Stop Microsoft
Miscellaneous => The Lounge => Topic started by: Aloone_Jonez on 11 September 2005, 01:59
-
I didn't know where to post this, I thought of the GNU/Linux section but this is nothing to do with it, I then thought of the hardware section but that's MS hardware only.
Anyway, I made a point here (http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showpost.php?p=101846&postcount=73) that most hardware is closed source, i.e. you can buy a TV and the company won't let you have access to the schematics,engineering drawings and firmware source. Now I've discovered I do have a point as someone's come up with the idea of open source hardware (http://opencollector.org/Whyfree/), they believe some of the arguments for software apply to hardware too and I agree with this.
What are your views on this?
I believe it's great to share knowledge and ideas whether it be software, hardware or anything else for that matter.
-
Sweet.
Soon as free hardware starts appearing on the market, I'll use it where I can. And when it gets to the point that not-buying or otherwise supporting non-free hardware isn't a huge inconvenience, I'll use and support free software only.
I believe it's great to share knowledge and ideas whether it be software, hardware or anything else for that matter.
COMMMMUNIST! ;)
-
I agree. Perhaps another possible area is pharmacology. I can't imagine this happening in food, though, since there is no progress possible in the area.
-
piratePenguin,
This is already happening to an extent with firmware as Linux is really taking off in embedded systems, developers love it because they can tweak the source but they have to release the code they've alterd. I haven't any evedance of any of the other source such as engineering drawings and PLA code becomming more open though.
Jenda,
I did consider bringing up pharmacology in the GNU borg debate but I didn't for some reason. Some drug companies are bad for patenting their medicines, there again lot's of money is required to develop new ones (in fact a lot more than sending people into space) and they do sell them cheaper to developing countries so I'm not sure on this one.
Food is slightly different as in the EU the producers are required to list the ingrediants on the label but they don't have to disclose the exact proportions, processes and composition so for all intents and purposes it's closed.
-
Ad food:
There is no invention or innovation in the area, apart from the problem of food production (eg. GM food). Opensourcing is no good. (And in Europe, you do NOT have to disclose the flavouring - saying artificial/identical/natural flavour is good enough.
Ad pharma:
This would only change the development process, not the sales or distribution.
OT:
Sorry to be so court lately. I'm graduating this year (for the second time - I already did in Canada) and for Czechs that is a big thing, and big oral exams too. I am being overwhelmed by school. It's not even lack of time, it's lack of energy. And to add to that, typing is still rather difficult, although much more comfortable, with the DVORAK.
-
Ad food:
There is no invention or innovation in the area, apart from the problem of food production (eg. GM food).
I think the food companies and top chefs would disagree. Food isn't simple it's a complex science a combination of chemistry and biology with some engineering thrown in especially if you're talking about mass production. Cooking is very unpredictable, two cakes made with the same ingrediants and cooked in the same way can taste differant because one batch of ingrediants might have slightly differant properties. For example one batch of cherries might be sweeter than another because they've had slightly more sunshine, because of this the cooks might alter their recipe on the fly by adding less suger to the batch made with the sweeter cheries.
Opensourcing is no good. (And in Europe, you do NOT have to disclose the flavouring - saying artificial/identical/natural flavour is good enough.
The purpose of the ingrediant list on the label is for people on special diets or who have allergies rather than being open source.
Ad pharma:
This would only change the development process, not the sales or distribution.
Drug companies spend vast amounts on research and development to fund this their products are sold for considerably more than their production cost, if they were made open then their competitors could sell them for much less and they'd loose their investment. Drugs always come down in price when they've payed for their research and development costs because by then a competitor has developed an alternative anyway.
The arguments about openess vs trade secrets are very similar for software as they are for anything else, the only differance is software doesn't cost anything to copy but there again neither do films or any other electronic media. Software does however contain interlectual property just like hardware and drugs, often this is the most expensive part of any product so it interests me how some companies are managing to recover this cost by selling service associated with their software because of this I don't know if it'll work for all types of software let alone anything else but never the less it seems a good idea anyway.
OT:
Sorry to be so court lately. I'm graduating this year (for the second time - I already did in Canada) and for Czechs that is a big thing, and big oral exams too. I am being overwhelmed by school. It's not even lack of time, it's lack of energy. And to add to that, typing is still rather difficult, although much more comfortable, with the DVORAK.
What's a DVORAK?
-
Jenda uses Dvorak keyboards instead of Qwerty, for some reason.
-
In the old days it used to be possible to fix problems on an old radio because schematics were released. This could help people a lot with newer technology. Tracing circuit diagrams is easier than reverse engineering software to fix it, but it is still time consuming and hard.
Question: are schematics actually licenced?
If they are not then someone could set up a wikipedia like site for releasing traced schematics from hardware to allow people to fix it.
-
I think the food companies and top chefs would disagree. Food isn't simple it's a complex science a combination of chemistry and biology with some engineering thrown in especially if you're talking about mass production. Cooking is very unpredictable, two cakes made with the same ingrediants and cooked in the same way can taste differant because one batch of ingrediants might have slightly differant properties. For example one batch of cherries might be sweeter than another because they've had slightly more sunshine, because of this the cooks might alter their recipe on the fly by adding less suger to the batch made with the sweeter cheries.
I ain't saying that food is simple; I myself looove cooking and experimentation therewith. What I AM saying, OTOH, is that you don't really see the difference between todays breads and those from a few years ago (although European breads differ from American ones et al. - the Europian types are edible :D), there is no simple, linear upgrading.
OK, I now realise this is quite important - and with this I have finally completed creating my opinion on music and movies as well:
In other words, this is indeed the difference between art and science. Open source seems to work very well with some models. It has always been used in general science and knowledge (Newton, Einstein etc.), recently software and knowledge organisation (wiki), possibly eventually in pharmaceutics, chemistry, hardware. All these areas are scientific, and OBJECTIVE. They have progress, they can be written down.
Within those where this doesn't apply, the OS model cannot be used. These are all artistic, and therefore SUBJECTIVE. They depend closely on their creator (musician, director, chef) and are unimprovable (because this is a matter of opinion), unreproductable (no two instruments, ingredients or actors are the same) and THEREFORE UNCHANGEABLE. The OS model implicitly expects the ability to change the work in question, hence cannot be used here. I am sorry for the uncontiguousness of my post - I am making this up on the go, and I'll try to get it a little more organised later. I hope some of you understand what I mean.
The purpose of the ingrediant list on the label is for people on special diets or who have allergies rather than being open source.
Yup. And people who refuse to eat certain things in principle or for health reasons.
Drug companies spend vast amounts on research and development to fund this their products are sold for considerably more than their production cost, if they were made open then their competitors could sell them for much less and they'd loose their investment. Drugs always come down in price when they've payed for their research and development costs because by then a competitor has developed an alternative anyway.
Well this doesn't really differ from the OSS model, except that casual contributors can't (yet...?) work from their home PC. The drug companies wouldn't have to spend the money, because it would be a community effort. Hopefully this would result in an overall faster dev cycle, as it does in some OSS areas.
What's a DVORAK?
Jenda uses Dvorak keyboards instead of Qwerty, for some reason.
No, you use QWERTY instead of dvorak. Read the dvzine (http://dvzine.org) - it's not very long. And I'm VERY happy with Dvorak. All I have to do is find out how to change the layout to include Czech and French characters.
If they are not then someone could set up a wikipedia like site for releasing traced schematics from hardware to allow people to fix it.
Wow I like this idea. Imagine how great this would be for home-brew sautering hobbyists. My friend (who introduced me to GNU/Linux) is such a person - he is making his third TESLA coil.
-
I think open source is good for lets say Soft/hard Ware and it should be good
in other areas too :]
ps:i am not a comunist :) i am the most anti-comunist guy you can find
in bulgaria (maby even europe)
-
Communism rules man.
-
DO not you be saying that to an ex-comunist country ! :]
no i am kidding i do not care about politics
-
DO not you be saying that to an ex-comunist country ! :]
no i am kidding i do not care about politics
lol, I get where you're coming from, but please please PLEASE learn the difference between purist communism and Red Communism. The latter is fascist, and couldn't lie any further right on the political spectrum from ideal communism.
-
The Soviet model featured central bureaucratic economic planning, something Marx and Engel never even thought of. And Marx was strongly anti-totalitarian. In no way could the Soviet system used in satellite states like Bulgaria be considered classically communistic.
-
:) ooohhh i get the difference :)
-
Even going by The Communist Mannifeto, it's a fucking retarded idea.
Do you really support, a theory that advocates:- Abolition of personal property, and inheretence.
- A state-controlled education monopoly, which is an excuse to indoctinate the "correct" philosophy. NO PRIVATE ALTERNATIVES. PERIOD.(Not original to the Communist Manifesto)
- Taxing the rich until they are poor. Why make more money if the state will steal it all away?(Not original to the Communist Manifesto)
- No personal transportation, busses and subways for everyone.
Retarded idea, any way you put it.
Capitalism kicks ass.
-
I don't have my copy of "Communist Manifesto" with me at work, but I am pretty sure you don't have one nearby either. So we'll take a look at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto
Please notice that none of the stuff you claim to know about communism is mentioned there. In fact, these are common unintelligent criticisms of communism by people who have no idea what the fuck they are talking about.
Furthermore, note that the "Communist Manifesto" is a theoretical essay, not some speech Lenin read when he took over Russia. You ascribe to it power that it doesn't have. No book is so fundamental that it represents everything, not even the Bible.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't believe Marx was perfectly right. But I don't think he was perfectly wrong either. And I don't want to argue the relative merits of communism/Marxism anyway. I just wish to make sure that nobody I know is spreading mistruths or outright lies about communism.
-
Even going by The Communist Mannifeto, it's a fucking retarded idea.
Do you really support, a theory that advocates:- Abolition of personal property, and inheretence.
- A state-controlled education monopoly, which is an excuse to indoctinate the "correct" philosophy. NO PRIVATE ALTERNATIVES. PERIOD.(Not original to the Communist Manifesto)
- Taxing the rich until they are poor. Why make more money if the state will steal it all away?(Not original to the Communist Manifesto)
- No personal transportation, busses and subways for everyone.
Retarded idea, any way you put it.
Not really retarded, I think there should be equality in the world. Communism is still in alpha stage development yet. Actually I am not sure if it even compiles yet, let alone runs.
Capitalism kicks ass.
If your a selfish, self-centred, prick, who is willing to leave half the world is poverty, then yes.
-
Better half the world, than all of it.
Implementation is a needed part of a good idea. Guess what, if it can't be implemented, IT DOESN'T WORK. Why should I use software that is "better", yet it can't even compile yet.
Take an economics class at some point, you lean things that are important to not being an idiot. Like the fact that economics is not, nor will it ever be, about fairness. only the most efficient solution.
-
I never said we had to use it yet. But I believe it can work in time, besides I think most of Communism sucks anyway. I am more into the idea of eligitarianism and other things. However the most important aspect is democracy which has been neglected in nearly every communist/socialist regime to date. That is the problem, if we can democratically have a eligtarian/commie/socialist regime, that would be ideal.
-
I suppose you can have a communist democracy. With one party.
Even Adam Smith thought that the government should have some intervention in monopolies.
Ayn Rand capitalism, is way the fuck out there, even I look at that and think, "wow, fuck that shit."
-
In the old days it used to be possible to fix problems on an old radio because schematics were released. This could help people a lot with newer technology. Tracing circuit diagrams is easier than reverse engineering software to fix it, but it is still time consuming and hard.
Reverse engineering hardware is a lot harder nowadays (if not even harder than software), it was easy back in the day when all of the componants were though hole and PCBs contained no more than two layers, but nowadays it's nearly impossible to trace an 8 layer PCB, an even after that you have to reverse engineer all the code on all the programmable chips.
Question: are schematics actually licenced?
I don't know, I've seen that some free schematics have conditions attatched to them like not for commercial use and give me credit or provide the origional source but I don't know if these are legally binding.
If they are not then someone could set up a wikipedia like site for releasing traced schematics from hardware to allow people to fix it.
A forum (http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php) I visit has a section for people to post service manuals and they're very relaxed when it comes to posting copyrighted material. :)
I ain't saying that food is simple; I myself looove cooking and experimentation therewith. What I AM saying, OTOH, is that you don't really see the difference between todays breads and those from a few years ago (although European breads differ from American ones et al. - the Europian types are edible :D), there is no simple, linear upgrading.
I see your point here, food is similar to textiles in that respect though progress is being made all the time in farming, manufacture and foods for people on special diets.
OK, I now realise this is quite important - and with this I have finally completed creating my opinion on music and movies as well:
In other words, this is indeed the difference between art and science. Open source seems to work very well with some models. It has always been used in general science and knowledge (Newton, Einstein etc.), recently software and knowledge organisation (wiki), possibly eventually in pharmaceutics, chemistry, hardware. All these areas are scientific, and OBJECTIVE. They have progress, they can be written down.
Within those where this doesn't apply, the OS model cannot be used. These are all artistic, and therefore SUBJECTIVE. They depend closely on their creator (musician, director, chef) and are unimprovable (because this is a matter of opinion), unreproductable (no two instruments, ingredients or actors are the same) and THEREFORE UNCHANGEABLE. The OS model implicitly expects the ability to change the work in question, hence cannot be used here. I am sorry for the uncontiguousness of my post - I am making this up on the go, and I'll try to get it a little more organised later. I hope some of you understand what I mean.
Art can be free too, the Internet is already full of free music pictures and videos. Software, hardware and pharmaceuticals are totally differant to science. Software isn't science and neither is hardware even though they rely on scientific concepts such as mathematics, physics and chemestry, in fact they are design and tecnollogy rather than science. Science is discovering things about materials, the world around you and the universe in general, it's more about answering questions rather than designing things even though there is an element of design when it comes to experiments.
Well this doesn't really differ from the OSS model, except that casual contributors can't (yet...?) work from their home PC. The drug companies wouldn't have to spend the money, because it would be a community effort. Hopefully this would result in an overall faster dev cycle, as it does in some OSS areas.
I've never fully believed the arugment that the community will always fix any problems in a product anyway, this simply isn't the case, often open source programs (just like proprietary ones) have old know yet to be squashed.
I don't think this argument can be applied to medicine, drug companies are highly regulated they can't test there products on people until they've gone though many tests (some involving animals) before they even start medical trials. If drugs were to go open source it would be imposible to trace which tests have been carried out on what group of people and gathering the results would be a problem to not to mentioning the safety implications of this, don't for get we're talking about people's lives here not whether some buggy piece of software crashes or not.
-
I am in a hurry and won't be around next week, but:
I meant to separate the activities/sciences* into two groups. I'll call them Objective and Subjective, because these describe the difference best. The "Objective" I also call scientific, or exact. Ever heard of "Exact Science" and "Humanitarian Science"? This is similar. Exact sciences are objective, eg. mathematics, physics, biology, statistics, goegraphy, even history to a certain extent. Humanitarian sciences tend to be Subjective (although history, which is/should be objective, is often classified as humanitarian), and include arts, literature, politology. Law is on the edge of the two groups, or belongs in both.
It seems to me that the OS model can only be applied to the Objective sciences.
*This word refers to what is in latin called ars (plural artes), and that would mean crafts, or areas of human occupation/proffession, NOT SIMPLY SCIENCE OF NATURE. (BTW science means "knowledge" in latin).
-
I suppose you can have a communist democracy. With one party.
Even Adam Smith thought that the government should have some intervention in monopolies.
Ayn Rand capitalism, is way the fuck out there, even I look at that and think, "wow, fuck that shit."
Why only one party? Really, what limits it?
I think more socialist consitution is required.
-
Come to bulgaria Our former President was a "king"(no realy his fatherr was aking)
and the parliament was socialistic + our constitution is the most liberal Ever!
What more do you want :) it is a start the world should learn from us . :)
-
Thanks for the offer but I enjoy being able to write in English far to much for that.
-
Isn't the Bulgarian King prime minister now?
-
Isn't the Bulgarian King prime minister now?
Misread that as "Isn't Burger King using prime Meunster now?" :o
-
Isn't the Bulgarian King prime minister now?
Yes, after the nation got into Kapitalism™, the prime minister of Bulgaria returned to get elected.
However, now the communienist party is ruling the country, leaving the former king to rot.
-
Freedom CPU (http://www.f-cpu.org) looks like an interesting project. But it doesn't seem to have been updated in a while.
EDIT: Also just found: http://www.opencores.org/ (http://www.opencores.org/)
-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/15/sun_opensourcing_ultrasparc_chip/
Sun's releasing the sources for the UltraSPARC T1 under the GPL! That is pretty fucking cool.
I've come accross a tonne of "open source hardware" projects lately. http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/or1k/overview there's a(nother) free RISC CPU for ya. There's other free hardware projects on that site. Some more @ freeio.org.
-
Also, Promise has released an Open Source (GPL) Linux driver for their line of SATA RAID controllers.
-
Also, Promise has released an Open Source (GPL) Linux driver for their line of SATA RAID controllers.
The stuff I've been posting are free hardware designs written in VHDL or somesuch (I've never tried to make use of them really). So you can probably hack at them if you know what you're doing and if you had the equipment you could produce them. It's like the source code for the hardware.
Still it's good to see more free drivers being released by the hardware manufacturers. Now that Sun's releasing the source code for this CPU, more (probably smaller) manufacturers might follow.
-
So are you planning to buy one of these new sun machines then?
I assume the firmware in the BIOS will be under the GPL too.
I wonder if one day we'll see opensource radios, TVs and even cars.
-
So are you planning to buy one of these new sun machines then?
No. I don't plan on getting a new (primary) computer for a long time, but when I do I'll be considering all types of machines.
I assume the firmware in the BIOS will be under the GPL too.
Well, they might do that, but I only know that one type of the CPU source code will be released under the GPL.
I wonder if one day we'll see opensource radios, TVs and even cars.
You want a free radio? GNU Radio (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/index.html) :p
-
In a way, cars are already open source. Get a wrench and pop the hood.