So -1 does not exist? How about the concept of 1=1 or 2=2 or 1+2=3?
I do not think I need to "see" -1 widget and 1 widget to know that there are no widgets. Same as 1 widget and 2 widgets to have 3 widgets.
The concepts of math exist and appear to be absolute, more so than the very existence of "I" (I think therefore I am...). I would have to say that math exists more so than all others!
For this, you might pay $60/month for 20 Mbps, or $3/Mbps. You mean $60/month for 3-5Mbps. This is the US, not some other developed, developing, or 3rd world country.
First, "file sharing of copyrighted material without permission" is illegal in most contexts, the proper term is copyright infringement. You "infringe" on the copyright owned by an entity. Don't let the term fool you, it is extremely bad to commit. Per the punishment, it is far worse than stealing; thou per the law, it isn't.
Which brings us to the point. I am not sure how it is in the EU, but in the US, "crime" is a very strong word. It is where murder, rape, fraud, and theft sit and ponder all day. It is so strong, that the government comes to punish you by taking you to court on behalf of the people, and dealing out a hefty punishment in terms of community service, fines, jail time, and death!
Copyright infringement currently falls under Civil law, where the entity being damaged goes after the one who is doing the damage. Now, in civil law, you need to show quantifiable (read: must be in dollars) damage to punish the infringer. You don't need such things for a crime. Also, the punishment isn't (read: shouldn't) going to be community service, fines, jail time, or death.
WHY? Well, in a crime, you tried to damage society and need to pay society or are removed from society. In a civil matter, you pay the guy you damaged all the... damages, court costs, and bit on top for being a bad boy.
In a way thou, maybe copyright infringement should be a crime. As, in a crime, the court needs to prove "without a reasonable doubt" that someone committed it. In a civil matter, I think there just needs to be a high probability. Plus, all the revenue/damages are awarded to society instead of the copyright holder or some pointless middleman who says he represents a bunch of them.
We actually stared off w/ other options. I got hit w/ Pseudo code (read: fake programming in English for those who can't spell). For a guy coming from C programming, this was absolute pointless torture (you don't know how many time I scanned a piece of paper and thought of doing Ctrl-F). They went back to Scheme. Later switched to Python and Matlab.
Scheme isn't too bad as a starting language, but I consider it horrible when you are trying to teach people to write clean, maintainable code. It is far too easy to write cryptic stuff. Python is very clean and clear (read: in grading, you can easily tell when a person went out of their way in making it cryptic). This is the same reason I don't want them to use Perl, php, or javascript. On the plus side, Python has real world applications and lets your imagination run wild. And it has a very large useful library with interfaces to other software.
At our school, people come from a multitude of fields (every major has to take this class). Some are expert assembly/C/C++ coders! They shouldn't even take this class, they should just get the damn A. Like me and Pseudo code, you will piss us off to the point where we want to beat the crap out of the TAs. Python will add the most real world value to all of us (unless you are a python expert).
So overall, Python with its emphasis and philosophy is the better option... IMHO.
Should that interface not be able to accomplish the task or freeze you out, you aru paralyzed in your ability to do your job.
You call up your MS rep. or IT support. They will bring in a contractor, who will bring in a subcontractor. This guy might bring in a subcontractor, who will push the reset button. Which will result in lost data, but that will require another MS rep/support call, and from past experience you know the new sub-sub contractor will confirm your data is lost.
Don't worry, the company pays for this, and the rate was already part of the contract you initially signed.
...maintainable application programming is much easier and faster with a higher level language.
This is what I think most "programmers," "managers," and clients/customers don't seem to get AT ALL. They want something _now_ that isn't anywhere close to well defined, and needs to be flexible in design so crap can be piled on it with little issue.
The question is always "How much will it cost to build this?" not "How much will this cost me?" Thou they always ask the later when they actually mean the former. And the "consulting" (a word that has lost so much meaning) industry is set up to say the cost is half of what it really is and the gold standard is to have overruns. I never understood this from a project management stand point (you are ignoring the unknowns and just making that area look good). It looks great on paper, but at the end of the day, they end up completing based on sunk costs (another mistake of project management).
That's a very good move. Our Institute in the ATL did the same a few years ago. It is a good path to take. I feel Java (intro to OOP) & Python (intro to prog)are excellent introductory languages that ease newbies into building a pretty good solid starting foundation to programming. And I think the 1st intro is required for everyone irrelevant of their major, and the second is recommended.
I don't think a language or tool should ever be taught (if you must, leave that to post college overly expensive "seminars" and "workshops"), but the concepts behind their field should be embedded into students. The students should come out with a knowledge base and a thought process that can be used to gain specific insight into any language or tool on their own.
Of course, over here, once you get past the intros, the weed out classes start up with C, C++, assembly, and whatever the professor's flavor of the quarter is (sometimes, its left up to you)!! And although I feel for the students who need to go through this gauntlet; I can't think of a better way to do it.
"...OOXML from fast track so it can be resubmitted for proper review at least as thorough as ODF, then ISO *will* be broken....which is just fine according to Microsoft since when you have no standards you can trust, defacto market standards win."
I already consider the ISO to be partially broken. Many people who know this issue have greatly reduced the acknowledgment of the ISO. Their image has already taken a hit.
It is disgraceful that a impartial, global, standards body gives so much special attention to a single entity. It is an absolute slap in the face for _every_ standard that went through the heavily scrutinized process and got accepted thus far.
But now you are getting into a dangerous topic: Patenting Math.
The Brothers should have been able to patent the airplane, and the wing design, but should they be allowed to patent "thing that flies" or "vertical lift". Should the concept behind limit theory in Calculus, Newton's Laws, String theory, BigNum primality, or H.264 be sanctioned as controlled by an singled entity?
Even if they did do the research and spend massive amounts of money and time.
You didn't write a lot, but I have multiple issues with your post. (Please don't take it personal, a lot of ppl think along your post's lines, and I want to show the issue in it.) When I say "IP", I am talking about software patents.
Terms - the following terms in the post are extremely vague and add only complications (read: dead weight cost, regulatory verbiage) to the overall system: ...easily and fairly licensed...,...third party who requires it...,...reasonable price for reasonable terms...,...gross misconduct...,...direct competitor...,...materially damage...
How and who defines easily, fairly, reasonable, materially, misconduct, and requires. The real issue here is that IP is vague in itself. Its value is based on speculation, risks, and theoretical projections. Of course the base value of IP is the quantifiable research + costs involved in creating, obtaining, and maintaining it (for simplicity's sake, lets skip NPV). BUT, the base value alone only proves that the endeavor should have never taken place (why should I incur opportunity costs when there is no return?). You can't even being to talk about the above terms without defining the underlying value in question. Of course there will be easy cases of what isn't fair, easy, material, etc. but these are few and the current system already takes care of it.
Forget third parties, the only parties that can even come close to determining that underlying value are the actual parties involved in the transaction. And even these parties can never really come to a conclusion. If the buyer is too profitable, the IP in question is actually worth more than estimated, else the value is worth less. But by what quantity is still unknown (obviously not all of the profit/loss goes to the IP). What the heavy weights have found is that the more vague the value of their IP is, the better. Why? Because that could be used to trade with other vague IP. The more vague, the more the trading power. This is why they see IP as defensive weapons, rather than offensive ones.
Only those who are projecting a loss in the market place or loss of the IP will truly risk evaluating (lower trading power) their IP through lawsuits and sell offs. The current evaluation for patent trolls is: Base IP value = acquisition costs + lawsuit costs. So for them, the IP is worthless if they can't find a settlement or win resulting in net gain. If they win, their IP is worth more, but no one knows by how much. At some point, it just ends up being a judgment call by a judge or one of the parties and this judgment expires the minute it is made.
If you can lock down the value of IP, then what the parent posts says is true. BUT the current system would easily follow the above post if this could be done.
Other issues with the post, I will keep it short and add more if it raises a discussion: ...freely licensable... does not currently produce a product... Well funded competition will bring a product to market, before the expense ridden, exhausted IP holder ramps up? Which would result in useless IP.
...direct competitor to whom providing the patent would materially damage the patent holder.... Anything could be defined/made as materially damaging, depends on who has the higher paid lawyers and accountants. Worse than not issuing IP to competition. Cause now the owner has free research into what is profitable in the market that he might want to expand into.
...An arbitration agency should be in charge... deciding... decide... More regulation costs, raising the base cost of the IP. Moving it away from the many, to the few. And what are they going to do, impose fees, set licensing terms, or such. The later makes it worthless, the former and anything else increases base cost.
In theory, the above post is great and I would love it, but in practice, it won't work.
I know this is Slashdot, and everyone already knows this, but just in case.
In order to really get the quote above, go read:
The Mythical Man-Month.
This is a must (required) read for anyone doing IT project management, working with IT project management, or even working on the IT project. I wish more "managers" read this. It is an excellent (short) book to read for just about anyone managing a project or being managed in a project.
Ok, first of all, nothing in Physics is "real." Everything thing is an explanation. Gravity isn't real, it is a well accepted explanation (theory) of observations which is used to predict outcomes. "Matter" on the physics level isn't real either, but still just a way that it thinks about things we perceive easily all around. We can find out tomorrow that all matter has a characteristic of life (like dimensions, mass, and gravity) which if assembled in the appropriate quantities and combinations does in fact result in life as we know it.
Antimatter, dark matter, and phantom matter are also just labels to [possible] explanations to observations.
No, there is an equilibrium where no one can ever come out on top. For example, in nature, hunter and prey keep in balance for generations upon generations. The minute one edges out on top, there is too little food, and/or too much food. In the market place, the ever innovating player keeps a tad bit in front, but eventually gets over taken. It is the ground rules such as patents, contracts, etc that create environments which nurture monopolies. But realistically, in the very end, all goods/services become either a commodity or a scarcity. The former results in perfect competition, and the later a lost market.
And Ubuntu is not a monopoly in the Linux desktop computing market. Neither is RedHat or Debian in servers. Apple isn't either in the media creation field. Just because you have the majority of the market doesn't mean you are a monopoly. Even if you have 100% of a market, it doesn't make you a monopoly. If you are the sole and _only_ provider of a service or good; that makes you a monopoly.
Ubuntu, Redhat, & Debian are monopolies on their brands, logos, and possibly the 2-3 scripts that they own full rights to (plus any other IP they own). Apple does have a monopoly on the iPod & iPhone. Google does have a monopoly on their brand and more importantly, their search algorithms. Microsoft does have a monopoly on MS Office and the Windows desktop, but since these two are basically equivalent to the "office" and "desktop" markets, they are considered to have monopolies in both.
Re:Blame the programmer not the language
on
Rails May Not Suck
·
· Score: 1
First off, I am a C, Java, C++, Python developer in that order and am coming from that angle. I went through the same thing that you did with C, and why I later chose Python over Perl. (I do Ruby, Perl, bash, and others too, but don't consider myself a "developer" in them).
My issue w/ Ruby is longterm maintainability. Which I think Python and Java do really really well in. Perl (especially), PHP, C, C++ aren't so good.
I like the potential of Ruby , but wish it was a more... strict language. I like the fact that people can just flow out code (like they do in Perl, & Python), but don't like the fact that different people can do it in different ways. People can have different styles of writing code, and they shouldn't switch around in project, but I have issues that the language itself provides options where I just wish it didn't.
Things like blocks, conditionals, loops, parentheses, and string initializations have options that not only can different programmers choose different ways, but the same one can _easily_ choose different ways in the same flow of code. And the philosophy of the language encourages this as the programmer is supposed to do what is "fun". Which I totally understand, and appreciate. It does add a tremendous amount of productivity to the overall development. BUT, I put forth that this makes maintenance a burden where one need not exist.
I think Ruby will evolve over time to remove some of these options (parentheses), but it is quickly getting to the stage where legacy support will lock it down. I am not trying to bash Ruby or anything, it is a very powerful language, and in some ways, I really do like it. But IMO, it made certain handicap trade offs for its philosophy where it shouldn't.
The way I see the scripting languages I know (based on my understanding of their philosophies): Perl - Put your mind's thoughts in code. There are many ways to do something and everyone can do it their way. Python - There are many ways to do something, but only one obviously right way. Ruby - Writing code is an expression of the mind which is art that should be fun and enjoyable.
Oddly enough, Ruby's reason is why I use Python mostly, and Perl's reason is why I still keep Perl and Ruby around.
If what you say is true, then NO open source software will EVER get past being a standalone package. Every piece of software will need to build from the very hardware roots up to the user interface. Things like KDE, Gnome, the Linux kernel, x.org, core Unix toolchain, Apache, and all the applications, modules, subprojects could never exist for more than one or two releases!
In the Unix/open source world, the philosophy is to reuse as much code as possible. You make little pieces that are extremely good at doing one thing and one thing only. Then you string these pieces together and create single doorways to a multitude of features.
This philosophy and software demand stable interfaces in order to coexist. If there are too many changes to one piece, it will cascade to all the other pieces that indirectly depend on or will depend on it.
Either way is fine. If the universities do comply, Congress will sit there scratching their heads wondering why cost of tuition has gone up. And then sit there farting on how to increase funds to it. The Republicans will shell out more bonds (hurts future generations), and the Democrats will raise taxes (hurts current generations). Then they will sit there blaming each other.
IMO, this is the main problem with Congress. They have millions to spend on PR managers, but spend crap on Economists who would have clearly told them this is a lose-lose-lose situation. If tuition increases (lose) or students can't get as much from grants (lose), do you really think college students will have the "extra" cash to spend on Music (lose)? Hummm, alternative... copyright infringement maybe.
And the US citizen is to blame too. Cause when they see that stupid ad of Congressman X voted against the "College Opportunity and Affordability Act," they automatically go OMG! Never voting for him again!
No, that would never work. 1st the government is out of the question. Sure they can do it, but it will cost 10x more, take 10x longer, and hurt 1-2 future generations than other options. 2-3 generations down the line, a PhD will do a thesis which will prove that the damages caused by all the botnets would have been far less than the damage the government spending and loss of privacy rights did to the global economy in their failed attempt to stop the botnets.
2nd the combined power of all the smart people is far smaller than the combined power of all the stupid people in any group. That is how dictators take power, they single handedly manipulate the power of the stupid people to squash the combined power of the smart people. This is how monopolies happen. This is how labor unions work. This is how presidents get elected. Unfortunately, this is not how politicians get into Congress.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in mass.
So, you would want to look toward solutions of taking over the Storm, not confronting it. Of course absolute power corrupts absolutely! So beware, you have been warned.
Slashdot Mirror
YES... no... I mean yes... what was the question? Oh, yes I will have fries with that. ^_^
So -1 does not exist? How about the concept of 1=1 or 2=2 or 1+2=3?
I do not think I need to "see" -1 widget and 1 widget to know that there are no widgets. Same as 1 widget and 2 widgets to have 3 widgets.
The concepts of math exist and appear to be absolute, more so than the very existence of "I" (I think therefore I am...). I would have to say that math exists more so than all others!
Hey! Were you in New Orleans too?
Bad joke?... probably.
Or better yet, depending on how they defined the "lost" revenue (net loss) you could say the following:
Open source creates a net value of $60 billion dollars!
This is $60 billion that is used for other things _while_ retaining the previous value/opportunities/assets.
First, "file sharing of copyrighted material without permission" is illegal in most contexts, the proper term is copyright infringement. You "infringe" on the copyright owned by an entity. Don't let the term fool you, it is extremely bad to commit. Per the punishment, it is far worse than stealing; thou per the law, it isn't.
Which brings us to the point. I am not sure how it is in the EU, but in the US, "crime" is a very strong word. It is where murder, rape, fraud, and theft sit and ponder all day. It is so strong, that the government comes to punish you by taking you to court on behalf of the people, and dealing out a hefty punishment in terms of community service, fines, jail time, and death!
Copyright infringement currently falls under Civil law, where the entity being damaged goes after the one who is doing the damage. Now, in civil law, you need to show quantifiable (read: must be in dollars) damage to punish the infringer. You don't need such things for a crime. Also, the punishment isn't (read: shouldn't) going to be community service, fines, jail time, or death.
WHY? Well, in a crime, you tried to damage society and need to pay society or are removed from society. In a civil matter, you pay the guy you damaged all the... damages, court costs, and bit on top for being a bad boy.
In a way thou, maybe copyright infringement should be a crime. As, in a crime, the court needs to prove "without a reasonable doubt" that someone committed it. In a civil matter, I think there just needs to be a high probability. Plus, all the revenue/damages are awarded to society instead of the copyright holder or some pointless middleman who says he represents a bunch of them.
IANAL blah blah blah.
No no, I will take this one, you get the next one. Waiter, here's my card.
We actually stared off w/ other options. I got hit w/ Pseudo code (read: fake programming in English for those who can't spell). For a guy coming from C programming, this was absolute pointless torture (you don't know how many time I scanned a piece of paper and thought of doing Ctrl-F). They went back to Scheme. Later switched to Python and Matlab.
Scheme isn't too bad as a starting language, but I consider it horrible when you are trying to teach people to write clean, maintainable code. It is far too easy to write cryptic stuff. Python is very clean and clear (read: in grading, you can easily tell when a person went out of their way in making it cryptic). This is the same reason I don't want them to use Perl, php, or javascript. On the plus side, Python has real world applications and lets your imagination run wild. And it has a very large useful library with interfaces to other software.
At our school, people come from a multitude of fields (every major has to take this class). Some are expert assembly/C/C++ coders! They shouldn't even take this class, they should just get the damn A. Like me and Pseudo code, you will piss us off to the point where we want to beat the crap out of the TAs. Python will add the most real world value to all of us (unless you are a python expert).
So overall, Python with its emphasis and philosophy is the better option... IMHO.
You call up your MS rep. or IT support. They will bring in a contractor, who will bring in a subcontractor. This guy might bring in a subcontractor, who will push the reset button. Which will result in lost data, but that will require another MS rep/support call, and from past experience you know the new sub-sub contractor will confirm your data is lost.
Don't worry, the company pays for this, and the rate was already part of the contract you initially signed.
...maintainable application programming is much easier and faster with a higher level language.This is what I think most "programmers," "managers," and clients/customers don't seem to get AT ALL. They want something _now_ that isn't anywhere close to well defined, and needs to be flexible in design so crap can be piled on it with little issue.
The question is always "How much will it cost to build this?" not "How much will this cost me?" Thou they always ask the later when they actually mean the former. And the "consulting" (a word that has lost so much meaning) industry is set up to say the cost is half of what it really is and the gold standard is to have overruns. I never understood this from a project management stand point (you are ignoring the unknowns and just making that area look good). It looks great on paper, but at the end of the day, they end up completing based on sunk costs (another mistake of project management).
That's a very good move. Our Institute in the ATL did the same a few years ago. It is a good path to take. I feel Java (intro to OOP) & Python (intro to prog)are excellent introductory languages that ease newbies into building a pretty good solid starting foundation to programming. And I think the 1st intro is required for everyone irrelevant of their major, and the second is recommended.
I don't think a language or tool should ever be taught (if you must, leave that to post college overly expensive "seminars" and "workshops"), but the concepts behind their field should be embedded into students. The students should come out with a knowledge base and a thought process that can be used to gain specific insight into any language or tool on their own.
Of course, over here, once you get past the intros, the weed out classes start up with C, C++, assembly, and whatever the professor's flavor of the quarter is (sometimes, its left up to you)!! And although I feel for the students who need to go through this gauntlet; I can't think of a better way to do it.
"...OOXML from fast track so it can be resubmitted for proper review at least as thorough as ODF, then ISO *will* be broken....which is just fine according to Microsoft since when you have no standards you can trust, defacto market standards win."
I already consider the ISO to be partially broken. Many people who know this issue have greatly reduced the acknowledgment of the ISO. Their image has already taken a hit.
It is disgraceful that a impartial, global, standards body gives so much special attention to a single entity. It is an absolute slap in the face for _every_ standard that went through the heavily scrutinized process and got accepted thus far.
But now you are getting into a dangerous topic: Patenting Math.
The Brothers should have been able to patent the airplane, and the wing design, but should they be allowed to patent "thing that flies" or "vertical lift". Should the concept behind limit theory in Calculus, Newton's Laws, String theory, BigNum primality, or H.264 be sanctioned as controlled by an singled entity?
Even if they did do the research and spend massive amounts of money and time.
They are surprised because, as a monopoly, they didn't think fair market economics would show up on their line graphs.
You didn't write a lot, but I have multiple issues with your post. (Please don't take it personal, a lot of ppl think along your post's lines, and I want to show the issue in it.) When I say "IP", I am talking about software patents.
...third party who requires it..., ...reasonable price for reasonable terms..., ...gross misconduct..., ...direct competitor..., ...materially damage...
... does not currently produce a product ...
... deciding ... decide ...
Terms - the following terms in the post are extremely vague and add only complications (read: dead weight cost, regulatory verbiage) to the overall system:
...easily and fairly licensed...,
How and who defines easily, fairly, reasonable, materially, misconduct, and requires. The real issue here is that IP is vague in itself. Its value is based on speculation, risks, and theoretical projections. Of course the base value of IP is the quantifiable research + costs involved in creating, obtaining, and maintaining it (for simplicity's sake, lets skip NPV). BUT, the base value alone only proves that the endeavor should have never taken place (why should I incur opportunity costs when there is no return?). You can't even being to talk about the above terms without defining the underlying value in question. Of course there will be easy cases of what isn't fair, easy, material, etc. but these are few and the current system already takes care of it.
Forget third parties, the only parties that can even come close to determining that underlying value are the actual parties involved in the transaction. And even these parties can never really come to a conclusion. If the buyer is too profitable, the IP in question is actually worth more than estimated, else the value is worth less. But by what quantity is still unknown (obviously not all of the profit/loss goes to the IP). What the heavy weights have found is that the more vague the value of their IP is, the better. Why? Because that could be used to trade with other vague IP. The more vague, the more the trading power. This is why they see IP as defensive weapons, rather than offensive ones.
Only those who are projecting a loss in the market place or loss of the IP will truly risk evaluating (lower trading power) their IP through lawsuits and sell offs. The current evaluation for patent trolls is: Base IP value = acquisition costs + lawsuit costs. So for them, the IP is worthless if they can't find a settlement or win resulting in net gain. If they win, their IP is worth more, but no one knows by how much. At some point, it just ends up being a judgment call by a judge or one of the parties and this judgment expires the minute it is made.
If you can lock down the value of IP, then what the parent posts says is true. BUT the current system would easily follow the above post if this could be done.
Other issues with the post, I will keep it short and add more if it raises a discussion:
...freely licensable
Well funded competition will bring a product to market, before the expense ridden, exhausted IP holder ramps up? Which would result in useless IP.
...direct competitor to whom providing the patent would materially damage the patent holder....
Anything could be defined/made as materially damaging, depends on who has the higher paid lawyers and accountants. Worse than not issuing IP to competition. Cause now the owner has free research into what is profitable in the market that he might want to expand into.
...An arbitration agency should be in charge
More regulation costs, raising the base cost of the IP. Moving it away from the many, to the few. And what are they going to do, impose fees, set licensing terms, or such. The later makes it worthless, the former and anything else increases base cost.
In theory, the above post is great and I would love it, but in practice, it won't work.
I know this is Slashdot, and everyone already knows this, but just in case.
In order to really get the quote above, go read:
The Mythical Man-Month.
This is a must (required) read for anyone doing IT project management, working with IT project management, or even working on the IT project. I wish more "managers" read this. It is an excellent (short) book to read for just about anyone managing a project or being managed in a project.
Ok, first of all, nothing in Physics is "real." Everything thing is an explanation. Gravity isn't real, it is a well accepted explanation (theory) of observations which is used to predict outcomes. "Matter" on the physics level isn't real either, but still just a way that it thinks about things we perceive easily all around. We can find out tomorrow that all matter has a characteristic of life (like dimensions, mass, and gravity) which if assembled in the appropriate quantities and combinations does in fact result in life as we know it. Antimatter, dark matter, and phantom matter are also just labels to [possible] explanations to observations.
That's why some of us chose NOT to live in Tokyo ^_^
No, there is an equilibrium where no one can ever come out on top. For example, in nature, hunter and prey keep in balance for generations upon generations. The minute one edges out on top, there is too little food, and/or too much food. In the market place, the ever innovating player keeps a tad bit in front, but eventually gets over taken. It is the ground rules such as patents, contracts, etc that create environments which nurture monopolies. But realistically, in the very end, all goods/services become either a commodity or a scarcity. The former results in perfect competition, and the later a lost market.
And Ubuntu is not a monopoly in the Linux desktop computing market. Neither is RedHat or Debian in servers. Apple isn't either in the media creation field. Just because you have the majority of the market doesn't mean you are a monopoly. Even if you have 100% of a market, it doesn't make you a monopoly. If you are the sole and _only_ provider of a service or good; that makes you a monopoly.
Ubuntu, Redhat, & Debian are monopolies on their brands, logos, and possibly the 2-3 scripts that they own full rights to (plus any other IP they own). Apple does have a monopoly on the iPod & iPhone. Google does have a monopoly on their brand and more importantly, their search algorithms. Microsoft does have a monopoly on MS Office and the Windows desktop, but since these two are basically equivalent to the "office" and "desktop" markets, they are considered to have monopolies in both.
Only a Perl owner would enjoy owning a pet rock.
First off, I am a C, Java, C++, Python developer in that order and am coming from that angle. I went through the same thing that you did with C, and why I later chose Python over Perl. (I do Ruby, Perl, bash, and others too, but don't consider myself a "developer" in them).
My issue w/ Ruby is longterm maintainability. Which I think Python and Java do really really well in. Perl (especially), PHP, C, C++ aren't so good.
I like the potential of Ruby , but wish it was a more... strict language. I like the fact that people can just flow out code (like they do in Perl, & Python), but don't like the fact that different people can do it in different ways. People can have different styles of writing code, and they shouldn't switch around in project, but I have issues that the language itself provides options where I just wish it didn't.
Things like blocks, conditionals, loops, parentheses, and string initializations have options that not only can different programmers choose different ways, but the same one can _easily_ choose different ways in the same flow of code. And the philosophy of the language encourages this as the programmer is supposed to do what is "fun". Which I totally understand, and appreciate. It does add a tremendous amount of productivity to the overall development. BUT, I put forth that this makes maintenance a burden where one need not exist.
I think Ruby will evolve over time to remove some of these options (parentheses), but it is quickly getting to the stage where legacy support will lock it down. I am not trying to bash Ruby or anything, it is a very powerful language, and in some ways, I really do like it. But IMO, it made certain handicap trade offs for its philosophy where it shouldn't.
The way I see the scripting languages I know (based on my understanding of their philosophies):
Perl - Put your mind's thoughts in code. There are many ways to do something and everyone can do it their way.
Python - There are many ways to do something, but only one obviously right way.
Ruby - Writing code is an expression of the mind which is art that should be fun and enjoyable.
Oddly enough, Ruby's reason is why I use Python mostly, and Perl's reason is why I still keep Perl and Ruby around.
If what you say is true, then NO open source software will EVER get past being a standalone package. Every piece of software will need to build from the very hardware roots up to the user interface. Things like KDE, Gnome, the Linux kernel, x.org, core Unix toolchain, Apache, and all the applications, modules, subprojects could never exist for more than one or two releases!
In the Unix/open source world, the philosophy is to reuse as much code as possible. You make little pieces that are extremely good at doing one thing and one thing only. Then you string these pieces together and create single doorways to a multitude of features.
This philosophy and software demand stable interfaces in order to coexist. If there are too many changes to one piece, it will cascade to all the other pieces that indirectly depend on or will depend on it.
Either way is fine. If the universities do comply, Congress will sit there scratching their heads wondering why cost of tuition has gone up. And then sit there farting on how to increase funds to it. The Republicans will shell out more bonds (hurts future generations), and the Democrats will raise taxes (hurts current generations). Then they will sit there blaming each other.
IMO, this is the main problem with Congress. They have millions to spend on PR managers, but spend crap on Economists who would have clearly told them this is a lose-lose-lose situation. If tuition increases (lose) or students can't get as much from grants (lose), do you really think college students will have the "extra" cash to spend on Music (lose)? Hummm, alternative... copyright infringement maybe.
And the US citizen is to blame too. Cause when they see that stupid ad of Congressman X voted against the "College Opportunity and Affordability Act," they automatically go OMG! Never voting for him again!
No, that would never work. 1st the government is out of the question. Sure they can do it, but it will cost 10x more, take 10x longer, and hurt 1-2 future generations than other options. 2-3 generations down the line, a PhD will do a thesis which will prove that the damages caused by all the botnets would have been far less than the damage the government spending and loss of privacy rights did to the global economy in their failed attempt to stop the botnets.
2nd the combined power of all the smart people is far smaller than the combined power of all the stupid people in any group. That is how dictators take power, they single handedly manipulate the power of the stupid people to squash the combined power of the smart people. This is how monopolies happen. This is how labor unions work. This is how presidents get elected. Unfortunately, this is not how politicians get into Congress.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in mass.
So, you would want to look toward solutions of taking over the Storm, not confronting it. Of course absolute power corrupts absolutely! So beware, you have been warned.