consecuence.
There's a problem with some religion fundamentalists in that they believe that no god must mean no ethics.
"The "private business model" is a red herring because it implies that there's some other viable business model. But in the case of open source it's not"
And then, old cute Diogene after carefully listening why indeed there's no movement in Universe, put himself on his feet and slowly went away.
Change Diogene by Novell, or Red Hat, or MySQL AB, or...
"Make a note that all the suggestions that people have made about how to make money with open source don't really have anything to do with the open part."
So there's no money on sellings since money always comes from what you sell, not on the selling fact.
"The "open" in open-source may give many benefits, but making money isn't one of them. And that's by design."
Even clever Bill Gates thougth there were no bussiness-case in the "Internet thingie"... till the facts showed him his mistake. You better say *you* don't know how to make money out of producing open source software. I myself have earned a life out of it for the last ten years, go figure.
There's one thing that's true: open source is by no means a basis for a bussiness as profitable as one based upon closed source can be. But that's no wonder: there's no other bussiness -in the whole world, in the whole History, with a profitability potential as the privative software one. Intellectual Property-based bussiness are the most profitable ever, and closed source-software based ones are the more profitable among them. Of course, the problem with such a bussiness is that is terribly unethical and diminishing for society as a whole.
"Translation: if you're trying to make money off it, it's not Open Source."
Retranslation: if you try to bastardize the expression "open source" so you can use it as a buzzword atracting people to your old privative bussiness model, then no, to my eyes it's not open source no matter the distribution license of the bare source code.
"We don't need proprietary software in the long term. But we don't have to fight them!"
It's only that "we" (whatever the meaning of "we" is) don't fight proprietary software. "We" simply don't use it. Is there any means on Fedora (or even Debian, for that matter) to deter others from building a repository full of not only proprietary but even devilesque, terraforming and stinky software directly instalable on a pristine open source-only system?
Uh...?
So I thougth.
"Natural forces will make them irrelevant"
Natural forces? Are those kind of "natural forces" akin to the "invisible hand". I have news for you: it's people the force that make things happen. As much as Stallman can be an histrionic extremist, it's people like him the ones that make open source flourish to the point it is today. With people like Raymond -or you, there weren't no "I want my HP drivers" -Stallman could have an easier day by simply looking for a more reasonable provider; there would be no Apache, no *BSD, no Linux, no nothing to talk about.
"we can help each other make the transition from the closed software world to FOSS as smooth as possible"
It is only that people like Raymond -or you, while saying "it's in order to transition from closed to open" are only meaning "from windows to linux" which is not the same thing, by far, and even that is questionable (I'd say it's even more than "from windows to linux": it's more like "from a trademard I happen not to like to another trademark I happen to like the more").
"If we destroyed closed, proprietary software overnight"
Yeah, and if moon was indeed made of cheese...
" I'm willing to bet the majority of systems do not fall into that category."
Obviously, whatever problems other people face due to malpractices is not my bussiness. Computers that are my bussiness have proper time configured and use NTP to stay in sync whenever possible -which means always except for non-conected computers that, on the other hand, don't tend to produce big problems due to slightly out sync (in the hours) dates.
But I don't have a "locked down environment"; changing computer date always needs administrative rights.
"I think they cited around a 1% improvement. For them, that equates to tens of millions of dollars per year."
Do you *really* think Google's electric bill goes into the billions of dollars?
"or you use an os which doesn't have the new timezone settings, the user notices the clock is "wrong" and "corrects" it."
Only -again, on systems that are not really aware of UTC time. Even if the user will try to "correct" time, it wouldn't happen: "no sir, it *really* is 18:00 UTC now", my upstream NTP servers so tell me. On the other hand a system administrator might force the system onto a wrong time, but then, he is a sysadmin, so must know better.
Really: the problem is that too many people, by being exposed to systems where the hour showed at the little clock no the destop is *the* hour just doesn't understand that's only a representation of the current time, not the current time itself.
"at least thats what its like on windows"
That's exactly my point.
"i dunno about the modern linux desktops"
They are exactly as the old unix were: You have UTC (or GMT) and you *represent* it on the desktop (I was for a while abroad with my laptop, did I worried about timestamps going crazy because the time drift? No: time never goes backwards -or forward faster that 60 seconds per minute, while its external representation, drifted by whatever local time is of course can). Even more, we are talking about multiuser computers; why do you think my preferred local time has to be the same of any other user of the system?
"The only instance where i can see this causing a problem is when programs monitors the time on a particular day, say the day where daylight is supposed to kick in/out"
It shouldn't. You are right about no application having to deal with current time. They only ask the underlying OS "What time is it? and the OS answers "It's XX:YY UTC now"; that's all. And, ho and behold, the UTC second that follows the second prior to a daylight saving change is still one UTC second later, no time drift at all.
Except, of course, if you use an -ahem, OS that knows nothing about UTC and insists its showed time to be the same than the underlying system time.
"he's seeking one that matches his personal preferences"
Yes, that's true.
His personal preferences... backed up by his 18 year experience in the field and the confidence of his contractor.
On the other hand, do you chose on any different grounds than your personal preferences? (think about it for a while prior to answer).
" Irony should be avoided on all multinational,multilingual, and multicultural web sites like Slashdot because only a small percentage of the viewers will understand that the writer is being ironic."
Yeah, sure. I'd go further and propose to use only mathematical notation since, being the "universal language" avoids all misunderstanding. On the other hand, while it can be true that some idioms can be "lost in translation", you forgot people is *very* good at understandments. I'd bet is much more a question of personalitites than of mother languages.
"Also the great fortunes arising from software come from the sale and appreciation of corporate stock value."
So what? They become rich either because they sell licenses with a very gross margin (so they could be much cheaper) or because their stocks arise... because inverstors think this is a very good bussiness -mainly because its very big sell margins. Just go to Microsoft's quarter percentual benefits (invest vs incomes ratio) and you will see that they *indeed* sell at a very wide margin.
On the long run, every successfull privative software is sold at a *very* expensive price: the production marginale cost (the cost of producing one more license) being zero, any price is excessive. That and nothing else explains how it is that software giants became the richest people in the world in record time: it is the best bussiness ever designed in History (it makes oil, naval or telco bussiness seem miserable. As a general matter, all IP-related bussiness -selling nothing for money, say RIAA, patents, etc. are great, but software is the one with the best potential of all).
"Doesn't make it right. It just makes it easier to violate the law with reduced penalties for the perpetrator and other stupid people."
How in hell? Specially in a country that, like yours, has death penalty.
Mr. X: You've been found guilty of murdering, so you will be hang out by your neck till you die. On the other hand, Smith&Colt (or Colt&Wesson-Koch, or whatever) is held co-responsible under the basis of manufacturing deadly weapons, and so it will pay one million dollar to the victim's widow.
"You don't blame the tool for how it's used."
Heck no! when it is a problem with the design of the tool you can bet I blame the tool and the one that built it. When you build an hydraulic press with no security button you can bet I'll blame the manufacturer with regards of the cutted-off hand of the worker (maybe the worker and his boss are guilty too in different degrees, but certainly the machine maker is part of the equation). And the design problem with a short tactic hand gun it is that it's main function is to kill, and to kill specifically people.
"I don't care for what it was made."
I *do* care what it was made for. Indeed a most basic pillar in justice is "what was done and what was done for". Since it is not the same killing someone by accident than killing her on purpouse I see perfectly fitted to consider it is not the same selling cars and having a car being used to kill someone than selling short guns and having a short gun being used to kill someone (after all, its main purpouse).
"The fact is that the operator is to blame, barring any malfunction or defect."
I consider there is a "defect" on selling tools directly aimed to kill people.
"You're simply passing blame to cover your own ass."
You won't find a single statement where I said that co-responsibility from the gun manufacturer diminish my own guiltiness if I kill someone on purpouse.
"They are a perfect reflection of all of you."
You seem to prejudice a bit too much. The discourse you say I sustain is certainly not the discourse I do sustain.
"I don't care where it is. The original post still stands. Free speech is unconditional, or it isn't free."
OK, no problem. This law has NOTHING against free speech. You can say whatever you want. You (your company) can make up a blog simulating you are a satisfied customer; no problem on that.
It is AFTER you have already talked when government will act upon your words.
It is like free market: you can buy whatever you want, but then you will have to cope with the consecuencies (you will have to pay the agreed amount of money). Here there is no kind of previous censorship: you are free to say whatever you want (and then, you will have to pay the price).
"Are you one of those types that believe a manufacturer should be liable if the product is used to commit a crime?"
I'd do, if the purpoused finality of the product is to kill people, like guns are. Don't you USA people have laws banning "objects" which main use is piracy?
"In addition to guns, how 'bout knives, and scissors, and automobiles, or a bar of soap"
The way they are properly used is not killing people. Guns are. GM don't produce killer machines, even if they do kill people, even on purpouse sometimes. Colt do.
"If something is used to commit crime, I want you to go after the perpetrator, not the tool he used"
That's naive. Law is full of cases of shared responsibility. Of course the shooter is the *main* responsible for the death, but the killer machine producer certainly has a (minor) part on it just as when someone pushes some other through a too fragile windows protection: the first one is a killer, the second one co-responsible on the amount of the damage. Don't you want to share such criminal responsibility? OK: stop producing hand guns and go after the teddy bear market for instance.
"Software companies have to charge $500 and sell thousands of copies at that price in order to cover development costs"
Yeah, sure.
Their commercial margins are so low it's no surprise there's not a single big fortune made from selling software. People like Gates, Jobs, Ellison or Shuttleworth are just on the edge of starving.
"There are three major and important facts that proponents of Universal Heathcare ignore when pointing to Germany, Sweden, etc...
1. The US is both population wise and land wise considerably larger- at last estimate over 300 million people"
While this is true, the fact is that the whole EU goes with a universal health-care system, and the EU is... about 300 million people and about the surface the USA is.
"This means the logistical and administrative demands of any such system would be orders of magnitude larger"
This means the logistical and administrative demands of any such system on the USA would be exactly the same order of magnitude that it is in EU.
"2. Germany, England and Sweden are central government countries. They have a strong national government with mutiple parties working in coalitions and the Prime Minister is selected from this. This allows for things to work "all in one direction". However, the US is fragmented with a weakened federal government"
Still, the EU has an even weakener "federal" government that the USA has and all the countries within EU have universal-healthcare systems.
"This would make it both politically and socially difficult to implement a single Universal Heathcare without it being very regonal, complex, and beholden to local politics thus negating many of the advantages of "national heathcare"."
This could only be worse (by orders of magnitude) within the UE. Still, I, as an EU citizen (I'm Spanish) can go everywhere within the EU and recieve the benefits of the healthcare system of the country I happen to be by the moment. Would it be impossible or would it?
"Trying to find commonality beyond Nation & Citizenship for 300 million in this country is pipe dream."
And then, we in EU are managing to find common grounds even on the glaringly fact that we only have in common bloody wars for about a millenium.
So, don't tell us it is impossible when you just have to have a look at old Europe to see it is certainly possible.
"i don't believe that open source software development can only be either about money or about "self amusement""
Don't believe it, then.
"What about the satisfaction in contributing to solve a known problem"
That's self amusement.
"or in contributing to ease someone else's live, or in helping the spread of linux, or do just a little something sometimes to avoid the complete and utter monopoly of one single corporation over people's live for the next century ???"
That's self amusement too.
"i still think the overall lack of vision/focus of the open source community is partly responsible for this."
I offer you a deal: You meet me with "the open source comunity" and I manage to take apart his lack of vision/focus.
"Of course wether a very disparate community could ever aquire some vision or focus or even agree on what are the most important things to do"
Oh! But the very disparate community that develop open source on their spare time for free has a very precise and sharp focus. All of them, *all* of them, do it for the very same reason: their amusement. Now, 100% of a very disparate community going for the very same goal: that's focus, don't your think so?
"all HP printers work in Linux because HP has actually committed itself to delivering free drivers"
Do you need for me to tell you why do I own a Lexmark C510 instead of an HP LaserJet Color 2600?
"Haven't you seen broken .rpm things?"
Thrice on about a decade. On the other hand I've never seen a failed security upgrade on a Debian Stable, ever.
"You are in about the same situation with *redhat-like systems just as with Gentoo."
You must be joking. Where a typical Debian on "maintenance mode" usually takes me no more than twenty minutes weekly (usually much less) Gentoo clearly goes beyond the hour/week, not including upgrading profiles, which is a six-monthly task on average.
"if there is some problem with update on gentoo, it won't roll in, giving you clues what is wrong"
Yeah, sure. It never upgrades packages you will discover incompatible due to new functionality by the time you are about to merge the config files.
"And nobody forces you to use experimental packages or versions on production system"
I've never talked about anything but stable packages on "maintenance mode".
"We run Gentoo on about 40 production servers (Clustered firewalls, proxy servers, mail/DNS/ftp/mysql/apache/php) without a single glitch."
I'd really would want to see the results of an internal security audit over those boxes.
"how often do you do that, and you would definitely experience the same troubles on all other distributions."
Yeah, sure. Upon going from Woody to Sarge I went from 2.4 to 2.6 as standard. Do you know how many problems did it gave me? Zero, zitch, nada.
"do you upgrade every single day because "well, I want to be up-to-date""
I do upgrade every single day (that there's something to upgrade) because "well, I want to be up-to-date, security wise" with the certainty it won't break anything and that I won't have to change any single line on a config file. Don't you want it too?
"or because there is a good argument that your production servers in fact MUST have an upgrade?"
My Internet-facing servers MUST be upgraded as soon a security concern arises and there's a patch avaliable. On the other hand, my internal servers are upgraded too, because it's so easy and harmless to gain the advantage of a single baseline.
"that's taking a HUGE chance that things will break down and you will end up with using a LOT of hours fixing your troubles"
I'll repeat it again: I have had *zero* problems in about eight years "blindly" upgrading Debian Stable from their security repositories. Maybe I'm madly lucky, who knows...