* Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> | But anyways who am I to correct you Erik, I disagree you with so I'm | obviously already a moron in your book.
disagreement has nothing to do with it. concluding that disagreement is the key is _probably_ cause for deciding you _are_ a moron, however.
it's fascinating to watch people believe in agreement. some people truly respect only those who agree with them on issues, and worse yet, their agreement is usually measured in words, not in meaning or in principles. for such limited people, respect for methodology and due process is much too complex to handle. like lawyers who defend the guilty according to a complex set of rules to ensure they get a fair trial, I also get a lot of _stupid_ accusations based on some trivial and superficial issue compared to the core principles of due process and sound methodology. probable morons like Craig Brozefsky, who have to trivialize this into a simple, one-dimensional agree-disagree axis are probably also completely unable to appreciate that an argument whose underlying methodology is broken is neither right nor wrong -- it's just noise, not even worthy of arguing, but it _is_ important to point out that it's so much noise so others don't go the route of actually trying to argue the points that appear to be there if you completely ignore the genesis of the argument.
what you see from me is disrespect for people who are unable to deal with information contrary to their existing beliefs, no matter whether I agree or disagree with it, particularly if they reject information that has been obtained with the _same_ methodology used to obtain the information they "agree" with. I also have a very low tolerance for people who think that there is a difference in _who_ does something, particularly if it manifests itself in the belief that there should be one law for them and one law for everybody else. or worse, one law for those they agree with, and one law for those they disagree with, which is, amazingly, quite common among the _really_ retarded people who post their stupid opinions on USENET, and, incidentally, who are often "activists" for some stupid cause or another and who usually know nothing of importance about their "enemy" save what their propaganda ministers have told them. I have zero respect for such people and I think it is very valuable to smoke them out.
so, yeah, Craig, you are probably a moron, but you would be whether you agreed with me or not, and I would probably feel impelled to tell you exactly the same thing if you did voice agreement, because it would hurt my case to have such people on my "side". more precisely, the less smart the people who favor your cause is, the more you have to work behind the scenes, and I don't like to do that. by exposing the morons who favor some other cause, that people who share that cause have to regroup and find ways to express themselves better, and differently. this happens surprisingly often: whenever you see a bunch of lunatics take to the streets to fight some evil or another symbolically, the people who actually do something about it keep a clear distance to the "activists" and sometimes have to antagonize them with "compromises" to make sure that they are not seen as representatives of the activists, because that would cause them to lose credibility in general and be seen as equally shallow and one-dimensional as the activists are, qua activists for a single cause. note, however, that only the representatives of activists are assumed to have one-dimensional views.
it actually amazes me how little some people understand of these things, while I'm sometimes amazed by how much others do grasp of what's going on and what I'm actually doing. this has led me to believe that if I can find one person every now and then who gets the point, it's worth all the stupid abuse from morons who don't get it, but the Craig Brozefskies of the world are _very_ tiring to deal with, which is why I'm trying to make this a little more explicit than I used to.
<frank_adr...@firstdatabank.com> wrote: >Christopher Browne wrote in message ... >>On Mon, 08 Mar 1999 18:03:35 GMT, Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> >wrote: >>>The inalienable right to property... That means, do not bother >>>responding to Erik unless you are ready to get an earful from a >>>tireless poster who will not rest until everyone respects the >>>ludicrous libertarian credo of inalienable property rights.
>>From the customer's perspective, you have no business at all telling him >>or anyone else that what they're asking for is wrong.
>This is true. They may want to say, "No way in hell am I going to sell you >that," to the request, but they shouldn't say that you have no right to ask.
>>The customer has the unalienable right to property and to the fruits of >>their labours. If someone tries to deny this via going out of business >>or otherwise trying to stop supporting a piece of software, this takes >>away from the customer the use of software that they have paid good >>money for.
>You should not use the software if you are so concerned about having the >source. You can negotiate the source rights or use other software instead >or (GASP) write your own. Plus - youc an still "use" the software you have >on the systems for which it is licensed. If the hardware goes obsolete, >well, YOU've made a mistake on assuming stability of the software and >hardware market.
>Many software manufacturers will also sell you "subscription" based software >where they contract for periodic upgrades of the software for a specific >period. If you are stupid enough to depend on upgrades by using a system >for which you have no guarantee of upgrades, I'd expect the problem is with >YOUR sense of risk.
>Not that I WANT to defend the libertarian PoV. It's wrongheaded in many >ways. But your arguments are fallacious.
Equally as fallacious as they were when the wording was slightly different, I'd suggest...
I don't disagree that what's above is wrong; perhaps I should have pseudo-tagged it using <fallacious-analogy pro=customer> </fallacious-analogy> to make it clearer...
>>Open Source *does* mean never having to worry about a system becoming >>unmaintainable simply because a company goes out of business. There may >>be other reasons for software becoming diminishingly maintainable; if >>the source code is at least available, this makes the task less >>difficult...
>And those who wish to work under this model are allowed to. You can get >their software and use it. If you can't get the software that you want to >use on the terms you want, write it yourself, distribute it as freeware, and >put the other guy out of business.
Perhaps surprisingly, despite the widespread availability and high levels of adoption of Apache, Netscape is still making money off of sales of Netscape Commerce Server.
In the right sectors, the world is large enough to admit multiple competitors...
In article <3129977246072...@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes:
> * "Fernando D. Mato Mira" <matom...@iname.com> >| I meant bankrupt as definitely dead. Not Chapter 11 (living dead). A >| customerhas invested (in the broad sense of the word) in the company, so >| it would be very honest that he has some rights at liquidation time, >| including
> what? a customer of a product has _invested_ in the company?! this is > too fucking nuts to bother discussing.
Bad wording. The customer certainly has invested in whatever products he bought from the company. The attitude that has been expressed in this thread (bad luck if you are so stupid to buy from a company that went under) certainly helps to encourage th buy-microsoft mindset.
* schaf...@netcom.ca (Hartmann Schaffer) | Bad wording. The customer certainly has invested in whatever products he | bought from the company.
no, that's something entirely different, and if you say that, you can't leap to the conclusion that the customer has rights at the same level as the real investors in a liquidation or bankruptcy.
| The attitude that has been expressed in this thread (bad luck if you are | so stupid to buy from a company that went under) certainly helps to | encourage th buy-microsoft mindset.
perhaps it encourages you that way, but I think you'd say that no matter what what the attitude was.
: In article <3129977246072...@naggum.no>, : Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes: : > * "Fernando D. Mato Mira" <matom...@iname.com> : >| I meant bankrupt as definitely dead. Not Chapter 11 (living dead). A : >| customerhas invested (in the broad sense of the word) in the company, so : >| it would be very honest that he has some rights at liquidation time, : >| including : > : > what? a customer of a product has _invested_ in the company?! this is : > too fucking nuts to bother discussing.
: Bad wording. The customer certainly has invested in whatever products he : bought from the company. The attitude that has been expressed in this : thread (bad luck if you are so stupid to buy from a company that went : under) certainly helps to encourage the buy-microsoft mindset.
I'm still in school -- I know little about the real world. Do managers often inform themselves on the goals of a purchase, examine the avialable options, determine each vendors ability to fulfill those goals, and then buy exactly the opposite of what they wanted?
If a customer truly believes it is investing in the products it buys from a vendor, then the customer should make every effort to treat a purchase as an investment. If a piece of software is important for how you do business, then everyone -- the buyer and the seller -- should be treating this software as important for your business. If continued support for that software from the vendor is important, then forming an agreeable partnership with the vendor to continue supporting that software is imperative. In particular, you should be very, very disatisfied if the only contract you can extract from any seller beforehand is an envelope that states "by opening this envelope, you have agreed to the license printed here-on..."
The point is not "bad luck if you are so stupid to buy from a company that went under". Instead, it is "shame on you if you should be forming a long term partnership with a vendor, but instead you are stupid enough to be satisfied purchasing important business tools from vendors with `licenses' that treat your purchase as a nuisance to the seller."
Everyone will agree that it is bad luck if you form a partnership with a vendor which later finds itself unable to support that partnership. It is foolishness if you try to form a partnership with a vendor which has clearly demonstrated it has no interest in supporting any kind of partnership. There should be little doubt that this attitude helps to discourage the buy-Microsoft mindset.
-- Brent Ellingson (belli...@badlands.NoDak.edu) "It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." -- Leo Tolstoy
Johan Kullstam wrote in message ... >Reini Urban <rur...@xarch.tu-graz.ac.at> writes:
>> or lisp vendors (or anyone else) should invest in expensive lisp machine >> or ai type of stuff.
>i think lisp is *more* than AI. sure it's good for AI, but you can >use it for so much more. lisp is stuck in an AI perception rut. >people think that's all it's good for -- not true. i'd like to see >the non-AI applications of lisp receive more emphasis.
Well, it certainly is a matter of perception since the reality is that LISP is used on more machines for AutoCAD and emacs than any another application. The perception most likely derives from the fact that most people who are interested in LISP per se are involved in academia rather than the more prosaic popular commercial domains. Moreover, in the applications where LISP is used to just get the job done because it is the best way to do it, people are naturally not going to be interested in religous language campaigns or pr.
Craig Brozefsky wrote in message <877lsqqgsd....@piracy.red-bean.com>... >Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes:
>> * Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> >> | The inalienable right to property... That means, do not bother >> | responding to Erik unless you are ready to get an earful from a tireless >> | poster who will not rest until everyone respects the ludicrous >> | libertarian credo of inalienable property rights.
>> it doesn't mean that at all, of course, but I'm actually happy we know >> that your brain short-circuits whenever you have to respect ownership.
>I have no problem with ownership, Erik.
>Inalienable \In*al"ien*a*ble\, a. [Pref. in- not + alienable: > cf. F. inali['e]nable.] > Incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred to > another; not alienable; as, in inalienable birthright.
>I just have a problem with the concept of "inalienable" rights being >used as the basis for intellectual property. Not that I think that >there are not good arguments for inalienable rights, even with regards >to posessions. But note that inalienable means they cannot be >surrendered, or transfered. That makes it difficult to use them as >the basis for intellectual property as it exists in the marketplace; >patents, copyrights and licensing deals. IP is all about transfer, >and exchange, so the concept of "inalienable" property rights is just >ludicrous. The phrase "inalienable" as you use it makes no sense and >is most likely just a semiotic place marker for "you are not allowed >to disagree". >...
It is obvious that there is an enormous gap between you two in the common knowledge and/or common purpose required for mutual understanding. Those who are even vaguely familiar with the United States' Declaration of Independence[1] recognized Erik's use of the term 'inalienable'[2] in connection with 'rights'.
Craig is clearly being obtuse by claiming to be uncomprehending of the fact that Erik's assertion was that one has an inalienable right to decide for themselves the disposition of their own intellectual property. I suspect Craig spent too much time listening to Microsoft witnesses get examined by the DOJ. Yet here I am lured into rebutting his straw man which clearly indicates I am not making good use of my time...
"Jim White" <j...@pagesmiths.com> writes: > It is obvious that there is an enormous gap between you two in the > common knowledge and/or common purpose required for mutual > understanding. Those who are even vaguely familiar with the United > States' Declaration of Independence[1] recognized Erik's use of the term > 'inalienable'[2] in connection with 'rights'.
Oops, I didn't associate his usage with the US DoI cause he isn't from the U.S. Not that I thought he would be unfamiliar with it, just that it didn't occur to me. I sorta used the definition I knew from discussions of human rights, and the dictionary.
> Craig is clearly being obtuse by claiming to be uncomprehending of the > fact that Erik's assertion was that one has an inalienable right to > decide for themselves the disposition of their own intellectual > property. I suspect Craig spent too much time listening to Microsoft > witnesses get examined by the DOJ. Yet here I am lured into rebutting > his straw man which clearly indicates I am not making good use of my > time...
And regardless of the wether his statement was ludicrous or not, perhaps I should have not cluttered up c.l.l without yet more discussion of property and the like.
Nazi Nazi Nazi -- there, the thread is dead.
-- Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> Less matter, more form! - Bruno Schulz
In article <3130136242952...@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> writes:
> * schaf...@netcom.ca (Hartmann Schaffer) > ... >| The attitude that has been expressed in this thread (bad luck if you are >| so stupid to buy from a company that went under) certainly helps to >| encourage th buy-microsoft mindset.
> perhaps it encourages you that way, but I think you'd say that no matter > what what the attitude was.
Are you always jumping this fast to idiotic conclusions?
* schaf...@netcom.ca (Hartmann Schaffer) | The attitude that has been expressed in this thread (bad luck if you are | so stupid to buy from a company that went under) certainly helps to | encourage th buy-microsoft mindset.
* Erik Naggum | perhaps it encourages you that way, but I think you'd say that no matter | what what the attitude was.
* h...@inferno.nirvananet (Hartmann Schaffer) | Are you always jumping this fast to idiotic conclusions?
"Jim White" <j...@pagesmiths.com> writes: > Johan Kullstam wrote in message ... > >Reini Urban <rur...@xarch.tu-graz.ac.at> writes:
> >> or lisp vendors (or anyone else) should invest in expensive lisp > machine > >> or ai type of stuff.
> >i think lisp is *more* than AI. sure it's good for AI, but you can > >use it for so much more. lisp is stuck in an AI perception rut. > >people think that's all it's good for -- not true. i'd like to see > >the non-AI applications of lisp receive more emphasis.
> Well, it certainly is a matter of perception since the reality is that > LISP is used on more machines for AutoCAD and emacs than any another > application. The perception most likely derives from the fact that most > people who are interested in LISP per se are involved in academia rather > than the more prosaic popular commercial domains. Moreover, in the > applications where LISP is used to just get the job done because it is > the best way to do it, people are naturally not going to be interested > in religous language campaigns or pr.
i don't want to start a religious campaign. my only point was that the non-AI applications of lisp seem to take a back seat in people's conciousness.
there are a plethora of `lisp for AI' books (someone even suggested on this newsgroup writing yet another one).
AI being clearly not the only application of lisp, and, as you point out, arguably not the most successful application of lisp. there are a few general lisp books (like graham's duo).
i'd like to see more of `lisp for numerical methods' (which is my need) or general `lisp for getting the job done' (where job is whatever you would use any other language to do).
Johan Kullstam <kulls...@ne.mediaone.net> writes: > AI being clearly not the only application of lisp, and, as you point > out, arguably not the most successful application of lisp. there are > a few general lisp books (like graham's duo).
> i'd like to see more of `lisp for numerical methods' (which is my > need) or general `lisp for getting the job done' (where job is > whatever you would use any other language to do).
Well said! I'm in AI, and I now need books on how to do other things in lisp. Because AI is starting to rely on an ever larger set of techniques and competencies. A short while back it looked like I'd be writing an interface to LAPACK, but that did not turn out to be necessary. For now at least. I'm sure some time in the future the need will crop up again and I will have to do this.
I had also found some software to do basic multi-variate spectral analysis but I simply do not know enough about the subject.
Johan Kullstam wrote: > i don't want to start a religious campaign. my only point was that > the non-AI applications of lisp seem to take a back seat in people's > conciousness.
Including some vendors :-(
-- Fernando D. Mato Mira Real-Time SW Eng & Networking Advanced Systems Engineering Division CSEM Jaquet-Droz 1 email: matomira AT acm DOT org CH-2007 Neuchatel tel: +41 (32) 720-5157 Switzerland FAX: +41 (32) 720-5720
Francois-Rene Rideau wrote: > This suggests that people who wish LISP to succeed, instead of > seeing the advent of ad-hoc metaprogramming kluges as done in Perl, > should participate in free LISP software and implementation projects. > If LISP vendors want to win big, they should publish as free software > at least the system infrastructure, > and sell service and possibly peripheral software.
I think the worst thing that could happen to the Lisp community right now would be to fall into the trap that the Smalltalk community has fallen into with Squeak. Smalltalk vendors are withering on the vine while the community rallies around a free implementation that will probably never achieve commercial quality.
Bruce Tobin <bto...@columbus.rr.com> writes: > I think the worst thing that could happen to the Lisp community > right now would be to fall into the trap that the Smalltalk > community has fallen into with Squeak. Smalltalk vendors are > withering on the vine while the community rallies around a free > implementation that will probably never achieve commercial quality.
I do not see this happening. CMUCL is an extremely good public domain implementation, but that does not seem to be taking away business from vendors.
It may be that "relatively free" implementations of Common Lisp (and Scheme) have always been available (KCL was available in 1985, I believe), while the lack of a decent and gratis Smalltalk implementation that make the "Squeak" effect seem bad for vendors.
What about Ada95 then? Did the appearance of GNAT made Ada vendors wither away?
Cheers
-- Marco Antoniotti =========================================== PARADES, Via San Pantaleo 66, I-00186 Rome, ITALY tel. +39 - 06 68 10 03 17, fax. +39 - 06 68 80 79 26 http://www.parades.rm.cnr.it
Bruce Tobin: Smalltalk vendors are withering on the vine while the community rallies around a free implementation that will probably never achieve commercial quality.
Marco Antoniotti: I do not see this happening. CMUCL is an extremely good public domain implementation, but that does not seem to be taking away business from vendors.
The fact that there are free demo/linux versions available from the major vendors suggests that the vendors don't think that even really good free implementations are bad. Attracting good young & broke students, programmers, developers, etc. is clearly important for the future success of the language, and MIT 6.001 can't do all that work. Besides, even they are teaching a bit of Java now (see http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~u6001/FT98/). The financial barriers to entry into the LISP world have to be low enough so that we can compete on the merits.
However, I'd like to point out that it is equally important (or perhaps even more so) that *someone* be paid, and paid well, to make "industrial strength" versions of the language. Top notch programming language people are expensive, and I want as many as we can collectively afford to be working on LISP. Moving the language into the future, and even just keeping up with the onslaught of new platforms, standards, functions, etc., that we hardcore users need is not something that is likely to happen for free. Lisp is NOT Linux -- there isn't nearly the motivation nor the broad need driving Lisp development.
I am fortunate enough to have a good size computational budget for my research. I make damn sure that a decent chunk of it goes to LISP vendors because it is important to me that there be LISP vendors. Furthermore, I feel like I get my money's worth, because, unlike with, e.g. CMUCL, I get great help when I run into problems on my slightly out of the mainstream SGI platform, which I stress pretty hard.
Larry
-- Lawrence Hunter, PhD. National Library of Medicine phone: +1 (301) 496-9303 Bldg. 38A, 9th fl, MS-54 fax: +1 (301) 496-0673 Bethesda. MD 20894 USA email: hun...@nlm.nih.gov
> * Kelly Murray <k...@IntelliMarket.Com> > | Looks can be deceptive. One can't define their own stream class and > | standard stream methods that will be called by the lisp when it does > | I/O. Of particular grief is that #'format can't be called with such a > | stream. Or am I just confused and haven't read the manual?
> yes, you are seriously confused and you spread lies and confusion to > others, as well. what you're doing should be illegal. it may well be.
> I do what you say is impossible in a production system.
> | How about this simple CLOS test to add another slot to an existing > | stream. It generates an infinite loop, and quickly kills off the lisp > | entirely. Should I file a bug report, or > | > | USER(2): (defclass mystream (BIDIRECTIONAL-TERMINAL-STREAM) > | ((myslot))) > | #<STANDARD-CLASS MYSTREAM> > | USER(6): (setf x (change-class *standard-output* 'mystream)) > | #<MYSTREAM [initial terminal io] fd 0/1 @ #x200061d2>gc: done > | gc: done > | <<<lisp dies>>>>
> I just tried this in both 4.3.1 on SPARC and 5.0 on Intel/Linux, and > _nothing_ unexpected happened.
> I sincerely think you should stop doing something that clearly creates so > many problems for yourself. instead of being fun and profitable, Common > Lisp is hurtful to you. go do something else and make yourself happy.
> #:Erik
What a retort. The perfect blend of viciousness and humor.
> Erik Naggum wrote: ... > > I sincerely think you should stop doing something that clearly creates so > > many problems for yourself. instead of being fun and profitable, Common > > Lisp is hurtful to you. go do something else and make yourself happy.
> > #:Erik
> What a retort. The perfect blend of viciousness and humor.
You helped me understand how Kent's surprise criterion is more general than Naggum's optimal electronic communication theory.
