skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> As soon as you share that software with anyone and refuse to hand over the source, and deny the recipient the right to modify and/or redistribute your program, you are taking away that person's Freedom.

I'm not taking away anyone's freedom, unless "freedom" has some definition I'm not aware of. You might be confusing "freedom" with "right", but I'm not taking away any right either unless I specifically violate the license. You do not automatically have the right to someone's work.

> Then why do you insist on taking someone else's creation and basically make it your own by taking away the Freedoms granted to you by the original creator?

It's not a freedom if the original creator forces me to release my code. Do you see how someone forcing me to do something isn't a freedom?

> If find it highly unethical to want access to Free Software without having to actually contribute to it. It's demanding rights without wanting to have to deal with the responsibilities that come with those rights. It's selfish and greedy.

No where did I say a proprietary fork wouldn't contribute back. Merely it shouldn't be forced to open up its codebase. You can make a proprietary fork of a project and still contribute back. I would like the freedom to choose which parts I contribute.

> Except money's got nothing to do with Free Software. It's explicitly stated that you're allowed to charge for distributing copies. I'm sick and tired of this "argument". It pops up every time Free Software is discussed here and elsewhere, and the only thing it proves is that the person bringing it up has not understood what Free Software is about in the first place.

You've missed the other part of that paragraph— the part having to do with Free Software.
It would be worthwhile to factor in inflation to this. I could actually see that happening in 20-30 years if they manage to survive that long.
It seems to be just http://sett.com. There seems to be some interesting ideas. I just wonder why there isn't example blog even for the company itself.
http://youtu.be/QnFSqVfNrXY seems an oddly appropriate adaption.
And there goes my last remaining reason not to switch back to Verizon.
This can't possibly be about Abandonware, since software that's still being sold is not abandonware, and a lot of the games on that list can still be gotten through legal means, even if the corporations that originally made them no longer own them or no longer exist.
As a curiosity, what is "a decent amount"? $5/mo? $10/mo? More?
How to reliably find local IP address?
In fact, many people make quite a good living doing just that, or giving away the software and making money via imbedded means a la Firefox.
He could also get one of these:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/spark-the-first-free-s...
Then I stand corrected. :)
US openly forcing its own intellectual laws on other countries?
Yep, I can confirm about this.
Gοοԁ way tο cope wіth financial crisis
To add to this article: Why do people not use PGP or S/MIME?

I've submitted my resume to a couple of people who posted in the Who's Hiring thread and checked for each of them if they have a PGP key submitted to the usual key servers (e.g. pgp.mit.edu). None of them had done that. Beats me.
I am just about to migrate from Gmail to NeoMailbox. I'm choosing the Swiss hosting option. I'd prefer something in Iceland but the closest service I could find was OrangeWebsite and for them mail was pretty much an afterthought.

https://neomailbox.com/services/secure-email
http://www.orangewebsite.com/web_hosting.php
Hushmail would disagree - https://www.hushmail.com/
For everybody to have maximal rights, you have to prohibit taking away others' rights. The GPL just codifies this: we give you the right to use this however you like as long as you don't take that right away from others.

You can draw a parallel to physical goods: everybody has the right to do whatever they want with whatever they've bought. However, this does not translate to being able to sell that thing to somebody else while restricting what that person can do with it. You do not have the right to restrict what people do with things you used to own.
It actually works reasonably well too. AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook Web Access, plus Apple Mail, Thunderbird, and Outlook XP-2010.
Start-up pipeline: new lab for Aussie ideas
Most of todays internet tech companies don't have the shelf life of Microsoft. Many will be has-beens in 10 years time (or even 5!). So you want to take the cash upfront.
"There is another problem, US govt' need to get access all these messages."

You're assuming the service has to be located within the US. Why?
Agreed, it's interesting but I have no way to gauge it. There's no obvious publication date so for all I know it's 5 years old (and not very popular). In contrast, if it was just launched I would be much more willing to try it out in spite of there been no clear examples of successful communities.

This may very well be revolutionary but my time is limited. Google searches for "sett blog" return nothing. #sett on twitter is more nothingness. It's ironic: I am not heavily engaged in social media at all, but turns I need social proof in situations like these.
Will work for a macbook air
Looking to get my wife a 15" macbook air - but currently lacking in extra funds to do so.

However! I am a senior developer at a funded startup, with experience on both frontend and backend development, specializing in Python, Django, most PHP-based frameworks. I am looking to trade some of my expertise for a Macbook. Got a project you're working on that needs a developer? Looking for someone to set up some servers? I'm open to any and all ideas, email me at willworkformacbook@gmail.com
Will the IOS 5 Roll Out to the Apple iPhone 5
30s searches....I've gotta ask, how many gigabytes of email do you have? I've got about 3 and mine come back in less than a second.
Honest question: how does this difference in behavior impact dating in Sweden vs. the US?
Best Selling Computer Tablets For Those On The Go
But as soon as you redistribute it without the source, the people who get that copy don't have the same rights. This is like the old saying: "your right to swing a fist ends at my jaw"; rights should not give you the power to take away others' rights.
I've been looking for something like this for a while now! Love it!

Make sure that you keep the simplicity even while adding all the new features that you'll no doubt get asked for!

Great work!
Infrastructure Automation Hierarchy Of Connections
That's fantastic. I love the way you implemented multitouch with an object. Very simple.
Ask HN: Stats on traffic for being linked from prominent websites
I was wondering if there are stats available on the web, related to the traffic
that one could expect if their website is linked from prominent websites, like
HackerNews, TechCrunch, Reddit, TechCrunch Europe and/or SlashDot.
Hey do you know a lot of sites with such needs? Facebook is the first, and probably all sites with such needs I can count with fingers on my one hand. I don't think it's git issue - everyone use this system and all are happy using it. This is like a new feature, but not issue.
Apple to Remove Linked System Preferences in iOS 5.1
very cool, you're off to a great start.
I like some of those abstractions, like the finger vs. hand and one/two/... fingers.

Apple doesn't seem interested in playing ball with the W3C to standardize touch events:

http://www.w3.org/2012/01/touch-pag-charter

Presumably for that reason, the touch model Microsoft has for Windows 8 looks very different than the Webkit model:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh673557%28v=vs.85%2...

So anyone wanting to use touch events cross-platform will need some sort of shim layer for them. Maybe Touchy could help there?
Because a hackers time is valuable, and google has solved my email requirements. I dont want to set up and maintain a email server. It can be annoying as hell I've done it before. It's 'fiddly'. So many config files(If you set it up properly so it uses encryption) and a lot of email services will block you if your not on a whitelist or sometimes blacklist you for silly reasons. I used to run my businesses email on ec2, you will be going through blacklists and whitelists for a long long time.
Not really. It's the cognitive dissonance of the Free Software Movement.

Software is either free or it's not free. It's either restricted or it's unrestricted. It's either proprietary or it's open.

Using hyper-capitalistic entities like Google and Facebook as a defense of the viability of free software is an interesting way to go. If anything, I'd argue they are almost perfect subversions of Free Software. Going a little deeper, a place like Y-Combinator is an even further subversion because, at it's core, it is a company that specifically exploits the profit motive of developers.

That aside, I think it's not particularly useful to argue that Stallman's contributions to the field are a vindication of his basic philosophy. Especially when those contributions are being used in a way that subverts it.
And most Windows aren't developers. The fact that linux has a CLI isn't a particularly compelling reason not to use Windows though, since Windows also does.
I'd say that the point is more on the company's perspective.

Even if some people realize <what you said> and know to just go for it, the job description scares away some people who could otherwise be qualified.

And a new startup probably can't afford to scare away potential hires.
http://addyosmani.com/blog/ has a lot of good info on working with javascript. The recommended reading in the side bar, particularly javascript garden and principals of idiomatic javascirpt have useful notes about the language and testing suites. I really like Sublime Text 2, there are some great packages for web development and javascript specifically available for it. Plus SFTP and GIT plugins. The Yahoo theater stuff, and crockford's lectures are good. But I would start with Addy Osmani's site and the stuff he recommends.
Can anyone think of any rational behind this? Why would they want to switch people to tiered data plans when there is no effective difference to them?
Except that cars contain thousands of microchips and pieces of software that run things like your radio, ABS, and other major systems in the car.
Nice to know, thanks for the tip

Did you try it and can compare it to gmail?

Especially on:

- linking other accounts (POP and IMAPS)

- spam detection
TribecaFilm.com | Future of Film | Information Does Not Want To Be Free
True, but somewhat misleading, because lawmakers found other ways to effectively ban cars:

"backlash against these large speedy vehicles resulted in the passage of the Locomotive Act (1865), which required self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile
First, his main argument is that the user of software should have the right to inspect and modify that software. So just benefiting indirectly from proprietary software does not seem a contradiction: his--and the user's--freedoms are not infringed by using things that may have been manufactured with proprietary software.

Secondly, he does not believe that certain classes of software (like in your microwave) need to be free because they are basically part of the hardware. I imagine that if he owns a car, it only has low-level control software for the engine which is basically the same but not, say, a proprietary GPS system.

In planes it is again not an issue: he doesn't own the plane, so even if it had fully free software he would not benefit. I imagine if he ever did get a plane, he would want one with free software, but that isn't particularly pertinent since he will never buy a plane.

So the things you pointed out are not infringements of his rights--they're infringements of the rights of the manufacturer or the plane company. Stallman tries to persuade people like that to stand up for their rights, but that is all he does.
Why?

> …You may also consider switching to a tiered data plan if speed is more important to you [...] Customers on tiered plans can pay for more data if they need it, and will not see reduced speeds. (from the blog post)

That's why. AT&T has shown that nearly every move they make is for the sole purpose of squeezing out all the money they can from their users.
It's about hacking parenting, and for parents running start ups the insights could be transformational.
Facebook And The Disappearing Valuation (A Fairy Tale)
Job ads like that are a HUGE sign that the company does not value Front End Engineers, and should be avoided (they are a backend company)

And a link to a great article about how to actually hire Front End Engineers http://allenc.com/2012/01/how-to-get-front-end-developers/
ZDNET aquired by Quinstreet
I actually host my own email. I developed an open source application for automatically encrypting all email with my public key as soon as it arrives, and I can't do this if somebody else hosts my email. You can read why and how here: https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_E...
Brytter looks nice but check out www.calepin.co if you're looking for really awesome blogging (via Markdown and Dropbox).
What to Try when Your iPhone Won’t Turn On
This isn't as much about place as it is about time and could have easily been entitled, "Why 1950s Parents Are Superior."

We were raised in the U.S. in the 50s and 60s much like the French children in the article. We weren't treated like children, but like small adults. There were no children's menus in restaurants. If we wanted to go to out to eat, we dressed and acted properly and ate real food with our parents. If we wanted to go to little league, piano lessons, or anywhere else, we got off our butts and found a way to get there while Dad was at work and Mom was watching younger siblings. We walked to school from age 5. If we were late for dinner, we didn't eat. If we were late getting home at night, we didn't get to go out again. If we wanted money we got a job, not an allowance. If we misbehaved...I don't know what would happen. We didn't misbehave; we just knew better.

Most of our cousins and friends were the same, with a few exceptions. That was just the way it was.

Then somebody somewhere fucked it all up and now schools are surrounded by parents in minivans picking up special people who never really grow up. No wonder.

The French aren't different, just late. Just give them a few more years and they'll fuck it all up, too.
That sounds like another one of those If You Qualify, Why Aren't You Starting Your Own Company? situations.

If the four people (actually five, I agree with Tom that number four is really two people) they're looking for got together on their own, they could start a killer startup of their own, and just hire a biz dev guy as a non-founder.

I'd love to know what this startup is, and what value the existing founders bring to the table.
If you go with VirtualBox, take the time to read its download-able manual. It's well-written and it can help you make some configuration choices, e.g. networking setup so that VB-resident services are visible to the VB host (your windows machine) but not to the world.

I'll also mention that the Official Ubuntu Server book -- to the extent I've looked at it -- is well written, although you'll have to look further for the "nitty gritty" on particular topics. Note, this is the Server version of the "Official" line. My vague recollection is that I was somewhat less impressed with the desktop "Official" entry.

http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/operating-systems-and-s...
> And then each of those dev teams can spend 1/2 their time writing code other people in the company have already written or every team can spend 1/2 their time publishing and reading documentation about what has been written.

I don't see what this has to do with a discussion of one repo vs multiple repos.

You think that in a multi repo world, the engineers aren't as aware of what code exists and where as they are in a single repo world? You think that code duplication and needing to read docs magically doesn't exist in a single repo world?

The number of repositories is just an organizational construct. Communication still must take place no matter what.
Add 3 million random numbers in Racket
Using networkx to make a graph of Google auto-suggest stereotypes about animals
Refurbished Motorola Xooms sold had Personal Data of previous owners
Hint - they post their jobs page to Hacker News regularly, and you can apply via API.
I spend more time on hacker news. I get scared I'm going to miss an interesting tidbit.
I use htop on my macbook, that said it dual boots to #! linux. I honestly work in OSX more often than my linux environment, but installing Gentoo on an old PC when I was 15 really gave me the foundational understanding of computers I have today. Doing it again and again on various machines has improved that. I would like to work in my linux environment more (besides on my server that is), but I use OSX because there are a lot of convenience applications that make web development a cinch. Plus with homebrew I can get most cli stuff I need with out any problem.
I call BS. Most web startups don't do web clients. nknight in this thread agrees with me. Do you have any evidence to back your claim, or are you making up this statistic?

I specifically pointed out that using AGPL "might be a problem", so your inclusion here looks like it's evading your original comment concerning the GPL and web startups I ask again, what limitations does the GPL license place on a web startup?

You linked to an earlier HN discussion. Neither it nor the linked-to page mentions iOS or iPhone development, which seems to be your main concern now. They look like the standard random points that appears in any discussion of BSD v. GPL, so you'll need to point out the real issues.

Then again, you said "GPL is not the greatest license, that's why they created LGPL (to remove some of its stupid restrictions)" which is completely wrong. The "Why you shouldn't use the LGPL" document from the FSF says "The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library." Even the title alone should tell you that LGPL is not meant as successor or improvement to the LGPL.

This leads me to believe that you don't know the issues and are winging it.
Zimbra has a very heavy feel (it is more Outlook than usable client) and the mobile support is not a part of the open source edition.
What I've found to be helpful is to set them up to be critical: "Yeah, so, this is an interface that my (cousin/roommate/________) designed, but I just don't think it's quite ... there. I haven't been able to articulate just what isn't right about it. I'd love to know your thoughts on it."

Set it up that way and they're primed to give critical feedback. If they can help you articulate what's problematic about the interface, they end up being the hero. You both win.
I took "the pragmatic UNIX way" about 15 years ago with email. It works. I've not had to change it and don't feel compelled to bother changing it.

I host my own mail server. It's not hard regardless of the platform you use. I use debian+postfix+mutt as it pretty much works out of the box. I've changed perhaps two lines of postfix configuration (to set up maildir) and added a couple of lines to my muttrc to pick up maildir and view html mail using links.

I don't get SPAM at all. I don't stick my email address anywhere on the Internet where it will get snagged into a spam database. I never have. I've not had a single SPAM message in 15 years with the same email address. I do not use any spam filtering software.

I use aliases for mailing lists which are created and destroyed on demand using a couple of 2 line scripts ("append, newalises" -and- "sed, newalises").

I can get into it quite happily from anywhere using SSH on my mobile device using MIDPSSH or another machine with PuTTY, iSSH, or good old terminal SSH.

I don't keep emails ever. I action them, then throw them away. Those who keep everything are like the crazy old people who live in rooms stacked to the ceiling with newspapers. I have nothing to backup or care for in that department. If I lose my mailbox, I have lost nothing.

I do not manage my tasks with email. I use a text file in my home directory called notes.txt.

My contacts list is a text file called contacts.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped.

My calendar is a text file called cal.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped.

I probably spent about an hour in the last 10 years on email server configuration. That's considerably less time than some of my peers spend dredging through their 5 years of gmail junk.

Self respecting hackers don't use Gmail and Co.
Nice work on this. I'll be keeping an eye on it for sure. I've got some apps that can use it.
I saw that ad, thought about applying, but decided not to.

Here is why:

-- A list of common languages is something that pushes me away. Why? Because it tells me (by experience) that they want someone who can do it all (impossible). Its fine to list 2-3 languages or frameworks, but more than that just makes me very suspicious.

-- A bachelor's degree. I don't have one, I will not get one. Why ask for one when a lot of CS graduates can't program?

-- Experience? Sure, lots. But when you get older (I'm 32+), everything looks the same: just data sets, and problems to be solved. There is a blurry line between languages/frameworks/etc. Everything is just more of the same (I do, however, enjoy it!).
Ask for experience in engineering, and not for experience in the latest dohicketydo.
NoScript and RequestPolicy are best used together (as recommended by the creator of the latter) as they serve different purposes. This, plus a few other add-ons in these areas are my set-up and that works well.
Anyone have any experience in the process of switching an AT&T iPhone to Verizon? Worth it? Any gotchas?
Imagine being taken from a society where the rules are constant and fair, which rewards patience and where fellow children are well disciplined and patient.
Now drop into an American classroom.

I'd be snotty too.
The llama is back WinAmp Pro Available in Android Market
Actually, I can't help thinking a much larger issue is marketing and fashion. Nobody except a few large proprietary software companies (Apple, Microsoft) have enough leverage to market heavily to average consumers. Most people do not make heavily researched, purely rational decisions about what to buy: they just get whatever they saw in an ad or whatever is in the store. In both cases, thanks to the obscene amount of money Apple and Microsoft put into distribution and advertising (as well as some monopolistic behavior), the most readily available computers run either Mac OS or Windows. Ubunutu is, in large part, successful because they at least have some marketing. If they managed to get Ubunutu laptops into stores, people would probably buy them. But then Microsoft would go out of its way to crush them (witness the Linux netbooks of a little while ago).

Stallman did write some brilliant software some time ago. Now, unlike Linus, he is concentrating on social issues of free software rather than on programming. And his advocacy has doubtlessly increased the use of the GPL, which has had some very concrete beneficial effects. For example, my understanding is that WebKit is largely free because it was originally forked from KHTML.
People are mad that Some Random Hedge Fund will pay them more than Google and that Google won't match it. This is upsetting because now they have to choose between a shitty job that pays a ton and a great job that merely only pays a lot, when they want a great job that pays a ton.

Honestly, nobody's ever offered me more money than Google, so I have no reason to complain.