Empiricism is the basis of all science, but by itself philosophy is not science, and large tracts of it are readily anti-science. However, it does have the ability to ask questions science cannot. Science has to assume the material world and our perception of it is as it seems; a fair assumption if your primary goal is to deal with things inside that world. If you want to ask questions about anything beyond that, you get into other branches, and stuff gets murky.
Most of the Linux developers consist of those people, for good reason. The "ideologues" are the only reason Linux exists in the first place; people willing to work for free for the greater good built every major component of it, from the kernel to the lowly little desktop applications. Yeah, demonize them when they're suspicious of corporate powergrabs of their work. Not sure why people think that looks intelligent.
The "cheapskates" are mostly part of the first group. I am not about to give money to corporations which are actively attempting to strip me of what little rights I have left; that goes for Microsoft and major game companies pretty heavily. Unfortunately, that leaves little to spend money on these days.
It doesn't really matter what the developers think, though. They are only a large part of the user base because Linux is not very mainstream. Compare the ratio of programmers and inept users on Windows to those on Linux.
We already have hacked BIOSes for far more irrelevant reasons than this. I expect it to become a common thing to just wipe secure boot from the system entirely if this is a problem.
that they are a pacific island with a population of 1400.
Not that far from saying something like Sealand is the first nation to adopt bitcoin as a national currency, which I am sure they would if they thought they could profit off it.
Which is why, every time on this site, there is an outcry against how no one values privacy anymore... I smile. The more open we get as a society, the less ancient prejudices and small-mindedness can survive. If everyone knows everyone has porn, it ceases to be something you can use against anyone.
Yes, the problem is that we had the insane idea to grant ownership of information. That was the start of it. All of this is fallout from that original sin of censorship, greed, and falsification.
It is time we learn and get rid of it while we still can.
"If a developer chooses to restrict the choices of his/her users, the user is more than welcome to find another solution to his/her problem, leaving the user in the exact same position as if the software was never developed."
This is a fine sentiment, if interoperability and standardization did not exist. You are free not to use Windows - right? No, actually, for many purposes, you are not. Where you have that freedom, you still only have the choice to use another proprietary OS (Apple's - arguably worse) or wine. That's not really that much in the way of freedom.
That is exactly why many open source advocates do not trust any proprietary software. We've been on the side of being locked out for decades. Damned if I am going to just nod as people try to Appleify Linux (Google included) by slamming proprietary app stores on top. That's not what Linux stands for, that's not why Linux exists. If you want that, you already have two options. You do not want those options for the exact same reason we are suspicious. You just do not have the foresight to see the possible side effects.
"I DO have issues with the idea that developers should feel morally obligated to use it, or something like it."
I do not believe in copyright, selling of software, or control of data by third parties. That makes me a zealot by neo-slashdot reasoning, but that doesn't make me wrong. There are many pragmatic reasons to want people to use the GPL and a support/modification business model over proprietary EULAs and sales.
The big concern, though, is the one I already stated. No one wants a giant software company to come into Linux and hijack it to their own purposes. Things like getting new video drivers... but making them only work on the Vavle-blessed distro. Let us also not forget that secure boot is bouncing around out there.
Free software advocates are neither zealots nor hippies. We simply see the pattern that proprietary software is always eventually a power grab. Power over a system, user, or data is far too profitable to turn down. Any software company would be insane to not seize control of something they can. We would be insane to expect them not to.
And if games were the only possible side effect, that'd be great. App stores, however, pose a real danger to Linux. It is not outside of the realm of possibility that this will lead to an eventual (if not immediate) Valve-blessed distro, where steam is the only repo. Just like iOS. I don't want that, and neither does any open source developer.
This comes up every time some proprietary software company comes to Linux. Every time, someone who doesn't get it wrings their hands about "ideologues" being "divisive" without realizing that the ideals these people are supposedly ideologues for are exactly the ones that caused Linux to become a viable OS, in the face of multi-billion dollar corporations constantly trying to eliminate it. The fact that people actually believe in something does not make them ideologues, especially not when they are repeated proven right.
No one can, will, or should stop Steam from coming to Linux. It will never be put in the repos of mainstream distros, and should not be, but that has little relevance to anything. But even if they can't do much about it, that doesn't mean the people who say there might be downsides are insane zealots. It means they might very well understand why Linux has stuck around for as long as it has better than you do.
Think of it as a microcosm of government/citizens. If the government is not restricted in its activities, the citizens have no freedom. Same with developers and users. Giving "freedom" to the proprietary developer almost always means taking it from the user.
'The problem with labels like "modern feminism" is that it allows for grossly oversimplifying the discussion. All you've done here is expose your own beliefs about what women might be thinking and charicatured them in the process.'
Or, I might be basing it off of actually having listened to several self-proclaimed feminists with relatively wide support, drawing conclusions from patterns in what I saw in both them and (more importantly) their supporters. Then again, it's easier for you to simply attack me, because obviously if I say something bad about it, I must be some kind of sexist. There could be no other reason. Thank you for proving EXACTLY what I was saying.
It is true I am generalizing the issue. It is impossible to address any sort of sociological issue without generalizing to some extent. Not all "feminists" do the things I say. Enough do, though, and the ones who aren't do not exactly make much effort to address the problems I stated. They simply prefer to shrug and act like it is the local color.
There is a very real problem and it is not the fact we have a patriarchal or matriarchal society: it is that we have double standards and guilt. We have feminists (not just women, men as well) who believe women should be treated better but equal, and then we have men who feel somehow that they make atone for some sin by repeating it. I say no. If you want equality, you need to pony up for equality. If I have to deal with bullshit, so do you. Sorry, but that's equality. If you do not want that, then what you want is re-arranged inequality.
"How many interviews have you been on where the interviewer explained that all your potential coworkers like to make raunchy jokes and talk about female body parts, and if you don't like that kind of environment then you should quit the interview process? I more than positively sure you've never had such an interview. So how is this hypothetical interviewee supposed to know what the environment is like when they accept a position (ignoring the fact that the company would almost surely be sued for intimidating/offending/harassing a job applicant)?"
I would say asking is a good start. It is in fact quite easy to ask a number of questions which would smoothly express the situation, if you are likely to be easily bothered by it. Further, there are a number of ways to dance around the topic on the employer's part, too; but I do believe it ought to be considered the interviewee's responsibility here. If they are the ones who are going to be easily offended, it falls upon them to decide if the situation is for them. Not everyone else to adapt to shield them from all possible offense.
I'll take a wild guess - you are one and disagree with what I said? Because I have read and listened to a number of them, and I have paid attention to general social trends, which are fully visible in these very comments; both of which led me to the conclusions I outlined. If you have a problem with what I said, feel free to argue against it. Until then, your post is basically just the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion.
The only real complaint I ever had about OO was the color choosing functionality being from the early 90s. I guess it might get worse if you use Excel heavy, I can't speak to how well OO's version of that works, but I never had any issues with other parts of it.
They are, however, also misusing the term. Much like calling piracy theft. I'd argue similarly that doing so undermines actual cases of sexual harassment.
"I'm sorry but women need to choose one and only one option: be protected like a child or some kind of delicate little flower, or be treated as an equal and expected to tolerate anything a man is expected to deal with. They are mutually exclusive by their very nature."
The problem with modern feminism is it doesn't want it both ways, it wants it whichever way suits the situation better. That way you never have to take responsibility. Feel you have been "harassed" by people saying the same things they had been before you were there? Sue! They violated your rights somehow. Didn't get hired because they felt this might occur? Sue for discrimination!
It's essentially an intentional double standard, and this doesn't apply only to feminism, but it does apply to it more than most other cases. There is a movement to the effect that women should not have to be offended, yet at the same time should be treated equally, while that right to not be offended is never conveyed to the other gender. It's not about equality: it's about abusing the perception of inequality to gain an unwarranted standing.
Personally? I think everyone should be expected to deal with the situations they're entering. If you willingly and knowingly take a job in a group of somewhat juvenile programmers, and let's face it many are, you should not reasonably expect them to bend to your will. Ignoring law and "professionalism" for a moment, that's just not a realistic expectation in any situation, and for good reason. There should be a line, but not at "innuendo offends me, this is sexual harassment!" which is where most posts here and most of society wants to draw it - for women, of course.
It of course goes without saying that the real sexual harassment often goes unaddressed while everyone wrings their hands over political correctness, what constitutes "professionalism," and how to comply with flawed legal systems.
So you purposely turn away business because of your fanatical attachment to a single file format/application, when you could perfectly easily export to a PDF? What company do you claim to work at? I am sure your manager would love to hear about your antics.
Or you can use perfectly fine programs that are free, export to PDF, and have your documents readable on every computer from the last 15 years and mobile devices. I guess that answer is too reasonable for someone of you *uh hem* status.
"I would not do business with a fanatic that refused to buy Office."
Anyone who doesn't agree with you is a fanatic. Right. There could be no other reason to not use MS Office than being unreasonably fanatical about some... something, right? Nothing about cost, compatibility, standardization. Just fanaticalism.
I'd call your post a fallacy, but it's really just stupidity.
Like they did with Apple doing worse? Complain all you like, Microsoft is just now getting to where Apple has been for 10 years. Do not expect the government to help you here.
Slashdot Mirror
Empiricism is the basis of all science, but by itself philosophy is not science, and large tracts of it are readily anti-science. However, it does have the ability to ask questions science cannot. Science has to assume the material world and our perception of it is as it seems; a fair assumption if your primary goal is to deal with things inside that world. If you want to ask questions about anything beyond that, you get into other branches, and stuff gets murky.
Most of the Linux developers consist of those people, for good reason. The "ideologues" are the only reason Linux exists in the first place; people willing to work for free for the greater good built every major component of it, from the kernel to the lowly little desktop applications. Yeah, demonize them when they're suspicious of corporate powergrabs of their work. Not sure why people think that looks intelligent.
The "cheapskates" are mostly part of the first group. I am not about to give money to corporations which are actively attempting to strip me of what little rights I have left; that goes for Microsoft and major game companies pretty heavily. Unfortunately, that leaves little to spend money on these days.
It doesn't really matter what the developers think, though. They are only a large part of the user base because Linux is not very mainstream. Compare the ratio of programmers and inept users on Windows to those on Linux.
We already have hacked BIOSes for far more irrelevant reasons than this. I expect it to become a common thing to just wipe secure boot from the system entirely if this is a problem.
that they are a pacific island with a population of 1400.
Not that far from saying something like Sealand is the first nation to adopt bitcoin as a national currency, which I am sure they would if they thought they could profit off it.
Which is why, every time on this site, there is an outcry against how no one values privacy anymore... I smile. The more open we get as a society, the less ancient prejudices and small-mindedness can survive. If everyone knows everyone has porn, it ceases to be something you can use against anyone.
Maybe we need more lawsuits like that.
Yes, the problem is that we had the insane idea to grant ownership of information. That was the start of it. All of this is fallout from that original sin of censorship, greed, and falsification.
It is time we learn and get rid of it while we still can.
"1). Where does an unemployed person find the money for a lawyer?"
There are plenty who will do it for a cut if it looks likely to win. Firing someone for refusing to violate the law? Multi-millions right there.
Only 4 atoms in most chemistry.
"If a developer chooses to restrict the choices of his/her users, the user is more than welcome to find another solution to his/her problem, leaving the user in the exact same position as if the software was never developed."
This is a fine sentiment, if interoperability and standardization did not exist. You are free not to use Windows - right? No, actually, for many purposes, you are not. Where you have that freedom, you still only have the choice to use another proprietary OS (Apple's - arguably worse) or wine. That's not really that much in the way of freedom.
That is exactly why many open source advocates do not trust any proprietary software. We've been on the side of being locked out for decades. Damned if I am going to just nod as people try to Appleify Linux (Google included) by slamming proprietary app stores on top. That's not what Linux stands for, that's not why Linux exists. If you want that, you already have two options. You do not want those options for the exact same reason we are suspicious. You just do not have the foresight to see the possible side effects.
"I DO have issues with the idea that developers should feel morally obligated to use it, or something like it."
I do not believe in copyright, selling of software, or control of data by third parties. That makes me a zealot by neo-slashdot reasoning, but that doesn't make me wrong. There are many pragmatic reasons to want people to use the GPL and a support/modification business model over proprietary EULAs and sales.
The big concern, though, is the one I already stated. No one wants a giant software company to come into Linux and hijack it to their own purposes. Things like getting new video drivers... but making them only work on the Vavle-blessed distro. Let us also not forget that secure boot is bouncing around out there.
Free software advocates are neither zealots nor hippies. We simply see the pattern that proprietary software is always eventually a power grab. Power over a system, user, or data is far too profitable to turn down. Any software company would be insane to not seize control of something they can. We would be insane to expect them not to.
Do you also believe the ACLU, EFF, and the like are extremists? Is everyone who holds people to higher standards than you do an "extremist?"
And if games were the only possible side effect, that'd be great. App stores, however, pose a real danger to Linux. It is not outside of the realm of possibility that this will lead to an eventual (if not immediate) Valve-blessed distro, where steam is the only repo. Just like iOS. I don't want that, and neither does any open source developer.
This comes up every time some proprietary software company comes to Linux. Every time, someone who doesn't get it wrings their hands about "ideologues" being "divisive" without realizing that the ideals these people are supposedly ideologues for are exactly the ones that caused Linux to become a viable OS, in the face of multi-billion dollar corporations constantly trying to eliminate it. The fact that people actually believe in something does not make them ideologues, especially not when they are repeated proven right.
No one can, will, or should stop Steam from coming to Linux. It will never be put in the repos of mainstream distros, and should not be, but that has little relevance to anything. But even if they can't do much about it, that doesn't mean the people who say there might be downsides are insane zealots. It means they might very well understand why Linux has stuck around for as long as it has better than you do.
Think of it as a microcosm of government/citizens. If the government is not restricted in its activities, the citizens have no freedom. Same with developers and users. Giving "freedom" to the proprietary developer almost always means taking it from the user.
Guilty when proven innocent.
'The problem with labels like "modern feminism" is that it allows for grossly oversimplifying the discussion. All you've done here is expose your own beliefs about what women might be thinking and charicatured them in the process.'
Or, I might be basing it off of actually having listened to several self-proclaimed feminists with relatively wide support, drawing conclusions from patterns in what I saw in both them and (more importantly) their supporters. Then again, it's easier for you to simply attack me, because obviously if I say something bad about it, I must be some kind of sexist. There could be no other reason. Thank you for proving EXACTLY what I was saying.
It is true I am generalizing the issue. It is impossible to address any sort of sociological issue without generalizing to some extent. Not all "feminists" do the things I say. Enough do, though, and the ones who aren't do not exactly make much effort to address the problems I stated. They simply prefer to shrug and act like it is the local color.
There is a very real problem and it is not the fact we have a patriarchal or matriarchal society: it is that we have double standards and guilt. We have feminists (not just women, men as well) who believe women should be treated better but equal, and then we have men who feel somehow that they make atone for some sin by repeating it. I say no. If you want equality, you need to pony up for equality. If I have to deal with bullshit, so do you. Sorry, but that's equality. If you do not want that, then what you want is re-arranged inequality.
"How many interviews have you been on where the interviewer explained that all your potential coworkers like to make raunchy jokes and talk about female body parts, and if you don't like that kind of environment then you should quit the interview process? I more than positively sure you've never had such an interview. So how is this hypothetical interviewee supposed to know what the environment is like when they accept a position (ignoring the fact that the company would almost surely be sued for intimidating/offending/harassing a job applicant)?"
I would say asking is a good start. It is in fact quite easy to ask a number of questions which would smoothly express the situation, if you are likely to be easily bothered by it. Further, there are a number of ways to dance around the topic on the employer's part, too; but I do believe it ought to be considered the interviewee's responsibility here. If they are the ones who are going to be easily offended, it falls upon them to decide if the situation is for them. Not everyone else to adapt to shield them from all possible offense.
I'll take a wild guess - you are one and disagree with what I said? Because I have read and listened to a number of them, and I have paid attention to general social trends, which are fully visible in these very comments; both of which led me to the conclusions I outlined. If you have a problem with what I said, feel free to argue against it. Until then, your post is basically just the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion.
The only real complaint I ever had about OO was the color choosing functionality being from the early 90s. I guess it might get worse if you use Excel heavy, I can't speak to how well OO's version of that works, but I never had any issues with other parts of it.
They are, however, also misusing the term. Much like calling piracy theft. I'd argue similarly that doing so undermines actual cases of sexual harassment.
"I'm sorry but women need to choose one and only one option: be protected like a child or some kind of delicate little flower, or be treated as an equal and expected to tolerate anything a man is expected to deal with. They are mutually exclusive by their very nature."
The problem with modern feminism is it doesn't want it both ways, it wants it whichever way suits the situation better. That way you never have to take responsibility. Feel you have been "harassed" by people saying the same things they had been before you were there? Sue! They violated your rights somehow. Didn't get hired because they felt this might occur? Sue for discrimination!
It's essentially an intentional double standard, and this doesn't apply only to feminism, but it does apply to it more than most other cases. There is a movement to the effect that women should not have to be offended, yet at the same time should be treated equally, while that right to not be offended is never conveyed to the other gender. It's not about equality: it's about abusing the perception of inequality to gain an unwarranted standing.
Personally? I think everyone should be expected to deal with the situations they're entering. If you willingly and knowingly take a job in a group of somewhat juvenile programmers, and let's face it many are, you should not reasonably expect them to bend to your will. Ignoring law and "professionalism" for a moment, that's just not a realistic expectation in any situation, and for good reason. There should be a line, but not at "innuendo offends me, this is sexual harassment!" which is where most posts here and most of society wants to draw it - for women, of course.
It of course goes without saying that the real sexual harassment often goes unaddressed while everyone wrings their hands over political correctness, what constitutes "professionalism," and how to comply with flawed legal systems.
World English Dictionary
harass (hærs, hræs)
- vb
( tr ) to trouble, torment, or confuse by continual persistent attacks, questions, etc
No. You being offended does not make it magically harassment. Harassment is directed, repeated, unwanted statements or actions.
So you purposely turn away business because of your fanatical attachment to a single file format/application, when you could perfectly easily export to a PDF? What company do you claim to work at? I am sure your manager would love to hear about your antics.
Or you can use perfectly fine programs that are free, export to PDF, and have your documents readable on every computer from the last 15 years and mobile devices. I guess that answer is too reasonable for someone of you *uh hem* status.
"I would not do business with a fanatic that refused to buy Office."
Anyone who doesn't agree with you is a fanatic. Right. There could be no other reason to not use MS Office than being unreasonably fanatical about some... something, right? Nothing about cost, compatibility, standardization. Just fanaticalism.
I'd call your post a fallacy, but it's really just stupidity.
Like they did with Apple doing worse? Complain all you like, Microsoft is just now getting to where Apple has been for 10 years. Do not expect the government to help you here.
Windows 8 works fine if you interact with it using Jack Daniels.
Or at least, you don't notice it doesn't.