> If the above is true[2] (even if only in part) it would help to explain > the *relative* lack of support for the principles of Free software in the > lisp community. I have no idea about the numbers, but I think it's a > safe bet that there is a relationship between the year(s) of origin of a > language and the present day level of support for Free software in that > language's community.
Who are the people who think that free software is beneficial to them? Who are the people who believe that creating free software is beneficial? What are the kinds of software that are created and distibuted for free? How old and mature are the people who want and create free software? Can free software people learn to live with something that is broken, or do they have this _need_ to fix everything that could be improved, given enough free resources? How do people who create and distribute free software pay their bills? What do people who create and distribute free software hope to achieve, if not the recognition that someday results in getting "enough" money?
What if Common Lisp people think of themselves and others in different value terms than young impatient punks who would rather fix something on their own in their own way than ask somebody more competent to do it?
What if the idea that you should modify the source code is an expression of the arrogance of youth that you know everything better than everybody else and that you discover that this is in fact wrong only after you have done a lot of really hard programming so you know that programming is not that simple, easy task, anymore?
What if you discover that getting anything _right_ is so difficult that you actually want to get paid very well if you are among the few can do it? If you are in that position, why would you want to _use_ whatever somebody gives away for free to _everybody_, obviously not realizing its value to either himself or anyone else?
The simple answers that people who generally do not ask hard questions come up with are generally wrong. Free software is the intended solution to a perceived problem. Is the problem real? Is the solution able to do something about it? Once it has been tried for a while, has anything actually _changed_? These are uncomfortable questions. They should have been asked long ago.
I think the lack of interest in free software in the Common Lisp world is a sign that Common Lisp people value their time. This could be true for such a simple reason as their higher age than those who get excited by the next new language to reinvent everything from scratch. It could also be because Common Lisp attracts people who have become seriously tired of all the bad languages out there that offer nothing but more work to solve the same old problems. ///
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes: > [...] > What do people who create and distribute free software hope to achieve, > if not the recognition that someday results in getting "enough" money?
Of your various questions, I liked this one best. The strange hiding of the inevitable, as if the cloak you dress it up in makes it any different.
> What if Common Lisp people think of themselves and others in different > value terms than young impatient punks who would rather fix something on > their own in their own way than ask somebody more competent to do it?
Or, just to be general here, and 'accidentally' to omit charged terms that only distract from the point, "impatient people of any kind" ...?
> What if the idea that you should modify the source code is an expression > of the arrogance of youth that you know everything better than everybody > else and that you discover that this is in fact wrong only after you have > done a lot of really hard programming so you know that programming is not > that simple, easy task, anymore?
Good point. Source reveals a great many things but one thing it doesn't reveal, except in those rare cases someone takes the time to put it there, are the myriad ways that something was NOT implemented and why. Perhaps in some cases those ways were tried first and were known to have problems.
> What if you discover that getting anything _right_ is so difficult that > you actually want to get paid very well if you are among the few can do > it? If you are in that position, why would you want to _use_ whatever > somebody gives away for free to _everybody_, obviously not realizing its > value to either himself or anyone else?
Not to mention the value of genetic differentiation to society as a whole. Paradoxically, free software both empowers someone to use it but empowers an employer to say "why are you writing a different solution--someone already wrote a way to do that", never questioning whether the existing tool is the only way, the best way, the most resilient way, the fastest way ... oh, I take that back. If you could show it was going to be faster, the employer would probably take that. But probably none of the others. I've been hit with this kind of employer even in Java, where it's not always open source. Suffice that it's adequately cheap and available; that makes a standard these days, especially in the US. It's why McDonald's is the "standard" food. Price it like real food and people might contemplate what they eat, but make it so cheap that it's the obvious choice, and competition based on quality, etc. becomes near irrelevant. (Yes, yes, I'm making vague generalizations here in order to speak statistically; please no specific counterexamples unless they speak equally to statistics.)
> The simple answers that people who generally do not ask hard questions > come up with are generally wrong. Free software is the intended solution > to a perceived problem. Is the problem real? Is the solution able to do > something about it? Once it has been tried for a while, has anything > actually _changed_? These are uncomfortable questions. They should have > been asked long ago.
I'd be content if they were merely "still asked on a regular basis".
> I think the lack of interest in free software in the Common Lisp world is > a sign that Common Lisp people value their time. This could be true for > such a simple reason as their higher age than those who get excited by > the next new language to reinvent everything from scratch. It could also > be because Common Lisp attracts people who have become seriously tired of > all the bad languages out there that offer nothing but more work to solve > the same old problems. ///
Or it could be a proof that in fact the "next new language to reinvent everything from scratch" didn't. Heck, I might use it if it did. They keep leaving out parts, and usually the parts I need. Sigh.
p.s. I feel like Sylvester Stallone in "Demolition Man" for asking, but... "what are the three slashes for?" Is this some promotional deal you did with Jurassic Park III where suddenly, in mid-post, you appear to be clawed away by some prehistoric monster who leaves only slash marks behind? Or is it just, as in Lisp, that you feel somehow when you get to the end of your post, you've left your values far behind? ;-)
> Source reveals a great many things but one thing it doesn't reveal, > except in those rare cases someone takes the time to put it there, > are the myriad ways that something was NOT implemented and why. > Perhaps in some cases those ways were tried first and were known to > have problems.
excellent point!
> Paradoxically, free software both empowers someone to use it but empowers > an employer to say "why are you writing a different solution--someone already > wrote a way to do that", never questioning whether the existing tool is the > only way, the best way, the most resilient way, the fastest way ... oh, I > take that back. If you could show it was going to be faster, the employer > would probably take that. But probably none of the others. I've been hit > with this kind of employer even in Java, where it's not always open source. > Suffice that it's adequately cheap and available; that makes a standard these > days, especially in the US. It's why McDonald's is the "standard" food. > Price it like real food and people might contemplate what they eat, but make > it so cheap that it's the obvious choice, and competition based on quality, > etc. becomes near irrelevant. (Yes, yes, I'm making vague generalizations > here in order to speak statistically; please no specific counterexamples > unless they speak equally to statistics.)
all true, but I'm not sure how this condemns specifically free software (in the GNU "free as in free speach" sense). Microsoft's products are also moderately cheap (or come "free" with the computers) and very, very ubiquitous. let's not go there.
> > The simple answers that people who generally do not ask hard questions > > come up with are generally wrong. Free software is the intended solution > > to a perceived problem. Is the problem real? Is the solution able to do > > something about it? Once it has been tried for a while, has anything > > actually _changed_? These are uncomfortable questions. They should have > > been asked long ago.
> I'd be content if they were merely "still asked on a regular basis".
they are, by many individuals. it's misleading to judge groups by what is visible through the public outlets like, say, Slashdot. let's just say that all top-rate free software people I personally know reasonably well are _not_ drones, and tend to reflect a lot (or at least come out that way in writing, but well...).
I don't really care what a random 19 yr old student hacker thinks -- but those types tend to be the most vocal.
> > ///
> p.s. I feel like Sylvester Stallone in "Demolition Man" for asking, but... > "what are the three slashes for?"
perhaps Erik's been hired by Three Sausages[1]? :)
In article <sfwofpua1w3....@world.std.com>, Kent M Pitman wrote: >Not to mention the value of genetic differentiation to society as a whole. >Paradoxically, free software both empowers someone to use it but empowers >an employer to say "why are you writing a different solution--someone already >wrote a way to do that", never questioning whether the existing tool is the >only way, the best way, the most resilient way, the fastest way ... oh, I
This is not limited to free software, but also to proprietary implementations of standard languages and interfaces.
``Why are you doing it this way, when you could be using some C++ STL gadget?''
``Well, that gadget's design or implementation sucks, that's why!''
But why should the employer not be empowered to question any suspicious occurences of Not Invented Here? Sometimes there isn't a good reason to reinvent something from scratch, yet it's done anyway.
> Lisp grew up in a kind of Socialist era, when The State (the lisp > vendors, i.e., the folks from whom all light and life flowed) was > the power source and The People awaited handouts from the state.
My understanding is that a significant amount of the development of Lisp was literally State funded, either directly, or thru the funding of projects which used Lisp and dedicated resources to improving their tools. Then there was a privatization of the resources that were publically funded, and the burden shifted from the State to private investors. The transfer was reportedly done so that the private investors could take the technology the last few steps from raw techne to commodity, and then provide a finished, useful product.
This understanding is based on second-hand accounts and various histories of the period, as I was not born at the time and could not directly observe this process. The narrative thread running thru this historical account appears to be repeated for various post-war technologies, including the Internet.
> application. Lisp used to try to avoid such redundancy, and I think > some value came of the head start this avoidance offered in getting > people going. But it doesn't scale. Society is a large parallel > processor and it cannot afford to wait for everyone to agree when to > go "ahead", and so "ahead" is a multi-dimensional space in what I > call the democratized universe where it used to be a > single-dimensional space in what I call the fallen socialist state.
Marx and others refered to this democratization as the socialization of the production process, and believed it to be an inevitable trend that laid the foundation for a true international socialism, as opposed to Stalinism, or totalitarian State Socialism. What you are calling "Socialism" is more correctly called Stalinism, which attempted to bypass this socialization of the production process by establishing totalitarian controls over production and distribution.
My issues with your terminology aside, this issue is of central importance for the lisp community and find your characterization of it very useful. Licenses, committees and the like are tools the community can use to deal with the socialization of it's development process such that it can compete with Java and it's ilk.
> I come back to my central anti-panacea pitch: the world is about > tradeoffs. As long as you see them and make them thoughtfully, > you're probably doing ok. As long as you think the tradeoff has > been decided and eliminated and need no longer be thought about it, > you should know you're entering dangerous turf.
Yes. That is called "not thinking".
-- Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> http://www.red-bean.com/~craig The outer space which me wears it has sexual intercourse. - opus
> p.s. I feel like Sylvester Stallone in "Demolition Man" for asking, but... > "what are the three slashes for?"
It is supposed to be a stylized "E" (actually "EN", but that is not quite evident until you see the six-stroke variation).
> Is this some promotional deal you did with Jurassic Park III where > suddenly, in mid-post, you appear to be clawed away by some > prehistoric monster who leaves only slash marks behind?
:D Several other people have commented similarly, but I invented this long before the dinosaurs were even contemplated. I signed off on notes with three slashes many years ago. It seemed appropriate to revive it. (All puns intended.)
> Or is it just, as in Lisp, that you feel somehow when you get to the > end of your post, you've left your values far behind? ;-)
Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> writes: > Marx and others refered to this democratization as the > socialization of the production process, and believed it to be an > inevitable trend that laid the foundation for a true international > socialism, as opposed to Stalinism, or totalitarian State Socialism. > What you are calling "Socialism" is more correctly called Stalinism, > which attempted to bypass this socialization of the production process > by establishing totalitarian controls over production and > distribution.
Sorry for the sloppy terminology and thanks for the clarification of this area of history, which I've never delved heavily into, mostly for lack of time rather than lack of interest.
(I say this while at the same time lamenting that correct usage probably obfuscates the point in the face of a population who probably, like me, is equally uninformed. I have a similar problem with the term "schizo(phrenic)", which is used by so many people informally to mean "multiple personality" that I think the scientific community ought to, like Kleenex and Xerox, give up the hopeless quest of correcting people's determined misuse of certain now-common names and instead make a new and different term to be newly precise.)
> My issues with your terminology aside, this issue is of central > importance for the lisp community and find your characterization of it > very useful. Licenses, committees and the like are tools the community > can use to deal with the socialization of it's development process > such that it can compete with Java and it's ilk.
"its ilk" (sorry, couldn't resist the humor in pursuing a hopeless quest to correct determined misuse of a now-common spelling :-)
If you wanted to expand a little more on the last sentence (using the spelling of your choice), I'd be interested for an elaboration of what you were getting at. I personally see committees (by which I hear standards committees, for obvious reasons of my background, though maybe you mean some other kind) as synchronization tools and suitable only for elective groups, not for the society as a whole. Licenses I see not as tools of policy but tools of implementation. So to me committees and licenses are of different ilk and are uncomfortable bonded by "and" without exposition as to what they are doing hand in hand. Hence my request for elaboration.
> > Assuming that when Lisp was 'born' society was generally more > > conservative[1],
> I'd be extremely curious to know, in spite of your footnote, what > characterizes such conservatism. I understand conservatism in the US > political system to mean "adhering to a strict reading of the constitution", > but in the absence of a constitution-analog to read strictly, I'm less sure > what it might mean. I don't mean to suggest that you mean nothing, only > that I'm baffled by what you might mean.
I can use 'conservative' to refer (for example) to groupings in the US, the old Soviet Union, Revolutionary Iran, or modern Israel. The members of these groups entertain radically different (and mutually incompatible) political ideologies. They also share certain features which justify the label.
'Conservative' can refer to a mindset. If I confronted a conservative from one of these groupings with accusations of police brutality by the system they support, a typical reaction will be to focus on the *victim's* misdeeds, which unleashed the brutality. The victim was a junkie, an enemy of the state/reactionary, infidel or terrorist.
Chauvinists (another type of conservative) typically focus on rape victim's behaviour, clothing, etc. *Note: I'm not saying these chauvinists are rapists. They don't have to be. Criminals do it for them*
The feature these groups share, consciously or not, is the attitude "I'm on top, and I'm staying there." With the possible exception of Israel, which has the excuse of a recent historical trauma associated with 'not being on top', and which may have good reason to fear relinquishing control, the conservative mindset is ethically wrong.
Conservatives generally do not recognise situations as being ethical choices, but as being 'it was me or him'[1]. And Kent, an ethical choice is just that - a *choice* - You choose, and accept the consequences, otherwise its not ethics, but pragmatism. There's no certainty that you make the right decision.
When Lisp was 'young', people: were generally more trusting of authority; had a more naive belief in the ability of science to yield progress; had a blinder faith in progress; and accepted the status quo to a greater extent than in the late sixties/early seventies. I speculate that such attitudes filtering down through the years are reflected in the *relative* lack of support, amongst Common Lispers, for Free software, which is perceived as undermining authority, quality, and motivation to work, and the economic structure which supports programmers. In fact, hang 'em high!! its ... terrorism!!!![2]
Regards, Peter
[1] A true 'me or him' situation is not an ethical dilemma. However, such a situation only arises when your life is threatened, not your priviledges.
[2] The jailing of Skylarov by Adobe and the US is proof that the police-brutality metaphor is not too far fetched. That behaviour is fucking evil.
> (I say this while at the same time lamenting that correct usage > probably obfuscates the point in the face of a population who > probably, like me, is equally uninformed. I have a similar problem > with the term "schizo(phrenic)", which is used by so many people > informally to mean "multiple personality" that I think the scientific > community ought to, like Kleenex and Xerox, give up the hopeless quest > of correcting people's determined misuse of certain now-common names > and instead make a new and different term to be newly precise.)
No way, uh-uh. As a science student, I'd be horrified if biologists decided to give up on the terms "Darwinism", "Natural Selection", and, most poignantly, "Survival of the Fittest", just because of the sloppy, and often 180-degree wrong use of these terms in the vulgar language. Once we start heading down this path, it will make it impossible to talk about anything that's generally misunderstood. And if it's a concept that the vast population knows about, or thinks they do, and completely misunderstands, it's probably a very important one for scientists to be able to talk about clearly, precisely, and exactly.
In fact, didn't you just recently cite a paper of your own defending Lisp terminology from perverted usage in other programming communities :)? (I think that's what you were saying in it, I read it a couple years ago). Better to keep the misunderstood terms, and to be aware of whom you're talking to so as to understand what they're trying to convey when they use them. And when you want to use the misunderstood term, accompany it with a brief explanatory caveat.
(Hey, I'm pretty pleased with myself for managing to wander that back on-topic ;)
Peter Wood <peter.w...@worldonline.dk> writes: > When Lisp was 'young', people: were generally more trusting of > authority; had a more naive belief in the ability of science to yield > progress; had a blinder faith in progress; and accepted the status quo > to a greater extent than in the late sixties/early seventies.
Although you couch this belief in scientific and technological progress in quite negative phraseology (an unfortunate hallmark of the middle classes in our era), I was about to make a similar point in response to your earlier post. The lisp community is *definitely* technophilic, at least in its problem domain. And that feature appeals to adherents to all Marx-derived (or partially Marx-derived) strains of Socialism. All strains of Marxist (or "Scientific") Socialism are based on the idea that capitalism will develop (or already has) technology allowing production to increase the point that scarcity can be eliminated, and all of class society along with it. And that's a fundementally technophilic politics, because it's advanced technology that makes this historical epoch unique in being the first time in history that transition to a classless society would be possible.
Which is hardly to suggest that *in fact* the Lisp community is full of Reds. But in the course of telling others around me how wonderful Lisp is, the only converts I've made were Socialists of some sort or other.
Peter Wood <peter.w...@worldonline.dk> writes: > When Lisp was 'young', people: were generally more trusting of > authority;
Actually, when Lisp was young, software was free. Most of us barely thought to copyright the code we wrote. A few companies did. But college students never did. We shared code freely and it was shared back with us. And we rejoiced in a euphoria that came from that free sharing, the equitable meritocracy it made us feel like we had built, and the wonders of all we had built and would build. Then one day, the euphoria disappeared and we found that no one wanted to fund us any more. We had never planned for that day and found ourselves economically disempowered to regain our stride. Many of us had to work for others and looked back on all the value we had built in the past and said "doesn't that count for anything?" But it didn't. None of it counted for anything except for the people smart enough to have arranged to make money off of it. The rest of us just had warm fuzzies to live on until, very slowly, we have eeked our way back onto our feet.
The original Maclisp manual, not a piece of software but a book, I wrote for the community. I later could have used the money that came of it but at the time no one at MIT stopped to tell me how much they made on it, nor did they feel any shame saying "just write 'Copyright MIT' here." when they "helpfully" published it for me (as if another publishing company would not). It made two full press runs and I didn't see a dime. A couple years back, I went begging to MIT just for historical value to reclaim the copyright and recovered the right to republish it myself free as long as I still credit MIT for owning the copyright. You could say this was the evil of copyright working against me, but it wasn't--it was my stupidity in not realizing *I* could have claimed copyright and *I* could have mde money. I wrote that document laregly on my own time, no one paid me for it. It was rightly mine. But I was taught that sharing was good and money was bad. (As an amusing aside, I have to thank Rod Brooks for having the kindness to write a nice letter to MIT saying, in so many words, that everything I'd ever done was now commercially worthless, in order to ease my re-obtaining the legal rights to my old papers and that manual. :-)
And then I worked for years at MIT instead of going out into business like all my friends. Many are millionaires now, and most are at least much more well off financially than me. I personally felt bad for MIT that everyone had left and I stayed "to help out" for several critical years. Did it make a difference to MIT that I was there? I doubt it? Would it have made a difference to me to have the commercial money I could have made during the AI boom of the early 80's? You bet.
And now we are told by a new generation of people that (a) we are stingy and have never understood the value of sharing and (b) if only we would relinquish our obviously wrong-headed quest for power, we would experience true success.
All in all, I'd rather have a bologna sandwich. I can eat that.
I rather prefer Erik Naggum's summary, which suggests (paraphrasing) that headstrong youth (often still funded by parents), people funded by socialist governments, and people who are willing to take vows of poverty can get by on free software, but the rest of us need to eat, to plan for rainy days and retirement, to plan for personal autonomy and the commercially funded vision that comes with treating software as if it had value.
> had a more naive belief in the ability of science to yield > progress;
Yes, we had this. This is what led us to go with free software originally.
> had a blinder faith in progress;
Yes, this is what allowed us to let someone else control the money originally.
> and accepted the status quo
Yes, but that status quo was free software
> to a greater extent than in the late sixties/early seventies.
Oh, I'm talking late 70's onward. I can't speak to before that other than to say that when I arrived at MIT in 1977, the culture I'm talking about was well-entrenched by people older than I.
> I speculate that such attitudes filtering down through the years are > reflected in the *relative* lack of support, amongst Common Lispers, > for Free software,
No, this doesn't ring true.
I don't think the path has been monotonic.
I think there have been lessons learned and potentially lost.
I do think there's some resistance to change, but not all of it is due to the mere fact of change. Some of it is an understanding of the value of what we had before. Some of it is a recognition that change often moves cyclically, and the longer you've been around the more cycles you recognized. I'll give some examples.
I think the original Lisp predicate was COND [more of a case-like thing, really]. But eventually it was encapsulated as IF, and some people I know thought IF so cool (for lack of extra parens) that they converted all their code. Others "stubbornly" stuck with COND. Of the IF fanatics, some eventually found the rightward indentation problem of heavily nested IF a pain and "re"discovered COND.
Originally, too, there were single user computers. Then someone invented time-sharing to better use excess compute power. Then people invented the notion of single-user machines. This "new" invention must have been a laugh to pre-timesharing mainframe users of yore. Even so, these single user machines eventually became so powerful that they've spawned "multi-user" workstation configurations.
I've also seen cycles in client-side euphoria (look at all the extra compute power in people's living rooms, let's use it) or server-side (get that stupid computer out of your living room, why not take advantage of the power in our central office). Voice mail went that way, too, with everyone having a box in their living room to centralized boxes that you just dial up. One of these days, when all the boxes are gone from your living room, someone will "invent" home phone machines anew and tell you how much more private they are (no messages held by third parties) or how much more customizable.
So when someone talks about the novelty of free software and us old-timers who have just not lived it--well, no, this doesn't ring true. We didn't have the specific notions of free software you have now. But we did have a community that traded a lot, and that Richard Stallman was happy to call himself a part of. I've been there.
> which is perceived as undermining authority,
I think if you had the patience to do so, you could go back and see how many times I have answered a question about conformance to standards, goodness for community, etc. with qualifying words like "Just because I was a member of the committee doesn't make my opinion any more valid than anyone else's." or "Your mileage may vary." or "JMO/just my opinion". I think it's a lot. Some of us are, or try to be, guardians of historical fact (or historical reasonable approximation). But we rarely profess to know what is right. We do profess to have ideas and thoughts which we offer with associated justifications and backgrouind, and we allow you to decide. All in all, I think we're not guilty on the "rejecting our authority" claim, though.
> quality, and motivation to work, and the economic structure which > supports programmers.
These are our experiences, not our theories. You are free to reject them. But if you contest our credentials we will cite them, and if you claim they have no legitimacy we will challenge your credentials to have any firmer opinion than our own. That is not an authority issue. That is simple debate.
In fact, hang 'em high!! its
> ... terrorism!!!![2]
> Regards, > Peter
> [1] A true 'me or him' situation is not an ethical dilemma. However, > such a situation only arises when your life is threatened, not > your priviledges.
THere were two reference points for [1] in your article. This confused me for a while.
Even with the right reference point, I don't understand the me-or-him reference. I almost fear to ask, since it looks like it will be a useless subthread, but...
> [2] The jailing of Skylarov by Adobe and the US is proof that the > police-brutality metaphor is not too far fetched. That behaviour > is fucking evil.
> > [...] > > What do people who create and distribute free software hope to achieve, > > if not the recognition that someday results in getting "enough" money?
> Of your various questions, I liked this one best. The strange hiding of > the inevitable, as if the cloak you dress it up in makes it any different.
Well, there's also the attempt to gain recognition and increased status (says the non-CS major who's embarked on a significant project purely for the research paper he can get out of it, thinking he may want to go to CS grad school in a few years -- who's gonna release it as Free Software, hoping that will make it better known / more widely used, thus more useful to point to :)
t...@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
> In fact, didn't you just recently cite a paper of your own defending > Lisp terminology from perverted usage in other programming communities > :)?
Well, the paper didn't make the point that what the others were doing would not succeed. The paper made the point that if Lisp people didn't work hard to keep the terminology changes from happening, they would succeed. In human language, at least, the meaning of language goes to the speakers, not to the dictinoarymakers. They just write down what people are saying, so they say.
> (I think that's what you were saying in it, I read it a couple > years ago). Better to keep the misunderstood terms, and to be aware > of whom you're talking to so as to understand what they're trying to > convey when they use them. And when you want to use the misunderstood > term, accompany it with a brief explanatory caveat.
Oh, ok. I admit I was being a bit flippant. This may be more practical.
Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes: > Who are the people who think that free software is beneficial to them?
Users of emacs, make, bash, apache... all over the world.
> Who are the people who believe that creating free software is beneficial?
See above
> What are the kinds of software that are created and distibuted for free?
Editors, utilities, shells, http servers.
> How old and mature are the people who want and create free software?
As old and mature as you or me. Richard S. Stallman comes to my mind.
> How do people who create and distribute free software pay their bills?
Just like you and me. They have works.
> What do people who create and distribute free software hope to achieve, > if not the recognition that someday results in getting "enough" money?
I don't think Stallman (and many others) does it "for the money".
> What if you discover that getting anything _right_ is so difficult that > you actually want to get paid very well if you are among the few can do > it? If you are in that position, why would you want to _use_ whatever > somebody gives away for free to _everybody_, obviously not realizing its > value to either himself or anyone else?
I can see in your message headers this:
User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7
Why do you use Emacs? It's obiously free software. Gnus is free software too. Didn't you know?
What do you do if you find an annoying bug in emacs?
a) Send a bug report and a patch b) Patch it only for yourself c) Stand the bug
Only 'a' seems non-idiot to me
I can't see why do you use free software and at the same time you see so angry about it. Sure that there are a lot of "young punks" on sourceforge doing an incredible amount of work for nothing. But you *should* know that they aren't anywhere. Any succesfull free software project has a supporting community around it (emacs, apache, linux) or/and big companies behind them.
You should read/investigate more about free software
> > [2] The jailing of Skylarov by Adobe and the US is proof that the > > police-brutality metaphor is not too far fetched. That behaviour > > is fucking evil.
> Sorry, not familiar with ref [2].
Dimitri Sklyerov is a Russian programmer who developed a piece of software for a Russian software company, that circumvents the copy protection in one of Adobe's products. Someone told me (though I can't remember who, so it may have been anyone from an ACLU lawyer to a maniac in People's Park) that Russian law requires that consumers have the ability to make backup copies of information they buy (CDs, electronic books, whatever), and this allowed that. He was in the US giving a speech, and was arrested, and charges filed against him under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (who named that??? -- do we now live in the Digital Millennium???). The EFF has a FAQ: <http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html>
It's rather appalling, but exactly what one would expect from imperialism.
Peter Wood wrote: > If the above is true[2] (even if only in part) it would help to explain > the *relative* lack of support for the principles of Free software in > the lisp community. I have no idea about the numbers, but I think > it's a safe bet that there is a relationship between the year(s) of > origin of a language and the present day level of support for Free > software in that language's community. ... > [2] And I'm not sure it is. I'm speculating. And not suggesting that > its the only factor.
I'm not convinced there's a lack of support for the principles of Free software in the Lisp community. Consider CLISP and CMU CL, for instance. Or cCLan or whatever it's called. Are you sure what you're seeing isn't just that Kent and Erik aren't fans of "Free Software"?
It certainly doesn't look to me as if the Lisp community is any less pro-free-software than, say, the C and C++ communities. (Though those are much less well defined.)
-- Gareth McCaughan Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com .sig under construc
> > What if the idea that you should modify the source code is an expression > > of the arrogance of youth that you know everything better than everybody > > else and that you discover that this is in fact wrong only after you have > > done a lot of really hard programming so you know that programming is not > > that simple, easy task, anymore?
> Good point. Source reveals a great many things but one thing it > doesn't reveal, except in those rare cases someone takes the time to > put it there, are the myriad ways that something was NOT implemented > and why. Perhaps in some cases those ways were tried first and were > known to have problems.
So true, and I think understated. I'm sure the majority of difficult and subtle algorithms represent some amount of trial and error. I always try to reflect that in comments especially when a more obvious but subtley wrong approach would likely pop into a future developers mind.
I got that way by being bitten "fixing" someone elses "convoluted" code...oops...there *was* a reason.....
> > What if you discover that getting anything _right_ is so difficult that > > you actually want to get paid very well if you are among the few can do > > it? If you are in that position, why would you want to _use_ whatever > > somebody gives away for free to _everybody_, obviously not realizing its > > value to either himself or anyone else?
> Not to mention the value of genetic differentiation to society as a whole. > Paradoxically, free software both empowers someone to use it but empowers > an employer to say "why are you writing a different solution--someone already > wrote a way to do that", never questioning whether the existing tool is the > only way, the best way, the most resilient way, the fastest way ... oh, I > take that back. If you could show it was going to be faster, the employer > would probably take that. But probably none of the others. I've been hit > with this kind of employer even in Java, where it's not always open source. > Suffice that it's adequately cheap and available; that makes a standard these > days, especially in the US. It's why McDonald's is the "standard" food. > Price it like real food and people might contemplate what they eat, but make > it so cheap that it's the obvious choice, and competition based on quality, > etc. becomes near irrelevant. (Yes, yes, I'm making vague generalizations > here in order to speak statistically; please no specific counterexamples > unless they speak equally to statistics.)
> > The simple answers that people who generally do not ask hard questions > > come up with are generally wrong. Free software is the intended solution > > to a perceived problem. Is the problem real? Is the solution able to do > > something about it? Once it has been tried for a while, has anything > > actually _changed_? These are uncomfortable questions. They should have > > been asked long ago.
> I'd be content if they were merely "still asked on a regular basis".
> > I think the lack of interest in free software in the Common Lisp world is > > a sign that Common Lisp people value their time. This could be true for > > such a simple reason as their higher age than those who get excited by > > the next new language to reinvent everything from scratch. It could also > > be because Common Lisp attracts people who have become seriously tired of > > all the bad languages out there that offer nothing but more work to solve > > the same old problems. ///
> Or it could be a proof that in fact the "next new language to reinvent > everything from scratch" didn't. Heck, I might use it if it did. They > keep leaving out parts, and usually the parts I need. Sigh.
> p.s. I feel like Sylvester Stallone in "Demolition Man" for asking, but... > "what are the three slashes for?" Is this some promotional deal you > did with Jurassic Park III where suddenly, in mid-post, you appear > to be clawed away by some prehistoric monster who leaves only slash > marks behind? Or is it just, as in Lisp, that you feel somehow when > you get to the end of your post, you've left your values far behind? > ;-)
On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Kent M Pitman wrote: > Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes:
> > [...] > > What do people who create and distribute free software hope to achieve, > > if not the recognition that someday results in getting "enough" money?
> Of your various questions, I liked this one best. The strange hiding of > the inevitable, as if the cloak you dress it up in makes it any different.
I don't even see this as a question; it's really a simple statement of fact. One of the main drivers of free software involvement, as noted by Eric Raymond, is status. If that status results in a tasty job, what's the problem? This is hardly a chilling indictment of free software.
> > What if the idea that you should modify the source code is an expression > > of the arrogance of youth that you know everything better than everybody > > else and that you discover that this is in fact wrong only after you have > > done a lot of really hard programming so you know that programming is not > > that simple, easy task, anymore?
> Good point. Source reveals a great many things but one thing it > doesn't reveal, except in those rare cases someone takes the time to > put it there, are the myriad ways that something was NOT implemented > and why. Perhaps in some cases those ways were tried first and were > known to have problems.
If it is an expression of the arrogance of youth, then I've never grown up. Conversely, as a sometime open-source author I wouldn't assume that my code as written is fit for all purposes ever imagined and not.
> > What if you discover that getting anything _right_ is so difficult that > > you actually want to get paid very well if you are among the few can do > > it? If you are in that position, why would you want to _use_ whatever > > somebody gives away for free to _everybody_, obviously not realizing its > > value to either himself or anyone else?
The value of something and the supposed value put on it by its author may not be the same thing at all. On the other hand, the author may very well realize its value and be seeking to increase its value by giving it away. This doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with wether or not you've achieved the apotheosis of programming skill or not.
> > I think the lack of interest in free software in the Common Lisp world is > > a sign that Common Lisp people value their time. This could be true for > > such a simple reason as their higher age than those who get excited by > > the next new language to reinvent everything from scratch. It could also > > be because Common Lisp attracts people who have become seriously tired of > > all the bad languages out there that offer nothing but more work to solve > > the same old problems. ///
> Or it could be a proof that in fact the "next new language to reinvent > everything from scratch" didn't. Heck, I might use it if it did. They > keep leaving out parts, and usually the parts I need. Sigh.
There are Lispers who are vary interested in free software, and there always have been. To pick one tiny example, CMU Common Lisp's ancestor Spice Lisp has always been in the public domain and formed the basis for at least two commercial Common Lisp implementations that I know of. Maybe those Lispers just haven't learned the value of their time?
> > My issues with your terminology aside, this issue is of central > > importance for the lisp community and find your characterization > > of it very useful. Licenses, committees and the like are tools the > > community can use to deal with the socialization of it's > > development process such that it can compete with Java and it's > > ilk.
> "its ilk" (sorry, couldn't resist the humor in pursuing a hopeless > quest to correct determined misuse of a now-common spelling :-)
That rule always gets me when my vigilance falters. There is a difference tho. "its vs. it's" does not have the rhetorical baggage of words like Socialist, Totalitarian and the like.
> If you wanted to expand a little more on the last sentence (using > the spelling of your choice), I'd be interested for an elaboration > of what you were getting at. I personally see committees (by which > I hear standards committees, for obvious reasons of my background, > though maybe you mean some other kind) as synchronization tools and > suitable only for elective groups, not for the society as a whole.
I was thinking of something more akin to working committees, which helped to communicate and document common practice in the field. They can have a synchronizing aspect as well, and since I would consider the Lisp community an elective group, that aspect is useful for our purposes. The synchronization can be carried out with varying levels of formality and beaurocracy. An informal example would be the obligatory mailing list for nearly any software tool, or socially recognized problem domain.
> Licenses I see not as tools of policy but tools of implementation.
I don't know the difference between policy and implementation that you are talking about here.
> So to me committees and licenses are of different ilk and are > uncomfortable bonded by "and" without exposition as to what they are > doing hand in hand. Hence my request for elaboration.
The fruits of working commitees (perhaps working groups is a more common term) and liberally licensed implementations of their policies are all around us, and are a large part of what facilitates this conversation. These tools go hand in hand. The IETF, the SRFIs for the scheme community tie policy and implementation together.
"We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." David Clark (MIT).
> > Assuming that when Lisp was 'born' society was generally more > > conservative[1],
> I'd be extremely curious to know, in spite of your footnote, what > characterizes such conservatism. I understand conservatism in the US > political system to mean "adhering to a strict reading of the constitution", > but in the absence of a constitution-analog to read strictly, I'm less sure > what it might mean. I don't mean to suggest that you mean nothing, only > that I'm baffled by what you might mean.
The way I've come to understand these terms, conservatism originally meant a reluctance to accept change; the opposite of progressive. Liberalism meant promoting those changes which increased individual liberty.
In the USA, the words conservative and liberal have been corrupted/co-opted (especially 'liberal'). A conservative, while still resistant to change, supports individual economic freedom but has a tendency to want to control what you think (because it's good for you). A liberal usually supports freedom of thought/action (but regard 'politically correct' groupthink!), but wants to control individual economic choice through planning and redistribution (because it's good for you).
The writers of the US Constitution were progressive liberals in the traditional sense. Current followers of the Constitution could be termed conservative liberals!
> > Perhaps the 'face of it' is wrong. In the Eastern 'guru' traditions, > > a disciple must accept *everything* the guru says, and this is > > believed to improve the learning process. Maybe the Eastern way just > > formalises the principle that learning is imitation (in the > > beginning). Perhaps the more conservative[1] attitudes of the > > original Lispers have filtered down to today's (yesterday's ? ;-) ) > > lispers.
Most likely to avoid the aggravation of rash young apprentices arguing with the master years before they had the depth to understand what he was really about! (This is also true for apprentice boatwrights.)
> It wasn't obvious to me if the guru thing was an example of conservatism > or nonconservatism, or if it was orthogonal (which I think it is). > I tend to largely reject the term "guru" for myself and anyone I respect; > I sometimes use it in cocktail party conversation for want of a more pithy > term, but in serious discussion I find it means "imitate without > understanding", and my anti-panacea campaign says it's fine to imitate, > but you must understand.
Most 'gurus' prove to have feet of clay. The term also seems to be used by management or marketing to refer to technical people as it has a shade of denigration associated with it.
> I come back to my central anti-panacea pitch: the world is about tradeoffs. > As long as you see them and make them thoughtfully, you're probably > doing ok. As long as you think the tradeoff has been decided and eliminated > and need no longer be thought about it, you should know you're entering > dangerous turf.
Forget it, a LispOS hasn't a chance of succeeding.
> > > [2] The jailing of Skylarov by Adobe and the US is proof that the > > > police-brutality metaphor is not too far fetched. That behaviour > > > is fucking evil.
> > Sorry, not familiar with ref [2].
> Dimitri Sklyerov is a Russian programmer who developed a piece of > software for a Russian software company, that circumvents the copy > protection in one of Adobe's products. Someone told me (though I > can't remember who, so it may have been anyone from an ACLU lawyer to > a maniac in People's Park) that Russian law requires that consumers > have the ability to make backup copies of information they buy (CDs, > electronic books, whatever), and this allowed that. He was in the US > giving a speech, and was arrested, and charges filed against him under > the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (who named that??? -- do we now > live in the Digital Millennium???).
It means 'We've got your number, and we'll keep it for 1000 years.'
> > (I say this while at the same time lamenting that correct usage > > probably obfuscates the point in the face of a population who > > probably, like me, is equally uninformed. I have a similar problem > > with the term "schizo(phrenic)", which is used by so many people > > informally to mean "multiple personality" that I think the scientific > > community ought to, like Kleenex and Xerox, give up the hopeless quest > > of correcting people's determined misuse of certain now-common names > > and instead make a new and different term to be newly precise.)
> No way, uh-uh. As a science student, I'd be horrified if biologists > decided to give up on the terms "Darwinism", "Natural Selection", and, > most poignantly, "Survival of the Fittest", just because of the > sloppy, and often 180-degree wrong use of these terms in the vulgar > language.
Wandering a bit off-topic for c.l.l., but ...
You imply that science is truly objective in its use of language. That's not necessarily so. Especially in the realm of psychiatry, the distinctions between medicine and socio-political issues are blurred. Diagnostic labels (often, but not always, unintentionally) carry strong socio-political overtones.
That these terms should change when they no longer match the socio-political climate of the day is quite understandable. Eg, homosexuals, once thought to be morally degenerate, mentally ill and socially unfit today enjoy the same legal rights and social / professional respect as other citizens. In past times, it was common to find homosexuality described in crypto-medical jargon that was leavily laden with value judgement masquerading as science. IMHO, these recent changes have been changes for the better.
Changes are not always for the better, of course. IMO, the changing terminology often does more harm than good to the 'afflicted'.
Eg. a few decades ago, a person who was coldly aloof, unfriendly, solitary-by-choice, prone to interests in matters that are 'remote' to others (mathematics? science? philosophy?), was not necessarily assumed to be "ill". Today he's likely to be given the much more impressive pseudo-medical label "Schizoid Personality Disorder", which pretty much implies he's somehow 'defective'. Whether he is or not ;-)
IMHO, we're seeing this more and more, and it is NOT a good thing: statistically unusual behaviour or personality traits are subsumed by 'diseases' or 'disorders', which may or may not have some biological basis. Right now, no concrete evidence of biological anomaly is even necessary to formally define an individual as being diseased or defective. The political implications of this fact are too seldom discussed, especially in the medical fraternity.
It's almost a cliche now, but it's worth repeating. Many of the most influential people in history would not have survived a DSM-IV classification unscathed. Our culture would be sadly impoverished if their 'disorders' had been medicalised and 'treated'.
In a nutshell, my point is this: There is a lot of political power in scientific language. It's very dangerous to forget it.
Tim Moore <mo...@herschel.bricoworks.com> writes: > If that status results in a tasty job, what's > the problem? This is hardly a chilling indictment of free software.
It's the debate opposition here that keeps trying to paint me as making chilling indictments. That's not my intent.
I was just indirectly addressing the view of some (not all) free software advocates that "(pursuit of) money is bad", which seems to be why they like free software. It seems to, for them, promote some sort of socialist goal. In that light, and for those people, the pursuit of fame and fortune that results indirectly rather than directly from software seems out of line. That doesn't make it inconsistent with free software, and wasn't intended to. It's just an observation.
Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> writes: > I was thinking of something more akin to working committees, which > helped to communicate and document common practice in the field. They > can have a synchronizing aspect as well, and since I would consider > the Lisp community an elective group, that aspect is useful for our > purposes. The synchronization can be carried out with varying levels > of formality and beaurocracy. An informal example would be the > obligatory mailing list for nearly any software tool, or socially > recognized problem domain.
> > Licenses I see not as tools of policy but tools of implementation.
> I don't know the difference between policy and implementation that you > are talking about here.
You could argue that the X3J13 committee held back Lisp development for many years due to everyone waiting for the resulting resynch. You could even argue it holds things back now since many people seem to be waiting for a reprise of the same style of evolution, rather than evolution in some new form. But you don't mean a community-wide thing like that, which is why you're probably confused as to my meaning and why I asked you to clarify. Thanks.
Gareth.McCaug...@pobox.com (Gareth McCaughan) writes: > Peter Wood wrote:
> > If the above is true[2] (even if only in part) it would help to explain > > the *relative* lack of support for the principles of Free software in > > the lisp community. I have no idea about the numbers, but I think > > it's a safe bet that there is a relationship between the year(s) of > > origin of a language and the present day level of support for Free > > software in that language's community. > ... > > [2] And I'm not sure it is. I'm speculating. And not suggesting that > > its the only factor.
> I'm not convinced there's a lack of support for the principles > of Free software in the Lisp community. Consider CLISP and > CMU CL, for instance. Or cCLan or whatever it's called. > Are you sure what you're seeing isn't just that Kent and > Erik aren't fans of "Free Software"?
> It certainly doesn't look to me as if the Lisp community > is any less pro-free-software than, say, the C and C++ > communities. (Though those are much less well defined.)
You may be right, and the large amount of good-quality free software in other languages may simply be due to the larger size of these language communities. I was speculating, with the hope of seeing what others think about this issue. I think that worked.
