Yeah, you got it right. Another reason dumping was made illegal is because in some industries it would make the prices go up and down like a yo-yo, making it harder for the local population to sell their wares. Let's take fish for example. I don't think very many fishermen would like the idea of countries like Norway selling them surplus fish for almost nothing. Just too sad the fish is merely discarded instead of being fed to those who are dying of hunger in the world. Some cold hearts even make the argument that giving the fish to poor people would disrupt the world-market. Much better to let the world bank keep their stranglehold on the poor countries, and fake useless donations. (Question: Why are countries poor? Because of imperialism and its extension in the 21th century: the world market)
Anyways, the reason I mentioned dumping is because the parent poster was really meaning that word.
I don't think you are right, though I'm no free software zealot. Let's revisit the page:
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
If source code is a precondition, how can you then redistribute without it? Here's how, but I think this is meant as of in a limited fashion (ie, to friends, family and colleagues):
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
Then you find this in the explanation below:
The freedom to redistribute copies must include binary or executable forms of the program, as well as source code. (It is ok if there is no way to produce a binary or executable form, but people must have the freedom to redistribute such forms should they find a way to make them.)
In order for the freedoms to make changes, and to publish improved versions, to be meaningful, you must have access to the source code of the program. Therefore, accessibility of source code is a necessary condition for free software.
Maybe it is possible to misinterpret this, *shrug*, I dunno. However, if you apply the rules recursively for every iteration of redistribution, it takes no rocket-scientist to understand that all the changes must be available in sourcecode for the software to be called "free software", according to the FSF-definition that is.
"Price fixing occurs when multiple corps collude to not compete and set a price higher than a normal free market would dictate. How would the GPL lead to this? It doesn't make sense."
It's called price dumping, and it's usually illegal within certain industries but I don't think the software-industry is one of them. Or perhaps it's only illegal when it is used as a weapon against weaker competitors? IANAL and thank god for that!
"This is a standard Monopolizing tactic. Microsoft hopes to make more money in the long run by putting their competition out of business. This way, they can ultimately charge a much greater price, or perhaps more importantly, control what the browser actually does and does not do."
You're spot on there, and their embrace and extend tactics is yet another proprietary lock-in used to keep the monopoly within Redmond. I would be happy if they just reverse-engineered what they needed, but they don't even bother with that. Buying out everyone worthwhile is cheaper and keeps the competition away. (Sort of like "charm" in Everquest, except that it's totally unbalanced;-)
"It's pretty clear Microsoft is targeting corporations who are trying to use their site license to load images onto all new boxes. Apparently, that's against the terms of the site license."
Hmm, I'm not clued in to the various licenses of Microsoft. What are they supposed to be doing? Install Windows and apps on thousands of machines?
I think you make a good argument, but you miss the other side of the story. Knowledge is power and wealth, that is true. Likewise it is also true that if you monopolize knowledge and the use of knowledge, a few individuals can make alot of money and power (just like in the middle ages). However, what is wealth of a few persons compared to development of our society, furthering research into more advanced sciences that build and support one another and sharing the wealth with those that are currently being held outside the good company (or do they not have the same "worth" as you and your beloved ones)?
To take your heart surgery analogy: If everyone could perform a heart surgery, on themselves or on friends, with just as good accuracy and failure rate as on the best hospitals. Why shouldn't everyone be allowed to do this themselves? This is hypothetically speaking.
Many IT workers are today driven by the goldrush after the initial boom. The science has attracted all sorts of people looking for treasure. However, you completely fail to see the real beauty in information technology and what we can learn from it.
Dang, I've read my own posts, and they are really really lame. Almost as lame as those I post nowadays, but with my real name attached to it!
However, there are those who says that what Google is doing is nothing short of copyright infringement and killing the discussions on news. I beg to differ, and I believe this is just another area where we have to adjust ourselves to new technology and possibilities. If you can't live with the new times, that is your problem. If you can't live with what you've said and done, that is still your own problem. And if you can't tolerate what others say and do, that problem lurks within you until you change. We're just reaching one more step closer to a completely different type of society and life than we're used to. If you stop and notice, you can feel the movement of society. It's not just RIAA, MPAA, AOL, Microsoft and whoever else we got on our pick-list that has to change. Somehow, this is all common sense prevailing! When something becomes stupid enough, it's recognized as such and dealt with on all levels.
This is a time to be humble, because the proud will surely stumble. Try to cover all your tracks, and you will never discover your lacks.
Yeah, let's give them our money. Clearly they deserve to have monopoly on the idea of Z-axis clipping.
Oh wait! I was doing tricks along the Z-axis in '92 when I was making 3D textured polygons. So it should be me that get monopoly. I read it in some book, but clearly I am the one who really deserve it. At least IMHO.
I was a beta-tester for Meridian 59. I'd say it came out around 1995-1996. I tried Worlds around the same time. Anyways, should this really warrant a blocking patent? I surely think not. All the aspects of the programs have prior art. The only thing needed to do was combine it all into one package. Many was working on that at the time. Some even did it long before, but on a more primitive scale.
Btw, at the time I thought both REALLY sucked. So me and some friends PKed a little in Meridian and had some laughs by mudsexing in Worlds using the girl avatar (aaw, what a cutie;), but nothing serious. Then it was back to mudding;-)
Why become angry at such obvious trolling? Just ignore the culprit and focus on the good stuff. Didn't you learn anything when you were teased in kindergarten? By getting angry, you amuse them. Victims and perpetrators live on eachother.
Well, over to the more OT stuff. I would say the bible is an old text, and has lots to tell us if we search in it. Unfortunately, people always misunderstand their religion, rich and poor alike. I would say that whoever wrote the bible, probably misunderstood 95% of what went on. But that's okay, hundreds of other cultures have done so as well when they were visited by "dragon-riding gods". It's not like someone was present on every event and could understand and write it down entirely. Especially the old testament. A text clearly not suited to be read literally today.
Too many people believe in a religion, just because it's convenient, others don't, because it's convenient. Two different choices for exactly the same reasons. I think both are very limiting, and that we should start focusing on why we do what we do and why we say what we say.
No, distributed is all nice and dandy, but I don't picture having to browse academic papers on Geocities. Or encountering thousands of dead links to homebrew homepages. Besides, do you realize that Google is not the entire Internet? Try find something that is of special interest. It's almost impossible, unless it's geek toys/programs or commercial sites. Yes, you can go to advanced search, but it's not much better.
The smart thing is to centralize the whole thing, or make sure it's ultra-stable. Not like the current WWW. That's just ugly and won't stand the test of time.
I'm by no means a chess expert, but I can fathom that these programs are well-known already. Just hire some chess-programmer expert to evaluate that specific code, and you might find some loop-holes. As the simplest example, many computer-systems tend to overvaluate their pawns, instead of better positions. That means the human players can easily beat a computer if you just know the tricks involved. Knowing the most powerful tricks involved against this specific program becomes insanely much easier if you spend time and money on evaluating the code, especially if it's full of comments and other documentation. Do you really think the greatest chess-eating people haven't done this already?
Another method is that you can just compile the source, give it a go against another CPU- or human player and discover the best paths of attack against this specific program.
Fair? I think not. It's easy to beat GNUchess if you just takeback enough. A hundred times or so when you're as weak as me;-)
Yeah, you never really want to forget those C/C++ skills. It can be crucial to a successful- or a mediocre system. Right tool for the right job and all that. Too bad you have to spend months to convince managers.
Btw, you can discuss whatever you like regardless of what I say;-)
Well, this is just IMHO. I learned Pascal first, but turned to C++ after that. Pascal was not low-level enough at that time. Now it's not high-level enough, and I use Ruby. Pascal is a fine language, though I've never really liked all the syntax.
ALL pop-ups are annoying. Either implement opt-in/outs, or only jerks will want to visit your site. Don't take this personally, though, you suck. Hehe, just kidding with ya man.
Is it? I think it's a horrible idea, and support the makers of Shredder to ignore this match because of it. Chess isn't about telepathy, so someone should make a new game for that. My reason for this? Basically, it allows for an unfair advantage to the human player. He/She can just study the code and take advantage of the bugs/features contained within. That's not chess. Study past games? Yes.
I believe this fails because you have not really freed yourself from the limitations of brute force and perfect computation. Good strategy is not just something a human comes up with in a blink (well, unless you're lucky). Good strategy is developed over time, ie, you learn what could work and what don't, and why. ON A HIGHER LEVEL. This is where fuzziness, genetic algorithms and neural nets SHOULD work. Just don't expect to be able to verify it within reasonable time. You don't have to, you just have to beat the opponent.
Of course you have to rely on brute force to recognize and model strategies, and use brute-force tactics as conventional chess-programs when appropriate. However, the selection process of strategies could in theory be solved by fuzzy logic. However, I would expect more consistency using rule-based languages like prolog. Strategy is about knowing what details NOT to pay
attention to, ideas/creativity and experience.
The pattern recognizer would probably be the hardest part. The easiest initial solution could be to have several hard-coded algorithms, just like in conventional chess-programs that are used to evaluate position strengths.
I don't claim it's easy though, but it's much easier now than 10 years ago.
"Sometimes insanely faster because the C++ compiler can actually tell what type the pointer will be at run time. C can almost never tell."
I truly don't understand this. C always can tell the pointertype, because it is static. Or are you thinking about equivalent code in C? I thought the myths about virtual functions had died long ago. It's just like the argument with Java being faster than C. Yes, it can be when you allow for optimizing out "stupid" coding.
The discussion is idiotic. Algorithms and design are what's crucial, not syntactic sugar. High-level languages just improves your efficiency by many orders of magnitudes (whatever that is).
Every behaviour you define constricts the language. It becomes a feature people will use and rely on, no matter how obscure. So you better get them right the first time. That's a hell of a difficult job to get everyone to agree on.
3-12 years ago I would have sided with the C++ folks. In the "name of efficiency", the behaviour should be unexpected. To allow fast and optimized compilation.
Now I program in Ruby. I don't see the need for raw speed anymore, but short and well-designed programs. I tried that doing C++ but it always got ugly and slightly buggy. SDL is nice and powerful, but ugly as well. I'm not going to say one language is better than the other though, just that I'm tired of C++, and I like Ruby alot now. They are two different tools for the job though.
The funny thing is that Ruby lacks even more compilation constraints than C++. However, it doesn't crash very often (did dump core once on me). Unit tests does wonders for languages like Ruby. I've yet to get rid of every single mistake in C++, while concentrating on making improvements and generalizations.
What they should have done with C++, is not have any undefined behaviour crap. People DO rely on these, because it "works" and not everyone reads all the standards. Just until they change compilers. I agree with you now.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, you got it right. Another reason dumping was made illegal is because in some industries it would make the prices go up and down like a yo-yo, making it harder for the local population to sell their wares. Let's take fish for example. I don't think very many fishermen would like the idea of countries like Norway selling them surplus fish for almost nothing. Just too sad the fish is merely discarded instead of being fed to those who are dying of hunger in the world. Some cold hearts even make the argument that giving the fish to poor people would disrupt the world-market. Much better to let the world bank keep their stranglehold on the poor countries, and fake useless donations. (Question: Why are countries poor? Because of imperialism and its extension in the 21th century: the world market)
Anyways, the reason I mentioned dumping is because the parent poster was really meaning that word.
- Steeltoe
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
If source code is a precondition, how can you then redistribute without it? Here's how, but I think this is meant as of in a limited fashion (ie, to friends, family and colleagues):
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
Then you find this in the explanation below:
The freedom to redistribute copies must include binary or executable forms of the program, as well as source code. (It is ok if there is no way to produce a binary or executable form, but people must have the freedom to redistribute such forms should they find a way to make them.)
In order for the freedoms to make changes, and to publish improved versions, to be meaningful, you must have access to the source code of the program. Therefore, accessibility of source code is a necessary condition for free software.
Maybe it is possible to misinterpret this, *shrug*, I dunno. However, if you apply the rules recursively for every iteration of redistribution, it takes no rocket-scientist to understand that all the changes must be available in sourcecode for the software to be called "free software", according to the FSF-definition that is.
- Steeltoe
"Price fixing occurs when multiple corps collude to not compete and set a price higher than a normal free market would dictate. How would the GPL lead to this? It doesn't make sense."
;-)
It's called price dumping, and it's usually illegal within certain industries but I don't think the software-industry is one of them. Or perhaps it's only illegal when it is used as a weapon against weaker competitors? IANAL and thank god for that!
"This is a standard Monopolizing tactic. Microsoft hopes to make more money in the long run by putting their competition out of business. This way, they can ultimately charge a much greater price, or perhaps more importantly, control what the browser actually does and does not do."
You're spot on there, and their embrace and extend tactics is yet another proprietary lock-in used to keep the monopoly within Redmond. I would be happy if they just reverse-engineered what they needed, but they don't even bother with that. Buying out everyone worthwhile is cheaper and keeps the competition away. (Sort of like "charm" in Everquest, except that it's totally unbalanced
- Steeltoe
The language defines a framework and model in which you can express knowledge, ideas and commands.
The format represent the basic structure with which you can share information with other entities.
The media is something that we can either store information on, or pass information through.
Speech is Code.
- Steeltoe
Cool! So all I need to do now is becoming a select customer instead of OEM license owner.
- Steeltoe
"It's pretty clear Microsoft is targeting corporations who are trying to use their site license to load images onto all new boxes. Apparently, that's against the terms of the site license."
Hmm, I'm not clued in to the various licenses of Microsoft. What are they supposed to be doing? Install Windows and apps on thousands of machines?
- Steeltoe
I think you make a good argument, but you miss the other side of the story. Knowledge is power and wealth, that is true. Likewise it is also true that if you monopolize knowledge and the use of knowledge, a few individuals can make alot of money and power (just like in the middle ages). However, what is wealth of a few persons compared to development of our society, furthering research into more advanced sciences that build and support one another and sharing the wealth with those that are currently being held outside the good company (or do they not have the same "worth" as you and your beloved ones)?
To take your heart surgery analogy: If everyone could perform a heart surgery, on themselves or on friends, with just as good accuracy and failure rate as on the best hospitals. Why shouldn't everyone be allowed to do this themselves? This is hypothetically speaking.
Many IT workers are today driven by the goldrush after the initial boom. The science has attracted all sorts of people looking for treasure. However, you completely fail to see the real beauty in information technology and what we can learn from it.
- Steeltoe
Dang, I've read my own posts, and they are really really lame. Almost as lame as those I post nowadays, but with my real name attached to it!
However, there are those who says that what Google is doing is nothing short of copyright infringement and killing the discussions on news. I beg to differ, and I believe this is just another area where we have to adjust ourselves to new technology and possibilities. If you can't live with the new times, that is your problem. If you can't live with what you've said and done, that is still your own problem. And if you can't tolerate what others say and do, that problem lurks within you until you change. We're just reaching one more step closer to a completely different type of society and life than we're used to. If you stop and notice, you can feel the movement of society. It's not just RIAA, MPAA, AOL, Microsoft and whoever else we got on our pick-list that has to change. Somehow, this is all common sense prevailing! When something becomes stupid enough, it's recognized as such and dealt with on all levels.
This is a time to be humble, because the proud will surely stumble. Try to cover all your tracks, and you will never discover your lacks.
- Steeltoe
I think he was talking about a follow-mode. In which case the server is controlling the location and view angle.
-Steeltoe (where did that space go?)
Yeah, let's give them our money. Clearly they deserve to have monopoly on the idea of Z-axis clipping.
Oh wait! I was doing tricks along the Z-axis in '92 when I was making 3D textured polygons. So it should be me that get monopoly. I read it in some book, but clearly I am the one who really deserve it. At least IMHO.
Yes, I know sarcasm is lost on you.
- Steeltoe
I was a beta-tester for Meridian 59. I'd say it came out around 1995-1996. I tried Worlds around the same time. Anyways, should this really warrant a blocking patent? I surely think not. All the aspects of the programs have prior art. The only thing needed to do was combine it all into one package. Many was working on that at the time. Some even did it long before, but on a more primitive scale.
;), but nothing serious. Then it was back to mudding ;-)
Btw, at the time I thought both REALLY sucked. So me and some friends PKed a little in Meridian and had some laughs by mudsexing in Worlds using the girl avatar (aaw, what a cutie
- Steeltoe
Quit yer sorry whining. Try find the documents specifying the protocol and API instead of whine here.
- Steeltoe
Why become angry at such obvious trolling? Just ignore the culprit and focus on the good stuff. Didn't you learn anything when you were teased in kindergarten? By getting angry, you amuse them. Victims and perpetrators live on eachother.
Well, over to the more OT stuff. I would say the bible is an old text, and has lots to tell us if we search in it. Unfortunately, people always misunderstand their religion, rich and poor alike. I would say that whoever wrote the bible, probably misunderstood 95% of what went on. But that's okay, hundreds of other cultures have done so as well when they were visited by "dragon-riding gods". It's not like someone was present on every event and could understand and write it down entirely. Especially the old testament. A text clearly not suited to be read literally today.
Too many people believe in a religion, just because it's convenient, others don't, because it's convenient. Two different choices for exactly the same reasons. I think both are very limiting, and that we should start focusing on why we do what we do and why we say what we say.
- Steeltoe
Bah! Excuses. Get back to your cubicle stat!
- Steeltoe
No, distributed is all nice and dandy, but I don't picture having to browse academic papers on Geocities. Or encountering thousands of dead links to homebrew homepages. Besides, do you realize that Google is not the entire Internet? Try find something that is of special interest. It's almost impossible, unless it's geek toys/programs or commercial sites. Yes, you can go to advanced search, but it's not much better.
The smart thing is to centralize the whole thing, or make sure it's ultra-stable. Not like the current WWW. That's just ugly and won't stand the test of time.
- Steeltoe
I'm by no means a chess expert, but I can fathom that these programs are well-known already. Just hire some chess-programmer expert to evaluate that specific code, and you might find some loop-holes. As the simplest example, many computer-systems tend to overvaluate their pawns, instead of better positions. That means the human players can easily beat a computer if you just know the tricks involved. Knowing the most powerful tricks involved against this specific program becomes insanely much easier if you spend time and money on evaluating the code, especially if it's full of comments and other documentation. Do you really think the greatest chess-eating people haven't done this already?
;-)
Another method is that you can just compile the source, give it a go against another CPU- or human player and discover the best paths of attack against this specific program.
Fair? I think not. It's easy to beat GNUchess if you just takeback enough. A hundred times or so when you're as weak as me
- Steeltoe
Yeah, you never really want to forget those C/C++ skills. It can be crucial to a successful- or a mediocre system. Right tool for the right job and all that. Too bad you have to spend months to convince managers.
;-)
Btw, you can discuss whatever you like regardless of what I say
- Steeltoe
Well, this is just IMHO. I learned Pascal first, but turned to C++ after that. Pascal was not low-level enough at that time. Now it's not high-level enough, and I use Ruby. Pascal is a fine language, though I've never really liked all the syntax.
- Steeltoe
ALL pop-ups are annoying. Either implement opt-in/outs, or only jerks will want to visit your site. Don't take this personally, though, you suck. Hehe, just kidding with ya man.
- Steeltoe
Is it? I think it's a horrible idea, and support the makers of Shredder to ignore this match because of it. Chess isn't about telepathy, so someone should make a new game for that. My reason for this? Basically, it allows for an unfair advantage to the human player. He/She can just study the code and take advantage of the bugs/features contained within. That's not chess. Study past games? Yes.
- Steeltoe
I believe this fails because you have not really freed yourself from the limitations of brute force and perfect computation. Good strategy is not just something a human comes up with in a blink (well, unless you're lucky). Good strategy is developed over time, ie, you learn what could work and what don't, and why. ON A HIGHER LEVEL. This is where fuzziness, genetic algorithms and neural nets SHOULD work. Just don't expect to be able to verify it within reasonable time. You don't have to, you just have to beat the opponent.
Of course you have to rely on brute force to recognize and model strategies, and use brute-force tactics as conventional chess-programs when appropriate. However, the selection process of strategies could in theory be solved by fuzzy logic. However, I would expect more consistency using rule-based languages like prolog. Strategy is about knowing what details NOT to pay
attention to, ideas/creativity and experience.
The pattern recognizer would probably be the hardest part. The easiest initial solution could be to have several hard-coded algorithms, just like in conventional chess-programs that are used to evaluate position strengths.
I don't claim it's easy though, but it's much easier now than 10 years ago.
- Steeltoe
"Sometimes insanely faster because the C++ compiler can actually tell what type the pointer will be at run time. C can almost never tell."
I truly don't understand this. C always can tell the pointertype, because it is static. Or are you thinking about equivalent code in C? I thought the myths about virtual functions had died long ago. It's just like the argument with Java being faster than C. Yes, it can be when you allow for optimizing out "stupid" coding.
The discussion is idiotic. Algorithms and design are what's crucial, not syntactic sugar. High-level languages just improves your efficiency by many orders of magnitudes (whatever that is).
- Steeltoe
What guarantees do you have that this be a 16-bit unsigned integer. Unsigned yes, but 16-bits? Guarantees? I've never seen any.
Besides, try 32-bits or 64-bits.. They're more useful anyways.
- Steeltoe
Still didn't answer his question. He would have to overload gazillion functions all over. This is a general problem in C++ as a high level language.
- Steeltoe
Every behaviour you define constricts the language. It becomes a feature people will use and rely on, no matter how obscure. So you better get them right the first time. That's a hell of a difficult job to get everyone to agree on.
3-12 years ago I would have sided with the C++ folks. In the "name of efficiency", the behaviour should be unexpected. To allow fast and optimized compilation.
Now I program in Ruby. I don't see the need for raw speed anymore, but short and well-designed programs. I tried that doing C++ but it always got ugly and slightly buggy. SDL is nice and powerful, but ugly as well. I'm not going to say one language is better than the other though, just that I'm tired of C++, and I like Ruby alot now. They are two different tools for the job though.
The funny thing is that Ruby lacks even more compilation constraints than C++. However, it doesn't crash very often (did dump core once on me). Unit tests does wonders for languages like Ruby. I've yet to get rid of every single mistake in C++, while concentrating on making improvements and generalizations.
What they should have done with C++, is not have any undefined behaviour crap. People DO rely on these, because it "works" and not everyone reads all the standards. Just until they change compilers. I agree with you now.
- Steeltoe