A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
these practices as unethical.
This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
Standard Oil by undercutting.
In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
subsidy?
To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
sided.
Mark Tarver
www.lambdassociates.org
On 4 Mar, 18:46, "j.oke" <········@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4 Mar, 19:34, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > A long time ago...
>
> (...could we please rename this group in 'Philosophical Hypotheses and
> Incidental Spamming Group', as the 'Practical Common Lisp Questions'
> here are going down every moment coming...)
>
> If you agree, please stay quiet, many "thank you"'s!!
>
> -JO
Actually, the first time I heard this question in raised in public was
at the International Lisp Conference 2002 where the speaker delivered
an address on this very question. He got me thinking. I remember who
this person was, but out of courtesy, I leave him out of it here.
Regarding this 'troll' nonsense, it is up to people to decide (a)
whether and (b) how to respond. This is *their* responsibility and not
that of the OP and it isn't for you to tell people what to do.
'Troll' is too often being used now as a term to silence people from
raising questions or defending positions which might be
controversial. I'm not going to take responsibility for maladjusted,
irrational and angry responses to a rational question.
The guy who spoke thought that programming forums were not just narrow
technical ghettos for asking geek questions, but also forums where we
could discuss the important social aspects of what we do and I agree
with him. This is a social aspect of programming.
Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
Mark
www.lambdassociates.org
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
> The guy who spoke thought that programming forums were not just narrow
> technical ghettos for asking geek questions, but also forums where we
> could discuss the important social aspects of what we do and I agree
> with him. This is a social aspect of programming.
Programming in general: maybe, though dubious. The specific subfields
of functional programming or Lisp: no I don't think so.
> If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
Spoken like a spammer as well as a troll.
Could you please at minimum take cll and clf out of your newsgroup
list. Well, clf anyway.
On Mar 4, 11:18 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> The guy who spoke thought that programming forums were not just narrow
> technical ghettos for asking geek questions, but also forums where we
> could discuss the important social aspects of what we do and I agree
> with him. This is a social aspect of programming.
But is there a social aspect of programming in functional languages
(comp.lang.functional) or in Lisp (comp.lang.lisp) which is separate
from that of programming?
I don't mind this troll thread because these newsgroups don't carry
that much volume. Besides, your work on Qi gives you kind of a troll
waiver. Not a full season pass, but, say, a tear-off sheet of five
tickets, dispensed for every new release.
:)
On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:18:43 -0800, Mark Tarver wrote:
> Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV. If
> you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
Last night, I was watching "My dad is better than your dad" with my 7
year old girl and in the commercials, there were advertisements for some
whore recruitment show called Girlicious (yes, it isn't even a real
word.) It caught me so off-guard that I had to scramble for the remote.
I understand that they were trying to appeal to the dads to watch the
show after baby goes to bed but OMFG! Some sensible self-censorship would
have been appreciated. No I didn't watch it.
I think the dad show graphics were rendered using Lisp. Ok, not really.
--
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com
Mark Tarver said:
<snip>
> Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
> If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
That response, more than anything, convinces me that this discussion is
rapidly heading nowhere useful.
There is a big difference between "we would rather you didn't talk about X"
and "we would rather you didn't talk about X *here*".
If you think that the division of Usenet into topic groups constitutes
censorship, then you don't want to waste time here - there's bound to be a
government conspiracy or two that you could be unmasking instead, or
perhaps you could be thinking up ideas for perpetual motion machines.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Richard Heathfield wrote:
> Mark Tarver said:
>
> <snip>
>
>
>>Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
>>If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
>
>
> That response, more than anything, convinces me that this discussion is
> rapidly heading nowhere useful.
Let's decide on the shape of the table before deciding if the discussion
to decide if free open software is ethical is going anywhere.
kenny
--
http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"In the morning, hear the Way;
in the evening, die content!"
-- Confucius
On Mar 4, 12:07 pm, Ken Tilton <···········@optonline.net> wrote:
> Richard Heathfield wrote:
> > Mark Tarver said:
>
> > <snip>
>
> >>Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
> >>If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
>
> > That response, more than anything, convinces me that this discussion is
> > rapidly heading nowhere useful.
>
> Let's decide on the shape of the table before deciding if the discussion
> to decide if free open software is ethical is going anywhere.
>
> kenny
>
> --http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
>
> "In the morning, hear the Way;
> in the evening, die content!"
> -- Confucius
Is closed source software ethical is better question.
On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:18:43 -0800, Mark Tarver wrote:
> 'Troll' is too often being used now as a term to silence people from
> raising questions or defending positions which might be
> controversial.
> Mark
This is true. I once asked in a dentistry-related group whether there was
any evidence that flossing teeth reduced tooth decay. There were
accusations of trolling. It turned out that flossing does not actually
reduce tooth decay after all. (It does reduce gum disease though, so it's
a useful thing to do).
A decision that someone is a troll is best based on the pattern of their
posts. Usually one sees frequent posts that provoke dissent and arguments,
and that in themselves provide little information or insight while asking
others to do lots of work to provide a response.
Tim
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
[... trimmed followups to just c.l.l. Not sure why ...]
>
> Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
> If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
>
If I have to choice to pay for that channel or not then I agree with
you. But public broadcast is a different matter. If I want public
nudity I'll go to a nude beach (and have the devil of a time explaining
it to my wife and daughter). I don't want it on Main St.
Desperately trying to tie this back into Lisp, are off-topic postings
ethical? Are you asking me to leave c.l.l. if I don't like
non-Lisp-related discussions?
On Mar 4, 10:17 pm, ····@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> [... trimmed followups to just c.l.l. Not sure why ...]
>
>
>
> > Like my old man said about people who wanted to censor nudity on TV.
> > If you don't like it - change channel and be upset somewhere else.
>
> If I have to choice to pay for that channel or not then I agree with
> you.
That brings it neatly back around to the subject at hand. I'm pretty
sure that open source software has hurt my ability to make the living
I would like to make, in the fashion that I would like to make it.
There's still a lot of money in writing software, of course. For one
thing, only the biggest projects manage to get people to do the real
toilet-scrubbing work, and unlike actual toilet-scrubbing virtual
toilet-scrubbing can turn out to be rewarding once you get past the
stench. I am not necessarily against things that hurt my market
though- I'm a big proponent of free movement of labor and capital,
despite the fact that those guys in India are exerting some downward
pressure on US programmer wages. "And no eggs were broken" is a fairy
tale.
That said, I happen to think the ethics problems come in when you have
state sponsorship of open source software. It seems really wrong, to
me, to tax a man, and then use those taxes to support an arbitrarily
large force of people to compete with his business. It reminds me of
an old story (it's a bit dated now, particularly given its ethnic
flavor, but bear with me):
'A little old Jewish watchmaker is sitting outside his shop, dandling
his grandson on his knee. "You know what the great thing about this
country is, Moshe?" he asks. "What?" "Even a little old watchmaker
like me, in this great country, can compete with the biggest
watchmaking companies, on an even footing." He pauses for a moment.
"Just so long, Moshe, as he doesn't make watches!"'
There's actually a tremendous amount of entrepreneurial wisdom in that
aphorism. But there is one thing the old man didn't foresee. If he had
said his pat 10 years later he might have said "You know, Moshe, I
used to compete against the great watchmaking concerns, by not making
watches." He pauses, full of wist. "But now the government is paying
so many people to not make watches. And the watches they don't make,
Moshe..." again he pauses. "They're terrible!"
I'm fine with open source software, but it should not be paid for,
even indirectly, by the state. I think this is particularly true of
GPL style software. It is beyond perverse to ask a man to fund
software that competes with his business and then deny him the right
to use that software as he sees fit.
The problem is that it is hard to draw the line here- it is obviously
unethical for grad students who receive some money from the government
(and that's all grad students who make their living being grad
students, one way or another) to work on GPL projects during working
hours (the whole Stanford model "tech spinoff" is far worse- if it
were up to me Stanford would never receive another dollar in federal
monies), but did you ever know a CS RA who could figure out what was
supported work and what wasn't? Or one who had "working hours"? For
that matter, there are undergraduates...
To put this in perspective, let's look at a company that has become
huge by not making watches: FedEx. Imagine you are a stockholder.
Imagine the feds decide they need to be in the overnight business.
Imagine that they run their new overnight business at a tremendous
loss, while offering overnight delivery at a fraction of the cost of a
FedEx delivery. Imagine that your taxes paid to wipe out your
holdings. Ethical?
There's a simple solution to this: if you're together enough to
program a computer you shouldn't be getting federal money, in any way,
student loans included. I don't mind paying for food and shelter for
the people who wander the streets of NYC yammering on about the third
coming of this, or the tinfoil revolution of that. But I sure as hell
do resent paying people to compete with me.
> That brings it neatly back around to the subject at hand. I'm pretty
> sure that open source software has hurt my ability to make the living
Understandable.
> though- I'm a big proponent of free movement of labor and capital,
> despite the fact that those guys in India are exerting some downward
> pressure on US programmer wages.
Right; this is one reason why potential CS students are not taking CS
> That said, I happen to think the ethics problems come in when you have
> state sponsorship of open source software. It seems really wrong, to
> me, to tax a man, and then use those taxes to support an arbitrarily
> large force of people to compete with his business.
Thats a very valid point. However the situation now is that you
*already* pay taxes to people who are your potential competitors i.e.
university researchers like the guy who is competing against Kenny
Tilton's theory-Y algebra. And anybody who has a spare buck can dump
their FOSS onto your market and kill you.
So what to do? The answer is to level the field by making the same
resources available to you as is available to them.
Mark
On Mar 4, 10:34 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarverwww.lambdassociates.org
Can I make a guitar and then give it away?
How about ten guitars? 100, 1000?
As I see it, if I want to spend my own money and resources making
guitars and giving them away, it is my own business and there is
nothing wrong with it, even though some guitar companies might not
like it.
On the other hand, I do see one small exploitation. Sometimes, a mess
of college kids throw themselves into creating these free tools,
because 'Hey -- stick it to the man!'. And then someone else bundles
them up and puts them on a CD (Let's call it "GreenHat") and sells it
for $170 {the kids get nothing, and they did a large fraction of the
work}. Oh, wait, they don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL
-- they sell a service contract. Anyway, the odd man out I see in
this picture is those kids who were more or less tricked into working
for nothing. Now, lots of them do go into it with both eyes open but
some of them are fooled also.
At any rate, I see open source software as generally a good thing, but
I also think it should be a choice. I do think that algorithms are a
form of mathematics and should be public domain like mathematics
itself (which cannot be patented) but that is neither here nor there.
Of course, I would obey even those laws that I disagree with, because
society has chosen them.
So here is the ideal situation that I would like to see:
1. Lots of software licenses from commercial, totally closed to
public domain and everything in between.
2. Lots of innovation shared by projects like those hosted at
sourceforge.
3. Lots of excellent research like that which is hosted at
universities around the world and then made available on Citeseer (I
*Hate* those 'pay $25 for this article' places -- but I also recognize
their right to do that)
4. Oh, and no software patents.
I have been involved in just about every sort of open source and
closed source project that there is. I have done GPL, LGPL, BSD,
Public Domain, etc. as well as commercial software. I have no
problems with any of it.
On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:39:38 -0800, user923005 wrote:
> Oh, wait, they
> don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL -- they sell a service
> contract
How does anyone on the Internet still have this misconception? You can
sell GPL code on a CD. You just have to make sure that the source code is
available for a reasonable cost.
--
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com
Sohail Somani wrote:
> On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:39:38 -0800, user923005 wrote:
>
>> Oh, wait, they
>> don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL -- they sell a service
>> contract
>
> How does anyone on the Internet still have this misconception? You can
> sell GPL code on a CD. You just have to make sure that the source code
> is available for a reasonable cost.
Doesn't the source have to be freely available and accessible without
undue difficulties?
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:20:38 +0530, santosh wrote:
> Sohail Somani wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:39:38 -0800, user923005 wrote:
>>
>>> Oh, wait, they
>>> don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL -- they sell a service
>>> contract
>>
>> How does anyone on the Internet still have this misconception? You can
>> sell GPL code on a CD. You just have to make sure that the source code
>> is available for a reasonable cost.
>
> Doesn't the source have to be freely available and accessible without
> undue difficulties?
Doesn't have to be freely accessible afaik. But that is what lawyers are
for :-)
In general, it is unfair to ask me to pay for my bandwidth so you can
download 5G of source code unless I recoup the cost in some way.
--
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com
On Mar 4, 2:58 pm, Sohail Somani <······@taggedtype.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:20:38 +0530, santosh wrote:
> > Sohail Somani wrote:
>
> >> On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:39:38 -0800, user923005 wrote:
>
> >>> Oh, wait, they
> >>> don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL -- they sell a service
> >>> contract
>
> >> How does anyone on the Internet still have this misconception? You can
> >> sell GPL code on a CD. You just have to make sure that the source code
> >> is available for a reasonable cost.
>
> > Doesn't the source have to be freely available and accessible without
> > undue difficulties?
>
> Doesn't have to be freely accessible afaik. But that is what lawyers are
> for :-)
You don't need a lawyer. The GPL is quite clear about this, for
obvious reasons. If you could play cat and mouse with the sources the
GPL would have no real force.
user923005 said:
<snip>
> Can I make a guitar and then give it away?
No. You *never* lay out the frets properly, and you don't seem to be able
to get the bridge height right. Frankly, it's unplayable. Unless someone
wants it for firewood, I guess. Yeah, that might work.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
"Richard Heathfield" <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote in message
·····································@bt.com...
> user923005 said:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Can I make a guitar and then give it away?
>
> No. You *never* lay out the frets properly, and you don't seem to be able
> to get the bridge height right. Frankly, it's unplayable. Unless someone
> wants it for firewood, I guess. Yeah, that might work.
Which is, actually, a good thing -- giving the guitars away, not the firewood
part.
To continue this analogy:
A lot of people 'd like to strum one at some time, but don't want to fork out
big bucks for a Gibson. When they *do* have a lot of training on that piece of
firewood and still like it, they are prepared to pay for the real job.
[Jongware]
One of the more difficult aspects of software development is testing.
Especially testing code for which the user interface is an important
component.
I don't just mean removing all the insects, but also whether the
software is actually easily usable by the intended user community.
The time honored tchnique is to throw it over the wall to a community
of so-called beta testers, or even custoners, who then actually do the
majority of the testing. So giving the software away, open source and
all that, is a technique for building software which works really
rather well most of the time.
The ethical engineer is to pay attention to product safety and
realiablity as well as fitness for a particular purpose. In software
engineering, usually safety is less of an issue than security, but the
responsibilies are much the same.
So when I finally 'finish' the beta release of the program editor and
also functional programming language I am working on, I feel I am
behaving in the most ethical manner by making it freely available as
open source software. I hope this will lead to more polished, more
usable versions, again freely available to a (hopefully wider)
community of those who find my software to enhance their performance
(primarily in teaching and learning).
user923005 <·······@connx.com> writes:
> Oh, wait, they don't sell the CD -- that's a violation of GPL
> -- they sell a service contract.
No, you've got this completely wrong. I don't understand
why, it is easy to find official position on the GNU website
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
Other people, with no interest in copyright or technology
manage to grasp this point. See
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/faq.html#gnu
They have their own, different, position
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bullitt/bfaq.html#freebooks
which I quote:
But there is another, deeper reason to think twice about
selling Dhamma books. Since the Buddha's time, the
teachings have traditionally been given away free of
charge, passing freely from teacher to student, from
friend to friend. The teachings are regarded as
priceless, and have been conveyed to us across the
centuries by an unbroken stream of generosity --- the
very foundation of all the Buddha's teachings. That
tradition continues with the production of free Dhamma
books. From the author, the stream flows onwards through
those who give their time to editing, typesetting, and
printing the book; through the donors who sponsor the
printing; and through those who take care of
distribution and mailing. If you are fortunate enough to
receive a book borne on this stream of generosity, you
learn an important lesson of Dhamma long before you even
open the cover. The instant someone puts a price tag on
a Dhamma book, you not only have to pay money for it,
but you get a little bit less in return: you get a book
that is merely about Dhamma, instead of one that is
itself an example of Dhamma in action. Which one do you
think has greater value?
They do not place their translations under a GPL style
licence because they are philosophically opposed to their
sale. Now that you have seen a real life example of people
with a philosophical commitment to free=gratis rejecting GPL
licencing of their own work, because it permits sale, you
are in a better position to understand the GPL.
GPL forbids unbundling the rights. Sell all or none, the
choice is yours, but don't try to divide society into
Digital Lords, with the full bundle of rights, and Digital
Peasants, with only usage rights.
Alan Crowe
Edinburgh
Scotland
On Mar 4, 12:34 pm, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarverwww.lambdassociates.org
Not a troll, this was a good question.
I think the difference in this case lies in the cost of reproduction.
If Standard Oil or whatever physical product company "dumps" at a loss
to gain market share, then they're crushing competition under a pile
of cash. For free software, someone could create it for their own
interest or purpose, or open source it to get help with development
and debugging. Once it's developed, there's no additional effort
required for more people to use it. Indeed, not sharing it would be a
loss (in the economic, not monetary sense) for the developers, because
then potential contributors wouldn't know about it. In Open Source,
you trade exclusive control of source for help in development and
debugging. Since you're not selling the software, then access to
source is your next most valuable asset. Software businesses have
developed other resources (a strong brand, better documentation or
support, graphic design, a sales force, etc) that help them pay for
development without having to share source. But it's still something
they can share later, if they choose.
It's a complicated question, and while rms or anyone else can argue
that this is immoral or that is immoral, it's really up to the laws of
the land. And if there's some issue so important and decisive, then
those laws may be redefined.
-Peter
http://www.pchristensen.com
On Mar 4, 1:34 pm, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> ...Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
No. *plonk*
On Mar 4, 10:34 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law.
If you have the cash to absorb the cost of dumping, then it's fair and
square. Nobody has the right to tell you how you wish to spend your
money.
If you want to ``buy'' customers, and can afford it, you should be
able to do that. You're competing with your cash base.
You're obviously better than that other company, because you can sell
below cost for the next couple of years, and still make the payrolls,
pay the leases on capital, service debts---in short, do everything
else required to stay afloat.
It's not like you're drowning puppies, or dumping toxic waste.
Ultimately, the choice is up to the customer. It's the customer's
behavior that they want the cheapest thing. They buy it knowing that
they are undermining competition, which will reduce their choice in
the future. The undercutting company will wipe out the others and then
jack up prices. Since the consumers are willing to live with that, let
them live with it.
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical.
This is something that many other almost equally staunch supporters of
free software are not willing to do. Stallman is not representative of
everyone.
> Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
Ah, if there is a subsidy, that is unethical. That is to say, the
subsidy itself, not what you do with it. (Government) subsidy means
stealing wealth from one to give to another. Using stolen wealth for
any purpose is unethical. Instead of being used for dumping, the
subsidy money could be used for improved advertizing. That would make
the advertizer more competitive in the marketplace. Or the subsidy
money could be used for research and development, which would give the
subsidy benefactor an edge also. Or the executives could take the
money and go on luxurious vacations. All of these uses are equally
unethical since they are connected to stolen property.
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
That depends on whether it was done while on duty. What that staff
member does with his or her evenings and weekends is his or her
business.
The unethical part is accepting a salary, which is understood to be in
exchange for your work for the university, but actually spending the
time doing your private work.
If that GPL-ed algebra tutor was developed on university time, then it
in fact belongs to the university, and not to that staff member. It's
unethical for that staff member to be releasing software which doesn't
belong to him or her.
It could be the case that he has the university's permission, even
approval, to do so. If that university is privately funded, then there
is nothing wrong. It has chosen to spend its rightfully owned money on
an employee who is mandated with the task of producing this program
and releasing it under the GPL.
If the univerity is funded by government money, well, that is theft.
Once we can can assign an unethical attribute the root node of an
economic tree, there is no point in evaluating the ethics of the child
nodes; the unethical property flows out from that root toward the
leaves. Stolen money taints all derived transactions.
On Mar 4, 12:00 pm, Kaz Kylheku <········@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 4, 10:34 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> > to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> > electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> > market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> > these practices as unethical.
>
> > This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> > be prosecuted under law.
>
> If you have the cash to absorb the cost of dumping, then it's fair and
> square. Nobody has the right to tell you how you wish to spend your
> money.
>
> If you want to ``buy'' customers, and can afford it, you should be
> able to do that. You're competing with your cash base.
>
> You're obviously better than that other company, because you can sell
> below cost for the next couple of years, and still make the payrolls,
> pay the leases on capital, service debts---in short, do everything
> else required to stay afloat.
>
> It's not like you're drowning puppies, or dumping toxic waste.
>
> Ultimately, the choice is up to the customer. It's the customer's
> behavior that they want the cheapest thing. They buy it knowing that
> they are undermining competition, which will reduce their choice in
> the future. The undercutting company will wipe out the others and then
> jack up prices. Since the consumers are willing to live with that, let
> them live with it.
>
> > In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> > to condemn closed source software as unethical.
>
> This is something that many other almost equally staunch supporters of
> free software are not willing to do. Stallman is not representative of
> everyone.
>
> > Now here is a
> > thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> > supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> > subsidy?
>
> Ah, if there is a subsidy, that is unethical. That is to say, the
> subsidy itself, not what you do with it. (Government) subsidy means
> stealing wealth from one to give to another. Using stolen wealth for
> any purpose is unethical. Instead of being used for dumping, the
> subsidy money could be used for improved advertizing. That would make
> the advertizer more competitive in the marketplace. Or the subsidy
> money could be used for research and development, which would give the
> subsidy benefactor an edge also. Or the executives could take the
> money and go on luxurious vacations. All of these uses are equally
> unethical since they are connected to stolen property.
>
> > To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> > someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> > produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> > a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> > ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> That depends on whether it was done while on duty. What that staff
> member does with his or her evenings and weekends is his or her
> business.
>
> The unethical part is accepting a salary, which is understood to be in
> exchange for your work for the university, but actually spending the
> time doing your private work.
>
> If that GPL-ed algebra tutor was developed on university time, then it
> in fact belongs to the university, and not to that staff member. It's
> unethical for that staff member to be releasing software which doesn't
> belong to him or her.
>
> It could be the case that he has the university's permission, even
> approval, to do so. If that university is privately funded, then there
> is nothing wrong. It has chosen to spend its rightfully owned money on
> an employee who is mandated with the task of producing this program
> and releasing it under the GPL.
>
> If the univerity is funded by government money, well, that is theft.
>
> Once we can can assign an unethical attribute the root node of an
> economic tree, there is no point in evaluating the ethics of the child
> nodes; the unethical property flows out from that root toward the
> leaves. Stolen money taints all derived transactions.
This is a very interesting post and I agree with almost everything.
I think that there is at least one exception to the dumping rule,
though.
If I am in an economic position to destroy all of my opponents, with
an *intention* to corner the market and raise my prices later, then I
may have committed a crime.
Somehow, the gas wars of the 1970's in the US were legal (e.g. large
oil companies would sell their gas at 8 or 10 cents per gallon for a
few months until the independent companies went under, and as soon as
all of the independents folded, the prices shot up to above where they
were before. -- That was apparently legal since nothing was done about
it, but I am not sure that it should have been). At any rate, if you
are in a position of power, and the temporary benefit you provide is
intended to cause harm to your opponents and eventually the customers
also suffer, then it is illegal (or perhaps it should be if is
isn't). See (for instance):
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/predatorydumping.asp
Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> Ultimately, the choice is up to the customer. It's the customer's
> behavior that they want the cheapest thing. They buy it knowing that
> they are undermining competition, which will reduce their choice in
> the future. The undercutting company will wipe out the others and then
> jack up prices. Since the consumers are willing to live with that, let
> them live with it.
The presumption that consumers behave in any sort of unified way, and
bear the responsibility/consequences of their (unified) actions, is a
generalization in the extreme.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority for why the
attitude espoused above is such a dangerous one.
-M
In article
<····································@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
Kaz Kylheku <········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah, if there is a subsidy, that is unethical. That is to say, the
> subsidy itself, not what you do with it. (Government) subsidy means
> stealing wealth from one to give to another. Using stolen wealth for
> any purpose is unethical.
But what if the goverment subsidizes all the companies equally, so that
the country at a whole will have a competitive advantage against other
countries? This is presumably for the benefit of everyone in the
country, so it's not giving the stolen wealth to another. One of the
jobs of a government is to promote the country. This is in effect a
reverse tariff, although it's not negotiated by treaty like a valid
tariff.
--
Barry Margolin, ······@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
In article
<····································@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
Kaz Kylheku <········@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you want to ``buy'' customers, and can afford it, you should be
> able to do that. You're competing with your cash base.
Ah, yes, the Golden Rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules.
>
> You're obviously better than that other company, because you can sell
> below cost for the next couple of years, and still make the payrolls,
> pay the leases on capital, service debts---in short, do everything
> else required to stay afloat.
>
> It's not like you're drowning puppies, or dumping toxic waste.
>
> Ultimately, the choice is up to the customer. It's the customer's
> behavior that they want the cheapest thing. They buy it knowing that
> they are undermining competition, which will reduce their choice in
> the future. The undercutting company will wipe out the others and then
> jack up prices. Since the consumers are willing to live with that, let
> them live with it.
In an ideal world, where most customers were farsighted enough to
anticipate this consequence, this might be a reasonable attitude. But
in the real world most decisions are made on short-term interests. Few
people will pay 10% more now, in the hope that this will prevent 15%
inflation down the road. Especially since they can't even tell for sure
that buying from the cheap guy really will put the others out of
business. A bird in the hand really IS better than 2 in the bush.
We would prefer that vendors compete on the merits of their products,
not the depth of their pockets. If a company makes really great
gadgets, and they become rich selling those gadgets, this is deserved.
But if they decide that they also want to corner the market on widgets,
but they don't make very good widgets, it doesn't seem right that they
should use all their gadget profits to undercut the other widget vendors
and drive them out of business.
You say this is the consumers' fault -- they knowingly bought the
inferior widgets. But they make a reasonable economic choice at the
time, buying something 90% as good for 85% the price. The problem is
that once the competitors are gone, GadgetCo can raise the prices of
their widgets, while not improving on their quality.
In general, anti-trust laws would not be necessary at all if we could
expect the marketplace to protect itself against these eventualities.
And social security wouldn't be necessary if everyone saved for
retirement. And people who lost money to con men were just stupid,
right? We could just live our entire lives based on "caveat emptor",
but we think it's better to have some watchdogs protecting us.
--
Barry Margolin, ······@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
> We would prefer that vendors compete on the merits of their products,
> not the depth of their pockets. If a company makes really great
> gadgets, and they become rich selling those gadgets, this is deserved.
> But if they decide that they also want to corner the market on widgets,
> but they don't make very good widgets, it doesn't seem right that they
> should use all their gadget profits to undercut the other widget vendors
> and drive them out of business.
Would you complain if the company was able to undercut its competitors
due to a manufacturing/technological breakthrough (i.e., increased
productivity)?
Of course not.
So why complain about a company that is able to undercut its
competitors by giving away money? Money is just a store of
productivity. Why does it matter that the productivity gain was not
made in the same industry/in the same time period/by the same
company?
> You say this is the consumers' fault -- they knowingly bought the
> inferior widgets. But they make a reasonable economic choice at the
> time, buying something 90% as good for 85% the price. The problem is
> that once the competitors are gone, GadgetCo can raise the prices of
> their widgets, while not improving on their quality.
No company can sell a product for more than what it is worth.
If they try to sell it for more, they will draw competitors. And the
competition need not be in the same industry.
The lesson here is that the marginal utility of the product is what
determines prices. Nothing else.
In article
<····································@13g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
········@gmail.com wrote:
> > We would prefer that vendors compete on the merits of their products,
> > not the depth of their pockets. If a company makes really great
> > gadgets, and they become rich selling those gadgets, this is deserved.
> > But if they decide that they also want to corner the market on widgets,
> > but they don't make very good widgets, it doesn't seem right that they
> > should use all their gadget profits to undercut the other widget vendors
> > and drive them out of business.
>
> Would you complain if the company was able to undercut its competitors
> due to a manufacturing/technological breakthrough (i.e., increased
> productivity)?
No, but in this case the product is comparable to the competitors, only
the price is lower. My hypothetical was about INFERIOR products.
>
> Of course not.
>
> So why complain about a company that is able to undercut its
> competitors by giving away money? Money is just a store of
> productivity. Why does it matter that the productivity gain was not
> made in the same industry/in the same time period/by the same
> company?
My complaint wasn't about the difference in industries, it was about the
fact that they're dumping CRAP. And they're getting people to buy the
crap by selling it really cheaply compared to the good stuff.
>
> > You say this is the consumers' fault -- they knowingly bought the
> > inferior widgets. But they make a reasonable economic choice at the
> > time, buying something 90% as good for 85% the price. The problem is
> > that once the competitors are gone, GadgetCo can raise the prices of
> > their widgets, while not improving on their quality.
>
> No company can sell a product for more than what it is worth.
That's true in a free market. If there's a monopoly, customers have
little choice -- pay what the company asks, or do without.
> If they try to sell it for more, they will draw competitors. And the
> competition need not be in the same industry.
But the advantage of having killed off all the competition is that it
will take time for new competitors to get up to speed. When they do,
you go back into dumping mode, and kill them off again.
--
Barry Margolin, ······@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
On 5 Mrz., 06:31, Barry Margolin <······@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article
> <····································@13g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
>
> ········@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > No company can sell a product for more than what it is worth.
>
> That's true in a free market. If there's a monopoly, customers have
> little choice -- pay what the company asks, or do without.
Do you have an example of a monopoly that emerged without legislative
help from the state and is not a natural monopoly?
I ask since theory suggests that no such thing can possibly exist.
Another view is that every company (and every market participant) is a
monopolist, insofar as he tries to sell a unique product or service.
(The "uniqueness" of the bakery around the corner might be its
proximity to certain customers, thus forming a "regional monopoly".)
>
> > If they try to sell it for more, they will draw competitors. And the
> > competition need not be in the same industry.
>
> But the advantage of having killed off all the competition is that it
> will take time for new competitors to get up to speed. When they do,
> you go back into dumping mode, and kill them off again.
Not so.
Real "dumping" would cost a lot of money. Remember, he who "dumps"
wants to get the biggest player in the particular market, this means
he wants to serve all potential customers, and as he approaches this
goal, this will cost him more and more.
Moreover, as the product in question is cheaper than before, more of
it will be bought than under normal circumstances. Thus, the dumping
company will have to expand its production beyond the point where it
could serve all customers at normal prices. For, clearly, it makes no
sense to start dumping and then run out of inventories.
Needless to say, the expenses for this kind of overproduction will be
lost and will add up with the losses from sales return.
One must understand further, that the "better" company has no
incentive to dump. It is already in the position of producing more
cheaply and/or in better quality than its competitors. The price
pressure is thus already upon the competitors. The best strategy is
here to invest to make yet a better follow up product ere the
competitors even catch up with the current product.
Rather, it is most likely that the inferior company starts dumping.
Let's say, for example, the better company can sell at 10$ without
incurring losses and the company that wants to dump needs 11$ to cover
costs. Now, for the dumping company it is not enough to set prizes
below its own profitability margin, rather it has to undercut the
marginal price of the better company in the hope that its own cash
reserves will last long enough. So, it could sell at 9.99$, for
example. But at that price, it looses 1.01$ for each item sold,
whereas the better company looses only 0.01$. For this strategy, the
bad company should have cash reserves 100 times as much as the good
company to sustain it. Of course, this ratio can be made less worse by
cutting the price even more. Let's say, they dump their product at 5$.
They need now only 6/5 of cash reserves, but those reserves must be
huge. For they loose 6$ per item sold now, and plenty of items will be
sold most likely at that price.
It may be that they nevertheless succeed in throwing competitors out
the market. But it is yet to show that they can make good their losses
now that they have the monopoly. For, economists tell us that even if
they are monopolist, they must not raise prices so as to attract new
competitors. In other words, the returns from the sale of the good may
not exceed significantly lowest possible production cost plus the
going profit rate. This means, they can't even charge the price they
charged before the "dumping" started. For, at that price, there was
already some company that could make more profit in the production of
the good.
This shows that "dumping" is not likely a good idea, even under the
assumption that consumers will always buy the cheapest brand,
regardless of quality. But we know that this is far from the truth,
otherwise no BMW or Porsche could be sold in the US. Thus, not few
hold the view that dumping really is a myth, most often invented by
competitors of a successful company. I bet that "dumpimg" allegedly
happens most often in countries where there are anti-dumping laws
(notably US), where it is unheard of in countries without such laws.
On 2008-03-04, Kaz Kylheku <········@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 4, 10:34�am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> If the univerity is funded by government money, well, that is theft.
>
> Once we can can assign an unethical attribute the root node of an
> economic tree, there is no point in evaluating the ethics of the child
> nodes; the unethical property flows out from that root toward the
> leaves. Stolen money taints all derived transactions.
Interesting theory, but why limit it to money and other resources that
were stolen recently? For example, if a government (or an independant
conqueror) steals a vast quantity of land, gold, oil, and other valuable
natural resources through warfare (as various European countries did all
over the world starting with Columbus, and as the USA did in the 19th
Century and continues to do today), and then gives it to certain members
of its population, then isn't all the profit made from that theft, and the
profit made by reinvesting those profits, and the profits made by those
who inherited those profits in following generations, isn't all of it
ultimately derived from theft? That would place your root node in a place
that marks virtually all wealth in the "first world" countries as
stolen.
--
Microsoft Windows. Flaky and built to stay that way.
Mark Tarver wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
The difference is that the GPLed algebra tutor can be taken up by anyone
(including the struggling company), and used, modified, updated, resold.
You can't do that with material goods.
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
Fair enough, always in for a good discussion.
Daniel.
--
Daniel Pitts' Tech Blog: <http://virtualinfinity.net/wordpress/>
Daniel Pitts <····················@virtualinfinity.net> writes:
> The difference is that the GPLed algebra tutor can be taken up by anyone
> (including the struggling company), and used, modified, updated,
> resold. You can't do that with material goods.
I only want to emphasize that the GPL (i.e. free software in the RMS sense)
is the decisive factor here. Most commercial companies live and thrive
very much due to public domain and BSD software floating around provided to
all of us mostly by government funding.
In contrast, it is difficult for companies to use GPL software in the way
you describe above, because they might have to put all their sources
connected with the GPL piece under GPL. At least, some business models of
making money easily do not work anymore. (Some years ago, an internal
report of two Microsoft engineers about OSS leaked out, with more or less
this content: BSD - wonderful for us, GPL - evil).
Nicolas
P.S.: There is at least one newsgroup specifically dedicated to discussing
these issues, namely gnu.misc.discuss.
On Mar 4, 11:34 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
Free software is released _by it's creator_ as such. The creator
makes a decision that that is what they want to do with their
creation, and they do it. I do not see how that is "unethical".
Perhaps
you could explain that? Why can't the creator allow his/her creation
to be used in the manner given for Free software?
Furthermore, you seem to equate "Free" in "Free software" with "free"
in "free beer". This is wrong: "Free" as in "Free Speech" is the more
appropriate interpretation.
According to your code of ethics, everything must be distributed for
a high price to avoid "hurting" someone else's business. I do not
see the reason for this.
On Mar 4, 7:34 pm, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
I personally think this as a false dichotomy. Certainly it would be
nice to release the sourcecode freely, but our current system of
consumption and production makes this difficult. Perhaps the system
itself is unethical? Or at least it should go the way of many other
dominant systems of the past which have been obsoleted, including
those which had lasted for millenia?
Perhaps that is why there are so many flamewars on this subject.
Just a thought.
PS: There are many forms of uncompensated work which nevertheless
benefit people. Free software is only one example.
PPS: Hacker culture has this one word...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
Many economists will tell you that there's no such thing as dumping. It's a
myth--or more generously, a misunderstanding--about how free markets work.
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
Excellent form. Nice twist. You should run for election, or start a church.
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
With that information, I can't say. There's no "lost value". Expenditures
the company forwent in sourcing such a product might go to pay the salaries
of some other position, or pad the pockets of some billionaire, reducing the
price of capital. Nothing here tells me whether one manner of production is
more efficient than another; all I have to go on is experience and anecdotal
ewvidence, which tells me that Free Softwate tends to be of higher quality,
and lower cost, than closed-source, proprietary software. In that case, Free
Software has the _potential_ to create more jobs.
If your beef is with the structure of employment, well, that's a political
issue, not an economic issue, per se. Political societies manipulate the job
market for supposed social gain all the time, including, as you intimate,
paying for comfortable university positions. Maybe you should lobby for a
law banning people from distributing software without a reciprocal monetary
fee.
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
The only logical ground--firm or not--for the dumping argument is an ethical
contention that people have, or should have, a right to some particular kind
of employment. It gets fuzzy after that. I'm not sure what kind of
employment we're talking about. Such an argument, similar to Stallman's,
touches on ideas about personal autonomy, and power relationships. Now, what
it means to lead a "moral life", I'm not sure. As an individual, I'd like to
think leading a moral life means making small decisions, every day, which
directly benefit the people around me, or at least people I can have a
direct relationship with, no matter how remote they might be physically, or
whether I know them personally. I sincerely hope that morality doesn't
require me, as an individual, to run monte carlo simulations. In that sense,
writing and supporting Free Software, IMO, directly benefits the people
around me. _Not_ writing Free Software, well, that certainly doesn't
directly benefit the people around me. Maybe, in some larger scheme, its
preferable. That would seriously complicate my life, though. Since I'm an
optimist, and have this crazy idea that civilization in 2008 is vastly more
evolved than civiliation circa 1008, I tend to think think that there's a
nexus between morality and common sense (where common sense means an
intution that I can contribute positively to society merely by contributing
positively to my neighbors). If there wasn't, I can't see how we could've
arrived at this level of sophistication.
Mark Tarver wrote:
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
Meh. There is no moral reason for a company to make money and not
fail. (that means you, Amtrak, GM, United Airlines, ...) But it is
good for society when they invest wisely and succeed. Dumping is a
short-term loss with the hope of outlasting competitors and raising
prices later -- something that I don't think free software can do
effectively.
Consider two software business models:
1) Develop some code. Spend 59% on marketing, 29% on support, 9% on
management, and 3% on further development. Sell shrink-wrap binaries
in perpetuity.
2) Pay someone to develop some code. Release it so that others can
freely use/enhance it as they see fit. Hope others do the same.
Neither seems particularly unethical. Both have their problems. Both
will continue to flourish.
As a poor student for most of my life, I have generally preferred the
free software model. Yes, time is money, but "learn to use/extend the
free software" always seemed like a better option than "earn money at
some random job to buy pre-packaged software".
Aside from cost, "free" software never goes away. Have you not heard
a vendor say "we no longer support that hardware/software"?
Open source gives the user a fighting chance of breaking out the
debugger and fixing problems when the vendor says they don't care
unless a support contract is purchased. Users who lack the technical
expertise are still free to bid on the open market for a developer to
fix the problem; and this fix can be shared throughout the community.
After buying a car, house, or bridge, you are not at the mercy of
the original contractor to do repairs. Why should software be different?
Thinking about the future, opening the software lets a new generation
learn from our code.
IHBT HAND
- Daniel
On Mar 4, 10:34 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarverwww.lambdassociates.org
dumping is a silly concept
free trade is good
free software is good
software patents are as silly as patents on math or english
yes amazon sued barnes & noble for programmign a shopping cart (hardly
an amazon invention )
http://money.cnn.com/1999/10/22/bizbuzz/amazon/
as long as we have keynesians teaching economics, who advocate things
liek deficit spending to help and economy, we will have silly policies
studies showing how much non free software costs people in
integration costs, supposrt of integratin which would not be nedded if
free software was ued, and lobbying and payoff in government would be
interesting
Well, I'm playing black here.
1. Producing FOSS is OK (unlike dumping) because it is done with good
intentions.
Quote
"What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for profit
maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
phenomenon."
Unquote
This comes up most often as a defence of FOSS. It is based on anti-
consequentialism which states that it is the goodness of the intention
that determines whether the action is right and not the goodness of
the consequences (consequentialism). See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
I'm not sure about this one. In law, intention does count in cases of
(e.g.)
murder where intent to cause death has to be established before a
guilty verdict can be returned. However indifference to the probable
or possible consequences of action leading to harm can be sufficient
to lead to the conviction of manslaughter or criminal negligence.
In this case if a person produces FOSS using tax money and is
indifferent to the consequences of bankruptcy of a small private
company who is trying to operate without that support, is his intent
that noble? This is not an idle question because FOSS started
(allegedly) as a feud between Richard Stallman and Symbolics w.r.t.
sharing code. RMS was reverse-engineering Symbolics code and FOSSing
it, making it difficult for his former buddies to make a buck.
Personally I've been very much on the side of Symbolics (now extinct)
over this one. And a lot of FOSS is reverse-engineered or copied from
commercial systems.
Its interesting that RMS's position on FOSS is based on utilitarianism
- which is very consequentialist. See point 3.
2. Producing FOSS is ok because people can always go on to buy the
better thing.
The problem is that the FOSS can be so good that people never buy the
better thing.Or the betterness of the better thing is not enough to
tempt people to shell out. In case of point I have an excellent free
cribbage program which means that I will never buy one. My friend
Willi using the free Bloodshed C++ dev environment and is perfectly
happy.
3. FOSS is great because it makes people's lives easier.
Quote
"As a poor student for most of my life, I have generally preferred the
free software model. "
Unquote
This is straight utilitarianism - greatest happiness of the greatest
number (particularly me). However one thing you've got to grasp about
utilitarianism - *it is completely inconsistent with the idea of
individual rights*. An individual has no rights because the welfare
of the majority must always prevail. For that reason RMS denies the
author of the software any rights over his own work.
Generally the most benign governments have adulterated utilitarianism
with
unalienable rights.
4. FOSS is OK because people have the right to do with their time as
they
please.
Quote
"Free software is released _by it's creator_ as such. The creator
makes a decision that that is what they want to do with their
creation, and they do it."
"As I see it, if I want to spend my own money and resources making
guitars and giving them away, it is my own business and there is
nothing wrong with it, even though some guitar companies might not
like it."
Unquote
This is a version of extreme social libertarianism; everybody should
be free
to do their own thing - whatever. But this doctrine leads to an
unacceptable
Hobbesian free-for-all which no sensible person could accept.
The doctrine that most people would accept is 'People have the right
to do with their time as they please so long as others are not hurt by
so doing'. The argument against FOSS is that people are hurt by so
doing.
5. OS does not mean 'free'. Think 'free' as in 'free speech', not as
in
'free beer' (RMS).
Quote
"you should perhaps concentrate on Free software, not "Open Source",
which are different things."
UnQuote
My argument is with 'free' not OS - but free is almost always OS too;
however ...
This is an RMS red-herring. There are two senses of 'X is free' - as
applied to commodities (sense 1: free = zero cost) and applied to
people (sense 2: free = free to act). 'Free speech' is just a turn of
phrase; it is not the speech that is free but the person who is free
to speak. There is no fundamental sense 2: application of 'free' to
non-sentient objects.
It is true that *conceptually* OS <> free. However in practice
selling OS is
often hard because there is nothing to stop the recipient making a
buck by
reselling at a lower cost. Thus the price asympotically tends to zero
and
so OS is often made free at the outset. The alternative is to try to
hedge
the OS by awkward and unpopular restrictions about what you can do
with it.
FOSS is not exactly a pleonasm, but it almost is.
6. If proprietory closed source cannot compete with FOSS - too bad
for them!
Quote
"The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If
software
houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really
deserve to succeed."
Unquote
Compare: if African farmers cannot compete against highly subsidised
EC food, too bad for them.
And thats it from me for now - nearly midnight here.
Mark
www.lambdasociates.org
On 4 Mar, 23:51, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> Well, I'm playing black here.
>
> 1. Producing FOSS is OK (unlike dumping) because it is done with good
> intentions.
>
> Quote
> "What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for profit
> maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
> phenomenon."
> Unquote
>
> This comes up most often as a defence of FOSS. It is based on anti-
> consequentialism which states that it is the goodness of the intention
> that determines whether the action is right and not the goodness of
> the consequences (consequentialism). See
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
>
> I'm not sure about this one. In law, intention does count in cases of
> (e.g.)
> murder where intent to cause death has to be established before a
> guilty verdict can be returned. However indifference to the probable
> or possible consequences of action leading to harm can be sufficient
> to lead to the conviction of manslaughter or criminal negligence.
>
> In this case if a person produces FOSS using tax money and is
> indifferent to the consequences of bankruptcy of a small private
> company who is trying to operate without that support, is his intent
> that noble? This is not an idle question because FOSS started
> (allegedly) as a feud between Richard Stallman and Symbolics w.r.t.
> sharing code. RMS was reverse-engineering Symbolics code and FOSSing
> it, making it difficult for his former buddies to make a buck.
> Personally I've been very much on the side of Symbolics (now extinct)
> over this one. And a lot of FOSS is reverse-engineered or copied from
> commercial systems.
>
> Its interesting that RMS's position on FOSS is based on utilitarianism
> - which is very consequentialist. See point 3.
>
> 2. Producing FOSS is ok because people can always go on to buy the
> better thing.
>
> The problem is that the FOSS can be so good that people never buy the
> better thing.Or the betterness of the better thing is not enough to
> tempt people to shell out. In case of point I have an excellent free
> cribbage program which means that I will never buy one. My friend
> Willi using the free Bloodshed C++ dev environment and is perfectly
> happy.
>
> 3. FOSS is great because it makes people's lives easier.
> Quote
> "As a poor student for most of my life, I have generally preferred the
> free software model. "
> Unquote
>
> This is straight utilitarianism - greatest happiness of the greatest
> number (particularly me). However one thing you've got to grasp about
> utilitarianism - *it is completely inconsistent with the idea of
> individual rights*. An individual has no rights because the welfare
> of the majority must always prevail. For that reason RMS denies the
> author of the software any rights over his own work.
>
> Generally the most benign governments have adulterated utilitarianism
> with
> unalienable rights.
>
> 4. FOSS is OK because people have the right to do with their time as
> they
> please.
>
> Quote
> "Free software is released _by it's creator_ as such. The creator
> makes a decision that that is what they want to do with their
> creation, and they do it."
>
> "As I see it, if I want to spend my own money and resources making
> guitars and giving them away, it is my own business and there is
> nothing wrong with it, even though some guitar companies might not
> like it."
> Unquote
>
> This is a version of extreme social libertarianism; everybody should
> be free
> to do their own thing - whatever. But this doctrine leads to an
> unacceptable
> Hobbesian free-for-all which no sensible person could accept.
>
> The doctrine that most people would accept is 'People have the right
> to do with their time as they please so long as others are not hurt by
> so doing'. The argument against FOSS is that people are hurt by so
> doing.
>
> 5. OS does not mean 'free'. Think 'free' as in 'free speech', not as
> in
> 'free beer' (RMS).
> Quote
> "you should perhaps concentrate on Free software, not "Open Source",
> which are different things."
> UnQuote
>
> My argument is with 'free' not OS - but free is almost always OS too;
> however ...
>
> This is an RMS red-herring. There are two senses of 'X is free' - as
> applied to commodities (sense 1: free = zero cost) and applied to
> people (sense 2: free = free to act). 'Free speech' is just a turn of
> phrase; it is not the speech that is free but the person who is free
> to speak. There is no fundamental sense 2: application of 'free' to
> non-sentient objects.
>
> It is true that *conceptually* OS <> free. However in practice
> selling OS is
> often hard because there is nothing to stop the recipient making a
> buck by
> reselling at a lower cost. Thus the price asympotically tends to zero
> and
> so OS is often made free at the outset. The alternative is to try to
> hedge
> the OS by awkward and unpopular restrictions about what you can do
> with it.
> FOSS is not exactly a pleonasm, but it almost is.
>
> 6. If proprietory closed source cannot compete with FOSS - too bad
> for them!
>
> Quote
> "The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If
> software
> houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
> software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really
> deserve to succeed."
> Unquote
>
> Compare: if African farmers cannot compete against highly subsidised
> EC food, too bad for them.
>
> And thats it from me for now - nearly midnight here.
>
> Markwww.lambdasociates.org
I came upon this great quote by Kent Pitman who is obviously playing
black too.
"On the side of budget, I have to say that the open source marketplace
is I think the single greatest threat to forward advance in computer
science. By giving technology away, programmers drive down the price
of things. A consequence of this is that it's hard to command a decent
price for programming products, and that means fewer dollars to pay
for jobs for programmers, if indeed programming can be done as a job
at all. Free market business will squeeze every dollar out of
something that it can, and if it finds that people will program for
free, it will make sure that no one ever gets paid for programming.
Further, I think it's mostly younger and more vulnerable programmers
who are idealists who subscribe to the open source rhetoric, while
they are in school and at the peak of their game, thinking that
earning a few extra dollars is immoral. Later in life, when one may
want some leisure time for family, or one may get ill, or one may want
to contribute the fruits of one's labor to charity, the true price of
having given away so much of value for free early in one's life is
most likely to be felt, when one can't really take it back.
It seems there is an endless supply of youth, and so the free software
movement continues, for now, to plod along. As it does, though, I
think it slowly and quietly strangles the lifeblood of dollars from a
community that could be using extra dollars to invest in its future.
Instead, since its own dogma suggests that programmers be paid like
peasants, compensated for a day's work but not for any value beyond
that, there is no slack to plan for future growth, for
experimentation, nor even for human error, for medical sickness, nor
any other kind of non-task-oriented thing. Programmers are seen as
replaceable cogs, and are undervalued because management values only
what it pays dearly for, and it is not forced to pay dearly for this.
This is not to say I've never given away a free program in my life.
Just that I don't believe the doing of such a deed should be a way of
life."
Mark
From: Joost Diepenmaat
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87tzjm9fvx.fsf@zeekat.nl>
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
> On 4 Mar, 23:51, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> I came upon this great quote by Kent Pitman who is obviously playing
> black too.
Yeah he tends to do that. On the other hand, he still releases some OSS.
> "On the side of budget, I have to say that the open source marketplace
> is I think the single greatest threat to forward advance in computer
> science. By giving technology away, programmers drive down the price
> of things. A consequence of this is that it's hard to command a decent
> price for programming products, and that means fewer dollars to pay
> for jobs for programmers, if indeed programming can be done as a job
> at all. Free market business will squeeze every dollar out of
> something that it can, and if it finds that people will program for
> free, it will make sure that no one ever gets paid for programming.
[etc etc etc]
None of that is unethical.
--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/
From: Joost Diepenmaat
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87prua9ftf.fsf@zeekat.nl>
Joost Diepenmaat <·····@zeekat.nl> writes:
> Yeah he tends to do that. On the other hand, he still releases some OSS.
Oh wait, I always get confused with Ken Tilton. Never mind.
--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/
Joost Diepenmaat wrote:
> Joost Diepenmaat <·····@zeekat.nl> writes:
>
>
>>Yeah he tends to do that. On the other hand, he still releases some OSS.
>
>
> Oh wait, I always get confused with Ken Tilton. Never mind.
>
Understandable. My client-selected username on one contract was "kent"
(I'll let you guess their algorithm) so one of the other contractors
liked to address me as Clark. I always addressed him as "Lois". He
seemed to enjoy that.
hth, kenny
--
http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"In the morning, hear the Way;
in the evening, die content!"
-- Confucius
On Mar 4, 9:42 pm, Ken Tilton <···········@optonline.net> wrote:
> Joost Diepenmaat wrote:
> > Joost Diepenmaat <·····@zeekat.nl> writes:
>
> >>Yeah he tends to do that. On the other hand, he still releases some OSS.
>
> > Oh wait, I always get confused with Ken Tilton. Never mind.
>
> Understandable. My client-selected username on one contract was "kent"
> (I'll let you guess their algorithm) so one of the other contractors
> liked to address me as Clark. I always addressed him as "Lois". He
> seemed to enjoy that.
Wow, that's pretty Turing-compatible.
On Mar 4, 6:51 pm, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> Well, I'm playing black here.
Indeed. Rather than respond in detail to what is clearly at root a
philosophical difference, I pose four questions:
1. Do those who object to free software also object to free web
email, free online stories, volunteer (free) home builders who help
the poor, and free public education? Certainly all of these
activities could be argued to be killing commercial markets for goods
and services.
2. Is there any hard, concrete data (polls, sales figures, etc.) that
can show economic impact on both software businesses and the wider
economy? Without such information it is very difficult to have a
debate that has a hope of termination.
3. What types of innovations do we not want to lose that commercial
software uniquely supplies, and are those unique innovations (if any)
more important than the practical benefits of free software?
4. Assuming free software were decided to be a bad thing by enough
people to begin legislative action, what course of action could be
taken that would have a plausible chance of net positive results? In
other words, what is the counter proposal to the way things currently
work, why is it better, and how could it be realized?
From: Joost Diepenmaat
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <874pbmauyf.fsf@zeekat.nl>
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
> In this case if a person produces FOSS using tax money and is
> indifferent to the consequences of bankruptcy of a small private
> company who is trying to operate without that support, is his intent
> that noble?
You seem to be objecting to FOSS when its being produced using tax
money, while quite a lot of it is being produces without any tax money
at all, and the concequenses are just the same.
> This is not an idle question because FOSS started
> (allegedly) as a feud between Richard Stallman and Symbolics w.r.t.
> sharing code. RMS was reverse-engineering Symbolics code and FOSSing
> it, making it difficult for his former buddies to make a buck.
> Personally I've been very much on the side of Symbolics (now extinct)
> over this one. And a lot of FOSS is reverse-engineered or copied from
> commercial systems.
So is a lot of for-profit/commercial/non-free software. So What?
> Its interesting that RMS's position on FOSS is based on utilitarianism
> - which is very consequentialist. See point 3.
RMS is an extremist. Personally, I think he's usually on the ball, but
he can can be wrong. In any case, he personally only accounts for a
minute fraction of all FOSS code out there (except for his
popularisation of the method).
> 2. Producing FOSS is ok because people can always go on to buy the
> better thing.
>
> The problem is that the FOSS can be so good that people never buy the
> better thing.Or the betterness of the better thing is not enough to
> tempt people to shell out. In case of point I have an excellent free
> cribbage program which means that I will never buy one. My friend
> Willi using the free Bloodshed C++ dev environment and is perfectly
> happy.
What's your point?
> 3. FOSS is great because it makes people's lives easier.
> Quote
> "As a poor student for most of my life, I have generally preferred the
> free software model. "
> Unquote
>
> This is straight utilitarianism - greatest happiness of the greatest
> number (particularly me). However one thing you've got to grasp about
> utilitarianism - *it is completely inconsistent with the idea of
> individual rights*. An individual has no rights because the welfare
> of the majority must always prevail. For that reason RMS denies the
> author of the software any rights over his own work.
No, that's just why some people like it. Nobody's forced to make people
happy here. Also, RMS *does not* deny the author any rights, he makes
the claim that some uses of those rights are immoral. He doesn't make
the law (and I guess I'm glad about that) . He's against copyright, but
at the same time he's found a pretty clever use for it.
> Generally the most benign governments have adulterated utilitarianism
> with
> unalienable rights.
Like copyright? I have the unalienable right to make software and give
it away. Wether it makes people happy or not is irrelevant.
> 4. FOSS is OK because people have the right to do with their time as
> they
> please.
>
> Quote
> "Free software is released _by it's creator_ as such. The creator
> makes a decision that that is what they want to do with their
> creation, and they do it."
>
> "As I see it, if I want to spend my own money and resources making
> guitars and giving them away, it is my own business and there is
> nothing wrong with it, even though some guitar companies might not
> like it."
> Unquote
>
> This is a version of extreme social libertarianism; everybody should
> be free
> to do their own thing - whatever. But this doctrine leads to an
> unacceptable
> Hobbesian free-for-all which no sensible person could accept.
>
> The doctrine that most people would accept is 'People have the right
> to do with their time as they please so long as others are not hurt by
> so doing'. The argument against FOSS is that people are hurt by so
> doing.
How is that any different from competition by for-profit companies,
except that FOSS is more efficient/cheaper? People don't have the right
to make a profit, they're just free to make a profit if they
can. Companies don't have a "right to live". People do.
> 5. OS does not mean 'free'. Think 'free' as in 'free speech', not as
> in
> 'free beer' (RMS).
> Quote
> "you should perhaps concentrate on Free software, not "Open Source",
> which are different things."
> UnQuote
>
> My argument is with 'free' not OS - but free is almost always OS too;
> however ...
>
> This is an RMS red-herring. There are two senses of 'X is free' - as
> applied to commodities (sense 1: free = zero cost) and applied to
> people (sense 2: free = free to act). 'Free speech' is just a turn of
> phrase; it is not the speech that is free but the person who is free
> to speak. There is no fundamental sense 2: application of 'free' to
> non-sentient objects.
>
> It is true that *conceptually* OS <> free. However in practice
> selling OS is
> often hard because there is nothing to stop the recipient making a
> buck by
> reselling at a lower cost. Thus the price asympotically tends to zero
> and
> so OS is often made free at the outset. The alternative is to try to
> hedge
> the OS by awkward and unpopular restrictions about what you can do
> with it.
> FOSS is not exactly a pleonasm, but it almost is.
So what?
> 6. If proprietory closed source cannot compete with FOSS - too bad
> for them!
>
> Quote
> "The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If
> software
> houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
> software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really
> deserve to succeed."
> Unquote
>
> Compare: if African farmers cannot compete against highly subsidised
> EC food, too bad for them.
The EC is not starving poor african software producers with free
software. And if they were, those africans could just take the software
and build their own stuff on top of it.
--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/
From: Joost Diepenmaat
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87zlte9g41.fsf@zeekat.nl>
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
> In this case if a person produces FOSS using tax money and is
> indifferent to the consequences of bankruptcy of a small private
> company who is trying to operate without that support, is his intent
> that noble?
I forgot to mention: as far as I can see, in your argument it *doesn't
matter* if the software is released as FOSS or sold for a closed
gazillion bucks as closed software. Your argument is against publicly
funded software competing with privately owned software.
In other words, you're putting up a straw man.
--
Joost Diepenmaat | blog: http://joost.zeekat.nl/ | work: http://zeekat.nl/
Mark Tarver said:
> Well, I'm playing black here.
>
> 1. Producing FOSS is OK (unlike dumping) because it is done with good
> intentions.
>
> Quote
> "What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for profit
> maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
> phenomenon."
> Unquote
>
> This comes up most often as a defence of FOSS. It is based on anti-
> consequentialism which states that it is the goodness of the intention
> that determines whether the action is right and not the goodness of
> the consequences (consequentialism).
Correct. An action can be "good" (well-intentioned) and yet unwise
("stupid"). Here, we're talking about ethics, which is to do with intent,
not consequences.
<snip>
> In this case if a person produces FOSS using tax money and is
> indifferent to the consequences of bankruptcy of a small private
> company who is trying to operate without that support, is his intent
> that noble?
Stop Right There. If a person produces *closed-source* software using tax
money, what changes?
<snip>
> The problem is that the FOSS can be so good that people never buy the
> better thing.Or the betterness of the better thing is not enough to
> tempt people to shell out. In case of point I have an excellent free
> cribbage program which means that I will never buy one.
And why should you? And why should anyone bother to waste their time
writing one, if what already exists is excellent? Let them write something
innovative instead.
> However one thing you've got to grasp about
> utilitarianism - *it is completely inconsistent with the idea of
> individual rights*. An individual has no rights because the welfare
> of the majority must always prevail. For that reason RMS denies the
> author of the software any rights over his own work.
If the author truly has rights over his own work, RMS (who, last time I
checked, wasn't world dictator) is not in a position to deny him those
rights. If someone *chooses* to GPL the fruit of their programming labour,
that is their choice. If I write some really spiffy software and then
choose *not* to share it with the world, that's allowed, even if a greater
good would be served by my sharing it.
> The doctrine that most people would accept is 'People have the right
> to do with their time as they please so long as others are not hurt by
> so doing'. The argument against FOSS is that people are hurt by so
> doing.
Let's just assume for a moment that you're right, and that you're hurting
me economically by writing free software because you might conceivably be
depriving me of customers (in the same way that if you write expensive
closed-source software, you might also be depriving me of customers). But
if you drive a car, you hurt me *directly* by poisoning the atmosphere
which I must breathe to live. The second hurt is far greater than the
first.
The existence of one evil is not a reason not to oppose the existence of
another, but it makes sense to favour using resources on tackling the
greater evil. So - are you about to give up your car so that I can breathe
freely? No? I thought not.
<snip>
> My argument is with 'free' not OS - but free is almost always OS too;
> however ...
If you don't like the idea of free software, don't produce any and don't
use any. That's your right. I don't like the idea of expensive tat, so I
reserve the right not to use any, and I try not to produce any!
> Quote
> "The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If
> software
> houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
> software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really
> deserve to succeed."
> Unquote
>
> Compare: if African farmers cannot compete against highly subsidised
> EC food, too bad for them.
That's a lousy example for several reasons:
1) If they can't sell their food to us, at least they can usefully eat it
themselves;
2) In fact they /can/ sell their food to us, because they sell the kind of
food we don't grow in Europe and yet are prepared to pay for;
1) The African economy was immorally plundered for booty and slaves over
hundreds of years - it's hard to compete when someone keeps bashing you
over the head and grabbing your wallet.
If that's the best you can do for the Dark Side, it's clear that your heart
isn't in it. You might want to grab an X-Wing and help us out here - we
could use a good pilot.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
From: CBFalconer
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <47CDC7DE.2BB9778C@yahoo.com>
Mark Tarver wrote:
>
... snip ...
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was
> willing to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here
> is a thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical*
> because the supplier is dumping a free product from the position
> of having a subsidy?
No, because the seller doesn't have to publish his code (assuming
he is not appropriating some GPL or similarly licensed code). If
his implementation is appreciably better, he will sell to those who
want the better performance, etc. But he should not be protected
by patents, only by trade secrets.
--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.lang.functional.]
On 2008-03-04, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
No.
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
The difference is that when companies dump, it is obviously to eliminate
competition so that they can then raise prices in an environment of
lowered competition. That is neither the goal, nor the effect of
open source software.
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarver
> www.lambdassociates.org
[I'm not sure where this discussion belongs, so I don't know where to set
followups. A philosophy group, maybe?]
Mark Tarver said:
<snip>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If software
houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really deserve
to succeed. After all, they have far more resources than a typical Open
Source developer.
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical?
If I give a starving child a meal, am I unethically depriving Macdonald's
of business?
If, somehow, I manage to acquire the resources to give a million starving
children a meal each, am I /now/ unethically depriving Macdonald's of
business?
> Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
I don't see why. What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for
profit maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
phenomenon. People give their software away because they want other people
to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit. (Or at least,
if they do, they need to have a think about their pricing!)
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> > Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> I don't see why. What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for
> profit maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
> phenomenon. People give their software away because they want other people
> to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit. (Or at least,
> if they do, they need to have a think about their pricing!)
Not that I really want to fan these off-topic flames, but this is just
factually incorrect. People generally do not write open-source software
out of altruism. They do it because they are hoping for some form of
compensation, like the ability to use other people's open-source
software, professional recognition and respect, or monetary compensation
in the form of employment, contracts, or investments in some commercial
venture. Whether this motivation is wise or ethical is a separate
question, but the fact is that most open-source developers do have a
profit motive, even if only indirectly.
rg
On Mar 4, 12:25 pm, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
> > > Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> > I don't see why. What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for
> > profit maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
> > phenomenon. People give their software away because they want other people
> > to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit. (Or at least,
> > if they do, they need to have a think about their pricing!)
>
> Not that I really want to fan these off-topic flames, but this is just
> factually incorrect. People generally do not write open-source software
> out of altruism. They do it because they are hoping for some form of
> compensation, like the ability to use other people's open-source
> software, professional recognition and respect, or monetary compensation
> in the form of employment, contracts, or investments in some commercial
> venture. Whether this motivation is wise or ethical is a separate
> question, but the fact is that most open-source developers do have a
> profit motive, even if only indirectly.
>
Then you should perhaps concentrate on Free software, not "Open
Source", which are different things. (Although Free software is
also "open source", "open source" need not be "Free software".)
Free software _is_ about freedom (although it might be about
business as well, freedom is the main issue.). Open Source is about
business.
In article
<····································@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
mike3 <········@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Mar 4, 12:25�pm, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > �Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > > Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
> >
> > > I don't see why. What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for
> > > profit maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
> > > phenomenon. People give their software away because they want other people
> > > to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit. (Or at least,
> > > if they do, they need to have a think about their pricing!)
> >
> > Not that I really want to fan these off-topic flames, but this is just
> > factually incorrect. �People generally do not write open-source software
> > out of altruism. �They do it because they are hoping for some form of
> > compensation, like the ability to use other people's open-source
> > software, professional recognition and respect, or monetary compensation
> > in the form of employment, contracts, or investments in some commercial
> > venture. �Whether this motivation is wise or ethical is a separate
> > question, but the fact is that most open-source developers do have a
> > profit motive, even if only indirectly.
> >
>
> Then you should perhaps concentrate on Free software, not "Open
> Source", which are different things. (Although Free software is
> also "open source", "open source" need not be "Free software".)
> Free software _is_ about freedom (although it might be about
> business as well, freedom is the main issue.). Open Source is about
> business.
But even Free Software (in the sense that Richard Stallman uses the
term) isn't written out of altruism, it's written out of a desire for
personal freedom. And indeed using Free Software (in the RMS sense)
comes with a significant cost, to wit, the requirement that any
derivative works also be Free Software. So even Free Software is a
market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But there
is no altruism involved.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> So even Free Software is a
> market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
> is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
> authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But there
> is no altruism involved.
Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do with
DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save complete
strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
Yeah, right.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
> > So even Free Software is a
> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But there
> > is no altruism involved.
>
> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do with
> DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save complete
> strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>
> Yeah, right.
You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
rg
Ron Garret said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Ron Garret said:
>>
>> > So even Free Software is a
>> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
>> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
>> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But
>> > there is no altruism involved.
>>
>> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do
>> with DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save
>> complete strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>>
>> Yeah, right.
>
> You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
Oh, I can't agree with that! :-)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
I read that book about 15 years ago (assuming that the wiki article does
indeed describe "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - you can never tell
with wiki). I thought it was nonsense then, and I think it's nonsense now.
(It was, in fact, that book that persuaded me, much to my astonishment,
that my stance on the whole Evolution vs Creation debate thing was
completely wrong.)
But whether you agree with me or not on that issue, the denial of altruism
is merely a consequence of inappropriate reductionism. Whether people are
altruistic because "God made them that way" or because it's an emergent
species survival trait in a universe sans point, the fact remains that
people /do/ (on occasion) behave altruistically. To pretend otherwise is
just silly.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
On 5 mar, 09:28, Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
> >> Ron Garret said:
>
> >> > So even Free Software is a
> >> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
> >> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
> >> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But
> >> > there is no altruism involved.
>
> >> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do
> >> with DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save
> >> complete strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>
> >> Yeah, right.
>
> > You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>
> Oh, I can't agree with that! :-)
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
>
> I read that book about 15 years ago (assuming that the wiki article does
> indeed describe "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - you can never tell
> with wiki). I thought it was nonsense then, and I think it's nonsense now.
> (It was, in fact, that book that persuaded me, much to my astonishment,
> that my stance on the whole Evolution vs Creation debate thing was
> completely wrong.)
>
> But whether you agree with me or not on that issue, the denial of altruism
> is merely a consequence of inappropriate reductionism. Whether people are
> altruistic because "God made them that way" or because it's an emergent
> species survival trait in a universe sans point, the fact remains that
> people /do/ (on occasion) behave altruistically. To pretend otherwise is
> just silly.
>
> --
> Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
> Email: -http://www. ····@
> Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
> "Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999- Masquer le texte des messages précédents -
>
> - Afficher le texte des messages précédents -
Hi all,
"God made them that way" : It's certainly a good argument for boudhist
or indouist :)
All the world is not catholic or believe in Protestantism.
And clearly , Chinese and most other country in Asia does not share
this point of view.
Best Regards
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> Ron Garret said:
> >>
> >> > So even Free Software is a
> >> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
> >> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
> >> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But
> >> > there is no altruism involved.
> >>
> >> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do
> >> with DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save
> >> complete strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
> >>
> >> Yeah, right.
> >
> > You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>
> Oh, I can't agree with that! :-)
>
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
>
> I read that book about 15 years ago (assuming that the wiki article does
> indeed describe "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - you can never tell
> with wiki).
There's an easy way to find out you know.
> I thought it was nonsense then, and I think it's nonsense now.
> (It was, in fact, that book that persuaded me, much to my astonishment,
> that my stance on the whole Evolution vs Creation debate thing was
> completely wrong.)
Ah, and here I was thinking I was engaging in a debate with a rational
person. Silly me.
> But whether you agree with me or not on that issue, the denial of altruism
> is merely a consequence of inappropriate reductionism. Whether people are
> altruistic because "God made them that way" or because it's an emergent
> species survival trait in a universe sans point, the fact remains that
> people /do/ (on occasion) behave altruistically. To pretend otherwise is
> just silly.
No. Just because they *appear* to act altruistically does not mean that
they actually do. Just as the fact that the sun *appears* to revolve
around the earth does not mean that it actually does.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Ron Garret said:
>>
>> > In article <································@bt.com>,
>> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Ron Garret said:
>> >>
>> >> > So even Free Software is a
>> >> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only
>> >> > difference is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash
>> >> > because the
>> >> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But
>> >> > there is no altruism involved.
>> >>
>> >> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do
>> >> with DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save
>> >> complete strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>> >>
>> >> Yeah, right.
>> >
>> > You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>>
>> Oh, I can't agree with that! :-)
>>
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
>>
>> I read that book about 15 years ago (assuming that the wiki article does
>> indeed describe "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - you can never
>> tell with wiki).
>
> There's an easy way to find out you know.
Yeah, I *could* go look at the page. There is, after all, a non-zero
probability that nobody has edited it between its being posted here and my
visiting it. (Translation: I consider Wiki an untrustworthy source,
perhaps useful for a heads-up but not much more.)
>> I thought it was nonsense then, and I think it's nonsense now.
>> (It was, in fact, that book that persuaded me, much to my astonishment,
>> that my stance on the whole Evolution vs Creation debate thing was
>> completely wrong.)
>
> Ah, and here I was thinking I was engaging in a debate with a rational
> person. Silly me.
Ah, so an *irrational* person is someone who holds a view different to
yours? Or perhaps an irrational person is someone who reads a book on
science written by a widely respected scientist and, as a result of
reading that book, reassesses their opinion about some aspect of the
world? Curious - I thought that was the whole point of non-fiction books.
>> But whether you agree with me or not on that issue, the denial of
>> altruism is merely a consequence of inappropriate reductionism. Whether
>> people are altruistic because "God made them that way" or because it's
>> an emergent species survival trait in a universe sans point, the fact
>> remains that people /do/ (on occasion) behave altruistically. To pretend
>> otherwise is just silly.
>
> No. Just because they *appear* to act altruistically does not mean that
> they actually do. Just as the fact that the sun *appears* to revolve
> around the earth does not mean that it actually does.
Of course the Sun revolves around the Earth - to someone who is actually
standing on the earth. And to someone who is standing (or vaporising) on
the Sun, the Earth goes round the Sun. And to someone hanging around
somewhere off to stage left, the Earth and Sun are both revolving about
their centre of mass. And the thing is that all three of them are right.
To deny the existence of altruism may be an attempt to justify one's own
selfishness, or it may be a genuine but misguided view of reality, or it
may simply be a consequence of over-indulging in reductionist philosophy.
Whatever one's reason for denying altruism, one simply cuts oneself off
from a really important part of being a human.
Some people really do write software for other people without any thought
of gain.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to help out with a
computer problem she was having. I took a laptop with me, and ended up
fixing her problem by writing about 300 lines of C on my laptop, copying
the resulting binary over to her machine, and executing it there. That
program was written purely in my friend's interest (and in fact I didn't
even bother to keep a copy). And there's nothing particularly special
about me. Lots of people write programs in the interests of other people.
To pretend otherwise seems a bit silly to me.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ah, so an *irrational* person is someone who holds a view different to
> yours?
No. An irrational person is one who persists in a view in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. All creationists are irrational.
(I don't know that you are a creationist, but you are strongly hinting
that you are.)
> Of course the Sun revolves around the Earth - to someone who is actually
> standing on the earth. And to someone who is standing (or vaporising) on
> the Sun, the Earth goes round the Sun. And to someone hanging around
> somewhere off to stage left, the Earth and Sun are both revolving about
> their centre of mass. And the thing is that all three of them are right.
But some of them are more right than others.
> To deny the existence of altruism may be an attempt to justify one's own
> selfishness, or it may be a genuine but misguided view of reality, or it
> may simply be a consequence of over-indulging in reductionist philosophy.
> Whatever one's reason for denying altruism, one simply cuts oneself off
> from a really important part of being a human.
>
> Some people really do write software for other people without any thought
> of gain.
I doubt that very much. If such people exist they are exceedingly rare.
> A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to help out with a
> computer problem she was having. I took a laptop with me, and ended up
> fixing her problem by writing about 300 lines of C on my laptop, copying
> the resulting binary over to her machine, and executing it there. That
> program was written purely in my friend's interest (and in fact I didn't
> even bother to keep a copy). And there's nothing particularly special
> about me. Lots of people write programs in the interests of other people.
> To pretend otherwise seems a bit silly to me.
Of course people write programs (and do all manner of things) in the
interests of other people. But for it to be altruism they must get
nothing in return. But you *are* getting something in return:
friendship.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Ah, so an *irrational* person is someone who holds a view different to
>> yours?
>
> No. An irrational person is one who persists in a view in the face of
> overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Well, according to Chambers a /rational/ person is someone who is sane,
intelligent, endowed with (or agreeable to) reason. Chambers further
defines "reason" as "the mind's power of drawing conclusions and
determining right and truth" - which aptly describes the process through
which I went with "The Selfish Gene".
> All creationists are irrational.
That's a well-known fact, of course, and thus unarguable. Here is another
well-known fact, which is equally inarguable: All Californians are
irrational. Gee.
> (I don't know that you are a creationist, but you are strongly hinting
> that you are.)
I'm not really an "-ist" of any description. My view used to be
such-and-such. Now, as a result of reading Dawkins, it's more
this-and-that. Perhaps there is an argument that I have not heard as yet,
that can persuade me to revert to such-and-such. I don't know.
When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. "all creationists are
irrational" or "there is no such thing as altruism" or "Olly's fish has
chickenpox" or "random data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to
reassess their credibility.
>> Of course the Sun revolves around the Earth - to someone who is actually
>> standing on the earth. And to someone who is standing (or vaporising) on
>> the Sun, the Earth goes round the Sun. And to someone hanging around
>> somewhere off to stage left, the Earth and Sun are both revolving about
>> their centre of mass. And the thing is that all three of them are right.
>
> But some of them are more right than others.
No, absolutely not. Each is perfectly correct within his own frame of
reference, and there is no plausible and reasonable way to order those
frames in terms of "rightness". (Astrophysics is very postmodernist in
some ways.)
<snip>
> Of course people write programs (and do all manner of things) in the
> interests of other people. But for it to be altruism they must get
> nothing in return. But you *are* getting something in return:
> friendship.
Nonsense. The friendship already exists and would have continued whether I
wrote the program or not.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> Ah, so an *irrational* person is someone who holds a view different to
> >> yours?
> >
> > No. An irrational person is one who persists in a view in the face of
> > overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
>
> Well, according to Chambers a /rational/ person is someone who is sane,
> intelligent, endowed with (or agreeable to) reason. Chambers further
> defines "reason" as "the mind's power of drawing conclusions and
> determining right and truth" - which aptly describes the process through
> which I went with "The Selfish Gene".
Well, according to Garret, a rational person is one who bases his or her
beliefs on experimental evidence. So there.
> > All creationists are irrational.
>
> That's a well-known fact, of course, and thus unarguable.
I didn't say it was unarguable. You can argue it all you want. But you
will be wrong nonetheless.
> Here is another well-known fact, which is equally inarguable:
> All Californians are irrational. Gee.
There is a significant difference between being a Californian and being
a creationist, to wit, that one is defined by geography while the other
is defined by beliefs. A better analogy would be to say that all
Californians live on the West Coast (which is in fact correct). Since
rationality is a circumstance of belief and not geography, if you want
to claim that all Californians are irrational then you have a burden of
proof analogous to one who wishes to claim that all Creationists live on
the West Coast. But that claim that all Creationists are irrational is
in fact a tautology, just like the claim that all Californians live on
the West Coast.
> > (I don't know that you are a creationist, but you are strongly hinting
> > that you are.)
>
> I'm not really an "-ist" of any description. My view used to be
> such-and-such. Now, as a result of reading Dawkins, it's more
> this-and-that. Perhaps there is an argument that I have not heard as yet,
> that can persuade me to revert to such-and-such. I don't know.
Why so coy about your beliefs?
> When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
> becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. "all creationists are
> irrational" or "there is no such thing as altruism" or "Olly's fish has
> chickenpox" or "random data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to
> reassess their credibility.
Random data in fact cannot be compressed. That is actually part of the
definition of random data.
> >> Of course the Sun revolves around the Earth - to someone who is actually
> >> standing on the earth. And to someone who is standing (or vaporising) on
> >> the Sun, the Earth goes round the Sun. And to someone hanging around
> >> somewhere off to stage left, the Earth and Sun are both revolving about
> >> their centre of mass. And the thing is that all three of them are right.
> >
> > But some of them are more right than others.
>
> No, absolutely not. Each is perfectly correct within his own frame of
> reference, and there is no plausible and reasonable way to order those
> frames in terms of "rightness". (Astrophysics is very postmodernist in
> some ways.)
No, it isn't. To say that the sun revolves around the earth is very
badly wrong in fundamental ways. To give just one example, if the sun
revolves around the earth, what is it that keeps it moving in a
non-straight-line path?
> > Of course people write programs (and do all manner of things) in the
> > interests of other people. But for it to be altruism they must get
> > nothing in return. But you *are* getting something in return:
> > friendship.
>
> Nonsense. The friendship already exists and would have continued whether I
> wrote the program or not.
Friendship is an analog relationship, not a binary one. It is likely
that your good deed strengthened your friendship in ways that will
provide you some direct benefit down the road. Maybe she'll now do you
a favor that she might otherwise not have done. Maybe she'll go out
with you now. Maybe your good deed moved her closer to the point where
she wants to bear your children. Like it or not, if you're human
chances are good that your brain is hardwired to want that, and
improving your chances of getting laid is a benefit to you that is not
fundamentally different from improving the quality of the food you eat
or the shelter you live in or the clothes you wear or the car you drive.
rg
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:02:11 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>To say that the sun revolves around the earth is very badly wrong in
>fundamental ways. To give just one example, if the sun revolves around
>the earth, what is it that keeps it moving in a non-straight-line path?
First, let me say that I'm on your side in this discussion. Second, let
me point out that this is actually a bad example. ;-)
What you're saying is true only if you restrict yourself to Newtonian
mechanics. In his theory of general relativity, Einstein showed that
_all_ reference frames are equivalent, even non-inertial ones. (Special
relativity, by the way, deals only with inertial reference frames.)
So, to answer your question, from a (simplified) relativistic point of
view, if we take the motionless earth as our reference frame, what keeps
the sun (and everything else in the rest of the universe) moving in a
non-straight-line path is the curvature of space-time induced by the
mass of the earth and the mass and momentum of the sun (and everything
else in the rest of the universe). The apparent non-Newtonian motion is
the result of the non-Euclidean geometry of space-time.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
In article <··································@4ax.com>,
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:02:11 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
> >To say that the sun revolves around the earth is very badly wrong in
> >fundamental ways. To give just one example, if the sun revolves around
> >the earth, what is it that keeps it moving in a non-straight-line path?
>
> First, let me say that I'm on your side in this discussion. Second, let
> me point out that this is actually a bad example. ;-)
>
> What you're saying is true only if you restrict yourself to Newtonian
> mechanics. In his theory of general relativity, Einstein showed that
> _all_ reference frames are equivalent, even non-inertial ones.
If all frames of reference are equivalent, how does one distinguish
between an inertial frame and a non-inertial one?
> (Special
> relativity, by the way, deals only with inertial reference frames.)
That's correct. But just because general relativity extended the theory
to non-inertial frames that does *not* mean that all frames (inertial
and non-inertial) are equivalent.
> So, to answer your question, from a (simplified) relativistic point of
> view, if we take the motionless earth as our reference frame, what keeps
> the sun (and everything else in the rest of the universe) moving in a
> non-straight-line path is the curvature of space-time induced by the
> mass of the earth and the mass and momentum of the sun (and everything
> else in the rest of the universe). The apparent non-Newtonian motion is
> the result of the non-Euclidean geometry of space-time.
OK, two more questions:
1. The earth is not a perfect sphere. It bulges at the equator. If
the sun revolves around the earth and not vice versa, how do you account
for this bulge?
2. Notwithstanding this bulge, the earth is a very close approximation
to a sphere. And yet the motion of the sun around the earth is not
spherically symmetric. The sun not only revolves around the earth every
24 hours, but it also oscillates vertically (that is, along the sun's
axis of rotation around the earth) with a period of approximately 365.25
days. How do you account for this?
rg
From: Tim Northover
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87y78w1clo.fsf@sms.ed.ac.uk>
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> If all frames of reference are equivalent, how does one distinguish
> between an inertial frame and a non-inertial one?
They're equivalent in the sense that the tensorial laws of physics are
the same in each. An inertial frame has the property that those laws
look particularly nice in some well-defined sense.
It's sort of like a conic section on the plane. Any position and
orientation is equally good -- it's described as a quadratic form in two
variables no matter what. But you can rotate and shift it into a
standard from around the origin which is often easier to deal with.
The problem with gravity is that its mere existence means there *are* no
inertial frames any more, so we can't choose a heleocentric or
geocentic frame based purely on that.
Heleocentric is still a far more sensible choice for talking about the
solar system as a whole though, because you get less "ghost" inertial
forces and everything looks neater.
> 1. The earth is not a perfect sphere. It bulges at the equator. If
> the sun revolves around the earth and not vice versa, how do you account
> for this bulge?
This is another of the results of the inertial forces. In a frame where
the earth is fixed, there's an apparent acceleration outwards around the
equator.
The maths gets horribly complicated, but it does work out in the end to
give the same results -- that's the whole point of the equivalence of
frames in relativity.
Tim.
In article <··············@sms.ed.ac.uk>,
Tim Northover <·············@sms.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>
> > If all frames of reference are equivalent, how does one distinguish
> > between an inertial frame and a non-inertial one?
>
> They're equivalent in the sense that the tensorial laws of physics are
> the same in each. An inertial frame has the property that those laws
> look particularly nice in some well-defined sense.
Yes. But "particularly nice in some well-defined sense" is not just an
aesthetic detail. That's an actual distinction, and it's very important.
> It's sort of like a conic section on the plane. Any position and
> orientation is equally good -- it's described as a quadratic form in two
> variables no matter what. But you can rotate and shift it into a
> standard from around the origin which is often easier to deal with.
>
> The problem with gravity is that its mere existence means there *are* no
> inertial frames any more, so we can't choose a heleocentric or
> geocentic frame based purely on that.
Strictly speaking that may be true, but there are frames that are pretty
damn good approximations of inertial frames. But when considering the
earth and the sun as a system, the earth isn't one of them.
> Heleocentric is still a far more sensible choice for talking about the
> solar system as a whole though, because you get less "ghost" inertial
> forces and everything looks neater.
Yes. In science, neatness counts. Occam's razor and all.
> > 1. The earth is not a perfect sphere. It bulges at the equator. If
> > the sun revolves around the earth and not vice versa, how do you account
> > for this bulge?
>
> This is another of the results of the inertial forces. In a frame where
> the earth is fixed, there's an apparent acceleration outwards around the
> equator.
OK... but why at the equator? What's so special about the equator that
the bulge should be there?
> The maths gets horribly complicated, but it does work out in the end to
> give the same results -- that's the whole point of the equivalence of
> frames in relativity.
Of course. And if you add enough epicycles the Ptolemaic system can be
coerced into giving correct answers to arbitrary levels of precision as
well. To be considered a proper scientific theory it has to do more
than just match the available evidence. An infinite number of theories
match the available evidence. To be considered a proper theory it has
to have *explanatory power*. Geocentrism is not wrong because it
doesn't match the available evidence. Geocentrism is wrong because in
order to match the available evidence it has to tie itself into such
knots that it loses any explanatory power it might once have had.
(Creationism suffers from the same problem.)
rg
From: Tim Northover
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87wsog5ftr.fsf@sms.ed.ac.uk>
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> In article <··············@sms.ed.ac.uk>,
> Tim Northover <·············@sms.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>> The problem with gravity is that its mere existence means there *are* no
>> inertial frames any more, so we can't choose a heleocentric or
>> geocentic frame based purely on that.
>
> Strictly speaking that may be true, but there are frames that are pretty
> damn good approximations of inertial frames. But when considering the
> earth and the sun as a system, the earth isn't one of them.
Not when talking about the solar system there aren't. An inertial frame
is one where there is *no* acceleration. Whichever way you look at it,
the earth-sun system has enough divergence from that to create (almost)
closed orbits.
>> Heleocentric is still a far more sensible choice for talking about the
>> solar system as a whole though, because you get less "ghost" inertial
>> forces and everything looks neater.
>
> Yes. In science, neatness counts. Occam's razor and all.
Undoubtedly. That's why the heleocentric model is more correct as a
description of the solar system than geocentric. It's certainly not
because one's valid and the other isn't.
>> This is another of the results of the inertial forces. In a frame where
>> the earth is fixed, there's an apparent acceleration outwards around the
>> equator.
>
> OK... but why at the equator? What's so special about the equator that
> the bulge should be there?
The fact that the Earth is rotating is frame-independent and allows for
a specific privileged direction when we move to the geocentric
frame. It's basically just coriolis forces.
> Of course. And if you add enough epicycles the Ptolemaic system can be
> coerced into giving correct answers to arbitrary levels of precision as
> well. To be considered a proper scientific theory it has to do more
> than just match the available evidence. An infinite number of theories
> match the available evidence. To be considered a proper theory it has
> to have *explanatory power*. Geocentrism is not wrong because it
> doesn't match the available evidence. Geocentrism is wrong because in
> order to match the available evidence it has to tie itself into such
> knots that it loses any explanatory power it might once have had.
Both of the descriptions take place within the very well-described
context of general relativity. That's the theory which describes the
earth-sun interaction.
It allows for both geocentric and heleocentric interpretations (and any
other you'd care to name, including my cat being the centre of the
universe) -- they're just different coordinate frames. We don't have to
add arbitrary forces to get a geocentric model, GR tells us precisely
what forces there will be.
The idea that either heleocentrism or geocentrism is absolutely correct
and the other wrong goes out of the window with relativity -- it's just
not a meaningful statement to make.
Even which one's better depends on the context of your calculation. For
the solar system as a whole, heleocentric is far better. For just the
earth, geocentric wins. If we think about the galaxy itself, neither is
the right frame, we'd use one where our entire system is orbiting the
core.
Tim.
In article <··············@sms.ed.ac.uk>,
Tim Northover <·············@sms.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> Even which one's better depends on the context of your calculation. For
> the solar system as a whole, heleocentric is far better. For just the
> earth, geocentric wins. If we think about the galaxy itself, neither is
> the right frame, we'd use one where our entire system is orbiting the
> core.
Right. But when we are considering the question of whether the sun goes
around the earth or vice-versa we are asking a question about the solar
system, not the planet in isolation, and not the galaxy.
rg
Am Donnerstag, den 06.03.2008, 01:01 -0800 schrieb Ron Garret:
> > This is another of the results of the inertial forces. In a frame where
> > the earth is fixed, there's an apparent acceleration outwards around the
> > equator.
>
> OK... but why at the equator? What's so special about the equator that
> the bulge should be there?
If you're taking Earth as your reference frame: because there's an entire universe rotating around it.
Regards,
Jo
In article <························@kurier>,
Joachim Durchholz <··@durchholz.org> wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, den 06.03.2008, 01:01 -0800 schrieb Ron Garret:
> > > This is another of the results of the inertial forces. In a frame where
> > > the earth is fixed, there's an apparent acceleration outwards around the
> > > equator.
> >
> > OK... but why at the equator? What's so special about the equator that
> > the bulge should be there?
>
> If you're taking Earth as your reference frame: because there's an entire
> universe rotating around it.
And why would the universe rotating around the earth make the earth
bulge?
rg
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:17:52 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>If all frames of reference are equivalent, how does one distinguish
>between an inertial frame and a non-inertial one?
In general, you don't "distinguish" between them per se. Inertial frames
are the idealized, limiting case. Much as Newtonian mechanics is an
idealized approximation of "real" physics, appropriate under some set of
conditions, inertial frames are an approximation of "real" frames.
>That's correct. But just because general relativity extended the theory
>to non-inertial frames that does *not* mean that all frames (inertial
>and non-inertial) are equivalent.
Well, I suppose you could come up with a definition of "equivalent"
where that is true, but that's just semantics. From the physicist's
point of view, they are equivalent (i.e., there exists a mathematical
formulation of physics that works equally well in either case).
>1. The earth is not a perfect sphere. It bulges at the equator. If
>the sun revolves around the earth and not vice versa, how do you account
>for this bulge?
It's funny that you mention that, because I had started to write
something about that in my earlier message, and then decided that it was
unnecessary detail.
The motion of the sun (and the rest of the universe) around the
stationary earth sets up a time-varying curvature of the space-time in
which the earth is embedded. This curvature induces an apparent outward
force that leads to the equatorial bulge. It's in the math.
>2. Notwithstanding this bulge, the earth is a very close approximation
>to a sphere. And yet the motion of the sun around the earth is not
>spherically symmetric. The sun not only revolves around the earth every
>24 hours, but it also oscillates vertically (that is, along the sun's
>axis of rotation around the earth) with a period of approximately 365.25
>days. How do you account for this?
Same as (1).
The central tenet of general relativity is that there is no "priveleged"
viewpoint in the universe, that the physics is the same no matter where
you stand. Newtonian mechanics (Gallilean, actually, in this case) is
the first step towards this view: The physics for an object in uniform
motion is the same as it would be if we considered the object to be at
rest and everything else to be in uniform motion. But Newtonian
relativity breaks down in the face of acceleration, and this is where
general relativity takes over.
You're probably familiar with the 2D and 3D coordinate transformation
matrices that are used in computer graphics. If we extend that concept
with a fourth (time) coordinate, we can formalize Newtonian relativity
as a coordinate transformation.
What general relativity does (albeit with much, much more complicated
mathematics) is extend that same idea even further to the cases where
Newtonian relativity no longer applies. The transformation from
geocentric to heliocentric views then becomes, in effect, a coordinate
transformation (that's a bit of a simplification, but you get the idea).
Regarding Occam's Razor: As Einstein himself said, things should be as
simple as possible, but not simpler. General relativity is the response
to the failures of Newtonian mechanics. Newtonian mechanics can't
explain the precession of the perhelion of Mercury. Newtonian mechanics
can't explain why the clocks in GPS satellites run more slowly than the
same clocks at the earth's surface. And so on.
Newtonian mechanics is an approximation, one that is appropriate to a
very wide variety of circumstances. But it doesn't hold in all cases.
For all we know, general relativity is also an approximation, but it's a
"better" one, in the sense that it is appropriate in an even wider
variety of circumstances. Is general relativity "simpler" than Newtonian
mechanics? If we consider the mathematics at face value, clearly
not--the mathematics of relativity are horrendous. But in another sense,
relativity _is_ simpler than Newtonian mechanics, because the _same_
mathematics are applicable in all reference frames, something that you
can't say in the Newtonian view.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
Ron Garret said:
<snip>
> Well, according to Garret, a rational person is one who bases his or her
> beliefs on experimental evidence. So there.
I base my beliefs on my personal experience, which includes experimental
evidence but is not limited to it.
<snip>
> You can argue it all you want. But you will be wrong nonetheless.
Naturally. Keep those hands firmly on those ears, and keep chanting
"nah-nah-nah-nah-you're-wrong-and-I-can't-HEAR-you-so-there-so-there", and
all will be well. :-)
>> Here is another well-known fact, which is equally inarguable:
>> All Californians are irrational. Gee.
>
> There is a significant difference between being a Californian and being
> a creationist, to wit, that one is defined by geography while the other
> is defined by beliefs.
Yes, I talked a lot of (well, a little) nonsense about Californians, and
you quite rightly pointed this out. My point, however, seems to have flown
well over your head.
> A better analogy would be to say that all
> Californians live on the West Coast (which is in fact correct).
Provided that you accept "Coast" to mean not just the US/Pacific border but
also 250 miles inland, and provided you accept "Californian" to mean
"person currently living in California" (so anyone who leaves the State is
no longer a Californian). In fact, you have to hedge the claim with such
conditions to make it correct that it's easier just to say you're wrong.
<snip>
> Why so coy about your beliefs?
Because this is comp.programming (or comp.lang.lisp or
comp.lang.functional), and as such is hardly the right place for a debate
on origins.
>> When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
>> becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. "all creationists
>> are irrational" or "there is no such thing as altruism" or "Olly's fish
>> has chickenpox" or "random data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to
>> reassess their credibility.
>
> Random data in fact cannot be compressed. That is actually part of the
> definition of random data.
This is equivalent to claiming that, if data can be compressed, it cannot
be random. If you are right, we can sometimes predict with 100% accuracy
the next value in a random stream of data, such as - say - the toss of a
fair coin. Let's say for the sake of argument that we can compress 10 or
more identical results (10 heads or 10 tails). Thus, if you're right, if
we get 9 straight tails, the next toss *must* result in a head.
Conversely, if we get 9 straight heads, the next toss *must* result in a
tail. Because otherwise, the data would be compressible, and random
processes are not *allowed* to produce compressible data.
And that is simply absurd.
Now, I *know* what you mean. And what you *mean* is right. But what you're
actually saying is ludicrous (which is why I've been very gently luding
you).
>> > But some of them are more right than others.
>>
>> No, absolutely not. Each is perfectly correct within his own frame of
>> reference, and there is no plausible and reasonable way to order those
>> frames in terms of "rightness". (Astrophysics is very postmodernist in
>> some ways.)
>
> No, it isn't.
Er, yes it is. Steve Schafer has, however, addressed this already.
> To say that the sun revolves around the earth is very
> badly wrong in fundamental ways.
Experimental evidence suggests very, very strongly that the Sun goes round
the Earth. I seem to remember that you're very hot on experimental
evidence.
<snip>
>> > Of course people write programs (and do all manner of things) in the
>> > interests of other people. But for it to be altruism they must get
>> > nothing in return. But you *are* getting something in return:
>> > friendship.
>>
>> Nonsense. The friendship already exists and would have continued whether
>> I wrote the program or not.
>
> Friendship is an analog relationship, not a binary one.
Certainly true...
> It is likely
> that your good deed strengthened your friendship in ways that will
> provide you some direct benefit down the road.
...but likely false. I had all but forgotten the incident until this
discussion came up about free software, and I'm sure my friend has
forgotten it too by now.
> Maybe she'll now do you
> a favor that she might otherwise not have done. Maybe she'll go out
> with you now. Maybe your good deed moved her closer to the point where
> she wants to bear your children.
I can think of at least four people who would consider that to be a
laughable idea - myself, my wife, the friend in question, and her husband.
In any case, the objection is simply wrong. Altruism is about intent. I
will gladly concede that some free software developers give away their
code in the hope of some gain. But there are certainly those who give away
their code because they want to benefit others. That *is* altruism in
action.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >> When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
> >> becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. "all creationists
> >> are irrational" or "there is no such thing as altruism" or "Olly's fish
> >> has chickenpox" or "random data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to
> >> reassess their credibility.
> >
> > Random data in fact cannot be compressed. That is actually part of the
> > definition of random data.
>
> This is equivalent to claiming that, if data can be compressed, it cannot
> be random.
Randomness, like friendship, is an continuum, not a dichotomy.
> If you are right, we can sometimes predict with 100% accuracy
> the next value in a random stream of data, such as - say - the toss of a
> fair coin.
Huh? How do you figure that?
> Let's say for the sake of argument that we can compress 10 or
> more identical results (10 heads or 10 tails).
If you want to take issue with the claim that random data cannot be
compressed you seriously undermine your case if you begin by assuming
for the sake of argument that it can. You might just as well begin by
saying, "Let's assume for the sake of argument that one equals two."
OK, we can assume that, but none of the conclusions that we draw from
that assumption will be valid.
> Thus, if you're right, if
> we get 9 straight tails, the next toss *must* result in a head.
> Conversely, if we get 9 straight heads, the next toss *must* result in a
> tail. Because otherwise, the data would be compressible, and random
> processes are not *allowed* to produce compressible data.
>
> And that is simply absurd.
Indeed.
> Now, I *know* what you mean.
Actually, I'm pretty sure you don't. If you did you would know why
random data cannot be compressed, even if it's a run of ten heads. Try
it. Explain to me how you're going to compress that data.
> And what you *mean* is right. But what you're
> actually saying is ludicrous (which is why I've been very gently luding
> you).
Yeah, I'll say. Those must be some pretty good ludes you're doing, bro.
> > To say that the sun revolves around the earth is very
> > badly wrong in fundamental ways.
>
> Experimental evidence suggests very, very strongly that the Sun goes round
> the Earth. I seem to remember that you're very hot on experimental
> evidence.
You have a deep misunderstanding of the nature of experimental evidence.
It is true that (some) experimental evidence suggests that the sun
revolves around the earth. But there is other evidence that is, at
least as far as anyone can tell, *incompatible* with the theory that the
sun revolves around the earth (e.g. the seasons, the earth's equatorial
bulge, the retrograde motion of Mars, etc. etc. etc.) So the fact that
there is evidence that suggests that the sun revolves around the earth
is *irrelevant*. Such evidence does indeed exist. Nonetheless, the sun
does not revolve around the earth.
> >> > Of course people write programs (and do all manner of things) in the
> >> > interests of other people. But for it to be altruism they must get
> >> > nothing in return. But you *are* getting something in return:
> >> > friendship.
> >>
> >> Nonsense. The friendship already exists and would have continued whether
> >> I wrote the program or not.
> >
> > Friendship is an analog relationship, not a binary one.
>
> Certainly true...
>
> > It is likely
> > that your good deed strengthened your friendship in ways that will
> > provide you some direct benefit down the road.
>
> ...but likely false. I had all but forgotten the incident until this
> discussion came up about free software, and I'm sure my friend has
> forgotten it too by now.
Maybe. Or maybe some incident will occur that will trigger this memory
in your friend just as this incident has with you. Maybe some day
you'll be in a bind and your friend will suddenly remember that back in
the day you did her a favor and that will push her over the edge to do
you one in return.
Or maybe it won't happen and your only reward will be that warm fuzzy
feeling you got when she smiled at you and said thanks. But that's a
benefit too.
> > Maybe she'll now do you
> > a favor that she might otherwise not have done. Maybe she'll go out
> > with you now. Maybe your good deed moved her closer to the point where
> > she wants to bear your children.
>
> I can think of at least four people who would consider that to be a
> laughable idea - myself, my wife, the friend in question, and her husband.
Yeah, but your genes don't care what any of those people think. (They
don't care what you think either by the way.)
> In any case, the objection is simply wrong. Altruism is about intent. I
> will gladly concede that some free software developers give away their
> code in the hope of some gain. But there are certainly those who give away
> their code because they want to benefit others. That *is* altruism in
> action.
Can you cite an example? Certainly RMS is not such a person. He goes
to great lengths to pressure people who use the software he writes to
compensate him by contributing to his Marxist Utopia.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>> > Random data in fact cannot be compressed. That is actually part of
>> > the definition of random data.
>>
>> This is equivalent to claiming that, if data can be compressed, it
>> cannot be random.
>
> Randomness, like friendship, is an continuum, not a dichotomy.
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that the randomness of data is
measured by how much it can be compressed? Or what?
>> If you are right, we can sometimes predict with 100% accuracy
>> the next value in a random stream of data, such as - say - the toss of a
>> fair coin.
>
> Huh? How do you figure that?
It's a sort of reductio ad absurdum. Let's start by assuming that random
data *cannot* be compressed. That's your claim, right?
Now, either there is such a thing as a process for generating random bits,
or there isn't. If it is your further claim that there is no such process,
then you are effectively arguing that there is no such thing as
randomness. That's an interesting point of view, and would be consistent
with the claim that random data cannot be compressed, simply because
there's no such thing as random data! I don't find such a view helpful,
though, when considering the properties of random data.
The interesting discussion is not based, however, on "there ain't no such
animal", but on "there *is* such a animal, but we can't compress it". So
let's proceed on that basis.
So let's agree that we have a process for generating a genuinely random
stream of bits, where for ease of discussion we'll call a 0-bit a "tail"
and a 1-bit a "head".
Okay, here comes the reductio.
We examine the first N results, and then try to compress { N results + 1
head }. Now, either we can or we can't. If we can't, well, we can't. But
if we *can* do so, then by your argument the data cannot be random if the
next result is a head, and yet we are using a genuinely random stream of
bits, so the data must be random, and therefore the next result *must* be
a tail - which means that we've predicted the next bit with guaranteed
success, which means that the stream can't be random - and this
contradicts our initial assumption.
Therefore, either the stream isn't random after all (and this argument
applies to *any* method of generating random bits), or the assumption that
random data cannot be compressed is false.
>> Let's say for the sake of argument that we can compress 10 or
>> more identical results (10 heads or 10 tails).
>
> If you want to take issue with the claim that random data cannot be
> compressed you seriously undermine your case if you begin by assuming
> for the sake of argument that it can.
It is not part of my argument that 10 (or whatever) heads is or is not
random. My argument uses the fact that it is not only possible but trivial
to compress repeated data if there are enough repeats. Since you claim
that random data cannot be compressed, you are arguing that random data
cannot contain sufficiently many repeats to make compression possible. My
point is that, if that is true, we can use the fact to make occasional
predictions about random data with 100% success. That is, if we're allowed
to *choose* when to make the bet about what the next bit will be, we can
guarantee that we will win that bet! And that's absurd. So one of our
assumptions must be wrong - either there's no such thing as random data,
or random data can occasionally be compressed.
> You might just as well begin by
> saying, "Let's assume for the sake of argument that one equals two."
> OK, we can assume that, but none of the conclusions that we draw from
> that assumption will be valid.
Well, no, I began with the absurd assumption that you're right, and
concluded from it that you're wrong.
>> Thus, if you're right, if
>> we get 9 straight tails, the next toss *must* result in a head.
>> Conversely, if we get 9 straight heads, the next toss *must* result in a
>> tail. Because otherwise, the data would be compressible, and random
>> processes are not *allowed* to produce compressible data.
>>
>> And that is simply absurd.
>
> Indeed.
>
>> Now, I *know* what you mean.
>
> Actually, I'm pretty sure you don't. If you did you would know why
> random data cannot be compressed, even if it's a run of ten heads. Try
> it. Explain to me how you're going to compress that data.
Obviously the fewer the repeats, the harder it is, and the less likely that
it can be done. (10 is very low, and was merely a frinstance.) But there's
nothing magic about 10 in my argument.
I generated a run of 1600 heads (where 'set bit' = 'head'), and shoved them
through zip, which reduced it to 1216 bits (including all the file header
information and stuff - the actual compression reported by zip was 97%; it
was the overhead that made the end result so large).
<snip>
>> > To say that the sun revolves around the earth is very
>> > badly wrong in fundamental ways.
>>
>> Experimental evidence suggests very, very strongly that the Sun goes
>> round the Earth. I seem to remember that you're very hot on experimental
>> evidence.
>
> You have a deep misunderstanding of the nature of experimental evidence.
> It is true that (some) experimental evidence suggests that the sun
> revolves around the earth.
In fact, for the vast majority of people it is the only evidence they have.
> But there is other evidence that is, at
> least as far as anyone can tell, *incompatible* with the theory that the
> sun revolves around the earth (e.g. the seasons, the earth's equatorial
> bulge, the retrograde motion of Mars, etc. etc. etc.) So the fact that
> there is evidence that suggests that the sun revolves around the earth
> is *irrelevant*. Such evidence does indeed exist. Nonetheless, the sun
> does not revolve around the earth.
I'll alert the media. But in fact you have completely missed the point,
which in this case is about frames of reference. To an observer on the
earth (and that is where 99.eversomany9s% of all known observers have ever
been), it is the Earth that stands more or less still - relative to the
observer! - and the Sun that moves. The other evidence you mention does
not mean that the Sun does not go around the Earth - it merely means that
looking at it in that way might not be the most helpful model. And they'd
be right. In fact, I am very, very sure that they are right.
Do you believe in centrifugal force? I would guess not. And yet, if one
chooses one's frame of reference carefully, it /does/ exist.
And now, we nearly return to the point of the thread (or at least we get a
lot closer to it than we have been thus far in this reply).
>> > It is likely
>> > that your good deed strengthened your friendship in ways that will
>> > provide you some direct benefit down the road.
>>
>> ...but likely false. I had all but forgotten the incident until this
>> discussion came up about free software, and I'm sure my friend has
>> forgotten it too by now.
>
> Maybe. Or maybe some incident will occur that will trigger this memory
> in your friend just as this incident has with you. Maybe some day
> you'll be in a bind and your friend will suddenly remember that back in
> the day you did her a favor and that will push her over the edge to do
> you one in return.
It's possible, but (a) it's unlikely, because neither she nor I think in
terms of transactions where friendship is involved, and (b) it's
irrelevant, since it didn't form part of my reasoning when I agreed to
help her. I agreed to help her because she needed help, not because I
expected to get anything out of it.
<snip>
>> In any case, the objection is simply wrong. Altruism is about intent. I
>> will gladly concede that some free software developers give away their
>> code in the hope of some gain. But there are certainly those who give
>> away their code because they want to benefit others. That *is* altruism
>> in action.
>
> Can you cite an example?
I did already.
> Certainly RMS is not such a person.
Whether he is or whether he isn't, the existence of people who write
software to give away for motives other than altruism does not imply the
non-existence of people who write software to give away altruistically.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> > Random data in fact cannot be compressed. That is actually part of
> >> > the definition of random data.
> >>
> >> This is equivalent to claiming that, if data can be compressed, it
> >> cannot be random.
> >
> > Randomness, like friendship, is an continuum, not a dichotomy.
>
> What do you mean by this? Do you mean that the randomness of data is
> measured by how much it can be compressed?
Yes.
> >> If you are right, we can sometimes predict with 100% accuracy
> >> the next value in a random stream of data, such as - say - the toss of a
> >> fair coin.
> >
> > Huh? How do you figure that?
>
> It's a sort of reductio ad absurdum. Let's start by assuming that random
> data *cannot* be compressed. That's your claim, right?
Yes. By definition.
> Now, either there is such a thing as a process for generating random bits,
> or there isn't. If it is your further claim that there is no such process,
> then you are effectively arguing that there is no such thing as
> randomness.
No. It is possible to prove that incompressible data exists. But the
proof is non-constructive.
> So let's agree that we have a process for generating a genuinely random
> stream of bits
OK, but for the record this is a highly dubious assumption.
> We examine the first N results, and then try to compress { N results + 1
> head }. Now, either we can or we can't.
By definition, we can't.
> If we can't, well, we can't.
And we can't. So I guess we're done.
> But if we *can* do so,
But we can't.
> then by your argument the data cannot be random if the
> next result is a head, and yet we are using a genuinely random stream of
> bits, so the data must be random, and therefore the next result *must* be
> a tail - which means that we've predicted the next bit with guaranteed
> success, which means that the stream can't be random - and this
> contradicts our initial assumption.
Well, it would if we could, but we can't so it doesn't.
> Therefore, either the stream isn't random after all (and this argument
> applies to *any* method of generating random bits), or the assumption that
> random data cannot be compressed is false.
No.
> >> Let's say for the sake of argument that we can compress 10 or
> >> more identical results (10 heads or 10 tails).
> >
> > If you want to take issue with the claim that random data cannot be
> > compressed you seriously undermine your case if you begin by assuming
> > for the sake of argument that it can.
>
> It is not part of my argument that 10 (or whatever) heads is or is not
> random. My argument uses the fact that it is not only possible but trivial
> to compress repeated data if there are enough repeats.
Really? Describe to me this "trivial" process. And also tell me
exactly how many repeats are "enough".
> Since you claim
> that random data cannot be compressed, you are arguing that random data
> cannot contain sufficiently many repeats to make compression possible. My
> point is that, if that is true, we can use the fact to make occasional
> predictions about random data with 100% success. That is, if we're allowed
> to *choose* when to make the bet about what the next bit will be, we can
> guarantee that we will win that bet! And that's absurd. So one of our
> assumptions must be wrong - either there's no such thing as random data,
> or random data can occasionally be compressed.
Of course random data can "occasionally" be compressed. But whatever
scheme you use to compress it "occasionally" will also "occasionally"
make the data *longer* if you encode it using the same scheme. In the
long run, the net result of any scheme you choose will be no net
compression if the data are random.
> Obviously the fewer the repeats, the harder it is, and the less likely that
> it can be done. (10 is very low, and was merely a frinstance.) But there's
> nothing magic about 10 in my argument.
>
> I generated a run of 1600 heads (where 'set bit' = 'head'), and shoved them
> through zip, which reduced it to 1216 bits (including all the file header
> information and stuff - the actual compression reported by zip was 97%; it
> was the overhead that made the end result so large).
You were probably using a pseudo-random number generator, and what you
are observing is (almost certainly) the difference between pseudo-random
and truly random. Generating truly random data is quite difficult.
Here's a little though experiment for you: what would happen if you ran
the output of gzip back through gzip again? Would you get even more
compression? What if you repeated the process a third time? Is there
ever a point at which you would no longer get any compression?
> >> > To say that the sun revolves around the earth is very
> >> > badly wrong in fundamental ways.
> >>
> >> Experimental evidence suggests very, very strongly that the Sun goes
> >> round the Earth. I seem to remember that you're very hot on experimental
> >> evidence.
> >
> > You have a deep misunderstanding of the nature of experimental evidence.
> > It is true that (some) experimental evidence suggests that the sun
> > revolves around the earth.
>
> In fact, for the vast majority of people it is the only evidence they have.
True. That is most unfortunate. But the mere existence of a lot of
ignorant people does not change the underlying truth.
> > But there is other evidence that is, at
> > least as far as anyone can tell, *incompatible* with the theory that the
> > sun revolves around the earth (e.g. the seasons, the earth's equatorial
> > bulge, the retrograde motion of Mars, etc. etc. etc.) So the fact that
> > there is evidence that suggests that the sun revolves around the earth
> > is *irrelevant*. Such evidence does indeed exist. Nonetheless, the sun
> > does not revolve around the earth.
>
> I'll alert the media. But in fact you have completely missed the point,
> which in this case is about frames of reference. To an observer on the
> earth (and that is where 99.eversomany9s% of all known observers have ever
> been), it is the Earth that stands more or less still - relative to the
> observer! - and the Sun that moves. The other evidence you mention does
> not mean that the Sun does not go around the Earth - it merely means that
> looking at it in that way might not be the most helpful model. And they'd
> be right. In fact, I am very, very sure that they are right.
Until you want to understand things like the seasons. Then you're in a
real pickle with a geocentric model.
> Do you believe in centrifugal force? I would guess not. And yet, if one
> chooses one's frame of reference carefully, it /does/ exist.
I don't even know what it means to "believe in" centrifugal force.
Centrifugal force is a theory that has a certain amount of explanatory
power, but not as much as other competing theories. Does heat exist?
> >> > It is likely
> >> > that your good deed strengthened your friendship in ways that will
> >> > provide you some direct benefit down the road.
> >>
> >> ...but likely false. I had all but forgotten the incident until this
> >> discussion came up about free software, and I'm sure my friend has
> >> forgotten it too by now.
> >
> > Maybe. Or maybe some incident will occur that will trigger this memory
> > in your friend just as this incident has with you. Maybe some day
> > you'll be in a bind and your friend will suddenly remember that back in
> > the day you did her a favor and that will push her over the edge to do
> > you one in return.
>
> It's possible, but (a) it's unlikely, because neither she nor I think in
> terms of transactions where friendship is involved, and (b) it's
> irrelevant, since it didn't form part of my reasoning when I agreed to
> help her. I agreed to help her because she needed help, not because I
> expected to get anything out of it.
OK... I need help. I need $100. Will you give it to me?
> >> In any case, the objection is simply wrong. Altruism is about intent. I
> >> will gladly concede that some free software developers give away their
> >> code in the hope of some gain. But there are certainly those who give
> >> away their code because they want to benefit others. That *is* altruism
> >> in action.
> >
> > Can you cite an example?
>
> I did already.
I must have missed that. Who was it?
> > Certainly RMS is not such a person.
>
> Whether he is or whether he isn't, the existence of people who write
> software to give away for motives other than altruism does not imply the
> non-existence of people who write software to give away altruistically.
True. I was just hazarding a guess as to whom you might cite. I'm
still waiting to learn who these altruistic coders are.
rg
Ron Garret said:
<snip>
> Of course random data can "occasionally" be compressed.
Well done. I'm not sure why it took you so long to see this, but at least
you got there in the end. :-)
> But whatever
> scheme you use to compress it "occasionally" will also "occasionally"
> make the data *longer* if you encode it using the same scheme.
Yes, of course, and I wasn't claiming otherwise. (In fact, I would argue
that, *on average*, the "compressed" form will be longer, because of the
overhead involved.)
<snip>
> But the mere existence of a lot of
> ignorant people does not change the underlying truth.
I agree entirely, but of course one's categorisation of people into
"ignorant" and "non-ignorant" depends on one's perception of the
underlying truth about which they are ignorant or non-ignorant. I would
guess (perhaps wrongly) that you perceive that I am ignorant of some
pretty important underlying truths - and you would be right to guess that
I perceive that you are likewise ignorant of some pretty important
underlying truths. What's more, sharing these truths won't necessarily do
any good, because our preconceptions can be such powerful obstacles.
> Does heat exist?
Let's try experimental evidence, shall we?
Ouch!
Yes, heat exists.
>> > ... Maybe some day
>> > you'll be in a bind and your friend will suddenly remember that back
>> > in the day you did her a favor and that will push her over the edge to
>> > do you one in return.
>>
>> It's possible, but (a) it's unlikely, because neither she nor I think in
>> terms of transactions where friendship is involved, and (b) it's
>> irrelevant, since it didn't form part of my reasoning when I agreed to
>> help her. I agreed to help her because she needed help, not because I
>> expected to get anything out of it.
>
> OK... I need help. I need $100. Will you give it to me?
I would gladly give you a hundred dollars if I had a hundred dollars to
give you. Unfortunately, I have only one dollar, which I keep merely as a
curio. It's no particular use to me. You're welcome to it, if you're
prepared to pay the shipping cost. (Commercial transportation companies
can be so unreasonable about being asked to do stuff for free.)
>> >> In any case, the objection is simply wrong. Altruism is about intent.
>> >> I will gladly concede that some free software developers give away
>> >> their code in the hope of some gain. But there are certainly those
>> >> who give away their code because they want to benefit others. That
>> >> *is* altruism in action.
>> >
>> > Can you cite an example?
>>
>> I did already.
>
> I must have missed that. Who was it?
Me. I will freely confess that I don't give away a /lot/ of code, but I
have certainly given away some in the past, and no doubt I will do so
again in the future - and I don't expect any return for it, either
financial or otherwise.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Of course random data can "occasionally" be compressed.
>
> Well done.
Since you're going to be so smug about it I will add that "occasionally"
in this case is actually "very rarely." So rarely that it is
effectively meaningless.
Consider your ten-coin-flip example. If you use run-length encoding you
need four bits to encode the number 10. Then you need another bit to
encode the fact that this was a run of tails and not heads. So you've
compressed 10 bits down to 5. But this encoding achieves compression
only for runs of length six or greater. (Actually, without some
boundary markers, it achieves compression only for runs of length
between 6 and 16. And only if those runs are isolated and not embedded
within a larger random sequence.) The probability of encountering such
a run is quite small. Figuring the exact odds is left as an exercise.
I reiterate that there is an elementary (but non-constructive) proof
that incompressible data exists. Also, there are known incompressible
numbers (Chaitin Omegas). Their discovery was considered a major
achievement in mathematics.
> > But the mere existence of a lot of
> > ignorant people does not change the underlying truth.
>
> I agree entirely, but of course one's categorisation of people into
> "ignorant" and "non-ignorant" depends on one's perception of the
> underlying truth about which they are ignorant or non-ignorant. I would
> guess (perhaps wrongly) that you perceive that I am ignorant of some
> pretty important underlying truths - and you would be right to guess that
Well, at least we can agree on something.
> I perceive that you are likewise ignorant of some pretty important
> underlying truths.
Try me.
> > Does heat exist?
>
> Let's try experimental evidence, shall we?
>
> Ouch!
>
> Yes, heat exists.
OK. Does phlogiston exist?
> >> > ... Maybe some day
> >> > you'll be in a bind and your friend will suddenly remember that back
> >> > in the day you did her a favor and that will push her over the edge to
> >> > do you one in return.
> >>
> >> It's possible, but (a) it's unlikely, because neither she nor I think in
> >> terms of transactions where friendship is involved, and (b) it's
> >> irrelevant, since it didn't form part of my reasoning when I agreed to
> >> help her. I agreed to help her because she needed help, not because I
> >> expected to get anything out of it.
> >
> > OK... I need help. I need $100. Will you give it to me?
>
> I would gladly give you a hundred dollars if I had a hundred dollars to
> give you. Unfortunately, I have only one dollar, which I keep merely as a
> curio.
I'll take Euros. In fact, I'd prefer Euros. Will you give me 100
Euros? (OK, I'll settle for 50, which is still less than US$100 for the
moment.)
> >> >> In any case, the objection is simply wrong. Altruism is about intent.
> >> >> I will gladly concede that some free software developers give away
> >> >> their code in the hope of some gain. But there are certainly those
> >> >> who give away their code because they want to benefit others. That
> >> >> *is* altruism in action.
> >> >
> >> > Can you cite an example?
> >>
> >> I did already.
> >
> > I must have missed that. Who was it?
>
> Me. I will freely confess that I don't give away a /lot/ of code, but I
> have certainly given away some in the past, and no doubt I will do so
> again in the future - and I don't expect any return for it, either
> financial or otherwise.
Not a convincing example. We have only your word that you didn't have
any ulterior motives.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Ron Garret said:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> > Of course random data can "occasionally" be compressed.
>>
>> Well done.
>
> Since you're going to be so smug about it I will add that "occasionally"
> in this case is actually "very rarely." So rarely that it is
> effectively meaningless.
There are infinitely many examples of compressible random data, whereas
your original claim was that there are no such examples ("random data
cannot be compressed"). You made an exaggerated, and therefore false,
claim, and were giving a strong impression of smug in the process. In the
circumstances, a little bit of smug in return isn't going to hurt anyone.
<snip>
> I reiterate that there is an elementary (but non-constructive) proof
> that incompressible data exists.
Sure, but that's a strawman, because I didn't claim incompressible data
doesn't exist.
>> > But the mere existence of a lot of
>> > ignorant people does not change the underlying truth.
>>
>> I agree entirely, but of course one's categorisation of people into
>> "ignorant" and "non-ignorant" depends on one's perception of the
>> underlying truth about which they are ignorant or non-ignorant. I would
>> guess (perhaps wrongly) that you perceive that I am ignorant of some
>> pretty important underlying truths - and you would be right to guess
>> that
>
> Well, at least we can agree on something.
Selective quotation now? Well, well, well - whatever amuses you, I suppose.
But if you're going down that path, you can go down it without me. Good
day.
<snip>
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87y78visau.fsf@geddis.org>
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote on Thu, 06 Mar 2008:
> There are infinitely many examples of compressible random data, whereas
> your original claim was that there are no such examples ("random data
> cannot be compressed"). You made an exaggerated, and therefore false,
> claim
You are still wrong.
It doesn't make any sense to talk about whether a specific data run is
compressible or not. Of course any single set of data is compressible --
to zero bits! We just say, "Hey, you remember that data set we were talking
about? Let's use that one."
So the question only makes sense if you have a whole set of data runs, some
kind of generator that constructs many such runs of data. And then you only
get to pick a single "compression" algorithm. And the question is, averaged
across _all_ the runs of data, does the post-compression data take more or
less space than the pre-compression data?
We can use an example: take English text in ASCII. The raw form of it takes
eight bits per letter. Across large collections of such text -- say, the
Gutenberg archives -- is there an algorithm that can store the data
losslessly in many fewer bits? Yes, there are many. A simple one is: the
eighth bit is always zero in English ASCII, so there's no need to store it.
You can re-encode all the text as streams of 7-bits at a time, and you'll save
a guaranteed bit per letter. Zip and Gzip and Bzip2 all have even better
compression algorithms than that.
So. Now to the original question. If you have a generator of random data,
say one that emits sets of 1K random bits at a time, can you give me a single
algorithm to apply to each 1K set, such that you can store/transmit the same
data, but in fewer bits?
No, you can't. Random data is not compressible.
Any algorithm you might propose may well make some of the 1K sets shorter --
but only at a cost of making others longer. (A simple one is: if all the 1K
random bits are zero, transmit only a single zero -- saving almost 1K bits!
Otherwise, if there are any ones, transmit a one followed by the original 1K
bits. So: one set of data gets much smaller, and all other sets get 1 bit
longer. This does NOT mean that "some" of the random stream is compressible.
It only makes sense to ask whether _all_ of the random data, on average, is
compressible. The answer, for random data, is: no.)
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
Defeat: For every winner, there are dozens of losers. Odds are you're one of
them. -- Despair.com
On Mar 6, 1:08 pm, Don Geddis <····@geddis.org> wrote:
> It doesn't make any sense to talk about whether a specific data run is
> compressible or not. Of course any single set of data is compressible --
> to zero bits! We just say, "Hey, you remember that data set we were talking
> about? Let's use that one."
>
That is not quite correct. There is a way of sensibly talking about
the compressibility of a single data run: Take a fixed programming
language and consider the shortest self-contained program that outputs
the sequence in question. This is the essence of Kolmogorov
complexity. (The self-containedness requirement is crucial, since it
rules out those "remember the data from the other day" tricks that
refer to an off-line copy of the sequence in question.)
If the data is "random", then its Kolmogorov complexity is essentially
identical to its original length. (That is, assuming that the
language lets you write the moral equivalent of 'print "..."'
where ... is simply a verbatim copy of the desired output.) Data is
non-random if there is a significantly shorter program that can
generate it. A simple pigeon-hole argument shows that most data
sequences have to be "random" in this sense.
So, in this sense, there obviously exists data (namely random data)
that is not compressible. In fact, there exists a lot more than there
is non-random (i.e., compressible) data.
Notice, by the way, that "random" here is DEFINED as being not
compressible. Therefore, to say that random data is not compressible
is not only true, it is trivially true.
Matthias
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87pru7rthl.fsf@geddis.org>
···············@gmail.com" <··············@gmail.com> wrote on Thu, 6 Mar 2008 :
> On Mar 6, 1:08�pm, Don Geddis <····@geddis.org> wrote:
>> It doesn't make any sense to talk about whether a specific data run is
>> compressible or not. �Of course any single set of data is compressible --
>> to zero bits! �We just say, "Hey, you remember that data set we were
>> talking about? �Let's use that one."
>
> That is not quite correct. There is a way of sensibly talking about the
> compressibility of a single data run: Take a fixed programming language and
> consider the shortest self-contained program that outputs the sequence in
> question. This is the essence of Kolmogorov complexity.
Sure, that provides "an" answer. But it isn't the answer of interest to the
original question.
> If the data is "random", then its Kolmogorov complexity is essentially
> identical to its original length.
That confuses what was originally meant by random. If you have a generator
(like a radioactive decay counter) that emits a "random" stream of bits, that
means that knowing the entire history of the stream so far, gives you no
predictive information for whether the next bit will be zero or one.
That's what "random" means.
There is no guarantee at all that the resulting stream of bits will have a
Kolmogorov complexity approximately equal to its original length.
> Data is non-random if there is a significantly shorter program that can
> generate it.
You can define it that way, but that really has nothing to do with whether
you can predict the next bit in a sequence.
> Notice, by the way, that "random" here is DEFINED as being not
> compressible. Therefore, to say that random data is not compressible is
> not only true, it is trivially true.
You're using a different definition of "random" than was originally meant.
In the original use, the statement that "random data is not compressible"
is not trivially true by definition.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
In my opinion anyone interested in improving himself should not rule out
becoming pure energy. -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988
Don Geddis <···@geddis.org> writes:
> You're using a different definition of "random" than was originally meant.
> In the original use, the statement that "random data is not compressible"
> is not trivially true by definition.
Yes it is. You are talking about a random process, not random data.
Saying "any part of the string does not provide information on any
other part" refers to the process of generating such strings. For a
given (fixed) string, the statement makes little sense since every
piece of the string is known already, so you don't need any other part
of the string to predict it.
I see it this way:
Random /data/ is (by definition) not compressible. A random /process/
produces random data with high probability, but it may occasionally
produce data that is compressible (and which is, therefore, not random).
While we may quibble about the terminology, I know that at the heart
of the matter we agree.
Matthias
Let me clarify a bit more:
Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> writes:
> Don Geddis <···@geddis.org> writes:
>
>> You're using a different definition of "random" than was originally meant.
>> In the original use, the statement that "random data is not compressible"
>> is not trivially true by definition.
>
> Yes it is. You are talking about a random process, not random data.
>
> Saying "any part of the string does not provide information on any
> other part" refers to the process of generating such strings.
I should have better said: ... refers to the act of drawing such a
string from some random /distribution/ of strings. (A random process
gives rise to such a distribution, of course.)
> For a
> given (fixed) string, the statement makes little sense since every
> piece of the string is known already, so you don't need any other part
> of the string to predict it.
In other words: If all you have is a single string, what you are
looking at is a degenerate case of a distribution. Indeed, you need 0
bits to represent the one and only possible data string /relative to
this distribution/.
In general, to compress data that comes from a random distribution,
the distribution itself is taken into account. If the distribution is
not known ahead of time, its description must be considered part of
the output of the compressor. Thus, while under the above degenerate
constant distribution you may get away with 0 bits to describe the
output given the distribution, the description of the distribution
itself may require as many bits (roughly speaking) as the string
itself.
Of course, if the distribution is known ahead of time, you may decide
to exclude the size of its description from the bit count. In this
case you may argue that "any string can be compressed to 0 bits". I
find it highly questionable whether there is much practical value in
such a statement...
Cheers,
Matthias
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87skz24cnr.fsf@geddis.org>
Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote on Fri, 07 Mar 2008:
> Random /data/ is (by definition) not compressible. A random /process/
> produces random data with high probability, but it may occasionally produce
> data that is compressible (and which is, therefore, not random).
I understand what your words mean, but it sure seems strange to claim that
a truly random process sometimes produces non-random bit streams. An
intuitive response would be, "I guess you didn't really have a real random
process after all -- because look, this particular stream isn't random!"
What kind of a process produces _only_ random data, anyway? And what would
that be good for? Because, as it turns out, such a process would produce
bits with far less entropy (meaning: the next bit is much more predictable
than 50/50) than a real random process.
All kind of odd.
> While we may quibble about the terminology, I know that at the heart of the
> matter we agree.
Well, yes, that seems to be true. "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one
hears it, does it make a sound?", and all that:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/algorithm-feels.html
I think you're correct that you and I don't disagree about any models of
the world. I think your use of words can be confusing to a non-specialist.
But that's a minor nit.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
Whether they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered
an enemy planet. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
Matthias Blume wrote:
> Don Geddis <···@geddis.org> writes:
>
>> You're using a different definition of "random" than was originally meant.
>> In the original use, the statement that "random data is not compressible"
>> is not trivially true by definition.
>
> Yes it is. You are talking about a random process, not random data.
>
> Saying "any part of the string does not provide information on any
> other part" refers to the process of generating such strings. For a
> given (fixed) string, the statement makes little sense since every
> piece of the string is known already, so you don't need any other part
> of the string to predict it.
>
> I see it this way:
>
> Random /data/ is (by definition) not compressible. A random /process/
> produces random data with high probability, but it may occasionally
> produce data that is compressible (and which is, therefore, not random).
>
> While we may quibble about the terminology, I know that at the heart
> of the matter we agree.
Then you have an interesting conundrum: a random process will produce
any of the possible data streams of length N with equal probability, but
(as you have shown) only a tiny, tiny fraction of those streams contain
"random data". So "random data" is decidedly nonrandom. (And at the
metalevel, that means that once you've defined your first-order
implementation language and hence know the tiny subset of strings it
can't compress, you should be able to represent any random string in a
much shorter number of bits. I know that's cheating in the sense that
you have to step outside your original specifications, but I rather like
the notion anyway.)
paul
Paul Wallich <··@panix.com> writes:
> Matthias Blume wrote:
>> Random /data/ is (by definition) not compressible. A random /process/
>> produces random data with high probability, but it may occasionally
>> produce data that is compressible (and which is, therefore, not random).
>>
>> While we may quibble about the terminology, I know that at the heart
>> of the matter we agree.
>
> Then you have an interesting conundrum: a random process will produce
> any of the possible data streams of length N with equal probability,
> but (as you have shown) only a tiny, tiny fraction of those streams
> contain "random data".
Huh? No, only a tiny fraction of those streams will be non-random
data. That's what I said (although using different words).
The rest of your article (which I snipped) shows why the other way
around would not make sense.
Matthias
Matthias Blume wrote:
> Paul Wallich <··@panix.com> writes:
>
>> Matthias Blume wrote:
>>> Random /data/ is (by definition) not compressible. A random /process/
>>> produces random data with high probability, but it may occasionally
>>> produce data that is compressible (and which is, therefore, not random).
>>>
>>> While we may quibble about the terminology, I know that at the heart
>>> of the matter we agree.
>> Then you have an interesting conundrum: a random process will produce
>> any of the possible data streams of length N with equal probability,
>> but (as you have shown) only a tiny, tiny fraction of those streams
>> contain "random data".
>
> Huh? No, only a tiny fraction of those streams will be non-random
> data. That's what I said (although using different words).
That's a nice assertion. Can you back it up? Remember, we're not talking
significant compression, just compression period. Even a few
reasonable-length repetitions or inversions would do it.
paul
Paul Wallich <··@panix.com> writes:
> Matthias Blume wrote:
>> Paul Wallich <··@panix.com> writes:
>>
>>> Matthias Blume wrote:
>>>> Random /data/ is (by definition) not compressible. A random /process/
>>>> produces random data with high probability, but it may occasionally
>>>> produce data that is compressible (and which is, therefore, not random).
>>>>
>>>> While we may quibble about the terminology, I know that at the heart
>>>> of the matter we agree.
>>> Then you have an interesting conundrum: a random process will produce
>>> any of the possible data streams of length N with equal probability,
>>> but (as you have shown) only a tiny, tiny fraction of those streams
>>> contain "random data".
>>
>> Huh? No, only a tiny fraction of those streams will be non-random
>> data. That's what I said (although using different words).
>
> That's a nice assertion. Can you back it up?
Simple pigeon-hole principle.
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> Ron Garret said:
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> > Of course random data can "occasionally" be compressed.
> >>
> >> Well done.
> >
> > Since you're going to be so smug about it I will add that "occasionally"
> > in this case is actually "very rarely." So rarely that it is
> > effectively meaningless.
>
> There are infinitely many examples of compressible random data, whereas
> your original claim was that there are no such examples ("random data
> cannot be compressed"). You made an exaggerated, and therefore false,
> claim, and were giving a strong impression of smug in the process. In the
> circumstances, a little bit of smug in return isn't going to hurt anyone.
Actually no. There are no examples of compressible random data because
random data is *defined* as data that is not compressible. It is an
elementary proof to show that incompressible/random (same thing) data
does in fact exist, and that in fact most data is incompressible/random.
It is slightly more challenging to show that for any given data stream
longer than a certain threshold it is not possible to know whether or
not it is compressible. See http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html for
the proof.
So you are absolutely 100% wrong.
> > I reiterate that there is an elementary (but non-constructive) proof
> > that incompressible data exists.
>
> Sure, but that's a strawman, because I didn't claim incompressible data
> doesn't exist.
Then how do you define "random"?
rg
In message <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net> Ron
Garret said: "Random data in fact cannot be compressed."
In message <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net> Ron
Garret said: "Of course random data can "occasionally" be compressed."
In message <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net> Ron
Garret said: "There are no examples of compressible random data because
random data is *defined* as data that is not compressible."
It is difficult to reconcile these statements. In fact, I don't see any
rational way to do it. Perhaps we should turn, for our inspiration, to
whoever it was who said in message
<·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net>: "An irrational
person is one who persists in a view in the face of overwhelming evidence
to the contrary."
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> In message <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net> Ron
> Garret said: "Random data in fact cannot be compressed."
>
> In message <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net> Ron
> Garret said: "Of course random data can "occasionally" be compressed."
>
> In message <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net> Ron
> Garret said: "There are no examples of compressible random data because
> random data is *defined* as data that is not compressible."
>
>
> It is difficult to reconcile these statements. In fact, I don't see any
> rational way to do it. Perhaps we should turn, for our inspiration, to
> whoever it was who said in message
> <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net>: "An irrational
> person is one who persists in a view in the face of overwhelming evidence
> to the contrary."
The second statement was a mistake.
rg
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87tzjjis78.fsf@geddis.org>
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote on Thu, 06 Mar 2008:
> In article <································@bt.com>,Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>> So let's agree that we have a process for generating a genuinely random
>> stream of bits
>
> OK, but for the record this is a highly dubious assumption.
It is? Doesn't physics claim that a quantum decay counter must necessarily
be a genuinely random stream of bits?
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count
the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. -- Dave Barry
In article <··············@geddis.org>, Don Geddis <···@geddis.org>
wrote:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote on Thu, 06 Mar 2008:
> > In article <································@bt.com>,Richard Heathfield
> > <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >> So let's agree that we have a process for generating a genuinely random
> >> stream of bits
> >
> > OK, but for the record this is a highly dubious assumption.
>
> It is? Doesn't physics claim that a quantum decay counter must necessarily
> be a genuinely random stream of bits?
Nope. It is actually provably impossible to show that any data stream
longer than a certain threshold is genuinely random.
(http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html) In fact, if pi is normal
(which mathematicians strongly suspect but have been unable to prove)
then the entire state of the universe is representable by an index into
the extended fractional representation of pi, which is deterministically
computable (by a fairly small bit of code too).
rg
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:59:01 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>Nope. It is actually provably impossible to show that any data stream
>longer than a certain threshold is genuinely random.
That wasn't the question. Quantum mechanics _does_ require that certain
physical phenomena (such as radioactive decay) behave randomly. (If not,
then the foundation of quantum mechanics falls apart, but that's a
discussion for another time and place.)
Given that, and assuming that quantum mechanics is "correct," then it is
indeed possible to create a random number generator based on quantum
phenomena. The output of such a generator is truly random.
Notice that nothing has been said about proving randomness of a data
stream. That's a separate issue, unrelated to the question posed.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
Ron wrote:
) In fact, if pi is normal
) (which mathematicians strongly suspect but have been unable to prove)
) then the entire state of the universe is representable by an index into
) the extended fractional representation of pi, which is deterministically
) computable (by a fairly small bit of code too).
The entire state of the universe is *not* representable by such an index,
because the representation of the index would exceed the available space
in the universe.
SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87lk4vrt77.fsf@geddis.org>
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote on Thu, 06 Mar 2008:
> In article <··············@geddis.org>, Don Geddis <···@geddis.org> wrote:
>> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote on Thu, 06 Mar 2008:
>> > In article <································@bt.com>,Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>> >> So let's agree that we have a process for generating a genuinely random
>> >> stream of bits
>> >
>> > OK, but for the record this is a highly dubious assumption.
>>
>> It is? Doesn't physics claim that a quantum decay counter must necessarily
>> be a genuinely random stream of bits?
>
> Nope. It is actually provably impossible to show that any data stream
> longer than a certain threshold is genuinely random.
The question of whether any given set of data is "random" (which you're
probably _defining_ as incompressible) is different from the original
question of whether there is "a process for generating a genuinely random
stream of bits".
The answer to the latter (i.e., original) question is: yes. Use a
radioactive decay counter. That's a process where the past history of bits
provides zero information about the next bit, hence the system is generating
"random" bits.
Such a system may (with low likelihood) generate a sequence of all zeros.
That data happens to be easily compressible. That doesn't mean it is isn't
"random".
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a
cardboard box and sit in a warehouse. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
This is wildly off-topic, but it's something I've been thinking about
lately.
Ron Garret wrote:
[...]
> Friendship is an analog relationship, not a binary one. It is likely
> that your good deed strengthened your friendship in ways that will
> provide you some direct benefit down the road. Maybe she'll now do you
> a favor that she might otherwise not have done. Maybe she'll go out
> with you now. Maybe your good deed moved her closer to the point where
> she wants to bear your children. Like it or not, if you're human
> chances are good that your brain is hardwired to want that, and
> improving your chances of getting laid is a benefit to you that is not
> fundamentally different from improving the quality of the food you eat
> or the shelter you live in or the clothes you wear or the car you drive.
There is nothing about evolution or "the selfish gene" that precludes
genuine altruism. An altruistic act can contribute to the survival of a
gene for altruism if the beneficiary of that altruistic act happens to
contain the same genetic propensity for altruism that the benefactor
has. The more closely related beneficiary and benefactor are, the more
likely this is to be the case, but there's no reason that evolution
precludes a propensity for genuine solidarity and altruism at the level
of species. (There's also nothing that precludes a propensity for
aggression at the level of species, which is why humans have such a
frustrating capacity for both.)
The point is that people act not because they expect the action to
benefit themselves specifically. People act because they expect the
action to bring about a result that they value. There is no reason that
this can't be "a better world" in a genuinely altruistic sense.
In other words, of course there are people who "free" their code because
they value in a genuinely altruistic sense the result of doing so.
(How's that for bringing it back on topic?)
-thant
Thant Tessman wrote:
> The point is that people act not because they expect the action to
> benefit themselves specifically. People act because they expect the
> action to bring about a result that they value. There is no reason that
> this can't be "a better world" in a genuinely altruistic sense.
>
> In other words, of course there are people who "free" their code because
> they value in a genuinely altruistic sense the result of doing so.
> (How's that for bringing it back on topic?)
Perfect. Mark's claim (whether he really believes it or not) is that these
people act in error, either because the result of their doing is not what
they think it is, or else because the result is not as valuable as they
think it is.
For the sake of discussion let us assume that the 'damage' really has
happened, i.e. that small or medium sized (i.e. non-monopoly) companies
have been forced out of business because of some FOSS competitor. Now, I
think that there is no question that this is bad, at least for the people
owning these companies, maybe for the employees, too. However, this badness
must be weighed against the equally unquestionabe beneficial effects. For
instance, many users have gotten a piece of software for free instead of
having to pay for it. /Maybe/ what they got is of lower quality, compared
to what the companies offered, but even if that were the case, obviously
the higher quality wasn't enough to outweigh the price difference. This is
the good old principle of capitalism. Most economists happily embrace
the 'creative destruction' that happens every day when companies die
because some competitor takes over their market share. If you think
differently, blame or criticise capitalism, but not free software.
So much for the 'they mean well but cause evil' case.
No, let us further assume that development of this piece of free software
has been sponsored by Big Money, either government or privately owned;
maybe even with declared (or secret) intent to annihilate commercial
competitors. I still claim that the situation is not comparable (in
evilness) to classical dumping. Why? Because with /free/ software it is
almost impossible to eventually profit from the resulting monopoly, i.e.
raise prices as soon as the competition has been stamped out. Just imagine
Sun or IBM in a few years trying to demand money for OpenOffice or Linux,
or whatever. It just doesn't work, people would simply copy the stuff, fork
the projects, whatever, and no law could forbid this. The big player cannot
unilaterally change the license, at least not if they received and accepted
contributions from outside the sponsored (and, presumably, tightly
controlled and contract-bound) core developer team. Even if some large
company works a legal miracle (maybe with help from corrupt politicians
and/or judges) and succeeds at this, it would make the whole FOSS community
extremely suspicious, so that it will hardly happen a second time.
I am sure that e.g. Sun has ulterior motives in sponsoring a free
competition for M$ office. It weakens M$'s grip on the market and that
alone might be worth the money. I am equally sure that they are not stupid
enough to believe they can create a monopoly with it, eventually reaping a
huge profit.
Cheers
Ben
On 7 mar, 02:08, Ben Franksen <············@online.de> wrote:
> Thant Tessman wrote:
> > The point is that people act not because they expect the action to
> > benefit themselves specifically. People act because they expect the
> > action to bring about a result that they value. There is no reason that
> > this can't be "a better world" in a genuinely altruistic sense.
>
> > In other words, of course there are people who "free" their code because
> > they value in a genuinely altruistic sense the result of doing so.
> > (How's that for bringing it back on topic?)
>
> Perfect. Mark's claim (whether he really believes it or not) is that these
> people act in error, either because the result of their doing is not what
> they think it is, or else because the result is not as valuable as they
> think it is.
>
> For the sake of discussion let us assume that the 'damage' really has
> happened, i.e. that small or medium sized (i.e. non-monopoly) companies
> have been forced out of business because of some FOSS competitor. Now, I
> think that there is no question that this is bad, at least for the people
> owning these companies, maybe for the employees, too. However, this badness
> must be weighed against the equally unquestionabe beneficial effects. For
> instance, many users have gotten a piece of software for free instead of
> having to pay for it. /Maybe/ what they got is of lower quality, compared
> to what the companies offered, but even if that were the case, obviously
> the higher quality wasn't enough to outweigh the price difference. This is
> the good old principle of capitalism. Most economists happily embrace
> the 'creative destruction' that happens every day when companies die
> because some competitor takes over their market share. If you think
> differently, blame or criticise capitalism, but not free software.
>
> So much for the 'they mean well but cause evil' case.
>
> No, let us further assume that development of this piece of free software
> has been sponsored by Big Money, either government or privately owned;
> maybe even with declared (or secret) intent to annihilate commercial
> competitors. I still claim that the situation is not comparable (in
> evilness) to classical dumping. Why? Because with /free/ software it is
> almost impossible to eventually profit from the resulting monopoly, i.e.
> raise prices as soon as the competition has been stamped out. Just imagine
> Sun or IBM in a few years trying to demand money for OpenOffice or Linux,
> or whatever. It just doesn't work, people would simply copy the stuff, fork
> the projects, whatever, and no law could forbid this. The big player cannot
> unilaterally change the license, at least not if they received and accepted
> contributions from outside the sponsored (and, presumably, tightly
> controlled and contract-bound) core developer team. Even if some large
> company works a legal miracle (maybe with help from corrupt politicians
> and/or judges) and succeeds at this, it would make the whole FOSS community
> extremely suspicious, so that it will hardly happen a second time.
>
> I am sure that e.g. Sun has ulterior motives in sponsoring a free
> competition for M$ office. It weakens M$'s grip on the market and that
> alone might be worth the money. I am equally sure that they are not stupid
> enough to believe they can create a monopoly with it, eventually reaping a
> huge profit.
>
> Cheers
> Ben
Hi all,
This post is certainly the best collector of this topic.
You do not upset, but
1° : justify FOSS with argument of lowcost is caricatural, after a
regression in CS technology what is the next step of lowcost
justification ? For the effects, it's easy to see it : welcome to
jurassic park! With : Apache-Tomcat-Java-Eclipse-OO and so one in the
monster key role :)
2° : Concerning IBM and SUN against the Microsoft "monopoly" , I think
the commercial ones are just null ! Do you know the size of IBM or
SUN :) there are not small grocer.
If IBM or SUN are obliged to give there products : two possibilities :
change commercials or improve products.
Final step of lowcost : the free !
Final step of society : the barter !
A great future, without any doubt !
Best Regards
Christophe
Ben Franksen wrote:
[...lots o' stuff...]
I'm not exactly sure of the point you're trying to make, but there are
some other points that need to be made.
First, there is no such thing as dumping. It simply doesn't happen in
the real world. It's a myth invented by people to try to explain away as
'cheating' why someone else is able to produce something more
efficiently than they are. Any company that has the resources to
underprice a product for an extended period of time in order to put
competition out of business also has the resources to simply *buy* the
competition. This is what happens in the real world.[1]
Second, it's pure nonsense to argue that the market is somehow worse off
because someone wasn't able to make a profit on something that someone
else decided to give away. It's like saying we're all worse off because
there isn't someone there to charge us for air. Yeah, someone who would
otherwise be in a position to charge us for air might make such an
absurd argument, but certainly his position is a bit biased.
None of this is to defend 'free' software as somehow morally superior to
commercial software. What matters is that people get to decide for
themselves how to dispose of the product of their labor. A programmer
has every right to sell his labor to a corporation for monetary
compensation, and alternatively every right to 'free' it in the GPL
sense. They are both perfectly reasonable and honorable forms of
compensation. A corporation even has the right to pay programmers to
write GPL'd code. A programmer also has ever right to simply give away
the products of his labor for social status, or psychic satisfaction, or
purely altruistic intentions. As long as such contracts are voluntarily
entered and not fraudulent, who has any right to complain?
-thant
[1] Dumping *does* happen, but only under conditions that cannot be
described as free market. For example, central banks will dump gold or
financial institutions will dump oil futures to manipulate the price for
political ends.
On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:52:07 -0700, Thant Tessman wrote:
> ... As long as such contracts are voluntarily
> entered and not fraudulent, who has any right to complain?
>
> -thant
There would be complaints under anti-trust legislation if it was done to
create or perpetuate a monopoly.
Let's say someone in a monopoly situation noticed that it had a potentially
serious competitor who was making money from selling a certain product. If
this company succeeded, they would be able to undermine the monopoly. The
monopolist then gives away a competitive product that has the effect of
"cutting off the air supply" to the up-and-coming competitor.
That would be illegal* and unethical IMHO.
Tim
*But as we know the enforcement of the law can be selective.
Thant Tessman wrote:
> Ben Franksen wrote:
>
> [...lots o' stuff...]
>
> I'm not exactly sure of the point you're trying to make, but there are
> some other points that need to be made.
>
> First, there is no such thing as dumping. It simply doesn't happen in
> the real world. It's a myth invented by people to try to explain away as
> 'cheating' why someone else is able to produce something more
> efficiently than they are.
My point was that free software cannot be compared to classical "dumping"
even if we /assume/ it happens, has the stated effect (of killing
commercial competition), and is done with harmful intentions.
> Any company that has the resources to
> underprice a product for an extended period of time in order to put
> competition out of business also has the resources to simply *buy* the
> competition. This is what happens in the real world.[1]
So Microsoft offers Internet Explorer for free because...? They surely have
a lot of money so why don't they buy all the competition? Because of free
software (that cannot be bought), or because they fear anti-trust
legislation?
Cheers
Ben
PS:
> [1] Dumping *does* happen, but only under conditions that cannot be
> described as free market. For example, central banks will dump gold or
> financial institutions will dump oil futures to manipulate the price for
> political ends.
Conditions that can be described as free market never exist anywhere in pure
form, nor can they. "Free market" is an abstraction, at best. And
capitalism ("market economy") has a certain tendency to undermine its very
foundation: if everything is a commodity, why not the law, too? Ah, and
political decisions, the cheaper the better!
BTW, your examples are not convincing. Who cares about the gold price? Here
is a better one, and strictly from reality: EU & USA destroy African
farmers' possibility to make a living by flooding their countries with
subsidised farming products. (Calling such forms of economic
warfare "protectionism" is a euphemism par excellence, reminds me of other
standard newspeak like "department of defense".)
Ben Franksen wrote:
[...]
> My point was that free software cannot be compared to classical "dumping"
> even if we /assume/ it happens, has the stated effect (of killing
> commercial competition), and is done with harmful intentions.
It might indeed be done with 'harmful' intentions (where 'harmful' means
"robs some commercial software developer of a potential source of
revenue"), but this is only 'harmful' from their particular point of
view. It isn't harmful from the point of view of whomever is producing
the or the consumer's point of view.
>
>> Any company that has the resources to
>> underprice a product for an extended period of time in order to put
>> competition out of business also has the resources to simply *buy* the
>> competition. This is what happens in the real world.[1]
>
> So Microsoft offers Internet Explorer for free because...?
Internet Explorer is free neither in the 'speech' sense, nor the 'beer'
sense. It is merely a 'feature' of the Windows operating system.
> They surely have
> a lot of money so why don't they buy all the competition? Because of free
> software (that cannot be bought), or because they fear anti-trust
> legislation?
The 'price' of Firefox and Safari includes far more than the copyrights
to the source. It includes exclusion of a browser from Linux and the Mac
OS. Even Microsoft can't afford that.
[...]
> Conditions that can be described as free market never exist anywhere in pure
> form, nor can they. [...]
"Free market" happens any time two people voluntarily exchange something
without force or fraud. [I wrote a lot more, but it wandered a bit too
far off-topic. The point is, 'dumping' is a myth.]
-thant
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
[SNIP]
> When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
> becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. [...] "random
> data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
than N bits.)
--
---------------------------
| BBB b \ Barbara at LivingHistory stop co stop uk
| B B aa rrr b |
| BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit,
| B B a a r b b | altum viditur.
| BBB aa a r bbb |
-----------------------------
Barb Knox wrote:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> [SNIP]
>
> > When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
> > becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. [...] "random
> > data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
>
> In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
> the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
> contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
> than N bits.)
Take a page from chaos theory even in your random data there will
be patterns and quite a few compression algorithms are designed
to reduce these patterns to a smaller representation. RLE used in faxes
is a small example of this.
w..
In article <·················@bytecraft.com>,
Walter Banks <······@bytecraft.com> wrote:
> Barb Knox wrote:
>
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> > [SNIP]
> >
> > > When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
> > > becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. [...] "random
> > > data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
> >
> > In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
> > the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
> > contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
> > than N bits.)
>
> Take a page from chaos theory even in your random data there will
> be patterns
If there are patterns then it is not statistically random.
> and quite a few compression algorithms are designed
> to reduce these patterns to a smaller representation.
Indeed, that is what compression is all about.
> RLE used in faxes is a small example of this.
And faxes are clearly not random patterns of dots. If you tried RLE (or
any other encoding) on 2D grids of statistically random dots then it
would not compress them.
--
---------------------------
| BBB b \ Barbara at LivingHistory stop co stop uk
| B B aa rrr b |
| BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit,
| B B a a r b b | altum viditur.
| BBB aa a r bbb |
-----------------------------
In article <·························@lust.ihug.co.nz>,
Barb Knox <···@sig.below> wrote:
>In article <·················@bytecraft.com>,
> Walter Banks <······@bytecraft.com> wrote:
>
>> Barb Knox wrote:
>>
>> > In article <································@bt.com>,
>> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>> > [SNIP]
>> >
>> > > When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
>> > > becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. [...] "random
>> > > data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
>> >
>> > In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
>> > the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
>> > contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
>> > than N bits.)
>>
>> Take a page from chaos theory even in your random data there will
>> be patterns
>
>If there are patterns then it is not statistically random.
Well, no. There will always be patterns if you have enough data, but
that doesn't mean that the patterns will be long enough to take advantage
of. This distinction, of course, is not one that the random data fans
understand. They see the occasional 1234567 in a 20GB file as a chance
for compression. The rest of us see it as a chance to waste precious
bytes describing the location, length, and form of the patten, resulting
in, if they are very, very lucky, no gain at all.
Alan
--
Defendit numerus
In article <············@xenon.Stanford.EDU>,
·······@xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Morgan) wrote:
> In article <·························@lust.ihug.co.nz>,
> Barb Knox <···@sig.below> wrote:
> >In article <·················@bytecraft.com>,
> > Walter Banks <······@bytecraft.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Barb Knox wrote:
> >>
> >> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> >> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >> > [SNIP]
> >> >
> >> > > When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
> >> > > becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. [...] "random
> >> > > data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
> >> >
> >> > In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
> >> > the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
> >> > contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
> >> > than N bits.)
> >>
> >> Take a page from chaos theory even in your random data there will
> >> be patterns
> >
> >If there are patterns then it is not statistically random.
>
> Well, no. There will always be patterns if you have enough data, but
> that doesn't mean that the patterns will be long enough to take advantage
> of.
Good point.
> This distinction, of course, is not one that the random data fans
> understand. They see the occasional 1234567 in a 20GB file as a chance
> for compression. The rest of us see it as a chance to waste precious
> bytes describing the location, length, and form of the patten, resulting
> in, if they are very, very lucky, no gain at all.
>
> Alan
--
---------------------------
| BBB b \ Barbara at LivingHistory stop co stop uk
| B B aa rrr b |
| BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit,
| B B a a r b b | altum viditur.
| BBB aa a r bbb |
-----------------------------
Some entity, AKA Barb Knox <···@sig.below>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
> > RLE used in faxes is a small example of this.
>
> And faxes are clearly not random patterns of dots. If you tried RLE (or
> any other encoding) on 2D grids of statistically random dots then it
> would not compress them.
A marginally sane FAX program would simply print:
"100 PAGES OF GARBAGE OMITTED"
Cor
--
SPAM DELENDA EST http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
Alle schraifvauden zijn opsettelick, teneynde ieder lafaart de cans te
gevuh over spelingk te mekkuh instede de inhaut
Barb Knox <···@sig.below> writes:
> In article <·················@bytecraft.com>,
> Walter Banks <······@bytecraft.com> wrote:
>
>> Barb Knox wrote:
>>
>> > In article <································@bt.com>,
>> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>> > [SNIP]
>> >
>> > > When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
>> > > becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. [...] "random
>> > > data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
>> >
>> > In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
>> > the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
>> > contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
>> > than N bits.)
>>
>> Take a page from chaos theory even in your random data there will
>> be patterns
>
> If there are patterns then it is not statistically random.
>
>> and quite a few compression algorithms are designed
>> to reduce these patterns to a smaller representation.
>
> Indeed, that is what compression is all about.
>
>> RLE used in faxes is a small example of this.
>
> And faxes are clearly not random patterns of dots. If you tried RLE (or
> any other encoding) on 2D grids of statistically random dots then it
> would not compress them.
With a small enough sequence of "random" dots, there may be, by
chance, enough runs (of whatever sort) that it is significantly
compressible, but that should be pretty unusual.
And of course, "apparent randomness" is not the same thing as "actual randomness" ;-).
--
output = ("cbbrowne" ·@" "cbbrowne.com")
http://linuxdatabases.info/info/multiplexor.html
The English exam was a piece of cake---which was a bit of a surprise,
actually, because I was expecting some questions on a sheet of paper.
Barb Knox wrote:
> In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
> the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
> contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
> than N bits.)
In thinking about the problem one small test might be to devise
compression algorithms that compress known numbers with
reasonable characteristics like for example pi.
w..
In article <·················@bytecraft.com>,
Walter Banks <······@bytecraft.com> wrote:
> Barb Knox wrote:
>
> > In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed? (In
> > the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
> > contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
> > than N bits.)
>
> In thinking about the problem one small test might be to devise
> compression algorithms that compress known numbers with
> reasonable characteristics like for example pi.
But the digits of pi are *not* random in the usual sense, since a small
algorithm suffices to generate them. See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity>.
--
---------------------------
| BBB b \ Barbara at LivingHistory stop co stop uk
| B B aa rrr b |
| BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit,
| B B a a r b b | altum viditur.
| BBB aa a r bbb |
-----------------------------
Barb Knox said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> [SNIP]
>
>> When scientists make claims that are not verifiable, their credibility
>> becomes important. When they say stupid things (e.g. [...] "random
>> data cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
>
> In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed?
If random data cannot be compressed, and a given sequence of bits /can/ be
compressed, then that given sequence of bits cannot be produced randomly.
I do not claim that /all/ random data can be compressed. (Otherwise, we'd
be able to compress *everything* down to a single bit.)
> (In
> the usual sense of the word, statistically random data N bits long
> contains N bits of information, and that can not be represented in less
> than N bits.)
A random process produces 32 bits, writes them as a line of text, writes a
newline, and then goes on to the next 32 bits, and so on.
One of its outputs is: 00000000000000000000000000000000
Clearly, this can be compressed easily. But do you consider it to be
"statistically random data"? Or do you think the random process is flawed
because it produces this result?
Another of its outputs is: 11110001010101110110001011110110
Is /that/ statistically random data?
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:56:56 +1300, Barb Knox <···@sig.below> wrote:
>In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed?
What he's getting at is the difference between the concepts of "random
data" (where "random" ~ "arbitrary") and "a particular set of data,
producing using a random process."
Given a specific set of data--regardless of how it was produced--there
is an algorithm that will compress it, obviously. And what you're saying
is, of course, something different, that there is no one algorithm that
will compress arbitrary sets of data.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
In article <··································@4ax.com>,
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:56:56 +1300, Barb Knox <···@sig.below> wrote:
>
> >In what sense do you believe that random data can be compressed?
>
> What he's getting at is the difference between the concepts of "random
> data" (where "random" ~ "arbitrary") and "a particular set of data,
> producing using a random process."
>
> Given a specific set of data--regardless of how it was produced--there
> is an algorithm that will compress it, obviously.
No, this is not obvious. In fact, it is provably wrong. The proof is
elementary. There are 2^n possible data streams of length n bits.
Therefore to compute them all you need 2^n distinct programs (where
"program" here means the aggregate of code and data). To produce 2^n
distinct programs, at least one of them needs to be n bits long.
Therefore at least one of the 2^n possible bits streams of length n
cannot be represented by a program of length less than n, and is
therefore incompressible.
Note that this proof is non-constructive. It does not tell you *which*
of the 2^n data streams are incompressible. In fact, it can be proven
that it is not possible to know whether a given bit stream is
compressible or not. See http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html for
the proof.
Notwithstanding the above, there are numbers (called Chaitin Omegas)
which are mathematically well defined but which are provably
uncomputable, and hence provably uncompressible. I have a power point
presentation about that but it's not on line. If there's interest I'll
put it up.
rg
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:08:08 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>No, this is not obvious. In fact, it is provably wrong.
You are misreading what I wrote. Given a SPECIFIC SET OF DATA, you can
ALWAYS compress it, arbitrarily far, using the technique that someone
else in the thread presented, the "Remember that data we talked about
last week?" method. The key point is that the algorithm must be tailored
to that SPECIFIC set of data.
Another example: The following string of 13 ASCII characters:
War and Peace
is a highly compressed representation of a very long novel by Leo
Tolstoy. If you know the expansion algorithm (i.e., "Go to the
library"), then recovering the fully expanded version is a piece of
cake.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
On Mar 6, 3:46 pm, Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:08:08 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
> >No, this is not obvious. In fact, it is provably wrong.
>
> You are misreading what I wrote. Given a SPECIFIC SET OF DATA, you can
> ALWAYS compress it, arbitrarily far, using the technique that someone
> else in the thread presented, the "Remember that data we talked about
> last week?" method. The key point is that the algorithm must be tailored
> to that SPECIFIC set of data.
No, that is not a valid definition of compression. You can't switch
the compression algorithm on the fly. Or, in the sense of Kolmogorov
complexity, the programming language has to be fixed ahead of time.
Otherwise the discussion makes no sense. The "remember the data we
talked about last week" trick is not compression, it is merely a
pointer to an (uncompressed) copy of the data. It is not self-
contained.
> Another example: The following string of 13 ASCII characters:
>
> War and Peace
>
> is a highly compressed representation of a very long novel by Leo
> Tolstoy.
No, it is not in the above sense unless the programming language in
question has a built-in "war and peace" command.
(One problem with the definition of Kolmogorov complexity is that it
depends on the language that is chosen. One rule of thumb is to pick
a reasonably "generic" one without such baroque -- and redundant --
features such as built-in classic novels. In any case, the language
has to be chosen ahead of time and is then fixed.)
Matthias
On Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:34:20 -0800 (PST), ···············@gmail.com"
<··············@gmail.com> wrote:
>No, that is not a valid definition of compression.
I understand that!!! See my reply to Thant.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> writes:
> On Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:34:20 -0800 (PST), ···············@gmail.com"
> <··············@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>No, that is not a valid definition of compression.
>
> I understand that!!! See my reply to Thant.
Well, then apologies.
Steve Schafer wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:08:08 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
>> No, this is not obvious. In fact, it is provably wrong.
>
> You are misreading what I wrote. Given a SPECIFIC SET OF DATA, you can
> ALWAYS compress it, arbitrarily far, using the technique that someone
> else in the thread presented, the "Remember that data we talked about
> last week?" method. The key point is that the algorithm must be tailored
> to that SPECIFIC set of data. [...]
But now you've switched definitions on us. When a scientist says "random
data cannot be compressed," this is not what the scientist meant by the
word "compressed."
-thant
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:24:56 -0700, Thant Tessman
<·············@gmail.com> wrote:
>But now you've switched definitions on us. When a scientist says "random
>data cannot be compressed," this is not what the scientist meant by the
>word "compressed."
I'm not the one saying that!!! I was just explaining what Richard was
saying. Sheesh.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
In article <··································@4ax.com>,
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:08:08 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
> >No, this is not obvious. In fact, it is provably wrong.
>
> You are misreading what I wrote. Given a SPECIFIC SET OF DATA, you can
> ALWAYS compress it, arbitrarily far, using the technique that someone
> else in the thread presented, the "Remember that data we talked about
> last week?" method. The key point is that the algorithm must be tailored
> to that SPECIFIC set of data.
And I am saying that you are wrong. There exists data for which this is
not possible. There aren't enough such algorithms to go around.
rg
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:34:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>And I am saying that you are wrong. There exists data for which this is
>not possible.
Show me a data set that cannot be compressed.
>There aren't enough such algorithms to go around.
There are as many algorithms as there are data sets.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
From: Rajappa Iyer
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87pru7fl4c.fsf@panix.com>
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> writes:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:34:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
>>And I am saying that you are wrong. There exists data for which this is
>>not possible.
>
> Show me a data set that cannot be compressed.
This is trivially done. Data that's already compressed.
rsi
In article <··············@panix.com>, Rajappa Iyer <···@panix.com>
wrote:
> Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> writes:
>
> > On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:34:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>And I am saying that you are wrong. There exists data for which this is
> >>not possible.
> >
> > Show me a data set that cannot be compressed.
>
> This is trivially done. Data that's already compressed.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work. It can be proven that for any data
set larger than a certain threshold size it is not possible to know for
sure whether it is compressible or not. See
http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html
The only known provably non-compressible data (as far as I know) are
Chaitin Omegas.
rg
In article <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net>,
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <··············@panix.com>, Rajappa Iyer <···@panix.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> writes:
> >
> > > On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:34:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >>And I am saying that you are wrong. There exists data for which this is
> > >>not possible.
> > >
> > > Show me a data set that cannot be compressed.
> >
> > This is trivially done. Data that's already compressed.
>
> Unfortunately, that doesn't work. It can be proven that for any data
> set larger than a certain threshold size it is not possible to know for
> sure whether it is compressible or not. See
> http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html
>
> The only known provably non-compressible data (as far as I know) are
> Chaitin Omegas.
I finally got fed up with having to repeat myself all the time so I put
up a set of slides that explains all this:
http://www.flownet.com/ron/halting_problem.pdf
This is an old presentation, and some of these slides are not on point
so you might want to skip ahead and start with slide 12.
rg
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:48:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>I finally got fed up with having to repeat myself all the time so I put
>up a set of slides that explains all this:
>
>http://www.flownet.com/ron/halting_problem.pdf
>
>This is an old presentation, and some of these slides are not on point
>so you might want to skip ahead and start with slide 12.
Look, I have no vested interest in the (in)compressibility of random
data. This whole discussion is nonsense about nonsense. I am well aware
of the definitions of randomness and why random data cannot be
compressed in general (and also why no compression algorithm can
compress all data sets). The only reason that I got involved at all is
because Richard is playing you, and probably laughing his head off while
at it. I was merely trying to explain _how_ he was playing you, so that
you'd have a way to fight back. But you just can't seem to understand
that the whole thing is semantic legerdemain.
WHEREAS: You're completely missing the point. This isn't about
compressing random data IN GENERAL. This is about compressing a SPECIFIC
data set, which happens to have been created using a random process.
In the following, D is a constant that has exactly the same value as the
"plain text" that we wish to compress. Given any plain text (randomly
generated or not), we can obviously create a constant D that has that
plain text as its value.
Here is the algorithm (pseudocode) to compress it to one bit:
IF plainText = D THEN
return 1
ELSE
return 0
ENDIF
And here's the associated decompression algorithm:
IF compressedData = 1 THEN
return D
ELSE
return ""
ENDIF
Do you get it now? For every SPECIFIC data set, we create a new pair of
SPECIFIC compression and decompression algorithms. Yes, it's
meaningless. That's what I've been trying to say all along.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
In article <··································@4ax.com>,
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:48:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I finally got fed up with having to repeat myself all the time so I put
> >up a set of slides that explains all this:
> >
> >http://www.flownet.com/ron/halting_problem.pdf
> >
> >This is an old presentation, and some of these slides are not on point
> >so you might want to skip ahead and start with slide 12.
>
> Look, I have no vested interest in the (in)compressibility of random
> data. This whole discussion is nonsense about nonsense. I am well aware
> of the definitions of randomness and why random data cannot be
> compressed in general (and also why no compression algorithm can
> compress all data sets). The only reason that I got involved at all is
> because Richard is playing you, and probably laughing his head off while
> at it. I was merely trying to explain _how_ he was playing you, so that
> you'd have a way to fight back. But you just can't seem to understand
> that the whole thing is semantic legerdemain.
>
> WHEREAS: You're completely missing the point. This isn't about
> compressing random data IN GENERAL. This is about compressing a SPECIFIC
> data set, which happens to have been created using a random process.
I get that. What YOU don't get is that you have to count the length of
the decompression algorithm.
> In the following, D is a constant that has exactly the same value as the
> "plain text" that we wish to compress. Given any plain text (randomly
> generated or not), we can obviously create a constant D that has that
> plain text as its value.
>
> Here is the algorithm (pseudocode) to compress it to one bit:
>
> IF plainText = D THEN
> return 1
> ELSE
> return 0
> ENDIF
>
> And here's the associated decompression algorithm:
>
> IF compressedData = 1 THEN
> return D
> ELSE
> return ""
> ENDIF
Why stop there? You can compress D to zero bits. As a bonus, the
decompression algorithm is even shorter:
return D
> Do you get it now? For every SPECIFIC data set, we create a new pair of
> SPECIFIC compression and decompression algorithms.
Sure. But if D is random then the length of the decompression algorithm
plus the data will be at least as long as D.
> Yes, it's meaningless.
No, it isn't. It's actually quite an important fact of information
theory.
rg
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:08:02 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>Sure. But if D is random then the length of the decompression algorithm
>plus the data will be at least as long as D.
You persist in answering questions that were never asked, and refuting
assertions that were never made.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
In article <··································@4ax.com>,
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:08:02 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Sure. But if D is random then the length of the decompression algorithm
> >plus the data will be at least as long as D.
>
> You persist in answering questions that were never asked, and refuting
> assertions that were never made.
The statement that started this sub-thread was:
> When they [scientists] say stupid things (e.g. ... "random data
> cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
And somewhere downstream you wrote:
> WHEREAS: You're completely missing the point. This isn't about
> compressing random data IN GENERAL. This is about compressing a SPECIFIC
> data set, which happens to have been created using a random process.
>
> In the following, D is a constant that has exactly the same value as the
> "plain text" that we wish to compress. Given any plain text (randomly
> generated or not), we can obviously create a constant D that has that
> plain text as its value.
>
> Here is the algorithm (pseudocode) to compress it to one bit:
>
> IF plainText = D THEN
> return 1
> ELSE
> return 0
> ENDIF
>
> And here's the associated decompression algorithm:
>
> IF compressedData = 1 THEN
> return D
> ELSE
> return ""
> ENDIF
>
> Do you get it now? For every SPECIFIC data set, we create a new pair of
> SPECIFIC compression and decompression algorithms.
So not only was the assertion made, you yourself made it. You
specifically claimed that any data D can be compressed down to one bit.
But the way you did it was cheating. All you did was to relabel D from
"data" to "code". The reason this is cheating is that there is no
actual distinction between data and code. The total number of bits that
you need to actually reconstruct D using your method is more than the
number of bits in D. So you have not actually compressed D at all.
rg
On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:14:43 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>You specifically claimed that any data D can be compressed down to one
>bit. But the way you did it was cheating.
You seem like a reasonably smart person. I simply cannot comprehend how
you continue to fail to get it. Of course it's cheating! That's the
whole idea! The reason I entered into the discussion was to explain that
very thing--that Richard was cheating. I mistakenly assumed that by
giving more and more explicit examples of the cheat, you'd eventually be
able to say, "Oh, I get it now--he's cheating." Instead, you stubbornly
continue to attempt to educate me about something that I already
understand quite well, thank you very much.
Steve Schafer
Fenestra Technologies Corp.
http://www.fenestra.com/
In article <··································@4ax.com>,
Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:14:43 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> wrote:
>
> >You specifically claimed that any data D can be compressed down to one
> >bit. But the way you did it was cheating.
>
> You seem like a reasonably smart person. I simply cannot comprehend how
> you continue to fail to get it. Of course it's cheating! That's the
> whole idea! The reason I entered into the discussion was to explain that
> very thing--that Richard was cheating.
That's not what it sounded like to me. Here's what you wrote:
> Given a SPECIFIC SET OF DATA, you can
> ALWAYS compress it, arbitrarily far, using the technique that someone
> else in the thread presented, the "Remember that data we talked about
> last week?" method. The key point is that the algorithm must be tailored
> to that SPECIFIC set of data.
>
> Another example: The following string of 13 ASCII characters:
>
> War and Peace
>
> is a highly compressed representation of a very long novel by Leo
> Tolstoy. If you know the expansion algorithm (i.e., "Go to the
> library"), then recovering the fully expanded version is a piece of
> cake.
Sure sounds to me like you were seriously defending the proposition that
incompressible data does not exist.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> wrote:
>> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
>>
>> >You specifically claimed that any data D can be compressed down to one
>> >bit. But the way you did it was cheating.
>>
>> You seem like a reasonably smart person. I simply cannot comprehend how
>> you continue to fail to get it. Of course it's cheating! That's the
>> whole idea! The reason I entered into the discussion was to explain that
>> very thing--that Richard was cheating.
>
> That's not what it sounded like to me. Here's what you wrote:
>
<cheaty way to compress anything, snipped>
> Sure sounds to me like you were seriously defending the proposition that
> incompressible data does not exist.
To me it sounded more like he was describing how to cheat, in the full and
certain knowledge that he was cheating.
Thing is, there's nothing in the rules that says people aren't allowed to
cheat. What's more (and this was my original point), random processes do
sometimes throw out compressible data, data into which we humans can read
patterns even though no patterns were inserted by the process itself.
The 48-bit string I quoted... yesterday, was it?... was a good example. (I
nearly said "prime example", but no, I haven't tested it for primality. I
can't even remember now whether it's odd.)
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Thing is, there's nothing in the rules that says people aren't allowed to
> cheat.
Not being allowed to cheat is implicit in the definition of rules. If
the rules allow it then by definition it isn't cheating.
> What's more (and this was my original point), random processes do
> sometimes throw out compressible data
That was not your original point. Your original point was:
> When they [scientists] say stupid things (e.g. ... "random data
> cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
"Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Thing is, there's nothing in the rules that says people aren't allowed
>> to cheat.
>
> Not being allowed to cheat is implicit in the definition of rules. If
> the rules allow it then by definition it isn't cheating.
>
>> What's more (and this was my original point), random processes do
>> sometimes throw out compressible data
>
> That was not your original point.
Yes, it was.
> Your original point was:
>
>> When they [scientists] say stupid things (e.g. ... "random data
>> cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
That was how I chose to express it. But it's the same point. Random data
*can* be compressed *sometimes*, so those who claim it can't are just
dismissing very, very, very, very small probabilities as being zero.
> "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
> different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
> compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
Well, we've been over this ground over and over again, and I've already
explained why you're wrong in as many different ways as I can think of,
and you've explained why I'm wrong in at least as many ways, and clearly
neither of us is persuading the other, so it's all a bit pointless, isn't
it?
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
> Ron Garret said:
>>"Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
>>different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
>>compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
Not so fast.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosencrantz_&_Guildenstern_Are_Dead:
> The play opens with the two men betting on coin flips. Rosencrantz
> bets heads every time and wins ninety-two flips in a row.
kenny
--
http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"In the morning, hear the Way;
in the evening, die content!"
-- Confucius
In article <································@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Ron Garret said:
>
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> Thing is, there's nothing in the rules that says people aren't allowed
> >> to cheat.
> >
> > Not being allowed to cheat is implicit in the definition of rules. If
> > the rules allow it then by definition it isn't cheating.
> >
> >> What's more (and this was my original point), random processes do
> >> sometimes throw out compressible data
> >
> > That was not your original point.
>
> Yes, it was.
>
> > Your original point was:
> >
> >> When they [scientists] say stupid things (e.g. ... "random data
> >> cannot be compressed"), I am likely to reassess their credibility.
>
> That was how I chose to express it. But it's the same point. Random data
> *can* be compressed *sometimes*, so those who claim it can't are just
> dismissing very, very, very, very small probabilities as being zero.
Ah, I see now. I suppose you don't believe in the second law of
thermodynamics either. After all, those who make "stupid" (your word)
statements like that the second law is a "fact" are just dismissing
very, very, very, very small probabilities as being zero.
So black is white, up is down, and cheating is playing by the rules.
Sorry, dude, life is too short to argue with people who don't have a
basic grip on reality. See ya.
rg
Ron Garret said:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
<snip>
>>
>> That was how I chose to express it. But it's the same point. Random data
>> *can* be compressed *sometimes*, so those who claim it can't are just
>> dismissing very, very, very, very small probabilities as being zero.
>
> Ah, I see now. I suppose you don't believe in the second law of
> thermodynamics either.
As Flanders and Swann once said, "heat cannot of itself pass from one body
to a hotter body" (and "heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter - you
can try it if you like but you far better notter"!). I don't particularly
challenge this, although it should be said that slavish adherence to
thermodynamic theory delayed the recognition of oscillating reactions by a
number of years.
It is very sad when people instinctively reject common sense in favour of
theories. *Sometimes* this is a sensible approach. (For example, if the
pilot of an orbiting spacecraft wants to catch up another craft in the
same orbit, the instinct is to speed up, but theory rightly says that you
should slow down, thus dropping into a tighter and thus faster orbit.)
Nevertheless, often it is not a sensible approach, and this is one such
case. (I'll stick to digital here for ease of discussion.) An entirely
random process can put out *any* bit stream (because otherwise we can use
the fact that it doesn't put out some bit streams to gain information on
the bit streams that it /can/ output, in which case it isn't entirely
random any more), and some bit streams are compressible. QED as far as I'm
concerned.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: Random data cannot be compressed
Date:
Message-ID: <8763vwol4j.fsf@geddis.org>
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote on Sat, 08 Mar 2008:
> An entirely random process can put out *any* bit stream and some bit
> streams are compressible. QED as far as I'm concerned.
Yet you continue to persist in the confusion between
1. What is the Kolmogorov complexity of a static sequence of data?; and
2. Is there any algorithm which can, on average, compress the storage/
transmission size requirements of the output of a random process?
Your statement is "true", modulo some carefully chosen definitions for
"random process", "compressible", etc.
And yet it in no way contradicts the subject line of this thread.
So the error is not in your statement. It is in your "QED" belief that you
have said something relevant to the topic of whether "random data can[not]
be compressed". You haven't. You've merely written a non-sequitur.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
To me, there's no better symbol for the world than a grasshopper lying dead on
a gravel road, and maybe there's a globe lying next to him.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> [...]
>> That was how I chose to express it. But it's the same point. Random data
>> *can* be compressed *sometimes*, so those who claim it can't are just
>> dismissing very, very, very, very small probabilities as being zero.
>
> Ah, I see now. I suppose you don't believe in the second law of
> thermodynamics either. After all, those who make "stupid" (your word)
> statements like that the second law is a "fact" are just dismissing
> very, very, very, very small probabilities as being zeror
It is a fact. But it's also a fact that most people often forget
another little, but very important fact about the second law of
thermodynamics: there is only ONE single object on which it applies,
namely the universe as a whole�. Any other system is not closed, in
this universe.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
WARNING: This product warps space and time in its vicinity.
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
<snip>
> It is a fact. But it's also a fact that most people often forget
> another little, but very important fact about the second law of
> thermodynamics: there is only ONE single object on which it applies,
> namely the universe as a whole�. Any other system is not closed, in
> this universe.
What about black holes? Oh I forgot, Hawking radiation.
On Mar 9, 2:13 am, santosh <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>
> > It is a fact. But it's also a fact that most people often forget
> > another little, but very important fact about the second law of
> > thermodynamics: there is only ONE single object on which it applies,
> > namely the universe as a whole¹. Any other system is not closed, in
> > this universe.
>
> What about black holes? Oh I forgot, Hawking radiation.
Ah, flamewars. I love them so.
How could we possibly have a discussion about the ethics
of the GPL without bringing in Hawking radiation, and the
compressibility of random data? I am surprised the OP
didn't bring these up right away.
Marshall
From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: Random data cannot be compressed
Date:
Message-ID: <87r6eign4z.fsf@geddis.org>
Marshall <···············@gmail.com> wrote on Mon, 10 Mar 2008:
> How could we possibly have a discussion about the ethics of the GPL without
> bringing in Hawking radiation, and the compressibility of random data? I am
> surprised the OP didn't bring these up right away.
Hitler. Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Nazi Hitler Hitler.
Oh, wait. Did I get there too fast? I might have skipped a step or two...
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
The brain can be seen as a complex machine, like a gooey computer.
-- Robert C. Solomon
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
> different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
> compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
Huh? Now you lost me. The first statement is clearly true. A random
process can, in fact, produce a string of, say, all 0. The
probability for this to happen is very small, but it is non-zero.
But a string of all 0 is not "random data" in the Kolmogorov
complexity sense, i.e., it can be compressed.
The second statement is wrong, but I would prefer to phrase the
second negation without resorting to expletives such as "stupid". The
statement "The statement that random data cannot be compressed is
wrong." is wrong (by definition).
Matthias
In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>
> > "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
> > different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
> > compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
>
> Huh? Now you lost me. The first statement is clearly true. A random
> process can, in fact, produce a string of, say, all 0. The
> probability for this to happen is very small, but it is non-zero.
> But a string of all 0 is not "random data" in the Kolmogorov
> complexity sense, i.e., it can be compressed.
Exercise for the reader: choose a computational model (Lisp would be an
appropriate choice), and work out how long a string of zeros has to be
before its Kolmogorov complexity relative to that computational model is
actually less than the length of the string. Now work out the
probability that a random process will emit this string. Now work out
the probability that if the entire physical universe were a machine that
did nothing but generate random data that this string would actually be
emitted in the lifetime of the universe.
rg
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
> Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
>
>> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>>
>> > "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
>> > different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
>> > compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
>>
>> Huh? Now you lost me. The first statement is clearly true. A random
>> process can, in fact, produce a string of, say, all 0. The
>> probability for this to happen is very small, but it is non-zero.
>> But a string of all 0 is not "random data" in the Kolmogorov
>> complexity sense, i.e., it can be compressed.
>
> Exercise for the reader: choose a computational model (Lisp would be an
> appropriate choice), and work out how long a string of zeros has to be
> before its Kolmogorov complexity relative to that computational model is
> actually less than the length of the string. Now work out the
> probability that a random process will emit this string. Now work out
> the probability that if the entire physical universe were a machine that
> did nothing but generate random data that this string would actually be
> emitted in the lifetime of the universe.
This is a very different argument you are now making. Yes, random
processes emit compressible data only very rarely -- so rarely that
for practical purposes one can say "never". But that was not the point.
Matthias
In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>
> > In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
> > Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
> >
> >> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
> >> > different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
> >> > compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
> >>
> >> Huh? Now you lost me. The first statement is clearly true. A random
> >> process can, in fact, produce a string of, say, all 0. The
> >> probability for this to happen is very small, but it is non-zero.
> >> But a string of all 0 is not "random data" in the Kolmogorov
> >> complexity sense, i.e., it can be compressed.
> >
> > Exercise for the reader: choose a computational model (Lisp would be an
> > appropriate choice), and work out how long a string of zeros has to be
> > before its Kolmogorov complexity relative to that computational model is
> > actually less than the length of the string. Now work out the
> > probability that a random process will emit this string. Now work out
> > the probability that if the entire physical universe were a machine that
> > did nothing but generate random data that this string would actually be
> > emitted in the lifetime of the universe.
>
> This is a very different argument you are now making. Yes, random
> processes emit compressible data only very rarely -- so rarely that
> for practical purposes one can say "never". But that was not the point.
Let's go back to the original statement (for the nth time) which was
something like, "The claim that random data cannot be compressed is
stupid." In fact that claim that random data cannot be compressed is
true 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
of the time (or something like that... I don't feel like doing the math.
It is entirely possible that there is not enough matter in the universe
to write out all the 9's.) However you might fairly characterize the
non-qualified claim that "random data cannot be compressed", "Stupid" is
not among them.
rg
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
> Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
>
>> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>>
>> > In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
>> > Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>> >>
>> >> > "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
>> >> > different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
>> >> > compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
>> >>
>> >> Huh? Now you lost me. The first statement is clearly true. A random
>> >> process can, in fact, produce a string of, say, all 0. The
>> >> probability for this to happen is very small, but it is non-zero.
>> >> But a string of all 0 is not "random data" in the Kolmogorov
>> >> complexity sense, i.e., it can be compressed.
>> >
>> > Exercise for the reader: choose a computational model (Lisp would be an
>> > appropriate choice), and work out how long a string of zeros has to be
>> > before its Kolmogorov complexity relative to that computational model is
>> > actually less than the length of the string. Now work out the
>> > probability that a random process will emit this string. Now work out
>> > the probability that if the entire physical universe were a machine that
>> > did nothing but generate random data that this string would actually be
>> > emitted in the lifetime of the universe.
>>
>> This is a very different argument you are now making. Yes, random
>> processes emit compressible data only very rarely -- so rarely that
>> for practical purposes one can say "never". But that was not the point.
>
> Let's go back to the original statement (for the nth time) which was
> something like, "The claim that random data cannot be compressed is
> stupid." In fact that claim that random data cannot be compressed is
> true 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
> of the time (or something like that... I don't feel like doing the math.
> It is entirely possible that there is not enough matter in the universe
> to write out all the 9's.) However you might fairly characterize the
> non-qualified claim that "random data cannot be compressed", "Stupid" is
> not among them.
Hmm. You really are losing me here. I can't tell whether we are in
violent agreement or not.
I see it like this:
1. "Random data" is data with high Kolmogorov complexity.
Therefore, by definition, it cannot be compressed. At all. (*)
2. A "random process" is a way of generating a random distribution
of data. If the distribution is uniform (for example), then the
probability of drawing random data (see point 1) from this
distribution is extremely high. If the data strings are
sufficiently long, then it is astronomically high. However,
there is some remaining non-zero probability that a string drawn
from the distribution is of low Kolmogorov complexity, which
means that it can be compressed. Such a string, even though it
is drawn from a random distribution, is not "random" in the
sense of point 1 above.
Can we agree on this, at least modulo the terminology itself? (I'm
happy to alpha-rename words such as "random" etc., if this resolves
the misunderstanding.)
You seem to be using the phrase "random data" to mean "data drawn from
a random distribution". In this case the claim that it cannot be
compressed is not always true. How often it is not true depends on
the actual distribution in question. One can craft a distribution
where it is always true, one can craft one where it is always false,
and most "reasonable" distributions let you draw both compressible and
non-compressible data, with the vast majority of data being
non-compressible.
Matthias
(*) At least not within the computational model used to the define the
Kolmogorov complexity that is used to make this assessment.
In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>
> > In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
> > Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
> >
> >> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > In article <··············@my.address.elsewhere>,
> >> > Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> >> >>
> >> >> > "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
> >> >> > different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
> >> >> > compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
> >> >>
> >> >> Huh? Now you lost me. The first statement is clearly true. A random
> >> >> process can, in fact, produce a string of, say, all 0. The
> >> >> probability for this to happen is very small, but it is non-zero.
> >> >> But a string of all 0 is not "random data" in the Kolmogorov
> >> >> complexity sense, i.e., it can be compressed.
> >> >
> >> > Exercise for the reader: choose a computational model (Lisp would be an
> >> > appropriate choice), and work out how long a string of zeros has to be
> >> > before its Kolmogorov complexity relative to that computational model is
> >> > actually less than the length of the string. Now work out the
> >> > probability that a random process will emit this string. Now work out
> >> > the probability that if the entire physical universe were a machine that
> >> > did nothing but generate random data that this string would actually be
> >> > emitted in the lifetime of the universe.
> >>
> >> This is a very different argument you are now making. Yes, random
> >> processes emit compressible data only very rarely -- so rarely that
> >> for practical purposes one can say "never". But that was not the point.
> >
> > Let's go back to the original statement (for the nth time) which was
> > something like, "The claim that random data cannot be compressed is
> > stupid." In fact that claim that random data cannot be compressed is
> > true 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
> > of the time (or something like that... I don't feel like doing the math.
> > It is entirely possible that there is not enough matter in the universe
> > to write out all the 9's.) However you might fairly characterize the
> > non-qualified claim that "random data cannot be compressed", "Stupid" is
> > not among them.
>
> Hmm. You really are losing me here. I can't tell whether we are in
> violent agreement or not.
>
> I see it like this:
>
> 1. "Random data" is data with high Kolmogorov complexity.
> Therefore, by definition, it cannot be compressed. At all. (*)
>
> 2. A "random process" is a way of generating a random distribution
> of data. If the distribution is uniform (for example), then the
> probability of drawing random data (see point 1) from this
> distribution is extremely high. If the data strings are
> sufficiently long, then it is astronomically high. However,
> there is some remaining non-zero probability that a string drawn
> from the distribution is of low Kolmogorov complexity, which
> means that it can be compressed. Such a string, even though it
> is drawn from a random distribution, is not "random" in the
> sense of point 1 above.
>
> Can we agree on this, at least modulo the terminology itself?
Yes.
> You seem to be using the phrase "random data" to mean "data drawn from
> a random distribution". In this case the claim that it cannot be
> compressed is not always true. How often it is not true depends on
> the actual distribution in question. One can craft a distribution
> where it is always true, one can craft one where it is always false,
> and most "reasonable" distributions let you draw both compressible and
> non-compressible data, with the vast majority of data being
> non-compressible.
Right. What do you think we're disagreeing about?
rg
On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:41:41 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
> Let's go back to the original statement (for the nth time) which was
> something like, "The claim that random data cannot be compressed is
> stupid." In fact that claim that random data cannot be compressed is
> true 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
> of the time (or something like that... I don't feel like doing the math.
> It is entirely possible that there is not enough matter in the universe
> to write out all the 9's.) However you might fairly characterize the
> non-qualified claim that "random data cannot be compressed", "Stupid" is
> not among them.
>
> rg
There seem to be two facts here
1. You cannot write a program that will take truly random data, and
successfully compress it on average.
2. There are some strings of bits that can be compressed. Sometimes a
truly random process will generate such as string.
I think this captures most of what has been said about compressing random
strings.
Below is an algorithm that will compress *25%* of all randomly generated
bit strings of length > 1.
I think I have an algorithm that can get close to 50% but I haven't
written it out yet.
Of course 25% is a considerable improvement on the figure of
0.00000....00001 quoted above. Such strings are likely to appear well
before the heat death of the universe.
00XXX... -> 0XXX...
01XXX... -> 101XXX...
1XXXX... -> 11XXXX...
Tested code follows:
(defun compress-bits (bits)
(destructuring-bind (b0 b1 &rest bx) bits
(if (and (not b0) (not b1))
(rest bits)
(cons t bits))))
(defun expand-bits (bits)
(if (first bits)
(rest bits)
(cons nil bits)))
(defparameter *size* 8)
(defun num2bits (num)
(let ((acc nil))
(dotimes (ix *size*)
(push (if (plusp (logand (expt 2 ix) num)) t nil) acc))
(reverse acc)))
(defun bits2num (bits)
(let ((arr (coerce (reverse bits) 'vector))
(acc 0))
(dotimes (i (length arr))
(let ((powr (expt 2 i)))
(incf acc (if (nth i bits) powr 0))))
acc))
(defun test ()
(assert (> *size* 1))
(let ((count 0)
(comp-count 0))
(dotimes (i (expt 2 *size*))
(let* ((a (num2bits i))
(b (compress-bits a))
(c (expand-bits b))
(d (bits2num c))
(eeq (= i d)))
(if (< (length b) (length a))
(incf comp-count))
(incf count)
(if (not eeq)
(format t "~%num:~S bits:~S compr:~S expd:~S Num:~S
Assessment:~S" i a b c d eeq))))
(format t "~%~S of ~S compressed = ~S%" comp-count count (/ comp-count
count (/ 1 100.0)))))
Tim
In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
> Below is an algorithm that will compress *25%* of all randomly generated
> bit strings of length > 1.
>
> I think I have an algorithm that can get close to 50% but I haven't
> written it out yet.
>
> Of course 25% is a considerable improvement on the figure of
> 0.00000....00001 quoted above. Such strings are likely to appear well
> before the heat death of the universe.
>
> 00XXX... -> 0XXX...
> 01XXX... -> 101XXX...
> 1XXXX... -> 11XXXX...
>
> Tested code follows:
No. You are cheating in two ways. First, you save one bit in 25% of
the cases at the expense of adding a bit in 75% of the cases, resulting
in a net expansion of the data when amortized over a large number of
random strings.
Second, and more seriously, you are not counting the length of the
decompression algorithm. We've been through this already earlier in the
thread. If you don't the decompression algorithm then you can compress
any string down to zero bits by simply taking what used to be "data" and
relabeling it "code".
rg
On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:27:07 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
> In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
> tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
>
>> Below is an algorithm that will compress *25%* of all randomly generated
>> bit strings of length > 1.
>>
>> I think I have an algorithm that can get close to 50% but I haven't
>> written it out yet.
>>
>> Of course 25% is a considerable improvement on the figure of
>> 0.00000....00001 quoted above. Such strings are likely to appear well
>> before the heat death of the universe.
>>
>> 00XXX... -> 0XXX...
>> 01XXX... -> 101XXX...
>> 1XXXX... -> 11XXXX...
>>
>> Tested code follows:
>
>
> No. You are cheating in two ways.
I did not claim to compress random strings on average. In fact I clearly
stated in the *same* posting that is impossible. At best you will break
even.
Nor is this really cheating. The algorithm is fixed in size and can
compressive any of the 25% of random strings that meet its criteria. (In
fact you can compress almost 50%). If you compress say 1,000,000 strings
the overhead of the code is insignificant.
My point is that algorithms exist that, when given a completely random
string, can produce a shorter string in a large percentage of cases. This
was supposed to be impossible.
Tim
In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:27:07 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>
> > In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
> > tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Below is an algorithm that will compress *25%* of all randomly generated
> >> bit strings of length > 1.
> >>
> >> I think I have an algorithm that can get close to 50% but I haven't
> >> written it out yet.
> >>
> >> Of course 25% is a considerable improvement on the figure of
> >> 0.00000....00001 quoted above. Such strings are likely to appear well
> >> before the heat death of the universe.
> >>
> >> 00XXX... -> 0XXX...
> >> 01XXX... -> 101XXX...
> >> 1XXXX... -> 11XXXX...
> >>
> >> Tested code follows:
> >
> >
> > No. You are cheating in two ways.
>
> I did not claim to compress random strings on average. In fact I clearly
> stated in the *same* posting that is impossible. At best you will break
> even.
>
> Nor is this really cheating. The algorithm is fixed in size and can
> compressive any of the 25% of random strings that meet its criteria.
It is cheating. You are cherry-picking which strings "count". The
result is that the data you are successfully compressing is no longer
random.
> My point is that algorithms exist that, when given a completely random
> string, can produce a shorter string in a large percentage of cases. This
> was supposed to be impossible.
No, that is not what is impossible. What is impossible is producing an
algorithm so that the amount of compression you get when you apply the
algorithm to random data is more than the length of the algorithm. You
can choose how much random data you want to apply it to, but having
chosen the amount you do not get to cherry-pick the data you are
expected to compress. If you do then it's no longer random.
The only caveat is that it is possible to get lucky and happen to get a
random string that hits the sweet spot for your algorithm, and be able
to compress *that* random string by more than the length of your
algorithm. But the probability of that happening is vanishingly small.
rg
P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:19:27 +0100, skrev tim <····@internet.com>:
>
> 1. You cannot write a program that will take truly random data, and
> successfully compress it on average.
>
Thought this would be a good time to come with a warning.
Compressing a text before encryption will produce reproducible patterns
that will greatly ease the cryptanalysis. DON'T DO THAT. Doing it after
the encryption does little harm or good as the data is mostly random.
--------------
John Thingstad
In article <·················@pandora.alfanett.no>,
"John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> wrote:
> P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:19:27 +0100, skrev tim <····@internet.com>:
>
> >
> > 1. You cannot write a program that will take truly random data, and
> > successfully compress it on average.
> >
>
> Thought this would be a good time to come with a warning.
> Compressing a text before encryption will produce reproducible patterns
> that will greatly ease the cryptanalysis. DON'T DO THAT.
I presume you're referring to the results reported in "Compression and
Information Leakage of Plaintext" by John Kelsey.
I think you're overstating the case. Here's a quote from Kelsey's paper:
"However, it is important to note that these attacks have little
security impact on, say, a bulk encryption application which compresses
data before encrypting."
> Doing it after
> the encryption does little harm or good as the data is mostly random.
Actually, doing it after encryption can serve as a good check on the
quality of your encryption algorithm. If you encrypted data is
compressible you have a bad encryption algorithm.
rg
In article <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net>,
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <·················@pandora.alfanett.no>,
> "John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> wrote:
>
> > P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:19:27 +0100, skrev tim <····@internet.com>:
> >
> > >
> > > 1. You cannot write a program that will take truly random data, and
> > > successfully compress it on average.
> > >
> >
> > Thought this would be a good time to come with a warning.
> > Compressing a text before encryption will produce reproducible patterns
> > that will greatly ease the cryptanalysis. DON'T DO THAT.
>
> I presume you're referring to the results reported in "Compression and
> Information Leakage of Plaintext" by John Kelsey.
>
> I think you're overstating the case. Here's a quote from Kelsey's paper:
>
> "However, it is important to note that these attacks have little
> security impact on, say, a bulk encryption application which compresses
> data before encrypting."
And this:
"In summary, compression algorithms add very little security to
well-designed encryption systems. Such systems use keys long enough to
resist keysearch attack and chaining modes that resist chosen-plaintext
attack. The real reason for using compression algorithms isn�t to
increase security, but rather to save on bandwidth and storage. As we
will disucuss below, this real advantage needs to be balanced against a
(mostly academic) risk of attacks on the system, such as those described
below, based on information leakage from the compression algorithm."
rg
P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:45:55 +0100, skrev Ron Garret
<·········@flownet.com>:
> In article <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net>,
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
>
>> In article <·················@pandora.alfanett.no>,
>> "John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> wrote:
>>
>> > P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:19:27 +0100, skrev tim <····@internet.com>:
>> >
>> > >
>> > > 1. You cannot write a program that will take truly random data, and
>> > > successfully compress it on average.
>> > >
>> >
>> > Thought this would be a good time to come with a warning.
>> > Compressing a text before encryption will produce reproducible
>> patterns
>> > that will greatly ease the cryptanalysis. DON'T DO THAT.
>>
>> I presume you're referring to the results reported in "Compression and
>> Information Leakage of Plaintext" by John Kelsey.
>>
>> I think you're overstating the case. Here's a quote from Kelsey's
>> paper:
>>
>> "However, it is important to note that these attacks have little
>> security impact on, say, a bulk encryption application which compresses
>> data before encrypting."
>
> And this:
>
> "In summary, compression algorithms add very little security to
> well-designed encryption systems. Such systems use keys long enough to
> resist keysearch attack and chaining modes that resist chosen-plaintext
> attack. The real reason for using compression algorithms isn�t to
> increase security, but rather to save on bandwidth and storage. As we
> will disucuss below, this real advantage needs to be balanced against a
> (mostly academic) risk of attacks on the system, such as those described
> below, based on information leakage from the compression algorithm."
>
> rg
ron. This risc is hardly academic. All predicatable patterns increase the
probability of a pattern being cracked. You shouldn't blindly dismiss it
as that.
--------------
John Thingstad
In article <·················@pandora.alfanett.no>,
"John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> wrote:
> P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:45:55 +0100, skrev Ron Garret
> <·········@flownet.com>:
>
> > In article <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net>,
> > Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> >
> >> In article <·················@pandora.alfanett.no>,
> >> "John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> wrote:
> >>
> >> > P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:19:27 +0100, skrev tim <····@internet.com>:
> >> >
> >> > >
> >> > > 1. You cannot write a program that will take truly random data, and
> >> > > successfully compress it on average.
> >> > >
> >> >
> >> > Thought this would be a good time to come with a warning.
> >> > Compressing a text before encryption will produce reproducible
> >> patterns
> >> > that will greatly ease the cryptanalysis. DON'T DO THAT.
> >>
> >> I presume you're referring to the results reported in "Compression and
> >> Information Leakage of Plaintext" by John Kelsey.
> >>
> >> I think you're overstating the case. Here's a quote from Kelsey's
> >> paper:
> >>
> >> "However, it is important to note that these attacks have little
> >> security impact on, say, a bulk encryption application which compresses
> >> data before encrypting."
> >
> > And this:
> >
> > "In summary, compression algorithms add very little security to
> > well-designed encryption systems. Such systems use keys long enough to
> > resist keysearch attack and chaining modes that resist chosen-plaintext
> > attack. The real reason for using compression algorithms isn1t to
> > increase security, but rather to save on bandwidth and storage. As we
> > will disucuss below, this real advantage needs to be balanced against a
> > (mostly academic) risk of attacks on the system, such as those described
> > below, based on information leakage from the compression algorithm."
> >
> > rg
>
> ron. This risc is hardly academic.
Kelsey says it is.
> You shouldn't blindly dismiss it as that.
I'm not blindly dismissing anything, I'm just quoting what the primary
source has to say about it. I don't have time to dig into the details
myself right now.
rg
P� Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:59:03 +0100, skrev John Thingstad
<·······@online.no>:
>
> ron. This risc is hardly academic. All predicatable patterns increase
> the probability of a pattern being cracked. You shouldn't blindly
> dismiss it as that.
>
Perhaps I should add that most people use block encryption. Public key is
used for key encryption. Professor Steiners butter dough principle applies
here. You XOR the result with the previous. That being DES3, IDEA or
BABBLEFISH algorithms.
--------------
John Thingstad
On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:11:45 +0100, John Thingstad wrote:
> På Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:19:27 +0100, skrev tim <····@internet.com>:
>
>>
>> 1. You cannot write a program that will take truly random data, and
>> successfully compress it on average.
>>
>
> Thought this would be a good time to come with a warning.
> Compressing a text before encryption will produce reproducible patterns
> that will greatly ease the cryptanalysis. DON'T DO THAT. Doing it after
> the encryption does little harm or good as the data is mostly random.
>
> --------------
> John Thingstad
What would be the point of compressing after encryption? If the encryption
is any good, it should be close to uncompressible (modulo verbose headers).
Do you have any case studies of decryption being made easier by
compression? A good compression engine should produce more random looking
data which is harder to analyse, I would have thought.
Tim
From: =?utf-8?b?R2lzbGUgU8ODwqZsZW5zbWk=?= =?utf-8?b?bmRl?=
Subject: Re: Random data cannot be compressed
Date:
Message-ID: <0n7igckpdf.fsf@vannskorpion.ii.uib.no>
Matthias Blume <····@my.address.elsewhere> writes:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>
> > "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is a very
> > different claim from "The statement that random data cannot be
> > compressed is stupid." But both statements are in fact wrong.
>
> Huh? Now you lost me. The first statement is clearly true. A random
> process can, in fact, produce a string of, say, all 0. The
> probability for this to happen is very small, but it is non-zero.
> But a string of all 0 is not "random data" in the Kolmogorov
> complexity sense, i.e., it can be compressed.
>
> The second statement is wrong, but I would prefer to phrase the
> second negation without resorting to expletives such as "stupid". The
> statement "The statement that random data cannot be compressed is
> wrong." is wrong (by definition).
>
> Matthias
It depends what you mean by a random process. Wery often it is implied to
mean something emiting bits indistinguisable from a binomial process where
p = q = 0.5. The expectancy for such a stream is that it is incompressible,
even though you may occationaly output something that can be compressed.
There are however many processes that has some randomness to them, but not
following this distribution. Such streams are compressible in theory.
If you mean the strict b(2; 0.5; 0.5) distribution, then you cannot expect
on average that the output can be compressed.
Is there anything else to it?
--
Gisle Sælensminde, Phd student, Scientific programmer
Computational biology unit, BCCS, University of Bergen, Norway,
Email: ·····@cbu.uib.no
The best way to travel is by means of imagination
Am Samstag, den 08.03.2008, 01:07 -0800 schrieb Ron Garret:
> "Random processes sometimes throw out compressible data" is [...]
> in fact wrong.
No. You're simply applying a different interpretation than the original
speaker.
Namely, it is correct under the interpretation that you don't need to
apply the compression algorithm to all outputs of the generator (e.g.
because somebody has decided to store only that specific output and
throw all other outputs away).
>From an information theory point of view, the actual generator is the
random source plus whatever (or whoever) is doing the selection. IOW the
information-theoretic generator is highly nonrandom, so the theoretic
result still stands; in practice, we don't perceive manual selection as
part of the generator process, so informally speaking, individual
samples of output from a random source can indeed be nonrandom.
I hope this helps cleaning up the confusion.
Regards,
Jo
Steve Schafer said:
<snip>
> Look, I have no vested interest in the (in)compressibility of random
> data.
Neither do I, as it happens. Just shootin' the breeze.
> This whole discussion is nonsense about nonsense.
While we're on the subject of nonsense, and since you seem (more or less)
to grok what I'm on about, here's a little curiosity for you. I've
generated quite a few 48-bit strings during the course of this discussion,
mostly by tossing coins about the place. (Sad, or what?) I ended up not
using any of them in the discussion (typical!), but... Well, here's a
perfectly genuine bit string constructed from the result of coin tossing:
000101101101000001010011100101110111010001011110
There's something rather astonishing about it. I'm not saying it's
compressible-without-cheating (it's too short for that, I think), but it
does have a very interesting property that I *know* is the result of
randomness but which I, being human and reasonably numerate, still find
quite hard to accept as random.
Rot-13'd hint: Tenpr Ubccre jbhyq unir fcbggrq guvf cnggrea rnfvyl, creuncf
juvyfg onynapvat ure purdhrobbx.
> I am well aware
> of the definitions of randomness and why random data cannot be
> compressed in general (and also why no compression algorithm can
> compress all data sets).
Um, so am I, actually. Well, I won't fight anyone over the definition of
randomness, since I'm no mathematician, but as a programmer I understand
all about overhead so I know why the general case is as it is. But I do
know perfectly well that, just as the media /can/ occasionally get the
facts right, so random processes /can/ occasionally generate compressible
data - and for much the same reason, alas.
> The only reason that I got involved at all is
> because Richard is playing you, and probably laughing his head off while
> at it.
Well, maybe a bit. I think that what's happened here is that he probably
didn't realise that he'd made an astoundingly wrong statement, and now
he's defending what he thought he said, rather than what he actually said.
And it's no good trotting out what he actually said (although I have done
so a couple of times now) because, no matter how many times he reads it,
he'll still read it as if it meant what he wants it to mean. I sympathise,
because I've been through that loop a few times myself over the years -
but he's still wrong. Well, okay, let's clarify that - his underlying
understanding of the subject matter is obviously fine, and I am pretty
certain that the point he /thinks/ he's making is correct. But the point
he's actually making is not.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Richard Heathfield wrote:
> While we're on the subject of nonsense, [...]
>
> 000101101101000001010011100101110111010001011110
01001000 01101001 01110100 01101100 01100101 01110010
On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:48:34 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
> I finally got fed up with having to repeat myself all the time so I put
> up a set of slides that explains all this:
>
> http://www.flownet.com/ron/halting_problem.pdf
>
> This is an old presentation, and some of these slides are not on point
> so you might want to skip ahead and start with slide 12.
>
> rg
Pedant's corner:
Chaitin’s Omega
– and it’s relation to the halting problem
=> Chaitin’s Omega
– and its relation to the halting problem
More seriously:
It is true that you cannot tell whether a Turing maching will halt when
given an arbitrary program. But there is no such thing as a Turning
machine, least of all is any actual computer a TM. Real deterministic
computers have finite, size limited memory, and are therefore state
machines not Turing machines.
For state machines there is a simple algorithm to determine whether they
terminate or not.
An obvious point but often forgotten.
Tim
In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:48:34 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>
> > I finally got fed up with having to repeat myself all the time so I put
> > up a set of slides that explains all this:
> >
> > http://www.flownet.com/ron/halting_problem.pdf
> >
> > This is an old presentation, and some of these slides are not on point
> > so you might want to skip ahead and start with slide 12.
> >
> > rg
>
> Pedant's corner:
>
> Chaitin’s Omega
> – and it’s relation to the halting problem
>
> => Chaitin’s Omega
> – and its relation to the halting problem
>
> More seriously:
>
> It is true that you cannot tell whether a Turing maching will halt when
> given an arbitrary program. But there is no such thing as a Turning
> machine, least of all is any actual computer a TM. Real deterministic
> computers have finite, size limited memory, and are therefore state
> machines not Turing machines.
>
> For state machines there is a simple algorithm to determine whether they
> terminate or not.
>
> An obvious point but often forgotten.
The Universe contains about 10^80 elementary particles. If every one of
those particles were a computer capable of enumerating states at the
Planck frequency (10^43 Hz, one cycle every time a photon moves the
diameter of a proton) then in the current age of the universe (10^18
seconds) that computer could enumerate about 2^140 states, or fewer than
the number of states expressible with just two IEEE extended floating
point numbers (160 bits). Given that the states of today's machines
encompass terabytes of off-line storage (and with the Internet,
exabytes) the difference between what is theoretically possible and what
is practical is so mind-bogglingly vast that a Turing Machine makes a
much better theoretical approximation to reality (in most cases) than an
FSA does.
An obvious point, but often overlooked. ;-)
rg
On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:33:05 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
wrote:
>The Universe contains about 10^80 elementary particles.
Who counted? An obvious question, rarely if ever answered.
George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address
On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:33:05 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
> ... the difference between what is theoretically possible and what is
> practical is so mind-bogglingly vast that a Turing Machine makes a much
> better theoretical approximation to reality (in most cases) than an FSA
> does.
>
> An obvious point, but often overlooked. ;-)
>
> rg
I was talking about the theoretical result - a finite computer is a state
machine and therefore must loop within 2^n steps or terminate. It is not a
Turing machine and theorems about Turing machines are irrelevant. It's not
clear what you mean by saying that the Turing model is a "better
theoretical approximation". The Turing model and computability does not
capture the vast number of algorithms that are Turing-possible but not
practically possible - if you were to use the Turing model you would be
misled.
If you are talking about practical calculations on real machines, then the
discussion should I think be about order-of-magnitude estimates of
algorithmic complexity. This is the true "better approximation" I think.
If you are trying to determine whether a program will loop in practical
terms, then:
- Most (but not all) actual looping programs have pretty tight loops and
these are actually quite easy to pick up.
- Otherwise any algorithm to find looping programs that is worse than O(n)
will probably be too slow.
Quantum computing may extend the realms of what is practical, beyond what
TMs can do, from what I have read. TMs would again be irrelevant to the
real world if this were to happen.
Tim
In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:33:05 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>
> > ... the difference between what is theoretically possible and what is
> > practical is so mind-bogglingly vast that a Turing Machine makes a much
> > better theoretical approximation to reality (in most cases) than an FSA
> > does.
> >
> > An obvious point, but often overlooked. ;-)
> >
> > rg
>
> I was talking about the theoretical result - a finite computer is a state
> machine and therefore must loop within 2^n steps or terminate.
The halting theorem is applicable to any computational model, not just
TMs. It is true that an FSA must either loop within 2^n steps or
terminate, but this cannot be computed by an FSA with n states. To tell
if an FSA with N states halts you need a second FSA with >N states. So
in a finite physical universe there will always be a largest FSA for
which halting is not physically computable.
Furthermore, a reasonable upper bound on the number of states that are
in principle enumerable by the physical universe is 2^140. So the
entire physical universe is not capable of solving the halting problem
for an FSA with 140 bits worth of state.
> It is not a Turing machine
That's irrelevant. A physical machine behaves identically to a TM until
it runs out of disk space.
> and theorems about Turing machines are irrelevant.
No, they are not. In particular, impossibility results apply to
practical machines. If a TM cannot compute something, then neither can
a physical machine.
> It's not
> clear what you mean by saying that the Turing model is a "better
> theoretical approximation". The Turing model and computability does not
> capture the vast number of algorithms that are Turing-possible but not
> practically possible - if you were to use the Turing model you would be
> misled.
Not about the results that are relevant to this discussion.
> If you are talking about practical calculations on real machines, then the
> discussion should I think be about order-of-magnitude estimates of
> algorithmic complexity. This is the true "better approximation" I think.
Not in the context of this discussion. Look at the subject line.
> If you are trying to determine whether a program will loop in practical
> terms, then:
>
> - Most (but not all) actual looping programs have pretty tight loops and
> these are actually quite easy to pick up.
That depends on what you count as "actual programs." The slide
presentation gives a pretty simple example of a program for which
termination is not known. So the non-computability of halting arises
even for simple quasi-realistic examples.
But none of this is relevant to the matter at hand.
rg
On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:45:59 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>> and theorems about Turing machines are irrelevant.
>
> No, they are not. In particular, impossibility results apply to
> practical machines. If a TM cannot compute something, then neither can
> a physical machine.
There are two machines involved. One is the target machine (1). The other
is the machine (2) that is trying to work out if the first machine (1) will
terminate, given certain input.
The halting theorem requires that the first machine is a TM. If it is
weaker than a TM, such as a finite state machine, then the theorem is not
applicable. You are right that if a TM cannot do something, then a real
machine cannot either (with the possible exception of quantum computers).
But with a real computer as computer 1, we do not need to solve the
full halting problem just the "state machine halting problem" - for a TM
that is a walk in the park to solve.
Most of the material in your post seems to reflect a need for additional
clarity about which machine you are thinking about.
The halting theorem is true about *any* machine 2, but not about *any*
machine 1. Machine 1 must be as powerful as a TM for the theorem to apply.
For real machines the halting theorem tells you little. In particular it
provides no quantitative guidance. For that we have to look to OOM type
calculations as I suggested, and which you have done.
>Furthermore, a reasonable upper bound on the number of states that are
>in principle enumerable by the physical universe is 2^140. So the
>entire physical universe is not capable of solving the halting problem
>for an FSA with 140 bits worth of state.
I think your OOM calculation is flawed. The FSM has 140 bits of
storage. At steps 1,2,4,8,(every power of 2 up to 139), we make a copy of
the storage. At every step, we check if we have reached 2^140 yet. If we
reached step 2^140, the program will never terminate and has looped.
Otherwise, we compare the current state to each of the stored states. If
it matches, then the program has looped. If on any step the program halts,
then we know the program is one that halts on the given input.
The storage required is only 140*(130+1). The additional 1 is for a
counter to count to 2^140. This is only a few hundred bytes all up,
considerably below your estimate. Of course the program might run for a
long time and might not pick up a loop as soon as it could. It might run
for twice as long as needed, approximately.
I think we agree that for some programs on real machines, you can actually
work out if they will loop.
For some it is computationally infeasible.
But where we possibly disagree is that I say that given a TM I could work
out if any real computer program will terminate. This is hard to test,
because it is impossible to build an actual TM. The algorithm is simple
though.
Tim
In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 17:45:59 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>
> >> and theorems about Turing machines are irrelevant.
> >
> > No, they are not. In particular, impossibility results apply to
> > practical machines. If a TM cannot compute something, then neither can
> > a physical machine.
>
> There are two machines involved. One is the target machine (1). The other
> is the machine (2) that is trying to work out if the first machine (1) will
> terminate, given certain input.
>
> The halting theorem requires that the first machine is a TM.
No, it doesn't.
> If it is weaker than a TM, such as a finite state machine,
> then the theorem is not applicable.
Yes, it is. The only assumption in the proof is that both machines are
the same. The real result of the halting theorem is not that it is
impossible to tell if a TM halts. The real result is that in order to
tell if a machine M halts you need a machine that is strictly more
powerful than M. The TM result is simply a special case of this more
general result, since there is no machine more powerful than a TM.
> You are right that if a TM cannot do something, then a real
> machine cannot either (with the possible exception of quantum computers).
> But with a real computer as computer 1, we do not need to solve the
> full halting problem just the "state machine halting problem" - for a TM
> that is a walk in the park to solve.
That depends on what you mean by "a walk in the park." But even if it
were possible to build a TM (let's get really wild here and assume, say,
a wormhole to another universe that provided an infinite amount of
storage) you still couldn't solve the halting problem for a state
machine with 2^140 states. The limiting factor in this case is not the
halting theorem, it's the amount of time it would take to carry out the
procedure.
> Most of the material in your post seems to reflect a need for additional
> clarity about which machine you are thinking about.
>
> The halting theorem is true about *any* machine 2, but not about *any*
> machine 1. Machine 1 must be as powerful as a TM for the theorem to apply.
No, the generalized version of the theorem still applies.
> For real machines the halting theorem tells you little.
It tells you that in a finite universe there will exist at least one
machine for which halting is not computable in that universe.
> In particular it
> provides no quantitative guidance. For that we have to look to OOM type
> calculations as I suggested, and which you have done.
>
> >Furthermore, a reasonable upper bound on the number of states that are
> >in principle enumerable by the physical universe is 2^140. So the
> >entire physical universe is not capable of solving the halting problem
> >for an FSA with 140 bits worth of state.
>
> I think your OOM calculation is flawed. The FSM has 140 bits of
> storage. At steps 1,2,4,8,(every power of 2 up to 139), we make a copy of
> the storage. At every step, we check if we have reached 2^140 yet. If we
> reached step 2^140, the program will never terminate and has looped.
> Otherwise, we compare the current state to each of the stored states. If
> it matches, then the program has looped. If on any step the program halts,
> then we know the program is one that halts on the given input.
You don't even have to do that much work. All you have to do is run it
for 2^140 (plus one) steps. If it hasn't halted it must be looping.
But here's the trick: the amount of time it would take to run 2^140
steps on ANY conceivable physical machine is VASTLY more than the age of
the universe. So while this procedure could conceivably work in some
universe, it won't work in this one.
> The storage required is only 140*(130+1). The additional 1 is for a
> counter to count to 2^140. This is only a few hundred bytes all up,
> considerably below your estimate.
I'm using the entire physical universe to do the calculation not because
I need the storage but because I want to parallelize the computation.
Parallelizing doesn't actually help in this case, but I assume it anyway
because I want to show that even if it did help it still wouldn't solve
the problem. No matter how you slice it, this universe is not capable
of solving the halting problem for a machine with 2^140 states.
> Of course the program might run for a
> long time and might not pick up a loop as soon as it could. It might run
> for twice as long as needed, approximately.
As I already pointed out, you don't even need this hedge. (Not that it
matters much. 2^141 is not so different from 2^140, and this number is
just approximate anyway.)
> I think we agree that for some programs on real machines, you can actually
> work out if they will loop.
>
> For some it is computationally infeasible.
>
> But where we possibly disagree is that I say that given a TM I could work
> out if any real computer program will terminate. This is hard to test,
> because it is impossible to build an actual TM. The algorithm is simple
> though.
A TM won't help you either. Even if you assume a wormhole to some other
universe that supplies you with an infinite amount of storage, nothing
changes. Storage is not the limiting factor, it's TIME. 2^140 is a big
number. Really really really really big.
rg
On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 09:36:17 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>> If it is weaker than a TM, such as a finite state machine,
>> then the theorem is not applicable.
>
> Yes, it is. The only assumption in the proof is that both machines are
> the same. The real result of the halting theorem is not that it is
> impossible to tell if a TM halts. The real result is that in order to
> tell if a machine M halts you need a machine that is strictly more
> powerful than M. The TM result is simply a special case of this more
> general result, since there is no machine more powerful than a TM.
You must have seen a different proof than me.
To determine whether a state machine will terminate you only need a
slightly larger state machine. Depending on how long the program takes to
start looping or to terminate, you may also need lots of time. Turing's
theorem is not relevant. Over and out.
Tim
In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 09:36:17 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>
> >> If it is weaker than a TM, such as a finite state machine,
> >> then the theorem is not applicable.
> >
> > Yes, it is. The only assumption in the proof is that both machines are
> > the same. The real result of the halting theorem is not that it is
> > impossible to tell if a TM halts. The real result is that in order to
> > tell if a machine M halts you need a machine that is strictly more
> > powerful than M. The TM result is simply a special case of this more
> > general result, since there is no machine more powerful than a TM.
>
> You must have seen a different proof than me.
See http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html at the bottom of the page.
Note that the proof makes no reference to the computational model
actually being used. The only requirement is that the programs H and B
run on the same machine.
> To determine whether a state machine will terminate you only need a
> slightly larger state machine.
That's right. And to determine whether *that* one terminates you need a
slightly larger one yet. And to determine if *that* one terminates...
and then eventually (somewhere before you get to about 140 bits as it
happens) you run out of universe.
> Depending on how long the program takes to
> start looping or to terminate, you may also need lots of time.
The operative word being "lots." Once N exceeds 2^140 or so it will
take more time than has existed or will exist in this universe.
> Turing's theorem is not relevant.
Maybe not, but the proof of Turing's theorem certainly is. That's what
shows that you need an ever-growing tower of FSAs -- and hence an
ever-increasing amount of time -- to compute whether an FSA halts.
(Granted, Turing never actually drew this conclusion, but it's a pretty
obvious corollary. Or at least it seems obvious to me. But I suppose
it's possible that this is a major breakthrough.)
> Over and out.
See ya.
rg
In article <·······························@news.gha.chartermi.net>,
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <···············@corp.supernews.com>,
> tim <····@internet.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 08 Mar 2008 09:36:17 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
> >
> > >> If it is weaker than a TM, such as a finite state machine,
> > >> then the theorem is not applicable.
> > >
> > > Yes, it is. The only assumption in the proof is that both machines are
> > > the same. The real result of the halting theorem is not that it is
> > > impossible to tell if a TM halts. The real result is that in order to
> > > tell if a machine M halts you need a machine that is strictly more
> > > powerful than M. The TM result is simply a special case of this more
> > > general result, since there is no machine more powerful than a TM.
> >
> > You must have seen a different proof than me.
>
> See http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html at the bottom of the page.
>
> Note that the proof makes no reference to the computational model
> actually being used. The only requirement is that the programs H and B
> run on the same machine.
Oops, I spoke too soon. It's possible that H can run on the machine in
question but B cannot. So this proof is flawed. But I'm fairly
confident that it's not hard to fix. (Does anyone seriously doubt that
to solve the halting problem for a machine with N states requires a
machine with more than N states? Surely someone has already proven this
somewhere.)
rg
From: Rajappa Iyer
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87r6enl1jj.fsf@panix.com>
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> In article <··············@panix.com>, Rajappa Iyer <···@panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> writes:
>>
>> > On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:34:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >>And I am saying that you are wrong. There exists data for which this is
>> >>not possible.
>> >
>> > Show me a data set that cannot be compressed.
>>
>> This is trivially done. Data that's already compressed.
>
> Unfortunately, that doesn't work. It can be proven that for any data
> set larger than a certain threshold size it is not possible to know for
> sure whether it is compressible or not. See
> http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html
Um... if there exists no data set that cannot be compressed, then
theoretically it is possible to compress something to nothing by
successive applications of the appropriate compression algorithms.
rsi
In article <··············@panix.com>, Rajappa Iyer <···@panix.com>
wrote:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
>
> > In article <··············@panix.com>, Rajappa Iyer <···@panix.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Steve Schafer <·····@fenestra.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:34:34 -0800, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>And I am saying that you are wrong. There exists data for which this is
> >> >>not possible.
> >> >
> >> > Show me a data set that cannot be compressed.
> >>
> >> This is trivially done. Data that's already compressed.
> >
> > Unfortunately, that doesn't work. It can be proven that for any data
> > set larger than a certain threshold size it is not possible to know for
> > sure whether it is compressible or not. See
> > http://www.flownet.com/ron/chaitin.html
>
> Um... if there exists no data set that cannot be compressed, then
> theoretically it is possible to compress something to nothing by
> successive applications of the appropriate compression algorithms.
Right. It's easy to (non-constructively) prove the existence of
incompressible data. It's provably impossible to actually produce a
non-trivial example.
rg
Rajappa Iyer said:
<snip>
> Um... if there exists no data set that cannot be compressed, then
> theoretically it is possible to compress something to nothing by
> successive applications of the appropriate compression algorithms.
Your selection of compression algorithms is information that is necessary
for decompressing the data, and that selection must somehow be stored.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
From: Rajappa Iyer
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87mypbl0u2.fsf@panix.com>
Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> writes:
> Rajappa Iyer said:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Um... if there exists no data set that cannot be compressed, then
>> theoretically it is possible to compress something to nothing by
>> successive applications of the appropriate compression algorithms.
>
> Your selection of compression algorithms is information that is necessary
> for decompressing the data, and that selection must somehow be stored.
OK. Consider my statement appropriately rephrased.
If there exists no data set that is not compressible, then theoretically
it is possible to reduce it to zero data and finite metadata by
successive applications of the appropriate compression algorithms.
Reductio ad absurdum, methinks.
rsi
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:30:11 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
<snip>
>> A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to help out with a
>> computer problem she was having. I took a laptop with me, and ended up
>> fixing her problem by writing about 300 lines of C on my laptop,
>> copying the resulting binary over to her machine, and executing it
>> there. That program was written purely in my friend's interest (and in
>> fact I didn't even bother to keep a copy). And there's nothing
>> particularly special about me. Lots of people write programs in the
>> interests of other people. To pretend otherwise seems a bit silly to
>> me.
>
> Of course people write programs (and do all manner of things) in the
> interests of other people. But for it to be altruism they must get
> nothing in return. But you *are* getting something in return:
> friendship.
But they are already friends and they would probably stay friends even if
he had said that he couldn't solve the problem.
What he may get in return is a 'high' (for luck of a better word) coming
from the fact that he did something that he considered to be right, even
if unconsciously. I think I was reading something about this in New
Scientist a few months back :).
--
Ioan - Ciprian Tandau
tandau _at_ freeshell _dot_ org (hope it's not too late)
(... and that it still works...)
Nelu said:
> On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:30:11 -0800, Ron Garret wrote:
>
<snip>
>>
>> Of course people write programs (and do all manner of things) in the
>> interests of other people. But for it to be altruism they must get
>> nothing in return. But you *are* getting something in return:
>> friendship.
>
> But they are already friends and they would probably stay friends even if
> he had said that he couldn't solve the problem.
Right.
> What he may get in return is a 'high' (for luck of a better word) coming
> from the fact that he did something that he considered to be right, even
> if unconsciously.
Well, I have no evidence to support your claim of a 'high', and that
certainly wasn't my motivation for helping out. What's the point of doing
something for a payoff, if you won't even notice the payoff? (What I mean
is that, if the payoff is "unconscious" such that you won't even know
whether you've received it, why consciously decide to bother to try for
it?)
Ron Garret is wrong to say that "for it to be altruism they must get
nothing in return" but in this case I really didn't (unless you count a
cup of coffee and a biscuit, which cost rather less than the petrol I used
in driving over there).
> I think I was reading something about this in New
> Scientist a few months back :).
Yeah, that happens a lot.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
> Ron Garret is wrong to say that "for it to be altruism they must get
> nothing in return" but in this case I really didn't (unless you count a
> cup of coffee and a biscuit, which cost rather less than the petrol I used
> in driving over there).
You got in return the satisfaction of having helped a friend. That's a
thing money can't even buy, so... in a sense, you really gained a
lot ;)
But then, you could say that "altruism" is "doing something for the
sole satisfaction of having helped someone"... this imho hardly
qualifies as selfishness even if it does give you something in return.
In fact, under this definition, you can't both be altruist and do
something which favors you while damaging others, i.e. be selfish.
Anyway that's just another example of the fact that most words have
imprecise meaning, and trying to reason as if their meaning was black-
or-white is pointless.
To return to the original question, I don't think your argument is
only about free (in GNU's sense) software. In fact, it applies well to
all kinds of free (as in beer) products and services. GMail is
probably at least as harmful to the market of email clients as GCC is
for the market of C compilers. The difference between them is that you
can use GMail for free, but you can't modify it or build something
upon it. With GCC you have at least the option to modify it and even
redistribute the modified version, provided that you do so in
accordance with the GPL. So if SBCL is 'dumping', so is Internet
Explorer, for example.
The fact that some free software may be paid with tax money does not
make it unethical, either. A lot of things have been paid with public
money during the course of history. In Italy till recent times the
railways, highways, phone lines, postal service, and many other
companies were owned by the State. (Things have changed in the last
10-15 years). I and many others don't find it unethical, since those
services are useful for the community. The same can be true for
software as well. Of course this does not apply to Stallman being paid
by MIT to do research and actually using his time to compete with
Symbolics (if things really went that way), nor to the State financing
some company for other reasons than public utility (e.g. the company's
president is friend of the prime minister...)
cheers
Alessio Stalla
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:23:46 +0000, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> Nelu said:
>
<snip>
>> What he may get in return is a 'high' (for luck of a better word)
>> coming from the fact that he did something that he considered to be
>> right, even if unconsciously.
>
> Well, I have no evidence to support your claim of a 'high', and that
> certainly wasn't my motivation for helping out. What's the point of
> doing something for a payoff, if you won't even notice the payoff? (What
> I mean is that, if the payoff is "unconscious" such that you won't even
> know whether you've received it, why consciously decide to bother to try
> for it?)
I don't have evidence for it either. It was just something I've read
about. The idea was that the brain may have its own reasons for pushing
the sentient (or is it sapient?) into doing something even if we don't
get it (endorphines?). We may think that something does not benefit us
but in reality it may not be true. Your conscious decision may have
factors that you cannot acknowledge.
--
Ioan - Ciprian Tandau
tandau _at_ freeshell _dot_ org (hope it's not too late)
(... and that it still works...)
Nelu said:
<snip>
> We may think that something does not benefit us
> but in reality it may not be true. Your conscious decision may have
> factors that you cannot acknowledge.
If those factors are outside my power even to acknowledge, let alone
control, then either I don't have free will (in which case ethics is
really rather a pointless exercise) or those factors are not the dominant
factors in my decision to give away a program from which others will
benefit. In the latter case the behaviour is altruistic; either way, it's
not unethical to give that software away.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:45:22 +0000, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> Nelu said:
>
> <snip>
>
>> We may think that something does not benefit us but in reality it may
>> not be true. Your conscious decision may have factors that you cannot
>> acknowledge.
>
> If those factors are outside my power even to acknowledge, let alone
> control, then either I don't have free will (in which case ethics is
> really rather a pointless exercise)
> or those factors are not the
> dominant factors in my decision to give away a program from which others
> will benefit. In the latter case the behaviour is altruistic; either
> way, it's not unethical to give that software away.
Good point. Although I find the free will part a little blurry, in
general, when it comes to humans, especially to the ones that have the
conscious-unconscious dichotomy :)).
--
Ioan - Ciprian Tandau
tandau _at_ freeshell _dot_ org (hope it's not too late)
(... and that it still works...)
Richard Heathfield wrote:
> Nelu said:
>
> <snip>
>
>> We may think that something does not benefit us
>> but in reality it may not be true. Your conscious decision may have
>> factors that you cannot acknowledge.
>
> If those factors are outside my power even to acknowledge, let alone
> control, then either I don't have free will (in which case ethics is
> really rather a pointless exercise) or those factors are not the dominant
> (...)
It isn't pointless, ethics are like Newton's physics in that respect.
On Mar 6, 2:12 am, Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to help out with a
> computer problem she was having. I took a laptop with me, and ended up
> fixing her problem by writing about 300 lines of C on my laptop, copying
> the resulting binary over to her machine, and executing it there. That
> program was written purely in my friend's interest (and in fact I didn't
> even bother to keep a copy).
Well, you did get to brag about it in detail on the 'net, thus
increasing
your social status.
But seriously, you didn't feel good on the way home?
--
-asbjxrn
On Mar 6, 1:32 am, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Ron Garret said:
>
> > > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > > Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
> > >> Ron Garret said:
>
> > >> > So even Free Software is a
> > >> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
> > >> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
> > >> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But
> > >> > there is no altruism involved.
>
> > >> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do
> > >> with DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save
> > >> complete strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>
> > >> Yeah, right.
>
> > > You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>
> > Oh, I can't agree with that! :-)
>
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
>
> > I read that book about 15 years ago (assuming that the wiki article does
> > indeed describe "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - you can never tell
> > with wiki).
>
> There's an easy way to find out you know.
>
> > I thought it was nonsense then, and I think it's nonsense now.
> > (It was, in fact, that book that persuaded me, much to my astonishment,
> > that my stance on the whole Evolution vs Creation debate thing was
> > completely wrong.)
>
> Ah, and here I was thinking I was engaging in a debate with a rational
> person. Silly me.
>
> > But whether you agree with me or not on that issue, the denial of altruism
> > is merely a consequence of inappropriate reductionism. Whether people are
> > altruistic because "God made them that way" or because it's an emergent
> > species survival trait in a universe sans point, the fact remains that
> > people /do/ (on occasion) behave altruistically. To pretend otherwise is
> > just silly.
>
> No. Just because they *appear* to act altruistically does not mean that
> they actually do. Just as the fact that the sun *appears* to revolve
> around the earth does not mean that it actually does.
Garret is right about creationism, wrong about altruism. Heathfield is
wrong about creationism and right about altruism.
Specifically, altruism means (cf. Kant) acts done for no hope of any
reward. We do these all the time, as well as acts for which the
financial reward is insufficient.
The Russian mathematician who refused the Fields Medal was acting
altruistically.
In writing my book "Build Your Own .Net Language and Compiler", I knew
that the royalties would not cover my costs, direct and opportunity.
Although to my surprise the royalties have started to roll in now that
the advance is paid, they will never cover the costs.
The fact is that people have a natural desire to act altruistically
even in the sex act, unless they are sadists.
In non-altruistic acts, someone is altruistic. For example, the
proletariat, in Marx, altruistically agrees to produce surplus value
by damping-down their requests for pay to a set-point which (as even
in the case of contemporary Americans, in the putatively and by some
measures the richest in the world) the proletariat doesn't have a pot
to piss in.
The corruption that ensues in fact makes many of us desire to do
altruistic acts such as write software simply to be able to breathe.
>
> rg- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
> Garret is right about creationism, wrong about altruism. Heathfield is
> wrong about creationism and right about altruism.
>
> Specifically, altruism means (cf. Kant) acts done for no hope of any
> reward. We do these all the time, as well as acts for which the
> financial reward is insufficient.
If a stranger asks you which way the train station is and you tell
them, knowing very well that you're probably never going to meet them
again or get anything other than a `thank you', is this generally an
altruistic act? Or are you being selfish, because you also know that
if you refuse to help them, you're going to feel bad about it sometime
later?
Feeling good about something is a reward. Do you really not expect a
warm feeling after doing something that you call altruistic?
Is avoiding bad conscience a kind of selfishness? I think so.
If you define altruism as acts done for absolutely no reward, not even
for the reward of feeling better or fulfilling a natural drive, then I
believe there is no altruism. If you instead define altruism as acts
done not for an objectively observable reward, then that's very
different.
~ Matthias
In article
<····································@x30g2000hsd.googlegroups.com>,
Matthias Benkard <··········@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Garret is right about creationism, wrong about altruism. Heathfield is
> > wrong about creationism and right about altruism.
> >
> > Specifically, altruism means (cf. Kant) acts done for no hope of any
> > reward. We do these all the time, as well as acts for which the
> > financial reward is insufficient.
>
> If a stranger asks you which way the train station is and you tell
> them, knowing very well that you're probably never going to meet them
> again or get anything other than a `thank you', is this generally an
> altruistic act? Or are you being selfish, because you also know that
> if you refuse to help them, you're going to feel bad about it sometime
> later?
>
> Feeling good about something is a reward. Do you really not expect a
> warm feeling after doing something that you call altruistic?
>
> Is avoiding bad conscience a kind of selfishness? I think so.
>
> If you define altruism as acts done for absolutely no reward, not even
> for the reward of feeling better or fulfilling a natural drive, then I
> believe there is no altruism. If you instead define altruism as acts
> done not for an objectively observable reward, then that's very
> different.
>
> ~ Matthias
Actually, you don't even need to introduce "feeling good" as a reward in
order to account for giving directions to a stranger without altruism.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality
rg
Matthias Benkard said:
<snip>
> If you define altruism as acts done for absolutely no reward, not even
> for the reward of feeling better or fulfilling a natural drive, then I
> believe there is no altruism. If you instead define altruism as acts
> done not for an objectively observable reward, then that's very
> different.
I consider altruism to describe an act performed for the benefit of
another, without the thought of reward being part of the motivation for
deciding to perform that act. Yes, when you give directions to a stranger,
it is quite likely that he or she will thank you for so doing, but that
isn't why we give directions to strangers.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
> I consider altruism to describe an act performed for the benefit of
> another, without the thought of reward being part of the motivation for
> deciding to perform that act.
If by thought you mean conscious thought, then that, in my opinion, is
quite different from defining it as an act lacking _any_ expectation
of a reward. Expectation need not be conscious. (Well, for my
definition of `expectation', anyway.)
~ Matthias
"spinoza1111" <···········@yahoo.com> wrote in message
·········································@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Mar 6, 1:32 am, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Ron Garret said:
>
> > > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > > Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
> > >> Ron Garret said:
>
> > >> > So even Free Software is a
> > >> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only
> > >> > difference
> > >> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because
> > >> > the
> > >> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But
> > >> > there is no altruism involved.
>
> > >> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do
> > >> with DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save
> > >> complete strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>
> > >> Yeah, right.
>
> > > You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>
> > Oh, I can't agree with that! :-)
>
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
>
> > I read that book about 15 years ago (assuming that the wiki article does
> > indeed describe "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins - you can never
> > tell
> > with wiki).
>
> There's an easy way to find out you know.
>
> > I thought it was nonsense then, and I think it's nonsense now.
> > (It was, in fact, that book that persuaded me, much to my astonishment,
> > that my stance on the whole Evolution vs Creation debate thing was
> > completely wrong.)
>
> Ah, and here I was thinking I was engaging in a debate with a rational
> person. Silly me.
>
> > But whether you agree with me or not on that issue, the denial of
> > altruism
> > is merely a consequence of inappropriate reductionism. Whether people
> > are
> > altruistic because "God made them that way" or because it's an emergent
> > species survival trait in a universe sans point, the fact remains that
> > people /do/ (on occasion) behave altruistically. To pretend otherwise is
> > just silly.
>
> No. Just because they *appear* to act altruistically does not mean that
> they actually do. Just as the fact that the sun *appears* to revolve
> around the earth does not mean that it actually does.
Garret is right about creationism, wrong about altruism. Heathfield is
wrong about creationism and right about altruism.
Specifically, altruism means (cf. Kant) acts done for no hope of any
reward. We do these all the time, as well as acts for which the
financial reward is insufficient.
The Russian mathematician who refused the Fields Medal was acting
altruistically.
In writing my book "Build Your Own .Net Language and Compiler", I knew
that the royalties would not cover my costs, direct and opportunity.
Although to my surprise the royalties have started to roll in now that
the advance is paid, they will never cover the costs.
The fact is that people have a natural desire to act altruistically
even in the sex act, unless they are sadists.
In non-altruistic acts, someone is altruistic. For example, the
proletariat, in Marx, altruistically agrees to produce surplus value
by damping-down their requests for pay to a set-point which (as even
in the case of contemporary Americans, in the putatively and by some
measures the richest in the world) the proletariat doesn't have a pot
to piss in.
The corruption that ensues in fact makes many of us desire to do
altruistic acts such as write software simply to be able to breathe.
>
> rg- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Bruce C. Baker se fendait de cette prose :
> The fact is that people have a natural desire to act altruistically
> even in the sex act, unless they are sadists.
Mais quand un sadique fait mal � un masochiste, est-il altruiste ?
--
LeLapin
From: Glyn Millington
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <87tzjlfu81.fsf@nowhere.org>
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <···@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Ron Garret said:
>>
>> > So even Free Software is a
>> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
>> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
>> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But there
>> > is no altruism involved.
>>
>> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do with
>> DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save complete
>> strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>>
>> Yeah, right.
>
> You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
And certainly nowhere near as wide of the mark as Dawkins! Altrusim is a
major problem for the socio-biologists.
atb
Glyn
On 5 mar, 09:30, Glyn Millington <···········@linuxmail.org> wrote:
> Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> writes:
> > In article <································@bt.com>,
> > Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
> >> Ron Garret said:
>
> >> > So even Free Software is a
> >> > market exchange, and its authors are compensated. The only difference
> >> > is that the compensation comes in a form other than cash because the
> >> > authors of Free Software don't want cash, they want freedom. But there
> >> > is no altruism involved.
>
> >> Similarly, mothers don't /really/ love their children. It's all to do with
> >> DNA. And when people risk their lives diving into rivers to save complete
> >> strangers, what they're really after is the Hero Badge.
>
> >> Yeah, right.
>
> > You're not nearly as far off the mark as you are trying to be.
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
>
> And certainly nowhere near as wide of the mark as Dawkins! Altrusim is a
> major problem for the socio-biologists.
>
> atb
>
> Glyn- Masquer le texte des messages précédents -
>
> - Afficher le texte des messages précédents -
Hi all,
I read with attention this topic, and I think the regressions in
computer sciences are in the "good" way.
Why : Free or Open source = just free of charge with two
possibility :
1° software relatively good : create by major community of IBM, SUN,
Novell (thanks Microsoft to save Novell !) salary !!! it's a pure
dumping approach against Microsoft but in fact against a lot of small
Editors and profit directly to offshore.
2° software comes from "real" community and generally quality is not
very good, bad documentation, etc...
Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
simple : ZERO !
SBCL is certainly a good job, but I prefer pay for Lispworks or
Allegro CL to substain innovation same as AllegroCache.
And to finish if "Altruism" is just a word to justify a dumping
approach : OK But Chinese or Indian Compagny are not in the "Altruism"
way. But thanks to Free, offshore compagny can recover technology,
break the cost and in final IBM recruits more in India than USA.
But : OK : you are free ... to work in China for 100$ per month
Best Regards,
Christophe
Christophe <····················@birdtechnology.net> writes:
>
> Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
> Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
> innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
> simple : ZERO !
If you want SBCL to be innovative, then (drumroll please) innovate, and
add it to SBCL. There's no reason for free software not to be
innovative, save that most people don't want to innovate.
--
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
When you need a helpline for breakfast cereals, it's time to start
thinking about tearing down civilisation and giving the ants a go.
--Chris King
On 5 mar, 17:44, Robert Uhl <·········@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
> Christophe <····················@birdtechnology.net> writes:
>
> > Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
> > Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
> > innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
> > simple : ZERO !
>
> If you want SBCL to be innovative, then (drumroll please) innovate, and
> add it to SBCL. There's no reason for free software not to be
> innovative, save that most people don't want to innovate.
>
> --
> Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
> When you need a helpline for breakfast cereals, it's time to start
> thinking about tearing down civilisation and giving the ants a go.
> --Chris King
Hi all,
Certainly not, SBCL is not my project, all the time I spend to improve
it, it's lost of time and, in final, money.
If the software is good I buy it, if is not, the free of charge is not
for me an argument.
For me Allegro CL = Lexus, SBCL = Traban or Lada. Even if SBCL is
free, I am not interested.
My garage is not large enough, and especially, I am not a collector of
old Russian car :)
There are a lot reasons that explain free software is not innovative,
the cost it's first.
I am not a beggar who makes seeks a gift same as lot of free project
with donation link ... it's shame !
Best Regards
Robert Uhl <·········@NOSPAMgmail.com> writes:
> If you want SBCL to be innovative, then (drumroll please) innovate, and
> add it to SBCL. There's no reason for free software not to be
> innovative, save that most people don't want to innovate.
I think this posting hits one nail squarely on the head. I will get
to the point about "dumping" near the end after the line of dashes.
I am a software entrepreneur and I like innovating. However, I also
like a rather expensive lifestyle, not movie star or rock star
extravagant, but six figure USD per annum salary is a personal
requirement and easily obtained (although not solely as the
entrepreneur that I was), which is far more than many of my lesser
paid international colleagues expect. If I could, I would make my
money developing and selling innovative software--I almost did for a
few years. Unfortunately, I was at least partially the "victim" (I
use this term loosely as I don't feel a victim in this case) of this
zero cost software dumping, as several inferior products were released
that competed with things I wrote, but were zero dollar acquisition
cost. It is very hard to compete with something which is perceived as
being adequate and free.
I am perfectly willing to concede that most (and more likely all) of
these zero cost competitors were developed altruistically. In
addition, some of the competitive zero cost products were also
innovative in at least one way or another. Thus, you cannot fault
their developers, nor the clients who chose them.
Now, having a generally superior product kept my company afloat for
some time, and it still exists and makes some money, because in sme
ways it still serves its niche better than any of its competition (and
thus there are some commercial clients who realize it is worth the
small sum I charge them annually for maintenance and minor
improvements). However, it never paid a sufficient return that I
could devote my talents to it full time. Perhaps my own altruistic
impulse was not strong enough to forego the lifestyle that I was able
to maintain by not devoting more of my talents to a product that was
competing in a race-to-the-bottom with software that was zero cost.
I still devote some time to my software, partially because I enjoy
innovating with it. At the same time, I know there are things that I
would like to have been able to do with it, which I could not afford
to do given my other priorities in life. Some of them will get done,
but the market has spoken and said that it was not willing to finance
me doing them at the price I wanted to charge. Clearly the market has
a different value on what it thinks I should be doing, as I easily
make my required salary by doing something other than being an
entrepreneur.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, one small point about dumping. I believe there is some dumping
in the zero cost software market. For example, Intel gives away lots
of software for free that it spent significant revenue developing. It
recoups that money via hardware sales. Moreover, in my opinion it
does this for a monopolistic reason. If there is zero cost software
for an Intel platform that does the task, it is hard for a software
company to develop a competing piece of software that might work with
a competitive platform (or be platform independent). Thus, Intel
keeps down the number of competing architectures and thus helps keep
its hardware margins up. For Intel, the per chip margin is the most
important measure of success. The dearth of 68000 based personal
computers is one mark of Intel's success.
Christophe skrev:
>
> Why : Free or Open source = just free of charge with two
> possibility :
> 1� software relatively good : create by major community of IBM, SUN,
> Novell (thanks Microsoft to save Novell !) salary !!! it's a pure
> dumping approach against Microsoft but in fact against a lot of small
> Editors and profit directly to offshore.
> 2� software comes from "real" community and generally quality is not
> very good, bad documentation, etc...
>
> Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
> Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
> innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
> simple : ZERO !
There's a third possibility:
Company C released Programming language P as Open Source, and I
do believe it's fair to say that it brought some innovation to
the market. The reason was not to compete with vendors of
programming languages or tools, but rather the opposite. C is
not in the business of selling programming languages, but rather
to use them. But it turns out that C couldn't buy anything remotely
like P on the open market. This leaves C with the choice of either
(a) settling for an inferior tool, which they can pay for
(b) continuing with their own tool, carrying all the cost themselves
(c) releasing it for free, hoping that others will use it and
give feedback, perhaps bug fixes, and even forming a user
community that could act as a recruitment base.
There is never a guarantee that (c) will work, but the alternative most
likely would have been to simply discard the innovative tool, hoping
that commercial programming language vendors will eventually come
up with something equally good.
This is essentially the Gilette principle: "give away the razor
and sell the blades". C makes money selling products built using
P - not on P itself. Increasing the spread of P by giving it
away makes perfect business sense, as long as it works. If it
doesn't, (c) degrades to (b) or (a).
There is actually a (d) too: Give or sell P to a tool vendor
interested in selling it for profit. Many large companies are
likely to try this before trying (c). I don't know how often it
works out, but I guess it's been known to happen.
(Any similarities between C and Ericsson, and P and Erlang are
purely coincidental).
BR,
Ulf W
On 5 mar, 10:47, Ulf Wiger <·········@e-r-i-c-s-s-o-n.com> wrote:
> Christophe skrev:
>
>
>
> > Why : Free or Open source = just free of charge with two
> > possibility :
> > 1° software relatively good : create by major community of IBM, SUN,
> > Novell (thanks Microsoft to save Novell !) salary !!! it's a pure
> > dumping approach against Microsoft but in fact against a lot of small
> > Editors and profit directly to offshore.
> > 2° software comes from "real" community and generally quality is not
> > very good, bad documentation, etc...
>
> > Just compare Lispworks or Allegro to SBCL.
> > Before make the "gloria of Open Source, just ask yourself about
> > innovation brings by SBCL for LISP in terms of technology. It's
> > simple : ZERO !
>
> There's a third possibility:
>
> Company C released Programming language P as Open Source, and I
> do believe it's fair to say that it brought some innovation to
> the market. The reason was not to compete with vendors of
> programming languages or tools, but rather the opposite. C is
> not in the business of selling programming languages, but rather
> to use them. But it turns out that C couldn't buy anything remotely
> like P on the open market. This leaves C with the choice of either
>
> (a) settling for an inferior tool, which they can pay for
> (b) continuing with their own tool, carrying all the cost themselves
> (c) releasing it for free, hoping that others will use it and
> give feedback, perhaps bug fixes, and even forming a user
> community that could act as a recruitment base.
>
> There is never a guarantee that (c) will work, but the alternative most
> likely would have been to simply discard the innovative tool, hoping
> that commercial programming language vendors will eventually come
> up with something equally good.
>
> This is essentially the Gilette principle: "give away the razor
> and sell the blades". C makes money selling products built using
> P - not on P itself. Increasing the spread of P by giving it
> away makes perfect business sense, as long as it works. If it
> doesn't, (c) degrades to (b) or (a).
>
> There is actually a (d) too: Give or sell P to a tool vendor
> interested in selling it for profit. Many large companies are
> likely to try this before trying (c). I don't know how often it
> works out, but I guess it's been known to happen.
>
> (Any similarities between C and Ericsson, and P and Erlang are
> purely coincidental).
>
> BR,
> Ulf W
Hi all,
Ok, it's a point of view, but as a customer I have the choice to use
Erlang with European or USA developers but also with China
developers ... And for the same price I have significatively more
resources.
China can say "thanks Ericsson" too, I am agree with you.
Best Regards
On Mar 4, 11:25 am, Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <································@bt.com>,
> Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
>
> > > Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> > I don't see why. What you call "dumping" was a medium term strategy for
> > profit maximisation. Open Source is generally a "goodness of their hearts"
> > phenomenon. People give their software away because they want other people
> > to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit. (Or at least,
> > if they do, they need to have a think about their pricing!)
>
> Not that I really want to fan these off-topic flames, but this is just
> factually incorrect. People generally do not write open-source software
> out of altruism. They do it because they are hoping for some form of
> compensation, like the ability to use other people's open-source
> software, professional recognition and respect, or monetary compensation
> in the form of employment, contracts, or investments in some commercial
> venture. Whether this motivation is wise or ethical is a separate
> question, but the fact is that most open-source developers do have a
> profit motive, even if only indirectly.
>
> rg
self interest is inseperable from being human
gavino <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>
> self interest is inseperable from being human
Well then, so much for love (which is the true opposite of
self-interest).
In article <··························@stablecross.com>,
····@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
> gavino <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >
> > self interest is inseperable from being human
>
> Well then, so much for love (which is the true opposite of
> self-interest).
No, you just don't have the right concept of "self". See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
rg
Ron Garret <·········@flownet.com> wrote:
> In article <··························@stablecross.com>,
> ····@stablecross.com (Bob Felts) wrote:
>
> > gavino <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > >
> > > self interest is inseperable from being human
> >
> > Well then, so much for love (which is the true opposite of
> > self-interest).
>
> No, you just don't have the right concept of "self". See:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
>
Conversely, you just don't have the right concept of "love". Love is
never about self, but about the other.
Ron Garret said:
> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>
>> People give their software away because they want
>> other people to be able to share it. They don't do it to make a profit.
>> (Or at least, if they do, they need to have a think about their
>> pricing!)
>
> Not that I really want to fan these off-topic flames, but this is just
> factually incorrect. People generally do not write open-source software
> out of altruism.
Well, some do. I will cheerfully accept that not all do.
<snip>
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
On Mar 4, 1:00 pm, Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> [I'm not sure where this discussion belongs, so I don't know where to set
> followups. A philosophy group, maybe?]
>
> Mark Tarver said:
>
> <snip>
>
> > In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> > to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> > thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> > supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> > subsidy?
>
> The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If software
> houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
> software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really deserve
> to succeed.
Do you feel the same way about Microsoft v. Netscape? Are you against
antitrust legislation altogether? After all, the world does not owe
anybody the right to make a living in any business. If a monopoly
squeezes them out by giving away product or undercutting them, too bad
for them.
·············@fastmail.fm said:
<snip>
>> The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If
>> software houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to
>> free software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really
>> deserve to succeed.
>
> Do you feel the same way about Microsoft v. Netscape?
I don't see the connection. They both wrote terrible browsers. :-)
> Are you against antitrust legislation altogether?
I don't even know what it is. It sounds very American. Personally, I'd
rather write programs. If it's an anti-monopoly thing, well, that's daft.
Nobody has a monopoly on browsers (and I presume you're talking about
browsers - and possible mail/news clients - since I don't think Netscape
did anything else, did they? - well, nothing else famous, anyway). I could
write a browser today if I had ten minutes spare, and be selling it
tomorrow. (No, really I could - C++ Builder has a sort of componenty thing
that you drag - a sort of dehydrated Web browser, just add clicks. Yu too
can be a sofwear genus.)
> After all, the world does not owe
> anybody the right to make a living in any business. If a monopoly
> squeezes them out by giving away product or undercutting them, too bad
> for them.
Absolutely.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
On Mar 4, 11:00 am, Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> [I'm not sure where this discussion belongs, so I don't know where to set
> followups. A philosophy group, maybe?]
> Mark Tarver said:
> > thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> > supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> > subsidy?
>
> The world does not owe software company shareholders a living.
However, the world puts up a government which steals taxes from the
pockets of those shareholders, and then fucks them over a second time
with unfair competition funded by subsidies from that money, which
devalues their holdings.
Mark has a good point regarding the subsidies.
If you fund that free software with your own capital that wasn't
stolen from anyone, then it's fair and square.
What is the difference between dumping, and offering discounts?
Should the US government try to prevent Walmart from holding price
rollback events? Is that dumping?
What about proprietary software houses that offer evaluation versions
of their software that do not ever expire?
Kaz Kylheku <········@gmail.com> writes:
> What is the difference between dumping, and offering discounts?
I'd say that it is that dumping is when you use your capital (or
subsidies etc.) as a "weapon" in the marketplace. I.e. it's not the
act of giving (or discounting) something away that constitutes
dumping, but doing so with the intention (or just effect) of driving
someone else out of business (or less drastically just change consumer
habits etc.) so that you establish yourself as a market leader not on
the merit of your products but rather based on the size of your wallet
(i.e. how long you can hold out while losing money).
--
Frode Vatvedt Fjeld
(Can you tell that I like parens?)
> Mark has a good point regarding the subsidies.
Right; perhaps we need to campaign to change the funding model as it
exists. I think this model is out of date. Perhaps we should see
software as needing to be funded in the same way that we used to fund
the public utilities in the UK. We all use FOSS and rely on it like we
rely on piped water. Government depts are saving a bundle by using
it, so why not treat it like piped water?
Right now much of the development money is ticketed for universities.
If you're not in that system you don't get a chance to enter the
race. Grant money is doled out in closed sessions by some of the very
people who apply for it and I can tell you that the system is anything
but fair. The hidden presumption is that universities and only
universities are the engines of innovation and development and a lot
of FOSS is proof that that is not true. So maybe we should campaign
for the govt to open the coffers and give FOSS developers a chance of
the same subsidies that universities enjoy.
Mark
PS
The comparison I made with dumping in the OP was to do with the
economic effects of FOSS - ie. the commercial destruction of a
commercial player, not the intent behind FOSS which might be noble.
(or not - sometimes with fanatical FOSS people the intent is exactly
that - whacking the commercial equivalent).
On Mar 6, 4:25 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> So maybe we should campaign
> for the govt to open the coffers and give FOSS developers a chance of
> the same subsidies that universities enjoy.
The far better option is to stop using the monies of the state to fund
software development. It's not that there are not market failures-
it's just that they are so, so preferable to the failures of
allocation that occur when people decide that they can devise systems
that don't suffer the sorts of failures that markets do.
On 6 Mar, 14:12, Campo <··········@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Mar 6, 4:25 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > So maybe we should campaign
> > for the govt to open the coffers and give FOSS developers a chance of
> > the same subsidies that universities enjoy.
>
> The far better option is to stop using the monies of the state to fund
> software development. It's not that there are not market failures-
> it's just that they are so, so preferable to the failures of
> allocation that occur when people decide that they can devise systems
> that don't suffer the sorts of failures that markets do.
Hmm. That means you stop nearly all funding for university CS
research. Are you sure thats a good idea? I don't think you could
get that through.
Mark
Mark Tarver wrote:
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor...
Imagine this*: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/
Bartenders school, here I come...
:)
kenny
* Not sure about that name, tho. k
--
http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"In the morning, hear the Way;
in the evening, die content!"
-- Confucius
Ken Tilton wrote:
>
>
> Mark Tarver wrote:
>
>> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
>> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
>> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor...
>
>
> Imagine this*: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/
>
> Bartenders school, here I come...
Hang on... they use Java... Game on!
:)
kenny
--
http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"In the morning, hear the Way;
in the evening, die content!"
-- Confucius
On Mar 4, 11:21 pm, Ken Tilton <···········@optonline.net> wrote:
> Ken Tilton wrote:
> Hang on... they use Java... Game on!
>
> :)
I think it takes several shots of the darkest espresso to begin to
deal with a Lisp hangover.
> --http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
>
> "In the morning, in the evening,
> ain't we got fun"
> -- Confucius
disclaimer: this sig may have been altered in transit
On 4 Mar, 18:34, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarverwww.lambdassociates.org
Briefly;
1. The argument is about tax-subsidised software.
No. The argument against FOSS as presented does not essentially depend
on whether your dollars come from Uncle Sam or Uncle Ebenezer. The
argument is that by releasing software whose price (= zero) does not
reflect the costs of development, you price competitors out of the
market whose pockets cannot afford to compete at this level. The
question is 'Is this ethical?' Has nothing at all to do with where
your money comes from.
2. Rightness is judged by intention; not by consequences.
Fine; your primary intention is good (free software and smiling faces)
- *but*
if it can be shown that the secondary effects of your action are evil
('Small
Faces Software' goes bust) and if it can be shown that these effects
were
forseeable then you might be held responsible for these evil
consequences.
The central point being that once you become aware of this connection,
it becomes part of your moral judgement to ignore the adverse affects
('It'll kill Small Faces but I don't care').
3. Do those who object to free software also object to free web email,
free online stories, volunteer (free) home builders who help the poor,
and free public education?
No; but the difference is that many of these things are targeted at
people who are poor. Free services to those who cannot pay may be
fine; but FOSS makes no discrimination about who it affects. It is a
fuel-air bomb in relation
to the market.
4. Is there any hard, concrete data (polls, sales figures, etc.) that
can show economic impact on both software businesses and the wider
economy?
Anecdotal evidence; the main apriori argument is that people will
rather choose to grab what is free rather than pay money for an
equivalent product;
and this seems fairly obvious. The damage is long term and diffuse -
much as
Kent describes. I've seen the effects on student enrollment in 2002;
people
walking away from CS because its not perceived as a good career move.
One
student told me so right to my face. I didn't argue with him either.
Mark
www.lambdassociates.org
Mark Tarver said:
<snip>
> The argument against FOSS as presented does not essentially depend
> on whether your dollars come from Uncle Sam or Uncle Ebenezer. The
> argument is that by releasing software whose price (= zero) does not
> reflect the costs of development, you price competitors out of the
> market whose pockets cannot afford to compete at this level. The
> question is 'Is this ethical?' Has nothing at all to do with where
> your money comes from.
If some friends come around to my house and I offer them coffee (without
charging them), is that ethical? After all, I'm undercutting the cafe.
> 2. Rightness is judged by intention; not by consequences.
>
> Fine; your primary intention is good (free software and smiling faces)
> - *but* if it can be shown that the secondary effects of your action
> are evil ('Small Faces Software' goes bust) and if it can be shown
> that these effects were forseeable then you might be held responsible
> for these evil consequences.
Silly argument. Everything we do has "evil" consequences. People eat, so
cows die (or carrots die). People drive cars, so the atmosphere gets
polluted. People eat chocolate, so slavery flourishes in the Third World.
If you want to set the world to rights, I suggest you put the energy into
anti-slavery campaigns such as http://www.stopthetraffik.org instead.
<snip>
> FOSS makes no discrimination about who it affects. It is a
> fuel-air bomb in relation to the market.
If you want to make money, produce a good or service that people *want* to
buy. Nobody is obliged to buy that good or service. If you choose to
bottle and sell air, you can - but nobody's going to buy it (even though
it's vital to survival) because they can already get it for free. To sell
it, you're going to have to add some value. (People *do* manage to sell
water, even though it falls out of the sky and people can catch as much as
they like for free.)
> Anecdotal evidence; the main apriori argument is that people will
> rather choose to grab what is free rather than pay money for an
> equivalent product;
> and this seems fairly obvious.
Actually, businesses do tend to go for Big Blue (or nowadays, Big Grey),
despite the existence of free alternatives. I'm not sure why. (They
normally say it's for support reasons, but I'm not convinced.)
> I've seen the effects on student enrollment in 2002;
> people walking away from CS because its not perceived
> as a good career move.
Fine by me. There are too many programmers anyway - and a goodly number of
them aren't really terribly good. A little Darwinism will benefit the
industry.
> One student told me so right to my face. I didn't argue with him either.
Those who choose programming as a career choice rather than because they
love to write programs are unlikely to make particularly good programmers.
Many of them don't even know how to delimit sig blocks in Usenet articles
(hint hint).
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
> If some friends come around to my house and I offer them coffee (without
> charging them), is that ethical? After all, I'm undercutting the cafe.
Not a good analogy. A better one would be where you stood outside a
cafe and offered free coffee to everybody.
> > 2. Rightness is judged by intention; not by consequences.
> Silly argument. Everything we do has "evil" consequences.
Does it - my walk in the park for example? I suppose that some
convoluted and strained moral story might be from my walk in the
park. But if anything seems silly or overstated this is it.
People eat, so
> cows die (or carrots die). People drive cars, so the atmosphere gets
> polluted. People eat chocolate, so slavery flourishes in the Third World.
> If you want to set the world to rights, I suggest you put the energy into
> anti-slavery campaigns such ashttp://www.stopthetraffik.orginstead.
And the point is ....? Is it that because everything has evil
consequences we shouldn't weigh the consequences of what we do or we
shouldn't think of this FOSS issue but another issue for some reason.
It's be a guess here to figure out what the point is.
> Fine by me. There are too many programmers anyway - and a goodly
> number of them aren't really terribly good. A little Darwinism will benefit the
> industry.
Poor old Darwin; he does get pressed into some dubious causes. And the
survival property being selected for here is what? Being dumb or
devoted enough to run up large levels of debt to enter a profession
with poor prospects? The guy who walked away from CS was an A
student. Do we want to select for fatalistic devotion?
I've heard the same Darwinist argument used to justify low pay for
nurses Those who do the job must be really devoted to work for
peanuts so lets pay peanuts and get devoted nurses.
Mark
Mark Tarver said:
>> If some friends come around to my house and I offer them coffee (without
>> charging them), is that ethical? After all, I'm undercutting the cafe.
>
> Not a good analogy. A better one would be where you stood outside a
> cafe and offered free coffee to everybody.
(a) Nonsense. If I offer free software to people, I do so either on my Web
site or via email or in person. Geography is irrelevant to the Web and
email, and if I give my software to personal friends, in person, it hardly
matters where we're standing at the time. Even if we were standing outside
PC World at the time, what would that matter? PC World *doesn't sell the
software I write*.
>> > 2. Rightness is judged by intention; not by consequences.
>
>> Silly argument. Everything we do has "evil" consequences.
>
> Does it - my walk in the park for example? I suppose that some
> convoluted and strained moral story might be from my walk in the
> park. But if anything seems silly or overstated this is it.
Yes, you're right - it's silly to ascribe evil consequences to an innocuous
action (such as giving away free software or going for a walk in the
park). Well done.
>> Fine by me. There are too many programmers anyway - and a goodly
>> number of them aren't really terribly good. A little Darwinism will
>> benefit the industry.
>
> Poor old Darwin; he does get pressed into some dubious causes. And the
> survival property being selected for here is what?
People who aren't really all that fussed about programming don't tend to
make very good programmers. So if they're only in it for the money, the
industry is better off without them - and of course their absence from the
programming job market will *remove* a downward pressure on programmer
wages.
> I've heard the same Darwinist argument used to justify low pay for
> nurses Those who do the job must be really devoted to work for
> peanuts so lets pay peanuts and get devoted nurses.
If you can get *enough* devoted nurses that way, it's a workable strategy.
(Of course, you can't. Nowadays, apparently it's quite a struggle to find
nurses who *know* about all that boring hygiene stuff, let alone care.)
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Richard Heathfield wrote:
> Mark Tarver said:
>> I've heard the same Darwinist argument used to justify low pay for
>> nurses Those who do the job must be really devoted to work for
>> peanuts so lets pay peanuts and get devoted nurses.
>
> If you can get *enough* devoted nurses that way, it's a workable strategy.
> (Of course, you can't. Nowadays, apparently it's quite a struggle to find
> nurses who *know* about all that boring hygiene stuff, let alone care.)
>
You get what you pay for. I am sure the nurse's family buys into his/her devotion too.
Hmm, I remember the nuns now. Never mind.
-Antony
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:08:18 +0000, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> I've seen the effects on student enrollment in 2002; people walking
>> away from CS because its not perceived as a good career move.
>
> Fine by me. There are too many programmers anyway - and a goodly number
> of them aren't really terribly good. A little Darwinism will benefit the
> industry.
A large majority of the goodly number are "good enough" which causes a
problem. The outsourcing-to-lower-cost-countries phenomenon bears that
out, in my opinion. At the same time, there are still high-paying jobs
available for people who are very good, they just seem to be a bit harder
to find.
--
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com
From: CBFalconer
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <47CF50CD.214AC410@yahoo.com>
Richard Heathfield wrote:
>
... snip ...
>
> If you want to make money, produce a good or service that people
> *want* to buy. Nobody is obliged to buy that good or service. If
> you choose to bottle and sell air, you can - but nobody's going
> to buy it (even though it's vital to survival) because they can
> already get it for free. To sell it, you're going to have to add
> some value. (People *do* manage to sell water, even though it
> falls out of the sky and people can catch as much as they like
> for free.)
However, at least in the USA, the water case is a counter-example.
I don't understand why allegedly normal people insist on buying
bottled water, in thoroughly non-green plastic discardable bottles,
at excessive and expensive prices. I expect the only reason air is
not similarly managed is that suitable cheap disposable containers
for compressed air are not available.
In N. America water out of the tap is usually cleaner and
healthier.
--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
CBFalconer said:
> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>>
> ... snip ...
>>
>> [...] To sell it, you're going to have to add
>> some value. (People *do* manage to sell water, even though it
>> falls out of the sky and people can catch as much as they like
>> for free.)
>
> However, at least in the USA, the water case is a counter-example.
> I don't understand why allegedly normal people insist on buying
> bottled water, in thoroughly non-green plastic discardable bottles,
> at excessive and expensive prices.
I don't see why this is a counter-example. Rather, it is a good parallel,
as it is undoubtedly true that some allegedly normal people insist on
buying software at excessive and expensive prices.
<snip>
> In N. America water out of the tap is usually cleaner and
> healthier.
And the free software is often faster and less buggy (although not always,
alas).
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 23:44:29 -0600, Richard Heathfield wrote
(in article <································@bt.com>):
> CBFalconer said:
>> In N. America water out of the tap is usually cleaner and
>> healthier.
This depends greatly upon where you are at the time you open the
faucet. The dirty little secret is that much of bottled water is
nothing more than tap water run through a charcoal filter, so it
provides nothing you couldn't provide on your own, if it was needed.
> And the free software is often faster and less buggy (although not always,
> alas).
Richard, I'm wondering when you'll be able to provide a source for that
claim, even with the weasel words tagged on the end. If you meant
nothing more than "sometimes", and implied nothing about the likelihood
of it being true being higher with free software than other forms, it
seems pointless to have said it at all, so no doubt you'll have data to
back it up. ;-)
--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)
"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism by those
who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
Randy Howard said:
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 23:44:29 -0600, Richard Heathfield wrote
<snip>
>> And the free software is often faster and less buggy (although not
>> always, alas).
>
> Richard, I'm wondering when you'll be able to provide a source for that
> claim, even with the weasel words tagged on the end. If you meant
> nothing more than "sometimes", and implied nothing about the likelihood
> of it being true being higher with free software than other forms, it
> seems pointless to have said it at all, so no doubt you'll have data to
> back it up. ;-)
Well, no, no hard data, I'm afraid - just my personal experience thereof.
I'd really like to be able to claim that it's *always* faster and less
buggy, but I'm afraid there's an awful lot of Open Source bilge out there.
(Of course, there's a lot of commercial bilge out there too.)
So - personal experience.
OS: Windows itself is very fast on a fresh install, but gets progressively
slower over time (which seems to be strongly related the size of the
registry). Linux, on the other hand, seems to keep chuntering along at a
reasonable lick no matter how long since the install. Of the two, Linux
seems to me to be the more reliable. It crashes less, for one thing.
GUI: given the progressively sluggish OS, Win32 is pretty nippy (that is,
it's not the bottleneck). X, on the other hand, always strikes me as being
rather a crawler. The reliability of the Win32 GUI seems to me to be okay
- it's how people use it that screws it up. X crashes from time to time,
which is a nuisance - but at least the OS stays up, so I can sort it out
without rebooting.
Shell: I have no complaints about the reliability of the Win32 shell
(although of course there was that backslash hack a few years ago, but
that didn't seriously affect *my* usage, so it wasn't an issue for me). If
anything, the Win32 shell is *more* reliable than bash, although there
isn't much in it. Performance? Hard to tell with shells, isn't it?
Compiler: I find gcc to be a touch quicker than Visual Studio or Borland C,
but not as fast as Turbo C (go go go Turbo!). I don't think any of those
named have any serious reliability problems.
Word processor: I hardly use one. I can't use Word for more than five
minutes without it either crashing or slowing to a crawl, such that I can
actually type a fair bit faster than it can update the screen. I hate
Word. Lotus WordPro is better, and is my wp of choice. I'm only just
starting to look at OpenOffice, and it looks pretty good. Clean, fast, and
robust - but it's early days.
Spreadsheet: Excel wins hands-down over gnumeric for speed, features, and
reliability. Excel is a truly excellent product. (So is 1-2-3.) I'm not
sure why gnumeric doesn't do it for me, but it just feels gunky and
awkward.
Database: I find MySQL to be very, very quick and very, very reliable,
compared to Access, which I find tediously slow and prone to crashing.
Image processor: I'm no image processing expert, but I generally find that
the GIMP can do what I want more quickly than Photoshop can. It loads
faster, does stuff faster, and crashes less often (hardly at all, in
fact). It has to be said, though, that my Photoshop version is now showing
its age. Having discovered the GIMP, I see no point in upgrading
Photoshop, since I don't use it any more.
Web server: Well, I tried IIS and fell about laughing. Perhaps they've
improved it in the last two or three years. Apache serves me extremely
well. It certainly isn't the bottleneck for my Web site. (If my site
serves you slowly, blame the bandwidth provision, not the Web software!)
Browser: I simply will not use Internet Explorer - or rather, I will use it
at most *once* on any given machine, pointing it directly at the Firefox
site. Firefox is memory-hungry, but seems very robust. The Galeon,
Konqueror, and Mozilla browsers I use on Linux all seem determined to
crash whenever I most need them not to.
Overall, then, it's not a "LOOK, Open Source is astounding, commercial
software is nowhere" picture for me. More a general conclusion based on a
wide range of commercial and Open Source programs, and with definite
exceptions on each side of the equation - notably, Excel rocks, and my
Linux browsers invariably suck.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. ····@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
On 6 mar, 16:23, Richard Heathfield <····@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Randy Howard said:
>
> > On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 23:44:29 -0600, Richard Heathfield wrote
>
> <snip>
>
> >> And the free software is often faster and less buggy (although not
> >> always, alas).
>
> > Richard, I'm wondering when you'll be able to provide a source for that
> > claim, even with the weasel words tagged on the end. If you meant
> > nothing more than "sometimes", and implied nothing about the likelihood
> > of it being true being higher with free software than other forms, it
> > seems pointless to have said it at all, so no doubt you'll have data to
> > back it up. ;-)
>
> Well, no, no hard data, I'm afraid - just my personal experience thereof.
> I'd really like to be able to claim that it's *always* faster and less
> buggy, but I'm afraid there's an awful lot of Open Source bilge out there.
> (Of course, there's a lot of commercial bilge out there too.)
>
> So - personal experience.
>
> OS: Windows itself is very fast on a fresh install, but gets progressively
> slower over time (which seems to be strongly related the size of the
> registry). Linux, on the other hand, seems to keep chuntering along at a
> reasonable lick no matter how long since the install. Of the two, Linux
> seems to me to be the more reliable. It crashes less, for one thing.
>
> GUI: given the progressively sluggish OS, Win32 is pretty nippy (that is,
> it's not the bottleneck). X, on the other hand, always strikes me as being
> rather a crawler. The reliability of the Win32 GUI seems to me to be okay
> - it's how people use it that screws it up. X crashes from time to time,
> which is a nuisance - but at least the OS stays up, so I can sort it out
> without rebooting.
>
> Shell: I have no complaints about the reliability of the Win32 shell
> (although of course there was that backslash hack a few years ago, but
> that didn't seriously affect *my* usage, so it wasn't an issue for me). If
> anything, the Win32 shell is *more* reliable than bash, although there
> isn't much in it. Performance? Hard to tell with shells, isn't it?
>
> Compiler: I find gcc to be a touch quicker than Visual Studio or Borland C,
> but not as fast as Turbo C (go go go Turbo!). I don't think any of those
> named have any serious reliability problems.
>
> Word processor: I hardly use one. I can't use Word for more than five
> minutes without it either crashing or slowing to a crawl, such that I can
> actually type a fair bit faster than it can update the screen. I hate
> Word. Lotus WordPro is better, and is my wp of choice. I'm only just
> starting to look at OpenOffice, and it looks pretty good. Clean, fast, and
> robust - but it's early days.
>
> Spreadsheet: Excel wins hands-down over gnumeric for speed, features, and
> reliability. Excel is a truly excellent product. (So is 1-2-3.) I'm not
> sure why gnumeric doesn't do it for me, but it just feels gunky and
> awkward.
>
> Database: I find MySQL to be very, very quick and very, very reliable,
> compared to Access, which I find tediously slow and prone to crashing.
>
> Image processor: I'm no image processing expert, but I generally find that
> the GIMP can do what I want more quickly than Photoshop can. It loads
> faster, does stuff faster, and crashes less often (hardly at all, in
> fact). It has to be said, though, that my Photoshop version is now showing
> its age. Having discovered the GIMP, I see no point in upgrading
> Photoshop, since I don't use it any more.
>
> Web server: Well, I tried IIS and fell about laughing. Perhaps they've
> improved it in the last two or three years. Apache serves me extremely
> well. It certainly isn't the bottleneck for my Web site. (If my site
> serves you slowly, blame the bandwidth provision, not the Web software!)
>
> Browser: I simply will not use Internet Explorer - or rather, I will use it
> at most *once* on any given machine, pointing it directly at the Firefox
> site. Firefox is memory-hungry, but seems very robust. The Galeon,
> Konqueror, and Mozilla browsers I use on Linux all seem determined to
> crash whenever I most need them not to.
>
> Overall, then, it's not a "LOOK, Open Source is astounding, commercial
> software is nowhere" picture for me. More a general conclusion based on a
> wide range of commercial and Open Source programs, and with definite
> exceptions on each side of the equation - notably, Excel rocks, and my
> Linux browsers invariably suck.
>
> --
> Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
> Email: -http://www. ····@
> Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
> "Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Hi all,
All the "Open Source" projects you take are not not really free.
Open Office = ZERO community but 100% Sun Salary with around 8.000.000
line of code.
Compared to Office 2007, it's just a jurasic software.
Open Office = dumping
MySQL = SUN, it's recent, but to assume the cost of improvement it's
better, but free it's finish
MySQL = dumping
Apache = IHS = IBM HTTP SERVER = dumping
GCC = GNU GPL license = good luck for resume, I prefer Intel Compiler
or another in the same license.
The best example is Eclipse = it's impossible to a unknown developer
to insert himself in the project. Why :Eclipse = terminator of Borland
JBuilder and VisualAge of course with less quality.
IF you want to compared real open source project take : Squeak vs
VisualWorks, SBCL vs LispWorks or Allegro, KDE Office vs Office
2007 :), Ruby vs Rebol,
... Eclipse vs WebSphere : no it's a joke, no ... it's dumping.
Best Regards,
Christophe
Best Regards
On Mar 5, 2:34 am, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> The question is 'Is this ethical?'
Just curious - what do you expect to gain by this question? Are you
hoping for an actual consensus answer?
> 2. Rightness is judged by intention; not by consequences.
>
> Fine; your primary intention is good (free software and smiling faces)
> - *but* if it can be shown that the secondary effects of your action are evil
> ('Small Faces Software' goes bust) and if it can be shown that these effects
> were forseeable then you might be held responsible for these evil
> consequences.
Whether those consequences are "evil" is an open question, and
probably depends on points of view.
> The central point being that once you become aware of this connection,
> it becomes part of your moral judgement to ignore the adverse affects
> ('It'll kill Small Faces but I don't care').
Just curious - if some version of this "down with free software"
philosophy were legislated and millions of well intentioned people
were suddenly faced with legal threats/actions by people intent on
commercial software development models, does the harm done to those
people factor into the moral judgment of the people pushing the
legislation forward?
I'm reminded of occasional cases where children's lemonade stands or
girls doing their friends' hair for a few bucks are shut down due to
businesses not wanting the competition - the social consequences of
such activities are non-zero and if we're talking about moral
judgments I would think that side of the equation cannot be ignored
either.
> 3. Do those who object to free software also object to free web email,
> free online stories, volunteer (free) home builders who help the poor,
> and free public education?
>
> No; but the difference is that many of these things are targeted at
> people who are poor.
Only one of the examples I gave specifically targets poor people.
(Although it could be argued that many of FOSS's uses are in
economically poor circumstances (students, countries where the cost of
Office is a months wages, etc.). Certainly Windows and MacOSX still
seem to dominate in the USA despite the free offerings available to
compete with them.)
> Free services to those who cannot pay may be
> fine; but FOSS makes no discrimination about who it affects. It is a
> fuel-air bomb in relation to the market.
I could pay for email but choose to use the free services instead.
Conceivably with sufficient effort I could have been put through
private school but I went to public schools, despite never being poor
by any definition of the word I know. FOSS software is not unique as
a social institution. Free community performances (plays, music,
etc.) at community centers and churches take away from commercial
offerings. Libraries take revenue away from book publishers. The
commercial exchange model is not the ONLY valid model for social and
material interaction.
> 4. Is there any hard, concrete data (polls, sales figures, etc.) that
> can show economic impact on both software businesses and the wider
> economy?
>
> Anecdotal evidence; the main apriori argument is that people will
> rather choose to grab what is free rather than pay money for an
> equivalent product; and this seems fairly obvious.
For equivalent products, certainly. The argument is that people being
paid to commit all of their productive time to their job should be
able to do better than those devoting only part of their resources to
the task. I find this reasonable. Adobe still rules the pro graphics
world despite Gimp's availability, and MS Office is doing well despite
OpenOffice.org's arrival. Trolltech seems to do well despite their
software being available under the GPL.
For some software, people with economic goals should be evaluating
prices and performance benefits of free vs. commercial software - I
believe most do, if they are large enough to think about money in a
"business" sense.
> The damage is long term and diffuse - much as Kent describes.
I don't think everyone agrees the damage he postulates will come to
pass, particularly if people who are squeezed out at the margins adapt
by finding other things to do or different ways to be paid for doing
them (I'd argue this is not a trigger for an ethics question, by the
way - such changes for some individuals is inherent in a capitalistic
free market society). That's why hard numbers/facts on harm done and
the nature of that harm would be more useful in discussions like this.
> I've seen the effects on student enrollment in 2002; people
> walking away from CS because its not perceived as a good career move.
> One student told me so right to my face. I didn't argue with him either.
In terms of effort put forth for monetary reward received I agree, but
I do not agree loss of students as a result of this fact is a bad
thing. Most sciences are like that - I didn't do a physics major
because I thought I would get rich. Sciences tend to attract people
who are in it because they like what they are doing rather than the
"looking for a good career" folks, in my experience.
CY
P.S. - Out of curiosity - given the tone of this thread, will Qi II
still be open source software?
On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:34:28 -0800, Mark Tarver wrote:
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing to
> condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a thought. Is
> it rather *free software which is unethical* because the supplier is
> dumping a free product from the position of having a subsidy?
Is blogging (or posting to usenet) unethical because it is dumping a free
product where other suppliers (publishers of newspapers, journals,
magazines) have traditionally been able to charge a toll?
To what extent is programming and publishing free software different from
blogging or posting to usenet?
Different only in degree, or different in kind?
Is publishing a small modification or patch to an already freely
published source code something different, or more of the same?
I suspect that the correct answer depends on the specific details in any
case.
Cheers,
--
Andrew
Mark Tarver wrote:
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business a
> struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
The closer to the metal, the more Free Software makes sense. It's Free as
in "Speech", not as in "Beer". Closed-source tools harm that struggling
company.
The closer to the user, the more a payware system makes sense. My
daughter just birthday-demanded an iTouch. (These things are far superior
to iPhones, because the lack of a phone is a positive feature...)
It was doubtless compiled with a gcc. Someone correct me there, but the
tools were probably open, and the actual UIkit is very closed. And we
indeed paid for it, so at least Apple ain't struggling!
--
Phlip
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
The thing is, software is not about programmers--it's about users.
Certainly, it's irksome to have another producer undercut one's pricing,
whether in widgets or software. But, to borrow a line, it's not about
you. Or me. It's about the users.
And Free Software is best for users. Because it is best for users, it
is the most ethical for programmers.
--
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
Economists are still trying to figure out why the girls with the least
principle draw the most interest.
On 5 mar, 17:25, Robert Uhl <·········@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
> Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
>
> > In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> > to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> > thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> > supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> > subsidy?
>
> The thing is, software is not about programmers--it's about users.
> Certainly, it's irksome to have another producer undercut one's pricing,
> whether in widgets or software. But, to borrow a line, it's not about
> you. Or me. It's about the users.
>
> And Free Software is best for users. Because it is best for users, it
> is the most ethical for programmers.
>
> --
> Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
> Economists are still trying to figure out why the girls with the least
> principle draw the most interest.
Hi all,
Software is a piece of engineering same as car for example. And that's
all.
If the car is good with good services I buy it, if not, I dont buy it;
it's very simple.
Best Regards
Robert Uhl wrote:
> The thing is, software is not about programmers--it's about users.
> Certainly, it's irksome to have another producer undercut one's pricing,
> whether in widgets or software. But, to borrow a line, it's not about
> you. Or me. It's about the users.
>
> And Free Software is best for users. Because it is best for users, it
> is the most ethical for programmers.
Your argument is based on free is best for users.
Not always so.
One of the cell phone companies compiled an
application originally written with GCC with a
commercial compiler that added 20% to the
battery life and also now met FCC emissions
requirements.
How much would be saved by using the free
tool?
PJ Plauger has often been quoted as he can't
afford free.
w..
From: CBFalconer
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <47CF5274.630838F@yahoo.com>
Walter Banks wrote:
>
... snip ...
>
> Your argument is based on free is best for users. Not always so.
>
> One of the cell phone companies compiled an application
> originally written with GCC with a commercial compiler that
> added 20% to the battery life and also now met FCC emissions
> requirements.
>
> How much would be saved by using the free tool?
That's fine, as long as they make the source available to all. The
compiler they used is not free, but presumably available to anyone
interested. Of course they don't have to disclose the compiler
used.
--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Walter Banks <······@bytecraft.com> writes:
>
>> The thing is, software is not about programmers--it's about users.
>> Certainly, it's irksome to have another producer undercut one's
>> pricing, whether in widgets or software. But, to borrow a line, it's
>> not about you. Or me. It's about the users.
>>
>> And Free Software is best for users. Because it is best for users,
>> it is the most ethical for programmers.
>
> Your argument is based on free is best for users.
> Not always so.
>
> One of the cell phone companies compiled an
> application originally written with GCC with a
> commercial compiler that added 20% to the
> battery life and also now met FCC emissions
> requirements.
Then GCC needs to be improved. The commercial compiler's users are at
the mercy of its developers and cannot improve it themselves; GCC's
users can do whatever they want.
A free man has to find work, while a slave gets food, clothing and
shelter. I'd rather be free.
--
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
Q: What did the Frenchman say when the Germans invaded France in WWII?
A: Table for 100,000 monsieur?
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.lang.functional.]
On 2008-03-05, Robert Uhl <·········@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
> Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
>>
>> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
>> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
>> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
>> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
>> subsidy?
>
> The thing is, software is not about programmers--it's about users.
> Certainly, it's irksome to have another producer undercut one's pricing,
> whether in widgets or software. But, to borrow a line, it's not about
> you. Or me. It's about the users.
>
> And Free Software is best for users. Because it is best for users, it
> is the most ethical for programmers.
While I empathize with the ideas behind this claim, I also think it's a bit
to simplistic to really be an adequate answer.
In no particular order:
1. It's not clear to me that open source or Free Software has really
delivered the kinds of applications that "users" need. Is there really
an open source application that can compete with Photoshop? With Final
Cut? With Excel?
2. Where open source has been successful is in delivering tools (such as
gcc, emacs and the like) and servers (apache, mysql) which are much more
useful to programmers than they are to users.
3. The entire dichotomy isn't as clear cut as it seems. Programmers still use
user applications, and users can do some programming, and benefit
from systems with programmability.
Mark VandeWettering <·········@attbi.com> writes:
> 1. It's not clear to me that open source or Free Software has really
> delivered the kinds of applications that "users" need. Is there really
> an open source application that can compete with Photoshop? With Final
> Cut? With Excel?
*I* don't want or need a Photoshop, a Final Cut or an Excel. I even
have installed a few spread sheets (eg. ses, esheet), but I never use
them.
As a user of software, I need compilers, editors, operating systems,
and I'm best served when I can patch and modify them. For this user,
libre software are the best software, not pricewise, but featurewise.
Let users of Photoshop develop their own alternative themselves, I bet
it will be better than The Gimp. For them, that is...
> 2. Where open source has been successful is in delivering tools (such as
> gcc, emacs and the like) and servers (apache, mysql) which are much more
> useful to programmers than they are to users.
Programmers are users too.
> 3. The entire dichotomy isn't as clear cut as it seems. Programmers still use
> user applications, and users can do some programming, and benefit
> from systems with programmability.
Indeed.
There's another point that I'd like to see discussed. In general free
software vs. commercial software is discussed in the monetary or
economic plane. But as any programmer can testify, I guess, it
_feels_ very different writting proprietary software than libre
software. We don't write them the same way. It really looks to me
that I can produce software of better quality when developing libre
software rather than commercial software, given all the added
constraints.
Of course, 'users' have to be careful to choose finished libre
software, not prototypes or scratch ideas.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
PUBLIC NOTICE AS REQUIRED BY LAW: Any use of this product, in any
manner whatsoever, will increase the amount of disorder in the
universe. Although no liability is implied herein, the consumer is
warned that this process will ultimately lead to the heat death of
the universe.
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> There's another point that I'd like to see discussed.
You mean, Why dozens of these BS OT messages without advertising is
better than one simple link to a *Lisp* blog with ads?
Funny, I was thinking the same thing!
kenny
--
http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"In the morning, hear the Way;
in the evening, die content!"
-- Confucius
Ken Tilton <···········@optonline.net> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
>> There's another point that I'd like to see discussed.
>
> You mean, Why dozens of these BS OT messages without advertising is
> better than one simple link to a *Lisp* blog with ads?
>
> Funny, I was thinking the same thing!
Actually, it's a problem of mode. When I choose the news:// protocol,
I don't like to have to switch to http://. I wouldn't mind if you
pasted your whole blog article in here. But since there's no gateway
blog<->news, we couldn't exchange comments with your blog readers...
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Cats meow out of angst
"Thumbs! If only we had thumbs!
We could break so much!"
Mark VandeWettering <·········@attbi.com> writes:
>
> 3. The entire dichotomy isn't as clear cut as it seems. Programmers
> still use user applications, and users can do some programming, and
> benefit from systems with programmability.
It's almost touching to read some of the FSF stuff from the 80s. They
were so proud of teaching secretaries how to program.
Every computer user should be a programmer.
--
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
'Linux was made by foreign terrorists to take money from true US
companies like Microsoft.' --some AOLer
'To this end we dedicate ourselves...' --Don
On Mar 4, 7:34 pm, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical?
Everybody is free to do whatever he wants with his own belongings.
If hobbyst writes a great sf novel and offers it for free in the
internet thus
putting out hefty dow professional writer would that be ethical?
Nobody complains that church offering free meals is putting out of
business local restoraunts.
Your comparation with dumping doesn't makes sense with software,
because software doesn't have
production costs , as soon as it's created everybody could copy itr
almost for free.
Beside there is too much politics in deciding is something dumping.
Like one French manager said :
You're prices are lower than the competition - that's dumping
if they are higher - you're abusing your leading market position
and if they're are the same as the competitors prices - you've fixed
them, don't you ?
So don't worry much about opensource, price is only one thing in
buyers mind, if you're selling corn,
I'll probably buy from Argentina if it's cheaper than English corn,
since the quality is more or less the same,
but buying software comes with a lot of other things. Linux is free
but it's market share is less than 1%.
Apache is free but still many spend money on different web servers.
If some prof could make a better product with all those drums and
bells than a company.
Well that certainly speaks of the quality of that company.
Slobodan
On 5 mar, 18:51, Slobodan Blazeski <·················@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Mar 4, 7:34 pm, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> > someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> > produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> > a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> > ethical?
>
> Everybody is free to do whatever he wants with his own belongings.
> If hobbyst writes a great sf novel and offers it for free in the
> internet thus
> putting out hefty dow professional writer would that be ethical?
>
> Nobody complains that church offering free meals is putting out of
> business local restoraunts.
>
> Your comparation with dumping doesn't makes sense with software,
> because software doesn't have
> production costs , as soon as it's created everybody could copy itr
> almost for free.
> Beside there is too much politics in deciding is something dumping.
> Like one French manager said :
> You're prices are lower than the competition - that's dumping
> if they are higher - you're abusing your leading market position
> and if they're are the same as the competitors prices - you've fixed
> them, don't you ?
>
> So don't worry much about opensource, price is only one thing in
> buyers mind, if you're selling corn,
> I'll probably buy from Argentina if it's cheaper than English corn,
> since the quality is more or less the same,
> but buying software comes with a lot of other things. Linux is free
> but it's market share is less than 1%.
> Apache is free but still many spend money on different web servers.
> If some prof could make a better product with all those drums and
> bells than a company.
> Well that certainly speaks of the quality of that company.
>
> Slobodan
Hi all,
Just a precision : "software doesn't have production costs" yes but
software have design and development costs.
To create the thing ubuntu that cost a lot of money, many millions of
dollar.
Thanks the gift of one man ...
For information, ubuntu hope to be profitable in 2010 :) it is a
super case of total dumping.
Best Regards
Mark,
A very good question. My comments are no so much about ethics which
have been argued endlessly on this topic.
Free software has done a lot to change the dynamics of software innovation
in several important ways.
Silicon increases in performance has out paced software innovation. Part of
the cost of innovation is potential failure. Free software takes away the easy
sales making it necessary for innovative software to become either very expensive
or very risky.
Software innovation has dramatically slowed down. Much of the software
development in educational institutions depends on free software platforms
often based on 20 year old technology. We are still for the most part declaring
variables that depend on the implementation environment and not based on
application requirements. (Recent thread on variable information typing
covered a lot of the issues in this regard)
There are literally dozens of topics that haven't been touched that should be
as we move forward.
The final comment has to do with what is learned from customer feedback.
Free software generally speculates on applications requirements and does not in
the organized way that most commercial packages do to seriously address
feedback from customers real needs.
The counter is of course everyone contributes to free software. When was the
last time an application developer added 24 bit data types to GCC because
their application needed it?
My rant for the morning, I think the coffee is ready
Walter Banks
--
Byte Craft Limited
(519) 888-6911
http://www.bytecraft.com
······@bytecraft.com
Mark Tarver wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarver
> www.lambdassociates.org
From: CBFalconer
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <47CF519F.899EAA08@yahoo.com>
Walter Banks wrote:
>
> A very good question. My comments are no so much about ethics
> which have been argued endlessly on this topic.
What good question? The combined sins of top-posting and
newsreaders that snip everything following the sig. marker make you
post useless.
--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
There is an essential difference, in that the cost of (let's say)
building a television set is very much "non-zero," whereas the cost of
making an extra copy of a file may be low to the point of being
difficult to measure.
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
What if I sell the first copy of my software for $80,000, that
representing a reasonable "return" for the year we might assume I
spent working on it, and then sold subsequent copies for $0.001, which
I then rounded down to $0. Does that represent dumping?
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.enworbbc" ·@" "enworbbc"))
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/spreadsheets.html
"Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition. "
-- Timothy Leary
Silly me, I thought free open source software was about the free
communication of ideas, and not selling of products. Remind me to start
charging for conversation.
Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
>to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
>electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
>market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
>these practices as unethical.
>
>This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
>be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
>several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
>produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
>Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
>In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
>to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
>thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
>supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
>subsidy?
>
>To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
>someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
>produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
>a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
>ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
>This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
>the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
>source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
>black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
>sided.
>
>Mark Tarver
>www.lambdassociates.org
--
Dustin Kick
http://homepage.mac.com/mac_vieuxnez
From: George Peter Staplin
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <fqqaqg$efp$1@news.xmission.com>
Mark Tarver wrote:
> A long time ago, sometime in the 70s I believe, a friend of mine used
> to work for RCA. Right at that time Japan was expanding its
> electronics market in the Pacific and the Japanese were capturing the
> market from RCA by selling below cost. My friend bitterly condemned
> these practices as unethical.
>
> This practice, called 'dumping', is generally condemned, and can often
> be prosecuted under law. It has been used and criticised as such on
> several occasions e.g. w.r.t. the dumping of subsidised EC surplus
> produce on poor African nations, on Rockeller's ruthless expansion of
> Standard Oil by undercutting.
>
> In the defence of open source software, Richard Stallman was willing
> to condemn closed source software as unethical. Now here is a
> thought. Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
>
> To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
> someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
> produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
> a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
> ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
>
> This is posed as an open question, and a fairly important one (hence
> the cross post). You should not assume that I'm against free/open
> source from my posing this question, although I'm willing to 'play
> black' (attack OS/free) in this thread if the responses are too one
> sided.
>
> Mark Tarver
> www.lambdassociates.org
What's next? Are we to ban AI, and robots? The problem is not open
source, it's *greed*.
Get to the source of the problem. The problem is that the majority of
the humans that makeup our modern humanity, are selfish, taught
by the television how to react, and taught to not own their reactions.
Loyalty has long been a problem of the human race, and most businesses
don't reward loyalty.
In an ethical society, you don't pick the fields clean, you leave some
for the poor.
In an ethical society you don't charge people interest.
In an ethical society people look out for one another, and the mass of
indifference and suffering goes away. The Golden Rule is more than just
an expression, it's a way of life.
George
On 4 Mrz., 19:34, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> subsidy?
Even if "dumping" were against the law, this would not mean it'd be
unethical. For this, you had to show that the anti-dumping-law itself
is ethical, which you cannot do without first establishing that
"dumping" is unethical.
In other words, the argument "It's unethical because it's against the
law." is nonsense.
On 10 mar, 12:25, Ingo Menger <···········@consultant.com> wrote:
> On 4 Mrz., 19:34, Mark Tarver <··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Is it rather *free software which is unethical* because the
> > supplier is dumping a free product from the position of having a
> > subsidy?
>
> Even if "dumping" were against the law, this would not mean it'd be
> unethical. For this, you had to show that the anti-dumping-law itself
> is ethical, which you cannot do without first establishing that
> "dumping" is unethical.
> In other words, the argument "It's unethical because it's against the
> law." is nonsense.
Hi all,
In the Camp.Lisp context :
To take a very simple example : we can say :
- take Allegro or Lispworks = save jobs, substain innovation, keep :
"how to make" in right place. And in final generate high level
business in high level software solution.
- take SBCL or other free Lisp : save Zero job, substain Zero
innovation and help the divulgation and propagation of software
technology in country that do Not Share the free and utopic" point of
view.
It's just a slow collective suicide that we find only in Occidental
Countries.
Best Regards,
Christophe
It is absurd to think of 'free' software as 'dumping' and as such
immoral and/or bad for the economy because it robs people of jobs. Like
any other potential business, if someone is willing and able to
underprice you, it simply means that you and your potential future
customers are better off if you put your efforts into producing
something else.
This whole argument is just a variation of Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy
-thant
On 11 mar, 00:08, Thant Tessman <·············@gmail.com> wrote:
> It is absurd to think of 'free' software as 'dumping' and as such
> immoral and/or bad for the economy because it robs people of jobs. Like
> any other potential business, if someone is willing and able to
> underprice you, it simply means that you and your potential future
> customers are better off if you put your efforts into producing
> something else.
>
> This whole argument is just a variation of Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy
>
> -thant
Hi all,
It's absurd to think IBM, SUN, Novell practice altruism.
But I suppose you have asked IBM employee, Novell employee (in spite
that Microsoft saving a great part of Novell). Just ask Borland
employee after the Eclipse wave.
Just ask the real final customer about reliability of open source
products.
The effect of free software is a general regression.
Linux : zero innovation, cannibalism of Unix
Eclispe : total regression compared to tools VisualAge ...
Open office : :) no comment compared to Office 2007
Java : absolute regression compared to lisp, Smalltalk, Actor, Forth,
Rebol, Haskell, OCaml.
SBCL is a very good example of that. Instead of improve or create rich
library for Lispworks or Allegro CL, the SBCL creators spends time to
reinvent the wheel. What is the goal ? Produce a lesser good Lisp than
Lispworks or Allegro ? Fantastic !
Sincerely, if the alone and last Lisp remains SBCL, I prefer use
VisualWorks for example. I have no time to spend in bug correction in
SBCL. And SBCL have zero credibility in the market contrary to
Allegro.
SBCL is not a bad piece of software, it's just less good compared to
commercial product so it is just useless. Especially that free
versions of Lispworks and Allegro exist.
Best regards,
Christophe
From: Abdulaziz Ghuloum
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <fr5nvo$i9s$1@aioe.org>
Christophe wrote:
> The effect of free software is a general regression.
>
> Linux : zero innovation, cannibalism of Unix
> Eclispe : total regression compared to tools VisualAge ...
> Open office : :) no comment compared to Office 2007
> Java : absolute regression compared to lisp, Smalltalk, Actor, Forth,
> Rebol, Haskell, OCaml.
The last point there seems bizarre since the languages on the right are
either available as free software or have freely available standards
while Java has been, until very recently, a non-free software. Maybe I
misunderstood what you were trying to say.
Aziz,,,
In comp.lang.lisp Christophe <····················@birdtechnology.net> wrote:
> The effect of free software is a general regression.
[...]
> SBCL is a very good example of that. Instead of improve or create rich
> library for Lispworks or Allegro CL, the SBCL creators spends time to
> reinvent the wheel. What is the goal ? Produce a lesser good Lisp than
> Lispworks or Allegro ? Fantastic !
[let's disregard the possibility of the poster being a troll]
If the only available Lisp implementations were the commercial ones and
the only free ones would come in form of trial versions or e.g. ones
with artificially reduced heap, myself and possibly a substantial amount
of people would never become Lisp programmers. Therefore, a percentage
of "rich libraries" would never come to fruition. Besides, you're in no
position to tell the development team what to do with their time.
--
Nawet świnka wejdzie na drzewo kiedy ją chwalą.
On 11 mar, 10:27, Stanis³aw Halik <··············@tehran.lain.pl>
wrote:
> In comp.lang.lisp Christophe <····················@birdtechnology.net> wrote:
>
> > The effect of free software is a general regression.
>
> [...]
>
> > SBCL is a very good example of that. Instead of improve or create rich
> > library for Lispworks or Allegro CL, the SBCL creators spends time to
> > reinvent the wheel. What is the goal ? Produce a lesser good Lisp than
> > Lispworks or Allegro ? Fantastic !
>
> [let's disregard the possibility of the poster being a troll]
>
> If the only available Lisp implementations were the commercial ones and
> the only free ones would come in form of trial versions or e.g. ones
> with artificially reduced heap, myself and possibly a substantial amount
> of people would never become Lisp programmers. Therefore, a percentage
> of "rich libraries" would never come to fruition. Besides, you're in no
> position to tell the development team what to do with their time.
>
> --
> Nawet ¶winka wejdzie na drzewo kiedy j± chwal±.
When someone disagree a point of view, emerges the troll :) ... more
seriously :
If I memory is good, a few years ago, Lisp existed only in commercial
forms... without problem.
Certainly, SBCL team make that they wants. But, it's just an example
of regression in terms of software quality with the recent free
approach.
I would not like to recall the Unicode episode in the SBCL life :) and
the impact in real production :)
And, I ensure you, it's not a troll, but for a beginner, it's more
useful to use Lispworks in personal version than SBCL withn CUSP.
Best Regards,,
Christophe
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.lang.functional.]
On 2008-03-11, Christophe <····················@birdtechnology.net> wrote:
Trimming the nonsense down to its basics:
> SBCL is not a bad piece of software, it's just less good compared to
> commercial product so it is just useless.
Do I need to explain why this is absurd?
> Especially that free versions of Lispworks and Allegro exist.
Among other "features", the Personal Edition of Lispworks exists after
five hours of runtime, and exits if you exceed a given heap size. Why
would I choose to use such a stupidly crippled product, no matter what
other fine features it might have had? Allego has licensing stuff
built into it that requires you to either have Internet access or to
update the license file manually. There may be reasons to tolerate
such anti-consumer measures, but these 'features' certainly suggest
that free alternatives might be reasonable choices.
Mark
> Best regards,
>
> Christophe
>
On 11 mar, 00:08, Thant Tessman <·············@gmail.com> wrote:
> It is absurd to think of 'free' software as 'dumping' and as such
> immoral and/or bad for the economy because it robs people of jobs. Like
> any other potential business, if someone is willing and able to
> underprice you, it simply means that you and your potential future
> customers are better off if you put your efforts into producing
> something else.
>
> This whole argument is just a variation of Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy
>
> -thant
Hi all,
It's absurd to think IBM, SUN, Novell practice altruism.
But I suppose you have asked IBM employee, Novell employee (in spite
that Microsoft saving a great part of Novell). Just ask Borland
employee after the Eclipse wave.
Just ask the real final customer about reliability of open source
products.
The effect of free software is a general regression.
Linux : zero innovation, cannibalism of Unix
Eclispe : total regression compared to tools VisualAge ...
Open office : :) no comment compared to Office 2007
Java : absolute regression compared to lisp, Smalltalk, Actor, Forth,
Rebol, Haskell, OCaml.
SBCL is a very good example of that. Instead of improve or create rich
library for Lispworks or Allegro CL, the SBCL creators spends time to
reinvent the wheel. What is the goal ? Produce a lesser good Lisp than
Lispworks or Allegro ? Fantastic !
Sincerely, if the alone and last Lisp remains SBCL, I prefer use
VisualWorks for example. I have no time to spend in bug correction in
SBCL. And SBCL have zero credibility in the market contrary to
Allegro.
SBCL is not a bad piece of software, it's just less good compared to
commercial product so it is just useless. Especially that free
versions of Lispworks and Allegro exist.
Best regards,
Christophe
On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 10:34:28 -0800 (PST), Mark Tarver
<··········@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>To put some flesh on the bare bones of this proposition. Imagine if
>someone were to use their comfortably paid university position to
>produce, (e.g), a free GPL algebra tutor, thus putting out of business
>a struggling company trying to sell their own version. Would this be
>ethical? Is it not the ethical equivalent of dumping?
Not only would it be ethical, it would be a great service and an
excellent use of resources. The intent of free software is not to
drive competition out of business, with the goal of creating a
monopoly that would then be in a position to prige gouge. Indeed, the
university which produces the free GPL algebra tutor would be
providing a great public service, by helping people around the globe
learn algebra without having to pay for commercial software.
Do you also consider public libraries unethical, as they allow people
to read books for free?
-
No one is free who is not master of himself. - Claudius
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
From: Kent M Pitman
Subject: Re: is free, open source software ethical?
Date:
Message-ID: <uabl22jr3.fsf@nhplace.com>
[ comp.lang.lisp only; http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/cross-posting.html ]
Doug Mazzacua <······@gmail.com> writes:
> Do you also consider public libraries unethical, as they allow people
> to read books for free?
The analogy, properly constructed, would be to compare this to the
possibility that there should be a place in town you could go to run
PhotoShop or SQL for free. If libraries allowed you to take out books
and keep them as if they were yours, they would in fact cause the
catastrophic failure of the bookselling industry, since they would
just be bookstores with zero cost.
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Doug Mazzacua <······@gmail.com> writes:
| > Do you also consider public libraries unethical, as they allow people
| > to read books for free?
|
| The analogy, properly constructed, would be to compare this to the
| possibility that there should be a place in town you could go to run
| PhotoShop or SQL for free.
+---------------
In many locations, a library *is* just such a place! ;-} ;-}
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
····@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
> Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> wrote:
> +---------------
> | Doug Mazzacua <······@gmail.com> writes:
> | > Do you also consider public libraries unethical, as they allow people
> | > to read books for free?
> |
> | The analogy, properly constructed, would be to compare this to the
> | possibility that there should be a place in town you could go to run
> | PhotoShop or SQL for free.
> +---------------
>
> In many locations, a library *is* just such a place! ;-} ;-}
I hear the main problem libraries have to deal with is "too many
books". So indeed, they may be glad to get some help from their
readers in this respect.
(But of course, I would prefer if they could just add an aisle to the
library to store even more books. Perhaps they should just store them on hard disk, adding new harddisks would be easier).
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/