Maybe there's some code that at one point was FOSS in those products, but the products themselves are nor Free.
IMHO a code base that has been forked from a FOSS project cannot be considered FOSS itself even if they keep retrofitting changes back to the original, because you cannot know what is there in the proprietary part. This is specially true if you distribute the derivative product only in binary form.
The trademarked Chrome distribution is built from the free Chromium, where main-line development is done. They don't dump changes over the wall like you're suggesting. That's the same for WebKit and Firefox.
Really, hell banned? Go figure. I assume you at least can still read me.
BSD and MIT licenses are Open Source but not Free, they are more concerned with providing a claim of ownership to the author than with the freedom of the user.
LGPL is a backdoor to let Free Software interact with non Free Software, which is a good thing too. If your product uses Free Libraries, no big deal, the more the merrier. But you cannot claim it is also Free y proxy.
> Really, hell banned? Go figure. I assume you at least can still read me.
Look at threads you've commented in in your browser's incognito mode to see how your comments are invisible (Not this one, I've vouched for you which makes them visible, and some others have been vouched for.)
Your comments have been hidden by default to all users except those that chose to view them like me since September 2017. That's why so few people reply to you. You've been talking into a void. Don't know what you did back then to piss someone off!
I do teach at high school level and, in general, I am unimpressed by what the current generation of education tech brings to the table. Most of them do the same stuff as the tools available 15-20 years ago (Microsoft Office, Skype, Moodle), only more clumsily/slowly and with more dependencies.
If school administration were to save money using subsidized Chromebooks, they could save even more money by stubbornly remaining in the paper age. Teachers would be happier too, and students would at the very least be not worse off; I am even willing to say that they would be forced to learn analog skills that are desperately needed nowadays.
In short, I do not buy that it is lack of options that force schools to buy those products. It is the evil wizardry called "Marketing" that bewitch school administrators and prevent them to see the options in front of their noses.
That's what we do nowadays, is it? Somebody walks and say something against our preferred political ideology and we throw vague threats of ruining that person's life with false accusations?
Like that guy who ran for president with vague threats of not accepting the outcome if he would lose. And then when they lost not accepting the outcome and making up a bunch of stories about wide-spread fraud?
If you were implying that I'd actually accuse anyone of doing stuff to kids, you throughly misunderstood the content of my comment.
The "two corners of the White House" part is totally in line with the "heads on pikes". It is all part of the same figure of speech.
The part everybody is missing is "I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England", which provides the context to understand the stuff people is having a meltdown about. This is not "heads on pikes" by a bunch of salvages; it is "heads on pikes" as part of the official policy of an absolutist State.
The way I read it, Bannon said: "I would have them face the death penalty, if there was a legal way to do so. And I would use their cases as deterrence from other would be traitors."
I don't see it as a call to have civilian supporters attempting against the lives of those two high ranking officials; but could be interpreted as a declaration of intent to pursue and extend draconian powers for the (Executive Branch of the) US Government. I will let you decide which of the two interpretation is gravest.
On the other hand, your insurance company would have strictly (and wisely, IMHO) defined how many millions worth of chemo your $500/month plan will buy you, or specifically what kinds of treatments will it pay for, and at what rates.
So, if you run into a "miracle doctor" that will charge you $1,000,000 per dose of their "miracle medicine" that "wipes away cancer, like, forever", the reasons why your claim will be denied are already stated clearly in the small print of your contract.
As we age, we find bigger and better dreams to pursue.
What is it so special about the minions? Do they have to be robots? What is it with the Moon? Answer those questions and you will figure out what is your new dream... or reframe the older one
I want minions in the old fashioned slave does my bidding context - cook meals, clean the house, work the fields, and whatever else I happen to dream up. All of that taking whatever abuse I happen to dish out in my frustration about whatever.
I share the modern ethical concerns about owning other humans, so that leaves robots.
In addition to the juvenile power fantasies of being in control and having lots of power, I also wanted to create the crazy things seen in science fiction, for a mix of the purer "I want this thing to exist in the world" and the baser "I'd be so famous if I created this".
Of course, it's a lot easier and cheaper to learn pure programming than to learn programming and how to build robots, which is how I got where I am today.
Granted, it's also gotten a lot easier (now that things like Pi's and Arduino and the associated off-the-shelf robotics sensors, etc exist) and more affordable (as I am a paid programmer and not a penniless yute) to build robots, but doing the really cool stuff is still in the realm of "dozens to thousands of people working collaboratively for years" rather than "one person staying up late and coding while listening to music".
If you have power fantasies, may I interest you in the practice of martial arts instead? I know I am biased in favor of that, but I will try anyways.
If you want to learn and make others do your bidding, the first step is to learn how to do your own bidding: "cannot command until can do" and all that. It is very satisfying to be able to decide to do something and then just do it. Most people cannot do that. Most people do not realize they devote precious little of their time to do what they want to do, because they keep just running in the hamster wheel until they grow old and die.
I had all sorts of fantastic dreams ... when I was 15.
At this point in my life, I emphatically do not want to be in charge of other people. There's still a little part of me that desires fame and accolades, but it's heartily offset by the part of me that now understands how much I loathe actually being the center of attention.
My dreams as an adult are much more modest and achievable than those of that youthful fantabulist.
Well, mostly. I would still like to build a robot army. But the moon base is probably a bit much.
I don't have a power fantasy, I have a leisure fantasy. I want a nice garden without having to seed it. I was clean dishes and laundry without having to wash and put them away. I want good food on the table even when I don't feel like cooking. I spend a couple hours a week cleaning my house (putting away toys, sweeping...) that I want to spend doing something else. I don't care how it gets done, just that it is done.
> And yes, it is true that these totalitarian methods ar efficient in fighting street level crime.
You give too much credit to police states.
What happens in reality is that criminals with connections and a minimum of self restrain are folded into the "dark side" of the State, while their rivals are cracked down hard. In this way, a number of low-impact, high-revenue illegal activities are tolerated (in exchange of bribes), crime syndicates are expected to self police and not break whatever taboos were imposed from above; and then this "dark side" of the government do put a lid on top of the deviant side of society, diverting their energies into activities that do not challenge the status quo.
Does it make for a safer place to live for the common citizen? Maybe. While it may be less likely that you will be injured in an armed robbery, you will also be more likely to get your money swindled by this scheme or another... and you will have less chance of redress when this happens.
Australia's Centrelink, the unemployment/student payment government body, is notorious for doing this. They have physical centres which usually tell you to call the hotline.
In 2015, the hotline got the busy signal for 29 million callers (Australia has 25 million inhabitants). 7 million were hung up during the wait time. I myself have been in their queue for hours at a time.
There are zero legal ramifications for this behaviour.
In order to communicate effectively you need a mental model of your audience. The same sentence can be cumbersome to some readers, just right for others, and even condescendingly simplistic for a small minority.
The fact that you found the article to be useful simply means that you are part of their target audience, which is great. Just keep in mind that the same advice will not work as well when you communicate with a different audience
My context with using english in general (like here on HN) is communicating as a non-native with both native speakers and non-native speakers. For some of those, just reading english is a challenge.
Since I also know I can easily write nonsensical sentences, I thought this article was a good reminder on how to safely stay in the "I make sense" area in this context, and as so disagreed with person I replied to ^^
I would definitely have higher ambitions regarding "tone" in my mother tongue though, but for english writing, I'll be happy if I can be clear !
https://policies.google.com/terms
https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/terms/site.htm...
Maybe there's some code that at one point was FOSS in those products, but the products themselves are nor Free.
IMHO a code base that has been forked from a FOSS project cannot be considered FOSS itself even if they keep retrofitting changes back to the original, because you cannot know what is there in the proprietary part. This is specially true if you distribute the derivative product only in binary form.