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-rw-r--r--talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/kragen-software.html75
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 42 deletions
diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/kragen-software.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/kragen-software.html
index a93bc14..3f15db3 100644
--- a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/kragen-software.html
+++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/kragen-software.html
@@ -1,15 +1,22 @@
<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
-<!-- Parent-Version: 1.77 -->
-<title>People, places, things and ideas
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 -->
+<!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html -->
+<!--#set var="TAGS" value="thirdparty" -->
+<!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" -->
+<title>People, Places, Things and Ideas
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/kragen-software.translist" -->
<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
-<h2>People, places, things and ideas</h2>
+<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" -->
+<!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE-->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" -->
+<div class="article reduced-width">
+<h2>People, Places, Things and Ideas</h2>
-<p>
-by <strong>Kragen Sitaker
-<a href="mailto:kragen@pobox.com">&lt;kragen@pobox.com&gt;</a></strong>
-</p>
+<address class="byline">
+by Kragen Sitaker
+<a href="mailto:kragen@pobox.com">&lt;kragen@pobox.com&gt;</a>
+</address>
<h3 id="SEC1">Software</h3>
<p>
@@ -33,7 +40,7 @@ essentially the same CD from CheapBytes for $2.
The traditional way to deal with this is to lock ideas up inside
people, places, and things. A lawyer can get quite a bit of money
simply for spitting out the appropriate ideas, not doing any actual
-creative work, or simply for applying rote procedures &mdash; most
+creative work, or simply for applying rote procedures&mdash;most
wills reportedly fall in this category. I have to go to the Georgia
O'Keeffe Museum to see old Georgia's paintings, because they don't
allow photography. Then they can charge me admission. (Great museum,
@@ -63,7 +70,7 @@ And it was the nature of computer applications, in general, until
recently. But now we have the Web, and people are talking a lot about
application-specific embedded computers. Suddenly people can deliver
applications like the ones they used to deliver as computer software,
-but they can lock up the software &mdash; the ideas &mdash; inside
+but they can lock up the software&mdash;the ideas&mdash;inside
places and things.
</p>
<p>
@@ -81,8 +88,8 @@ choices of spellings of Cathy are correlated with their last names.
<p>
There are also several web sites containing the same set of phone
listings, or newer versions. I can't do any of these things with
-these web sites, because the phone listings &mdash; an idea &mdash;
-are locked up in the web site &mdash; a place or a thing, depending on
+these web sites, because the phone listings&mdash;an idea&mdash;are
+locked up in the web site&mdash;a place or a thing, depending on
how you look at it.
</p>
<p>
@@ -96,7 +103,7 @@ too. (So far, I'm outside that curtain.) Recently, circumstances
forced them to distribute software implementations of Skipjack, and so
they declassified it. (See
<a href="https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/1998/0715.html#skip">
-http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9807.html#skip [archived]</a>
+schneier.com [archived]</a>
for more.)
</p>
@@ -120,7 +127,7 @@ special-purpose devices.
</p>
<p>
I'm somewhat worried about this trend. I like using general-purpose
-computers &mdash; though admittedly they are often difficult to use.
+computers&mdash;though admittedly they are often difficult to use.
I like the freedom it gives me. The computer is just an extension of
my mind.
</p>
@@ -139,8 +146,8 @@ people to download them. IBM's patent server has a many-terabyte
database behind it.)
</p>
<p>
-I believe that software &mdash; open-source software, in particular
-&mdash; has the potential to give individuals significantly more
+I believe that software&mdash;open-source software, in
+particular&mdash;has the potential to give individuals significantly more
control over their own lives, because it consists of ideas, not
people, places, or things. The trend toward special-purpose devices
and remote servers could reverse that.
@@ -173,8 +180,8 @@ of general-purpose computers, but a limitation of their current state.
Another big issue is that they just work. General-purpose computers
often don't, particularly when running Microsoft OSes. Even in the
best case, you still have to do a couple of seconds of irrelevant
-stuff before getting to work on what you want to work on &mdash;
-typing a letter or whatever. More typically, you have to click around
+stuff before getting to work on what you want to work on&mdash;typing
+a letter or whatever. More typically, you have to click around
for ten seconds or so. At worst, you have to reinstall Windows and
the application, reconfigure some peripherals, and reinstall their
drivers before you can get anything done.
@@ -198,9 +205,9 @@ haven't tried it yet.) But GNU/Linux is an incredibly long way away.
This will require different hardware as well as different software.
</p>
<p>
-The forces behind remote servers are similar &mdash; ease of use
+The forces behind remote servers are similar&mdash;ease of use
because of uniform interfaces through a web browser, &ldquo;just
-working&rdquo;, and no installation &mdash; just using. But they have
+working,&rdquo; and no installation&mdash;just using. But they have
a couple of other advantages as well: they can provide services that
require massive storage or computational resources that can't
reasonably be provided on your own machine, unless you want to spend
@@ -209,13 +216,14 @@ very inefficient way to search the Web.)
</p>
<p>
I think these extra advantages are probably impossible to overcome at
-the moment &mdash; although I'm interested in research on distributing
+the moment&mdash;although I'm interested in research on distributing
big computational jobs over many machines.
</p>
+</div>
</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
-<div id="footer">
+<div id="footer" role="contentinfo">
<div class="unprintable">
<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
@@ -233,43 +241,26 @@ to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
&lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
- <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+ <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of
our web pages, see <a
href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
README</a>. -->
Please see the <a
href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
-README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations
of this article.</p>
</div>
-<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
- files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
- be under CC BY-ND 3.0 US. Please do NOT change or remove this
- without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
- Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
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- year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
- being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
-
- There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
- Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
-
<p>This text is in the public domain.</p>
<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
<p class="unprintable">Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2015/08/18 16:21:27 $
+$Date: 2021/10/02 08:31:21 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
-</div>
+</div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include -->
</body>
</html>