Is there very many reasons for the average joe to use a legacy app when the new apps general accept older file formats?
But Microsoft's idea of backwards compatibility is limited to allowing you to convert your file from the previous version of an app to the format for the newest one. Case in point: I have an Access database that I created in Access97 on the box in my lab. The computers in the library were running the latest version of Access. With this version I can't modify my database without first converting it to the new format. After I do this I can no longer open the file with Access97. Hardly backward compatible.
Of course, the library decided that there wasn't enough use of Access to justify the cost, so they failed to renew the license for it, leaving me with a file that I can't do anything with anywhere on campus. Thanks Bill!
It must be nice to be God. You get credit for everything that anyone ever does right, from scientific discoveries to touchdowns, it's all the Big Guy's work. But the fact that "science is wrong 99% of the time", well that's because the scientists are fallable humans. Doesn't sound so much like an all-powerful being as apologist spin. Small-pox vaccine? God's inspiration. No Aids vaccine? Human failure.
That so many otherwise intelligent people are prepared to accept such circular notions is perhaps the strongest argument against evolution. I'd expect millions of years of natural selection would have weeded out such soft-headedness.
I really don't know enough about what goes in to a full distrobution, so I can't personally evaluate how accurate 30% is, I have to take the word of the GNU people. As you say, it doesn't help that they don't quote their source.
I do appreciate what they're trying to do with the GNU/Linux naming issue. It's frustrating to see how the users of a system that they(GNU) are in large part responsible for refusing to acknowledge the philosophical framework that made that system possible. On the other hand, I agree that this is probably not the most productive way to approach the issue.
I looked it up (and also rounded up by 2%, filthy liar that I am):
If we tried to measure the GNU Project's contribution in this way, what would we conclude? One CD-ROM vendor found that in their ``Linux distribution'', GNU software was the largest single contingent, around 28% of the total source code, and this included some of the essential major components without which there could be no system. Linux itself was about 3%. So if you were going to pick a name for the system based on who wrote the programs in the system, the most appropriate single choice would be ``GNU''.
Rereading that, it doesn't say it's a typical distro, just an example, my mistake. The point is that a big chunk of very important code came from GNU. So in reference to the post I was responding to, GNU didn't just contribute a license, they contributed a lot of programming too.
You're right. A program is GNU software because it was written by the folks at GNU. ca. 30% of the code in a typical 'Linux' distro is GNU software, written by GNU programmers, and, shockingly, licensed under the GPL. But as you said, it would be GNU software regardless of the license.
You raise 5 important points, none of which have anything at all to do with the issue at hand.
The Captain Hook people obviously have no understanding of biopiracy. By making genetic information freely available Google would take away the ability of the corporations gathering up the info to monopolize it for their own devious ends. On the other hand, any genetic info published in a peer-reviewed journal gets archived in a publicly accessible database like Genebank already, so Google isn't even doing anything that's qualitatively different.
Either Google is helping reduce real biopiracy, or is simply making existing public databases easier to search. In no way is this biopiracy, and there's no complex ethical or legal problem with it. Just an ignorant mob looking for an easy victim.
If Dan Brown was trying to plagarize Holy Blood, Holy Grail, he did a pretty lousy job of it. As a general rule plagarism involves the uncredited use of someone else's ideas, trying to pass them off as your own. But notice how at the beginning of Chapter 60, for those of you who have actually read the FB:
"Here is the best-known tome," Teabing said, pulling a tattered hardcover from the stack and handing it to her. The cover read: HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL
I'm pretty sure the rules for citation in works of fiction are somewhat looser than what we'd expect of academic non-fiction, so this looks pretty up front to me. My point is, Brown drew extensively on Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and openly acknowledged he was doing so. That was central to the success of his book, that it was supposed to be based on real research. The validity of the research is a separate issue, of course.
If the suit succeeds, then Michael Crichton had better get his wallet ready, cuz he's gonna have to pay all the scientists, reputable and otherwise, that he's been cribbing from for his novels.
The real issue of course, is that both books have the same publisher, so this really boils down to a rather crass publicity stunt.
The researchers are either ignorant of 150 years of evolutionary research, or they're twisting things to make their work look groundbreaking.
Darwin's contribution was to present the general framework for the evolution of new species. He did speculate on particular mechanisms, but it is crucial to note that he was completely ignorant of the genetics of inheritance. Not his fault, of course, Mendel's work wasn't rediscovered until decades after the Origin of the species was published, and the two viewpoints weren't really brought together until the 1920's or so.
So it's very misleading to say that any idea that conflicts with Darwin's naive concepts of evolutionary mechanisms is in anyway challenging the current status quo. All it does is prove that the guys making the claims are out of touch. It's like finding an error in Galileo's work and claiming you have turned the entire field of astronomy on its head.
I think grammar and spelling are important too, but get a grip. How many readers would have scanned that sentence and interpreted it using the 'nuanced' grammar you suggest? I'm new here, so maybe Mr. Taco has a habit of inventing grammatical devices based on Chaucerian english that I'm just not aware of, but I still think most readers are capable of dealing with a few missing 'o's without risking befuddlement.
Then again, from the posts here I could be wrong on that front too.
Microsoft could do very serious damage to Apple, but why would they want to? Apple is exactly what MS needs: a very high profile 'competitor' that clings tenaciously to a tiny scrap of the market. If Apple ever does go under it will be a lot harder for MS to convince people that it isn't a dangerous monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
But Microsoft's idea of backwards compatibility is limited to allowing you to convert your file from the previous version of an app to the format for the newest one. Case in point: I have an Access database that I created in Access97 on the box in my lab. The computers in the library were running the latest version of Access. With this version I can't modify my database without first converting it to the new format. After I do this I can no longer open the file with Access97. Hardly backward compatible.
Of course, the library decided that there wasn't enough use of Access to justify the cost, so they failed to renew the license for it, leaving me with a file that I can't do anything with anywhere on campus. Thanks Bill!
yp
It must be nice to be God. You get credit for everything that anyone ever does right, from scientific discoveries to touchdowns, it's all the Big Guy's work. But the fact that "science is wrong 99% of the time", well that's because the scientists are fallable humans. Doesn't sound so much like an all-powerful being as apologist spin. Small-pox vaccine? God's inspiration. No Aids vaccine? Human failure.
That so many otherwise intelligent people are prepared to accept such circular notions is perhaps the strongest argument against evolution. I'd expect millions of years of natural selection would have weeded out such soft-headedness.
yp
I really don't know enough about what goes in to a full distrobution, so I can't personally evaluate how accurate 30% is, I have to take the word of the GNU people. As you say, it doesn't help that they don't quote their source.
I do appreciate what they're trying to do with the GNU/Linux naming issue. It's frustrating to see how the users of a system that they(GNU) are in large part responsible for refusing to acknowledge the philosophical framework that made that system possible. On the other hand, I agree that this is probably not the most productive way to approach the issue.
yp
I looked it up (and also rounded up by 2%, filthy liar that I am):
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.htmlRereading that, it doesn't say it's a typical distro, just an example, my mistake. The point is that a big chunk of very important code came from GNU. So in reference to the post I was responding to, GNU didn't just contribute a license, they contributed a lot of programming too.
yp
You're right. A program is GNU software because it was written by the folks at GNU. ca. 30% of the code in a typical 'Linux' distro is GNU software, written by GNU programmers, and, shockingly, licensed under the GPL. But as you said, it would be GNU software regardless of the license.
yp.
You raise 5 important points, none of which have anything at all to do with the issue at hand.
The Captain Hook people obviously have no understanding of biopiracy. By making genetic information freely available Google would take away the ability of the corporations gathering up the info to monopolize it for their own devious ends. On the other hand, any genetic info published in a peer-reviewed journal gets archived in a publicly accessible database like Genebank already, so Google isn't even doing anything that's qualitatively different.
Either Google is helping reduce real biopiracy, or is simply making existing public databases easier to search. In no way is this biopiracy, and there's no complex ethical or legal problem with it. Just an ignorant mob looking for an easy victim.
yp
If Dan Brown was trying to plagarize Holy Blood, Holy Grail, he did a pretty lousy job of it. As a general rule plagarism involves the uncredited use of someone else's ideas, trying to pass them off as your own. But notice how at the beginning of Chapter 60, for those of you who have actually read the FB:
I'm pretty sure the rules for citation in works of fiction are somewhat looser than what we'd expect of academic non-fiction, so this looks pretty up front to me. My point is, Brown drew extensively on Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and openly acknowledged he was doing so. That was central to the success of his book, that it was supposed to be based on real research. The validity of the research is a separate issue, of course.
If the suit succeeds, then Michael Crichton had better get his wallet ready, cuz he's gonna have to pay all the scientists, reputable and otherwise, that he's been cribbing from for his novels.
The real issue of course, is that both books have the same publisher, so this really boils down to a rather crass publicity stunt.
yp.
The researchers are either ignorant of 150 years of evolutionary research, or they're twisting things to make their work look groundbreaking.
Darwin's contribution was to present the general framework for the evolution of new species. He did speculate on particular mechanisms, but it is crucial to note that he was completely ignorant of the genetics of inheritance. Not his fault, of course, Mendel's work wasn't rediscovered until decades after the Origin of the species was published, and the two viewpoints weren't really brought together until the 1920's or so.
So it's very misleading to say that any idea that conflicts with Darwin's naive concepts of evolutionary mechanisms is in anyway challenging the current status quo. All it does is prove that the guys making the claims are out of touch. It's like finding an error in Galileo's work and claiming you have turned the entire field of astronomy on its head.
yp
I think grammar and spelling are important too, but get a grip. How many readers would have scanned that sentence and interpreted it using the 'nuanced' grammar you suggest? I'm new here, so maybe Mr. Taco has a habit of inventing grammatical devices based on Chaucerian english that I'm just not aware of, but I still think most readers are capable of dealing with a few missing 'o's without risking befuddlement. Then again, from the posts here I could be wrong on that front too.
Microsoft could do very serious damage to Apple, but why would they want to? Apple is exactly what MS needs: a very high profile 'competitor' that clings tenaciously to a tiny scrap of the market. If Apple ever does go under it will be a lot harder for MS to convince people that it isn't a dangerous monopoly.