While we're on the subject of musical instrument analogies:
BCPL is a VCS3
C is a minimoog
Scheme is a clavichord
Lisp is a grand piano, currently being used as a stand for...
Java is some awful home keyboard/organ thing with hundreds of knobs and an LCD screen, and 15 midi ports on the back, all made of plastic. No one has ever got it out of `demo mode' where it plays really irritating tunes endlessly.
C++ I'm not sure, it's probably one of the polyphonic things that Moog made that never worked right. Or it might be a huge modular moog where all the contacts have got really dodgy. Both of these are too nice for it though (I'd like to own both of these...)
Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> writes: > C++ I'm not sure, it's probably one of the polyphonic things > that Moog made that never worked right. Or it might be a huge > modular moog where all the contacts have got really dodgy. Both of > these are too nice for it though (I'd like to own both of these...)
Raymond Wiker <Raymond.Wi...@fast.no> writes: > Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> writes:
> > C++ I'm not sure, it's probably one of the polyphonic things > > that Moog made that never worked right. Or it might be a huge > > modular moog where all the contacts have got really dodgy. Both of > > these are too nice for it though (I'd like to own both of these...)
> A 30-ton accordion, perhaps?
a Mellotron, with all the samples sounding like bagpipes.
-- (only legal replies to this address are accepted)
All ITS machines now have hardware for a new machine instruction -- BOT Branch On Tree. Please update your programs.
Kent- I had a laugh with this one. Like you a had a "Forum experience". In the end, I looked upon it as a big sales pitch, in which the benefits are the same as those of listening to Alan Watts tapes, or reading Zen, and the negatives are being in a weird quasi-cult. I would never recommend it to anyone! Getting to Lisp: I appreciate your desire to be paid. I love money myself. We live in a capitalist society, after all! But just to reiterate the ideas of others earlier in this thread. Jochun Schmidt rightly pointed out that many of the major OSS project DO pay their programmmers. (He brings up Apache, KDE, and Gnome as examples) I'm sure www.python.org has employees. There are many non-for profit corporations where people work with comfortable salaries in the USA today. My question: why have we no www.FreeCL.org, while we have a www.python.org, a www.scriptics.com, etc... I also want to reiterate what "Patrick W." said earlier; a young newbie programmer, given the choice of shelling out for Lisp, or going the route of least pocketbook dent, would do the obvious, and can you blame them? On a Linux box, you can mess with any language out their for virtually no cost. Of course, the dominant languages (in terms of overall use) are those that fit this paradigm. Hence the great popularity of the Gnu C compiler, Perl/Python/Tcl-Tk/, etc. Another thing; if the exponential growth curve of Linux is an indicator at all (esp. in the Developing world), my bet would be that regardless of your points about the nature of Capitalism, maybe software is truly about to enter a paradigm shift. At least I think that its not impossible. I tend to be an optimist, and think it could go either way, with my gut leaning towards the new model. It sure has Microsoft worried about its marketing strategy in South America, for example! I look foward to hearing your responses.
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Kent M Pitman wrote: > akjmi...@my-deja.com writes:
> > Let me turn to Lisp; otherwise this is getting out of hand. > > What exactly do you have _against_ say, the quality of Open Source > > projects of major importance, funded or not?
> This argument looks remarkably equivalent to the can't-be-denied argument > that suckers people into EST, The Forum, and other such so-called > personal empowerment building organizations. Organizations where you give > a lot of value (usually in money) and help to keep an organization going > that often has very little in the way of visibly paid employees. Why? > Because the organization probably couldn't afford to pay the people it > requires to keep itself going--better if a few make the money and the rest > happily work for free.
> I went to a meeting of The Forum once on an open house night. The conversation > with one of their advocates went something like this:
> him: Do you see how you could get value from this? > me: yes > him: So you'll sign up? > me: no > him: But why would you not join something that could bring you value? > me: Because i have to weight the choice against other uses of my time. > I get value from all the things I do. > him: You're just trying to be argumentative, aren't you? > me: no, i simply see a choice to be made and i have made my choice.
> [they hate that, because they use "choice" as a catch phrase. > they want you to believe they offer you choice, and that only by > choosing the choice they offer will you be free. but it seems to > me that they intend you to have no choice but to let them deliver > you choice.]
> The bottom line is the understanding of "opportunity cost". It sure > looks to me like a lot of impressionable college students are tricked > into thinking it's noble to not make money. I know I spent my first > few years after college trying hard not to make money because I > thought money was evil and would somehow corrupt me. But in my old > age I've found money to not be so corrupting as personally empowering. > I hate seeing people tricked into thinking that being without money is > personally empowering. I bet if they're honest a lot of contributors > of free software have at some later point in their life looked back > and wished they could have even just a decent day's pay, if not a > percentage, from the riches they see others getting off their > contributions. Why should they NOT be compensated?
> We in the Lisp community suffer more than anything else with the lack of > personal dollars to act on our many ideas. We sometimes pester companies > to do what we wish we could. I don't see how giving away code, and hence > economic empowerment, will make it any easier for us to act on those dreams. > I just see us dying of old age after years of chasing a paycheck.
> In the long run, a few Linux companies with a handful of investors will > have a lot of money, and a lot of Linux weenies will be the downtrodden > underclass of a new generation because they will have nothing more to > contribute. I see no reason to suppose the world would be worse off if > the people making the financial choices for next generation systems > were the people who actually wrote some code rather than others who merely > arrived and took advantage of a ton of free software and offered only > packaging.
> I don't assert that I have unique insight into how the universe works so > I don't spend time trying to talk people out of doing the open source and > free software thing if that's what they feel is their personal calling. > I might be wrong, and I'm inclined to think that on that basis, it might > be best for some people who believe differently to go ahead and chase their > dream, but I don't want to be told that my personal opposition to the notion > is, for myself, a wrong choice any more than they want to be told their > choices are wrong. Choices should be made with one's eyes open, though, and > no one should assume I'm going to respect them more for having given away > value. I'm not. I'm going to respect them more if they build something > important for the world, by whatever means. But whether they got paid for > it or not is not going to affect that respect. So they shouldn't feel guilty > about getting paid, and they shouldn't give me grief if I want to get paid.
Michael Livshin <mlivs...@yahoo.com> writes: > > A 30-ton accordion, perhaps?
> a Mellotron, with all the samples sounding like bagpipes.
Neither of these quite have the feeling of vast, incomprehensible, complexity to little effect that I was after (I did think of a mellotron actually: yet another thing I'd like to own, if only for the sheer madness of the thing).
Incidentally, even though the strings on the grand piano badly need replacing before one breaks and hurts someone, people are busy ignoring this and trying to retrofit it with MIDI, and replace the somewhat battered french polish with a nice coat of polyurethane varnish.
Raffeal- The "naggum-mine" is a yet fascinating phenomenon to me. At first, I thought it was that "something wasn't right in common lisp land", but now I realize that there are citizens like your self who do care about the community, and hope that someday, its mental patients will be cleared off of the streets and put into sanitariums where they belong.
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Raffael Cavallaro wrote: > In article <901p7c$tk...@nnrp1.deja.com>, akjmi...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > Any rational person who has observed your responses would clearly see > >that it is you who have "snapped", and have very little control over > >your emotional responses. Furthermore, most unlike you, I refrain from > >making viscious sub-human wishes about your bodily harm.
> I see another unsupecting victim has stepped on the naggum-mine and had > a leg blown off. Oh well.
> I've said it before, and in all seriousness:
> Erik Naggum is the single largest force impeding the more widespread use > of common lisp. People come to c.l.l, see the sort of treatment that > others receive at his hands, and quickly conclude that something is not > quite right in common lisp land. They don't come back, because, after > all, there are always scheme, Dylan, Smalltalk, and other functional > languages, all of which have newsgroups where newcomers arent flayed > alive.
> > Another analogy: An F-16 makes a *terrible* flight trainer. The controls > > are extremely "twitchy". It will instantly kill any raw student you put > > in it! ...and in the process, give the F-16 a *terrible* [and completely > > undeserved] reputation for being "unsafe". To learn to fly an F-16 safely > > you must *already* be a very good pilot, and even then must receive special > > training from a good instructor. But there are things you can do (safely!) > > with an F-16 you simply *cannot* do with any lesser craft.
Hmmm, there was definitely more to the problems with the early F-16's than that. At least one USAF Thunderbirds pilot was killed -- and if I remember right his wing also followed him into the ground. ISTR it being something about the force feedback or the wiring harness...
But in general I agree with the point you're (both, all) trying to make.
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes: > * Håkon Alstadheim > | Erik evidently believes in behavioural psychology.
> The strong evidence that I don't must have escaped you.
[Aside: This is on-topic insofar as it deals with how the community in this news-group is shaped]
You purposely inflict pain on people in order to make them get rid of their knee-jerk reactions (see Message-ID: <3184410282846...@naggum.net>). This is behaviourism, is it not?
I don't think behavioural therapy has been clinically tested as a tool to prod usenet participants into behaving in a specific way, hence my use of "believe". But, by all means I would not go so far as to say your technique of inflicting pain means you have abandoned reason. On the contrary.
If we understand each other, my point would be that I don't think prolonged therapy sessions should be conducted in a public forum. An alternative would be to state your reaction to each person who is retarded/a marketer/perl-programmer/whatever *once* for the benefit of the *other* participants and then move on. Obviously the retarded person will be nonplussed/offended but anybody who matches your criteria for a thinking human being should be able to understand.
If we *dont* understand each other, just forget the previous paragraph and tell me how i misunderstood your post with Message-ID: <3184410282846...@naggum.net> instead.
Raffael Cavallaro <raff...@mediaone.net> writes: > I've said it before, and in all seriousness:
> Erik Naggum is the single largest force impeding the more widespread > use of common lisp. People come to c.l.l, see the sort of treatment > that others receive at his hands, and quickly conclude that > something is not quite right in common lisp land.
That's ridiculous.
No competent engineer would choose a programming language based on the personality of usenet posters!
I know of at least three very good engineers who find Erik's information and entertainment value more than offsets his negative points.
Anyone who disagrees and is smart enough to know how to use a kill file can easily pretend he doesn't exist. Anyone who is not smart enough to use a killfile, but feels smart enough or important enough to post opinions anyway runs the risk of getting flayed.
Life on the usenet is harsh.
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* Christopher Browne | Economics is not the "theory of how to exchange financial instruments | for things;" instead, it represents the "theory of how to allocate | scarce resources."
Well, I am employed by a financial news agency and although I am no economist and have not studied finance, it is very hard to do a good job around very competent people who are and have without knowing most of these areas quite intimately after a while, but thanks for the brevity of the lecture, anyway.
I have argued that Free Software and Open Source are _luxuries_. That translates to _surplus_ resources, it's what you do _after_ you have successfully allocated scarce resources productively and profitably. And I'm not talking about the products, I'm talking about the _time_ that people put into it.
| The typical thing in the "More-Developed World" is to spend money on | capital investment so as to save on labour; in India, labour is so | cheap that capital investment tends to be uneconomical.
And so, too with Open Source and Free Software. It is all based on very cheap labor compared to the usual cost of labor in the software industry. And everywhere people argue for Open Source, the main economic argument, is that empowered users will pick it up and fix bugs without incurring costs for some owner. This is not unlike the principle of user-based debugging employed by Microsoft, who also save billions of dollars by letting users "adapt" to their bugs instead of going the extra mile and fixing them or, better, designing them out.
| Unfortunately, it is all too common for those that collect the license | fees for "owned software" to be remarkably _irresponsible_.
That is an entirely separate problem. I wish people would understand this. Like, I own a bunch of guns, use and keep them safe and secure, and follow a bunch of regulations in order to be allowed to keep them (and my personal freedom), but there _are_ people out there who are remarkably irresponsible when it comes to gun ownership and use. Some people are equally retarded and non-thinking when it comes to gun ownership as software ownership: They think the very concept of owning a gun means you kill people and rob grocery stores, or _would_ do so if you weren't policed 24 hours a day, just ad they think that owning software means you screw people out of their license money and act irrationally in all ways possible.
The slightly sick part of this whole thing is that those people who express an irrational hatred for gun and software owners probably would be very dangerous if they got their hands on a gun or piece of essential software. It's just like the zany morons who argue against absolutely abstention from sex, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, etc, all in one package deal. Given access to any such "sin", you can bet your ass they will become addicted and destroy themselves with depravity and _therefore_ need to keep everybody else away from them too, so as not to "fall" to "temptation". Reasonably smart people don't fall to temptation (as if it passively "happens" to people in the first place) and thus don't _need_ this crappy "sin" ideology, no matter how easy the access is. Reasonably smart people don't screw their investors or their business partners or even their customers just because they can, either. You actually need a criminal mind to do that, something like that of Bill Gates and his cohorts and defenders. But at this point, it is not the "sin" that is at fault, it is the criminal mind of people who "can't help themselves". You simply cannot control these aspects of _bad_ personality development by regulating the people who have had a good personality development, but that will never penetrate the skulls of _bad_ people, i.e., politicians and others who want to control other people (itself a bad personality trait that is probably only controllable by letting good people own guns, but this is a very different and off-topic discussion, barring lethal Lisp software :).
You don't have to agree with pro-gun activists to see that anti-gun activists are _also_ mostly completely nuts, or course, but that is what happens when people are subjected to too much irrationality and are or feel forced into positions they do or would not actually hold of their own accord. I am opposed to Open Source as a solution to the kinds of problems that people believe it will solve (namely the much touted "software crisis"), but I am very much in favor of _access_ to source code, especially for paying clients of expensive software systems and students of the art of programming who need to gain experience in working with existing code before they start to write their own code.
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
* akjmi...@my-deja.com | jfrank801, | Whoever you are, I couldn't have said it better myself. You have | provided a heart warming laugh!
I'm glad he reached your emotions so successfully. What a genius he must be. It is always such a pleasure to watch competence in action.
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
* Raffael Cavallaro <raff...@mediaone.net> | They don't come back, because, after all, there are always scheme, | Dylan, Smalltalk, and other functional languages, all of which have | newsgroups where newcomers arent flayed alive.
So why do you come back so often to repeat the same old shit?
_I_ think idiots like you who never learn are the problem.
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
* akjmi...@my-deja.com | Tell me how exactly it was that you became such an enlightened soul?
Tell me how you came to believe that I am, and maybe you will realize that your own ideas about other people are _unfounded_ fantasies.
| It is funny and ironic, nonetheless, that you insist that _I'M_ a | psychopath!
Since I don't do that, I really _do_ wonder what your problem is. The fact that you _keep_ confusing your own sick brain's imagination with reality is a pretty good indicator of something being seriously wrong, but it is a common trait with people who have no control over their emotions and therefore believe that what they _feel_ is also reality. I make a point out of exposing such people, because they are dangerous.
| Any rational person who has observed your responses would clearly see | that it is you who have "snapped", and have very little control over | your emotional responses.
How would you be able to determine if somebody had acute control over their emotoinal _responses_? Of course you see "very little control" -- that's the only thing you can relate to! What you _observe_, as quite distinct from what you _believe you see_, is someone who is pushing _your_ buttons and you're out of control in response to that. You're swerving all over the place in your responses, with a near total lack of focus and accountability to your unfounded "opinions". You're fantasizing about me and describing that fantasy as if it were real, for crying out loud! That _is_ insanity, specifically psychosis.
| Although its true that in an moment of boiling rage I had a most | regrettable dark wish as to your home being engulfed in flames, in | truth, I'm ashamed that I was affected by your provocations enough to | stoop to your low level of discourse. Never more. I offer my sincere | apology, regardless of how predictably you will still return a nasty | future response.
"It's your fault that I was bad, for which I apologize" doesn't quite cut it as an honest apology in my book. By writing off your personal respnsibility for your very own actions, you have transgressed even further into amoralism. Good job!
It is really quite amazing that you can accuse me of threatening to burn people's homes down in the middle of an apology for your own actions. I find this to be very, very indicative of how your brain simply does not work at all. It was _your_ low level of discourse that embraced threats of crime and violence and bodily harm, not mine. That you are such an incredibly bad person that you think you had the right to do this in the first place is _not_ offset by your need to blame me for it by _pretending_ against all evidence that you stooped bo "[my] low level of discourse". Talk about being out of control!
| ... it is, I must say, a bit entertaining.
I thought I said that to you first. The clown has learned to parrot.
| Oh, and I want to reiterate that I truly regret saying I'd burn your | house down. You see, I'm not used to being called a "whining dolt" by | total strangers. Kinda pissed me off a bit.
Yup, that's just _super_ control over your emotions, but you can start on your path to recovery by learning how to quote news articles less. That won't leave such a bad impression of your general skill levels.
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
> * akjmi...@my-deja.com > | Tell me how exactly it was that you became such an enlightened soul?
> Tell me how you came to believe that I am, and maybe you will realize > that your own ideas about other people are _unfounded_ fantasies.
I just, you know, feel you have, like, well, these, like, well, like, really cool things, to like, say and all. You know, just like really smart stuff, and well, *gosh*, I don't know, I just, like, wanna be like you.
> | It is funny and ironic, nonetheless, that you insist that _I'M_ a > | psychopath!
> Since I don't do that, I really _do_ wonder what your problem is. The > fact that you _keep_ confusing your own sick brain's imagination with > reality is a pretty good indicator of something being seriously wrong, > but it is a common trait with people who have no control over their > emotions and therefore believe that what they _feel_ is also reality. > I make a point out of exposing such people, because they are dangerous.
Oh, no, I didn't mean that, Erik; No- I didn't mean to make you think that I thought, that, you thought, that I thought, that you called me crazy. 'Cause you clearly didn't. hey, can I pour you a glass of OJ?
> | Any rational person who has observed your responses would clearly see > | that it is you who have "snapped", and have very little control over > | your emotional responses.
> How would you be able to determine if somebody had acute control over > their emotoinal _responses_? Of course you see "very little control" > -- that's the only thing you can relate to!
emotoinal responses? you're getting to heated up to type, señor.
> You're fantasizing about me and describing that fantasy as if it were > real, for crying out loud! That _is_ insanity, specifically psychosis.
Oh yes, Erik, you and I; I've been having these fantasies.....I don't know what to do but pour my heart out in a love letter. I'm *PSYCHO* about you, Erik, hunk, stud, man of my dreams.
> | Although its true that in an moment of boiling rage I had a most > | regrettable dark wish as to your home being engulfed in flames, in > | truth, I'm ashamed that I was affected by your provocations enough to > | stoop to your low level of discourse. Never more. I offer my sincere > | apology, regardless of how predictably you will still return a nasty > | future response.
> "It's your fault that I was bad, for which I apologize" doesn't quite > cut it as an honest apology in my book. By writing off your personal > respnsibility for your very own actions, you have transgressed even > further into amoralism. Good job!
Boy, you know, you're so right, Erik. Thanks for the tip on morality. I couldn't believe I didn't see you for the wise soul you truly are. C'mere, man, gimme a hug, let's just have a good cry, ok?
> | ... it is, I must say, a bit entertaining.
> I thought I said that to you first. The clown has learned to parrot.
The clown has learned to parrot. The clown has learned to parrot. Polly want a cracker.
> | Oh, and I want to reiterate that I truly regret saying I'd burn your > | house down. You see, I'm not used to being called a "whining dolt" by > | total strangers. Kinda pissed me off a bit.
> Yup, that's just _super_ control over your emotions, but you can start > on your path to recovery by learning how to quote news articles less. > That won't leave such a bad impression of your general skill levels.
Oh, please Erik, hurt me some more !!!!! Oh insult me again !!!!!! Oh how I love it, just like the little lizard in my head tells me. He's blue and has a collar. his name is naggum. I named him after you, my favorite lisper. He's mean and he bite sometimes, but really he just wants to make people feel better......Oh, wait a sec, there's a call coming in from Alpha Centauri 2 on my sub-space-mental channel.....I'm slipping into the vacuum-cosmic-void...........
BTW,Does your head ever feel like a bag of moist cranberries at a remote french outpost?
I just scanned the article mentioned by Marc below:
Marc Battyani wrote:
> Hum, if I use his grid with the correct values for Lisp, guess who wins ;-) > Here is a better article on the same topic from Peter Norvig : > http://www.norvig.com/python-lisp.html
> Marc
Peter Norvig states: "... and (3) Python isn't called "Java", which is a requirement in its own right for some of my audience."
Why not call CL just JavaNG (/NextGeneration/)?
But seriously: Java has all the publicity it needs. Why? I think, despite the controverse discussion of the value of free/open software, _just the simplicity of Java is it what makes it so popular AND the free availability of ONE Java_!
Java is simple. It is the class of language most people get taught in school somehow. It is the _Internet_ language. It all was said already but I really think the intended simplicity of Java is the reason for success. Take two hours time for learning and you have a full /GUI/ running! It is not important to have an application of value - nowadays it's the sexy GUI that counts. As I am in the consulting business having implemented numerous projects for clients world-wide this is common sense - as experience clearly tells me.
How could the LC (Lisp Community - is there really one? Java _has_ one!) learn from Java's success? What to change? With what objectives? By what means?
That's the sort of things we all should think of IMO.
Your feedback? Thanks.
Regards
#:frgo
-- Frank Goenninger HP Consulting, Product Lifecycle Collaboration Services Hewlett-Packard GmbH, Germany
Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> writes: > Michael Livshin <mlivs...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > > A 30-ton accordion, perhaps?
> > a Mellotron, with all the samples sounding like bagpipes.
> Neither of these quite have the feeling of vast, incomprehensible, > complexity to little effect that I was after (I did think of a > mellotron actually: yet another thing I'd like to own, if only for the > sheer madness of the thing).
Which Pratchett book is it with Bloody Stupid Johnson's organ in it? That has something of the right air about it. (My C++ hatred seems to be slightly in abeyance - probably because I haven't written any for a while...).
Raffael Cavallaro <raff...@mediaone.net> writes: > I've said it before, and in all seriousness:
> Erik Naggum is the single largest force impeding the more widespread use > of common lisp. People come to c.l.l, see the sort of treatment that > others receive at his hands, and quickly conclude that something is not > quite right in common lisp land. They don't come back, because, after > all, there are always scheme, Dylan, Smalltalk, and other functional > languages, all of which have newsgroups where newcomers arent flayed > alive.
If you mean this in any serious way at all, investigate the use of killfiles. You give Erik way too much importance.
-- Lieven Marchand <m...@bewoner.dma.be> Lambda calculus - Call us a mad club
>> Erik Naggum is the single largest force impeding the more widespread use >> of common lisp. People come to c.l.l, see the sort of treatment that >> others receive at his hands, and quickly conclude that something is not >> quite right in common lisp land. They don't come back, because, after >> all, there are always scheme, Dylan, Smalltalk, and other functional >> languages, all of which have newsgroups where newcomers arent flayed >> alive.
>If you mean this in any serious way at all, investigate the use of >killfiles. You give Erik way too much importance.
How does that help? The newbie that Raffael is talking about has no way of knowing that they should have killfiled Erik. And if all the rest of us killfile him, then how will we inform the newbie if we don't see his message?
-- Barry Margolin, bar...@genuity.net Genuity, Burlington, MA *** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups. Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.
* Jochen Schmidt <j...@dataheaven.de> | What I missed from start of this FS/OS discussion is the fact, that it | neither is so that Free Software/Open Software is gratis nor that | FS/OS programmers didn`t get paid for their work. Thats nonsense - | the core programmers of the major FS/OS Software get all paid for | their work. (Apache, Postgres, KDE...)
I, too, have been paid for work I have done on top of a body of work that I had donated to the SGML community. After all was said and done, I got about 6 dollars an hour for the work I put into the SGML community over six years, even though I was paid _very_ well by all standards for the work I _did_ get specifically paid for. If I had worked with SGML for another decade, maybe I would not have regretted the first five years and the sad unwillingness to pay someone who had previously given away his work which several other contributors had suffered, too, forcing them to choose between donations and paid work. (However, I quit working with SGML for entirely different reasons: I discovered that it is self-defeating and contradicts its own purposes and premises. That didn't _help_ the regret, but most people in the Open Source and/or Free Software world aren't quite as "unlucky" with what they believe in and invest in.)
If you count the countless hours of work that precedes getting paid as an investment on which you should expect a reasonable yield, and I think you should, the amounts of money that are being paid to support and maintain successful Open Source projects is almost negligible.
And of course people are paid _after_ something becomes a success. Some of the time, people are paid by employers who don't know what their people are doing, but some employers are also positive to such work because they need the results, anyway. Some of the time, people are able to use equipment and resources for free that they could never afford to purchase on their own, including Internet connectivity -- the very _backbone_ of shared code development.
Today's situation is quite a bit different from how things started for the things we know about, but not much so for new projects. I don't think it is very productive to judge Open Source based solely on what we have seen succeed after many, many years. Lots of projects have never taken off, have lost their community support and programmers, have never inspired enough programmers to get really going, etc. When people are paid, they don't need the same kind of continuous rewards that they would need if they aren't. This seriously affects how Open Source projects get on their way. How they act when they get large enough to sustain themselves is not very important to understand, but how they grow from nothing to that large is. That cannot be seen by looking at the most successful projects.
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
* "Aaron K . Johnson" <a...@21stcentury.net> | The "naggum-mine" is a yet fascinating phenomenon to me. At first, I | thought it was that "something wasn't right in common lisp land", but | now I realize that there are citizens like your self who do care about | the community, and hope that someday, its mental patients will be | cleared off of the streets and put into sanitariums where they belong.
That's the idea. You just do not understand your own position, yet.
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
* Lieven Marchand <m...@bewoner.dma.be> | You give Erik way too much importance.
Not quite true. People like Raffael give _people_ in general way too much importance, failing to understand the role of people. That's how it is possible for him to make the _kind_ of idiotic argument he makes in the first place. It is people like that him who scare _technical_ people off, like stalkers and unwanted sexual advances from people who don't know when to keep their _personal_ "interests" to themselves. To Raffael, this _is_ deeply personal. He does not understand that there is _nothing_ personal in what I do. He never will, either. This Aaron jerk is bordering on a becoming a lost case because he, too, believes that this is personal, and fails to understand that his _person_ has nothing whatsoever to do with this, only his choices and his actions, which he has shown us that he is unlikely to change, just like Raffael is unlikely ever to change his, and therefore will never see a different reaction to his choices and actions, either.
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
* Håkon Alstadheim | You purposely inflict pain on people in order to make them get rid of | their knee-jerk reactions (see Message-ID: | <3184410282846...@naggum.net>). This is behaviourism, is it not?
If you add about a million other bogus things, you might end up with behaviourism. If you don't, you don't end up with behaviourism.
I have not added the million other things. You seem to think you have the right to ignore that they need to be added. That's just idiotic.
| If we *dont* understand each other, just forget the previous paragraph | and tell me how i misunderstood your post with Message-ID: | <3184410282846...@naggum.net> instead.
I should tell you how you misunderstood something you don't give any clue to how you understood!? What's wrong with your thinking ability?
#:Erik -- Solution to U.S. Presidential Election Crisis 2000: Let Texas secede from the Union and elect George W. Bush their very first President. All parties, states would rejoice.
> Not quite true. People like Raffael give _people_ in general way too > much importance, failing to understand the role of people. That's how > it is possible for him to make the _kind_ of idiotic argument he makes > in the first place. It is people like that him who scare _technical_ > people off, like stalkers and unwanted sexual advances from people who > don't know when to keep their _personal_ "interests" to themselves. > To Raffael, this _is_ deeply personal. He does not understand that > there is _nothing_ personal in what I do. He never will, either. > This Aaron jerk is bordering on a becoming a lost case because he, > too, believes that this is personal, and fails to understand that his > _person_ has nothing whatsoever to do with this, only his choices and > his actions, which he has shown us that he is unlikely to change, just > like Raffael is unlikely ever to change his, and therefore will never > see a different reaction to his choices and actions, either.
This is sort of like watching a force of nature at work. Immutable, inexorable and unforgiving. If I tried to abuse people so thoroughly and simultaneously on so many fronts, I think I would burst an artery.
I too find following these threads is sometimes a quilty pleasure, but killfiles aren't the best solution because Erik often has very pertinent and useful things to say. I guess the best approach is to just post <carefully> and be prepared to shut up regardless of the flogging.
> I bet if they're honest a lot of contributors of free software have > at some later point in their life looked back and wished they could > have even just a decent day's pay, if not a percentage, from the > riches they see others getting off their contributions.
And those of us who look back on the work we've done for the community without regret are dishonest?
> I might be wrong, and I'm inclined to think that on that basis, it might > be best for some people who believe differently to go ahead and chase their > dream, but I don't want to be told that my personal opposition to the notion > is, for myself, a wrong choice any more than they want to be told their > choices are wrong. Choices should be made with one's eyes open, though, and > no one should assume I'm going to respect them more for having given away > value. I'm not. I'm going to respect them more if they build something > important for the world, by whatever means. But whether they got paid for > it or not is not going to affect that respect. So they shouldn't feel guilty > about getting paid, and they shouldn't give me grief if I want to get paid.
So people who are doing free software are dreamers who have their eyes closed. I don't think so. I think free software is a result of the impulse most people feel towards helping other people. Heaven knows, without having all that free software to fiddle around with back in my student days, I would probably not be much of a programmer at all today.
I'm really grateful towards those who have enabled me to become what I am. Most of those people (in the software arena) are people within the free software community. And nobody has *ever* given me any grief for holding down a paying job, so I can't help thinking that you're setting fire to a personal straw man here.
-- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) la...@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
