3 ms·

Fairly immediately?! What the hell does that mean? We all need to spend less time talking out of our asses, playing armchair lawyers, and more time either heads

by edw 15y ago

Fairly immediately?! What the hell does that mean? We all need to spend less time talking out of our asses, playing armchair lawyers, and more time either heads-down coding or going to law school.

makmanalp 15y ago
... and maybe we all need to spend less time being aggressive asses. They made it pretty obvious that they were speculating, and were not trained in law. What, is that illegal now? Is it bad form? Is it offensive? They make a fairly good point about allowing an infinite period of time, which adds to the discussion. You, by insulting the poster needlessly and grossly missing the point of the post, have added nothing to the discussion. I usually try to refrain from doing this, since I'm also adding nothing to the discussion, but this is becoming an alarming trend.
- edw 15y ago
  Yes, speculating i.e. talking out of your ass is offensive. It wastes everyone's time. It's a dangerous trend. Baseless speculation forms the bedrock of the vast majority of content that appears on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. It is dangerous because it's "facty" but has no value. You and your sanctimonious defense of people's right to spout what you admit is nonsense are part of the problem. Part of a healthy culture, whether it's our culture at large or "hacker culture" is a respect for facts and thoughtful, informed opinions based on knowledge and experience. The "victim" of my comment is pissing all over a set of ideals that we should all hold sacred.
  - spoondan 15y ago
    Civility plays an important part in effective communication. You may feel that you are merely stating your opinion directly and with force. But an argument is only as strong as its ability to persuade. When you put people on the defensive--when you force an emotional rather than rational reaction--you rob an argument of its power. Aside from that, there are two other reasons to be more civil. One is that it's just a nice thing to do to treat people respectfully even (or especially) when you're telling them they're wrong. But if that doesn't persuade you, it's worth remembering that civility is explicitly required in the HN Guidelines.
    - edw 15y ago
      Good points. I, however, am dispirited by watching comments devoid of value not getting subjected to the same sort of enthusiastic down-voting as comments that reflect exasperation at those very vacuous, time-wasting comments. A culture that prefers polite nonsense to harsh truth-telling is a weak culture. At the very least, both should be punished, but I don't see that here.
  - archangel_one 15y ago
    Do you think that maybe you're being a little bit oversensitive about this? I wasn't pissing all over anything, simply offering my opinion that I don't think it's okay to wait to release the source code. I have plenty of respect for facts, knowledge and experience; if Eben Moglen pops into this thread to offer his opinion I'm happily going to defer to him. If it's so essential to hold our tongues unless we're formally qualified experts on a topic, there wouldn't be much discussion on HN. That would kind of suck.
sjs 15y ago
It means immediately. If the binary is available so the source should be available. Simple.

by edw 15y ago

Fairly immediately?! What the hell does that mean? We all need to spend less time talking out of our asses, playing armchair lawyers, and more time either heads-down coding or going to law school.

makmanalp 15y ago

... and maybe we all need to spend less time being aggressive asses. They made it pretty obvious that they were speculating, and were not trained in law. What, is that illegal now? Is it bad form? Is it offensive? They make a fairly good point about allowing an infinite period of time, which adds to the discussion. You, by insulting the poster needlessly and grossly missing the point of the post, have added nothing to the discussion. I usually try to refrain from doing this, since I'm also adding nothing to the discussion, but this is becoming an alarming trend.

edw 15y ago
Yes, speculating i.e. talking out of your ass is offensive. It wastes everyone's time. It's a dangerous trend. Baseless speculation forms the bedrock of the vast majority of content that appears on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. It is dangerous because it's "facty" but has no value. You and your sanctimonious defense of people's right to spout what you admit is nonsense are part of the problem. Part of a healthy culture, whether it's our culture at large or "hacker culture" is a respect for facts and thoughtful, informed opinions based on knowledge and experience. The "victim" of my comment is pissing all over a set of ideals that we should all hold sacred.
- spoondan 15y ago
  Civility plays an important part in effective communication. You may feel that you are merely stating your opinion directly and with force. But an argument is only as strong as its ability to persuade. When you put people on the defensive--when you force an emotional rather than rational reaction--you rob an argument of its power. Aside from that, there are two other reasons to be more civil. One is that it's just a nice thing to do to treat people respectfully even (or especially) when you're telling them they're wrong. But if that doesn't persuade you, it's worth remembering that civility is explicitly required in the HN Guidelines.
  - edw 15y ago
    Good points. I, however, am dispirited by watching comments devoid of value not getting subjected to the same sort of enthusiastic down-voting as comments that reflect exasperation at those very vacuous, time-wasting comments. A culture that prefers polite nonsense to harsh truth-telling is a weak culture. At the very least, both should be punished, but I don't see that here.
- archangel_one 15y ago
  Do you think that maybe you're being a little bit oversensitive about this? I wasn't pissing all over anything, simply offering my opinion that I don't think it's okay to wait to release the source code. I have plenty of respect for facts, knowledge and experience; if Eben Moglen pops into this thread to offer his opinion I'm happily going to defer to him. If it's so essential to hold our tongues unless we're formally qualified experts on a topic, there wouldn't be much discussion on HN. That would kind of suck.

sjs 15y ago

It means immediately. If the binary is available so the source should be available. Simple.