Huh, so the guy used to actually be a productive scientist? Weird.

My assumption that he didn't know any better was based on the mysticism angle. I suppose knowing it would appeal to generally illiterate people is why he goes that way. SMH

It's so obvious he's a fraud. People claim to have found secret knowledge ALL THE TIME, and the one thing most of them do is claim it's an ancient secret from some famous historical figure. It's the exact fraudster formula for this kind of thing.

People like this... who have virtually no understanding of science or mathematics.. view both as a kind of mysticism no different than a religion. That's why they work so hard to ground their bullshit in what they assume is the foundations of that mysticism.

Dependents is not an accurate replacement for slave regarding software constructs. Dependents is more general and has all kinds of different uses. Slave has specific protocol or structural meaning that is very informative. Child is wrong too. So is receiver or target.

I go along with some of this kind of stuff, but this one in particular is dumb. It's a word. About the only way that should be offensive is if some team lead keeps assigning the management/handling of "slave interfaces" to his black developers.

I actually am on BLM's side. It's blindingly obvious to anyone that pays any attention at all that there is plenty of injustice around those issues. Only hurr durr "but all lives matter" dumbasses can manage to misinterpret an absolutely obvious "black lives matter (too)" as "'(only) black lives matter". Taping foam bumpers all over our vocabulary doesn't do anything to solve those issues... it just makes people think they're "helped" when they haven't done shit but patronize.

Ha! Yes, coin-operated. Quarters only.

(No, not a ventilator)

Well, some people would not consider this a problem... but from a LGPL point of view it's difficult to dynamically link on iOS. I think I can just release a library archive and link with a shell application pulling in the rest of the Qt library... that way it is possible to re-link with an altered Qt library... but I'm not sure. We haven't quite gone there yet. Proper dynamic linking on iOS would solve that problem. It sounds like iOS may support it. Last I checked anyway, Qt did not.

I make a hardware product with embedded software and PC/tablet/phone applications to interface to it. The software is more of a differentiating feature than the whole product.

I totally get where you're going with that... we use Linux on the embedded system. It's definitely a better way to go.

I keep meaning to clean up and release one of our kernel drivers and it's associated library... basically a kernel-level publish-subscribe message system. However, I've got no illusions that it's amazing work or anything... it's just potentially useful and it's a lot more generic than our other stuff. I like it being in the kernel as there's no extra context switching for a server process to distribute the messages to the right processes. On midrange embedded ARM processors it helps. It's probably too task specific for inclusion, though.

I'm definitely going niche on the target market. We should be fine for a good while on that front. Our competition is still on 8051s, 683xx... maybe Analog Devices DSPs. Linux is a competitive advantage.... it should be easy to do but apparently it isn't.

Oh please.

This is as good a point as any to express my opinion on your kind of viewpoint... which of course is not new to me.

I contribute, occasionally, to open source. Most people rambling on about user freedom and information being meant to be free are not speaking in my interest at all and aren't actual contributors.

Sure, the USERS enjoy a lot more freedom. Developers? *shrug* That's not RS's point. His printer story was a user story, not a developer story.

If I, to copy your language... embraced... YOUR concept of intellectual communism... I would be stuck in hourly contract or mediocre salary jobs forever. If I gave out my product's source code, my clients WOULD copy my product and I'd be out of work. This is virtually certain as a major client already tried to copy the main product and failed. My employees would be out of work. I can't survive on support contracts, we get two support calls a month. We'd all be looking for some other way to make a living.

Look, to contribute to GPL, LGPL, BSD, etc is basically a noble thing. I prefer BSD, because then people more like me can use it too. To insist that if the fruit of our labors, us developers, should be freely given away... that enriches the world but it cheapens us. It's really no different than saying a musician, author, sculptor, painter, movie producer, etc, etc. should also give their work away for free to enrich the world. Sure, cooperatively building massive software platforms has a particular utility to all, but so would huge databases of complete manufacturing plans to every product ever made. Why is only my (original) profession's labor suddenly unethical to profit from? How the f did that happen?

Some may gain fulfillment and happiness contributing to open source projects. They help expand what is possible for everyone. They also gain visibility and attract the attention of potential employers. It's a great thing, really. It's just not the only way the world should work. I should (and do) have the choice when to hold something back and expect payment for it. That's especially true when it represents years and years of personal work.

I really don't get why it's just software. I can guarantee "information should be free" carried out to it's logical conclusion would bring a LOT more value to the social commons than just software.

If developers really cared about software being free, they'd drop their commonly desired attribution clauses. Attribution is just another form of payment. It's a currency the author can parlay into prestige, jobs... You may think "it's only fair to acknowledge the author" ... well, actually respecting their choices on how they are paid for that work would be pretty fair, too.

The time may come for information to actually be free. Once automation destroys 99% of all jobs, capitalism as a workable system would likely fail. Maybe we'll end up in some Star Trek utopia... but more likely we'll at least pass through some place really dark on the way there.

For now, as long as the world expects people to pay for things with money, and earn that money through their labor.... I will continue to resent the implication that I should not be able to benefit too much from that labor.

I will continue to contribute to open source in line with what I feel is fair... but I will not apologize for holding back the fruit of my efforts to extract some value from it. End of story.

I wish I could have been a paying customer.

I did quick and dirt ports of Qt to the original Kindle and PalmOS... used it for years after the switch to LGPL... always intended to buy a license when it made sense.

Finally, when I stopped contracting (where requiring a paid license would be a competitive disadvantage), I thought "ah ha! I can finally buy a license".

Nope.

Not only did they price themselves into car-payment territory, the real killer is the license detail that once I switch to commercial all my existing Qt software IP goes permanently tied to maintaining that car-payment commercial license. My own IP, essentially held hostage.

I understand why they thought they had to do that... companies with all LGPL and one commercial license on the build box would be a real problem... but this solution is completely unworkable in my situation. Sorry, no.

So... I'm stuck back at 5.6.3, at LGPL 2.1. I'm half-convinced I can go LGPL 3, but iOS is the only real problem with that.

Oh well. I used to be a big evangelist. Now, I can't even recommend it. I've honestly been hoping for a fork, really. Maybe a true open-source fork would have a better solution for iOS. (I mention iOS twice here, but it's only a minor platform target... it's just an important one)

If there's anything like a 35K one day option all-inclusive, you'd better believe there's a lot of people who would do that.

Heck, with enough life insurance for the kids and wife, I'd probably do it.

Ok, so what am I missing? "single largest (wealthiest) company in the world" ...

Their market cap is 1/3 of Apple, they have 5.35B in cash (Apple has 48.84B, hell Shell has 15.42B...), they have 71,000 employees to Apple's 132,000 or Walmart's 2.2 million ... they're #12 in the S&P 500 ... what's your metric?

Is it just me, or does that older guy's eyelids look pretty red and puffy?

I guess it gives new meaning to "Stop undressing me with your eyes!"

Boeing fucked up, failed to demonstrate what they were supposed to. They should pay. Pretty straightforward.

That said, there's probably some cost-plus bullshit that pins it on NASA. Maybe Boeing even profits from the failure. (Not that the loss of confidence would be worth it)

Going from $80B+ to $30B by removing things that don't contribute much value at all is so asinine it's obviously a troll.

Holy fuck. Q1 was a $700m loss, and you're saying they'll lose $1B on Q4?

They just posted record deliveries and the average sale price is up. Gross margins are almost certainly up as well. How, exactly, did you come upon that $1B number?

Saying the stock's in a bubble is one thing, but saying actual Q4 results will be worse than Q1?