That's great of course, but it's the community and a selection of packages with mutually consistent packaging metadata which make systems like Debian and their derivatives so popular. The packaging system itself is an enabling technology.
The key issue is to promote the "free exchange of information" and show why that's good for us all.
We need to focus on the free exchange of *freely-offered* information. Then those who offer freely will be rewarded, and the others (UK recording industry/RIAA/MPAA/etc.) won't.
In other words, as much as poosible: - exclusively use and promote free software - exclusively use and promote free music/content
- creativecommons.org
- comfortstand.com
- www.opsound.org/opsound.html
In this view, it's a red herring to be so worried about sharing information that others don't want to share.
Somehow "ancestry" seems the wrong word to describe something that inspired or led to the creation of something else.
"Ancestry" implies genetic similarity, i.e., copying of DNA or source code, which I think is *not* the case to any significant degree for any version of UNIX and Linux. There may be fragments of UNIX code from the public domain, but nothing more.
>The marriage of open source and open standards is a >formidable pairing. Far stronger than either >element alone.
Indeed. IMO our industry has for too long deluded itself that "open standards" of themselves are much of a solution to anything, when in fact history shows that vendors are too easily tempted to abandon them whenever convenient (UNIX wars, IBM's MCA, Microsoft, etc.)
I'd say if it weren't for open source / free software, "open standards" would still be a nearly meaningless catchphrase.
And isn't it funny how people who don't yet "get" free software confuse the two so easily.
I suspect that BSD will win over GPL in the end (much as I appreciate the benefits of the GPL):
(1) Regardless of license, once some software gains traction, there is significant disincentive to use other software; for FOSS in particular, there is significant long run penalty to forking the code base.
(2) BSD is less restrictive and simpler to understand than GPL, so BSD more attractive to licensees, so BSD more attractive to developers seeking mindshare.
The most popular counterargument is that developers won't accept BSD for fear that big commercial interests (eg: MS) would exploit BSD-licensed code without giving anything in return. However:
(3) Even big BSD users won't dare fork the code base because of (1), or if they do, their efforts will be eclipsed by the critical mass on the trunk.
Maybe IBM realise that what they actually do counts for much more than whatever they announce loudly in a press release, or whatever "spin" they put on the news as reported by somebody else.
They get the benefit of guerilla advertising passed on the grapevine, and would presumably suffer *lots* less embarassment in the event of unexpected problems with deployment.
Recently, an australian family living out of town lost their son due to an asthma attack. They were unable to call for paramedic assistance from their home because their phone company, Telstra, had not yet repaired a fault with their home phone. (The father in fact tried to run to a neighbor's phone.)
Needless to say, regardless of whether Telstra was criminally negligent, the national current affairs shows were up in arms about it.
From memory, the reports claimed that Telstra was possible up to a week overdue on the repairs and had allegedly told the family's mother to stop bothering them.
It's probably also worth pointing out that Queensland has had a related facility for blocking unwanted sites for some time, although it can be micromanaged at the school administrator level if desired. From experience, one popular use is simply to stop massive haemorrhaging of $$ due to downloading from popular software archives(!)
Two quibbles with the above: first, the curried function requires its first argument immediately,
and second, one has to ``curry'' a function
explicitly.
Something that I've been dying to ask someone in the LISP pantheon...
What's the deal with the apparent lack of support for currying. More purist functional languages support currying (but unfortunately often also force you to declare types) so why not LISP?
Why doesn't any LISP folklore I've seen not discuss (the lack of) this feature?
Interestingly, the bible seems to contrast faith with fear, not with reason. There are many accounts in the bible of those who experience God in some profound way. In many cases, their reaction is to be really afraid. Good examples is in Mark 5 where Jesus performs miracles to save people from fearful situations. Many of those involved seem more afraid (of Jesus) after this than before, despite his advice "not to fear, but to believe". Interesting.. many non-believing friends of mine have said that they could rationally believe in the christian God if he would show himself to them. But not everyone written about in the bible seems to behaves rationally in the presence of God. Ian
Slashdot Mirror
..is always much faster than for the first.
That's great of course, but it's the community and a selection of packages with mutually consistent packaging metadata which make systems like Debian and their derivatives so popular. The packaging system itself is an enabling technology.
The key issue is to promote the "free exchange of information" and show why that's good for us all.
We need to focus on the free exchange of *freely-offered* information. Then those who offer freely will be rewarded, and the others (UK recording industry/RIAA/MPAA/etc.) won't.
In other words, as much as poosible:
- exclusively use and promote free software
- exclusively use and promote free music/content
- creativecommons.org
- comfortstand.com
- www.opsound.org/opsound.html
In this view, it's a red herring to be so worried about sharing information that others don't want to share.
Ian
Somehow "ancestry" seems the wrong word to describe something that inspired or led to the creation of something else.
"Ancestry" implies genetic similarity, i.e., copying of DNA or source code, which I think is *not* the case to any significant degree for any version of UNIX and Linux. There may be fragments of UNIX code from the public domain, but nothing more.
Perhaps "predecessor" would be a better word.
>The marriage of open source and open standards is a
>formidable pairing. Far stronger than either
>element alone.
Indeed. IMO our industry has for too long deluded itself that "open standards" of themselves are much of a solution to anything, when in fact history shows that vendors are too easily tempted to abandon them whenever convenient (UNIX wars, IBM's MCA, Microsoft, etc.)
I'd say if it weren't for open source / free software, "open standards" would still be a nearly meaningless catchphrase.
And isn't it funny how people who don't yet "get" free software confuse the two so easily.
To put this in context, it was meant to be a reply to "Yes, that would be awfully funny" post above which made a comment about BSD vs GPL.
Ian
I suspect that BSD will win over GPL in the end
(much as I appreciate the benefits of the GPL):
(1) Regardless of license, once some software gains traction, there is significant disincentive to use other software; for FOSS in particular, there is significant long run penalty to forking the code base.
(2) BSD is less restrictive and simpler to understand than GPL, so BSD more attractive to licensees, so BSD more attractive to developers seeking mindshare.
The most popular counterargument is that developers won't accept BSD for fear that big commercial interests (eg: MS) would exploit BSD-licensed code without giving anything in return. However:
(3) Even big BSD users won't dare fork the code base because of (1), or if they do, their efforts will be eclipsed by the critical mass on the trunk.
Ian
Make sure popcon is on disk 1 ;-)
Ian
..actions speak louder than words?
Maybe IBM realise that what they actually do counts for much more than whatever they announce loudly in a press release, or whatever "spin" they put on the news as reported by somebody else.
They get the benefit of guerilla advertising passed on the grapevine, and would presumably suffer *lots* less embarassment in the event of unexpected problems with deployment.
Ian
Would spammers try to "anti-spam" the spam archive by submitting billions of perfectly normal emails?
Ian
Isn't your computer facility equipped with a big room??
Ian
Recently, an australian family living out
of town lost their son
due to an asthma attack. They were unable to call
for paramedic assistance from their home
because their phone
company, Telstra, had not yet repaired a fault
with their home phone. (The father in fact tried to run to
a neighbor's phone.)
Needless to say, regardless of whether Telstra was criminally negligent, the national current affairs shows were up in arms about it.
From memory, the reports claimed that Telstra was possible up to a week overdue on the repairs and had allegedly told the family's mother to stop bothering them.
Ian
It's probably also worth pointing out that
Queensland has had a related facility for
blocking unwanted sites for some time, although
it can be micromanaged at the school administrator
level if desired. From experience, one popular use
is simply to stop massive haemorrhaging of $$ due
to downloading from popular software archives(!)
Ian
Note: the article seems only to discuss NSW,
so the implications are not yet Australia-wide.
High school education in Australia tends to be
managed by state governments.
Ian
What media is the source on?
Thanks for the response.
Two quibbles with the above: first, the curried function requires its first argument immediately,
and second, one has to ``curry'' a function
explicitly.
Ian
Something that I've been dying to ask someone in the LISP pantheon...
What's the deal with the apparent lack of support for currying. More purist functional languages support currying (but unfortunately often also force you to declare types) so why not LISP?
Why doesn't any LISP folklore I've seen not discuss (the lack of) this feature?
Ian
It's not bad, but.. 38M for three windows? Ian
[To correct myself, the example I was thinking of was Mark 4:35-41.]
Interestingly, the bible seems to contrast faith with fear, not with reason. There are many accounts in the bible of those who experience God in some profound way. In many cases, their reaction is to be really afraid. Good examples is in Mark 5 where Jesus performs miracles to save people from fearful situations. Many of those involved seem more afraid (of Jesus) after this than before, despite his advice "not to fear, but to believe". Interesting.. many non-believing friends of mine have said that they could rationally believe in the christian God if he would show himself to them. But not everyone written about in the bible seems to behaves rationally in the presence of God. Ian