skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
For a simple, but topical example, you can see the process at work with the Australian Governments' current 'stimulus' program, 'Building the Education Revolution (BER)'. This is a $16.2 billion dollar program to build new buildings on school grounds, nationwide in both public and private schools.

With that sort of money shovelled quickly out the door, it didn't take long for reporting of corruption and rorts to show up: In some documented cases, the construction costs of simple school buildings mushroomed from $78,000 for a pre-BER quote to an actual built cost of $954,000. All this for a simple school structure. Most of the fat is in 'consulting fees' and 'variations' specified by the builders.

There are many documented cases of school buildings costing in excess of $5400 per square metre - about what it costs to build a top grade office block, and about 3 times what the cost would be normally.

The main problem, it would seem, is that all the contracts go to large building companies, who then subcontract to smaller builders, who then subcontract out to local people. Each person clips the ticket and adds some fat on the way through, and you end up with a building costing 3 times as much. All of this could have been avoided if you just gave the money to the school and got them to hire local tradesmen to do the job, and would have more of an effect on employment and economic activity. As it is, a large percentage of the money will go to shareholders in large construction firms. This is very similar to what the reddit post describes.

The worst thing about the whole thing is, while everyone knows it is happening, and it is in the news, nobody is actually getting into trouble.
I'm not familiar with that term, but from reading the article the guy doesn't seem to point the finger at capitalism. He is saying big government is more susceptible to this than free market capitalism.
There is an option to set Flash to "on demand" mode on mobile devices.

There is so much flash content out there on the web, and being able to play flash content on-the-move, on-demand is obviously a good thing.
Yeah. I thought you were saying the entire concept was worthless or something.

(Incidentally, I have used plain [Char] strings in some Haskell apps, and the performance has been fine. But really, all I do is get them from a char* and print them, so...)
So even if you provide full source for your app, you can't have it on the app store period? Or would this person also be breaking the GPL if they simply uploaded a binary to their site?
Free web directory like Dmoz?
Hi, I'm Claudio from http://hinii.com I need to fill my service into web directories to improve the rank.
Can you suggest me where I can submit it?

Thanks
It all got a bit messy by that point, low cashflow, mortgages to be paid etc. The risk takers were using their house as collateral and decided to go safe. It was an amicable parting.
They're saying that if you want to use GPLed code, then you have to follow the GPL rules. Clearly the person writing that code decided to use a GPL license, instead of something more flexible like an MIT or BSD license. Thus it makes perfect sense that they force those that use that code comply with the license chosen. If they didn't, they would be doing a disservice to the code authors.

If you don't like the license, don't use code that specifically chose to use that license. There are many alternatives to libraries out there, and as a last resort you can always write your own, original, non-GPLed code that performs a similar function.

It's also my understanding that if the situation is such that you wrote the code, then you can change the license on the code you wrote and continue with that base, however, the original code is still GPLed and would remain open.

[Updated for clarification]
Certainly; if you wrote the code and still hold copyright, you can license it under whatever terms you wish. You can GPL it, but then turn around and release a proprietary version. You have this right _if_ you're the copyright holder.

From what I can tell, the person who put this app on the App Store is not the copyright holder of GNU Go. (The FSF holds copyright to most of GNU Go's code, and they'd hardly offer an app on the App Store; and if they had, they could take it down without going through this mess.)

So what we have here is someone who took someone else's code (which was made available under GPL) and then released a DRMed version of it. The FSF is saying you don't get to do that.
It is. You can select to run plugins only on demand, which naturally is the only sensible way to run flash. This whole "claim" is completely silly.

Even on the desktop (ie OS X) the web becomes unusable with Flash enabled all the time. There are plugins like NoFlash that make it acceptable, and the occasional interesting Flash app makes it worthwhile.
What I don't like about this post is that they explicitely say The primary problem is that Apple imposes numerous legal restrictions on use and distribution of GNU Go through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is forbidden by section 6 of GPLv2. I'd like to see them enumerate these legal restrictions and explain how they contravene the GPL. Don't leave us guessing.

For reference, a copy of the GPL V2: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Section 6:6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
This is a fallacy that I'd like to see removed from arguments about free software.

It doesn't matter if you don't have the skill to modify it as long as others do have the skill and freedom to modify it. They'll make changes for you!

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1351656
It already works that way. Therefore the whole claim of ruined performance is complete bullshit.
Ask HN: How do you document the development process?
Currently, I am working on a project and I am wondering what is the best way to go about documenting it. I am documenting in the code but also I crate design documents. The design documents contains for every class develop: why I wrote that class, how the class was implemented, advantages and disadvantages of the class, discussion about the class, example inputs and example of the class. As you can see the design document would be rather time consuming to produce. The main purpose of the design doc is to keep my supervisor informed, who is a remote location. and also to track the decision that are made over the course of the project.

What I'm looking for is how this process is done in other companies. Also, I'm going about the documentation process correctly?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
A kind of trivial comment, but: do people at Microsoft really call it The Tribe?
They know more about some things and less about others. They know less about employment law and benefits administration, but they are probably better at judging someone's programming ability.
Hrm... I should have thought of that. I'll blame it on time constraints!
The FSF is saying that if the Apple Store wants to distribute a program covered by the GPL, they should comply with the GPL. Which seems reasonable.

If you wrote code 10 years ago under the GPL, you retain the copyright, and may distribute the code or the program how you please under whatever license you like. Other people do not hold the copyright, and may not distribute your program under licenses of their choosing. People and companies do dual-license fairly commonly, allowing the free software community to use and develop their product, while retaining the ability to license it commercially.

The FSF clearly does expect the software will be removed from the store, hence the linked communication. But they are not requiring it. This is somewhat more lenient than you might expect a commercial software vendor to be if their software was being illicitly distributed by Apple on the App Store.

Hope this helped clear things up for you.
Ruby also has inline rescue as well.

(Banana.find(id).plantation.state rescue nil)

Chain it if when falsity occurs do something else.

banana = (Banana.find(id).plantation.state rescue nil) || Fruit.find(:banana,id).state
If this is the case, then how is it any different to distribution through the Android store?
One more reason that Apple sucks
YouTube... or Vimeo, Veoh, College Humor, DailyMotion, CNN, Reuters, NYT, ESPN, NPR, TED, WSJ, ABC, CBS, Fox, and many other sites that support HTML5 video (see http://www.apple.com/ipad/ready-for-ipad/ for the iPhone/iPad compatible ones)

The only site I personally miss is Hulu, which I hear doesn't work on Android's Flash player anyway.
It's not quite that straightforward.

Think about it from the other side of the fence. My experience was with weapon systems but to a certain extent it does apply to roads.

Because of THE RULES only fixed priced bids are acceptable.

As a contractor you are being asked to quote on the complete price for a new product build, even though you haven't designed, tested or built anything like it before. The price you quote needs to include the cost of upgrading a bunch of existing equipment to support your new product. You have no idea what the current state of the existing equipment is.

You have three choices:

- Quote a huge price that fairly covers every possible risk, and get told it's too expensive.

- Quote a small price and caveat the hell out of everything and get blamed when the initial conditions or complexity turns out to have been misunderstood or misrepresented.

- Go bankrupt.

You actually even see the same decision being made by normal employees at work. "Sure boss, I can do it in three weeks, as long as Dell delivers on time" would be an example of option (2) in action.
10% is a lot more than I would have thought, wow. Good job looking that up.
I used to be a Mac user and always hated iTunes. It always felt like it was fighting me and trying to force me to do things its way rather than my way. Asking it, for example, to play music stored on a remote samba share tended to make it copy the music to my hard drive rather than, you know, play the music.
I think the problem is supply and demand. There just aren't enough really good programmers. Google alone seems willing and able to absorb all available really good programmers, for some value of really good.
I thought he went out of his way to emphasize that it's not necessarily big government that's the problem, since full transparency in government would serve to reduce the problem as "not buying the product" does the same in the private sector.
And, kangaroo is actually a very lean meat, much better for you than beef. Plus kangaroos are much better for the environment, the don't fart methane, like cows do.
So loading all of the website is slower than loading only random parts? Really? I would never have guessed that...
How two magical words increased signups by 28%
I think it is still too early to tell.
> "I promise never to hurt myself or others in an extreme manner,"

If only students were asked to sign those - we could've prevented so many shootings...
Human Psychology Books
Some of the most fascinating, appealing and insightful books that have been written about human psychology are given. Check out Human Psychology Books at http://www.humanpsychology.org/2010/05/human-psychology-books.html
Unfortunately, these conditions seem to be the norm in China, regardless of the company or factory. Even if Apple took the nuclear option and dropped Foxconn as a manufacturer, would any rival companies (that had similar manufacturing capacity) treat their workers any better?
As long as the code is available, I don't see why the DRM should matter. As noted elsewhere in this thread, it would be great if the FSF could provide a more detailed analysis of what the AppStore distribution is lacking. As it is, it seems this would just make developers more worried about the GPL.
Although the two words weren't revolutionary we were quite surprised by the increase. Mind you we had about 6 other variations as well, including "It's free up to 250 contacts" and an orange version of the "Signup now!" button - both we thought would have higher conversion.
What the parent was saying, that you seem to be missing is: there's no reason for anyone to use it.

Perl5 took off because for a lot of things it appeared to be the only game in town. Today that isn't the case anywhere. For the web there is a very established PHP (I just tried to make a web store without writing any code and I REALLY didn't want to touch PHP but there are literally no other options) and a very well established Ruby/Rails. For the enterprise you have Java, C# and all the languages that run on their respective VMs.

Perl6 has no killer app (well, I would consider Parrot potentially a killer app, but thankfully that has afaik no perl requirement). Saying "but we can get stuff done fast!" holds no water anymore. So can Ruby, Python, C#, Haskell, etc., etc., etc. It's not a selling point.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, for sys admin perl6 will be competing with, among other things perl5.
Wasn't this expected? Scrolling pages even on my desktop browser got much snappier after enabling FlashBlock or equivalent.
After that? Probably the next one would.

It'd be more effective though if Apple forced foxconn to improve conditions 'or else'.
Wait, I meet those qualifications. Where was this job? ;)

I would think the problem is not that programmers that meet all the bullets don't exist, it's that those programmers either work for startups, start startups, or work as consultants.

What's ridiculous is when one of the bullet points requires 5 years experience with a technology that was invented only 2 years ago.
From what I understand, Apple is a distributor - not just the original developers.

Because Apple is distributing they have the same responsibilities as any distributor to provide the source code and allow the code to be shared.

And making people worried about the GPL shouldn't be a priority here. The GPL isn't a free-for-all license - its a very specific license which, while granting a lot of rights, also has a lot of requirements. Anybody distributing code with such a license needs to make sure they fall in line.
Mobile search advertising isn't making much money yet. I doubt Chrome (browser) has made a noticeable difference in Google Search market share. Google don't make much on Gmail or docs.

Look, I'm not saying these are not good strategies for Google. This thread was comparing MS Windows/Dos in the early 90s to Google Chrome Android 15-20 years later. Google is (probably) not building the next biggest business via Android/Chrome. At best, they are strengthening their current (best) business and taking a punt at some new ones that have a remote chance of being businesses in the same class as Search/Adwords, Windows or iphone/ipad.

Apple is building the next great computer business via iphone/ipad, or at least making a very directed effort with all their weight behind it. They are making money on it, directly, now. They stand to make a lot of money on it for an quite a long time.

All I was saying is that there is a difference between these two positions.
I'm mostly worried about Flash in the context of network usage. I can't say how the power performance is for graphics and gaming, but I'd guess it's about the same as native phone apps.

It's easy to imagine flash apps with network access patterns that aren't optimized for phones. Take any advertisement or analytics system which continually polls the server for more data. This will kill your battery if left running.
So, when forced to choose between three honest options with (potentially!) unfavorable outcomes and a dishonest one it's ok to be dishonest?
iPhone OS already contains GPL v2 code (at least libgcc and libstdc++) so presumably Apple is in compliance on that front.

Is FSF suggesting that it's not enough for the developer to distribute the source code, and Apple must also distribute the source code of any 3rd party applications (which use GPL code) distributed via the App Store?

GPL v2 doesn't contain the anti-tivoization clause that v3 does, so that can't be the problem. I don't know what else they could claim, it would be nice if they could clarify the specific violations.
Yeah. Emacs Lisp requires you to solve problems in a different way than you are normally used to. I guess that's bad. But once you figure it out, it's not too much of a productivity drain, which is what matters in the end.
I think it's because a lot of gamers treat game reviews as some kind of absolute truth, instead of just the opinion of one guy. People seem to have no problem treating movie reviews like someone's personal opinion, and find a reviewer they like and trust, and ignore the rest.

But when a game gets 8/10, it somehow either is an 8/10 game or the game reviewer is wrong.

Somewhere along the line people forgot that reviews are subjective, not objective.
I suppose that the right to copy, distribute or modify the Program is not the same as the ability to do so.

Apple could grant everyone the right to redistribute any GPL'ed apps, but it wouldn't make any practical difference because who could I distribute the app to?
Scala is as fast as Java because similar code in both languages compile to the exact same bytecode.

With type specialization in Scala 2.8 it will be even faster than Java in some cases.
Standing desk experiment and experiences
Hrm I suppose this is meant to be picked up and spread like a meme? How very clever.
Whoever distributes the code must comply with the license. By demanding the role of distributor, they're also taking responsibility that usually falls to the author.
One of the things on my list is to try calls to action which are not Sign Up, precisely because folks think that that involves either making a commitment or paying money. (I get at least a half dozen emails a month asking me to cancel a free trial, from folks who grew up in a generation where anyone giving you something free is going to send you a bill 30 days later.)
Are you sure that libgcc and libstdc++ are on the iPhone? Could it be some other library (non-GPL)?
$13,900 per year ($1,160 per month) puts you in the top 15% of earners worldwide. You can absolutely live on that anywhere, including any city in the United States, including Tokyo, including Hong Kong, and so on. You'll be able to get a bed, a shared bathroom, and enough healthy food at that money. And of course, as soon as there's an opportunity to make more, you move on and do so.

If you want to talk about high cost of living in the USA, I agree with you. Prices are artificially high in the USA for a number of reasons. If you removed just a few laws that aren't doing much good, a solid meal would probably cost around $1 to $2 - last time I was there, you could get a decent $2 meal in Taipei and a 2 euro meal in Berlin for instance. Prices in America are higher than they should be due to some corruption and stupidity, but even with the artificially high prices $14k is a heck of a lot of money by almost standard at almost any time in history.

As for the rest of your comment, I don't think the practice of running immediately to extreme edge cases is the best way to have a discussion. I started with the point that a 20 year old should be able to intern at a company if they want to, and you want to move the discussion to coal mines and pedophilia?

Edge cases are useful to discuss, but probably secondary in importance to general principles. If you agree that in general stopping mature, capable humans of doing voluntary transactions is a bad thing, then we can look at the edge cases and try to figure out some lines. But to answer your main point, absolutely $13,900 per year is a fantastically large amount of money that can be lived fairly well on. No Starbucks, no $12 movie tickets, but food, housing, and other necessities? Absolutely possible, that's a huge amount of money. I've lived on much less comfortably, and most of the world would kill to live on that $13,900 per year.
RedHat enterprise support with long term stable updates that won't disappear and force you to upgrade in a few month time?
Agree. This is a case of, um, Apples versus Oranges.

One can turn off JPEGs in a browser and have the page load faster than a browser that loads images. But that does not merit writing an article entitled "JPEGs proven to ruin Android 2.2 performance".
any thoughts? i guess no one is developing for it...
Hidden features of Perl?
I'm curious. Do you have any suggestions for the alternatives?
Would it be enough for the developer to bundle the source code (and license) within the application somehow, such that if the application is distributed (unmodified) it will automatically be in compliance?
If a site has one flash video I want to watch and a bunch a flash crap surrounding it that I don't want, it's nice to able to just unblock the video and not have to whitelist the entire site.
It doesn't appear they're objecting to the source-code distribution (which is allowed to be separate from the binary), but to the app store's license terms for apps: http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula/

Since GNU Go is under the GPL, they're saying: you can't distribute it under Apple's "Licensed Application End User License Agreement", because that isn't a license the original author applied to the software, and the GPL prohibits you from piling on a new license.

This no-new-license-terms section of the GPL is to keep people from subverting the GPL by tacking on new terms to GPL'd software, which I believe includes EULAs. So, unless you're the original author and copyright holder (in which case you can always add whatever terms you want), you can't tell end users something like: "it's GPL, but here are more rules you have to follow if you want a copy [click yes to agree to these terms]". Since the App Store basically does that---it has an EULA that you have to agree to before you can get a copy of GNU Go---it falls afoul of that provision.

In practice it's more making a point, because Apple probably cannot really enforce any of the additional terms against users of a copy of GNU Go, and it's not clear they'd care about doing so. But it violates the FSF's principle that end-users should be able to modify the very copy of the software they receive, because it tacks on terms that amount to, "you cannot reverse-engineer or decompile this copy of GNU Go", which clearly isn't a condition the FSF itself, as the GNU Go copyright holder, would've added.

A workaround, if Apple cared enough, would be to exempt open-source apps from the EULA terms, because the terms are really mainly aimed at stopping reverse engineering, and there's no point in stopping reverse-engineering of apps which are already open source. (Android's app store avoids this problem entirely by not applying any default EULA, and leaving it entirely up to the app author which EULA, if any, they want to ship.)
The importance of calling out that something is free cannot be understated for conversion.
Yes, all the licenses are listed in Settings -> General -> About -> Legal.
The video only proves that loading additional content takes additional time. Turn off the images, and the loading will be even faster. Turn off javascript and performance will be even better! News?

Being able to play web games on mobile, is really a cool thing. Turn on the 'on-demand' mode and Flash wont load/play content by default.Compared to how poorly iphone handles even basic javascript effects, the flash experience on Android is excellent.
Startup Drinks mixes startups with drinks
Another big problem with this kind of bid is that the requirements to bring out a bid are insane, and insanely complicated, so typically only the larger companies can bid. They have full timers working on bringing out the bids, whereas a local contractor would be employing just as much people to prepare the bids as they have out building stuff.
Microsoft Needs Bill Gates Back