Xah's Edu Corner: Examples of Quality Technical Writing

[robic0]

Responsible Software Licensing

Xah Lee, 200307

Software is a interesting invention. Software has this interesting Soft, like your head
property, that it can be duplicated without cost, as if like copying it costs to dup, dup
money. Never in history are goods duplicable without cost. But with the

wrong, you can dup your bullshit evrywhere for free

invention of computer, the ephemeral non-physical programs break that

you don't know what a computer is

precept. In digital form, programs and music and books all become goods

i bid a gigabuck for that gigabyte

in essentially infinite quantity. in a for() loop maybe

All is good except, bads in digital form can also multiply equally,

get a calculator, bad is negative and subtracts, not multiply

just as goods. Well known examples are computer viruses and email

virus and email or virus in email?

spams. Unknown to the throng of unix morons are software bads. In a

"software bads" is like asian bads, dumber than dog shit

unix moron's mind, the predominant quip among hackers is “where is

whats on the morons mind anyway Zah?

your code?”, singnifying the mentality that a hacker's prestige is

when is mentality signified, do a cat scan do any good?

judged on how much code he has contributed to the community. Therefore,

per line or content? if the dude is dumb does his software get demoted

every fucking studs and happy-go-lucky morons put their homework on the

right, the 9 inch dicked moron with the genious iq, and very tall..

net, with a big stamp of FREE, and quite proud of their

free... suck my 9 inch dick, and quite proud

“contributions” to the world. These digital bads, including

well, a big dick is a gods gift to women (or did u mean digitial dick)

irresponsible programs, protocols, and languages, spread like viruses

every program i ever met was irresponsible and never wore condoms
(i never fucked with them so "i" don't know)

until they obtained the touting right of being the STANDARD or MOST

yup, down south we call them the "John Henry", definetly the standard

POPULAR in industry, as if indicating superior quality. Examplary are

nah, superior "dick size" doesen't mean mind

C, Perl, RFC, X-Windows, Apache, MySQL, Pretty Home Page (and almost

oh, u name dropper your so intelligent

anything out of unix). The harm of a virus is temporal. The harm of

a "virus" is a physical ailment, not a mind doodoo

irresponsible software (especially with unscrupulous promotion) is the

i never knew a responsible software, can u name one? they don't
talk to me, maybe cause i just curse them out...... hahahaaaaaaaaaaa

creation of a entire generation of bad thinking and monkey coders. The

i think you mean monkey jakkingoff, which usually leads to bad
thinking, i mean really man step away from the gun and put your hands
in the air...

scale can be compared as to putting a bullet in a person brain, versus

you mean surgically, i never saw one "put" in there. anybody seen
this happen?

creating a creed with the Holocaust aftermath.

omg, bring the jews into into it.....

Distribution of software is easily like pollution. I thought of a law

so shit flows downhill eh...

that would ban the distribution of software bads, or like charging for

keep the software bads to yourself (whatever that is)

garbage collection in modern societies. The problem is the difficulty

nothin wrong with garbage, its a 3 billion dolla industry

of deciding what is good and what is bad. Like in so many things, i

can we leave good/bad up got god, or at least anybody with a brain?

think the ultimate help is for people to be aware; so-called education;

i think toilet paper helps alot better, edu is a mind fuk divorced
from reality ... like u

I believe, if people are made aware of the situation i spoke of, then

awareness comes when you "find" your navel

irresponsible software will decrease, regardless any individual's
opinion.

i never knew a "mind" software that considered itself irresponsible

The most important measure to counter the tremendous harm that is the epa
irresponsible software has done to the industry is to begin with

can't we all agree "software" is not people ...

responsible licenses, such that the producer of a software will be

can't we all agree licenses were made for marriages and dog tags ..

liable for damage incurred thru their software. As we know, today's

your software killed my country, i want 1 trillion in damages

software license comes with a disclaimer that essentially says the i wish marriage license did
software is sold as is and the producer is not responsible for any

software is sold. i think you should be instead, we know what u can do

damage, nor guaranteeing the functionality of the software. It is this,

software functions as it was programmed, not as your conception of
its use ... you should find out what "it" doess first

that ferments all sorts of sloppitudes and fads and myths to rampage

sounds like the internet and "blogs" ... lots to waste time on there

and survive in the software industry. Once when software producers are

you won't live long enough to survive it

liable for their products, just as bridge or airplane or transportation

hey, lets start with the automotive industry first, eh.,, you want to
survive "their" software first don't ya?

or house builders are responsible for the things they build, then

hahaaaa, hurricane andrew destroys 50,000 homes ... when the
"wind" gets big u know ..

injurious fads and creeds the likes of (Perl, Programing Patterns,

i'm all wadded up in injuries, send the chiropractor ..

eXtreme Programing, “Universal” Modeling Language...) will

backticks ? errr, ahhh, jeez.......

automatically disappear by dint of market force without anyone's
stipulation.

man, you better switch to vegatables, i think your health will
deteriorate if you keep swallowing the software shit you are
dishing out ...

In our already established infrastructure of software and industry

i just can't, i mean i could but, its so close to the bottom and
jeez, i'll just summ up on the bottom .

practices that is so already fucked up by existing shams, we can not
immediately expect a about-face in software licenses from 0 liability
to 100% liability. We should gradually make them responsible. And this,
comes not from artificial force, but gradual establishment of awareness
among software professionals and their consumers. (Producers include
single individual to software houses, and consumers include not just
mom & pop but from IT corps to military.)

Please spread this idea.
--------------------------------
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http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license.html

Xah
(e-mail address removed)
? http://xahlee.org/

"mom & pop but from IT corps to military"

Xah, please admit to me that your under the influence of
physocopic drugs! This hurt me to do this to you man
but, and I respect you but, you need some serious, serious
evaluation by a shrink.

You can redeam yourself if you post some original dynamite,
earth shaking code that a phenom such as yourself in criticism
really shows he knows what he is talking about. That will only
add credibility to your words (as disjunctive as they are).

Show us how good your really are man, post those genius words
into some God code so we can all really believe in what your
saying!

Thanks

 

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

<snip>

So, at last they found one another.

 

[robic0]

So, at last they found one another.

Thanks for the coaching Gunnar !!!

 

[Mark Carter]

Xah, please admit to me that your under the influence of
physocopic drugs!

He could be schizophrenic.

Seekers of all things wierd on the internet can do no better than Gene
Ray's Timecube:
http://www.timecube.com/

His outpourings are so well known that he even gets a mention in the
wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Ray

And once you've fully absorbed the fact that "You are educated as a
stupid android slave to the evil Word Animal Singularity Brotherhood",
why not play the game of the theory over at:
http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/timecube.html

 

[Matt Garrish]

physocopic drugs!

Please do us all the favour of taking a basic literacy course. You aren't
even close half the time, which just confirms you're a halfwit.

Matt

 

[Roedy Green]

Please do us all the favour of taking a basic literacy course. You aren't
even close half the time, which just confirms you're a halfwit.

are you bawling out robico or Xah?

Attributions are necessary for personal attacks.

 

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

are you bawling out robico or Xah?

Does it really matter?

 

[Eric J. Roode]

robic0 wrote in
I worship you, Xah.

--
Eric
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$!=~/(.)(.).(.)(.)(.)(.)..(.)(.)(.)..(.)......(.)/,$"),$=++;$.++;$.++;
$_++;$_++;($_,$\,$,)=($~.$"."$;$/$%[$?]$_$\$,$:$%[$?]",$"&$~,$#,);$,++
;$,++;$^|=$";`$_$\$,$/$:$;$~$*$%[$?]$.$~$*${#}$%[$?]$;$\$"$^$~$*.>&$=`

 

[=?iso-8859-1?q?Lars_Rune_N=F8stdal?=]

hi,
everyone thinks youreoay ****** and that youreh stupid .. now go
fugkght yourselfes

peasse out .. yo!

 

[Roedy Green]

hi,
everyone thinks youreoay ****** and that youreh stupid .. now go
fugkght yourselfes

If you want to insult someone, please spell it correctly and be
accurate. Your anger has nothing to do with his sexual preference.

In the process you got me thinking about plonking you to avoid ever
helping a bigot with his Darwinian quest.

 

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Xah Lee wrote:
<cut>
Nice rant, btw in most EU countries the software creator can not
withdraw the responsibility of his/her/it creation, regardless of what
the disclaimer says. The law is the leading authority and not some
Disclaimer/EULA, that's why most US EULA's are unauthoritative in the EU.

 

[Ulrich Hobelmann]

Xah Lee wrote:
<cut>
Nice rant, btw in most EU countries the software creator can not
withdraw the responsibility of his/her/it creation, regardless of what
the disclaimer says. The law is the leading authority and not some
Disclaimer/EULA, that's why most US EULA's are unauthoritative in the EU.

Actually most EULAs are unauthoritative in both the USA and (parts of)
the EU, because the customer usually doesn't know or sign the EULA
before he buys the software. At least that's what I heard.

The piece that a European programmer can never withdraw responsibility
could be a big problem to open-source software, though. I'm not sure
I'd want to freely publish anything that could result in liability for me.

 

[Martin P. Hellwig]

Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:

The piece that a European programmer can never withdraw responsibility
could be a big problem to open-source software, though. I'm not sure
I'd want to freely publish anything that could result in liability for me.

Not that big of a problem, in EU a user is still primary liable for his
own action unless he's deliberately been mislead without any possibility
to know that, think in terms of trojans and viruses.
So no suing over spilling hot coffee here unless the container it's
carried in is faulty

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Lars Rune Nøstdal said something like:

hi,
everyone thinks youreoay ****** and that youreh stupid .. now go
fugkght yourselfes

peasse out .. yo!

Idiot. <PLONK>

 

[robic0]

He could be schizophrenic.

Seekers of all things wierd on the internet can do no better than Gene
Ray's Timecube:
http://www.timecube.com/

His outpourings are so well known that he even gets a mention in the
wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Ray

And once you've fully absorbed the fact that "You are educated as a
stupid android slave to the evil Word Animal Singularity Brotherhood",
why not play the game of the theory over at:
http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/timecube.html

what would Einstien do? take a trip on a beam of light....

 

[robic0]

Xah Lee wrote:
<cut>
Nice rant, btw in most EU countries the software creator can not
withdraw the responsibility of his/her/it creation, regardless of what
the disclaimer says.

Pretty big damned statement there boy! As about a coverall
generalization for all faults if I ever heard!

The law is the leading authority and not some
Disclaimer/EULA, that's why most US EULA's are unauthoritative in the EU.

If the software opens a file and is in the middle of writing to it,
then the user dumps the power to the machine and ends up having to
reformat, thereby losing all his data, at what point does the
liability stop? And how is fault proven or dished out? Does the
law specifically state "repeatability" in its language?

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

robic0 wrote about software liabilities:

If the software opens a file and is in the middle of writing to it,
then the user dumps the power to the machine and ends up having to
reformat, thereby losing all his data, at what point does the
liability stop? And how is fault proven or dished out? Does the
law specifically state "repeatability" in its language?

This question is hardly unique to software. All
manufacturers and suppliers have to deal with the
question of what is covered by warranty.

But it is possible to code defensively. For instance,
instead of writing directly to the user's file, you
should write to a temporary file, then when the write
is complete, you rename the temp file to the "real"
file. On some OSes that can be an atomic operation, but
even if it is not, your danger zone where a power
failure can cause the user to lose data is strongly
reduced.

As a general rule, closed source software suppliers
have a terrible reputation for responding to bug
reports quickly and in good faith. It sometimes seems
that the bigger and more successful the software
supplier is, the more likely they are to sit on bug
reports, doing nothing to fix them, and threaten to sue
if you disclose -- all the more so if it is a security
exploit.


Follow-ups to comp.lang.python please.

 

[Roedy Green]

If the software opens a file and is in the middle of writing to it,
then the user dumps the power to the machine and ends up having to
reformat, thereby losing all his data, at what point does the
liability stop? And how is fault proven or dished out? Does the
law specifically state "repeatability" in its language?

It would expect it to work much the way a car works. If you have an
accident, that is your fault. If the fuel pump is badly designed so it
catches fire, that in the manufacturers fault.

 

[robic0]

It would expect it to work much the way a car works. If you have an
accident, that is your fault. If the fuel pump is badly designed so it
catches fire, that in the manufacturers fault.

You'ld have to prove the fuel pump caused your accident wouldn't you?
I'm reversed when it comes to engineering. I always assume defects
when buss loads of people are killed.
If software ever guards lives that isin't certified then its a
manufacturing defect. That is imbedded software though. Not the
for public consumption. I know that fly-by-wire military software
has 100 levels of precaution. Hey but its a 7 million dollar plane
and a 700 billion dollar budget. The written requirements for a
single design is a book 5 inches thick. Ever see that for
Joe bullshit software designer?

 

[Xah Lee]

Responsible Software Licensing & Free Software Foundation

Xah Lee, 2005-07

Dear Programers,

I have always respected the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and its
community.

when i wrote the article a couple years ago on Responsible Software
Licensing, i thought it might not be welcomed by the free software
community, because in a way responsibility is implicitly a antithesis
against the free software community.

I have high respect for the Free Software Foundation, even though i do
not believe their tenet and dedication that ALL software MUST be
“Freeâ€. Nevertheless, i respect its founder Richard Stallman and
the community on the whole. I think it is a very good group in a
capitalistic software environment, as i'm also a strong advocate and
believer in the goodness of laissez-faire system.

So, as i was thinking that a movement towards Responsible Software
Licensing may be opposed by the free software community in general, in
principle and in practice. In principle because FSF's ethics focuses on
the goodness of individuals, as opposed to some forced regulations such
as licenses and contracts. In practice because most people in the free
software camp are there because they are poor students and are totally
ignorant of sociology, economics, business, law. As a class of the
young, they are OpenSourcing fanatics for the thiefing and gratis and
noise-making parts.

In a commpercial software, where money are paid to acquire, it is
reasonable to demand workability from the sold goods. However, in Free
Software, almost always it is never a commercial item (i.e. practically
it is always free of charge), therefore demanding that the software
hold some responsibility for its consumers may seem inappropriate. We
cannot stipulate warranties and insurances from gifts. (Nor can we, for
some conceived ethics, to force some behavior by law, as history shows
us that is not going to work well.)

However, i think the free software community can in fact advocate
responsible software licensing, and be a pioneer in this movement.

As i've indicated in the Responsible Licensing article, that today's
software come with disclaimers that essentially say the producer is not
liable even if the software don't work at all. It will be hard to
change this zero responsibility stance to a 100% responsibility stance.
However, we can start in small ways. Suppose, if you write a piece of
email program, although there are a myriad scenarios that it will have
problems sending email and in reality such problem happens often, but a
responsible software programer can at least GUARANTEE, that the
software WILL work to some extent of its described utility. In the
email program example, a responsible author can say “We GUARANTEE
that this software will send out emails in a normal setting. If not, we
will refund the money you have paid, or, send you $1 USD.†Although
this may seem fuzzy and silly, but it is a start. By giving a very safe
minimal guarantee of functionality, possibly with a nominal liability
assurance, the author will have made a _Responsible License_.

The Free Software Foundation's GNU project has been a pioneer in many
aspects. It is a pioneer in the concept of Free Software with its GPL
license, which is the main force behind the success and ubiquity of
Linux and a massive collection of freely available software and
components. It in fact has made a major impact in society, even beyond
the realm of software industry. (for instance, the massive grass-roots
online info-encyclopedia Wikipedia.org is a indirect consequence FSF
and GPL) Free Software community also has done pioneering leads in
software technology. For example, its emacs text editor, is a
all-encompassing, self-documented, self-sustaining software, and a
quality work at that. It embodies the LISP programing language, and in
fact emacs is mainly responsible for spreading the quality concepts
that is functional programing to most industrial programers. The GNU C
Compiler (now GNU Compiler Collection), is critical in starting Linux
and a massive collection of software in the unix industry.

This is why i think Free Software Foundation can be a leader towards
responsible software licensing. There are a huge number of Free
Software followers. Many of us also publish our programs, big or small.
By starting with a very small, nominal statement in the license, we can
spread the attitude of responsible software. Gradually, this practice
can spread to commercial software, and to such a degree of competing
offers of liabilities and guarantees as we have in for example USA's
consumer products.

Please think about this. If you agree, please spread the idea.

----------
This post is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license_FSF.html

Xah
(e-mail address removed)
∑ http://xahlee.org/