1) Summary indicates there are people who are annoyed. No actual links to annoyance.
2) Summary indicates it's quoting a blog post. No blog post linked, just the rules page.
3) The rules page has been around since 2015: https://archive.fo/https://www... - not that "new code of conduct" means that the writer intended to convey it was brand new, but certainly it will be interpreted that way by a lot of folks.
4) FreeBSD had some sort of discussion around it when it came to be in 2015: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.... and it looks like there was some actual internal stuff for project participants that occurred but again, nothing really happened
5) This type of code of conduct isn't really crazy in the OSS world by a simple search. For example, https://www.contributor-covena... shows a plethora of OSS projects that participate and is based on similar principles. Big names OSS participants include Eclipse, Spring, Atom,
6) Microsoft has code of conduct that touches on similar issues: https://opensource.microsoft.c...
7) Github has a guide actively encouraging codes of conduct within communities: https://opensource.guide/code-... and pointing to other OSS projects that have them: https://www.djangoproject.com/...

If you look at FreeBSD's code of conduct in context it really seems like they're late to the party, which may just be a formality (the community norms might already be enforcing these types of rules anyway) or a dramatic change, but there's no way to actually get that from the summary at all.

Yeah, that's a bad habit of mine, I make that mistake a lot.

I meant it was literally an example of the figurative cat and mouse game, not just like it. I should heed the warnings of XKCD tho.

I agree that contradiction and difference aren't the same thing. But I think I'm right in that it didn't really seem like they were pointing out a difference even. "While it looks like a cat and mouse game, the researches are participating in the cat and mouse game." Other people here disagree with me - that's cool, it's their prerogative. I can see it being read a different way.

I think there are a lot of fair critiques to my criticism (and one that was downright mean, though it got flagged as flamebait). This one is fair. I made other mistakes - I used "in fact" redundantly. I'm sure some of those who know grammar better than I can point out other flaws.

I don't think a Slashdot comment needs to be held to as a high of a standard as a Slashdot summary. The whole point is someone has the title of editor. I think that should mean they have the job of conveying information clearly and editing summaries to that effect, and I felt this summary was unclear and the editor could have stepped in to improve it.

While this looks like another example of the cat and mouse game between those wishing to surf the net anonymously and a government intent on curtailing online freedoms, the researchers suggest ways that the latest blocking techniques may be defeated."

I hatelove slashdot summaries, and here is another example of why. Yes, I haven't read TFA.

When you use the word "while" like this, it sounds like you're going to be contradicting the first point. Especially when you use the phrase "this looks like" immediately afterward.

Instead, the second part of the sentence goes on to directly corroborate what the scenario looks like. Surprise! While it looks like you're setting up a contradiction, you finish up with reinforcement.

So in fact it doesn't just "[look] like another example of the cat and mouse game", but in fact it literally is an example of the cat and mouse game, and the researches propose another way for the mouse to escape. And yet another awkward summary graces the Slashdot homepage, in the grand tradition.

Personally, I feel this may also be about Apple's clout within the manufacturing world abroad and their ability to get results since they're such a high profile customer. Ars Technica (it's actually a Wired article) had a piece a few months ago about small businesses and how turning away from overseas manufacturing was a win, since labor costs abroad were going up: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/in-early-2010-somewhere-high.ars

In early 2010, somewhere high above the northern hemisphere, Mark Krywko decided he’d had enough. The CEO of Sleek Audio, a purveyor of high-end earphones, Krywko was flying home to Florida after yet another frustrating visit to Dongguan, China, where a contract factory assembled the majority of his company’s products. He and his son, Jason, Sleek Audio’s cofounder, made the long trip every few months to troubleshoot quality flaws. Every time the Krywkos visited Dongguan, their Chinese partners assured them everything was under control. Those promises almost always proved empty.

Today, a year since Krywko’s decision to go against the offshoring tide, Sleek Audio has a full-scale manufacturing operation that can be reached via a 15-minute car ride rather than a 24-hour flight. Each earphone costs roughly 50 percent more to produce in Florida than in China. But Krywko is more than happy to pay the premium to know that botched orders and shipping delays won’t ruin his company. And so far, the gambit appears to be paying off: Based on enthusiastic customer response, Sleek Audio is now projecting 2011 to be its most profitable year ever.

Just because Apple and other top tier companies (Corning is mentioned in the article) had a good experience with overseas manufacturing doesn't mean everyone will. If you're pretty much any business smaller than Apple, you might not get the results you want since they simply may not care about you as much.

At least with Maps that's not true, and does Bing or Ask Jeeve's not exist?

If only one provider of content exists and there's no alternative that strikes me as a problem of a Monopoly, not any inherent problem with "Open APIs." Open Source software can't solve the problem of Amazon having decades of user data or Ebay being the top provider of auction sales.

I agree with that. The question then is whether or not the cost was arbitrarily driven up to run the client out of business or because the cost of running the services behind the "Open API" is simply increasing. And in theory, if you can re implement the API or someone cheaper can (as the article advocates, people should compete with AWS by reimplementing their API and using it as an open standard) then there is less vendor lock in.

I don't really like the term Open API, that's what the Register author used and I went with it, but I myself confused that term in my original post by saying "Private API" once. The APIs are open perhaps, but the implementation costs money. For many developers, it's worth the cost and the risk of that cost increasing. For some it isn't.

Ask for a quota increase for free if possible, pay for a quota increase financed by your customers or your benevolence or whatever, or watch as your application doesn't get used because the queries start failing. If you had a vps and eventually your number of users maxed out the ram or GB/month limit, it'd be the same thing.

I love Slashdot summaries. The very last line summarizes the tone of TFA:

But at the heart of each is APIs. Open APIs are the new open source, except they require less geeky access to lines of code, and more programmatic interaction with software services. As an added bonus, open APIs don't come with the baggage of licensing fundamentalists. Praise the heavens!

Emphasis Mine.

There's a lot of places to come down on this. I develop with Google Apps, which leverages a lot of Open Source software in order to grant me the functionality to develop applications. I don't think that Private APIs are necessarily a hindrance to Open Source; They can obviously (and currently do) serve as a complement to provide necessarily complex and costly access to functionality my application or the machines that it runs on can't provide. And for me, the complex and costly bar is low, and this is where the line "Open APIs ... require less geeky access to lines of code, and more programmatic interaction with software services" actually shines. I hate running my own RDBMS on my own private web host. I don't really feel like setting up cron and the permissions on an account so cron can run a web application task safely. They are complications I don't care to deal with. Same with designing simple user account systems and storing passwords. These are problems I want solved, and most open source frameworks don't care to solve these problems for me. Google Apps does. And that's a huge complexity and cost (in terms of time) I'd have to invest micromanaging those things when I want to just write an application instead of doing server maintenance. And I know I'm not alone, or else there wouldn't be successful applications deployed on Google Apps.

But that doesn't mean I don't use webob, or the open source WebApp2, or any of an additional set of open source python modules for various functionality in my application, and I am extremely grateful to those Open Source developers that chose to permissively license their modules. Without them, Google wouldn't be able to offer their services, and I wouldn't be able to leverage them.

Parent is almost exactly right.

When you have the headline "Firefox 9 Released" it is implied that the release is official and current. You expect that if you try to update your software through the normal update process, it will work. So they are right to expect the update to work.

The fact is that Firefox is getting released today and yesterday was an unofficial release, and as of me trying at 8:25AM Eastern Time is not available through normal update channels (i.e. help > about). The linked Extremetech article was in fact titled Firefox 9 unofficially released and states:

Ahead of an official release tomorrow, Firefox 9 has winged its way to various mirrors across the web and is now available to download from the official Firefox website — no messing around with a hammered Nightly FTP server this time, oh no!

The fact that the summary writer neglected the word "unofficial" or this very important detail that it is rolling out isn't the fault of anyone reading the article and speaks to the grand tradition of poor summary writing that Slashdot readers have grown to love/hate.

Respecting Customer Choice and Control

While the benefits of upgrading are numerous, we recognize that some organizations and individuals may want to opt-out and set their own upgrade pace. One of the things we’re committed to as we move to auto updates is striking the right balance for consumers and enterprises – getting consumers the most up-to-date version of their browser while allowing enterprises to update their browsers on their schedule. The Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 Automatic Update Blocker toolkits prevent automatic upgrades of IE for Windows customers who do not want them. Of course, we firmly believe that IE9 is the most compelling browser for business customers, and we want them to make the decision to upgrade at their convenience.

Similarly, customers who have declined previous installations of IE8 or IE9 through Windows Update will not be automatically updated. Customers have the ability to uninstall updates and continue to receive support for the version of IE that came with their copy of Windows. And similar to organizations, consumers can block the update all together and upgrade on their own. Finally, future versions of IE will provide an option in the product for consumers to opt out of automatic upgrading.

So if you opted out before you're not going to get it. And I imagine you'll be able to back track anyway. Also they have "blocker toolkits" so you can really be sure.

Ticket Fly is an up and coming competitor
Ticket Alternative has been around for almost a decade.

If you don't like one Ticket Processor's practices, okay. Then don't go to shows at venues that use that Ticket Processor. Capitalism might be able to fix this yet.

For what it's worth, I have gone to countless shows w/o paying a dime to Ticket Master. That doesn't mean I don't pay fees, but the ones I pay are a lot more reasonable ($10 plus fees with Ticket Master vs $3-5 fees elsewhere). And the option of going to the venue and buying tickets directly to avoid fees.

The irony of you leaving a comment complaining about the content I contributed that complained about the content slashdot editors contributed blows my mind. Could I make a suggestion? If you don't find a comment useful DON'T READ THE COMMENT.

Is it a slow news day? There's nothing at all happening in the world of science or technology that would be more important to the average nerd than this? What about every other bill the President has proposed? I haven't seen those on slash dot

Mod parent up. This is just tax policy news. There's no gadget, there's no advanced math - it's pure politics. This isn't news for nerds, this is news that applies to the general public and in no way applies specifically to nerds.

Would love to see someone figure out how it works and get it to buy some crappy penny stock in order to dump it. What a great use of twitter spam.