skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What if we change "software" for "work" in your argument?
"Free work is strictly more ethical than nonfree work. Any attempt at arguing otherwise basically boils down to a rationalization of 'but I want to make money', which is not a tenable ethical stance."

We can argue that not all software is work, but some certainly are, and many times the final product is used to make money. Like any other work or product of work.

That's why I consider an extremist position on FOSS (Stallmanesque) comparable to fanaticism.
Linux users who understand where Linux come from (don't bag Linux users under a single umbrella, there's a wide variety of them) have suffered from proprietary software companies not supporting their OS/distros (Adobe, Microsoft, just to pick a few) or seen the effect of "bad proprietary apps" (Chrome systematically trying to spy on you, software with backdoors, etc... that it's going to be a difficult case to come and say "this time, it's different" with a new proprietary app offering.
Most open source developers are paid for it. There are some people who do some of open source by the evenings as a hobby, but those tend to have jobs too. There are also hobby musicians, or musicians for whom music pays only little, but their reach is smaller.

There are not that many open source projects for non tech users - most and best open source centers in tools for techies.

There is a lot of rhetorics and myth making about open source, but majority of developers does not do open source nor is required to and having open source project is not that much of advantage when looking for job.
I also believe that proprietary software is morally wrong. I do not care if it has better performance or features; it is just unacceptable on principle.

If I'm a fundamentalist for this belief, so be it.
<count me out of "the tech community". My opinions are my own>

I honestly don't find anything controversial in that post. It just lists some points which are between "obvious" and "common sense". There is, however, a typo in your header! now that is interesting ('and' instead of 'an')
The economy boomed under Mao, too, if you think about it. China went from decades of war - Boxer Rebellion, civil war, Japanese occupation, civil war - to a famine that was entirely unsurprising considering the scope of what had happened in the previous 50 years. Mao ended that and put the country on the path to what they are today.
An Open Source license cannot limit for what purpose the software will be used.
Exactly, as a consumer I don't mind paying $1 more for VVC technology. And that together is nearly $2B of patents fee yearly assuming no cap. From Mobile Phones, PC, Tablet, and many others.

The biggest problem is those companies within the group don't agree on the percentage spilt between them. Basically they are just being bloody greedy. And the reason why we have MPEG-LA, HEVC Advance, Velos Group and others.

The good things is that most companies realise how much of a poor job MPEG-LA did ( My guess is that they only cares about their commission any way ), they started MC-IF [1], which includes most of the original HEVC MPEG-LA Group members, HEVC Advance Members and one Velos members as well. They are basically most of the Japanese players... and ...... Qualcomm.

I really wish VVC succeed, and push the technical limits of Video Compression as well as replacement of JPEG, without all the dramas and patents problems.

[1] http://www.mc-if.org/our-members
Keep in mind the alternative may have been even more people sliding into poverty. I think inequality is more misleading than my artificial choice. Why anchor on what the richest have, as opposed to what they poorest SHOULD have? The rich will always get richer. It's basically a law akin to gravity. You can shovel shit uphill fighting it, or you can accept it and use that force to make the whole world better.
He is pointing out a phenomenon that holds very true and is not talked about very much: That authors of proprietary software are often attacked by FOSS Fundamentalists. It's a kind of bullying that I have personally experienced, and at least I do strongly believe that it is in nobody's best interest.
For every developer that complains about a coding “quiz”, there are a dozen more candidates that have been weeded out by them.

You’d be surprised by the number of candidates who say they are “senior software engineer” or “10 years experience as a lead developer” who still can’t do FizzBuzz. Or the ones who can do it but takes them 100 lines of code.

I’ve also turned away candidates who didn’t want to do a simple coding test, but still wanted to work with us. Entitled people are just as damaging to a company as incompetent ones.
Holiday season is DDoS season
Yes. I'd rather stick with poor-quality FOSS on my Linux setup and not contaminate it as much as is possible. I'm more than willing to pay for good software on my Mac. One can decide to do both at the same time.
I think they mean on the user-facing side. Linux runs the world in the sense that it is the backbone of the infrastructure layer, but it's running on very few end-user computers.
Monkey Sort: Central Banks Will Destroy Bitcoin, API Growth Is Risky and More
U.K. Investigates 3,000 Foreign Medics, After Fake Doctor Is Exposed
You don't need to be a developer to meaningfully contribute to open source projects.
1. Right, but I guess I was talking more about the ecosystem itself. If there were no jobs paying people to work on open-source software, would there be as much work done on free software in general?

2. True, but charging money for your music doesn’t get nearly the same negative reaction that paid software often gets.
If the test is like that I have zero interest in working there.

This is for two reasons

1. I don't like silly games in interviews. You aren't respecting me or my time before I am working for you, you aren't likely to while I am working for you.

2. I personally like to be left alone while working on something. Then again I find scrum calls etc a total waste of time.
If it helps securing a job that you think it will improve your life an career, I would argue that it is time well spent.

Unfortunately, the fact that it is generally considered a flawed process by the community, doesn't mean the this kind of interviews are not required or common anymore.
What's really disempowering is making utility a social responsibility instead of a personal one.
If the software is open then anyone can fork it, make it easier, more flexible, better in any way. So your support fee better be low enough that no one is motivated to do that instead of paying for support, and also hope no one ever does it just because they can and dont care about money.
That has been my go-to comparison for a while as well, and it sounds like what they refer to in this article when they talk about using active inference-based AI vs classical reinforcement learning.
Mostly local indeed, but I don't think all local would make a fully balanced diet so maybe a few other things. If you step outside the road you can easily find trees loaded with varieties of oranges, citrus, coconuts, avocados .. I'd start with that and see for the rest

Many thanks for the links, I don't think I would have googled for that.

I will ask local farmers when I get the chance to, but few reports that I had by inhabitants is that .. farming is mostly avoided (laziness, pollution, whatever). To the point where they import things that used to grow locally from netherlands.

I'm also surprised about the climate change thing, I imagined a volcanic island to be too dynamic to be affected as much as, say, Europe.
> Think databases and message queues, not end user apps.

That distinction is not always clear though. For example: spreadsheets.
Show HN: Arthur, a Rubber Chicken for More Productive Meetings
I normally just wanna hack out a problem first, work out for myself what the short comings is with my first approach and then make all the relative changes.
Ends in 2027 / 2028. So quite a long time to go still.
Well, using the term _morally wrong_ seems to paint you into a certain corner. I am curious: where do morals come into play here? Why is a written piece of software so much different than, say, a chair that was built by a carpenter. Would said carpenter be morally wrong as well if he did not want to show you how to build the chair? I am _not_ trying to start an argument here---I am honestly curious about your perspective!
Would you care to explain why?

Additionally, do you object to patents and/or copyright in principle? If so, why?

Genuinely curious, not critical or necessarily opposed.
Yes, it's a small part that provides "I think I can't make it" as the only argument. That doesn't really bring anything into the discussion.
Linux is quite spread already. It is present on billions of Android devices, holds a quasi-monopoly on supercomputers, a large majority of servers and a quite fair chunks of embedded systems.

"But it doesn't run games or Excel on my desktop!" Ah yes you're right. Guess Linux is niche and needs spreading after all.
Do we need even more low quality side projects?
I’ve often wondered why given our position vis a vis China, economically, previous presidents have been reluctant and unwilling to take these steps. Before Obama and Busch, it was Reagan and Busch senior who were reluctant to tske steps against Japan. We had the upper hand and also had logic and trade law on our side, but other than token measures were weak in this regard. Were they just too deferential to short term concerns and or offshoring interests?
It's hypocritical for people to continue to benefit from foss and complain about 'fundamentalists'.

Without that level of commitment no one would have used Linux and all the early immature and amateurish efforts, there are people here who know what a horror some of the efforts were to use and the long journey to today. Would any of the practical minded folks use any of that?

That part of the journey could only be made because of those motivated by ideals. The practical 'middle ground' mindset would not have delivered the rich open source world we know today.

If you don't subscribe to the ethics or values driving it it's perfectly ok, but mature discussion needs to recognize that commitment is required to achieve anything. Simply looking at the results and failing to appreciate what it took to get here is a recipe for failure in any endeavour.
Either way, it's weird, and wrong. Honestly op sounds more racist lol
> You seem to agree with me that a dictatorship can last longer in a trade war?

No. You are connecting two separate ideas to say that I agree with you. I did not agree. I don't know who will last longer in the trade war. I do know that throughout history, the US has witnessed dictators come and go for the most part.

> Your gripe seems to be with what a horrible place China is.

No. Again, you are trying to twist my words into a "China sucks". Nowhere did I make such claim, I simply highlighted structural problems within China that suggests fragility of the Party vs the anti-fragile nature of US democracy. I used Trump as a good example of how the system is able to flush the turd, not the turd flushing the system. Please don't try to suggest that I'm comparing China to a toilet, I think it's citizens realize the full depth of the country they live in but out of fear cannot speak out in a manner that contradicts the governments view.

> That might be true. Having lived there and done business there I think it's more nuanced than you're making it out to be.

again this isn't the case of "china sucks" and im not saying you can't have a good time or meet good people in China which you've certainly claimed in your anecdote. It certainly is a surprise to me as I live in a highly concentrated neighborhood of Mainland Chinese folks and I have never ever heard them talk positively as a good place to do business.

> But let's say it really is that bad. Does that win a trade war before the next US elections in 2 years when US consumers might already be frustrated with higher prices?

Again, you are trying to join separate ideas that "China could be bad", "trade war", "consumer price index in 2 years" supports your main argument which is "China cannot suck because it will win the trade war".

Not sure what your issue here is. My guess is as good as yours about the future. I just tried my best to present my opinion, which cannot be taken as the truth and neither can yours. Nothing is solved. Just two HN'ers slugging it out.
vultr requires credit card verification before you can pay using bitcoins
How about “here’s a subpoena, give me a list of young Democrats.”

It’s not the highest bidder but it’s still a problematic consequence of concentrating so much data in one place.
It can limit whatever you want it to limit, it doesn't have to conform to any rules.
You have source to the google docs. If you want a pdf of the same book, what's the problem in giving your email? I scratch your back, you scratch my back.
Don’t be silly, no.

But the chance that they would quit this job and go work on open source code for a living is about 0%. Would you rather they go make proprietary code for a megacorp instead? Nobody seems to single out Google engineers for abuse when it comes to FOSS vs proprietary, it’s always the little guys who get all the abuse.
I'm certainly not trying to deride open source. For the record, we have plenty of Linux users paying for the product (see previous article), but I simply don't understand why some people won't buy the product because it's not open source. I mean it's their choice - fine. But it's also our choice on whether we open source or not. No need to abuse us for this choice. I am trying to remedy the issue - I'm writing about it.

As for free software being more ethical, I'm just not sure what that means? You think because someone is giving their time the motive is always altruistic and therefore superior choice? I'm not trying to antagonise you. Just asking the question. I don't think of it as a zero sum game. You can add to humanity and get paid for it. I'm no libertarian, but if you add value, create jobs, contribute to taxes...
Soy farmers perhaps?
There's a substantial amount of legal complexity (and writing) about what exactly constitutes "used" in this case.
Born from the Past and Looking to the Future
Some people do not care about "spreading" anything. For many people proprietary software is just unacceptable on principle, just like selling food without giving the list of ingredients.
Because paying is the problem, and expecting that prospective employers would pay for your expenses for a test that is used to infer basic competences is at best wishful thinking.

We only need to look at the current state of qualification mills/moocs to get a good idea how job seekers would be fleeced by these so called certification systems.

It's far better to get in front of a prospective employer and solve whiteboard problems than just be a number in a clueless HR drone's database.
There’s also a cohort who simply believe that working for the government is a good thing. That the violence they inflict — particularly if it means RATs-not-missiles — is justified.

For two reasons:

If we look at human history, we’ve collectively tried a lot of things — and short of getting rid of technology and going back to tribes that can’t broadly interact, I’m not sure there’s really a better solution than something akin to Western style democracies and the world order built around them. That’s not to say they’re infallible or perfect, just that empirically they lead to a human and cultural flourishing that’s hard to compete with. There are many real dangers out there, and many people feel it’s worth defending — classmates who become soldiers, classmates who became politicians, etc. Is it really so surprising some programmers or other STEM people feel the same way?

Secondly, many of us have friends in the military. It’s a hard sell to imply that we shouldn’t help them maintain military dominance, for a number of reasons.
For me, I'll use the best tool for the job, whether it's FOSS or not. If someone built a great FOSS DAW, then I would definitely switch away from Ableton, Reaper, Logic etc. Until then, I'll use whatever gets the job done in the best way possible. It isn't necessarily about trust.
What they have developed is a mass spying system at the behest of the CIA and NSA.
2 Technologies Guaranteed to Reduce Your Truck Rolls
Famines were not exactly unusual in backwards agrarian nations recovering from 50 years of nonstop civil war and foreign occupation. European nations, before modernization, had famine problems, even without war. As Hans Rosling pointed out, famine killed much of the Swedish population in the late 19th century. From 1845-1850, Ireland lost a quarter of its population to famine and emigration to escape famine - 10-15% of the country starved to death under ostensible capitalist rule. And there are plenty more examples where that came from.

So blaming it on communism seems a little off to me. Matter of fact, one could easily argue that communist revolution is a consequence of capitalist failure, not a cause of failure on its own.
The post essentially lacks any actual arguments addressing the position of the other side and is based on a fallacy.

The position of Stallmann is "the long-term societal costs of using proprietary software outweigh the short-term benefits in most cases". "Using proprietary software has short term benefits" simply does not address that position.

The fallacy is in equating fundamentalism and extremism and a strong conviction.

Having a strong conviction that democracy is a better form of government than dictatorship, and holding to that even tough democracy certainly has its costs and disadvantages doesn't make you a fundamentalist. A fundamentalist is someone who is unwilling to consider the evidence that their position is wrong. Weighing long-term costs against short-term benefits does not make you a fundamentalist.

Extremism on the other hand is a completely useless term. Being extreme simply means that you are far away from the mainstream. People who work for free and fair elections in China are extremists. The only reason why "Extreme opinions are rarely correct" is kinda true is because the author is lucky to live in a place where, generally speaking, extreme opinions that are a good idea do become adopted into the mainstream sooner or later and thus are no longer extreme. For one, that isn't true everywhere, and, maybe more importantly, you don't ever get those good idea adopted into the mainstream if you reject them "because they are extreme".
I assume that this is the "offending" thread on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/promos/comments/56ymfc/hey_linux_pe...

Quotes:
“This is going to be a very hard sell being a proprietary closed source system to Linux users, many use Linux because they have bought into the idea of open source. Good luck with it anyway”
“If it were FOSS, I would have downloaded it and compiled it 20 minutes ago.”

Is that it? The rest of the thread seems pretty mild and politely interested. This was two years ago and I think I'd be over it by now.
Ivanka Trump reportedly used a private account to send hundreds of emails
'Tis the Season of Family Tech Support
Before, you said "completely irrelevant", now you say "small part". Which is it?

The article mentions and thus applies to both libre vs proprietary and gratis vs paid. And it is definitely meant to apply to both.
Your power estimates are off by a factor of ~10 with current technology. Current DGX workstation deliver a much higher speedup for ray scene intersection than 3x.

MLT is not used for animations because it is temporally unstable in a perceptually unfavorable way: the artifacts are more blotchy than noise while the human vision is more tolerant to noise. Recent developments around temporal MLT should mitigate that, but these require you to render multiple frames simultaneously. Thisnmakes them unsuitable for real time applications.

Also, the thing about MLT/bidirectional/unidirectional pathtracing is that there is no universally best method. All of then have weaknesses. There are examples where each method is worse than the others in an equal time comparison.

The best performance improvements that you can get with any of these Monte Carlo methods are always based on improved strategies for drawing the samples (importance sampling, QMC). Incorporating non-local information for local importance sampling will be the next big thing.

As for color noise: it is an undesirable artefact, but if you importance sample the spectral color response curves for the human eye (or your display device) correctly, then the spectral noise vanishes at least as fast as the other sources of noise in your scene.
Take for example this paragraph:

> “This is absolutely novel in history,” Ramstead told me as we sat on a bench in Queen Square, surrounded by patients and staff from the surrounding hospitals. Before Friston came along, “We were kind of condemned to forever wander in this multidisciplinary space without a common currency,” he continued. “The free energy principle gives you that currency.”

This is bloviation and crankery. I am not the target audience for this kind of reputation-building.
Fake Amazon Reviews Aren't the Only Problem
FormulaPi is a robot car racing series along similar lines. Submit your own code and race against teams from around the world. I've participated in the last couple of seasons and it's been great fun.

https://www.formulapi.com
I'm not sure what the parent had on their mind, but the majority of people are forced to buy proprietary software coming bundled with hardware, like the BIOS, CPU microcode, graphics or network card firmware.
Security in this case meaning: "Keeping the truth of their business secure from the public in order to avoid backlash"
> Extreme opinions are rarely correct.
That is definitely an opinion. If you look throughout history it is clearly evident that extreme opinions were often right (No men have a god given right to rule. Consciousness is material. Other people have a right over their body. Etc.) The "wise" centric position might sound nice, but it is often just a mix of conformity and a weak imagination.
I enjoyed this documentary on the incredible self-governance in (western) Kurdistan, in Syria:
https://itsgoingdown.org/the-communes-of-rojava-a-model-in-s...
Proprietary software is based on purposely hiding important information that affects the lives of people. I find this behavior appalling.

Copyright and patents on inventions are perfectly OK in my book. They are based on spreading the relevant information, not on hiding it. (However I loathe patents on theorems and algorithms.)
I'm guessing the suggested items are the ones hard to differ. Analytics and explanation of patterns to the machine if you ask me.

They just keep pushing out stuff for the same reason on and on
Because it's exactly the kind of stuff the OP was complaining about.
4,000-year-old spatial pattern of termite mounds covers 230,000 km^2 in Brazil
A new video platform connecting businesses and their customers
I would make the suggestion to practice good-faith examination as to why I would state that moving under economic pressure is traumatic. It isn't "local Church and T-ball". It's "local Church, whose pastor is the only person who supported me when I was assaulted in school". It's "T-ball league, where my son has developed lifelong friendships that I'm ripping him out of". Humans need their social network to survive. Moving strips them of their social network and forces them to build again, much of it less successful than the original.
Definetely not in France. FB Messenger is the primary way of messaging people here
This article was in the #1 spot on the front page. Now, five minutes later it has completely disappeared.

Did you not like the points it made mods?
Show HN: Automatically turn your blog posts into emails for your readers
Audio: Nigerian Gospel Music 2018 – Dailygospelvibe
A little phishing knowledge may be a dangerous thing
Most of the time no but I feel bad for doing it and I won't try to defend my choice by attacking RMS or the FOSS ideology, the fault is mine.