Seems pointless to argue this point, since I can't imagine why it matters.. but Larry spoke first.
Personally, I found his speaking style mildly amusing, but only in a geeky way, and I can't stand geek humor despite being thoroughly a geek myself. I split after Guido spoke since I am a Python programmer.
Does it really matter what his statistics are? Is there any doubt in your mind that OOo is slower than MS Office? You've run OOo before, I assume?
It's slow. It hogs memory. MSOffice is really quite well-optimized, launches quickly, and if it does use a lot of memory, it's not as much as OOo.
Sorry, but nitpicky benchmarks don't matter... on almost every system I've ever run it, OOo fails the user responsiveness test while MSO is acceptably fast. Not a piece of software I'd actually want to use, but acceptably fast.
Because Windows has gotten worse (XP licensing bullshit) or because Linux has gotten better?
Honestly, I haven't seen the latter happen, and this is from someone who runs only Linux on his home computer and, when a new game comes out, waits a few months for a Native or Wine-based port.
From everything I've seen, XP is better than 2K if only it weren't for the licensing bullshit. A strategy to defeat Windows (and this assumes there is a think-tank working to defeat Windows, and I don't think this really exists) would have to involve licensing, and right now Microsoft is vulnerable. Linux is better because it's open, and free. Period. Don't make technical arguments, make licensing arguments.
Q: "Is Linux better than Windows?" A: "Yes, but in ways that you'd have to be a sysadmin to really understand. In other ways, it's worse. There are defintely going to be tradeoffs, and you'll take some time getting on your feet again."
Q: "Then why should I switch?" A: "Because technology freedom is more important than technology, in ways that matter to everyone, not just programmers and not just budget controllers. Everything in your computer should belong to you."
People are responsive to this kind of argument, but it has to be presented honestly.
If your local laws don't allow the GPL, then the only law that applies is copyright, and copyright law does not (by default) allow distribution of someone else's work. That's fine.
What it means is that the GPL is really brittle. Anywhere that any clause of the GPL is invalid, GPL code cannot be distributed. In this specific case, it means that e.g. Linux install parties are illegal in Germany.
I started at noon today and I'm 81% done with it (score 81/101:-) . Not too long, but is it good? Well.. I just spent 8 solid hours playing it:P I intend to finish before I go to bed...
"Being interested in helping the world" is not the same thing as "helping the world". An ox is not interested in helping plow the farmer's field, but the farmer still feeds it.
This doesn't contradict the original poster, really. The law in Canada says you can't sell non-Canadian broadcasting. There's still nothing wrong with owning the equipment if, for example, you found a dish growing in your apple tree.
I'm starting to think of these worms and virii as a form of QA for Microsoft. As a developer, if I found a horrible buffer overrun or general API bug with Microsoft's products, and I wanted it fixed, I could
a) Pay $300 to have someone look at it and, eventually, tell me it's not really a bug b) Write a worm, and make sure it gets fixed within a few days.
Have you ever bought movie tickets online? That is what this would amount to. You still have to stand in the damn line. It doesn't take that freakin long to pay for a ticket; it's the line-standing that sucks. The same applies to any other purchase you're likely to make where you're already in the area where the physical merchandise is kept.
Is that they don't have to give a crap about your desire for Open Standards. They want to force Microsoft to give them a 10% discount, or they'll refuse to buy the product. Well, too bad. Because of the monopoly, they probably already own some of the product, they probably have a requirement to work with other Windows systems, and all Microsoft has to say is "neener neener". They'll buy anyway, because the reason for buying Microsoft products is very simple: they have a monopoly.
It's a nice thought, but I don't think you can just give someone a level playing field, all anti-trust laws to the contrary. Ultimately, OSS has to stand on its own merits, or it's not a competitor, it's just an also-ran.
Civics 101. The burden of proof is on IBM, as this is a civil and not a criminal case. However, the burden itself is lighter; they only have to convince more than half of the jury that they're right.
*signs up for jury duty*
Let me practice. "No, I don't use computers for anything. I have no opinions about software licenses whatsoever. Slashdot? Never heard of it. Yes, I'm free on the 17th."
Young coders make themselves more available
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
Young mothers, and young irc geeks. The IRC geeks are people I find because I myself am an IRC geek and I get to know them, and respect their ability to code. Young mothers because when you put an ad in the paper, they're people who are completely unemployed (hence willing to contract) but have a lot of energy to spare now that their kids are old enough to put in day care. The ads we put in the paper don't attract that many older workers, probably because they want full time jobs and more money than contracting usually allows.
A lot of people have argued that older people demand higher salaries once they get through the interview, but I can safely say that money doesn't enter into it for us. We pay our contractors a healthy living (in fact, we pay them more than I make, even though I myself am a programmer in addition to a project coordinator). The older people just don't come knocking.
I've suggested this before. I think that one factor contributing to the suck of music is record label contracts. They have gotten progressively more onerous as time goes on. Bands have to keep making music with each other, album after contracted album, until the contract plays out. Anyone who's done any serious creative work knows that you can't keep doing the same shit over and over.
People keep saying "all the bands suck" but this is clearly not true, because all these bands have hits that you've heard and liked at some point. They just can't sustain that creative energy.. they hit a configuration of art and artists that work for one song, or maybe one album, and based on that they are enslaved into a contract and forced to churn out crap for the rest of their lives.
Bands, like any creative labor, need to try different material to keep the quality of work high. They can even go back to their original stuff after a while, but to keep that engine turning they need to prime it with other sources of creative energy.
I want a shot-for-shot recreation of Matrix:Reloaded. Go, you 12-year-olds! By the time you're 18 this ought to be pretty easy.. the rendering should be possible in realtime what with the 16x increase in computing power we'll see between now and then.
Any time I hear someone saying "why on earth do we question it?" what they're really saying is "it's time to stop disagreeing, and everyone toe the party line."
Look, disagreement and examination of principles is always good, regardless of the subject matter, and regardless of whether you agree with the prevailing viewpoint. Even as someone who has written and unleashed GPL code on the world, someone who has a vested interest in the GPL being legal and valid, I encourage everyone to discuss it. If the GPL is held to be invalid, I want to know so I can change my license to better protect it. If it's held to be valid, then it is strengthened by having had its opposition disproved.
The legal arguments have not been made in a court yet. Until they do, we're all just blowing smoke anyway, but I like to hear what people think.
This paragraph depends on the presumption that the open-source community consists of amateurs and incompetents, incapable of coordinating to produce high-quality work. In fact, the Linux developers have consistently out-thought, out-imagined, and out-coded SCO's [. ..]
This got me wondering why the OSS community is so much better. It can't just be strength in numbers, because only one developer can write a line of code. Having many developers write a few lines of mediocore code does not produce superior software without many other factors (including lots of time) involved. So why is it so much better, so consistently? Are the developers actually better?
The answer I came to: Yes. OSS developers are better. And there's a reason for that, it's not just a coincidence. Commercial programmers do what they do because they get paid to do it. OSS developers do what they do because they enjoy it. And people who derive enjoyment from what they're doing (a) probably find it very easy and (b) are motivated to do it better.
True, many commercial developers (myself among them) love their jobs. But almost all OSS developers love what they do for a hobby, or they'd stop. Therein lies the difference, in my opinion.
As the "purchaser" of their service, I'm entitled to try to reduce the price to whatever level I think is fair by any legal means available. While I personally don't find text ads intrusive--they are a fair price for the service--other people may not, and you're foolish to try to convince them otherwise. The only right and wrong in the commercial world is the price at the end of the day.
Some of these tests can be beaten by computers (with much CPU time), some of them cannot yet. All of them are nearly "AI complete" and all of them are backwards- but not forwards-solvable. The important thing is that the cost of solving the problem by a computer is far greater than the benefit derived by solving it, to keep spammers away.
Holy crap, that's an advantage I didn't even see. LICENSED NEWBIES!!!
We could have learner permits where you have to go over to a tech guy's house and let him watch you post to newsgroups and web forums before you're allowed to have an Internet connection of your own.
Slashdot Mirror
Seems pointless to argue this point, since I can't imagine why it matters.. but Larry spoke first.
Personally, I found his speaking style mildly amusing, but only in a geeky way, and I can't stand geek humor despite being thoroughly a geek myself. I split after Guido spoke since I am a Python programmer.
Does it really matter what his statistics are? Is there any doubt in your mind that OOo is slower than MS Office? You've run OOo before, I assume?
It's slow. It hogs memory. MSOffice is really quite well-optimized, launches quickly, and if it does use a lot of memory, it's not as much as OOo.
Sorry, but nitpicky benchmarks don't matter... on almost every system I've ever run it, OOo fails the user responsiveness test while MSO is acceptably fast. Not a piece of software I'd actually want to use, but acceptably fast.
Because Windows has gotten worse (XP licensing bullshit) or because Linux has gotten better?
Honestly, I haven't seen the latter happen, and this is from someone who runs only Linux on his home computer and, when a new game comes out, waits a few months for a Native or Wine-based port.
From everything I've seen, XP is better than 2K if only it weren't for the licensing bullshit. A strategy to defeat Windows (and this assumes there is a think-tank working to defeat Windows, and I don't think this really exists) would have to involve licensing, and right now Microsoft is vulnerable. Linux is better because it's open, and free. Period. Don't make technical arguments, make licensing arguments.
Q: "Is Linux better than Windows?"
A: "Yes, but in ways that you'd have to be a sysadmin to really understand. In other ways, it's worse. There are defintely going to be tradeoffs, and you'll take some time getting on your feet again."
Q: "Then why should I switch?"
A: "Because technology freedom is more important than technology, in ways that matter to everyone, not just programmers and not just budget controllers. Everything in your computer should belong to you."
People are responsive to this kind of argument, but it has to be presented honestly.
If your local laws don't allow the GPL, then the only law that applies is copyright, and copyright law does not (by default) allow distribution of someone else's work. That's fine.
What it means is that the GPL is really brittle. Anywhere that any clause of the GPL is invalid, GPL code cannot be distributed. In this specific case, it means that e.g. Linux install parties are illegal in Germany.
Surely you can find a use for the lovely credit card information they used to purchase these irresistable products from you.
I started at noon today and I'm 81% done with it (score 81/101 :-) . Not too long, but is it good? Well.. I just spent 8 solid hours playing it :P I intend to finish before I go to bed...
"Being interested in helping the world" is not the same thing as "helping the world". An ox is not interested in helping plow the farmer's field, but the farmer still feeds it.
This doesn't contradict the original poster, really. The law in Canada says you can't sell non-Canadian broadcasting. There's still nothing wrong with owning the equipment if, for example, you found a dish growing in your apple tree.
instead it only needs access to the scoring function.
Helpful laws like the DMCA will quickly make this illegal, so nobody can do it.
Well, as long as they're not willing to break the law.
"It does basically make you look fat and naked, ..."
Uh, no director. It just makes you look naked.
I'm starting to think of these worms and virii as a form of QA for Microsoft. As a developer, if I found a horrible buffer overrun or general API bug with Microsoft's products, and I wanted it fixed, I could
a) Pay $300 to have someone look at it and, eventually, tell me it's not really a bug
b) Write a worm, and make sure it gets fixed within a few days.
Have you ever bought movie tickets online? That is what this would amount to. You still have to stand in the damn line. It doesn't take that freakin long to pay for a ticket; it's the line-standing that sucks. The same applies to any other purchase you're likely to make where you're already in the area where the physical merchandise is kept.
Is that they don't have to give a crap about your desire for Open Standards. They want to force Microsoft to give them a 10% discount, or they'll refuse to buy the product. Well, too bad. Because of the monopoly, they probably already own some of the product, they probably have a requirement to work with other Windows systems, and all Microsoft has to say is "neener neener". They'll buy anyway, because the reason for buying Microsoft products is very simple: they have a monopoly.
It's a nice thought, but I don't think you can just give someone a level playing field, all anti-trust laws to the contrary. Ultimately, OSS has to stand on its own merits, or it's not a competitor, it's just an also-ran.
Civics 101. The burden of proof is on IBM, as this is a civil and not a criminal case. However, the burden itself is lighter; they only have to convince more than half of the jury that they're right.
*signs up for jury duty*
Let me practice. "No, I don't use computers for anything. I have no opinions about software licenses whatsoever. Slashdot? Never heard of it. Yes, I'm free on the 17th."
As a quasi-employer (I have the ability to hire contractors for our small organization, and I do a lot of that, but not FTE's) I can tell you the two sources of résumés I tap most:
Young mothers, and young irc geeks. The IRC geeks are people I find because I myself am an IRC geek and I get to know them, and respect their ability to code. Young mothers because when you put an ad in the paper, they're people who are completely unemployed (hence willing to contract) but have a lot of energy to spare now that their kids are old enough to put in day care. The ads we put in the paper don't attract that many older workers, probably because they want full time jobs and more money than contracting usually allows.
A lot of people have argued that older people demand higher salaries once they get through the interview, but I can safely say that money doesn't enter into it for us. We pay our contractors a healthy living (in fact, we pay them more than I make, even though I myself am a programmer in addition to a project coordinator). The older people just don't come knocking.
I've suggested this before. I think that one factor contributing to the suck of music is record label contracts. They have gotten progressively more onerous as time goes on. Bands have to keep making music with each other, album after contracted album, until the contract plays out. Anyone who's done any serious creative work knows that you can't keep doing the same shit over and over.
People keep saying "all the bands suck" but this is clearly not true, because all these bands have hits that you've heard and liked at some point. They just can't sustain that creative energy.. they hit a configuration of art and artists that work for one song, or maybe one album, and based on that they are enslaved into a contract and forced to churn out crap for the rest of their lives.
Bands, like any creative labor, need to try different material to keep the quality of work high. They can even go back to their original stuff after a while, but to keep that engine turning they need to prime it with other sources of creative energy.
I want a shot-for-shot recreation of Matrix:Reloaded. Go, you 12-year-olds! By the time you're 18 this ought to be pretty easy.. the rendering should be possible in realtime what with the 16x increase in computing power we'll see between now and then.
here
Any time I hear someone saying "why on earth do we question it?" what they're really saying is "it's time to stop disagreeing, and everyone toe the party line."
Look, disagreement and examination of principles is always good, regardless of the subject matter, and regardless of whether you agree with the prevailing viewpoint. Even as someone who has written and unleashed GPL code on the world, someone who has a vested interest in the GPL being legal and valid, I encourage everyone to discuss it. If the GPL is held to be invalid, I want to know so I can change my license to better protect it. If it's held to be valid, then it is strengthened by having had its opposition disproved.
The legal arguments have not been made in a court yet. Until they do, we're all just blowing smoke anyway, but I like to hear what people think.
This got me wondering why the OSS community is so much better. It can't just be strength in numbers, because only one developer can write a line of code. Having many developers write a few lines of mediocore code does not produce superior software without many other factors (including lots of time) involved. So why is it so much better, so consistently? Are the developers actually better?
The answer I came to: Yes. OSS developers are better. And there's a reason for that, it's not just a coincidence. Commercial programmers do what they do because they get paid to do it. OSS developers do what they do because they enjoy it. And people who derive enjoyment from what they're doing (a) probably find it very easy and (b) are motivated to do it better.
True, many commercial developers (myself among them) love their jobs. But almost all OSS developers love what they do for a hobby, or they'd stop. Therein lies the difference, in my opinion.
As the "purchaser" of their service, I'm entitled to try to reduce the price to whatever level I think is fair by any legal means available. While I personally don't find text ads intrusive--they are a fair price for the service--other people may not, and you're foolish to try to convince them otherwise. The only right and wrong in the commercial world is the price at the end of the day.
Some of these tests can be beaten by computers (with much CPU time), some of them cannot yet. All of them are nearly "AI complete" and all of them are backwards- but not forwards-solvable. The important thing is that the cost of solving the problem by a computer is far greater than the benefit derived by solving it, to keep spammers away.
And I'll keep calling them that until we have software recalls.
(I develop software.)
"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak because an infant can't chew it."
Holy crap, that's an advantage I didn't even see. LICENSED NEWBIES!!!
We could have learner permits where you have to go over to a tech guy's house and let him watch you post to newsgroups and web forums before you're allowed to have an Internet connection of your own.