skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The iOS example was just to name one of many limitations of using GPL code.

> Enough for whom? Microsoft?

No, for developers themselves. Dynamic vs. static linking mess etc.

> ...some people do not have "allow companies
to benefit from my work without giving back
anything in return" as their top priority.

But in reality, that doesn't happen a lot - to name a few on top of my head: Webkit, PostgreSQL, Minix, LaTeX, Mozilla's softwares (to some extent), Apache and MIT's softwares and many other applications (and PHP, Python and Lua if I'm not mistaken).

It's like giving others a choice to be a bad guy or a good guy. In many cases, given the choice, people would contribute back to the community.
There is so much cool-aid being drank in that post that its funny.
I am confused why didn't he made an 83b election in 2005?...Was it bad tax advice or youthful laziness or some clever strategy we don't know?
Trackpoints are awesome simply because the state of non mac touch pads is so terrible.
I think the total budget is of the order of several million dollars.
A VC would have no problem investing in a company with no chance of being acquired, if it had IPO potential. Airbnb is an example.

IPOs are unquestionably the "motor" of the VC business. That's what drives all their thinking.
This is the best -- I've literally built my software engineering career pivoting off this program.
I both agree and disagree. I don't much want to see them on the frontpage either, but I absolutely do want to see them because I forward them on to friends to whom I'm making the case that it is a good career move (as best career prep = CS + X, for all X [1]). It would be nice to have a subsection or something for them.

1. https://plus.google.com/114765095157367281222/posts/1mrFdZXm...
Sort of. But it leads to a uselessly circular definition: the right people = people impressed with the right things.
But can you not at least understand that many people don't understand why those four Freedoms have to be assumed as given?

The disagreement is not about how to best make sure the four Freedoms are respected, it's not about implementation. It's about whether the Freedoms are Freedoms at all. That tends to get lost when all everyone always talks about is licenses (i.e. implementation details).
Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason.

AKA Fanaticism. He's become an inflexible, computerized hermit. His dogmatic adherence to a demonstrably untenable principal of "freedom" has relegated him a permanent state of pre-1995 digital stasis.

He's not principled, he's dogmatic. At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way.
With a pop up modal window when you browse back. So even worse than most.
Anonymous Multi-signature bitcoin transactions
It's very interesting to see data like this, but in other ways it's a bit disheartening when I compare his install numbers to my own efforts. I've put a few apps that I feel are unique into the Android store, but it feels like throwing a pebble in the ocean. Nobody notices. Anybody have advice on how to get visibility? I've sent app review-requests to the various Android sites, but I know they're inundated and I've never had any response.
I don't mean to belittle RMS's achievements, but as a general point, I don't think that simply adhering to conviction is courageous. It's the easy way out. It's the way that doesn't address the greys in reality, for the sake of simplicity of what you believe in. You are not tested in your decisions, because you have already refused to make any.
Incidentally same computer I have.

Linux siguran 3.1.0-1-loongson-2f #1 Tue Jan 10 15:20:55 UTC 2012 mips64 GNU/Linux

It's fun for a hobby because it feels like the old days of Linux when you had to patch and compile a lot to get things running.

Of course my other computers are macs, this is just for the commute to work on some hobby stuff.
I know all of these regarding software which is deployed on someone else's hardware (iOS, embedded, etc); I wanted to know why the GPL is a problem for someone doing a web startup, which is the original point you made.
Very narrow minded in my option. There's a reason why people prefer an iPad over a Lemote Yeelong. There is more to life than principles. I do respect his opinion but if he would like to continue to make a difference in the open software community he could stop spending so much time in email and concentrate on technology advancements and how to promote open source.
Whats the best host for PHP - Facebook App?
Hi,
We are using PHP with Yii Framework. Currently we are using MySQL but will also use a NoSQL database in the next application. For Facebook app, we need an SSL too. We have no experience in UNIX and System administration - dont want to take on much management work either. Can you suggest a good hosting service at cheap to test our app prototypes? Thanks.
We made our iPhone app FB Connect only, and only 50% of users who downloaded the app actually signed in. To make things worse, we got a ton of one start reviews in the app store from people who were really angry about the FB Sign-in.
Another bad part was that on mobile, FB sign-in doesn't work as well, so a bunch of users who did click to sign-in didn't get through the process because of an FB bug. So unless you're ready to loose 50% of your users, consider other sing-in options.
> Why should you be allowed to take away the Freedoms of others?

No one's freedom is being taken away when you create a proprietary fork. They are not forced to use your software, and the original is still intact. You do not automatically have a right to someone else's creation.

I don't mind paying for software, and I don't mind if they don't let me see their code the same way I don't mind when my local restaurant doesn't let me inspect their kitchen just because I want to.
Fwiw, in my own experience, I learned more about how computers and computing work from the first year of exclusively using Linux than from a decade of using Windows. Windows is designed from scratch to hide all that and abstract it into a GUI.

Linux both forces you to figure stuff out, and enables you to, which in my case also motivated me to.

I don't know how that would have worked out had I been using OS X instead of Linux though, maybe the same since it's BSD-based. But I suspect Linux may be the only one where you can feel full ownership over your own system, and can be motivated by the knowledge that if you take the time and effort to figure it out, you can make it do anything you want to.

That personal, emotional investment I believe is the most important, rewarding, and incentivizing aspect of learning computers, computing, programming, and/or CS.
Wow, that makes it sound hard to do.
Somebody knows how they plan to make money? The whole idea is fantastic, I just hope they find a way to make it affordable in the future.
You do realise that a big part of RMS's job is sending email, right?
I refrained from saying this, because this isn't always true, and as graph reduction processors slowly get introduced, this is going away.
Thanks for the feedback!

That was a slight "oops", sorry :)
Thanks for sharing this. His thoughts on treating travel as pilgrimage ring true for my best vacations. It convinced me to add his not-yet-out book, Religion for Atheists to my wish list.
I really like this, I'll incorporate in once I get a bit of time.
I think you guys could benefit from removing the first 30 seconds of your video, and just get into what you are making. Good luck! Have you reached out to Paul Buchheit?
this fungus could end up contributing to global warming, by taking the carbon that is trapped as plastic on the ground and releasing it eventually into the atmosphere.
Google tells me I don't have a cookie, which is a bit strange because I allow cookies. Anyway, looks like Google knows nothing about me either.

I know a lot of things that could cause this, even tough I tried a few things it's hard to figure out why Google isn't profiling me.

Is it maybe the DNT header, any of the disabled Javascript or the EasyPricacy list of APB? Maybe Spybot blocks something. Is there a way to opt-out for this? Maybe I never opted in? Anyone got an idea?
I think the first comment in the article hit the nail on the head -- DistroWatch is just becoming less popular.
And during an acquisition GPL'ed software dependencies is at the very least a yellow flag to be fully investigated....
I think I might switch over my email accounts, but there is also an issue of how long will these services be around for.

I had an Altavista account until they closed their email service. So, I need a reliable provider that wont be swallowed up by a bigger company and change my email address.
It obviously boils down to "good enough" and "free enough" but I've planned on moving back to Postfix/Dovecot at home for the reasons outlined, just a time thing.
Wow, this is awesome :)
Justin bieber
justin bieber , justin bieber , justin bieber ,
justin bieber , justin bieber , justin bieber ,
http://www.psdmate.com/2012/02/04/justin-bieber/
Five steps to an organised inbox
German Government Endorses Google Chrome
For a while now, I have used GMail purely as a drop box from which I fetch my mail (and delete from my account).

I'm hoping once the Raspberry Pi is released, I can get a good personal mail server going again.
Absolutely agree. In 2003 I vowed never to own any kind of physical media again. I put all my cd's out on the sidewalk with a 'FREE' sign and the box was gone within the hour. I dj'd for a stint and the same thing happened in that industry. Although, there are still some vinyl purists, but I saw that go vinyl, cd, and then mp3/wav. It's inevitable.

As a 'downloader' I'm still buying a few limited blurays. This is strictly for the picture quality, but I'm almost done with that. The fact that my bluray player is so goddamned slow (some discs take a ridiculous amount of time to start up) and I have to sit through 20 ads or movie announcements, just pushes me more to 1080p downloads. Although, these are compressed downloads and not 'real' 1080p raw files. But it's just that whole thing that keeps sticking in my mind which is: I just want to easily watch the movie.

I'll definitely see all this change in my lifetime and I'll some day explain to my kid how ridiculous it used to be and how he's got it so good now.
He could have learned this years ago if he'd looked at existing knowledge arond user testing. Who knew, users tend not to give direct negative feedback?
Hmm, if it allowed me to store and easily access say, ~2 Terabytes of data (books, videos, etc.) and the risk was minimal, then frankly, yes...

Plus, I'm sure they won't be obsolete that fast - once it develops to a certain point, the need to upgrade won't be as urgent - kind of like the difference between a Pentium 4, a Core 2 Quad and a Sandy Bridge Core i7 - the performance difference is huge, but the C2Q's useable lifespan is about a decade, whereas the P4 was only useable for less than 5 years. Sandy Bridge will be fast for at least a decade, as well...
I'm not sure a conferencing system like that even exists. It's definitely a good idea, but I've never heard of enterprise gear with that kind of feature.
Sustainability relies on _future_ tech. If we need to know if we can feed 20% more people in 10 years we need to know if we can produce 20% more food in ten years, using what technology is available then. Not what is available today.

And we (and this is what people who keep saying we can't support all those people never take into account) _can count on the extra minds of those 20% to do their uttermost to solve the situation_.

That is what people never take into account.
Reported earlier (by a few hours) in the Wall Street Journal

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2012/02/03/mark-zuckerbergs-2-bi...

with a different estimated tax bill, submitted to HN yesterday.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3550074

For either story, the underlying primary source is the registration statement for Facebook's initial public offering of stock.
These days, if you ask someone for a phone and you are more than a few feet away from a landline, you're asking for a cell phone. To say otherwise is being disingenuous.

To me, it demonstrates a far less altruistic motivations.
Patent Wars & Microsoft, Buyer of iPads
I don't know what the author mean by that.

Of course the people that created Tomb Raider are no longer supported!(Quake, Dune, Deux Ex, Theme Park)

Some of them made millions of profit in the process, that was a good reward. They don't need to receive rewards because they already did.
Get your own domain?
Russia to send cosmonauts to the Moon this decade
What really blows my mind about it has always been that there are properly more people alive today who can read Sumerian Cuneiform than there have ever been -- including back when there was something called Sumeria and they were using Cuneiform.
Am I missing the story here? Man makes billions in income and has to pay billions in taxes?
Windows is also designed to make you start paying to get at details. And keep paying. If you are e.g. a youngster, or a "this should be automated" worker who doesn't have any tech budget, this can be a significant hindrance. (Yes, I know there are now various MS initiatives such as the Express Studios and Spark whatnot. There didn't used to be (I wonder what changed ;-), and I remain skeptical.)
One wonders if this argument will ever get old. It was being used in exactly this form forty years ago, when aviation (not to mention rocketry) had - perhaps unbenownst to most people at the time - essentially reached the state that it would remain in for the next fifty years, at least. [1] But after forty years on the plateau, it still gets trotted out.

My hypothesis is that this argument will die with the baby boomers, who have a living memory of the day when 2001 really felt like a documentary beamed back from the future, but I could be wrong.

---

[1] We had supersonic passenger aircraft and moon rockets in 1972. Then we gave them up, on purpose: They didn't pay their own way.

And I don't want to minimize the hard work of aviation engineers since then: Better avionics, better navigation systems, computerized scheduling, pilotless drones, fly-by-wire... But these are refinements, not fundamental breakthroughs in travel technology.
That doesn't work if you are using CoffeeScript which has no direct line translation. 'debugger' is the best way that I've found.
I disagree with this comment: "are you afraid Google is sitting at home drooling over the fact that you bought your shoes from JcPenny?"

I'm sure Google doesn't consciously care, but the fact that they track it it can seriously screw you if in the wrong hands. Further, at risk of building a strawman, it sounds a bit to similar to "what do you have to hide?" which is wrong on many many levels.

Given plenty of data it would be easy to cherry pick information useful enough to cast some serious suspicion of a crime. People have been convicted on circumstantial evidence alone. Is it really the lay person's responsibility to worry about this?

A silly example: "Where were you at 9:35pm the 3rd of June, 2011?" ... "I was having dinner and drinks with friends" ... "Really? According to documents obtained by the prosecution you bought shoes that night online at 9:29pm from JCPenney" ... "Oh, I guess I left earlier than I thought" ... "Court, clearly the defendant is lying about his whereabouts".

/paranoia
This article is link-bait, but I'll bite.

Simply put, Gmail provides a compelling user experience:

* fast and accurate search. This is key, and I don't know of a single desktop email client that even comes close to providing a decent search feature. Decent here means "answer full-text queries accurately within a second or so". I didn't realize how useful this was until switching to Gmail; now I have it, I can't switch back. I don't even bother organizing my email more than a minimal amount any more, I just search for things when I need them.

* remote access is also key. I regularly access the internet from at least 4 different devices, on at least 3 different operating systems. Sometimes I do so while traveling. Gmail makes this convenient --- all I need is a web browser. IMAP need not apply --- I found IMAP appallingly slow last time I tried it.
Strategy Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Y Combinator vs. 1M/1M
> RMS would [refuse a Nobel] without any questions.

What's the difference between a Nobel and a MacArthur Genius grant?

http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html
For sure, I imagine if the technology develops fast enough, the territory needed to generate all of the power we need would be much smaller...
I love GSOC and I really, really wish that more companies would do something similar. It is a GREAT way to get much-needed improvements in open-source software, teach a student some real, in-the-trenches skills that will be used throughout his career (and hopefully kicking off a meaningful career in OSS and diverting from the dark path of corporate .NET/Java jockey), and get an amazing amount of development value per dollar.

The real question is, "why is Google the only company that does something like this?" Though it doesn't fit exactly the same way I could even see a similar mentorship program as part of Y Combinator or other startup incubators. There's really no excuse for companies like Red Hat, Yahoo, Canonical and others that are heavily dependent on OSS not to do this.
Going through the list of licenses which the FSF considers not-free but which are listed on opensource.org as "open source": NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3 (NASA 1.3), Reciprocal Public License (RPL 1.5). I'm hard pressed to think of something which can be considered free software but not open source.

My point though is that you commingled the free software movement with open source efforts. Google etc. could have implemented what they needed from various open source projects which existed at the time but were not part of the free software development.

The major exception, of course, being gcc. It's only now with LLVM that gcc has a serious open source alternative. (I assign that term carefully; LLVM is not part of the free software movement.)
Facebook Marketing 101
So why is there such a high degree of Gmail usage among those groups?

Because we're lazy.

you give away control over your personal data

Yes, and if my data disappeared tomorrow, I'd be pretty pissed off. But since Gmail has a sort of critical mass, it would be likely that other people would lose data too. Lots of pissed off users would tarnish Google's reputation and it's in their interest to avoid that.

you put your personal data within the U.S. jurisdiction

A lot more than my email is within that jurisdiction and is much more important -- like my money, family, and possessions.

Besides, I'm a hacker. If I want to send something sensitive, I'll be smarter than sending it over SMTP and logging it via Gmail.

you give Google not only the social web information who mails whom, but also the full content of that communication

Yep, they data-mine my email anonymously, but they try to not be evil about it. There are much more nefarious groups tracking my behavior, too. Besides, the group effort cuts down spam.
No problem! Your post was pretty interesting. As someone who's never used Haskell (ducks) it's nice to hear about its functional advantages.

If you're doing another post, it would be nice to see examples of a functional implementation of addNumbers.
Try Closure Compiler instead of JSLint. It will catch your syntax errors without being so opinionated.

If you don't need Closure's minified output, don't use it; the error messages are still nice.

If you don't want to drop Closure into your app's JS build chain, use a Makefile for quick syntax checks: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=cqX165iD
Are you kidding? "Set sail and conquer" is our motto, without a challenge we'll die out even without population control :-)
Here's a Radiolab segment about her, and they use some of her music in their shows:

http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/aug/25/quan...
I'll have to go check again I only recently got it working and I'm quite sure the password I chose was restricted to something like 10 to 15 characters. Nearly all my passwords for other site are a minimum of 25 (completely random) characters if not longer.

It took me a good solid week of e-mailing support, MS forums, Googling to get it unlocked. People constantly spam it or think it's their account (I've had it since '97) so they constantly try to log into it which apparently locks me the legitimate user out of the account, great feature!
Yes, I knew this one. What is scary is that I have dreams like this. Which is the point, I guess.
Honestly at the end of the day it comes down to spam control for me. I'm done trying to configure adaptive spam filters or finding the latest spam list to scan against. Its not worth my time to deal with that anymore.
Lot's of space
Great spam filter that catches 100,04% of spam ( 0.04% non-spam)
Easy and fast search options
Integration with calander, docs
View and save PDF, DOC, XLS, from within browser
Great interface
Good apps for Iphone, Android, Ipad
Some nice integration options with Chrome browser
Sign in at lost of places with your gmail account (stack overflow much?)
I don't have to spell out the provider g.m.a.i.l. when I say my address to somebody.
Travel Advice-Virgin Islands, NYC, The World
Because we could fu*n care less about what web mail provider we use, and Gmail is comfortable enough.
It's worth noting that GSOC has become really expansive in the last couple of years, approving 988 projects last year alone. While that kind of expansiveness is great, I don't think it should be held as a prerequisite -- even if companies only did 10 or 20 sponsorships like this every summer it would have a really good impact.
> The iOS example was just to name one of many limitations of using GPL code.

And is utterly irrelevant to the question that was asked.

> No, for developers themselves. Dynamic vs. static linking mess etc.

What mess? The requirements of the LGPL are clear, and in most cases quite trivial to meet.

> But in reality, that doesn't happen a lot - to name a few on top of my head: Webkit, PostgreSQL, Minix, LaTeX, Mozilla's softwares (to some extent), Apache and MIT's softwares and many other applications (and PHP, Python and Lua if I'm not mistaken).

All you've done is name some projects that happen to use non-GPL licenses in whole or part. You don't think companies take their output and use them in their own products without contributing back?

I have to ask, do you actually work in the software industry? Because it's not just common, it's pretty much universal to take liberally-licensed code, use it in a proprietary product, and give nothing back to anyone. Can you come up with companies that do contribute at least something back? Sure, but they're not the majority.

> It's like giving others a choice to be a bad guy or a good guy. In many cases, given the choice, people would contribute back to the community.

Actually, it's stating that they can use certain code under certain conditions. This, too, is universal, but more often the condition is "give me a bunch of money, don't tell anyone what's in the box, and if you become successful, give me a bunch more money".

Somehow, some set of people like yourself have found it in themselves to be offended by the notion that people might want to bargain with something other than currency.
I'm not sure about the "more professional" comment - gordon@shephard.org looks fine to my eyes. Regardless, lots more useful shorter domains than that are available - for example, mohene.{com,net,org} all appear to be available.
Because email sucks. Hosting email sucks. Email clients suck. (Bonus: email spam sucks). On Gmail it sucks a bit less.

I'm sorry for myself in the first place, but until I can code my dream of an email killer (or email client fwiw) that does not suck, avoid making my eyes bleed (and make it a success...) I can't avoid gmail.