Making the GPL more scary - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/768670/ <comment><USER2> I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but here's an opinion supporting the MongoDB license. Two things:

1\. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like

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The creator of a product:

1\. Has a rational interest in maximizing their returns

2\. Owns all the rights to their products (barring existing IP restrictions)

And if they choose to open source their code:

3\. it is of their own prerogative

4\. without any obligation to do so.

Given 1, and 2, if they open source their code, they're an awesome person because they're revealing some portion of their secret business logic to the public. With that, they are entitled to whatever conditions they put on their code. That includes CLA's regardless of how much potential contributors will protest.

It doesn't matter how "against the spirit of open source" a CLA, or an overly radical copy-left license is. The creator of the product will always have an obligation to their own interests first, and since they're already sacrificing trade secrets by revealing their software source (something they were never obligated to), they can honestly do whatever they'd like.

And this includes ensuring that _everyone_ using their software open-sources all forks of their software. Heck, even open-sources everything they use in support of their software.

Let's face it, if their software just weren't that good, no one would use it.

2\. This License Means More Open Source Code

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If the outside world wants more open source code, I don't see why they'd giving MongoDB any flak for this. All this license will do is result in more open-source code. After all, isn't that the point all along?

Or are zealous demands for open-source code only valid while it's all about a single popular product by a big company (MongoDB), and not when smaller software components by smaller companies (billing, hosting scripts by SaaS providers)?

 _Edited for grammar and other things my brain missed_

<comment><USER3> > 1\. MongoDB has the right to do whatever they like

Well, no, obviously not. They have to stay within legal bounds. But of course they can have any obscure license that is legal if they want.

The thing they get flak for is trying to deceive the public.

> 2\. This License Means More Open Source Code

This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the word. It's basically doing a lot of legal gymnastics to say "we don't want Google+Amazon to sell services based on our database, but we still want to call it Open Source". These two goals are fundamentally incompatible.

<comment><USER4> > This license is only open source in a very obscure interpretation of the > word.

It's "open source" in the dead-obvious meaning "the source code is open for inspection". I'd argue it's all of the extra baggage that the OSI have read into the words "open" and "source" that are considerably more obscure. Neither the word "open" nor "source" implies "free for commercial exploitation to all and sundry"

<comment><USER5> The _phrase_ "Open Source" is not necessarily just the summation of the constituent words "open" and "source". "Open Source" is a unique concept with a unique meaning... and the de-facto definition of that concept, is the OSD[1].

Similarly, there are are de-facto terms for the "the source code is open for inspection" (but not otherwise Open Source) models: things like "Source Available"[2] and "Shared Source"[3].

People trying to muddy the waters are generally being intentionally disingenuous because they want the general goodwill and positive buzz associated with being Open Source, without actually, ya know, being Open Source.

[1]: [https://opensource.org/osd-annotated](https://opensource.org/osd- annotated)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source- available_software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software)

[3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_Source_Initiative)

<comment><USER4> > The phrase "Open Source" is not necessarily just the summation of the > constituent words "open" and "source". "Open Source" is a unique concept > with a unique meaning... and the de-facto definition of that concept, is the > OSD[1].

The use of the phrase "Open Source" predates the very _existence_ of the OSD by years[1], so it's somewhat laughable to claim that people are "trying to muddy the waters and being intentionally disingenuous" for simply not complying with the OSI's attempt to retroactively redefine the phrase to mean something other than the conventional and obvious meaning.

[1] The OSI was formed in February of 1998. The OSD had been drafted 9 months prior, in mid 1997. If, as claimed, the meaning of the phrase "Open Source" sprung forth from the ether with the OSD, then why, pray tell, is it dead easy to find uses prior to 1997 in which people are obviously referring to the ability to _see_ the source-code and obviously _not_ referring to the ability to exploit it commercially?

For instance, here's a post from 1993 on comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 ([https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.ms- windows.pro...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.ms- windows.programmer.win32/WoBvPB0U9Co/wXfpq5nEJTYJ)):

> If a developer wants money for shareware, paying the fee should > automatically grant the user a copy of the source code for their personal > use. Restrictions could prohibit modifying and redistributing binaries, but > should allow distribution of "deltas" for bug fixes, etc.

> Anyone else into "Source Code for NT"? The tools and stuff I'm writing for > NT will be released with source. If there are "proprietary" tricks that MS > wants to hide, the only way to subvert their hoarding is to post source that > illuminates (and I don't mean disclosing stuff obtained by a non-disclosure > agreement). Open Source is best for everyone in the long run.

Or this email from 1996 ([http://www.xent.com/FoRK- archive/fall96/0269.html](http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/fall96/0269.html)):

> Caldera Announces Open Source for DOS.

> ...

> Caldera believes an open source code model benefits the industry in many > ways.

> ...

> Individuals can use OpenDOS source for personal use at no cost. Individuals > and organizations desiring to commercially redistribute Caldera OpenDOS must > acquire a license with an associated small fee.

I guess somebody should travel back in time and tell them they're "muddying the waters and being intentionally disingenuous"?

Or maybe, _just maybe_ , it's the OSI that muddied the waters by trying to redefine a term to add their own ideological baggage to it.

<comment><USER5> Just because OSI wasn't formed as a legal entity until 1998 doesn't mean that the people involved weren't around and involved in those earlier discussions of "open source". All OSI did was formalize what was in common usage. And sure, you can cherry pick a few exceptions where individuals used the term in different ways. That has little or nothing to do with contemporary usage.

And in today's vernacular (dating back to at least 2000 or so) the de-facto definition _is_ the OSI definition. A few lone-wolf dissenters don't change that.

<comment><USER6> Languages don't work like that. You don't just come up with a definition and try to force everyone to use it. People learn definitions from how they are used and mentioned in the things they encounter.

In reality almost no one is aware that OSI definition exists and those who do can't even remember what it is exactly. So, no, de-facto definition of open source is definitely not an OSI definition, but mostly literal meaning of open source software with most people presuming freely usable software as well to some degree. Take SQLite for example, it's open source, but not OSI open source and everyone is ok with that. Because this is where common meaning is. And trying to claim authority over it just invites bad PR for OSI. I guess OSI is already that irrelevant and it's pretty much consequence free to use a proper common meaning of open source.

<comment><USER5> _You don 't just come up with a definition and try to force everyone to use it._

Right, and nobody did that.

 _In reality almost no one is aware that OSI definition exists and those who do can 't even remember what it is exactly._

I haven't found that to be the case. At least not for people who are actually involved in the open source community to any serious level. Maybe for casual bystanders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The change in licence terms sounds too stringent — far beyond just the scope of derived works which is typically the case. Especially "requiring a relicensing of the Linux kernel if a MongoDB service runs on Linux"?

MongoDB can very well stop calling itself an open source software then when to use it in any significant manner, one needs to get into a proprietary license agreement. Wish the license doesn't get approved as a valid open-source license.

</comment><comment><USER8> > "Service Source Code" means the Corresponding Source for the Program or the > modified version, and the Corresponding Source for all programs that you use > to make the Program or modified version available as a service, including, > without limitation, management software, user interfaces, application > program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup > software, storage software and hosting software, all such that a user could > run an instance of the service using the Service Source Code you make > available.

How could one even practically conform to this license? Unless you are a 100% pure open source house, every company uses proprietary software in some form. Be it the OS/Apps on your developers/operations (management software) laptops (macOS/Windows) or firmware/tooling (ILO, DRAC, etc) of your server stack.

I understand they want us to buy a proprietary mongo license, but I don't see how it would even be possible to run mongo as a service without.

<comment><USER9> It should also be noted that they require the "Service Source Code" to be provided _under the terms of their license_. So it's not possible for anyone to follow these restrictions even on a fully free software stack if any part of that stack is copyleft (for instance, Linux).

<comment><USER8> That was what first caught my eye as well, which would make it impossible.

> The affected code must not only be released, it must be made available under > the SSPL.

But I think it should be interpreted that if you modify the code (mongodb) under SSPL it should be distributed under the same license, like is normal for other open source licenses.

<comment><USER9> No, while they don't have the AGPL section, the wording in section 13 is pretty clear:

> you must make the _Service Source Code_ available via network download to > everyone at no charge, _under the terms of this License_.

Now, this only applies if you've modified the source code. But being barred from the effective right (due to the requirement mentioned above) to use modified versions of software makes it obviously proprietary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wasn't aware Mongo had the kind of market-share that would allow them to pull this off. While some people might pay, it's just going to remove trust. Who's going to recommend Mongo after this? Good chance it won't even be considered Free Software anymore.

</comment><comment><USER11> Do I understand it right, that whatever a project I build using MongoDB (i.e. any website/app that uses a MongoDB instance as a backend to store data directly or via a middleware layer or has a feature of connecting to MongoDB) I must open-source it completely? This feels a way too radical if so.

<comment><USER12> > The only substantive change is an explicit condition that any organization > attempting to exploit MongoDB as a service must open source the software > that it uses to offer such service

If you're building for example an ecommerce that uses MongoDB as database, you're not selling MongoDB as a service, so you don't need to license your software with this new SSPL.

If you're building an ecommerce as a service with a MongoDB database, again you're not selling MongoDB as a service, so you're safe again.

IANAL + usual disclaimers.

<comment><USER13> That's not how licenses work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder why the RPL isn't more popular for this. It's an OSI-approved license that is meant to fix the "SAAS loophole":

 _PREAMBLE_

 _The Reciprocal Public License (RPL) is based on the concept of reciprocity or, if you prefer, fairness._

 _In short, this license grew out of a desire to close loopholes in previous open source licenses, loopholes that allowed parties to acquire open source software and derive financial benefit from it without having to release their improvements or derivatives to the community which enabled them. This occurred any time an entity did not release their application to a "third party"._

 _While there is a certain freedom in this model of licensing, it struck the authors of the RPL as being unfair to the open source community at large and to the original authors of the works in particular. After all, bug fixes, extensions, and meaningful and valuable derivatives were not consistently finding their way back into the community where they could fuel further, and faster, growth and expansion of the overall open source software base._

 _While you should clearly read and understand the entire license, the essence of the RPL is found in two definitions: "Deploy" and "Required Components"._

 _Regarding deployment, under the RPL your changes, bug fixes, extensions, etc. must be made available to the open source community at large when you Deploy in any form -- either internally or to an outside party. Once you start running the software you have to start sharing the software._

 _Further, under the RPL all components you author including schemas, scripts, source code, etc. -- regardless of whether they 're compiled into a single binary or used as two halves of client/server application -- must be shared. You have to share the whole pie, not an isolated slice of it._

 _In addition to these goals, the RPL was authored to meet the requirements of the Open Source Definition as maintained by the Open Source Initiative (OSI)._

[https://opensource.org/licenses/RPL-1.5](https://opensource.org/licenses/RPL-1.5)

<comment><USER15> Interesting. I guess the RPL however is as toothless as the AGPL when it comes to extend its scope to the provisioning software cloud providers use to run your AGPL-licensed software for their customers, which is the problem I believe MongoDB, Inc. wants to target.

<comment><USER14> IANAL, but I guess this comes down to the interpretation of "Required Components".

 _1.12 "Required Components" means any text, programs, scripts, schema, interface definitions, control files, or other works created by You which are required by a third party of average skill to successfully install and run Licensed Software containing Your Modifications, or to install and run Your Derivative Works._

You have to make the source of the required components available under the RPL (section 6.0-6.1).

Would provisioning software to operationalize a database within a cloud environment be considered a "required component"? Maybe. If the cloud provider made modifications to the db source to get it to run well inside of their cloud environment, and did it in a way that made it impossible to run the modified db outside of their cloud environment, without using their custom provisioning scripts, then I would argue that those provisioning scripts would be considered "required components" under the definition in 1.12. But if they are able to run the db without making modifications to it, so that it is the same as upstream, and a third party developer does not need the provisioning scripts to run the modified db, then the provisioning scripts would not be considered required components.

So, the RPL is perhaps stronger than the AGPL, but not strong enough for MongoDB or Redis Labs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Open source (~= free software) is aimed to protect the freedom of the user, not the freedom of the (proprietary) software developer.

By forcing developers to disclose their changes to MongoDB essentially makes the end-users more free, since they can then replicate more parts of the program they are using.

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Proprietary software developers use copyright to take away the users' freedom; we use copyright to guarantee their freedom.

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[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.html)

<comment><USER13> > _(proprietary) software developer_

Don't know from where you pulled that off, probably inspired by the communist manifesto, but such software developers are also users and the distinction is entirely superficial in order to advance an agenda.

Down with the bourgeoisie, heh?

> _By forcing developers to disclose their changes to MongoDB essentially > makes the end-users more free, since they can then replicate more parts of > the program they are using._

So wait, "end users" are empowered developers now?

Oh, is this a good guys versus bad guys thing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The AGPL is a great license for free software development. It is also great to be coupled with a proprietary license, something that does no often make sense with other licenses.

<comment><USER18> I have found AGPLv3 useful, everything I do is under AGPLv3, if people want to use it under other terms, they can pay me for a branch under a mutually acceptable license. I will not maintain the alternatively licensed branch unless paid, and these branches after a few months are generally missing significant features.

Its a fine revenue stream for me, and in the context of what I am building and the companies that are using it, there is absolutely no reason to not use the AGPLv3 licensed master branch or releases, as I know they will never extend my software. Yet some people have an axe to grind with AGPLv3, to which I get to respond "Pay me money or fuck off". Seeing as none of them understand how to write software, they tend to pay me :P

Worst case someone extends one of my AGPLv3 projects, adding features and improving it. I'll accept a pull request with no CLA so long as the code is of decent quality.

<comment><USER19> _I 'll accept a pull request with no CLA so long as the code is of decent quality. _

If you accept contributions without a CLA, you are not the sole owner of the copyrights anymore and you cannot offer a proprietary paid branch, unless all contributors give you permission to relicense their AGPL code as proprietary.

<comment><USER18> Yep, and I'm perfectly fine with this. If someone wants a non-copyleft branch, they can pay me to rewrite the features I didn't author, otherwise I will exclude the added code from said pull request.

Its a definite edge case, but if I can get active contributors, I am not about to ask them to sign a CLA.

<comment><USER20> Keeping track of and excluding commits authored by others seems a lot of work. I am curious if you use any kind of tooling or process to make it easier.

<comment><USER21> A bigger issue might be trying to filter anything that might be _derivative_ of contributed work not covered by CLA.

<comment><USER20> Yes, I am not sure how I will do that. I guess it can create enough FUD to scare away any commercial client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> >Like Redis Labs before it, MongoDB has concluded that this license allows a bit too much. In particular, cloud providers are offering access to MongoDB instances without cutting the company in on the resulting revenue stream, and that doesn't feel right. In response, MongoDB has just announced an immediate shift to its brand-new Server Side Public License (SSPL).

This paragraph conflates Redis' application of the Commons Clause [1] to its add-ons with the switch of the license for MongoDB from AGPL to its own license called SSPL[2]. This are in my eyes two very different things.

The Commons Clause is a commercial restriction and its creators are very clear about the fact that it is not an Open Source license.

The SSPL, on the other hand is, in my opinion, an adaption of the GPL to new distribution channels that goes even further than the AGPL. I see this as very much in line with the original spirit of the GPL, regardless whether MogoDB's motivation might be primarily commercial or not. These are just my 2 ct from a curious glance and I'd be very much interested how RMS sees this, I hope we will get a statement from him or the GNU project.

>There is a lesson here for contributors as well. The request for license approval notes that: "As of this writing, the MongoDB GITHUB repository shows over 43,000 commits, 680 releases, and over 350 contributors." To become one of those contributors, a developer must first sign MongoDB's contributor agreement, which assigns copyright ownership to MongoDB. Those contributors all gave MongoDB the right to relicense their code in this manner [...]

CLAs are pretty common nowadays and they can be a problem for potential contributors but pointing at MongoDB, for just doing what many other large OpenSource projects do, isn't fair.

[1] [https://commonsclause.com/](https://commonsclause.com/)

[2] [https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public- license](https://www.mongodb.com/licensing/server-side-public-license)

<comment><USER9> > I see this as very much in line with the original spirit of the GPL, > regardless whether MogoDB's motivation might be primarily commercial or not.

I disagree. GPL was never about relicensing other people's software. The SSPL basically requires this if you read Section 13.

> CLAs are pretty common nowadays and they can be a problem for potential > contributors but pointing at MongoDB, for just doing what many other large > OpenSource projects do, isn't fair.

Just because many projects do this doesn't mean it's a good thing to do -- the FSF CLA is the only CLA I would find acceptable because it's purpose is to ensure they can relicense to later GPL versions as well as have litigation rights in the US. Several other "CLAs" (like Apache's) are actually just beefed up versions of the DCO.

But unconditional and asymmetric CLAs are the reason that OpenSolaris could become proprietary under Oracle, as well as many other horror stories in the history of free software. Many people use them, but that doesn't justify it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Weird thought, but I think that with this license MongoDB has managed to attack the OSI without attacking the FSF. To me, this is perfectly acceptable Free Software but so strict that it basically reads "do not use this software commercially, it requires you to open every piece of software that any of your employees have ever seen or heard of, including software you do not own. Purchase a license from us." In other words, commercial usage is allowed in the post-revolution Free world that Free Software hopes to bring about, where people have access to the contents of the computers that they interact with, and the freedom to mess with the ones they own.

The Open Source concept, however, is not philosophically based; its primary goal is to allow businesses to collaborate on building blocks, but not to prevent them from taking one of those blocks and carving it into something that they're not willing to share. Since their primary goal is to help business, they can't help but disapprove; since they don't explicitly state this goal, they have no nominal basis to reject it without rejecting Free Software in general.

I predict some eventual announcement that the license is "effectively closed source" and instead of accompanying that announcement with a specific supporting argument, they'll accompany it with a questionable written history of the OSI. They'll disapprove, or approve with asterisk.

edit: and, of course, what kemitchell said.

<comment><USER21> > Since their primary goal is to help business, they can't help but > disapprove; since they don't explicitly state this goal, they have no > nominal basis to reject it without rejecting Free Software in general.

Without engaging with your characterization of OSI motives, the OSI has a clear basis to reject it without rejecting Free Software in general; unlike all other existing Free Software licenses, SSPL (which might be Free Software) violates criterion 9 of the Open Source definition by restricting licensing of other software not derivative of, or part of a shared work with, the software originally distributed under the SSPL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> SSPLV2: If you want to use my software freely, you must open source every piece of software you've ever touched or been in contact with, even if you don't own it, or I get to sue you.

QED

<comment><USER25> The SSPL is what Ballmer thought the GPL was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wouldn't it be possible for an entity such as Amazon to establish a separate legal entity and thus circumvent MongoDB's Server Side Public License ?

The separate entity would provide the "raw" service (where there wouldn't be much to open source) to Amazon, possibly running MongoDB directly on their infrastructure, then Amazon would turn it into a full-fledged SaaS offer.

<comment><USER27> A SaaS offer sounds like offering MongoDB as a service. The lawyers would enjoy hashing that out for billable hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Dmytri Kleiner has something to say about this and published a Copyfarleft license called Peer Production License.

[http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%233notebook_telekom...](http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%233notebook_telekommunist.pdf)

<comment><USER29> No he doesn't. It's the licensing equivalent of trying to hold your breath until your opponent's face turns blue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This has the potential to backfire spectacularly. If anyone is able to abide by this license and offer mongodb as a service, they will dramatically lower the barrier to entry for mongodb hosting.

Mongo is betting that their service is uncommodifiable.

Perhaps they want to get out of the hosting game altogether, make their money consulting. In that case they'd have made a very competitive hosting market to drive down prices and spur adoption.

<comment><USER27> Why would a competitor be better at hosting mongodb than mongodb company itself?

<comment><USER13> Because it can be cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I would like to make it explicit that only flesh and blood individuals should have access to freedom 0. These licenses are a step in a direction closer to what I would like to see, but aren't quite there yet.

If you as a person want to run software xyz and try to make money off of it, go ahead. As soon as you open a limited company to reduce your exposure you should be hit with paying license fees.

I don't get the hate for the licenses that try to remove freedom 0 for corporations. At work I suggest horrible propitiatory software solutions all the time because it doesn't matter how locked down the stack is.

So long as it has a ROI of >3% over the fixed and running costs it's a good solution.

No one is harmed by human first open source software, other than a legal fictions bottom line.

<comment><USER32> > I would like to make it explicit that only flesh and blood individuals > should have access to freedom 0.

So basically, turn freedom 0 into not freedom 0.

For reference, GNU freedom 0 is "the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose".

What you are saying seems to go against the principles of freedom 0, and I don't get your motivation either, because at the same time you don't seem to mind proprietary software.

My main issue with what you are saying is that it's not clear what you mean by "removing freedom 0 for corporations". Do you mean specifically when they are offering software written by someone else as a direct service to customers? What about using it in the backend? What about employees using FOSS?

There is a lot more to be said and discussed about this.

<comment><USER33> Rather, I'd say it reinterprets "run the program" to be "have access to the program over the web".

In other words, if I use your website, I should also be able to stand up my own version that uses my own data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Title is misleading. The article is about a new license, MongoDB's Server Side Public License, that is scarier (to freeloaders) than the GPL.

<comment><USER34> People who use free software are not "freeloaders" and there's no need to use such a derogatory term here.

<comment><USER35> Could you explain how the term does not apply? Its meaning seems to be: "to impose upon another's generosity or hospitality without sharing in the cost or responsibility involved".

<comment><USER21> Free software users are voluntarily given use of the software with only specified conditional responsibilities; them using the software and not taking on additional responsibilities is not an imposition of any kind, and not freeloading.

<comment><USER35> Isn't that the same as when someone offers me a couch to surf and a kitchen to use? Sure, it's unconditional and I'm not violating any agreement, but if I use their stuff and don't give anything back, am I not a freeloader?

<comment><USER36> But in that case, you are taking up space on their couch and eating their food - their resources are diminished by your use of them. That's not the case here.

I think "free-rider" is probably a better choice of term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Way to run with the anti-GPL FUD, LWN.

<comment><USER37> The GPL has more than run its course and it's time to move on. Many people recognise that, and that's what we're seeing.

<comment><USER25> This is just typical "people are saying" weasel words. The GPL and similar licenses still definitely have a role to play in the current state of software.</comment></comment></comment>


AFP goes backwards shuts off RSS feeds - <AUTHOR> http://blog.newscred.com/?p=171

<comment><USER2> "Granted AFP is not a newspaper" Ding ding ding. Newspapers, shaky though their business model is, make money from advertising, and only indirectly from the actual news. News wires, on the other hand, make all their money from the news itself.

If Bloomberg had ever been insane enough to provide live data over RSS, would it also be a "step backward" for them to come to their senses?

<comment><AUTHOR> What about the distinction between personal (google reader) and commercial usage. I think that was the point the author was trying to make. Individuals aren't going to pay thousands in lincense fees for their personal reading. But there are benfits for AFP to give away (snippets only) for free - they can monetize the traffic, drive brand awareness etc. But I guess they didn't want the traffic.

<comment><USER2> Wire news is extravagantly expensive. The amount they could make from ads on feeds is going to be a pittance in comparison.

Sure, once the big cash cow newspapers die they'll have to have a rethink, but there are going to be bigger problems with news creation when that day actually arrives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> RSS is just one of those things where no media person thinking in a pre- internet world will ever understand; giving your content away, with few ways of monetizing the readers?! Preposterous!

<comment><USER4> When you're selling the same content to others, perhaps it doesn't make much sense, especially when these others repurpose this content into RSS feeds with their own advertisments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> All the arguments for this change just makes me think: why did they have the service in the first place?</comment>


How Does the Economy Feel to You? - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/anxiety-index/what-marketplace-edison-research-poll-found <comment><USER2> Please don't editorialize the titles of stories you submit to HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The poll data can be found here[1]

[1] [http://www.marketplace.org/sites/default/files/marketplacepo...](http://www.marketplace.org/sites/default/files/marketplacepoll.pdf)</comment>


How Google+ and Facebook Got It Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://nicholasconfer.com/google/google-facebook-wrong/ I've wanted to write my thoughts on this for a while.  I hope they are working to solve this problem, but in short I feel too much emphasis has been put on allowing users to limit who sees their posts, instead of focusing on creating engaging supportive dialog to posts through smaller groups.<p>I'd be interested to see what solutions others have for this problem, but who hasn't read a comment on Facebook before and went to comment only to realize the group was too large to write that inside joke? <comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to see this problem fixed one day, but honestly I think not enough attention has been paid to keeping the supportive dialog and comments to a post relevant in social networks.</comment>


The Billionaires at Burning Man - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/occupy-burning-man-class-warfare-comes-to-desert-festival

<comment><USER2> The whole situation is a mess, and it's made less clear by other camps. While some of the RV fortresses are exclusive houses to the well off, some of them pool the dues in order to pay for public arts and music infrastructure. Patrons are needed at a point to be able to support some of these art camps.

But even these art camps have a flip side. Last year I spent a lot of time helping out and hanging around one of these music camps. I even provided a multimeter which was needed to repair some of the lights. But at the end of the day, after making friends and lending my labor, there was certain internal events and things that were simply off limits to me.

It's true that some of these camps don't actively give or interact with the community, but the when they leave the camp and mingle with the masses they are effectively taking. Burning man is one of the few places in the world that you aren't rejected for who you are, no matter what. So by closing off your camp to others, you are effectively making people feel rejected. Which is much louder out in the dust.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a tricky situation. I personally like the idea of 1 Percent'ers mingling with the other 99% of the population more, but they need to do it in a hyper- aware, super self-critical approach or backlash (as mentioned in the article) will occur and tensions will arise. The privileged need to be aware of their privileges, especially when those privileges can be so apparent to others. High walls, exclusive bars and paid workers doesn't seem to mesh with some of the tenants of burning man.

But I really like the idea of the wealthy spending money to make a community of disparate peoples more enjoyable if it's for the _entire_ community. That idea seems to fall in line with many of the burning man principles.

<comment><USER4> I think most Burning Man attendees are in the top 2-5% and are already in quite a privileged position

<comment><USER3> Purely anecdotally, but I can think of many friends and relatives who have gone to burning man in the past and are nowhere near the top 2-5%. Last I checked, my dear sister (a self described burner) is living out of a van and selling jewelry at concerts/shows to make a small income.

Also anecdotally, those same burners have mentioned that they are less and less interested in going to burning man based on their recent (negative) experiences in the last 1-2 years and are doing more burner-like things locally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bleh, I am getting really tired of all this billionaire worship. It seems like every day I can't escape people's endless simpering about how the rich this, or how the rich don't need to that, or whatever. The rich don't need to be focused on so much.

They don't automatically dominate any culture they set their eyes on, and some minor squabbling over how comfortable it's acceptable for them to be at an anything-goes event like Burning Man is pretty stupid.

<comment><USER6> _They don 't automatically dominate any culture they set their eyes on_

When someone blends in socially they - by definition - blend in. Once gauche behavior shows up, the culture is going to change. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. When opulent behavior shows up, you have someone with significant means to alter the culture and without the social graces to adapt to the culture they're entering. The ball to dominate is already rolling.

I grew up as "a local" in a tourist trap town. There were rich locals, and rich interlopers. It ain't about money, it's about attitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Back in 2003, burners were annoyed by the Travelocity Camp hoax.[1] That was a joke. Now it's real. A $16,500 Burning Man package.

When someone runs in a private water pipeline, it's all over.

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20030801072119/http://travelocit...](https://web.archive.org/web/20030801072119/http://travelocity.burningtours.com/Vacations/Tours/Package/0,2604,TRAVELOCITY_289_,00.html)

<comment><USER8> Not much risk of that. I used to service the well in Gerlach.

The West is a trap, baited with water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does this fit into the Burning Man ethos of the reciprocal, gift or barter economy?

<comment><USER10> It doesn't. That's why it's pissing people off.

<comment><USER11> Isn't radical inclusion one of the principles of Burning Man?

<comment><USER12> no one is kicking them out of the event, but there's no leash on letting others know that you don't like their approach to the event and their interpretation of participation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I went once, around 5 years ago, and I got the impression that Burning Man was mostly a huge party rather than a community of people - and that's fine.

Million dollar sound systems, pyrotechnics, and the kinds of people who can make that happen aren't going to show up at a Rainbow Family Gathering anytime soon.

<comment><USER14> Well stated. There are plenty of excesses to point to that have nothing to do with the small number of attendees making over $1M/yr.

Burning Man is a giant art party in the desert. It's becoming increasingly expensive in part because it's been increasingly popular, and so requires increasing facilitation (i.e. a temporary medical center complete with a radiology setup). Everybody that attends influences it, even the very wealthy, and the more interesting among these direct their influence intentionally by funding art and performance which anybody can experience.

<comment><USER15> Just curious, why do they need a radiology setup?

<comment><USER16> For all the rad people there man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Burning Man is a great week to be in the Bay Area. Shorter lines for everything, less traffic, more seats on the bus, et cetera. I wish it lasted a month.

</comment><comment><USER18> oh the irony</comment>


Show HN: Java Mini Profiler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alvins82/java-mini-profiler-core

<comment><USER2> Nice! If anyone's looking for a Python one that works on Google App Engine, you can use this one:

<https://github.com/kamens/gae_mini_profiler>

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks interesting, particularly when the current field of Java profilers is mostly taken up by "enterprise" (read: hugely expensive) and open source projects that were abandoned at least a year or two ago.

I'm most interested on what kind of use this is getting -- @alvins, are you using it on production? If so, do you have any measurements on the performance penalty of running the profiler with a particular config (e.g., with all public methods profiled)?

And/or: a general roadmap and summary of status/stability...

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't run it in production as yet. You can definitely run it in production if your not using the annotations/aop or sql profiling (i.e. using manual Step()). With the annotation/aop I'ld be wary of overhead it adds - I haven't looked at it myself. The SQL profiling again would need some investigation.

I've gained large amounts of benefit out of it in development of my startup Pocketbook (<https://getpocketbook.com>). Because of it's 'live on-page' nature you can quite quickly see 'intensive' areas that you need to look at.

I would class it as beta and have been using/iterating it for over 4 months. However - the initial code-base was seeded from gae-mini-profiler which already had some mileage. I've added the annotation and sql profiling and made it non-gae based so we can all use it.

I don't have any roadmap as yet - if people want specific features out of it - happy to help.

<comment><USER3> Cool, thanks for the added detail!

I suspect the main additions you'll need for this to be useful in a production environment will be around logging and accessing stats -- showing the end user that a particular page performed poorly doesn't help you unless you _also_ know about it, with enough info to reproduce the problem. Also, with higher volumes, you don't want to be flooded with almost-identical data, so you can dig into strategies like only sampling a subset of actual requests, different handling for poorly-performing queries, etc..

I'll keep an eye on this, and if we do decide to integrate it I'll be in touch; thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If anyone's interested - this is the original project this is based off of: <https://github.com/jriecken/gae-java-mini-profiler>

</comment><comment><USER5> I never saw that initial post or the Ruby versions until, this looks really cool, I'll probably be trying it out in the next couple of days, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER6> The profiler of the x origin should always be left alone. Why does Java not understand ? Yuck, yuck in the most ways. Yes ?</comment>


What Analyzing 50 Brand Guides Taught Us About Building a Lasting Company - <AUTHOR> http://sketchdeck.com/blog/what-analyzing-50-brand-guides-taught-us-about-building-a-lasting-company <comment><USER2> "20% of all companies stuck to Helvetica for their font face"

I'm really curious about the lesser known fonts people really like since Helvetica and Arial are so common.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting read. Can't say it's surprising how much of a skew towards positive startups have.</comment>


Ask HN: Can I aggregate my up-votes on HN into a personalized RSS feed? - <AUTHOR>

I spend a lot of time on HN up-voting articles that I find interesting and worthwhile, but in order to share with friends I need to copy the URL, open a new tab, navigate to Twitter or Google+, write a brief summary or introduction, and then publish it.<p>I've been thinking that it'd be more efficient to provide an RSS feed to my friends/colleagues containing the articles I've read and found newsworthy on HN.  Is there anyway to accomplish this? <comment><USER2> i may be mistaken but i believe since your average karma is below 2, i don't think your up votes even count! i'm on the same boat! my karma has gone up but for some reason my average has gone down!

<comment><AUTHOR> I realize now that you can't see my 'saved stories' and I can't see yours. I want to share those up-voted ('saved stories') articles with others. Does anyone know of way to do this? Or if it'd even be possible?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I need that too!</comment>


German Finance Minister: 'The US Has Lived on Borrowed Money for Too Long' - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,727801,00.html

<comment><USER2> "It's inconsistent for the Americans to accuse the Chinese of manipulating exchange rates and then to artificially depress the dollar exchange rate by printing money."

Not really. China has a large and growing trade surplus, due in part to currency manipulation. The U.S. has a huge trade deficit. That is evidence that the dollar is over-valued. Printing dollars will help bring global trade into balance, while China's actions preserve imbalances.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Print friendly format: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-72780...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-727801,00.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was going to write up a rant on Germany's relationship to the euro but it appears someone else has done so:

[http://open.salon.com/blog/timinglogic/2010/10/25/germany_on...](http://open.salon.com/blog/timinglogic/2010/10/25/germany_one_of_the_worlds_biggest_currency_manipulators_accuses_us_of_currency_manipulation)</comment>


Honda-Waymo Talks Are Said to Have Faltered on Tech Access - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/honda-waymo-talks-are-said-to-have-faltered-on-tech-access-evs <comment><USER2> _Honda had an existing partnership with GM to develop fuel cells. The Detroit automaker has its Chevrolet Bolt EV in showrooms and has developed a battery pack that will be used in 20 new EVs globally by 2023. In June, the companies announced a deal that would have Honda using GM's cells and battery pack. GM's battery not only had good range, but by working together the two automakers figured they could lower costs._

The thing about companies like Honda and GM -- they have a lot of momentum. That means they aren't likely to be on the forefront of innovation, but when they turn towards a new target, they will hit with massive resources and established global production capacity that a start-up can only dream of.

<comment><USER3> >The thing about companies like Honda and GM -- they have a lot of momentum. That means they aren't likely to be on the forefront of innovation, but when they turn towards a new target, they will hit with massive resources and established global production capacity that a start-up can only dream of.

Exactly. It's the difference between a handful of dudes in a speedboat with some explosives and an aircraft carrier. Once the latter is aware of the former you can be reasonably assured who of will win. At most the former can hope to land a good sucker punch before the latter knows they're even fighting.

The core competency of GM, Honda, etc. is building cars. Once they decide what kind of cars they want to build they will do a good job building them as they intend to build them. They don't make rookie mistakes, especially in the logistics of spinning up production lines to build what they want to build. They've re-tool their factories every time a new generation or a new model comes out. They know how to do it right the first time, knowledge that comes from experience.

<comment><USER4> They are good at building cars, but I would argue they are not good at building tech. Self driving is a technology issue. If the tech superstars at Waymo/Apple/whoever aren't even close to solving it, why would the software people at GM/Honda be?

<comment><USER3> "Hi, this Jane from the procurement department of GM North America. We might be interested in licensing your software. Please give me a call back so we can set up a meeting."

They don't need to build tech. They can buy it. GM can write some pretty big checks. They flat out bought Cruise just to cover their butts.

When I was an intern at a defense contractor ~1/10th the size of GM my cube was across from procurement. I think a lot of people here don't understand the kind of scale companies like this play at. Your problem isn't "how do we pay for this" it's "will anyone sell me all this all at once or sign a contract to provide it all over the timetable we want". You make bets on how many times around the earth the welding wire you'll buy next quarter will go. GM shipped ~10 million vehicles in 2017. That means they had to sign a contract with someone to supply approximately an Exxon Valdez worth of motor oil and another of ATF just for their factories.

<comment><USER5> Waymo is far the best self driving tech and nobody has the money to buy it, as Alphabet is not selling (it's the first real diversification from ads revenue). GM is few years behind, but hopefully those few years are not enough for Waymo to create a monopoly.

<comment><USER6> I think cloud is google's first real diversification from Ads. Nobody looks at Waymo as a revenue center.

<comment><USER7> Waymo is Google's first AI robotics spinoff. That's supposedly a (young) growth market.

<comment><USER6> Supposedly. I am skeptical that Waymo will ever execute a major deal. It's a real shame, the tech is really good, but Waymo just isn't very good at business (this is true about Alphabet in general; beyond ads, and maybe cloud).

<comment><USER8> XXX is not very good at business, except <several billion dollar product> and <several billion dollar product>.

<comment><USER9> They have tried and failed multiple dozen times to create new products. They're bad at business.

<comment><USER7> You could say maybe they're bad at startups but good at growing established products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> saved you a click: Waymo didn't want to share any of its software with Honda... Honda may not have been ready to provide EVs on the scale Waymo needed.

<comment><USER11> So Waymo dumped Honda? They both dumped each other? Weird headline.

<comment><USER10> Seems like Honda dumped Waymo due to the tech sharing issue (that was presented as the breaking point, I guess you could say Waymo dumped Honda because they demanded sharing Waymo was never going to give, but it was Honda that signed a new deal with another company.) Perhaps Waymo would have been willing to bend on sharing if Honda were geared up and ready to provide EVs. It's not clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >One person familiar with the talks said that Waymo wanted Honda to supply electric vehicles -- an area where the automaker is just beginning to establish itself. All of Waymo's existing partnerships supply EVs or plug-in hybrids because its autonomous driving system needs more power than the puny 12-volt batteries in conventional cars.

I hope they realize that there is an alternator generating power.

<comment><USER13> > I hope they realize that there is an alternator generating power

The power output of an alternator is a function of the engine RPM, so it can't be relied on to provide consistent power, even when the engine isn't running, as needed by autonomous driving systems. You need a sufficiently specced battery (capacity, power output,etc) in between the ultimate power source (alternator, grid) and the autonomous system, something that EVs and PHEVs provide by default.

Most electrical functions in a car (radio, windows, fans) are designed to operate within the power output of the battery, not the maximum output of the alternator.

The functions that can't fit within that capacity (i.e A/C compressor) are mechanically coupled to the engine output, and therefore shut off when the engine shuts off.

EDIT: wording

<comment><USER3> If you're choosing a car to build into a self driving test fleet electrical capacity is a really low priority because it's so easy to fix yourself if need be. There's nothing preventing Waymo from bolting a group 31 (big, cheap battery sized used in commercial trucks) down beside whatever over-engineered enclosure holds your self driving computer.

<comment><USER13> Waymo presumably already has ways of modifying vehicles used for autonomous driving tech development, perhaps with big cheap batteries.

But for a self driving taxi service fleet, you wouldn't want your customers rolling around in vehicles with a big cheap truck battery bolted inside it.

You need a battery that is well integrated into the vehicle, for safety and to optimize the customer experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _For one, Waymo wasn't willing to share the substantial technology it had > already developed to run autonomous vehicles, and was seeking to cut a deal > that would focus on Honda providing the cars_

Oddly enough, what they walked away from is exactly what I want! I want Google to be the OS for the car, not some snowflake solution from each car manufacturer.

</comment><comment><USER15> Waymo seems to be linked with FCA right now. They've picked their auto company for this round and they are headed for first operational vehicles with no safety driver around the end of 2018. Dealing with Honda would be a distraction at this moment, just before shipping product.

<comment><USER16> Why do you think Waymo chose FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) since they are only the 8th world's largest car maker? Is Waymo really the leader in the field (valuation over $100 billion vs Cruise at ~$15 billion)? Should they be partnering more with car companies ala Cruise / Argo?

<comment><USER17> FCA is somewhat infamous for not funding R&D so it's likely that in order to stay in the game they gave Waymo extremely generous terms with respect to IP and data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> No hardware manufacturer should partner with Alphabet unless they have exclusivity contract or equity in tech, otherwise Alphabet would just use to subsidize proof of concept first production relationship to sign up more manufacturers.

</comment><comment><USER19> It seems to me that Waymo is following a model similar to Android albeit charging for it instead of giving it away for free. Anyone with basic understanding of technology knows that its not a sustainable model, in the long term. I wouldn't blame Honda for thinking for itself.

<comment><USER20> "Anyone with basic understanding of technology knows that its not a sustainable model" -> Please explain this. I have a basic understanding of technology and this is not obvious to me.

<comment><USER21> Right now, Waymo looks like it wants other companies (Honda, Chrysler, Jaguar) to provide it with dumb boxes on wheels. Waymo wants to play different dumb- box-on-wheels providers against each other so it can get the cheapest box-on- wheels.

Waymo then installs it's fancy software on these boxes and uses it's Google connection (Maps, Waze, etc) to put people in those boxes and charge them a hefty profit, at least for a few years while it's the only provider. Waymo wants to be in control and collecting profits, while manufacturers subsist on small margins.

Obviously, this isn't a good situation to be in for Honda etc

<comment><USER22> It doesn't seem that unreasonable for waymo to expect that car companies would want to sell cars - that's what Honda has been doing for the last 60 years.

<comment><USER23> If you fast forward, and assume that at some point most cars would be self driving, then you can see why Honda would want to sell more than just the dumb parts.

<comment><USER24> Aren't cars today mostly "dumb" boxes anyway? (And yet there seems to be enough competition in the field)

<comment><USER23> I'm thinking what sells will be different when most cars are self-driving. For one, most people probably won't own a car. The buyers will be companies like Waymo, Uber, and Lyft. That's a very different dynamic. Basically saying Honda doesn't want to sell a commodity with small margins.

If you're just hailing a ride, you care a lot less about the brand of car and it's amenities. You care more about the overall ride share service, price, etc. Very little of which Honda would have any effect on if they don't have some skin in the self-driving tech.

<comment><USER24> True, it might squeeze the profits from some car manufacturers.

I do see a future in very high end & privately owned cars, which will quite possibly generate even higher margins for some manufacturers. Plus there will be a whole new world of innovative design opportunities in the self driving cars realm, in which the self driving part might end up being be the boring and somewhat commodity part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > _a deal announced this week in which Honda pledged to put $2.75 billion into > Cruise in exchange for a 5.7 percent stake, valuing the company at about > $14.5 billion._

I'm not seeing how their arithmetic works.

2.75/14.5 =~ 19%

<comment><USER23> They omitted some info.

 _" Honda will take a stake in GM Cruise for $750 million and spend $2 billion more over 12 years to develop a self-driving vehicle for the GM unit that can be "manufactured at high volume for global deployment"_

Although 750/14500 isn't 5.7% either, but at least in the ballpark.

<comment><USER25> thanks for clarifying that. so, the equity stake was at a much more reasonable price than i initially thought.

elsewhere in the article they mention that JP Morgan valued Waymo at something like $100 billion. also they say that Alphabet has plenty of cash. so, it seems reasonable to assume that Waymo didn't need cash from Honda.

more interestingly, Waymo doesn't seem to place much value on Honda's production capabilities and other expertise.

is Waymo embracing a sort of scorched-earth business plan? does Waymo have any true equity partners?

<comment><USER26> Alphabet is historically horrible at dealing with enterprise businesses...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Its pretty obvious that Waymo wants to make car hardware a commodity, and car companies don't like that and want autonomy to be a commodity.

I don't really know where Cruise is at, but it's not crazy to believe that both things will become commodified and competition will be on cost of rides, at least in rich urban markets.

At that point, the question becomes: who survives that transition?

</comment><comment><USER28> I think sure, there might have been a better deal between GM and Honda, but I think at a deeper level it's probably different industries trying to "circle the wagons" so to speak.

My guess is only outsiders in the auto industry will create deep partnerships with big tech. I think big tech will probably end up being forced to move into manufacturing through grass roots efforts or acquisitions if they truly want to compete in this space.

</comment><comment><USER29> That may be a bit naive on my part, but perhaps automakers should form some kind of alliance and develop self-driving tech together instead of buying it from another company.

</comment><comment><USER30> Normally with new technology, I'd expect hungry entrepreneurs to jump in the fray and develop alternatives to these huge established companies, but with self-driving cars, it seems that the barriers to entry would be too high. I'm hoping I'm wrong though and we see more Elon Musks types out there in the next decade giving us self-driving cars and competing with these giants.

</comment><comment><USER31> Would be pretty amazing to see the car makers gang up and basically not sell Waymo cars at scale. Hard to imagine that happening.

Ten years ago Jaguar and Land Rover was sold to Tata for $2.8B USD. Waymo parent, Alphabet, has over $100B in cash with less than $5B debt.

So if they want could just buy a car line.

Ultimately cars will change for self driving and you really want to ultimately be making those cars.

Safety and durability will be far better when you align ROI with running a large fleet of cars.

</comment><comment><USER32> Tl;dr: Waymo did not need them and Honda needed somebody.</comment>


What Is Not in Plan Nine (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.c2.com/?WhatIsNotInPlanNine <comment><USER2> Reads like what's missing is all the quality of life tools and polish that developers rely on daily.

Unix hating, or Unix environment hating, is an uphill battle these days. Nowadays every major desktop and most phones have, or can have, some kind of Unix or Unix-like shell.

It's a bit like hating C. I'll probably still be writing C in ten years. I'm not so certain about _any other language_.

<comment><USER3> Plan 9 isn't UNIX hating. It's a _successor_ to UNIX. Many of the things we take for granted in UNIX and UNIX-like systems are actually kludge written to address a short coming of UNIX. Plan 9 was invented to take lessons learned from that and build on UNIX from a ground up reimagining. Thus it is going to differ in some ways while feeling very similar in others.

I think it's fair to say that Plan 9 is a bit less exciting these days because some of the really great ideas from Plan 9 has seeped its way into Linux and UNIX. But there is also some degree of "momentum lock-in" going on too where UNIX is what people are familiar with so it's what people expect. Though it's probably more accurate to say "GNU" these days rather than UNIX (if the conversations about people loading GNU coreutils on Macs via homebrew are anything to be believed)

<comment><USER4> Plan 9 is more UNIX than UNIX itself. It did away with all the special cases and the result is a beautiful way to create systems components.

There are only two operating systems that I've worked with that I actually really enjoyed, the one is QnX and the other is Plan 9, everything else feels like a series of kludges.

<comment><USER3> I can sympathise with that. UNIX does get a lot right and if you're just scratching the surface of things it feels a very powerful system. There is a lot to like there but the more I delved deeper in my career the more ugliness I'd run into. The thing with UNIX is it's "good enough" in most areas that people don't always notice those pain points and it's ingrained enough that the alternatives often feel "worse" just by virtue of being different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A browser that supports JavaScript.

This appears to be one of those sites that should ostensibly be just static text, but the source has none of the content and not even Google's text-only cache manages to show anything. Rather ironic this page is itself inaccessible to users of Plan9...

<comment><USER6> It used to be a very simple static website, and much more likely than not was just that at the time people were writing to the wiki

Like last year or something they apparently decided to migrate to this mess of a system, for reasons unknown to me. I think it might be mediawiki software?

<comment><USER7> > I think it might be mediawiki software?

What? Wikipedia uses MediaWiki, and it looks nothing like that.

It's also functional without JavaScript.

<comment><USER6> I'm thinking of whatever is used for every wikia site

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > find

> The unix find is a SwissArmyKnife. In PlanNine, the TreeWalking is done by > du -- a unix `find . -print` is in PlanNine: `du -a|awk '{print $2}'`

Ah, a clearly much more natural replacement.

EDIT: I got downvoted, but I'm not complaining about it, but rather happy to acknowledge the error of my ways. I cut and pasted what I thought was `du -alawk '{print $2}'`, a mish-mash of 5 unexplained command-line switches, one of them duplicated. (I thought the occurrence of the name `awk` among the switches was just a coincidence.) It wasn't until I noticed the downvote that I realised that what I cut and pasted contained not an `l` switch but a pipe, and was _much_ more simple than what I thought. So, thanks, downvoter!

<comment><USER9> There's also walk, at least in 9front: [http://man.9front.org/1/walk](http://man.9front.org/1/walk)

<comment><USER10> UNIX: To recursively traverse directories, use find(1)

Plan 9: find(1) is bloat, use du -a | awk '{print $2}'

UNIX: this is complicated to remember and type

Plan 9: oh you can also use walk(1) to recursively traverse directories

UNIX: so... like find(1) ?

<comment><USER9> Compare the manpages for find and walk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure I follow the argument about symbolic links. What do they have to do with the root UNIX thinking that it owns the whole filesystem? I don't often see symlinks used in the context of crossing "imported" (mounted?) parts of the filesystem - instead, I use them most often to provide aliases so that the same file/directory can be accessed with multiple names.

<comment><USER12> If you want the same thing to have multiple names you can just use a hard link. Symlinks are a broken idea in Plan9 because whether they're relative or absolute they may not point to the same thing depending on how you have your namespace set up.

In plan9 each user has their own set of bound file systems (like mounts, but for users not the system as a while), and so has their own logical view of the local and remote file systems, applications, devices, and so on, all presented as a file system rooted at /. It's a very powerful and elegant design. Symbolic links are kind of stupid and broken in that context.

<comment><USER11> On Unix I much prefer using symlinks to hard links. Hard links are super confusing when you don't know/remember that they're there. AFAIK there's no easy way to get ls to display them for what they are. If you suspect that something is a hardlink you have to squint at the inode numbers and see if you have duplicates. But if you use symlinks, ls will just tell you, and give you both the link name and destination by default.

I suppose you could use ls_colors to colorize hard links to make them more visible, but then you have to configure that on every server you ssh to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The comment about Rio vs X Windows would make a lot more sense if you could do the same things in Plan 9 as you could in X Windows. Motif was a giant sack of crap, but you could make an application that was roughly identifiable as a "computer application" of the time to a non-technical user, and even customize/internationalize it (more or less). You'd pretty much be hand- painting every last UI widget in Plan 9. Ridiculous.

Also this comparison was often used as a celebration of not having objects, C++, shared libs, etc. on Plan 9. Again, this would be less ridiculous if any of the large complex things done on other systems that merited shared libs had ever been done at _all_ on Plan 9.

Unfortunately, many of the good ideas in Plan 9 sank alongside this. If they had made "APE" a first-class project they wouldn't have been swivelling back and forth from non-Plan 9 boxes to use the web and the better ideas might have grown into something. :-(

<comment><USER9> > _Motif was a giant sack of crap, but you could make an application that was > roughly identifiable as a "computer application" of the time to a non- > technical user, and even customize/internationalize it (more or less)._

Motif is also not part of X11. If you want something vaguely like it, there's libcontrol which is used by a few applications. Nothing about rio prevents something even thicker from being written (or something like GTK from being ported), other than a strong distaste for that kind of gui.

> _Again, this would be less ridiculous if any of the large complex things > done on other systems that merited shared libs had ever been done at all on > Plan 9._

That's kind of missing the point: The complexity doesn't carry it's weight. I can do most things I care about just fine on plan 9. The major exception is a good web browser, which is an OS on its own, and is best when towed beyond the system and isolated with the birds and fish and tons of crude oil.

> _If they had made "APE" a first-class project they wouldn't have been > swivelling back and forth from non-Plan 9 boxes to use the web and the > better ideas might have grown into something. :-(_

The better ideas were largely centered around the simplicity you were just bemoaning. If plan 9 had focused on APE, there would be little of value they could have done.

<comment><USER13> "other than a strong distaste for that kind of gui"

I would suspect that the process of writing a full-fledged windowing system and graphics layer that people might recognize as behaving roughly like a modern computer (even running a web browser, yet), while holding true to the Plan 9 Received Wisdom, would be a intriguing journey of discovery for someone.

Whether they would emerge as a true believer with their faith strengthened by this trial, or as a Plan 9 heretic, would be an interesting question.

<comment><USER9> There's really nothing preventing anyone from implementing what you're talking about. Some of it's already been done, and undone, at various times.

Rio (well, devdraw, really) presents a similar drawing model to Xrender -- in fact, Plan 9's draw is listed directly as the inspiration for Xrender. If you want a fancy GUI, nuklear is ported ([https://github.com/vurtun/nuklear](https://github.com/vurtun/nuklear), [https://bitbucket.org/mischief/libnuklear/src/default/](https://bitbucket.org/mischief/libnuklear/src/default/)).

Porting GTK would be similarly doable, all that's really needed is getting a GDK port to do the window management, and porting pixman and cairo for the drawing. I'm not aware of anything that devdraw+rio is missing for a working implementation.

And, if you _really_ want, there were multiple ports of X11 to plan 9 that could be revived -- Equis, for example, , so you could in theory just get did of Gnu-isms, revive one of those unused bits of code, and run it that way.

Again, there are existence proofs -- nothing about plan 9 prevents any of what you're talking, other than the people using plan 9 don't want it, and the people that want it don't want plan 9, or are almost entirely "ideas people" that aren't going to contribute a line of code towards making what they want work.

Web browsers are a different story. The problem with a web browser is that a modern web browser is tens of millions of lines of code to implement a turd that's churning at an incredible rate; Last I looked, Chrome was 20 million lines of code, and needed upwards of 600 substatial out-of-tree patches to even build on BSD. And my bank's website breaks on versions below 70 or so, which means running constantly just to stay with a working version.

We don't have resources to maintain that shit.

For a while, there was 'linuxemu', which emulateds the linux syscall ABI, but even that had a ton of churn, and nobody put in the effort to keep up to date.

Given that plan 9 is all volunteer driven (especially today), if nobody writes the code, nothing happens.

> _Whether they would emerge as a true believer with their faith strengthened > by this trial, or as a Plan 9 heretic, would be an interesting question._

The question is "what do you want out of this"? To me, this sounds like an awful lot of pointless work that makes the system quite a bit less pleasant, with code that's too big to really understand and easily debug, and a UI model that I don't even use regularly on Unix if I can avoid it. It gives me the same reaction as someone proposing making Linux compatible with MVS (IBM's mainframe operating system), complete with JCL and the data set file system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > vi, emacs, ...

>> Try acme or sam.

The idea that your OS determines your text editor is fundamentally broken.

The idea that your OS determines your GUI model is also fundamentally broken.

Both of those notions destroy loose coupling, which is a fundamental design principle.

And this...

> objects

>> BellLabs didn't need them since the complexity is back under control.

... is really too incoherent to refute.

<comment><USER3> You have to bare in mind the era Plan 9 was released in. The concepts of decoupling the OS from your choice of user space tools is actually quite a modern one. Back in the 89s and 90s things were a lot more fragmented. You had a whole plethora of home computers, from 8bit micro computers, whose implementation of BASIC were largely incompatible with each other, through to entirely different designs of personal computers (back when PC didn't just mean "IBM compatible"). So machines like Atari ST/Falcon, Amiga's various machines, Apple Macintosh/Lisa/etc, Acorn Electron et al. Even on the IBM PC, there wasn't really the breadth of choice that there is now.

So people did choose their OS based on what software why wanted to run.

Even in the enterprise space things were more fragmented with less compatibility across the various UNIXes and Linux wasn't really a viable option until the late 90s.

It's very easy to judge Plan 9 through the perspective of modern ideals and the expectation of POSIX everywhere but that wasn't the case when Plan 9 was written. For its era, Plan 9 is has a number of very pioneering concepts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd say that emacs would be the main thing missing for me.

<comment><USER15> As an Emacs user myself, I share your pain.

You will find the following Easter egg in the distribution, though:

      term% man 1 emacs

         EMACS(1)                                                 EMACS(1)

         NAME
              emacs - editor macros

         SYNOPSIS
              emacs [ options ]

         DESCRIPTION
              This page intentionally left blank.

         SOURCE
              MIT

         SEE ALSO
              sam(1), vi(1)

         BUGS
              Yes.

[http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/emacs](http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/emacs)</comment></comment>


Cross platform framework - <AUTHOR> I want to develop a front end - web app, mobile app(ios/android).<p>- the app should access the user location (lat/long) - Im new to mobile app/javascript<p>Is there any framework that allows me write once and deploy in all platforms? please suggest me right framework/tool. <comment><USER2> "Yes" with fear of stating the obvious: any RESTful backend is suitable to any frontend as long as your endpoint references jive.</comment>


Steve Jobs: Flash video not suitable for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/03/05/tech-adobe-iphone.html

<comment><USER2> Old (June 2007) but still strangely relevant:

"Excluding Flash is a huge slap in the face of Adobe, which is pushing Flash as the basis of its AIR and Flex web application strategies. Adobe likes to advertise that nearly every PC has a Flash plugin installed. Suddenly, nearly every mobile that has access to the real Internet won't have Flash, making it far less attractive across the board."

[http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q2.07/879DD82D-559...](http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q2.07/879DD82D-5595-4746-BFCE-524BBA7C7A85.html)

I like Daniel Eran Dilger/RoughlyDrafted because he has some interesting non- echo-chamber opinions on the world of Apple and technology

</comment><comment><USER3> more like Adobe's near monopoly on streaming video isn't suitable for Apple

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I was also wondering how much of it was strategic positioning on the part of Jobs. It's probably a little bit of both. iPhone, while packs a punch for its size is still not a 1GHz+ machine (600MHz, if I remember correctly) that you can waste cycles on. The "up to par"-ness probably was stated to buy Apple some time to see if they can do better to circumvent it.

<comment><USER5> I'd agree, it has a feel of an ulterior motive on behalf of Jobs. However Flash is awful, I haven't noticed a marked improvement in 5 years. The only reason flash keeps working is because processor power is improving on par with Flashes impotence.

I'm not surprised in the slightest that the iPhone can't handle flash, because my old 2GHz machine struggled with larger files. My current laptop can render 1080p, yet in flash it can barely manage the 'large' setting on some streaming videos.

The iPhone would be perfect for flash games, but it will never be able to run them because flash is poor for games. They even run slow on my 4GHz laptop; I've even tried the worst ones on a new four-core (~8GHz) and they still run poorly. It astounds me that a large corporation like Adobe can't code performance at all when it would increase the popularity of Flash if it performed better.

<comment><USER6> Adobe did improve performance dramatically with Flash 9, but only new code gets the speedup. Many game developers seem to still be generating the old slow bytecode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apple has always had issues with non-quick-time video formats and codecs. Competing video formats were second class citizens for years. I learned this the hard way studying graphics and animation on Macs for a couple of years.

It doesn't surprise me that Jobs is doing this with the IPhone as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's fine that Flash for regular computers and Flash Lite aren't suitable. All that means is that Adobe and Apple should have been working on a "middle ground" version over the last 1+ year. They _should_ be announcing the release now -- those lazy bastards.

</comment><comment><USER9> The phone needs flash support, rather its with adobe or someone else. Without flash you really can't call it a real web experience.

<comment><USER10> This is an interesting point. Adobe effectively owns a large (likely growing) portion of the web. And as such, can control any non-standard device that wants to offer a real web experience.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Rate My App (facebook connect) - <AUTHOR> http://hookuphelper.com/match.php

<comment><USER2> This is the second time today you've submitted that link and it's a beautiful splash page but I haven't tried your app because it evidently requires me to grant you access to my Facebook profile. Maybe if you had a demo or a screencast we could watch we'd understand how much fun it would be to play Cupid with our friends.

I've clicked on a few Facebook apps and most strike me as invasive in terms of what they automatically publish about me. Maybe you could remind visitors up front what personal information we'll be granting to hookuphelper, what messages you'll be sending to our friends on our behalf etc?

<comment><USER3> agreed, same behaviour for me.</comment></comment>


Want to Slow Down Time? Use a Slow Clock - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/moon-scott-thrift-slow-clocks/ <comment><USER2> How about a clock where day and night each take one full half, regardless of the time they take. So the hands would go very fast in northern countries during the day and very slow at night. What unit should one use for such a clock? Is there something more intuitive than the hour for this? Maybe the angle of the sun/moon in the sky, 0 to 180?

Edit: Silly idea: If this post gets traction it would be fun if we each made up our own clock.</comment>


AT&T claims 'strong' net neutrality would ruin the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/18/att-claims-strong-net-neutrality-would-actually-ruin-the-internet-thats-a-big-leap/?tid=recommended_strip_1 <comment><USER2> Cicconi is self-interested, but he's right on one thing: most proponents of reclassification haven't thought through all the implications of that proposal. Your typical net neutrality advocate has probably never heard of the Universal Service Fund, and certainly couldn't articulate why, e.g. a long distance call made on a Title-II internet using Skype or Google Voice should be treated differently than a long distance call made over a traditional Title II telephone network for the purposes of the USF fees.

The author argues that Title-II reclassification wouldn't expose content companies to regulation, but how does he explain the fact that VOIP services are required to contribute to USF? Isn't VOIP just content too?

Title II is a Depression-era regulatory regime, designed back when people thought that things like government-regulated rates and prices were a good idea. That's not the way forward, it's the way backward.

<comment><USER3> > Title II is a Depression-era regulatory regime, designed back when people > thought that things like government-regulated rates and prices were a good > idea.

The principle of universal service at a "reasonable charge" (though not the USF) dates from the same period and is also outdated.

Life is full of trade-offs and where to live is certainly no exception. Some people have affordable houses on acres of land at affordable prices, pure mountain air, and outdoor recreation at their fingertips. I live in a tiny apartment, directly above a highway, and have to travel a few hours to go camping. It is no more appropriate to ask those who live in areas where it is less expensive to provide telecom services to subsidize those who live in areas where it is expensive than for the federal government to impose a property tax on properties over half an acre to subsidize green spaces in cities.

<comment><USER4> That's a ridiculous position. Should we also deny people electricity because they live outside a metropolitan era?

Declaring entire swaths of the population of a country like the United States unworthy of access to things like telephones and access to the global network is ridiculous enough. But it's particularly offensive given that it's cheaper to run and operate these systems today than it ever has been before.

Universal service is about more than telephones in the wilderness. I live in a state capital, about 500 yards from a major fiber optic termination point. Pretty sure my employer has a 40GB line on the telephone pole that I can see from my front porch. I have access to 20/1 cable service or 30/5 cable service at a 70% cost premium. Because there are few poor people there, the surrounding suburbs have FIOS and Cable, and the cable service is significantly less expensive.

<comment><USER3> No one's denying anyone anything. If it's so cheap to do so, plenty of companies should be happy to do so at an affordable cost without needing a subsidy.

There are many things that are cheaper in rural areas and more expensive in cities, I don't see any rural dwellers lining up to pay extra for goods and services that are cheaper in those areas in order to equalize prices in cities.

<comment><USER5> Many things are better fully privatized, but i'd argue that infrastructure is not one of them.

Sometimes unprofitable things need to be done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why isn't Twitter or Facebook or Gmail a common carrier? They only provide the "means of communication". The "content of communication" is created by the users. Many internet companies seem to want to have it both ways. If someone tweets a bomb threat, Twitter will claim it is only the means for communication. If an ISP throttles Twitter's bandwidth, it will claim the ISP is the means and Twitter is the content. My point is just that the content vs means comparison is a very gray area in the age of the internet.

<comment><USER7> You're being facetious because you're not that dense that you can't see a difference between a web application and a fiber connection, even if you don't support telecom reclassification.

>My point is just that the content vs means comparison is a very gray area in the age of the internet.

Yes, there are gray areas everywhere, but sometimes it's not that complicated. This one isn't complicated. In the set of complicated and ambiguous issues, this one is very well defined.

<comment><USER6> > You're being facetious because you're not that dense that you can't see a > difference between a web application and a fiber connection

Of course they are different in many ways. But they do have commonalities too. Its clear that fiber provides a means of communication. But I think if you asked the average person or lawmaker if Gmail provides a means of communication, they would also say yes. Is that even an unreasonable conclusion?

<comment><USER8> Yes, when you consider that its not "common carriers" such as FedEx which is being discussed, but "telecommunications common carriers", which inevitably relies on the definition of telecommunications. Which Wikipedia makes pretty clear is commonly understood to mean a physical medium based upon electrical signals or electromagnetic waves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's concerning that common carriers can still affect traffic speeds unless it's 'unjust' or 'unreasonable'. I don't see how merely reclassifying ISPs will help anything. I hope the democrats' legislation addresses this.

I think the outlook is bleak. We need Congress, the FCC, and likely the Supreme Court to all make decisions that hurt telecoms (which is unlikely).

edit: I found the section of the law about 'unjust'/'unreasonable' for common carriers:

      Sec. 202 providers of basic services must

        § 202(a) engage in no "unjust or unreasonable
        discrimination in charges, practices, classifications,
        regulations, facilities, or services," and
        § 202(b) charge "just and reasonable" rates

[http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/titleii.htm](http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/titleii.htm)

<comment><USER8> The FCC will decide what is reasonable, and the doctrine of _Chevron deference_ means that the courts will defer to the reasoning of executive agencies with specialization and expertise (i.e., the FCC) unless it is evidently wrong, arbitrary, or unreasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> AT&T claims 'strong' net neutrality would ruin AT&T profit margins.

</comment><comment><USER11> AT&T has been making claims like this since long before the Internet. "Rise of the Stupid Network" is a classic essay on AT&T's perspective of controlling the network [http://www.isen.com/stupid.html](http://www.isen.com/stupid.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> If we actually had politicians that represented the people instead of whoever paid them the most, we might be able to craft laws that made sense to today's situation. But we don't.

</comment><comment><USER13> We just need a way to kill the localized monopolies. Everything else would "auto-correct" it's self.

Image if we all said forget you Time/Warner and Verizon you treat us bad we are going to Sonic.net? What a powerful tool that would be. It's called $$$

<comment><USER14> May I suggest you have a look at the deregulation of the old state monopolies in Europe? Net neutrality seems to have an impact outside the States, that feels it is being overlooked while you guys are debating of your own national ISP market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any vision that AT&T has for the Internet would ruin the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER15> I just want the Internet to be open and free of crap like this it might be far fetched but that's all I want.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just about anything a massive corporate ISP has to say on this matter can be safely ignored as self-serving pap.

</comment><comment><USER16> I mean, it would probably ruin some of their profits.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't want the FCC to have any authority over the Internet. I don't want the FCC giving $25,000 fines to web sites that publish dirty words or wardrobe malfunctions. If "fast lanes" ever really become a problem requiring government intervention (which to my knowledge they haven't yet), it should be in the form of direct Congressional action and very limited in scope.

<comment><USER18> Well right now no one can out compete netflix unless they form the same fast lane deals. That's sort of a issue....

<comment><USER17> Nobody can compete with Netflix because it's nigh impossible to match the breadth of their content licensing, and it will take an enormous marketing investment to displace their brand. (Even Amazon and Google have weaker brands to the extent that they compete with Netflix.)

"Fast lane deals" would/will be an _expense_ for Netflix and give smaller competitors a slight advantage in that respect (if they can get the content and publicity, and improve the experience for users).

If ISPs degrade their services to the point that it's impossible to deliver streaming video without paying fast-lane protection money, that's something that could be resolved directly by lawmakers. E.g., prohibit marketing "up to 100 Mbit" if users can't even stream 2 Mbit video reliably. They could call the service "1 Mbit plus Netflix" or similar. This wouldn't grant any new authority to unelected FCC censors.

<comment><USER18> That's the whole reason Netflix buying fast lanes. Comcast throttled netflix to the point of being unreliable. The whole issue started with malicious throttling.

I'm not convinced title ii is the answer. But I am convinced that fast lanes don't make for good internet. Its unfortunate that this isn't a competitive industry because then consumers could just resolve the issue through their purchasing decisions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I build a social following? - <AUTHOR> I just started a vlog! I'm very new to this, but I really would like to improve and better myself. Please let me know what you think?<p>https://youtu.be/dC-1OQ-3fb8 <comment><USER2> This is the 6th almost resubmission in a week of a similar question. If you resubmit too much, the mods will ban your account.

I think that for this site it's better to submit videos with more technical content. Do you have an interesting technical project? Have you solved an interesting technical problem? It doesn't have to be a groundbreaking result.

For example see: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14226889](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14226889) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11954920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11954920)

These are not videos, but blog posts with a video. Usually blog posts are better here, but you can try to get a few ideas from them.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's pretty obvious that you aren't asking for help, you're trying to get subs. You've put in very little effort, why should people help you?

If you genuinely want help, then exclude the link, and people will take you more seriously.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you trust / work for a company funded entirely through tokens? - <AUTHOR> (Using a burner account for anonymity).
I'm about to become a third time founder (one success, and one failure), and I've been exploring how to fund the next project.
From my perspective, running a token sale seems incredibly attractive (the hassles associated with traditional fundraising are well known.)
However, I'm concerned about reputation - raising from GV or Sequoia brings with it a certain amount of credibility, while many ICO / token sales are total frauds.
So, I'm asking - would YOU personally trust, or work for, a company founded entirely through token sales? Would this be a red flag to you, or would you not care? <comment><USER2> It really depends on the kind of position, what are you trying to build and how.

That being said, as long as you pay real money (and not some scammy token/cryptocurrency I can't really spend) then I can't see why I should not consider applying for a position at your company.</comment>


Show HN: Design Favorites (v0.01) - <AUTHOR> https://www.designfavorites.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN'ers!

I quietly launched this new project last night for the selfish reason of needing an easy way to save some of my favorite design mocks / prototypes I've found on Twitter.

Then I realized other people might be interested in it so I thought I'd share it here.

If you want to get a design added to the website, just @DesignFavorites on Twitter to the design and I can work to get it added.</comment>