This movie was quite popular with the college crowd. I was in college myself when I saw it. The GIMP, written by a couple of college students, came out soon afterwards.
how is "free as in freedom" either newspeak or a distortion of English?
Requiring somebody to release their source code under the guise of "freedom" is newspeak. Let's say, I, as a developer write some software and give it to you, but just the binary. Let's say I let that you use, copy, and modify that software as you wish. In other words, you have natural freedoms to do as you please. Now RMS comes along as says "That's not freedom! you didn't give him the source!"
Like, what if I saw that guy on the street, would I gasp in horror?
This face transplant story is a complete Shop of Horrors. I was morbidly reading through the stories and the pictures, and got extremely queasy and had to lie down after one of the stories. It was about a woman who woke up to find that her dog had eaten her nose and lips. She didn't realize it at first until she tried to smoke a cigarette.
I forget the exact number, but if you want speed and efficient resource usage, go C. If not, choose something that makes you happy.
So there's nothing in between? As an example, say Ruby makes me happy, but it's just too damn slow for my project, and Java makes me not as happy as Ruby, but happier than C, and performance is "good enough".
Unfortunately, many Slashdot users have grown up in an atmosphere of resentment towards closed software.
The resentment of Microsoft goes well beyond "closed software". You really don't know the history of this resentment.
It's about monopolies over what should be commodity services. Operating systems aren't all that distinguishable, and people resent being forced to pay monopoly prices for them. It gets even worse when the operating system monopoly is used to spread into other areas, like document formats (Microsoft Office). There's a feedback loop where the operating system encourages an application monopoly, which encourages the operating system monopoly.
Then along comes the Internet and the Web, built on the idea of open standards that anybody can implement. Unix boxes, IBM machines, DEC machines, Windows machines, Macs -- they can all hook up and talk a common language. This is a great thing, the complete opposite of the Microsoft monopoly ecosystem.
Early on Gates and Microsoft ignored the Net, because they didn't realize its potential, but eventually they caught on. They wanted to own the Web, but at first they had to break into the market. IE at first played along, making sure to be as compatible as possible. They even implemented a version for Linux. But once they gained a dominant share of the market they started coming out with incompatibilities that tied the browser to the operating system (ActiveX), and eliminated any Linux support.
Once they killed Netscaped and owned the browser market they got lazy. They stopped coming out with new versions of IE. This allowed Mozilla (from the ashes of Netscape) to have some success with Firefox. This woke up Microsoft again, and hence Silverlight, their latest attempt to take control.
What I find worrying about the GP's attitude is the implications to customers - if people aren't interested in choosing the tools that give them the best productivity and are most appropriate for the job, but just the ones that are compatible with their irrationality, they're doing themselves, their clients and the industry a massive disservice.
Some people are interested in bigger pictures than just latching on to the latest tech. If it means furthering a Microsoft monopoly and closing down the open nature of the Internet, then yes, there will be resentment and backlash. Fuck Microsoft. Fuck Silverlight. There are better, open alternatives -- open standards, not necessarily open source. That means that IE, Safari, Opera, and Firefox can all play along, without forcing people to choose Windows as their operating system.
No, we'd simply mock you for calling it "PERL" instead of "perl".:)
If you're going to criticize, get it right. Perl is a proper noun, so it should start with a capital. Check http://www.perl.org/ if you don't believe me.
"Although the player character can hold weapons, O'Brien stressed that "this is an action adventure. We're not positioning this as a shooter - the focus isn't on the gun, it's on the person." Gameplay in Mirror's Edge will focus on finding the best route through the game's environments while combat takes a secondary role.[5] Consequently, guns may be obtained by disarming an enemy, but when the magazine is empty, it will need to be discarded.[11] Additionally, carrying a weapon slows Faith down and the heavier the gun, the more it hinders her movement, which introduces an element of strategy in determining when to trade agility for short-term firepower.[5][12] Despite this, the developers claim it is possible to go through the entire game without firing a weapon (the player earns an Achievement for doing so)."
Sorry, no. Modern music is crap because the music industry operates very differently now than it did in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. Any good music that's out there doesn't get publicized by the big labels.
Ha, apparently you never heard of "payola". The more things change, the more they stay the same.
What I'm seeing these days is that teenagers are listening to the music I listened to as a kid, because the music of their own generation is crap.
"classic" music has always been a popular sub-genre in music. There's good music from all generations, and nothing wrong with listening to the best from times past. Modern music still exists, of course. Sorry, you have old-man disease. "Back in my day..."
I don't listen to (or buy) any "new" music, because it's all crap.
In other words, you are stuck in the past. Remember when you were young and older people complained about music kids listened to? Congratulations, now you are on the other side.
I do agree that a lot of music is crap, but that's always been true. The trick is finding the occasional non-crap that comes out. That takes patience and an open mind.
Napster offered to become a PAID SERVICE and to share the majority of their profits with the labels.
If you listened to people like Lars from Metallica, who spearheaded the Napster lawsuit, they weren't against the idea of going for online payments. However, they wanted to do it on their own terms, and not be extorted by a company like Napster. I can certainly understand the sentiment.
By the way, this is not a "new" idea for the record companies at all: "In July 2002, Rhapsody became the first on-demand music service to offer the complete digital catalogs of all five major record labels of the time (Sony, EMI, BMG, Universal and Warner)."
Even the article admits this: "and some versions of the idea start to sound a lot like existing subscription services."
It seems the only added trick is this consultant wants the cost to be hidden as part of ISP fees, probably as an opt out since it's supposed to be "voluntary", though it wouldn't surprise me if they did something stupid like degrade your connection if you don't pay for their "online media" option: 'He wants Warner and the other major labels to do this by making art "feel free" to those who enjoy it, even if it isn't.' [emphasis mine]
Sure, there are people posting here who point out that they don't want their tax dollars subsidizing the music industry because they don't consume enough of that product/service and its unfair.
Taxes are not voluntary payment, so you haven't refuted the statement "No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'".
In fact, a country like the United States highly subsidizes "art, knowledge, and culture" through taxes. A purely voluntary method would not involve taxes and would not have any intellectual property laws. There would be no publically funded research. No public libraries. No public art projects. People would pay as they please, either through rich sponsors, mass fund-raisers, advertising, etc.
I didn't point to the article. The person I first replied to did that. I just read it, and saw a line I agreed with generally, without much thought to its specific context.
It's a minor technicality. The fact is you're still being extremely oversensitive because somebody replied with context about a particular line you found insightful. It's a discussion on a public forum. It wasn't a personal attack on you -- get over it.
Re:Next, Lego Will Make It a Creativity-Free Kit
on
Beijing 2008 In Lego
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· Score: 1
As a child, I created hotels, 747 jetliners, bridges and a million other projects.
You created models of those things. I just never found plastic toys that did nothing appealing.
If you found them boring, were you creative in other ways?
I preferred playing competitive games. Creativity for me was problem solving.
Re:Next, Lego Will Make It a Creativity-Free Kit
on
Beijing 2008 In Lego
·
· Score: 1
I always thought Legos were boring. Plastic models of stuff that don't do anything. I just never understood the appeal.
Sure, you can charge for performances, and you can charge for the physical media, but the idea that you can charge for what is essentially a thought or an idea is a wholly artificial construct.
Yes, it is, but that's copyright, trademarks, and patents. There are a lot of "wholly artificial constructs" that we, as a society, live by.
But now throw in a new wrinkle - it is possible to transmit the idea or though as information itself, with no media.
There is always some media involved, whether it's a hard drive or flying across a network. The only thing different that it is easier to share, but you could always copy tapes and such. Now you are just copying bits.
Prior to the advent of copyright, artists made their living for thousands of years in the same way - pay for performance.
Doesn't help musicians who write music that isn't easy to perform live. Doesn't help people who write books. Doesn't help people who spend millions to make movies. Doesn't help people who write software.
Is file sharing illegal? I believe it is. Are most file sharers doing it because they are cheap and not out of civil disobedience? Absolutely.
That was his main point, and for that he got labeled an astroturfer. I mean, how dare somebody hold an unpopular opinion. The masses want their free music, and will foam at the mouth and shriek indignantly if you challenge them on it.
But neither of those facts takes away from the reality that copyright, as we know it, is dying.
So is privacy. Do you want to just shrug your shoulders? Do you want companies selling your medical information to whoever wants it? Do you think privacy laws are just a waste of time?
Maybe it's time for a Brave New World. No information laws -- including intellectual property, spam, hacking, privacy, libel, fraud, you name it. Just don't physically harm somebody and you are following the law.
It's not a straw man. Companies pay programmers to produce something which they own and can rent out. That's the reason for software patents.
It's a pure straw man because the arguments against software patents are neither tied to open source nor communism. That you are forcing this connection is your own doing. Go ahead, read any Slashdot patent thread, and the majority of the posters are not talking about open source or communism. The communism bit shows quite blatantly how your argument went over the top.
But that's the point - shareholders pay people to produce something.
The vast majority of software companies survive on copyright, and not patents. There are also a ton of software developers working on in-house applications that are particular to the business and not easily moved.
You don't produce anything which they can generate an income from if as soon as they do someone else can clone it and give it away for less or for free.
The software industry thrived before software patents were even allowed. There is such a thing called first-mover advantage. There is copyright law. Software patents have added no value to the market -- they've just gummed up the works.
Now you're changing the argument. I'll go along, but your post was about playing it safe despite the principles. Nothing you've said changes that. Now you are talking about the value of the principles, which is a different argument.
So if a company pays you to code they want to have control of what you produce.
The vast majority of software developers aren't asked to obtain patents. If a worker is asked to do something unexpected and against their principles, then it is their right to question if they really want to follow through. If you don't stand up for your principles then you just end up being part of the problem.
Consider, as an example, Microsoft's IsNot patent. One of the comments tries to defend one of the patent holders, because he says "As far as the specific IsNot patent goes, I will say that at a personal level, I do not feel particularly proud of my involvement in the patent process in this case."
And yet he made a personal choice to be a part of that process. So instead of telling management "this is wrong", he kept his head down and played along, and that's the advice you were giving, all in the name of avoiding personal risk.
If your principle is that the entire basis of capitalism is wrong and property should be communal, which is the subtext of this anti patent/anti closed source idea, then maybe you'll have to sacrifice even more. Like not work for a commercial company.
Nice straw man. This is about software patents, not communism or "free as in freedom" software. I know many, many developers who absolutely despise software patents who happily get paid to write closed source software.
Please allow me to mediate as a third party: You're being a whiny bitch. If you're going to point to an article as a shiny example everybody should look at, then certainly the surrounding context is fair game for discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
You've probably never seen Pulp Fiction:
"Bring out The Gimp"
This movie was quite popular with the college crowd. I was in college myself when I saw it. The GIMP, written by a couple of college students, came out soon afterwards.
how is "free as in freedom" either newspeak or a distortion of English?
Requiring somebody to release their source code under the guise of "freedom" is newspeak. Let's say, I, as a developer write some software and give it to you, but just the binary. Let's say I let that you use, copy, and modify that software as you wish. In other words, you have natural freedoms to do as you please. Now RMS comes along as says "That's not freedom! you didn't give him the source!"
That's newspeak.
Like, what if I saw that guy on the street, would I gasp in horror?
This face transplant story is a complete Shop of Horrors. I was morbidly reading through the stories and the pictures, and got extremely queasy and had to lie down after one of the stories. It was about a woman who woke up to find that her dog had eaten her nose and lips. She didn't realize it at first until she tried to smoke a cigarette.
All part of God's plan, of course.
I forget the exact number, but if you want speed and efficient resource usage, go C. If not, choose something that makes you happy.
So there's nothing in between? As an example, say Ruby makes me happy, but it's just too damn slow for my project, and Java makes me not as happy as Ruby, but happier than C, and performance is "good enough".
Unfortunately, many Slashdot users have grown up in an atmosphere of resentment towards closed software.
The resentment of Microsoft goes well beyond "closed software". You really don't know the history of this resentment.
It's about monopolies over what should be commodity services. Operating systems aren't all that distinguishable, and people resent being forced to pay monopoly prices for them. It gets even worse when the operating system monopoly is used to spread into other areas, like document formats (Microsoft Office). There's a feedback loop where the operating system encourages an application monopoly, which encourages the operating system monopoly.
Then along comes the Internet and the Web, built on the idea of open standards that anybody can implement. Unix boxes, IBM machines, DEC machines, Windows machines, Macs -- they can all hook up and talk a common language. This is a great thing, the complete opposite of the Microsoft monopoly ecosystem.
Early on Gates and Microsoft ignored the Net, because they didn't realize its potential, but eventually they caught on. They wanted to own the Web, but at first they had to break into the market. IE at first played along, making sure to be as compatible as possible. They even implemented a version for Linux. But once they gained a dominant share of the market they started coming out with incompatibilities that tied the browser to the operating system (ActiveX), and eliminated any Linux support.
Once they killed Netscaped and owned the browser market they got lazy. They stopped coming out with new versions of IE. This allowed Mozilla (from the ashes of Netscape) to have some success with Firefox. This woke up Microsoft again, and hence Silverlight, their latest attempt to take control.
What I find worrying about the GP's attitude is the implications to customers - if people aren't interested in choosing the tools that give them the best productivity and are most appropriate for the job, but just the ones that are compatible with their irrationality, they're doing themselves, their clients and the industry a massive disservice.
Some people are interested in bigger pictures than just latching on to the latest tech. If it means furthering a Microsoft monopoly and closing down the open nature of the Internet, then yes, there will be resentment and backlash. Fuck Microsoft. Fuck Silverlight. There are better, open alternatives -- open standards, not necessarily open source. That means that IE, Safari, Opera, and Firefox can all play along, without forcing people to choose Windows as their operating system.
No, we'd simply mock you for calling it "PERL" instead of "perl". :)
If you're going to criticize, get it right. Perl is a proper noun, so it should start with a capital. Check http://www.perl.org/ if you don't believe me.
Funny vid :)
Mirror's Edge, yet another FPS.
You're full of it. It's more like a first-person Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N1TJP1cxmo&fmt=6
Also, from Wikipedia:
"Although the player character can hold weapons, O'Brien stressed that "this is an action adventure. We're not positioning this as a shooter - the focus isn't on the gun, it's on the person." Gameplay in Mirror's Edge will focus on finding the best route through the game's environments while combat takes a secondary role.[5] Consequently, guns may be obtained by disarming an enemy, but when the magazine is empty, it will need to be discarded.[11] Additionally, carrying a weapon slows Faith down and the heavier the gun, the more it hinders her movement, which introduces an element of strategy in determining when to trade agility for short-term firepower.[5][12] Despite this, the developers claim it is possible to go through the entire game without firing a weapon (the player earns an Achievement for doing so)."
Sorry, no. Modern music is crap because the music industry operates very differently now than it did in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. Any good music that's out there doesn't get publicized by the big labels.
Ha, apparently you never heard of "payola". The more things change, the more they stay the same.
What I'm seeing these days is that teenagers are listening to the music I listened to as a kid, because the music of their own generation is crap.
"classic" music has always been a popular sub-genre in music. There's good music from all generations, and nothing wrong with listening to the best from times past. Modern music still exists, of course. Sorry, you have old-man disease. "Back in my day..."
Home Brew? Didnt i say it runs Linux?
You don't get full access to the hardware. I agree on your other points, it's a nice system.
I don't listen to (or buy) any "new" music, because it's all crap.
In other words, you are stuck in the past. Remember when you were young and older people complained about music kids listened to? Congratulations, now you are on the other side.
I do agree that a lot of music is crap, but that's always been true. The trick is finding the occasional non-crap that comes out. That takes patience and an open mind.
Napster offered to become a PAID SERVICE and to share the majority of their profits with the labels.
If you listened to people like Lars from Metallica, who spearheaded the Napster lawsuit, they weren't against the idea of going for online payments. However, they wanted to do it on their own terms, and not be extorted by a company like Napster. I can certainly understand the sentiment.
By the way, this is not a "new" idea for the record companies at all: "In July 2002, Rhapsody became the first on-demand music service to offer the complete digital catalogs of all five major record labels of the time (Sony, EMI, BMG, Universal and Warner)."
Even the article admits this: "and some versions of the idea start to sound a lot like existing subscription services."
It seems the only added trick is this consultant wants the cost to be hidden as part of ISP fees, probably as an opt out since it's supposed to be "voluntary", though it wouldn't surprise me if they did something stupid like degrade your connection if you don't pay for their "online media" option: 'He wants Warner and the other major labels to do this by making art "feel free" to those who enjoy it, even if it isn't.' [emphasis mine]
Sure, there are people posting here who point out that they don't want their tax dollars subsidizing the music industry because they don't consume enough of that product/service and its unfair.
Taxes are not voluntary payment, so you haven't refuted the statement "No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'".
In fact, a country like the United States highly subsidizes "art, knowledge, and culture" through taxes. A purely voluntary method would not involve taxes and would not have any intellectual property laws. There would be no publically funded research. No public libraries. No public art projects. People would pay as they please, either through rich sponsors, mass fund-raisers, advertising, etc.
I didn't point to the article. The person I first replied to did that. I just read it, and saw a line I agreed with generally, without much thought to its specific context.
It's a minor technicality. The fact is you're still being extremely oversensitive because somebody replied with context about a particular line you found insightful. It's a discussion on a public forum. It wasn't a personal attack on you -- get over it.
As a child, I created hotels, 747 jetliners, bridges and a million other projects.
You created models of those things. I just never found plastic toys that did nothing appealing.
If you found them boring, were you creative in other ways?
I preferred playing competitive games. Creativity for me was problem solving.
I always thought Legos were boring. Plastic models of stuff that don't do anything. I just never understood the appeal.
Shouldn't them backing out like that count just as much against them as losing outright? Talk about abuse of the legal system...
They won. The case was settled in their favor.
Sure, you can charge for performances, and you can charge for the physical media, but the idea that you can charge for what is essentially a thought or an idea is a wholly artificial construct.
Yes, it is, but that's copyright, trademarks, and patents. There are a lot of "wholly artificial constructs" that we, as a society, live by.
But now throw in a new wrinkle - it is possible to transmit the idea or though as information itself, with no media.
There is always some media involved, whether it's a hard drive or flying across a network. The only thing different that it is easier to share, but you could always copy tapes and such. Now you are just copying bits.
Prior to the advent of copyright, artists made their living for thousands of years in the same way - pay for performance.
Doesn't help musicians who write music that isn't easy to perform live. Doesn't help people who write books. Doesn't help people who spend millions to make movies. Doesn't help people who write software.
Is file sharing illegal? I believe it is.
Are most file sharers doing it because they are cheap and not out of civil disobedience? Absolutely.
That was his main point, and for that he got labeled an astroturfer. I mean, how dare somebody hold an unpopular opinion. The masses want their free music, and will foam at the mouth and shriek indignantly if you challenge them on it.
But neither of those facts takes away from the reality that copyright, as we know it, is dying.
So is privacy. Do you want to just shrug your shoulders? Do you want companies selling your medical information to whoever wants it? Do you think privacy laws are just a waste of time?
Maybe it's time for a Brave New World. No information laws -- including intellectual property, spam, hacking, privacy, libel, fraud, you name it. Just don't physically harm somebody and you are following the law.
It's not a straw man. Companies pay programmers to produce something which they own and can rent out. That's the reason for software patents.
It's a pure straw man because the arguments against software patents are neither tied to open source nor communism. That you are forcing this connection is your own doing. Go ahead, read any Slashdot patent thread, and the majority of the posters are not talking about open source or communism. The communism bit shows quite blatantly how your argument went over the top.
But that's the point - shareholders pay people to produce something.
The vast majority of software companies survive on copyright, and not patents. There are also a ton of software developers working on in-house applications that are particular to the business and not easily moved.
You don't produce anything which they can generate an income from if as soon as they do someone else can clone it and give it away for less or for free.
The software industry thrived before software patents were even allowed. There is such a thing called first-mover advantage. There is copyright law. Software patents have added no value to the market -- they've just gummed up the works.
Now you're changing the argument. I'll go along, but your post was about playing it safe despite the principles. Nothing you've said changes that. Now you are talking about the value of the principles, which is a different argument.
So if a company pays you to code they want to have control of what you produce.
The vast majority of software developers aren't asked to obtain patents. If a worker is asked to do something unexpected and against their principles, then it is their right to question if they really want to follow through. If you don't stand up for your principles then you just end up being part of the problem.
Consider, as an example, Microsoft's IsNot patent. One of the comments tries to defend one of the patent holders, because he says "As far as the specific IsNot patent goes, I will say that at a personal level, I do not feel particularly proud of my involvement in the patent process in this case."
And yet he made a personal choice to be a part of that process. So instead of telling management "this is wrong", he kept his head down and played along, and that's the advice you were giving, all in the name of avoiding personal risk.
If your principle is that the entire basis of capitalism is wrong and property should be communal, which is the subtext of this anti patent/anti closed source idea, then maybe you'll have to sacrifice even more. Like not work for a commercial company.
Nice straw man. This is about software patents, not communism or "free as in freedom" software. I know many, many developers who absolutely despise software patents who happily get paid to write closed source software.
But the poster you were offering advice to did.
Result: You're a big pussy who won't take any risk for principles.
Please allow me to mediate as a third party: You're being a whiny bitch. If you're going to point to an article as a shiny example everybody should look at, then certainly the surrounding context is fair game for discussion.
I think somebody makes a Molex-pulling tool, but I haven't been able to find it.
Are you kidding me?
http://www.google.com/search?q=Molex+tool
People have the right to anonymity even if you think they are misusing it.
There is no "right to anonymity". You have a right to try and remain anonymous, and people have rights to try and find your identity.